Bearers of the Black Staff

But he would still need help with the girl.

He reached into the pocket sewn on the inside of his belt and withdrew the tracking device given him by Deladion Inch. Just press the button until the red light comes on and I will know to come find you, Inch had told him. Sider had not thought he would ever have need of summoning the big man, but he had kept the device safe anyway.

He pressed the button now, waited for the red light to come on, tucked the device back in his belt pocket when it did, and set out.

What he had remembered even before he recalled the tracking device was Inch’s claim to familiarity with the Troll tribes and their movements. If nothing else, he would be able to tell Sider the best way to go about getting into the camp and finding the girl. He would likely know how they set watch and where a prisoner might be kept. Perhaps there were insignia on the tents that identified their usage. If Sider was very lucky indeed, the big man might even agree to help him get inside the camp by going with him. But he wouldn’t ask; that would be presuming on a friendship he wasn’t sure even existed.

Admittedly, it wasn’t much of a plan. But it would give him a better chance than anyone else, including the boy, of managing a rescue. Still, he had to act quickly. Only six days remained before the appointed meeting with Taureq Siq. Sider didn’t think the Troll Maturen would show much patience with his prisoner after that deadline expired.

He shook his head at himself. There were so many things that needed doing: rallying the defenders at Aphalion and Declan Reach, speaking with the different Races—he hadn’t gone to the Lizards or Spiders at all, leaving that to the Elves … But here I am, doing this instead. All because I promised Panterra Qu I would not abandon the girl, and if I am to have any chance of winning his friendship and trust, any chance of persuading him that he should become the next bearer of the staff, I must first prove that I can keep my word when I make a promise.

He walked on through the midday light, staying out in the open where he could see anything that approached and hopefully avoid the sort of ambush he had encountered the last time out, all the while moving in the general direction of Deladion Inch’s fortress keep. The terrain about him remained pretty much the same—bleak and ruined, stripped of grasses and trees, the earth still toxic from the Great Wars, stark and unwelcoming. Once, far off in the distance, he caught sight of a flat blue glimmer of water, a slender thread wending its way through the countryside, angling off into the haze west. But he couldn’t tell the condition of the water or its source. Here and there, clumps of trees grew as fresh and clean as they all must have grown at one time. But they were small islands amid an ocean of devastation, and the bulk of what the Gray Man saw showed little promise.

Once, not so far distant, he saw something much larger than himself shambling through a series of deep ravines, appearing and then disappearing like a mirage. But it was moving away from him, and after a while it was gone entirely.

He found himself wondering how the people of the valley would ever be able to acclimate and survive in this hostile environment. How could they adapt to what they would encounter when they had spent five hundred years closed away in a country where everything was naturally available and almost nothing threatened? He tried to envision how it would happen and failed. It would take new skills and hard-won experience to allow them to make the change. It would take a degree of cooperation and respect that was presently lacking. All the petty jealousies and rifts and differences would have to be bridged and healed.

He didn’t know if that was possible. Yet a way would have to be found if those brought out of the carnage of the Great Wars by the boy Hawk were to survive.

The hours slipped away, the afternoon crawling toward twilight, the bright orb of the sun advancing west in a sky that grew increasingly cloudy. Another storm was approaching, coming down out of the north. Sider checked the tracking device, worried that it might have failed. But the red light glowed steadily, so he kept moving ahead. He recognized almost nothing of the land he was traversing, but he carried a compass and his general sense of direction added to its readings told him he was still maintaining his intended course. He just hoped he would get to shelter before sunset or rainfall.

He needn’t have worried. He was climbing out of a series of deep ravines toward a line of dead trees and scrub when Deladion Inch appeared above him, clad in the familiar black leathers and metal trappings, the equally familiar Tyson Flechette strapped across one shoulder.

“Sider Ament!” the big man called out in greeting. “Come on up!”

He stood where he was, hands resting on his hips and a bemused expression on his bluff face, watching as Sider finished his climb up the rise and joined him.