Of Truth and Beasts

“Couldn’t you find anything tonight?” Wynn asked from behind the wagon, a nearly empty burlap sack in her hands.

Chane looked to the fireside and then all about the camp. The hare was gone. He glanced upward to the outcrop above. Perhaps Shade had not sensed another hare, but something else scavenging for an easy meal.

“Chane?” Wynn asked.

What could he say? He was not about to alarm her over some fox or wildcat that had outwitted him and Shade.

Sau’ilahk hovered in the shadows of a fir tree just above Chuillyon’s camp on the pass’s western slope. He’d discovered the elves trailing Wynn many nights ago. Unlike Wynn’s group, these elves had no majay-hì to sense his proximity. He sometimes floated in the darkness, listening for bits of information they might unwittingly share.

Tonight was more difficult.

For one, the deer he had fed on provided so little life that he was still hungry. The sight of Chuillyon only thirty paces away was a nagging temptation. He had not forgotten how the old elf had hampered him, helped to trap him back in Dhredze Seatt.

But Sau’ilahk could not risk a vengeful feast just yet.

The old elf traveled with two others. By what Sau’ilahk had overheard from them, one was possibly another white-robed sage, though all three were dressed for travel. Tonight, only Chuillyon and the one called Shâodh were present, both looking a little worse for wear. They had not stocked supplies as carefully as Wynn, and had been sleeping on the open ground. There was no fire, only a glowing crystal resting on the boulder they leaned against.

The elves had always kept pace with Wynn, so why had they not packed up to ride out?

Chuillyon closed his eyes and leaned back, half sitting on the waist-high boulder. However, Shâodh glanced southward through the slope’s trees a little too often.

Where was their third companion, the woman called Hannâschi?

“How much longer will the human journeyor continue?” Shâodh asked tonelessly. “They must be in a similar state to us.”

Sau’ilahk sensed dissension between them as he caught the almost imperceptible tightening of Chuillyon’s mouth as the old elf’s eyes opened. These two had had this conversation before.

“As I have said,” Chuillyon answered, “I believe she is looking for a seatt ... which are always built in mountains or a high vantage point.”

“You do not think she will turn back?”

“I do not.”

Sau’ilahk wondered if perhaps against only two, he might take the old one and leave the younger alive enough for questioning.

Shâodh suddenly stood up and stared southward. Tree branches wavered and snapped back, as if something had passed through them. A strange ripple in the night formed three steps inward from that disturbance on the camp’s southern side.

Hannâschi stepped out of the warped air as if from water, the colors and textures of the trees and earth flowing off her.

Sau’ilahk had not seen her do this before. It confirmed she was a thaumaturge, a metaologer among the sages. And she was fairly skilled, if she could bend light to hide herself at night.

“Well?” Chuillyon asked, straightening. “Are they moving? How far are they?”

Sau’ilahk realized the female had been spying on Wynn’s group.

Hannâschi hesitated before answering. “No, they have not yet broken camp, but they will soon.”

“Not yet?” Chuillyon echoed. “It is long past dusk.”

“Come, sit,” Shâodh interrupted, waving Hannâschi forward.

Of the three, she was the most exhausted by far—growing worse over the long nights. Sau’ilahk had noted this was another contention point between the two men. Chuillyon’s annoying jovial nature had turned serious over this journey. However, he politely but more pointedly insisted that they continue.

“The pale one and the dog were out hunting,” Hannâschi said, settling against the boulder at Shâodh’s insistence. “The journeyor and the dwarf found a pile of stones high up on an outcrop. They seemed quite interested.”

“Why?” Chuillyon asked, his brows creasing.

“I could not get close enough to hear. The majay-hì appeared to sense me or pick up my scent.” She paused. “But if we can risk a small fire, I brought something back.”

The two males exchanged quizzical glances.

“Supper,” Hannâschi explained with a smile, opening her cloak to pull out a dead hare.

Chuillyon smiled back, a trace of his former demeanor returning.

Sau’ilahk anticipated when he would catch that old elf alone and unaware. That one would never stand in his way again.

Ghassan il’Sänke had traveled for more than a moon. He stood on a craggy foothill, gazing across the shallow depression before him at what appeared to be a fallen mountain.

The first part of his trek had taken him northward along the coast to the vast range’s western end. There he had turned eastward along the foothills between the peaks and the desert’s northern fringe of dried, dusty earth.