Offhand, Fabia could not have named a single Hrada mystery. “And you bribed… I mean you discouraged Pathfinder Hermesk from supporting any further travels over Varakats Pass before spring?”
“Not at all!” Horth said cheerfully. “He volunteered the information. He mentioned that the pass was now closed for the season. All the traders and all his cult brothers have already gone seaward. Pathfinders are restless folk, never staying in one place for long. And they cannot be bribed, my dear, any more than Werists can. If Hermesk says he is not going, then he is not going, and that is that.”
“Oh.” She huddled small while she brooded over this news. “Why can’t they be bribed?” she asked suspiciously. Bribery was one thing Horth could do better than anyone.
“I told you! They never stay anywhere long. They had to keep moving. Wanderlust is their corban. Wealth is just useless baggage for them to carry and real estate would tie them down.” Horth put an arm around her, an unusual intimacy from him. “So you need not worry any more, my dear. Spring is a long time off, and we shall have each other until then. In summer we shall know more of what is happening in your homeland. And if you still feel that you should accompany your brothers… Perhaps separation will not seem as hard a blow when we have had time to prepare for it.”
He had had half a year to prepare for it already. He was refusing to face facts. Go all the way back to Skjar just to turn around and come back here?
“You’re overlooking something, Father.”
“What?”
“Saltaja. Saltaja has escaped. I mean if Saltaja has escaped, then Arbanerik will never catch her. No matter what the risk, she’ll make a run for Florengia. Saltaja is the power behind the sons of Hrag and if she can link up with Stralg, then she may manage to turn the war around. Even if all she does is hold off the Mutineer for a while, that delay will increase the danger to Celebre.” Once Saltaja reached Nardalborg she would have Cutrath to work on-Shaping worked best on blood relatives, she had said-and who could tell how many monsters Stralg had spawned?
Horth smiled blandly. “I fail to see the connection.” He was denying the unpalatable again.
“Orlad and Dantio can’t handle her. It takes a woman to deal with a woman.” Even if the boys outside were listening, that was innocent enough.
“Fabia!” Horth said sternly. “The lady Saltaja can be harsh, I admit, but I refuse to countenance those foul slanders about her. If she were what you are hinting, she would have been brought to book years ago. I certainly fail to see that she is any business of yours. Lord Dantio and lord Orlando are much better equipped to deal with her, whatever her talents or loyalties or gender. Even,” he insisted when she tried to interrupt, “if you were a Chosen yourself and wished to oppose the lady, instead of aiding her and her Ancient Mistress, your powers and experience would be so much less than hers that you could not possibly hope to prevail against her.”
That was as far as he could go to admitting the truth he had guessed. And what did Fabia tell him now-that she had already slain four men? That it was she who had made the seer’s rescue possible last night? He would not hear what he did not wish to hear.
“Whatever happened to Quera, Father?”
He jerked away from her. “Who?”
“Quera, the woman who nursed Mother after Saltaja’s men beat her. I have heard rumors that you had her impaled.”
“Impaled?” he squealed. “Fabia, how you could you possibly suspect me of such an appalling thing? I threw her out the door myself. In fact, I recall that you were there. You saw me do it!”
She nodded sadly. She was convinced now that he was lying, although that did not necessarily mean that Verk had known the true story. Horth himself might not. He paid other people to do his dirty work for him, so he need never know the details. Had Paola helped him that way? He would certainly never say just what services his Chosen beloved had performed to forward his career. Loving support or outright murder or something in between? Xaran might tell, if asked, but Xaran was the Mother of Lies.
When Fabia did not speak, Horth said, “It is starting to rain again. We must invite those fine young men inside. They won’t do much of a job of guarding us if they have to keep stopping to sneeze.” He rose and shuffled over to the door. The discussion was over.
At sunset, Fabia and Horth set out for the Panthers’ mess with their escort of juvenile strong-arms. She reveled in the sensation of being clean and well-dressed again, even if the muddy, root-infested roadway forced her to wear clumsy boots. Another light shower seemed to justify trying out her sable cloak and hat, but they were much too warm for the weather. They were Ice wear, originally intended for merchants heading over the Edge and cut down to fit her.
Sounds of drunken singing floated through the town, and she saw several exuberant Heroes staggering along the road, most supported by women in Nymphs’ red wraps. Once something streaked across the trail a few paces ahead of her-two somethings, giant cats, pale gold. Before she had time to scream, they vanished around a corner. They had been wearing brass collars. Her probationer bodyguards yelled “Runners!” and began gabbling about messengers from Hordeleader Arbanerik bringing news of the battle.
The mess was a circular building, large enough to seat four sixty men. A fire crackled on the central hearth of undressed boulders and a ceiling of white smoke hung just about head height, moving in uneasy swells like an inverted ocean, dribbling out through the thatch reluctantly, as if it would rather stay and attend the meeting. The floor was packed dirt, booby-trapped with tree roots, and the windows were open slots. There were no tables and the benches were merely split logs lashed on to stumps, so they were located at random and most had a slight slope-everything about High Timber was temporary. The only people present were Dantio, Orlad, and the man Fabia had seen earlier, whom Horth had named as Pathfinder Hermesk. From their stiff postures and the way they were spread out around the center, they had not been engaged in a cozy chat.
Wearing a pall of green, blue, and red, Orlad scowled at Horth, but told the probationers. “You can go, maggots. Give my thanks to your herder, and when you wake up dying, remember I told you not to drink so much.” The boys buzzed out the door like bees from a hive.
Dantio remained tactfully inscrutable. He wore a scuffed jerkin and well-worn linen trousers too short for him.
The Pathfinder looked like an elderly woodsman or farmer, tall and spare, with a face well-weathered, almost haggard. The tip of his nose was missing, as was the top of one ear. When he spoke, his mouth twisted to one side. As a cultist, he had high status and wore a seal on his wrist, but his clothes were shabby leathers. Horth introduced him to Fabia.
He did not stand up. “I am honored to meet the daughter of Ucrist Horth. I have often had the privilege of serving him.”
“He speaks highly of you, Pathfinder.” Fabia spread her robe on a bench for Horth to share with her.
“I brought the Pathfinder along,” Orlad said, “in the hope of convincing him our mission is urgent.”
Hermesk’s smile was dangerously close to a sneer. “Brought me by the scruff of the neck! Perhaps you, young lady, can convince your impetuous brother that urgency is irrelevant when no one will be crossing the Edge now before spring? In fact I am here because Nils Frathson asked me to be here. Otherwise I would have already left High Timber. My canoe is packed, ready to go. We Pathfinders have restless feet, always eager to walk new roads.”
Anyone who addressed Fabia Celebre as “young lady” was taking unnecessary risks. “How about the other pass? If Saltaja has escaped as far as Nardalborg, can she cross the Ice from there?”
“She can certainly try, of course. Whether she succeeds will depend on holy Weru, Who is god of storms. I do not predict His whims.” The Pathfinder sighed with exaggerated patience. “Holy Hrada guides me. I never lose my way, but I cannot move through snow or quicksand any faster than you extrinsics can. I can freeze or starve like other mortals.” He held up his hands, displaying a total of six fingers. “I know the Edge as well as any, and it is deadly. I have lost most of my toes, also, and this sinister leer of mine was another brush with frostbite. I am sympathetic to the flankleader’s impatience, but I decline to commit suicide.”
Fabia now understood why Orlad looked so grumpy. “Nardalborg Pass is well furnished with shelters, I understand, and the shelters are provisioned.”
“Then the lady Saltaja may win her gamble.”
“Would it be possible for us to slip past Nardalborg before she sets out? Could we get ahead of her?”
Orlad said, “Never! That’s stupid! Nardalborg was built where it is to guard the road. There are bogs on one
