Grabbing their supplies, Maia and the kishion started away from the Leering and plunged into the woods. There was no use running and tiring themselves needlessly. Their pursuers had traveled all night in the dark—they would be weary and confused. An oily black feeling swirled in Maia’s mind as they made their way, an imprint of the Dochte Mandar’s intentions. She had never encountered a person with such a forceful will before, let alone two. Worse, there might well be more of them traveling with the soldiers. If the Dahomeyjans knew they were facing a woman with a kystrel, they would have sent sufficient men to bind her powers.
Maia swatted at a tree branch, her heart pounding with the effort of hiking. She had always been fascinated by maps of the known kingdoms and had studied them all her life, memorizing the names of cities and provinces, tracing mountains and forests with her finger. What she remembered from her childhood studies was that more than half of Dahomey was still uninhabitable. Nature itself had turned against the kings and queens of this land, and the Blight that had destroyed all the kingdoms still reigned. Deadly serpents and poisonous spiders had proliferated in the cursed part of the kingdom, making it impossible to settle. There were communities throughout the northern part of Dahomey, but very few in the southern hinterlands. She could not remember a single name of any of the villages or towns.
She realized, with dread, that there were three other kingdoms blocking her way to Naess, the seat of the Dochte Mandar—Hautland, Paeiz, and Mon. The latter was a coastal kingdom that could probably be avoided, but there was no other way, except by ship, to pass around the other kingdoms. And all had been hostile to her father since the day he drove the Dochte Mandar from Comoros.
They walked with determination born of desperation. Maia was sturdy and had survived the dangers they had faced thus far. With each slogging boot step, she pushed herself hard, not deigning to complain or utter curses. There was too much to do. They had to outdistance their pursuers, find supplies, and race toward their goal as quickly as they could.
Her stomach cramped with the strain of the pace they kept, and her throat seared with thirst as the sun climbed and arced across the sky, filtering through the dusky leaves and moss-ridden boulders scattered throughout the way. There was no sign of any habitation. No waymarkers to guide the path.
They paused to rest briefly; Maia needed to preserve her flagging strength. Her legs itched from the continuous scratches and slashes from the poking undergrowth. Her ankles were swollen. She breathed hard, feeling her heartbeat pound in her ears.
“How far do you think they are?” Maia said with a wheeze.
The kishion shook his head, gazing ahead, not behind. “They will need to stop and rest eventually. But let us keep walking, even if we walk all night. It will be harder to track us, which will slow them down. They do not know our destination, do they?”
Maia shook her head. “They cannot. And Naess is the last place they would ever expect us to go.”
He grabbed her arm, signaling the rest was over, and they continued to plunge through thick woods and dense scrub. Thirst was a continuous torment. Neither had dared to drink from the bracken ponds they encountered, knowing the water would be as poisoned as the land they traveled through, and Maia could not take the risk of seeking another waymarker. Not when Corriveaux could be lurking by one again, waiting for such an opportunity. No, they had to blind the Dochte Mandar to their presence and their path. Make them trudge in the dark and jab sticks into every bush.
What they needed was their own hunter, someone who could disguise their trail. Someone who knew the land and its secret places. Someone who could be trusted. The greatness of their need pounded through Maia as they continued to forge their way. She fixed her heart on it, pushing the fierce, focused thought into the aether: I need a hunter. I need a guide.
A gust of wind blew into her eyes, almost as if in response to her pleading thoughts. She did not know if it was the Medium.
Before nightfall, she realized that it really was.
When I was a wretched living in Muirwood Abbey, a strange fellow named Maderos told me a tale about the hill near the abbey, the one we called the Tor. A crew of warriors from the north came. Not men from the seven kingdoms, but from a land of dark pools and steep firths. These warriors came on painted boats to conquer our lands. They massacred a small village along a lake near the abbey and came marching to Muirwood itself. The Aldermaston raised his hands, and a hill from a surrounding area lifted from the ground, hovered over the enemies of the abbey, and then plummeted down, smashing them into oblivion. Some of the attackers survived, great-granddaughter. They fled back to their dark land and warned of the inhabitants of the seven kingdoms and the awful power of the Medium when provoked. What you need to understand is that these people, the Naestors, came and inhabited the lands that we forsook. They are a cunning, warlike people. When the mastons return again to the seven kingdoms of Comoros, Pry-Ree, Dahomey, Hautland, Mon, Avinion, and Paeiz, they will discover an eighth kingdom has claimed all that we abandoned. Though they will feign friendship, they will not trust you. They will fear you. They will bring back the Dochte Mandar. Be wary.
—Lia Demont, Aldermaston of Muirwood Abbey
CHAPTER THREE