And the truth was, she felt it too. She understood, or thought she understood, why they were having to walk alone. But her faith in the Guild was quickly diminishing. She had expected some contact but had had none; and now every twig that cracked and every creak of a tree in the wind made her jump. She strained for the sounds of the birds and used their song to boost Lyanna's spirits. After all, she had lied, if the birds sing, there can be no danger.
Erienne had kept a smile on her face though she knew Lyanna was only half-convinced to carry on. Even so, the little girl tired quickly and so they had stopped in the late afternoon, Erienne resting her back against a moss- covered tree trunk while Lyanna dozed. Poor child. Only five years old and running for her life, if she but knew it.
Erienne stroked Lyanna's long black hair and edged her doll out from where it was making an uncomfortable dent in her cheek. She looked out into the forest. The sound of the breeze through the trees and the shadowy branches waving above them felt somehow malevolent. She imagined the wolf pack closing in and shook her head to disperse the vision. But they were being followed. She could feel it. And she couldn't free herself from the thought that it wasn't the Guild.
Her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest and panic gripped her. Shadows flickered in front of her, taking on human form and flitting around the periphery of her vision, always just out of reach. Her mouth was dry. What in all the God's names were they doing here? One woman and a little girl. Pursued by a power too great for them to combat. And they'd put their lives in the hands of total strangers who had surely abandoned them.
Erienne shivered though the afternoon was warm, the motion
disturbing Lyanna who woke and looked up at her, eyes searching for comfort but finding none.
'Mummy, why do they just watch? Why don't they help us?'
Erienne was silent until Lyanna repeated the question, adding, 'Don't they like us?' She chuckled then and ruffled Lyanna's hair.
'How could anyone not like you? Of course, they like us, my sweet. I think maybe they have to be apart from us to make sure no one bad finds us.'
'When will we get there, Mummy?'
'Not long, my darling. Not long. Then you can rest easy. We must be getting closer.' But her words sounded hollow to her and the wind through the trees whispered death.
Lyanna looked sternly at her, her chin carrying a slight wobble.
T don't like it here, Mummy,' she said.
Erienne shivered again. 'Neither do I, darling. Do you want to find somewhere better?'
Lyanna nodded. 'You won't let the bad people get me, will you?'
'Of course not, my sweet.'
She helped Lyanna to her feet, shouldered her pack and they moved off, direction south as they had been told. And as they walked, their pace hurried by the phantoms that they felt closing in, Erienne tried to remember how The Unknown Warrior or Thraun would have shaken off pursuers. How they would have covered their tracks, moved carefully over the ground and laid false trails. She even wondered whether she could carry Lyanna within a Cloaked Walk, rendering them both invisible. A tiring and draining exercise that would be.
She smiled grimly. It was a new game for Lyanna and it might just keep her happy but it was a game they were playing for the highest of stakes.
They moved through the forest with no little skill but beneath the canopy elves missed nothing. Ren'erei confessed surprise at their ability, the silence with which they moved and their efforts to leave no trace of their passing. She even respected the route they chose, often moving away from the trail they left, to throw off any who might follow.
And for most pursuers it would have worked. But Ren'erei and
Tryuun were born to the forest and detected every nuance of change brought upon it by the passage of humans. A splayed leaf crushed into the mulch; loose bark brushed from the bole of a tree at a telltale height; the pattern of twig splinters lying on the ground. And for these particular people, a shadow at odds with the sun through the canopy, eddies in the air and the altered calls of woodland creatures.
Ren'erei went ahead, Tryuun covering his sister from a flank at a distance of twenty yards. The two elves had followed the signs for a full day, closing steadily but never allowing a hint to their quarry that they were being followed.
She moved in a low crouch, eyes scanning her route, every footfall of her light leather boots sure and silent, her mottled brown and green cloak, jerkin and trousers blending with the sun-dappled forest environs. They were close now. The woodchucks nesting in the roots of the tall pines ahead had sounded a warning call, bark dust floated in the still air close to the forest floor, and in the dried mud underfoot, tufts of grass moved gently, individual stalks recovering from the force of a human foot.
Ren'erei stopped beside the wide trunk of a great old oak, placing one hand on it to feel its energy and holding the other out, flat-palmed, to signal to Tryuun. Without looking, she knew her brother was hidden.
Ten yards ahead of her, local turbulence in the air, signified by the eddying of bracken and low leaves, told of a mage under a Cloaked Walk. The mage was moving minutely to avoid becoming visible even momentarily, and again Ren'erei paused to enjoy the skill.
Her fingers all but brushing the ground, Ren'erei crossed the space, identifying the patches of shadow and building a picture of the mage. Tall, slender and athletic but unaware of his or her mortal position. The elf was silent, her movement disturbing nothing, the woodland creatures comfortable with her presence among them.
At the last moment, she slid her knife from its leather sheath, stood tall, grabbed the mage's forehead and bent his skull back, slitting his throat in the same movement. She let the blood spurt over the vegetation and the man shuddered his last, too confused to attempt to cry out in alarm. The Cloak dropped to reveal black, close- fitting clothes and a shaven head. Ren'erei never looked at
their faces when she killed this way. The look in their eyes, the surprise and disbelief, made her feel so guilty.
She laid the body down face first, cleaned and resheathed her knife and signalled Tryuun to move.
There was another out there, Erienne and Lyanna were running scared and the day would soon be done.
Denser sat in the fireside chair in the cold study, an autumnal wind rattling the windows. Leaves blew across the dull grey sky but the chill outside was nothing to that inside the Xeteskian mage who sat in Dordover's Tower.
The moment the Dordovan envoy had arrived on horseback to speak with him and ask him to come to the College, he had known circumstances were dire. The dead weight in the pit of his stomach and the dragging at his heart hadn't shifted since but had deepened to a cold anger when he discovered that it had taken them six weeks to agree he should be called.
Initially, he'd been disappointed that Erienne hadn't tried to contact him by Communion but breaks of weeks between touchings weren't uncommon and now, he realised ruefully, sheer distance might be stopping her even making the attempt.
He folded the letter in his hands and pushed it into his lap before looking up at Vuldaroq. The fat Dordovan Tower Lord, dressed in deep blue robes gathered with a white sash, was sweating from the exertion of accompanying Denser to Erienne's rooms. He shifted uncomfortably under the other's stare.
'Six weeks, Vuldaroq. What the hell were you doing all that time?'
Vuldaroq patted a cloth over his forehead and back on to his bald scalp. 'Searching. Trying to find them. As we still do. They are Dordovan.'
'And also my wife and child, despite our current separation. You had no right to keep her disappearance from me for even one day.'
Denser took in the study, its stacks of tied papers, its books and parchments arranged in meticulous fashion on the shelves, its candles and lamp wicks trimmed, a toy rabbit sitting atop a plumped cushion. So completely unlike Erienne, who delighted in untidiness where she worked. She hadn't gone against her will, that was clear.
She'd cleaned up and intended to be away for a long time. Maybe for good.
'It is not as simple as that,' said Vuldaroq carefully. 'There are procedures and processes-'
