Echoes of Betrayal (19 page)

The tracks, he was sure, could not be more than a day old, and all showed a walking pace. He lifted his reins, and his mount broke into a trot. As they rode, he noticed that the broad ridge on which they rode narrowed little by little.

W
hen they came to the next change of direction, Flanits could not repress an oath. He could not tell who had skidded down the unexpectedly steep slope of the hill first, but the dead horse at the bottom, its blood staining the trampled snow around it, was evidence enough of the danger. He looked up and back: six horses had gone down in flurries of snow, and one had tumbled. One first—the little beaten-down oval suggested that its rider had tried to clear a space for an attempt back up the slope—and others had come down after, in support. That argued for the Mahieran boy to have been the first.

“What now, sir?” asked one of the troopers. “That’s a bad slide.”

“Obviously,” Flanits said. “Though the others got down safely.” Their tracks were clear, leading away into the trees. “Jen, ride on a little and see if you find a better place to get down. I saw none behind us for the last glass or so. We’ll rest the horses.” He dismounted, as
did the rest, and gave his horse a handful of oats. He disliked the look of the slope as much from the ground as from the saddle. A hard freeze overnight had put a crust on the snow; the ice he could not see would be even more slippery.

Jen came riding back and reported. “Sir, there’s no good place. Ridge gets narrower and then drops hard into a cut for a stream, steeper than this and as sharp up again on the other side.”

“Must have realized that from a map and decided to go down. Gird grant it wasn’t the squire on that horse—” He nodded downslope. “Though I think not. I think he went down first, typical bravado. We’ll have to do the same. Not a problem with any of
you
.” He grinned at his troop, ignoring the cold in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t matter what danger lurked below—slippery ice, rocks, some enemy—they had to go on.

No one fell. At the foot of the slope, he looked briefly at the tracks of the other horses and men’s boots. All the tracks led away; the dead horse wasn’t his concern.

He led his troop on into the forest, following the obvious track. Apparently, the Mahieran boy—or the sergeant—had chosen to angle almost straight east. Perhaps their map showed another obstacle. After a time, the track curved gently north again. Flanits hoped that meant it headed for a ford or bridge across the stream his own scout had seen. It would make sense to cross the stream farther from the ridge.

When the trees closed in, Flanits stopped and looked around. “This won’t do.”

“Sir?”

“Unless that stream you saw, Jen, turned due north to the Honnorgat, we should’ve reached it by now, with the angle of the trail. For that matter, we should’ve reached the stream that must run between these ridges. Get in among these trees, where we can’t see the sky, and we could be lost. That may’ve happened to them. We’ll get back to that little rise and try a horn call from there. Surely they’ll have a horn with them.”

The trees behind looked thicker than they had, but Flanits had grown up in forested country. Trees and their way of looking completely different from the other side didn’t fool him. He set his horse’s head to the tracks they’d made coming, and confusion ceased
when they rode up onto the little rise covered with leafless pickoaks and beech instead of dense conifers.

“Now, Medlin,” he said. The hunting horn sent its long sweet call out across the snowy woods. Once. Twice. Again. They listened. No wind stirred the few pickoak leaves still on the tree. Then a harsher, slightly deeper tone, one long note, came back. “Again,” Flanits said.

Medlin blew again, this time the Royal Guard Assembly call. Once more they listened, and once more that single note came from a distance, this time broken in the middle with a
blat
that made Medlin grin.

“Not a good hornist, sir. Bet they were trying for another note.”

“Give them the same call again, Medlin.” If it had been a Royal Guard group, they’d have started for his when they first heard Assembly. Flanits found he had his mustache between his teeth again. What would a Mahieran squire do? He should know at least some of the standard horn signals, including Assembly, but what about that former Phelani sergeant? They had their own signals. Who was in charge over there?

Once more the answer was a single long note, this time fading out in a sort of stutter. It didn’t sound any closer.

“We’ll have to go to them,” Flanits said. “Though then we’ll be as lost as they are.” Despite his words, he felt better. He was sure in his heart that Beclan was somewhere near—he had found the boy in all this empty forest, and that made up for missing the war.

“Follow their tracks?”

“No. If we can get them to keep blowing that horn, we can go straight. I think they began to circle the way lost people do. Once more and everyone point where you think it’s coming from.”

Medlin blew Assembly again, and once more the answer came. Flanits pointed his horse toward the sound, at an angle to their earlier track. As they came off the rise, the conifers once again thickened before them, but Flanits turned a little more north, hoping to skirt the conifers. Heading north should shorten the distance.

He tried to estimate time passing in his head and, at his best guess of a quarter-glass, told Medlin to blow the horn again. This time the answer was quicker and sounded closer, though no more skilled. Still just one note and not a pure one. They rode on, and after stopping again, Flanits heard running water somewhere ahead. Good—if they
found the stream, they could follow that north to the River Road … once they found the Mahieran lad.

“We’ll go on to the water,” he said. “Then blow again.” The stream, when they came to it, tumbled noisily over rocks, ice along its margins. Downstream, it curved sharply north. As they watered the horses, Medlin blew Assembly again; this time the answering horn was quicker and almost directly to their sword-side, perhaps a little behind. Flanits felt relief.

They set off again, following the stream until it turned north. They had not gone twenty lengths beyond that when one of the troopers said, “Sir—stop.”

“What?” Just when things were going better, Flanits thought.

“I feel something.”

Flanits prayed for patience. “
What!
”

“Sir … there’s a Kuakgan spell around.”

“What do you mean? A Grove?”

“Not exactly. It’s something they can do … like a trap.”

“And how do you know this?” Flanits booted his horse back down the formation to face Terfol, one of the replacements he’d been sent a few tendays before, when those who’d won the toss had gone back to Vérella to celebrate Midwinter Feast there. “Are you telling me you’re not Girdish?”

“My family’s kuakgannir,” Terfol said. “I grew up that way. But Girdish, too.”

“You can’t be both,” Flanits said.

“That’s not what the local Marshal said, sir. He said Gird didn’t hate the kuakgannir, because Gird was an old human and they mostly were.”

It was not the moment for a theological argument. “So … you’re part kuakgannir. Fine. Tell me what you feel.”

“A Kuakgan’s set a snare, sir. Remember when it seemed like the trees were closing in?”

“Yes—you’re not going to tell me they were.”

“They might have been. A Kuakgan can herd them, you know. And they can make snares to catch people.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this back then?”

“Because I didn’t feel it then. We were on the fringe of it, I guess. But now we’re closer in.”

“So … are we in the trap itself?”

“No, sir. They’re usually laid in a spiral, like a snail shell.” Terfol drew the shape on the air. “We’ve gone the other way around, so it’s not catching us. But if we go straight for the horn sound now, we’ll meet the strongest walls.”

“And likely our squire’s caught in it,” Flanits said. “Is that what you think?” It made sense to him.

“Maybe, sir. And if he is, he can’t get out, and we can’t get in—not without going back and entering by the right door.”

“So we need to find the Kuakgan and tell him to open it, is that it?”

“Yes, sir. Or her. But I don’t know where the Kuakgan is.”

“You don’t have a
feeling
about that?” Flanits knew his tone was unfair, but he was tired of the endless pursuit, and Terfol’s plaintive tone eroded his patience.

“No, sir. But if the lad’s in a Kuakkgani trap, he won’t come to harm. He’s not a criminal or anything; when the Kuakgan comes, he’ll be released.”

“And we can all go back to Harway, maybe even in time for Midwinter buns,” Flanits said. He didn’t believe it. When things started going wrong, they usually kept going wrong. “It’s cold; we don’t know what supplies his group has; we don’t know where the Kuakgan is or how long the trap will be shut.” He looked at his troop, and they looked back. No one offered any ideas. “Is this as close as we can get?” he asked Terfol.

“I think so, but I don’t—I never tried to get into a Kuakkgani snare, sir.”

“We can at least give another signal, can’t we?”

“Yes, sir.”

Flanits waved to Medlin, who blew Assembly yet again. Now the answer came—slightly closer, he thought—from their sword-side directly. They had turned a corner when they met the stream; that made sense.

“We’ll try a hail,” Flanits said. He turned in the direction of the horn call and bellowed as loud as he could. A blurred yell came back. “Someone,” he said. “Human, and responsive, so not part of the trap.” He tried again: “WHOOOO?”

The answer had two syllables, that was clear, but not what it was. Further experimentation with the horn proved that whoever was in
the trap knew only a few of the horn signals—not, for instance, the stutter-code for spelling out words. Nor could he blow more than one controlled note.

Frustrating. Flanits chewed his mustache again and told his troop to set up a temporary camp. Could they risk entering the trap? Even some of them? If the cub needed help … He was still pondering all this when a hail came from across the stream. A figure in a long, dark green robe with a staff hurried toward them. A Kuakgan.

Master Ashwind wasted no time opening the trap; Flanits wasted no time on thanks but took his troop straight in on the line he had determined. Now the sounds were clearer, and soon they emerged into the clearing to find the Mahieran cub standing alone amidst the bodies of his patrol and three strangers. Blood stained his clothes, but he did not appear to be injured. And his story, which he poured out to Flanits as if he were a criminal trying to excuse his crimes, made the hair on Flanits’s body rise in horror.

All the others were dead, and dead by Beclan Mahieran’s hand. He admitted it. He looked guilty; he kept saying how sorry he was. Fourth from the throne and a murderer? Or a traitor, concealing a Verrakai who had taken him over?

“We’ll take care of you, young lord,” Flanits said. He tried to sound soothing, encouraging. “Get you out of this and back with your father—”

“Duke Verrakai—”

“She’s busy,” Flanits said. “She was concerned about you; that’s why she sent me to find you. She’ll be glad to know someone so close in succession is safe away from the war.” Something flashed in the boy’s eyes then, and Flanits suspected the worst. “Let’s be going and not waste the daylight,” he said.

The Kuakgan was able to tell them the quickest way north to the River Road, and Flanits elected to head for it instead of back toward Harway. He did not trust either Duke Verrakai or the Kuakgan entirely, and he had in his flask enough numbwine to render the lad helpless as soon as he was safely away.

O
nce settled into the inn, Arvid set about gathering the information he needed as unobtrusively as possible. Dattur stayed upstairs most of the time, mending their clothes and keeping the room clean. Arvid had agreed that showing themselves as a pair in the common room was risky. In the common room downstairs a few days after their arrival, Arvid listened to the conversations around him, signaling for a refill of his mug just often enough to avoid being asked to give space to another.