As they led half a dozen mounted Erkynguards toward the darkening line of the forest, Morgan asked Count Eolair about the armed escort. He had grown rather fond of his rides into and out of the forest edge with the old count, who never said exactly what you expected him to say—a rare trait in old people, Morgan thought.
“It is because we have now ridden beyond the easy reach, and perhaps even the repute, of the High Ward,” the count said. “Out here the Hayholt is more legend than fact, and the high king and high queen even less known. You will see it clearly if we reach New Gadrinsett. The citizens are loyal to the High Throne in theory, but the town that has built up around it is more Thrithings camp than Erkynlandish city. And the farther we go, the less anything we carry or wear will mean. Except our weapons, of course.”
“Do you mean bandits?”
“All manner of things. I hear you met one of the locals earlier this afternoon.”
“The River Man?” Morgan barely repressed a shudder. “Yes, and I would not like to meet him again.”
They were in among the trees now. Eolair led them deeper, until the last orange and pink smears of sunset gleamed only in spots through the high trees. They stopped at last in a forest clearing, beside a stream that was on its way to join the marsh down the shallow slope behind them, but they did not dismount. Eolair handed the wooden chest containing Ti-tuno to Morgan.
“Make music, my prince,” said Eolair.
Morgan took out the horn and weighed it in his hand. “Why can I blow it now, but I couldn’t when I first tried?”
“Who can say?” Eolair gave the ghost of a shrug. “The things the Sithi have made are always strange to mere mortals. Or perhaps it is simply that you found the trick.”
“If I found the trick, why don’t I know what it is?”
Eolair smiled. “Another question I cannot answer, Your Highness. But the light is fleeing us swiftly now. May I suggest you perform that trick you don’t know one more time?”
Morgan lifted the horn and sounded it, giving it all his breath, so that the mournful wail of it flew out into the deepening evening and rang and rang until the echoes died at last among the trees. The silences after the horn blew always seemed different than ordinary silences, although he could not have said why. Some quality of heightened stillness, perhaps, as though something listened and heard its call, even if the listeners were not the same ones he and Eolair sought.
Long moments passed, then Morgan winded the horn again. He had only a moment to savor the great silence after the echoes, then it was broken.
“Who are you, mortal men? And why do you carry a gift that is not yours to carry?”
The voice was not loud, but it seemed to fly straight into Morgan’s ear like a bee, startling him so that he nearly dropped the horn. The soldiers who had accompanied them grasped at their swords when they heard it, but Eolair held up his hand. “Do not draw your weapons,” the count said. “It would be pointless.” He looked slowly around the clearing, but saw nothing, heard nothing now that the voice had fallen silent, only the trees and the plashing of the little stream.
“I am Count Eolair of Nad Mullach,” the old man called, his voice only a little louder than when he had been talking to Morgan: he clearly thought that whoever had spoken was close by. “We mean no harm. I know your Prince Jiriki of old and would have words with him.”
“And I am a prince, too,” Morgan said, rather more loudly than he’d meant to. “I am Morgan of Erchester. King Simon and Queen Miriamele are my grandparents, and I’d like to talk to Prince Jiriki, too.” His heart, he realized, was beating madly, almost as swiftly as when he’d seen the river monster leap up to take the heron. “Show yourself!”
“Do not make demands,” Eolair said quietly.
A figure appeared at the edge of the clearing, so suddenly that it almost seemed to form out of the half-darkness. “Tell your men not to move,” the newcomer said. “They are surrounded by my hunters.”
“Nobody will move,” said Eolair.
The figure came toward Morgan, who was feeling a strong impulse to ride away as fast as he could. It was not that the stranger was frightening to look at—he was slender, and the angled bones of his face and his huge, golden eyes marked him clearly as one of the Sithi—but that Morgan felt a coldness beating out from him, a disdain. He felt certain that this odd creature in rough-spun garments, with red hair that seemed unnaturally bright, even in the darkening twilight, would happily have him feathered with arrows if the need arose, regardless of his princely status.
The stranger put out a thin, long-fingered hand. It took Morgan a moment to realize he wanted Ti-tuno. He looked to Eolair, who nodded.
The stranger took the horn and handled it with obvious reverence, turning it over in his hands, his lips moving as if in prayer. “It truly is Ti-tuno,” he said at last, his use of the Common Tongue almost faultless, but shaped and accented in liquid ways Morgan had never heard before. “It is a strange thing to hear its note in these dark days. We had thought it lost. Who are you?”
“I am Count Eolair, Hand of the Throne. We come from the High King and High Queen in the Hayholt—in old Asu’a. We have been sent to find Prince Jiriki and his sister Aditu, and to speak to them.”
“Prince Jiriki,” said the stranger, but his smile was close to a smirk. “So. And why should we take you to trouble them?”
“For old friendship’s sake, if nothing else, I hope,” said Eolair. “But there is another, more urgent matter—”
“Why is he asking us all these questions,” Morgan demanded. “Doesn’t he understand that it’s the king and queen of this entire land we’re talking about? That I’m the heir? Listen, you, we want to speak to this Jeekee.”
“The name is Jiriki, Highness.” Eolair gave him a significant look. “This is why your grandparents sent me, my prince. Please, let me . . .” The lord steward turned back to the Sitha. “We have one of your people with us, very ill and in need of care, back at our camp. You sent her to us, but she was attacked and shot with arrows—poisoned arrows.”
“What?” The Sitha’s catlike face sharpened into a mask of anger. “You have shot another of our people?”
Morgan was about to tell this puffed-up idiot that he didn’t understand anything, but Eolair was making the face at him again, so he remained resentfully silent.
“No, we who serve the king and queen in the Hayholt did not shoot her. We do not know who did. She was found, injured and senseless, near the castle. We have nursed her as well as we can, but she has passed beyond our healers’ craft.”
For a moment the Sitha only stared at Eolair, his face a mask made even harder to read by the fading light. Then he let out a whistle, although Morgan did not see him purse his lips. A moment later a dozen shapes stepped from the shadows on all sides—Sithi, male and female, all dressed in similar rough clothing, all with arrows nocked on the strings of their bows.
“Send your soldiers to bring our injured kin to us. You two stay here.”
“We need to speak to . . .”
“What you need will be addressed later,” the flame-haired Sitha said, cutting Eolair’s words short. “I am Yeja’aro of the Forbidden Hills, and you are trespassers who may not make demands. But if you bring our kinswoman swiftly, and come along without trouble, I promise to return you here safely, whether the ones you seek wish to meet you or not.”
The Erkynguards looked confused, but since they were surrounded and outnumbered, they did not seem particularly eager to start a fight. “Go back to the camp and bring the Sitha-woman on her litter,” Eolair told them. “Quickly.”
After a bit of hesitation, the soldiers turned and rode back toward the camp.
“You two will have to leave your horses behind,” Yeja’aro said. “They will not be able to travel where we go.”
“Is it far?” Morgan couldn’t help asking.
Yeja’aro gave him a flat look. “That depends on how it is measured.”
It was growing dark quickly. Two of Yeja’aro’s hunters produced sticks of wood that suddenly burst into flame, although Morgan had no idea what lit them. By this light they waited as the forest evening deepened into night. Morgan thought he had never in his life experienced anything quite as eerie as being watched for so long by all those silent Sithi.
When the soldiers finally returned, this time with the horses bearing the Sitha-woman’s litter, they were accompanied by Sir Porto and all the trolls. Porto hurried to Morgan’s side. “The Erkynguard captain said he and his men are waiting just down at the edge of the trees,” he whispered. “If you need them, just shout.”
Count Eolair heard him and carefully shook his head. “We will not need the captain and his men, Sir Porto. And be aware—the Sithi have very good ears.”
Yeja’aro had been standing over the Sitha-woman’s pale, motionless form. When he looked up, his expression seemed to have tightened into an even deeper anger. “Your men would be sentencing you both to death if they attacked.”