The Chained Adept (1-4)

Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

The two wizards reined in their horses on the crest of a small rise. The terrain had become more rolling in the last three days, and there was a blur on the western horizon that Zandaril claimed was their first glimpse of the Lang Nor mountains, the Red Wall.

Penrys was trying out the small chestnut gelding in her new string. She leaned far forward over her horse’s neck and scratched the sweaty spot on his forehead that always seemed to itch.

“Isn’t there supposed to be some little, insignificant river around here someplace? Where’s it hiding?”

“About twenty more miles that way, then we’ll turn northwest and follow it another six days or so to Seguchi Norwan.” Zandaril pointed due west. “Chang took us straight across the prairie from Jonggep to cut off a big curve—that’s why we had to bring our own cattle instead of stopping at the river towns to requisition supplies. We’ll catch up to it soon. Then you’ll see.”

“So you keep saying.”

The air had turned cool, under the cloudy sky. As far as her eye could roam, the grasses were sprinkled with the last of the autumn flowers, their colors muted in the dull light.

“Where is everybody?” she asked. “Where are all the farmers and towns?”

“East,” he said. “East, where the great cities are, and the granaries near them. Out west the settlements are all along the river and its tributaries. All this, out here in the grasslands, there’s no one—the winters are very bad, snow very strong. No trees for a reason. The towns cling to the river valleys, and send their produce downstream, and wait for spring.

“Soon the herds of wild cattle will come down from the hills for their winter pasture—surprised I am they’re not here already. I expected to see them by now.”

He used his hands to sketch two long horns reaching out from his head. “We make too much noise.” He pointed down at the expedition, marching in a shallow depression to their right.

He’s right. Penrys could hear the creak of the axles and jangle of metal clearly, and she didn’t doubt that every creature within earshot had headed elsewhere.

She followed that thought with an actual probe, scanning as far as she could reach in all directions, even back along their trail. No other horses or mules besides those with the expedition, no other herds of cattle—nothing but the small animals on and below the ground, and the hawks in the air.

No people, besides their own.

Zandaril watched her, his mind touching hers lightly and monitoring the probe.

“Where are they hiding?” he asked.

“Maybe he was the only one, this Veneshjug.”

He c****d his head at her. “Do you believe that?”

“No.”

“Is he shielded from you, somehow?”

Penrys shrugged.

Chang sent scouts out daily along the line of his march, screening the surroundings for several miles, but it wouldn’t be hard for a small number of people to lurk undetected. Still, it was the more serious threat that concerned them as they approached the river towns—word was beginning to come in again about the disturbance on the border, in Neshilik.

No traffic had come down the river or by land from the west in over a month. Riders skirting the Red Wall were discouraged from getting near the Gates by patrols much larger than their own parties, and better armed. The opinion from the river towns was that these were their old enemies the Rasesni, but they’d never behaved like this before, seizing and holding their old territory instead of raiding, and they hadn’t appeared east of the Seguchi Norwan in generations. The townsmen hadn’t tried to talk to them. It was the army’s job, they said, to take them on.

Members of a few of the clans who had family in Wechinnat, in northern Neshilik, had ventured off toward the old Red Wall crossings, but none had returned. Speculation was everywhere, but nothing confirmed.

The camp had felt on edge to Penrys, these last couple of days, with the soldiers sharpening their weapons and a buzz of energy in the air. She and Zandaril spent their evenings experimenting with the Rasesni’s gear, trying to puzzle out just what sort of weapon he had deployed. Chang was impatient with their lack of progress, and so was she.

“All you have to work with are moving and binding,” she blurted out, speaking her thought and startling Zandaril.

“Ah, that again,” he said.

“Yes, again, until we figure it out.”

“You said ‘destroying’ once, too.” Zandaril pointed out.

“Well, yes, technically. All that really means is you can kill a power-stone.” She started over. “Moving is ‘push,’ binding is ‘pull,’ and destruction is ‘fizzle.’”

Zandaril laughed.

“No, it really is. Not much happens except your expensive power-stone doesn’t work anymore and everyone looks at you as if you’re an idiot.”

“What happens if you try to push and pull at the same time?” he asked.

She held her arms out in front of her, with reins loosely looped around one of them and gripped her two hands while trying to pull them apart sideways. “Like that. Lot’s of tension, no result.”

“So what happens when you let go?”

“There’s a rebound, of course…” Her voice trailed off. “Could you make something of that? Put a strong move and bind together, then suddenly release them?”

“Like two horses yoked to the same thing but pulling it in opposite directions, and then it breaks,” Zandaril suggested.

“Don’t know. Not sure how you would set that up, but I wonder if that might work.”

She glanced up at the angle of the sun. “Wish we could read those books. We’ll have to go look at those illustrations again.”

“Tonight’s not the night for it,” Zandaril said. “Rain coming. Lots of it.”

Penrys put aside the remains of her beef stew next to her bedroll with distaste. Despite the early afternoon halt before the soaking rains hit, it had been impossible to keep dry. The tent’s ground cloth sported muddy puddles, her clothing was sopping wet from tending to the horses and the dash out to the cook fires to fetch dinner, and both Hing Ganau and Zandaril had vanished, Hing to an evening with his men. Penrys could imagine the scene of drink and gambling he was anticipating in someone’s crowded tent.

She didn’t know what had happened to Zandaril. After their mad dash to strip the horses and stash the horse gear under shelter, the rain had hit as they watered them at the creek which paralleled their line of march. At least it had made the evening currying moot. Between them there were seven horses to care for—Zandaril’s four and the three she’d acquired from Veneshjug. The morning routine of watering and grooming lasted about an hour, but mostly they were allowed to graze morning and night when not on the move. Any supplemental grain was added in the evening, but not on a night like this when it would be soaked, even if served in a nosebag.

She’d ridden a number of times in Ellech—hard to avoid it while Vylkar was her sponsor—but the care had been left to the grooms. It was a pleasure to her now, to feel the relief of the horse she’d been riding all day, as she brushed and combed all the itches away. She had just the one road horse, while Zandaril had two, but at the pace they were traveling they held up fine under the daily work. The pack horses were getting fat and lazy by comparison.

Zandaril was somewhere around Hing’s wagon, she could tell. Every couple of days another sack vanished into the camp kitchen as the supplies were slowly consumed by the expedition, freeing up a little more space for their evening studies. The squadron was headed for garrison at Shengen Ferry, the biggest town on the river near their destination, Hing said. Keelboats had been ascending the Seguchi for their resupply, ever since they left Jonggep.

We should get an early start on our lessons, I suppose. Too much trouble tonight. It’s a night for feeling wet and miserable, like a drowned rat.

She snorted at the self-indulgent whine in her thoughts, and shook her head. A rustle at the tent flap drew her attention, and Zandaril stepped in, careful to contain the dripping of his cape as close to the entrance as possible.

He gave her a little formal bow, which raised her eyebrows. “I’ve come with an invitation,” he said. “Tonight is a holiday, in sarq-Zannib—the kuliqa, the turning home, when we turn on our outward migration and face the winter villages again. When the day and the night are of equal length.”

He glanced up through the tent’s ceiling at the hidden sky. “You may have to trust me for that.”

Penrys grinned. This sounded interesting. “What happens on this holiday?”

“Come and see,” he said, and waved his hand to beckon her outside.