Pael knew that she was about to choke to death. He gave her a rough final squeeze, and with eyes that glared deadly lightning into her, he let her go. Wisely, she recoiled into a cowering position, and gulped precious air back into her lungs.
Shaella found that she felt more than a little ashamed. Pael was right, and she knew it. Still, she hated him no less. She glared back at him coldly, as she strode over, and took up her sword. As she stood there fuming, with the staff of malice in one hand, and softly glowing blade in the other, she thought she saw in his eyes the thing she had sought for her entire life. For the first time, she could remember, she saw his respect there.
“Use your rage and hatred, for what I have done is to help you take Westland for your own.”
The look in his eyes faded into something colder than ice and darker than pitch, and his voice grew distant. She wasn’t sure then if it was still her father who was speaking to her.
“I have my own agenda to tend to. You owe me. Do not forget it again!”
What Pael had become she couldn’t say, but whatever he was now, he vanished from before her with a static pop of emerald sparks.
Looking beyond where he had stood, she saw the dark stain of Gerard’s life blood smoldering on the floor. It was all she could do to bite back her grief, and keep from breaking into tears again. The knife scar that ran down her cheek tricked her into thinking a tear had escaped her new found force of will. As she went to brush it away, she couldn’t help but think that she had lost far more than just a lover this day. She had lost her father as well.
Chapter 31
Mikahl shivered inside the thick Shagmar fur coat he was wearing. It was still early summer, but in the Giant Mountains, it was snowing. Not actually new snowfall, Hyden had explained to the castle born Westlander, but windblown snow, left over from the previous winter. Mikahl didn’t care how it got there; to him it was snowing. The stuff was swirling about them, getting down his collar, and whipping into every little tiny opening of his warm wear.
And the blasted wind! The wind was driving him crazy. Even up in Coldfrost, where the sea freezes solid for most of the year, it hadn’t been this cold. The numerous valleys they had already traversed hadn’t been so bad, almost spring like. The ridge they were passing over at the moment, however, was caked in ice, and so bitter and frigid, so slick and narrow, that Mikahl thought that he might lose his digits to the bite, if he didn’t tumble off the side of the mountain first.
He had been forced to lead his horse, Windfoot, the last few days. How the others walked up and down the treacherous slopes was beyond him. His legs were sore, he was tired, and confused, but as he shivered again, he decided that the worst thing about all of it was that he was so blasted cold.
Loudin had been leading the two horses that carried his precious bark lizard skin. In the valleys, he had ridden the lead horse awkward style, just like they had back in the Reyhall Forest, but it was far too treacherous on this narrow pass for either of them to ride. More than once, the lizard skin had almost caused disaster. They had to untie the roll so that the horses could make a few tight turns, once around a washout, and again where the pass turned, hugging the mountain. The skin had grown stiff in the cold, and wouldn’t give at all. It was just like hauling a log.
Once, the front horse was startled by a chunk of falling ice. It tried to bolt forward, nearly yanking the rear horse off its hooves. This in turn, yanked the front horse backwards. Both horses, the bark lizard skin, along with Loudin as he grabbed after his prize, almost went over the edge.
After that, the bulky skin came off of the horses at even the slightest sign of trouble. Mikahl was certain that Loudin expected a small fortune for the skin. Only great wealth, or the prospect of it, would give a man like Loudin cause to make such a miserable and treacherous journey as this one was turning out to be.
The other two, Mikahl found, often left him shaking his head in wonder. They had been on foot the entire way, and had jogged for days alongside the horses in the lower passes and valleys. Not once had they slowed the group. Not once had they complained or asked for rest. Even though the elf’s wounded eye was obviously troubling him, he never voiced his discomfort to his companions. And Hyden Hawk, to Mikahl’s great surprise and respect, hadn’t even been winded after jogging uphill most of a day. Neither of them seemed affected by the sharp bite of the wind, or the slick icy terrain.
Hyden and Vaegon took turns leading the group. The elf led more often than not. When the wild looking, bone-thin creature wasn’t out front, he seemed troubled. It was more than just the loss of the eye, or getting used to the leather patch he now wore over the ugly hole. The elf seemed to be hurting on a deeper level.