Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,42
the tactic offered something, for at night such a breakaway trail would be harder to find, and it would slow them a little as they would not want to bypass it. That could make all the difference, for an hour or two of rest would freshen their own four horses and add speed to their legs if the pursuit quickened during the next day.
They saw little. A long way behind them were campfires. They sprang to life in a blaze, and there were many of them. If elugs and Azan were gathering like that over the length of the Graèglin Dennath their army would be massive.
For the first time Lanrik felt doubt. He doubted they would escape Elù-Randùr without a fight. He doubted their ability to overthrow Ebona, and he doubted that Esgallien, even warned and prepared, could survive against the tide of war coming to drown it.
He felt fate at work, the same fate that had been averted when all this began. There would be no Lathmai this time though, and no slowing down of the army. It would not work a second time, nor would it matter if it did. What most needed doing was the overthrow of Ebona, for something greater even than Esgallien was at stake. Should her power wax on the sacrifice of entire armies, should she grow until her strength was unassailable, all Alithoras would fall before her.
15. Long have We Waited
They rode well into the night. Sometimes they led the horses by hand to ease their burden, sometimes they trotted them and occasionally they pushed them hard where the ground was smooth and soft.
They stayed on the trail of the other riders for some while, but Lanrik knew that he could not do this for long. Travelling eastward was not getting them closer to the Raithlin, or to home.
The night was getting old when he found some suitable ground to change direction. The grass was dry and short, the earth hard and void of the type of rocks that might turn beneath a hoof and leave evidence of their passing.
He slowed their pace to a walk. “Time to turn north,” he said.
They followed him off the trail. The horses left very few signs, though a keen eye would mark them. A long while he kept his mount to a walk, ensuring that the hooves made no deep imprints even when the earth grew softer again.
They held the horses at a walk for nearly half a mile before they trotted again, and the night grew cold about them. The stars shone bright above, and from somewhere far away came the long and drawn out call of an aurochs. It was a reassuring sound. Galenthern was a place that Lanrik knew, and he had friends here. He only hoped that they had not been forced to abandon the arranged meeting place.
Dawn was not yet come, but it was approaching when they settled down to rest. Lanrik led them to a grove of stunted trees. It offered little cover, for the trunks were half-dead and the branches bare of most of their leaves. But it gave shelter from the sun and a degree of protection from prying eyes.
When they had dismounted, rubbed down their horses and fed them a little grain, Lanrik sat down wearily and looked at the lòhren.
“How long do you think we have?”
Aranloth gazed southward, as though his eyes might penetrate the veil of night.
“Not long. Perhaps only a few hours before we see them. They’ll have good horses – and Elù-Randùr won’t spare them.”
“But even the best horses have to rest.”
“That’s so. But we’d better eat now and get some brief sleep. We’ll risk not having a watch, I think, for there’ll be no time to rotate a guard. I’d say we have until mid-morning at best.”
It was a cheerless breakfast of dried meat. They ate the leathery strips quickly, tough ribbons both smoky and salty, with their eyes turned to the dark bulk of the Graèglin Dennath and the shadowy grasslands before it. When dawn came, the sun shot fiery color across the muted plains.
After that, they slept, if sleep it could be called. The heat started again, though it was not so bad as yesterday. Flies were a nuisance, clinging to hands and faces. Only pulling up their hoods gave relief, but that made them hotter. And all the while the sense of foreboding that had started when they came down the mountains continued to build.
They rested little more than