Bearers of the Black Staff

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 massacred 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 morass.

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 reassuring 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.

He decided their best chance was to make use of the chain of waterways and lakes formed by the surface water, wading through in directions that would confuse the beasts. Leading the way, he took the girl into deeper water that covered their feet and ankles and then slogged ahead across vast stretches linked by connecting streams, careful never to step out of the water, never to touch ground that might give them away.

“We could double back on them,” Prue suggested at one point, but he quickly shook his head.

“Too dangerous. If they get between us and the fortress, we have no chance at all. We keep going ahead.”

She didn’t argue. She did not complain or ask to rest. She did not slow. She just did what she was told. He admired this girl.

“How long have you known Sider Ament?” he asked after a time, weary of the silence.

She shrugged. “A few weeks. I only knew of him before that.”

“That’s long enough, I guess. I only met him recently myself. First I knew of anyone living in those mountains. Why didn’t your people come out of there before now? What kept you in hiding?”

“It’s a long story. We couldn’t leave. We were warded by magic that locked us in. The valley was all we knew.”

“Bet you wish that was still the case, don’t you?”