Traitor's Moon

with his sleeve. “That, and a cold breakfast on horseback.”
    Seregil raised an eyebrow at him. “Now you’re starting to sound like me! Next thing you know, you’ll be wanting a hot bath.”
    Nyal had made a show of checking the Skalan’s stables and searching out hoofprints, though he already had a fair idea of where Seregil and the others were headed. He’d shadowed them long enough to see them change horses at the way station and continue up the main road. Later, at the Iia’sidra, he’d overheard the Akhendi khirnari warn Nazien í Hari of a certain pass Seregil was likely to head for, one Nyal knew well for reasons of his own.
    He took twelve riders with him for the chase, young bloods from some of the more neutral clans, including several of his own kin. He’d chosen carefully, wanting only youngsters who could be counted on to do as they were told.
    Reaching the way station again before nightfall, he questioned the lad who watched the horses and learned that a certain signal had not been given by the last trio of dispatch riders, a fact that had raised suspicion almost before they’d ridden out of sight. That, and the fact that the Skalan rider had apparently understood more Aurënfaie than she let on.
    The trail from here was not difficult to follow; the mare Beka had taken had a notch in her left rear hoof. Some miles on, though, Nyalwas surprised to see that they’d fallen in with several other riders. Seregil and Alec must be more brazen than he’d guessed, passing themselves off as Akhendi here. They were certainly taking no pains to cover their tracks, keeping to the main road instead of splitting up and losing themselves in the network of side roads that branched off from it. There were streams they could have ridden up to cover their trail, byways that doubled back on themselves. Then again, Seregil had no way of knowing most of these routes.
    â€œPerhaps these other horsemen are conspirators?” said one of the Silmai with him as they paused at a roadside spring where the fugitives had dismounted to drink.
    â€œIf so, then they aren’t being much help,” Nyal said, studying the footprints in the soft earth at the spring’s edge: two sets of Aurënfaie boots, one Skalan. The others had remained mounted.
    â€œThey can’t know the area, or they’d have shown him ways of getting away from the main road and putting us off the scent,” a Ra’basi kinsman named Woril noted.
    â€œNot yet,” Nyal murmured, wondering again what Seregil could be up to. It wasn’t until the following day, when he finally found where the two groups of riders had parted, that he began to understand.

42
M ISDIRECTION
    B eka rode steadily through the night, avoiding the few Akhendi villagers she encountered along the way. She made no effort to cover her trail, counting on misdirection to protect her friends.
    The rain continued, a cold, inexorable mist that seemed to seep right down to her bones. As the mountains loomed closer ahead, she finally gave up the ruse and turned aside onto a side road that twisted away to the east through the forest. By late the next day she was exhausted and utterly lost.
    Ambling along, she spotted a game trail leading up a slope and followed it, hoping to find some shelter for the night. Just before dark, she found a dry patch of earth beneath a fallen fir tree and made camp there. Lightning had struck the tree sometime recently, shattering the trunk but not severing it, so that the thick top hung to the ground at an angle, creating a sheltered den among the lower boughs. After dragging in her pack, she dug a pit with her knife and built a little fire to stave off the chill.
    Just for a few hours
, she told herself, huddling close to the flames. The heat quickly baked the damp from her tunic and breeches. Wrapping herself in her blanket, she leaned against the rough bark behind her. A thin waxing moon showed itself between torn shreds ofclouds, a reminder that in just two days the Iia’sidra would decide the success or failure of all their work here.
    â€œBy the Four,” she whispered. “Just let us get Klia home alive and I’ll be satisfied.”
    As she drifted off to sleep, however, it was Nyal who filled her thoughts, tingeing her dreams with an uneasy mix of longing and doubt.
    The grip of a strong hand on her shoulder startled Beka awake at dawn. There was just light