White Road

Seregil’s right boot, where he always carried the wickedly sharp poniard. Alec had somehow come out of Plenimar with his black-and-silver-handled dagger, too, and wore it in his belt, in a new sheath worked with a ’faie design.
    They had breakfast in the tavern, paid their bill, and set off in good spirits, leaving Madlen’s horses with the innkeeper with instructions to sell them and hold the money for their return. Both Seregil and Alec were as delighted to be reunited with their own horses as if they were long lost friends. Thero even caught Alec letting Patch gnaw on aleather wrist guard when they stopped to water them at a roadside spring. But he also saw how watchful Seregil and the others were, constantly checking behind for their masked pursuers. The weather was clear and the terrain flat, allowing them to see for some miles, but still they looked.
    “Let me see that arrowhead,” he said at last.
    Micum reached into his belt purse and handed it to him. The bloodstains on the broken bit of shaft still attached to it had turned black.
    Thero clasped it in his left hand and looked over at Seregil. “This should work.”
    “Good. I’m getting a stiff neck looking over my shoulder so much.”
    Thero looped the reins over the saddlebow, pressed the arrowhead between his hands, and closed his eyes. The first thing he saw was Alec, thanks to the blood, which he was adept at reading. Things would be much simpler if some of the original archer’s blood was on it, but no such luck. Instead he had a brief, vague impression of a tall man on a tall white horse, traveling across a snowy field. Thero set free the wizard eye and experienced a moment of dizziness as his perception changed to that of a bird, flying high above the surrounding terrain. He saw the inn behind them, and the muddy roads. Moving west, he scanned left and right for signs of riders, but the only ones he found were clearly Skalans abroad on business.
    “Nothing, I’m afraid. No sign of pursuit,” he told them, massaging his forehead with two fingers to ease the dull ache there. “They could have given up, or you killed them.”
    “Or they’re holed up somewhere, licking their wounds,” Seregil murmured, looking back over his shoulder again as they set off again.
    The Ebrados had found refuge in an abandoned cottage. Rane and Morai were still ill and Hâzadriën tended them as best he could, but the magic that had struck them down didn’t leave wounds on skin or bone.
    Turmay had been very quiet since it happened, not speaking or offering to play the oo’lu, but Rieser often caught thewitch with a distant look in his eyes, as if he could see far, far beyond this miserable redoubt. Still, for four days he said nothing at all.
    Then, on the morning of the fifth day, Turmay suddenly stood up and went to the door, oo’lu over one shoulder and his little bundle over the other.
    “What is it?” Rieser demanded, looking past the little man for signs of trouble.
    But the witch just glanced back at him and said, “Time to follow them,” as if they’d been talking about it all morning.
    As they set off, Turmay was suddenly talkative again. “This tayan’gil you seek? It is not like this one with you. Yours has a different feel, less powerful magic than the little one. The other tayan’gils your clan guards are the same as this one, mute and harmless. But this other?”
    “You mean he’s not a real tayan’gil?”
    “I don’t say that, only that he’s not the same as Hâzadriën or his brothers. He is something different.”
    “Either he is or he isn’t!”
    Turmay looked up at him, black eyes suddenly bottomless. “No. And you must catch him.”
    “Of course! That’s why we’re here, leagues from our valley, with a man dead,” Rieser snapped. “This is no time to talk in riddles!”
    Rieser waited impatiently for the witch to explain himself, but Turmay lapsed back into his frustrating silence for the rest of the day and refused to answer any questions.
    Alec had seen Skala’s long mountainous spine many times, but only from a distance. Now he felt a thrill of anticipation as they neared the head of the trail named for the famous queen. He’d seen her statue in the Cirna Canal—a grim and determined figure in gown and breastplate, sword raised in protection of the ships passing before her. He tried to imagine Tamír as she must have looked going to war, and no older than he’d been when he first met Seregil. The thought