Wild Card 25

The encampment knoll was more solid than the other had been; Kurik spent some time digging carefully to discover that a massive, somewhat porous stone of immense size was supporting the mound. Parts of it looked almost like bubbles of soap turned to stone.

Ulath grunted, poking a finger at one of the vacuous holes, its edges delicate and sharp. "What kind of rock looks like that?" he wondered.

"Pummice stones. Lamork women use them for something to do with their feet, I understand. You see them sometimes around Pelosia and Lamorkand," Kalten replied. "Mostly fist sized things - or smaller - that have been worn down by wind and rain. Never seen one this big; all that dirt must have protected it?" he said speculatively.

"We have more important things than that to worry about," Sparhawk pointed out. "Kurik, is the stone solid enough to hold up our camp safely?"

"It'll hold," Kurik answered, brushing dirt off his shovel to inspect the edge critically where it had scraped against the stone. Absently, he waved a hand at his excavation. "Most of the exterior holes are filled in with packed in dirt; I had to brush these holes out just to make the stone more discernable. The soil will support the rock and keep it from collapsing, if I'm any judge."

"Then it'll keep til we can send some scholars up here after we've completed our mission." Sparhawk turned and trudged up the slope of the hillock towards the fire, still listening as the others talked.

"Whose turn is it to cook?" asked Tynian brightly, rubbing his hands eagerly in anticipation.

"Yours," Ulath said flatly after a moment.

Tynian looked affronted, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. "My dear Ulath! Do you know of which you ask? I fear my culinary genius might be too... stirring... for our humble camp." Sephrenia grimaced, and Kurik groaned. Ulath simply maintained a long suffering, level stare at Tynian as the Alcione knight continued, "We wouldn't want to overwhelm everyone's senses, nor put them in a state of longing for my cooking on the eve of battle! Perhaps a less... seasoned... individual should take up the ladle in my stead?"

Sephrenia groaned softly, while Kurik just shook his head Ulath maintained a long-suffering, level stare, utterly unmoved by the Alcione knight's theatrics. Sephrenia turned and stalked up the slope towards the fire, muttering darkly about the travesty of the Elene language that it could allow such things. "Dinner," Ulath said evenly. "Get to it."

Tynian threw up his hands in mock exasperation. "So be it; on your head may the consequences fall from our soup-erior repast this night!"

Kalten snorted, trying and failing to suppress his chuckle, and threw a harmless clod of dirt at the Alcione knight, who dodged it with a grin.

Next to Sparhawk at the fire, Berit was looking past the others toward the berm, uninvested in their banter. "Will it hold?" Berit wondered softly, almost to himself.

Whether Berit intended so or not, Sparhawk had heard him. He tossed a piece of firewood onto the fire, nudging the coals into it. "Not likely," Sparhawk said with a shrug. "Not really what they're there for. They're to slow the Seeker's thralls down, give us time to respond, gather in force, or secure an escape. Buying us time, that's all."

Berit blushed and turned his head straight forward, staring into the fire. "Sorry, Sir Sparhawk, I just-"

"You were assessing the battlefield," Sparhawk replied as Tynian walked up with the stewpot. Sparhawk continued, his voice low but calm. "You're asking the right question. I wouldn't hold that against you. But to answer it plainly: the earthworks aren't fortifications; they're not designed to hold the enemy off. That," he met Berit's gaze, "is our job."

Berit swallowed, then nodded, visibly squaring his shoulders and looking Sparhawk in the eye. "Understood, Sir Sparhawk."

Tynian, having hung the stewpot, aimed a smile at Berit. "Worry not about earthworks and walls, young Berit! I recall a time during my own novitiate, when Sir Reginald the Rash took to cooking a grand dessert for visiting clergy, a gastronomic ambition that far exceeds my own modest efforts this night!"

As he began to fill the stewpot with cut jerky, turnips, and potatoes, Tynian launched into a wildly exaggerated tale involving a stablemaster, a visiting archprelate, and a dessert so poorly cooked that it fled the dinner table in a rush that left the archprelate wearing more of the pudding than remained to flee the refectory. The story progressed into a highly improbable chase scene that left the pudding recounting its last words in a recitation suitable to theatric tragedy while the archprelate brushed the dessert from his robes and the stablemaster desperately attempted to set upright all the knocked over stalls in the market.

By the time the tale had finished, dinner was ready - and the stew, when served, proved to be a far more mediocre affair than Tynian's boasts had implied, serviceable, but bland. When Kalten pointed this out, Tynian merely laughed, waving a dismissive hand. "Precisely as intended, dear Kalten! It is my knightly duty to ensure no one is distracted by halcyon memories of glorious meals past come morning. A clear mind is a sharp mind when facing foul creatures, wouldn't you agree?" Ulath merely grunted and took for himself another scrape of the last dregs of stew in the pot.

Two days passed. The tension, initially sharp, began to dull somewhat, mixed in with unease and uncertainty. Sephrenia's concoction sat useless in its barrel. There was no sign of the Seeker nor its thralls.

Flute, seemingly unafected by the pervasive anxiety, drifted down the hillock to wander among the hobbled horses grazing the surrounding area. She moved among the animals with an ease and grace that seemed unnatural for a child, her small hands offering handfuls of oats or simply patting a muzzle of one or another of the animals that towered over her. Sometimes, she would perch herself on the shoulders of one of the horses, her pipes pressed to her lips. Grass stained feet tapped time to the melodies she played, clear and pristine notes that echoed hauntingly through the hazy air. The horses, though restless from the recent hard ride, stood still as she played, ears flicked forward, and at least one eye watching over the tiny girl. Faran in particular stepped closer to her, tilting his head as though listening intently, his ordinary ornery demeanor completely absent.

Bevier watched these scenes from the camp above, his expression deeply troubled, his hand occasionally drifting to the medallion about his neck. Sparhawk was honing his sword carefully with assistance from Kurik, but given Sparhawk's participation in the process was decidedly passive, it left him plenty of attention to observe Bevier's watchfulness. Talen was lazing about on the grass but Sparhawk spotted one eye only half closed on the boy.

Kurik, too, had noticed Bevier's vigil. "She does have a way with the horses, doesn't she?" Kurik commented.

"It is... disquieting," Bevier acknowledged. "I can find no heresy in the act of playing pipes near horses, no doctrine to guide or caution me, and yet... there is a way about her. She almost seems more than can be real. Outside the natural order of things." Bevier glanced to Kurik. "Does that make sense?"

Kurik shrugged. "She's gentle enough, and doesn't make sudden movements. Not much surprise that the horses get on well with her, especially when she feeds them."

Talen, obviously noting Bevier's anxiousness, got up to his feet, easing himself down the slope and over the berm. "Hey, Flute," he called out softly, warily watching the horses as they turned eyes towards him with considerably less affability than they favored the little girl right now, "It's getting dark. Time to come back up. Sephrenia's probably got some broth or something resembling food." He glanced around at the fading light, and added, "Safer up here, too. Less exposed."

Flute lowered her pipes, fixing Talen with her unnervingly direct gaze. A strange expression crossed her features, one that was hard for Sparhawk to decipher. She didn't move. One of the larger geldings nudged her shoulder gently with its nose.

Talen sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Suit yourself. But if a giant... badger, or whatever, comes out of the darkness, don't say I didn't warn you." He turned and half walked, half climbed up the slope. As he drew close, he gave Bevier an apologetic shrug. "She's nice and all, but a little spooky, too," he mumbled, although he still wore an expression of concern. "Just asking for trouble, hanging out there after dark."

Sephrenia approached the campfire with a grim look on her face. "As I feared, the mixture is all but inert. The potency of the vapors has faded too far to kill the Seeker. It's little more than ordinary tar, now."

Sparhawk stared into the flames, his expression grim. "Where is it?" he muttered darkly.

Berit, polishing his shield nearby, looked up. "Could we have... lost it, somehow, Sir Sparhawk? Shaken it off our trail?"

"I hope not," Sparhawk answered with a shake of his head. "I'm not fond of the idea of that creature wandering the countryside, snatching up people until it finds us."

Sephrenia shook her head. "It's very unlikely. The Seeker is a hunter, designed specifically to track down fleeing humans. Few tricks fool it for long. Its tenacity and its array of abilities are all bent towards that purpose."

Talen, whittling a stick from the front of one of the tents, spoke up. "Remember what Platime said: when somebody stops chasing you for no reason, keep an eye out in front of you as well as behind you."

"That's twice you've said that," Kalten commented.

"Still applies, though, don't it?" Talen responded with little of his usual cheery glibness.

"... Kurik. How are the horses?" Sparhawk asked, looking over to his squire.

Kurik shrugged. "I'd prefer to give them another day - we've ridden them hard for a while, now - but as long as the pace isn't too harsh and we rest them more regularly, they can get by. They're fed, watered, shoes checked with nothing loose or dangerously worn. They're fit enough for travel."

"I don't want to wait another day," Sparhawk said flatly. "Even if the Seeker isn't near, Martel is still out there, potentially with a third of the manpower in Kadach behind him. We leave first light. Get some sleep - the vacation is over in the morning."

Kurik woke them all an hour before dawn. The stars were obscured by a blanket of cloud, whose thickness was hard to gauge in the pre-dawn sky. The occasional drizzle of the last several days had progressed into full-on rain. The fire's coals, dampened by the precipitation, were feeble and unable to light fresh wood before it got so wet that it provided more smoke than heat or light. Only the prospect of having to break camp in full darkness prevented Sparhawk from kicking dirt over the coals to be done with it. The ten of them packed their kit as quickly they could in the discomfort and inconvenience of the rain.

Kalten was vocal about it. "How convenient! So now that we're leaving an at least partially fortified position, we can be more vulnerable to the Seeker in the rain. I'd have hated to be chased down like a rabbit on a nice, warm, sunny day."

"The rain complicates matters for the Seeker as well," Sephrenia pointed out, lifting Flute onto her mare and mounting up behind her, pulling the girl into herself. Flute had staunchly refused to wear the oiled wool cloak Sparhawk had offered her, and instead wore her simple shift and bare feet, all traces of the mud rinsing away quickly in the rain to leave only bare toes behind, still inexplicably grass stained. Sephrenia continued, "Scent washes away quickly, and rain muddles track in the earth - although with this many horses, there is little hope of concealing our passage even in a downpour."

Almost as though summoned by her commentary, the rain suddenly intensified, going from steady to torrential in less than half a minute. Kurik sighed heavily. "Would have been more convenient to stock up on fresh water if this had happened yesterday. We might want to wait out the storm." Distantly, thunder rumbled. Kurik scowled. "Never mind, that. If there's going to be lightning we need to get off the high ground immediately."

Sparhawk shook his head, the sheeting water streaming into his eyes. "Even if the storm wasn't coming, we can't delay any longer. We'll just have to endure."

Bevier mounted up, his pack secured to his horse,

Tynian clapped Kalten on the shoulder, although his usual smile was a bit strained. "Perhaps this is all to wash away the lingering disappointment of our bad luck with the trap! A clean slate, as it were." Tynian's smile faded, as he glanced up. "Admittedly, though, a dry slate would have been preferable."

"Less talk, more movement," Ulath commented, already mounted and watching Sparhawk for his next cue. He wearing a fur cloak that shed the rain far better than an oiled cloak.

Sparhawk suppressed a bit of envy as he felt a trail of water trickling past his collar and the back of his neck to draw an icy line down his spine. "Ulath's right. The faster we get going, the better." Panning his gaze across them, everything was packed, and everyone was on horseback. "Talen, Tynian, you're point with me, Talen between us. Ulath, Kalten, guard our flanks. Berit, Bevier, bring up the rear. Kurik, Sephrenia, you're in the center." His voice was strong, audible even above the sound of the rain. "Keep sharp. Sound off if you see anything. As Talen pointed out, it could just as easily be laying in wait for us ahead as it might be pursuing us from behind. Eyes open, eyes everywhere. Let's move."

He nudged Faran forward. The ground was already wet, sucking mud that pulled at the horses' hooves and slowed their progress to a trudging walk, leaving their temporary resting place behind them.


The terrain was painfully dreary and repetitive, composed mostly of swampy scrubland dotted occasionally with farms in slightly less oppressive spots. More than a few of the farms had apparently failed, their wood and mud huts in disrepair, their fields overgrown with scrub and bush and weed. It was affecting everyone's mood; Tynian's cheerful banter had fallen mostly flat and he'd barely said anything at all today. Ulath was sinking deeper into morose glowering as he watched his flank of the procession, one hand fidgeting with the handle of his battle axe. Bevier was mumbling prayers under his breath, Berit was listless and subdued, and even Flute had barely played a peep through her pipes. The only one who seemed unaffected was Sephrenia, although her moods could be painfully inscrutable when she didn't feel like being open.

Although Kalten's complaints and mutterings were often annoying, everyone was feeling the tension from the uncertainty now. It was about mid morning four days into their ride when he suddenly blurted out, "Where IS that damned Seeker?! Bad enough the thing gave us no rest, but now it decides to go do something else?"

It wasn't a bad question, Sparhawk reflected. And, judging by the brief looks passed between the others, he was voicing what everyone was thinking.

"We don't exactly have a weapon against it; isn't it a good thing that it's not bothering us?" Talen pointed out, glancing nervously ahead.

Ulath grunted, shifting in his saddle and looking pensive but not volunteering anything. Kurik, barely five feet from him, said, "You had something to add?"

"Maybe," Ulath replied, still scanning his side of their formation. His finger tapped at the handle of his axe almost as though he was trying to reassure himself that it was still there. "Maybe we HAD a weapon, but left it behind."

The statement was carefully neutral in its tone, but Sparhawk could still hear the reproach in the words themselves. Apparently, so could Kurik. "You mean Anthon," Kurik said.

Ulath's fingers stilled briefly, before he set his shoulders and nodded. "I mean Anthon."

Nobody was looking directly at Sparhawk, but nobody really had to. It didn't feel particularly fair to him - that had been more Sephrenia's decision, even if he hadn't much liked the idea of bringing Anthon anyway. With the perspective of looking back, Sparhawk was forced to admit that he had perhaps been both unnecessarily harsh and hostile towards the portly old man. Anthon had done nothing adversarial; his every action even of his own free will had been taken to help them. To help him. Anthon had brewed that mixture which had assuredly saved Sparhawk's life, helped Sparhawk escape Cimmura in the wake of the uproar caused by Anthon's arrival, and in general had been mostly inoffensive. Uncomfortably, Sparhawk was reminded about how adamantly Anthon had argued against bringing the children along on a dangerous mission, especially while he was being left behind.

"The Younger Gods don't like changes in ventures such as these," Sephrenia reminded them all. She flinched back and wiped at where a raindrop had struck her in the eye before continuing, "We were ten when we began this venture, and we must remain the same ten every step of the way."

Flute glanced up at Sephrenia and sighed, looking more than a little annoyed. As always, though, no words passed her lips, even if the short tune she played on her pipes sounded almost derisive. Sephrenia looked down at the girl with an expression that verged on surprised, before she set her posture almost mulishly. "Sudden changes disturb the Younger Gods," she insisted. "And it's too late now to do anything about it."

Sparhawk's memory tickled at him, and he thought back to when he'd last seen the man. What was it he'd said? Give an order from afar and he'd hear it? Something like that. "Might not be too late," Sparhawk commented, frowning a little.

"Sparhawk, leave him where he is," Sephrenia said, her features slowly progressing to a scowl. "No good can come of using his magic."

The statement caught everyone off guard. Bevier favored her with a troubled look, Tynian a sober frown, Ulath a raised eyebrow, and even Kurik looked like he wanted to check Sephrenia for a fever. "I think that's tirst time I've ever heard you recommend against magic, little mother," Kalten blurted out.

"I don't advocate against magic, just HIS magic," Sephrenia responded archly. Her lips were tight and Sparhawk would have sworn he saw a tic in her temple. "There is always a price to be paid for power, and we still don't have the faintest clue what price he - or those he is surrounded by - is paying for his."

"His magic isn't anything like ours," Sparhawk pointed out. "We already knew that."

"There is ALWAYS a price," Sephrenia insisted. She almost looked... worried?

"Indentured servitude, being ripped away from his world and his family for at least that long, isn't a steep enough price?" Kalten asked plainly.

"No," Sephrenia said flatly, although her misgivings were becoming more apparent.

"Then what WOULD be enough?" Bevier asked quietly. His voice seemed soft, but his words cut through the gentle patter of the rain. "Selling his soul? Sacrificing the innocent? Throwing our world on an altar to his strange, foreign gods? What do you think would be enough for the power he has? Do you honestly think he could contend with the will of one of the Younger Gods? All of the Younger Gods? All of the gods of our world?"

"He's not a god," Sephrenia said derisively. "Just an old fool meddling with magics without knowing what he's doing."

"Then what does it matter?" Tynian asked, suddenly voicing his fatigue with the topic. "He's dangerous. So are we. And his magic doesn't use communion with any gods, right? So if he can't contend with the gods, then he can't contend with the magic the gods grant us either. So all this is a pointless discussion." Tynian huffed irritably, and snapped his reins, signalling his discontent with the conversation by urging his mount forward a few horse lengths to remove himself from it.

Ulath looked on towards the Alcione knight with obvious concern. "Enough talking, maybe?"

A silence fell over their procession. Ordinarily, in times like these, Tynian would volunteer a cheery and improbably tale to lift everyone's spirits, but in his agitation there was nobody to fill his place.

As they trudged onward in silence, Sparhawk pondered their path ahead. Ideally, keeping Anthon out of the way as a backup plan in case they failed to retrieve the Bhelliom was a sensible choice. He seemed confident he could heal the Queen of the poison which threatened her life. But really, was any of that more than an excuse? Even Sephrenia's protests had been less impactful on his wish to leave Anthon behind. All of it was secondary to the inconvenient and uneasy fact that Sparhawk had a slave for a year, one who couldn't even protest his servitude, and Sparhawk did not like how it made him feel. Not merely because it was awkward and distressing, but because part of Sparhawk could see Anthon becoming a very useful... tool.

And Sparhawk didn't like what that might say about him at all.