Poda huffed and snorted as she scrambled up the gravelly slope towards the head of the pass. Yaret needed all her energy to cling on to the sweating horse. At one point she looked back briefly: she could no longer see the tarn beyond the swell of rising land, nor the distant group of stonemen; but the donkeys were following her, fifty yards behind. Even from here she could recognise the indignant set of Dolm’s ears.
She waved them away and gave all her attention to the track ahead. Although she had told Dolm and Nuolo to look after the two men, it seemed that the donkeys were intent on looking after her. Or just looking after themselves. Well, that was fine – so long as they stayed away from any stonemen.
Stonemen. The name filled her with bafflement and a vague dread. All she knew about them was in the form of grimly muttered rumours. She should have asked Rothir exactly who they were, how to elude then, and what they might do. She had asked very few questions out of courtesy, because Rothir’s business was not hers.
Except that now it was. Her heart was pounding as hard as Poda’s and she realised that as well as being frightened, she was angry. She was furious with herself for being afraid, because she hated being afraid.
And even greater than the unformed fear of stonemen was the over-riding dread that she would fail in this supposedly simple task. You can’t miss it, he had said. But of course she could miss it. She had no idea where she was. She was angry with Rothir for sending her away; for putting her into this position, where she might so easily fail.
Or where she might be tempted to escape – to abandon him and Eled to the stonemen and head home. She could gather the donkeys and just leave. The temptation was there.
But it was not strong. Rothir was trusting her to find his friends: and she did not want to fall short, because over the last few days she had come to trust Rothir. A tough, indomitable man, but also one who looked after Eled with painstaking care…
So where in this wilderness were those other friends of his? And what if she did find this crag he called a thumb? How could she stop his fellow riders from shooting her the minute they saw her galloping up on their lost comrade’s horse?
Galloping. That was a laugh. As the slope flattened, Poda chose her own combination of scrambling and cantering. It was hard enough for Yaret just to hang on to her back – and it was painful. She was already saddle-sore, and the soreness seemed to have suddenly increased four-fold. Her thighs hurt, her hips hurt, her back hurt, everything hurt. It had seemed irrelevant while Eled was hurting so much more. But now that she was alone she could not ignore it.
Poda slowed as they again ascended. She plodded upwards for half an hour or so, until they reached what must be the high point of the pass: a broad, rounded, grassy bridge between two hills. On either side the land fell away steeply. Yaret looked back over her shoulder: the donkeys were no longer visible.
But something else was. There was a movement down below her, on the west side of the pass.
Yaret looked for one second, and then said a quiet “Stop” to Poda, who instantly obeyed. If her heart had been thumping before, it was racing now as she swung herself carefully out of the saddle. Holding the bridle, she led the horse down the eastern slope as quietly as she could. It was too treacherous to risk riding down. She guided Poda as stealthily as possible – which she felt was not nearly stealthily enough – and as low down the slope as she dared, before the ground beneath her feet became too steep for safety.
Then she cautiously led Poda on ahead, afraid of slipping further down the slope yet equally afraid of climbing back up to the top. As it was, she still felt horribly exposed; anybody could be watching her from the eastern hills. Those jagged peaks seemed to gaze down at her, stern and cold and disapproving.
Despite never having seen one before, she knew it was a stoneman that she had glimpsed below the path. Thankfully he had been facing the opposite direction. He had been looking out for anyone approaching the high pass, not for somebody already on it.
He had been only about twenty yards away. The red of his tunic was the same as that of the distant group which Rothir had identified. He had carried a short sword, and an axe was slung from his belt. She had seen only the back of his head, which was shaved, and bore some kind of studded circlet. That was all that she had taken in; but it was enough.
Fearful of making any noise, she continued to lead Poda on what seemed an endless crawling track. Not until she was another mile away and hidden from the pass by rising ground did she dare to re-mount and return to the main path. Or what she hoped was the main path.
She must be going in the right direction at least, for a set of distant crags came suddenly into view, rising untidily into the sky. None of them looked like a thumb. Yet surely one of them must be? She urged Poda into a bone-shaking trot, and then, as the ground continued to level out, into a canter. Conscious of the thudding of Poda’s hooves, she prayed that nobody was close enough to hear them.
How long had she taken now? Close to an hour, surely; and still none of the crags seemed to be the right one. There were no trees growing up here – tall rocks and low, stunted bushes provided the only cover. A harsh east wind bit through her clothes and flattened the grass.
Abruptly the grass turned darker, tougher: no longer grass at all, but reeds. As Poda began to splash and flounder, Yaret pulled her up in alarm. Although the water was only an inch deep, below it she could feel Poda’s effort as she detached her hooves from sucking mud.
Again Yaret dismounted. She retreated squelchingly, leading the horse back to dryer land, trying to avoid the reeds and jewel-bright moss of the bog. Plenty of star-moss here, she noted dismally, now that she had no time to gather it. Following the dry ground meant a wide detour to the left, in the lee of the highest hill, the crags slowly turning to present new faces to her.
She guided Poda past the reeds, testing the path constantly. At last she looked up with a weary sigh: and saw the thumb. From this angle it was obvious, nail and all, pointing straight up at the clouds. It was about sixty feet high.
But it was still some distance away, and she dared not ride on this uneven ground. Instead she ran, pulling Poda alongside her. At times they pulled each other.
It must be well over an hour by now, she thought, as the thumb loomed higher and closer. It seemed to perch on the edge of a cliff; below it was a plain patched with different greens that stretched away for many miles, and far beyond that a mountain range that she had never seen before, blue and purple and streaked with distant rain. Dark clouds were filling the sky. She was at the rendezvous – and she was alone. There was no-one here.
Panting and breathless, she trudged the last few yards up to the thumb: a huge stone signal to nobody. Despair filled her like an ache. She was too late. Rothir and Eled had been depending on her to fetch help. And she had failed. This land was empty of people and of hope. What should she do now?
A man stepped out from behind the thumb, although surely there was no space there for him to have hidden himself. Tall and stern of face, he gripped a long sword as if he was strongly tempted to use it.
“Where did you get that horse?” he demanded.
She stared at his clothes, realising that in style and colour they were like Rothir’s.
“Which one are you?” she asked him, still breathless. “Are you Tiburé?”
“Tiburé? Hardly.” He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowing in a way that made her wonder if he had in those few seconds seen straight through her male mode. She felt surreptitiously for her knife. Just because Rothir seemed a decent man did not mean that all his friends would be.
“Rothir sent me,” she said. She saw no belief in his cold imperious face, and added urgently, “He said to tell you that the dwarf sent me. Which one are you?”
His expression changed. “Parthenal. Where is he? What’s happened?”
“He’s with Eled in the cavern by the Gyr tarn. He said you’d know it. Eled’s badly injured. Broken leg, head wound. Rothir is unhurt but there was a troop of stonemen coming when I left. He sent me to find you.”
“How many stonemen? How far away?” This was another speaker who had stepped out from behind the thumb of rock: one who was older, with greying hair, not as tall nor as well-built as Parthenal. Yaret realised with a faint shock that this one was a female in male clothing, although not too bothered about maintaining the voice or manner of male mode.
Yaret herself made sure to keep her voice low as she answered.
“There were maybe ten or twelve of them. I don’t know if they saw us, but they were little more than a mile away and heading for the tarn. And I saw one lone stoneman on the pass, high up on the west side. I think he was guarding it. He was looking the other way. But it’s taken me too long to get here. You need to go and help them.”
With the last two words her voice began to shake. She clamped her mouth closed.
Again as if by magic, two more of them appeared: a younger man and woman, leading a string of horses. Only when Yaret stepped aside did she see the hidden dip they had emerged from – a shielded hollow scooped out of the cliff behind the crag, high above the plain.
With a few terse words in their own language, all four mounted their horses. All carried long swords and bows, and probably other, less conspicuous weapons. Parthenal was already beginning to spur his horse away when the grey-haired woman turned in the saddle and spoke to Yaret. She must be Tiburé, the leader, for she was the eldest and had an air of command.
“You can stay here if you wish.”
“I don’t wish,” said Yaret, indignant. She did not intend to abandon Eled and Rothir at this point. Swinging herself up onto Poda’s back she winced and set herself to endure the saddle-soreness once again.
Poda was still reasonably fresh, having walked so much of the way up here. She needed to be, for the troop set off much faster than Yaret had dared ride on this terrain. They skirted the bog surefootedly and then rode at a canter towards the pass. But they did not take the high path where Yaret had seen the stoneman. Instead they dipped down to the east, picking a lower route across a stony slope.
Poda scrambled behind them, seeming to be comfortable following horses that were familiar to her. Yaret did not need to try to steer her. Now and then she risked a look around, hoping to see her donkeys, but the craggy hills seemed bare of any life apart from a single distant antelope.
They descended into a narrow, steep-sided valley where they had to ride in single file alongside a leaping stream. This wound down and round small hillocks until Yaret had lost all sense of direction. The constant sound of the stream overlaid the occasional mutterings of the riders. They moved quietly, but even faster than she had realised: it was a shock to catch a sudden glimpse of the iron-grey tarn ahead.
The valley opened out on to its pebbly shores. Before they emerged into the open, the riders stopped: the two women took up their bows, and the two men unsheathed their swords. Tiburé looked at Yaret.
“Stay here if you wish,” she said again, and again Yaret replied, “I don’t wish,” though with less confidence this time. Unclipping her own hunting bow from the saddle she gripped it tightly in her hand. She had never used it to shoot men, and did not particularly want to start now. Her stomach clenched as the rider nodded and led the way out of the valley to the tarn.
Yaret threw her quiver across her back and then spurred Poda after the others. Although she now felt horribly afraid of what might lie ahead, her worst fear was for Rothir and Eled. What if she had indeed been too late, and both of them now lay dead inside the cave? It would be her fault. She did not think that she could bear it.
There was no life to be seen as they cantered along the edge of the dark water. But as they approached a fissure in the hillside, the sound of shouting became abruptly audible. It was almost a relief.
She rounded the corner behind the others and saw the group of men – seven or eight of them, all with studded circlets round their heads. Then there was no time to think about anything other than trying to stay on Poda at the same time as drawing her bow. There was not even time to aim properly: the nearest stoneman was turning towards them, shouting as he charged, raising a curved sword in one hand and an axe in the other.
He staggered and then fell with an arrow in his chest before Yaret could release her own arrow. The younger woman was already restringing her bow.
And then Parthenal, on horseback, was swinging his sword at the remaining men, striking down the nearest with swift and ruthless skill. The man toppled over with his head almost detached from his body. At the same time an axe flew through the air, narrowly missing Poda. Yaret took quick aim and fired at the thrower. Her arrow landed in the man’s shoulder an instant before Parthenal cut him down too.
The remaining stonemen rallied and charged again: but they were also under attack from the other side. For Rothir leapt seemingly straight out of the hill, blood-streaked sword in hand, and laid about him with grim efficiency. It was immediately clear that his skill with a sword, like Parthenal’s, was greater than the stonemen’s. They swung their swords and axes with indiscriminate clumsiness as if relying simply on their strength of numbers.
But their numbers were becoming fewer. There was no more shouting. The only sounds were grunts and wordless cries: the twang of bowstrings and the hiss and grating crash of swords. The younger woman had dropped her bow and was using a long knife: another stoneman staggered and collapsed as she pulled it from his chest.
Yaret released several more arrows without being able to tell if they made any difference. Although three more stonemen fell, she doubted if any of them were due to her. Now there were only two wounded stonemen left on their feet.
“Give yourselves up,” commanded Parthenal. The two panting, bloodstained stonemen looked at each other. A second later, to Yaret’s horror, they ran onto each other’s outstretched swords. One of them was still alive as he toppled over, blood bubbling from his mouth, hands groping at the blade that pierced his body.
With a swift downward stroke Rothir finished him off. Then he let his sword fall clattering to the ground and leaned back against the rocky wall, as if in weariness and disgust at what he had just done.