Bearers Of The Black Staff Part 27

None.

The Elfstones were all they had, and if her grandmother was to be believed-which Phryne thought she was-the Elves had ignored that magic completely.

She was also still troubled by her father's decision to marry someone like Isoeld. It wasn't that his remarriage was a betrayal of his vows to her mother; she didn't think that way. It was the clear stupidity of his choice. A treacherous, duplicitous girl too young by half, a girl with no intention of respecting her marriage vows, a schemer with ambitions that far exceeded her concerns for her husband, Isoeld was a poor choice at best and a foolish, dangerous one at worst. That her father seemed so unaware of this, so blind to it, suggested that he had somehow lost his way. If that were so, how effective could he be at wielding the magic of the Elfstones, a power that worked best where the heart, mind, and body must all be strong?

She didn't know. Clearly, her grandmother had made up her mind on the matter. But Mistral Belloruus had never liked her father, even when he was married to her mother. She had tolerated him, but she had never approved of him. It was why, after Phryne's mother was gone, she had cut herself off from him completely.

It was also why she felt her granddaughter was the right choice to bear the Elfstones.

But even if Phryne accepted that her grandmother was right and her father lacked the strength of character needed to use the Elfstone magic, why would she be a better choice? Even if she accepted the gift of the Elfstones, what was she expected to do with them? She hadn't been trained in battle arts. She knew next to nothing about fighting, and she wasn't even particularly strong. Yet if she took the Elfstones, wouldn't she have to stand at the forefront of the Elven army against the Troll invaders? Ultimately, wasn't that what would be expected of anyone who wielded the Stones?

The Orullian brothers would roll over laughing at the very idea. The brothers, her cousins, would never let her live it down if they heard that she was even considering such a thing.

She was so uncomfortable with the idea that she made up her mind on the spot that she was going to reject her grandmother's offer of the Elfstones. Even if Mistral Belloruus was right and her father was the wrong choice to bear the magic, that did not make Phryne the right one. Someone else would better serve the Elven people. Someone with experience and a lifetime of dedication working for the good of the people. It didn't matter that she couldn't think of anyone like that offhand. Given time, she would be able to come up with a name. Or two.

She could.

She was mulling over how to tell her grandmother all this when her father walked into her room and sat down across from her. She looked up expectantly, not sure why he was there.

"I've been summoned to a meeting with Isoeld," he said after a minute, looking unsure of how to proceed with what he had to say. "She says it has something to do with our relations.h.i.+p and my service as Elven King. She wants you there, too. Do you have any idea what this is about?"

This was Phryne's chance to say something about Isoeld's affairs with other men, about her cheating on her husband. After all, it was possible that she had become ashamed enough of her behavior that she was going to do the right thing and step aside as Queen. That was what Phryne would have liked to believe, but she couldn't quite make herself do so. Nothing about Isoeld suggested that the word shame was even familiar to her.

So she just shook her head. "I don't."

Her father nodded, looking distracted. "Perhaps I've done something to anger her and I need to apologize ..."

"Perhaps you've done nothing wrong at all!" Phryne snapped, unable to listen to such nonsense. "Perhaps she's the one who's done something wrong and needs to apologize to you!"

Her father looked startled. "What do you mean? What do you think she might have done?"

Phryne shook her head. "Nothing. I just don't think you should a.s.sume you've done anything."

"That isn't how you made it sound." Her father shook his head. "I thought you two were getting along better."

"We are," she lied. She made a vague gesture toward the doorway. "Is she coming here for this meeting? Or are we supposed to go to her? When is it, anyway?"

"Right now, in the family library. Are you ready?"

She would never be ready for anything having to do with Isoeld unless it involved watching her father give the little scut a kick in the backside out the door, but she supposed there was no putting it off. Between the meetings with her grandmother and now this one, she would be grateful if she weren't summoned to anything more than dinner for a month.

They left the room and made their way down the palace hallways toward the library, Oparion Amarantyne leading, his daughter trudging reluctantly behind. Phryne listened to the sound of their footfalls in the silence, thinking it unusually quiet even for late afternoon, when visitors were no longer admitted and the day was winding down toward dinnertime. She mulled over anew her inevitable confrontation with her grandmother, trying to think how to speak the required words. She found it impossible.

The library door was ajar when they reached the chamber, and her father pushed through first, Phryne following. Isoeld stood at the center of the room, right in front of her husband's desk, hands clasped before her, smiling warmly.

Teonette stood beside her, grim-faced.

"Thank you both for coming," she greeted. "This won't take long."

"Why is he here?" Phryne snapped, stepping forward to confront them both. She spoke out of turn, but she was too angry to care. She was incensed at the boldness of this woman, bringing her lover to a meeting with her husband.

"What is this about?" Oparion Amarantyne demanded.

Isoeld took a step forward. "It is about you. It is about taking the measure of a life. Your own, to be precise. Good-bye, Oparion."

In the next instant, a masked figure slipped from the shadows behind the open door and drove a dagger deep into the King's chest. The King cried out and lurched forward, but the a.s.sa.s.sin locked his free arm about his victim's neck and, holding him tight, drove the dagger in a second and third time. Phryne screamed in shock and rage, but Isoeld was on top of her by now and struck her hard across the face-once, twice, three times-dropping her to her knees, stunned.

The a.s.sa.s.sin yanked the dagger free from the dying King and allowed him to fall. Without a word, he turned, placed the dagger next to Phryne, and disappeared through the open door.

Isoeld bent close. "Your father is dead, Phryne, and you killed him. A terrible quarrel of some sort, it appears. We may never know the truth of it. But you attacked him with your knife-it is your dagger, you know-and although Teonette and I came running at the sounds of a struggle, we arrived too late to stop you."

Phryne tried to scramble up, but Teonette was behind her, holding her fast. She started to scream, and Isoeld said, "Good, scream all you want! But your anguish at what you've done comes too late for your father. Such a terrible thing, patricide. I imagine we won't be seeing much of you again for many years. That's if they don't decide to put you to death. I'll do what I can to see that they don't. I like the idea of you alive and well and locked away for the rest of your life."

Phryne gasped for breath. "They'll never believe-"

Isoeld struck her across the face several times more. The girl's vision blurred as tears filled her eyes, and she felt everything begin to spin.

"Your father fought back, which is why you have all these marks on your face. He fought hard for his life, even as he was dying. But it wasn't enough. His wounds were too grievous. Drop her."

Teonette let go, and Phryne collapsed to the floor. Isoeld kicked her down all the way and put her foot on her neck. "The King is dead, Phryne," she hissed. "Long live the Queen!"

TWENTY-NINE.

RAIN SPLASHED DOWN ON HIS FACE, CHILL AND stinging, the wind whipping the droplets of water into tiny missiles, and he was conscious again. He lay staring up at a sky that looked like the bottom of a churning cauldron, dark and wild. He turned his head, blinked away the rain, and tried to focus.

What had happened?

Then Deladion Inch remembered, and he was awake instantly. The crawler had inexplicably come apart beneath him. For no discernible reason, a two-ton monster made of iron had disintegrated. That wasn't possible. It wasn't even conceivable.

He felt the pain then, ratcheting through him. He took inventory of his body, a careful investigation that didn't require him to move. His ribs, several broken. His arm, aching badly enough that it might be broken, as well. His head, of course, but when he felt along the skin there didn't appear to be any deep wounds.

Then he remembered the girl.

He looked around, realizing for the first time that he wasn't in the vehicle anymore. He was lying on the ground a short distance away. He had been thrown clear, sustained injuries in the process, and lost consciousness.

But where was the girl?

He sat upright, using his good arm to lever himself off the ground. He found his weapons still attached to him, all but the spray and that was lying not three feet away. The night and the rain formed a screen that turned everything around him hazy and indistinct, including the remains of the ATV, which were all over the place. But he could see the vehicle's cabin off to one side, the doors gone and the windows smashed.

He rolled onto his knees, finding new sources of pain in his legs as he climbed gingerly to his feet. The terrain was much rougher than he remembered, which accounted for the damage he had sustained in the crash. But he couldn't remember any explosion, any flash, nothing that would indicate the vehicle had been struck by a rocket or flash-bang. Besides, no one had those weapons other than himself. Spears and swords and even catapults wouldn't do this kind of damage.

He blinked away the rain, wiped at his face, and took a deep breath. With slow, careful steps he made his way over to the cabin and peered inside. The girl was still strapped to the pa.s.senger's seat, her eyes closed, head drooping. He couldn't see any visible damage, but she appeared to be unconscious. He started to speak her name and then realized he couldn't remember it.

"Girl," he called to her instead. "Girl, are you all right?"

Her eyes opened. She nodded wordlessly.

"Unstrap yourself and climb out. You're sure you're not hurt?"

Without responding, she unbuckled the belt that held her in place and slipped down from the seat onto the ground. She brushed herself off, seemed to test her strength, and then looked at him and nodded. "I'm all right. What happened?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

He stooped down where he could study the undercarriage more closely, tracing the line of the break. Sharp, jagged edges ran all along the frame, as if someone had used a giant saw to sever the body and cha.s.sis. He found it again on the axles and gun mounts and even the door hinges.

As if something had cut the vehicle into pieces.

"Acid," he whispered to himself, still not quite believing what his eyes were telling him. Where had the Trolls learned to make acid this strong? When had they discovered the technology?

But they were weapons makers, and they knew a great deal about chemical compounds and the forging of the materials created as a result. Either by experiment or by chance, they had found an acid that could eat right through the strongest metals. That they had used it on his crawler was a clear indication of how far out of favor he had fallen. It wouldn't have mattered if he had come to help them or not; they had intended to be rid of him once and for all.

"Taureq Siq." He was still whispering to himself, still not quite believing what had happened. It occurred to him that he should have given in to his impulses and killed the Maturen and his weasel son when he'd had the chance.

"We have to go," he said to the girl. "They'll be after us and we don't have the advantage of speed or protection anymore. We'll have to rely on being smarter."

She looked at him and nodded. "We are smarter. But I'm still afraid."

"You should be," he said. "Fear will keep you focused on what's needed. What's your name again?"

"Prue."

"Here's the thing, Prue. We still have these." He patted the b.u.t.t ends of the spray and the flechette. "And these." He touched the flash-bangs and the knives and all the rest. "They don't have anything to counteract my weapons except numbers. We can still get away. Come on."

They set out across the murky, sodden landscape, unable to see more than twenty feet in any direction, the rain and the night shrouding everything. He had thought the rain might let up eventually, but so far it was showing no signs of doing so. At least it would help wash away their trail and conceal their route of pa.s.sage.

He had started out toward the mountains, intent on following the directions on the map that Sider Ament had drawn leading to the pa.s.s, but after only a few minutes he abruptly changed direction and turned south. The Drouj would be using Skaith Hounds to track them. Grosha would be in charge, no doubt, urging his murderous little pets on. The hounds would have difficulty finding their scent while the rains continued, but when they stopped it would be another matter. In the meantime, Grosha would expect him to make for the mountains and the valley within. After all, he had rescued the girl; the a.s.sumption would be that he had done so in the hope of returning her to her people, perhaps for a substantial reward. So Grosha would travel east, hoping to catch up to them or at least to pick up their trail along the way.

But he would be looking in the wrong place, and with any luck at all he wouldn't figure that out before Inch and the girl were safely tucked away in Inch's fortress lair. Once there, they could take time to rest up and heal and could return the girl home later.

It wasn't a great plan, but it was the only one that made any sense.

The problem was, it relied on misdirection and luck, neither of which Deladion Inch had ever had much faith in. In this case, he would make an exception. After all, he didn't have much choice. His ribs and his arm had reduced his ability to defend himself, let alone the girl, and they would only get one chance at escaping. The Trolls were not overly bright, but they were strong and durable, and after the disruption he had caused they would be beyond angry.

They had walked only a short distance when the girl saw him wince. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Broken ribs. My arm, too, I think." He didn't want to talk about it. He just wanted to keep moving. "I'll be fine."

"No you won't," she said, taking his good arm and pulling him about. "Let me look at you. I know something about healing."

She left the ribs alone, presumably because she did not want to take the time and trouble to strip off his armor and because she knew his body was already as well protected as it could be. But she took a few minutes with the arm, pressing it, watching him for a reaction, asking where it hurt. When she had finished, she told him the forearm bones were cracked if not broken, and she would splint it. She found a pair of straight sticks, tore strips of cloth from the hem of her cloak, and bound up his arm so that the bones were braced. Then she pulled some leaves from within her tunic and told him to chew them. Surprisingly enough, he felt the pain begin to lessen almost immediately.

They walked on. She offered to carry something for him, but he told her he could manage better alone. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, searching the darkness for pursuit, but saw nothing. He took them down streambeds and across wet patches wherever he found them, doing what he could to mask all traces of their pa.s.sage. He set a steady pace, even though he thought she might have trouble keeping up. She didn't.

Finally, he asked her about it.

"I'm a Tracker, just like Panterra. We were trained to read sign, follow trails, and live out on our own for weeks at a time. We can survive anywhere. I'm very good at it; Panterra is better. The best, in fact, that I've ever seen."

She seemed about to tell him something more, but then thought better of it. "I can keep up with you," she finished.

He marveled to find that she could. A slip of a thing, no bigger than a minute, intense and determined, she was much tougher than she looked. Her red hair was soaked to a burnt umber, and her green eyes gleamed bright even in the darkness and damp. She glanced at him often, perhaps trying to read him. He smiled inwardly. Others had done so before her; none had succeeded.

By daybreak, they were miles away from the Drouj camp, off the flats and into hill country thick with deadwood and scrub and riven with gullies and deep washes. The rains had ceased, but the dampness lingered in the form of mist that snaked down off the distant heights and through the defiles. The temperature had dropped, and both Inch and Prue were chilled in their sodden clothing. It would have been nice to build a fire, but foolish beyond measure.

Even so, Deladion Inch called a halt and had them sit down on a fallen log so they could have something to eat. He could see bits and pieces of the land in the distance, but most of it remained obscured. All night, he had listened for the Trolls and their hounds, but he had heard nothing. He heard nothing now.

"Who are you?" she asked as they chewed on bits of cheese and fruit and some bread that wasn't quite dry.

He told her his name. "I met Sider Ament weeks ago when he came through the mountains tracking an agenahl. Saved his life, matter of fact."

"Why did you come for me?"

He shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. Sider asked me if I would. I didn't have anything better to do." He flashed her a quick smile. "Sider planned to come for you himself, but his plans changed and he needed to get back inside the valley right away. That Troll that was helping you? Arik whatever he called himself? He's Taureq Siq's older son. He tricked you so that he could get into the valley and find out how things were. Since Sider needed to try to catch up to him before he escaped, I said I would come get you in his place. Things would have gone as planned, too, if the Trolls hadn't discovered an acid that can eat through the steel of a crawler."

"They found that b.u.t.ton with the red light that you attached to me," she said. "They didn't seem to know what it was. They argued about it after they found it, so they might not have been certain you put it there. But I think they suspected it was you. Grosha tied me up, shoved me under those rugs, and waited to see if you would come."

He nodded. "I thought it might be something like that. I wanted to give it more time, but I couldn't wait; I had to get you out right away. Arik was supposed to return during the night."

"How would they know that? Can they communicate with each other from that far away?"

He shook his head. "I wouldn't think so. They don't have any real technology beyond ironworking."

She looked down at her hands. "I trusted Arik," she said.

"Don't feel too badly about that. He's good at making people trust him. That's why he's so dangerous."

"So all that business about being one of us, a descendant of a member of the Ghosts, that was just a lie?"

Inch shook his head. "I couldn't say. I don't know anything of the story. The part I know is that he claimed to be the son of a Karriak Maturen given in exchange for Taureq's eldest. I knew that was wrong because the Drouj wiped out the Karriak some years back. Tricked them into thinking they wanted an alliance, persuaded them to let down their guard, and then ma.s.sacred them all."

She was quiet then for a long time. "I hope Sider catches up to him," she said finally.

He gave her a smile. "I wouldn't bet against it."

THEY SET OUT AGAIN SHORTLY AFTERWARD, still moving south through the mix of haze and gray. The rains returned in a slow, steady drizzle, and the temperature dropped further. The low ground, already swampy and slick, turned to mud covered by large stretches of surface water forming small lakes and connecting waterways. Walking was all up and down, a tiring slog that quickly sapped their energy. The footing was uncertain, resulting in constant slips and slides that cost them valuable time. Everything about them was turning into a mora.s.s.

Deladion Inch tried to take comfort in the fact that it would be just as hard on anyone tracking them, but soon grew so tired from picking himself up that he no longer found comfort in anything. His arm had begun to throb anew, pain shooting up and down it in sharp rushes, and the girl gave him some more of the leaves to chew. But his body was aching everywhere by now, not just in the places where his ribs were cracked and his arm fractured, and his misery was pretty much complete. He guessed they were still several hours' walk from his safehold, and they might not reach it by nightfall. He regretted endlessly the loss of the crawler, a dependable rolling fortress he could never replace. He thought of countless ways he might punish Taureq Siq for his part in this, but all of them required that he first get through the day.

Not a sure thing, at all, he decided when he heard the distant baying of the Skaith Hounds.

He cursed under his breath, gave the girl a quick rea.s.suring smile, and kept walking as if the howling didn't matter. But they both knew that somehow, against all odds, the beasts had found their trail and were hunting them and that his efforts at misleading the Drouj had gone for naught. He began measuring their chances of reaching safety before the hounds caught up to them and decided they were slim or none. They would have to find a fresh way to throw off their pursuit or stand and fight.