“Don’t,” someone hissed between teeth. “He’s just baiting you.”
“Well, I can’t go home and tell my father we attacked Sir Leith—”
“Why not? Would he care?”
“I have the strangest feeling that yes, he would care. More than I have the
feeling that there’s anything in this place we need to dig up. It’s only a
bit of tangled wood that everyone has already forgotten.”
“That’s not the point!”
“The point of this quest is to find something sacred and powerful,” the
prince said doggedly. “Not go around killing people. Especially people you
just had dinner with a few nights ago.”
“Oh, for—”
“He might be right about one thing,” someone else said reasonably. “I don’
t see anything here worth fighting for.”
“Prospectors came here. There might be gold that belongs by right to Severen,
not the moon.”
“This place has been well picked over for decades. A few fieldstones aren’t
worth the argument. Anyway, the sun is about to set. I’d not like to ride
across that bridge in the dark. Nothing but bed slats and toothpicks.”
“Well,” their leader said disgustedly, “we can always come back. And we
will, Sir Leith, Dame Scotia, if this is the direction the compass of Severen
draws our hearts.” He turned his back on them, strode to the toppled pile of
bikes. “Let’s untangle these and get out of this pathetic backwater.”
“Can I reach for my cell without starting a war?” Val asked. “I need to
tell our driver at the other end of the bridge to move out of your way.”
Nobody bothered to answer him.
They followed the company of knights to the trail’s end, stood watching them
ride carelessly, noisily across the trembling bridge. It held, by some
miracle, possibly Severen’s, Pierce thought. But he doubted that the god
would be at all interested in the mud, the trees, the moon just cresting the
distant forest where the channel, pared to its narrowest, caught the first of
the pale, ancient glow.
“What are you doing here?” Leith asked Dame Scotia when the knights had
gotten safely across the bridge and back onto the road.
“I was looking for a place to camp for the night,” she answered. “I saw the
bridge and wondered where it led.”
“It drew you.”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “I suppose you could say.”
“That happened to us,” Val said, “in the mountains. Knights of the Rising
God attacked a shrine. The forest god there summoned us by making our limo go
dead for no reason at all until we finished his business.”
“And here?”
“The knights passed us on the road, and we recognized them. We followed them
to the bridge.”
“They are troublesome,” she murmured, frowning. “Brave and silly fanatics
in love with Severen’s power and wealth. I wasn’t crazed enough to ride
across the bridge. I walked my bike and found the trail to the ancient site.
It seemed the perfect spot to build a fire, watch the night fall. And then
they all came roaring out here. I hid myself and my bike until they started
unpacking shovels. I’m so glad you showed up. I wasn’t at all certain, once
I got their attention, what to do with them.”
“Neither was I,” Leith admitted. He dropped his hand on Val’s shoulder.
“You had me worried there for that split second. But I should have trusted
you. You rescued us. You have a gift for recognizing what matters. That what
he said was true.”
Val slewed a quick, perceptive glance at his father. But he only said
wistfully, “I could worship the moon for a bit. Smell the tide, feel the
wind, after all those hours in the limo. Do you want some company around your
fire, Dame Scotia?”
Her smile appeared again, like something unexpected and lovely breaking the
surface of an unruffled pool.
“Yes. Very much.”