The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,72

can show you where the food is. Gather as much as you can carry. She is wise and trusting, and she knows that forest evil does not walk in the sunlight.”

***

At daybreak, Ilbran watched as Kallan tried to coax his horse down the steps.

“No,” he said, when Ilbran would have offered his help. “I’ll lure him myself.” It was a difficult task, but he accomplished it at last.

“How do you win such an animal as that?” Ilbran asked.

“They run in the hills beyond the eastern forest. But this one I gained in a simpler way. Sarayo, my own, was shot from under me—some archer too clumsy to aim at the rider.

“This one was the speediest of my pursuers, but not trained as a war horse should be—he gave his rider no protection. The man had been a comrade of mine, I thought, but he turned hunter easily enough, once there was a price on my head. It was unlucky for him that his horse was the fastest to reach me first.”

His tone of easy unconcern sickened Ilbran. Kallan did not seem to perceive that. He patted the horse’s muzzle. “They are foolish creatures; and all men are the same to them. This one runs swifter than any I have seen, though.”

He walked back up the steps, drew out his dagger, and knelt to smear the threshold with his blood. “I lived in forest villages for some years, when I was young. They taught me this.”

“I know the custom,” Ilbran said. “I will wait for you three days, then come in search of you.”

“Do not be a fool,” Kallan said. “What if I find her sick of some childish fever, too ill to travel? What if Alonsar goes lame and I must rest him for some days? Scores of things might delay me. There is food enough for you to gather in the clearing. Wait patiently for us. It would be a pretty matter for a minstrel’s tragedy if we set out at last, only to find your body lying in our path—what was left of it—eaten flesh and soul.”

And so he left, leaving Ilbran to pace the clearing from one side to the other, to think on the past, which brought him no joy, and think on the future, which brought him little more.

He had gone into the forest, because he had no other choice. He had killed Malesa, because he had no other choice. He had trusted his child to a bloody-handed stranger, because he had no other choice.

It seemed as though, all his life, he had walked on the one road he was allowed. There had been one decision to be made—so long ago—to save Andiene or betray her—and the grizane had told him that both paths led to the same end.

He tried to think ahead. What could he do, once he and Kare were free of the forest? He could try to find his way to Carvalon. What had the grizane said? He had babbled of dragons, but little else that could be understood. The message he had been charged with was six years old and dead, even if it had ever been more than a dying man’s fantasy.

And though the thought of Carvalon had seemed a refuge once, now the memory of the grizane’s magic chilled him. Though blind, he had seen to work his charms. Ilbran thought of Kare in fear and dread. Indeed, she had half her mother’s blood in her. He would keep her far from the taste and taint of sorcery.

Chapter 15

The trunks of the lindel trees showed clearly through the gaps in the forest. Kallan dismounted, spoke softly to his horse, and knotted the reins around a low-hanging branch. He glanced up at the sun; it had not quite reached the peak of the sky.

Reluctantly, he took off his metal cap. He pulled off his ring-mail still more reluctantly. Since the day that he first saw the king’s mistrust of him, he had not put off that mail, waking or sleeping. That wariness had saved his life.

His hair was wet; his tunic and trousers of felted lanara clung damply to him. Though the breeze blew lightly, it chilled him as though he stood in the northern snow. The space between his shoulder blades felt cold and naked.

He kept his sword and dagger—he would not disarm himself to seem harmless. No child was worth such risk. As he went forward, he tried to glance from side to side, to cover his back.