extortion will leave us free rein.’ Prime Selidie savoured the moment, the ruined, claw fingers masked under silk a gall she would never forgive. At long last she was granted the wedge to sunder clan hierarchy and thwart the Fellowship’s compact. ‘Make my palanquin ready. I intend to lead the order’s relief for the war in East Halla myself.’
Forthmark’s peeress gasped, swept to epiphany as the telling facts behind Selidie’s eagerness finally slid into place. ‘S’Brydion never sundered the terms of the charter!’
‘I should live for the day!’ Selidie loosed a satisfied laugh. ‘This time, my sisters, the Fellowship Sorcerers have fully and finally tied their own hands.’
Asandir’s lawful sanction had affirmed Rathain’s prince. The royal oath of succession, and the formal, initiate ceremony at Etarra had sealed the authority of crown rule. Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn, and no one else, possessed the right to prosecute Jeynsa’s betrayal.
Soon after Jeynsa s’Valerient made her fateful pact with Alestron, the Master of Shadow left the black dunes of Sanpashir behind. He journeyed alone, his mood knife-edged from the delicate persuasion needed to detach his escort of tribal dartmen. Fourteen days on foot through inhospitable terrain had done little to restore his hale strength. Still thin, worn yet in spirit, he bought their protective release by accepting a quiver of darts and a blow-tube. The knife at his belt was for hunting, not ambush. For cover, he preferred to weave shadow.
Few ventured the brush to the east of the waste. Where tribal tradition bordered upon the proscribed territory kept under clan vigilance, the road-bound silk caravans went heavily armed. Town dispatches were carried by pigeon.
Arithon crossed into those wilds, unseen. The dusky weave of his borrowed robe melted into the scrub. He carried his lyranthe slung from a strap and paced his progress with patience. At twilight, he buried the tribe’s gifted weapons, and more carefully disposed of the poison phial, transmuting the toxin through magecraft. Then he crouched in a thorn brake, seized his moment, and slipped unnoticed across the baked ruts of the trade-road that carved inland towards the walled settlement at Atchaz.
By nightfall, the evergreen fringes of Selkwood closed over him. The milder breeze lost its flint, reclothed in the pungency of pine resin. Arithon lit no torch. Light-footed by nature, he moved without sound over the dense mat of needles. Such care bought no safety. The most furtive intrusion would draw the rapacious notice of Alland’s patrolling clan scouts.
Since Arithon was tired, and efficiency mattered, he leaned on a tree by a game trail and settled to wait.
He was seen by starlight in under an hour, then challenged at weapon’s point by three strapping men and a woman bristling with knives. To judge by the game bag bulging with pigeons, the party was inbound from a raid to intercept Alliance dispatches.
Arithon showed empty hands and gave them his name.
The armed scouts stood down. Unlike his previous visits to Shand, his slight stature received their combative respect.
‘Not Kyrialt,’ they admitted, when he asked whose gossip had made free with his reputation. ‘It’s the vixen wife with the runaway tongue. If you’re wanting to flay her for that, we’ll take wagers.’
Arithon laughed. ‘With odds on the woman, dare I suggest?’
A flash of teeth in the surrounding dark, as the rambunctious speaker grinned back. ‘What, trust a redhead for mild behaviour?’
The ringleader bearing the day’s feathered trophies added his rueful shrug. ‘The she-fox has scarcely been married two months. No sign yet, the husband can handle her.’
Night-singing crickets filled the slight pause. Still being measured, and fighting the stress of foot travel that spent his reserves, the Master of Shadow forestalled further by-play. ‘I bring urgent news for your High Earl. A guide to his lodging at speed would be welcomed.’
He was not to be humoured. Too many pairs of sharp eyes assessed him. A soft swish of leather bespoke a hand signal exchanged out of sight. Then the ranking scout said, ‘The outpost is four days’ brisk journey from here. We will rest in the open and send on a runner. Can I hazard a guess that you’re famished?’
Lent such grace, Rathain’s prince gave his grateful assent. He managed the league’s hike they could not spare, for safety, to a ravine deep enough to risk fire. While the scouts shed their gear, Arithon sat. He fell asleep, tucked up in the folds of his tribal robe, before the coals roasted the day’s by-catch of messenger birds.
Much later, he wakened. The rocky surrounds, curtained over with ivy, glinted dull orange by flame-light. His escort of four now had additional company. A milling commotion of horses mingled with the muted talk of the arrivals. They already knew they were hosting a prince: from the awkward instant he opened his eyes, they were on him like hawks, falling over themselves to share their savoury stew and hard biscuit.
‘Luhaine advised us you might not be hale,’ somebody mentioned, then hastened, ‘We have been told, your Grace. The cost of your victory came hard, at Etarra.’
Arithon recoiled from hands that would help him erect. Swore under his breath and tossed off the blanket a presumptuous nurse-maid left tucked around his thin shoulders. Embarrassed by the attention fixed on him, to see how he meant to respond, he bent his head and accepted the hot food with a nod, since his voice was not going to be trustworthy. Bad enough, that the lady who offered the bowl could not miss the humiliation. His fingers were chilled to the bone, and not steady, despite the sultry air of high summer.
He managed to spoon down the broth without shaking. The meat was fresh venison, not tough shreds of pigeon, which bespoke a skilled hunter’s foraging. Only a churl would not finish the meal. When the bowl was scraped clean, the raw streak of dawn glimmered through the trees above the ravine. Eager hands had his lyranthe strapped to a saddle ring. Another scout steadied the horse. Someone else, deferent, hovered nearby should the prince need assistance to mount.
Arithon stood. He shook out his robe, swung astride without help, took the reins with a nod to the handler. He delivered his thanks with a masterbard’s tongue. Then he salvaged his chafed dignity by clapping his heels to the gelding and setting a brutal pace.
The forest clans that served Alland’s free wilds were practised at seamless efficiency. They kept swift horses, sited throughout the forest for riding fast relays. Noon saw them remounted for the third time, while zealous youngsters stripped the gear from their spent string, now blowing and streaming white lather.
Each rider was handed a pouch of jerked meat and dried fruit. They ate astride and shared a flask of Sanshevas rum, driving on at speed through the sun-slashed pines, with the chatter of sparrows stilled in the midday heat. At the fourth change of horses, Arithon lost his balance on dismount. Only the fist in his mare’s steaming mane kept him on his unsteady feet.
‘Your Grace,’ a deferent voice ventured, behind. Someone else’s hand gripped his robe and braced his awkward weight upright.
‘Do you make the same allowance for toddlers?’ Arithon gasped through clenched teeth.
The scout laughed. ‘Would you rather sit down arse first in fresh horse-piss? I thought not,’ he added, as the prince’s knees gave.
Past rejoinder, the Teir’s’Ffalenn slid into strong arms, dropped as though felled by a potion.
They installed him under the shade of a tent and eased fevered flesh with a compress. An elder whose lineage was practised with herbals was summoned away from the watch-post. She arrived with her remedies, measured his pulse, and, with talented hands, scanned his aura. His collapse was declared the effect of exhaustion, foolishly pushed past the edge. ‘Whoever attended this man in Sanpashir ought to have chained him in bed.’
‘Tried, no doubt,’ said the captain of horse, his head poked in through the tent-flap. ‘Simpler to rein in Dharkaron’s Black Chariot. If we paused for rest, that devilsome royal threw away sense and outstripped