Book 2: Chapter Fifteen

Present day…

“It looks like you were right,” Fiodor said. The burly driver brought his team of draft horses to a halt, then signaled to the other wagon behind him. “How did you know? The sky was completely clear four hours ago, and I didn’t see any signals from the towers.”

Sarette shrugged. The snowfall had been growing steadily heavier for the last hour. “I just knew,” she said, not wanting to discuss it with a stranger. “Let’s get the sleds and supplies unloaded so we can get on our way. Will you be able to get the wagons back to Snow Crown?”

“We’ll have to see how deep it gets. We may need to camp out here for a few days.”

She nodded. The group had hired the two teamsters to haul the sleds and supplies out to Tarvist Pass, since there was no snow on the valley floor and they couldn’t pull the sleds without it. Once they’d reached the road, the snow had been shallow enough for the wagons to keep going, so they’d paid the men extra to continue on. Now, though, the snow was up to a foot deep and continuing to fall, and Fiodor didn’t want to risk injuring the horses.

The teamsters had thought they’d be able to get the group all the way through the pass, and then at least a hundred miles south before having to turn back, but Sarette had sensed a heavy storm coming in that morning. They still had twenty miles to go before they were out of the mountains, and that would take them at least a full day of travel pulling the sleds. Probably more than a day—it was flat ground, but the outsiders weren’t accustomed to wearing snowshoes, and the sleds would get tiring after a few hours.

Fiodor climbed into the back of his wagon and lifted out one of the light sleds, then passed it to Sarette over the side.

“Let me get the other side,” Corec said, coming up behind her. He helped her steady the sled, and together, they set it down on its runners on the snow-covered road.

Sarette smiled her thanks. The warden hadn’t made a decision yet about bonding her, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether she wanted him to say yes or no. She’d always wanted to be a stormrunner, but leaving home would be a big step. She’d seen Ironholt from a distance once, but the only time she’d actually left the Storm Heights had been a trip to Lanport with her family when she was younger.

Gregor approached, the weathered scout already wearing his skis and a light travel pack. There was a long, smooth, waxed ski on his left foot, meant for gliding, and his right foot was strapped onto a shorter ski covered in animal skin, that he’d use to push himself along. He carried a tall pole to help control his direction.

“I’ll be heading out now,” he said in the stormborn language. “Are you coming with me?”

“I’ll stay with the outsiders,” she replied in the same language. “They’re not used to traveling in deep snow, and I think they’ll need some help with the sleds.”

They’d brought five sleds, and enough food for a month. The plan was to regularly resupply in the human villages that lined the foothills between the mountains and the plains. That way, they’d have extra food in case they got lost.

The weight of the supplies might be a problem, though. Paradoxically, the narrow sleds were more efficient when pulled by a single person, but Sarette suspected that not everyone in the group had the strength and endurance to haul one for long. For that matter, she’d have to be careful with how heavily she loaded her own sled, since she intended to leave her chainmail on it. The mail weighed twenty-five pounds by itself, and the bulk of that weight hung directly on her shoulders. It would be too exhausting to wear it and pull a sled at the same time. Her coat would still provide some protection if they were attacked.

Gregor nodded. “All right. I’m leaving my crossbow with you. It’s too much trouble to carry while I’m skiing.”

“You’re not taking a weapon?”

“I have my dagger and a sling. That’s all I usually bring. I’ll head to the end of the pass, then return to find where you’ve set up camp. The western watchtowers haven’t reported any issues along the Tarvist Road, but I’ll make sure we don’t run into anything unexpected. How far do you expect to get before stopping?”

The day was already half over. “Ten miles at the most,” Sarette said. “While you’re out, could you check the snow in the foothills? If it’s not deep enough, we’ll have problems with the sleds.”

“I will. Do you know signal code?”

“Yes,” she said, slipping a mirror out of her pocket to show him. “But it won’t do much good if this storm doesn’t pass.” Signal code worked best when the sun was shining.

“You may be able to signal the nearest tower at night using a campfire, as long as it’s not snowing too much, but it’s hard to get the signalman’s attention that way. They can’t always tell the difference between signal code and the flickering of the fire.”

Sarette already knew that, but just said, “I’ll try it if I need to.”

“Twenty miles out and ten back,” Gregor said. “If I make it back tonight, it’ll be close to midnight. If not, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Fair travels.”

“And to you. Good luck with the outsiders.”

#

Treya had been pulling a sled behind her for two hours. She was starting to feel the strain in her thighs, but it wasn’t as awkward as she’d thought it would be. In each hand, she held a loop tied at the end of a lead rope. The lead ropes were tied back to the joints where the sled’s runners met the brush bow in the front. The setup meant she could keep her arms even with her body as she walked.

The only problem was that if she pulled too hard on a downhill slope, the sled sometimes caught up with her, and the brush bow hit her in the back of the legs. Sarette had given her shorter lead ropes than everyone else, to cut down on the weight and the drag, but Treya decided to switch them out for longer ropes at the next opportunity.

She was musing about how long she’d be able to pull the sled, when Corec, who’d been at the tail end of the procession, drew even with her.

“How’s it going?” he asked, dragging his own sled behind him, which was more heavily loaded than hers. He didn’t show any signs of strain.

“I’ll be all right,” she replied. “I think Sarette gave me the lightest load, even though I’m supposed to switch off with Katrin. I’ll be sore tomorrow, though.”

“So will I. It’s been a while since I’ve done this. The knights used to make the trainees haul loads of firewood this way for exercise, even though they had oxen teams that could have handled it. I’m more worried about Bobo. Next time we stop, I may take some of his load and distribute it between my sled and Boktar’s.”

“Maybe Shavala and Ellerie could help him,” Treya said. Sarette hadn’t given the two elven women a sled.

“Maybe, but it’s tricky to have multiple people work together on one of these unless you put them in harness like mules, and something tells me they wouldn’t appreciate that.”

Treya laughed, imagining the sight. “The snowshoes are the problem anyway, more than the sleds. It’s my legs that are bothering me.”

“Are you ready to give Katrin a turn?”

“I’ll give it a little longer. I don’t know that taking turns will help—I’ll still be wearing the shoes.” It wasn’t just the snowshoes that were bothering her, but also the boots and her winter coat. A mystic needed to feel the world around her, and the extra layers weren’t helping. Perhaps she could learn the concentration techniques that Shana used to ignore the cold.

“The shoes are new to me, too,” Corec said. “We may need to take more breaks than Sarette had been planning on.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’ve been thinking about some of the things Yelena suggested.”

Treya glanced his way, wondering about the change in topic. “Yes?”

“You’ve mentioned before that the mystics in the Three Orders aren’t the same as concubines.”

“That’s right.”

“But I’ve also heard you say you trained with the concubines…”

“In some things,” Treya said warily. “Mother Ola wanted me to have something to fall back on if being a mystic didn’t work out.”

“If I’m going to take being a warden seriously, Yelena thinks I need to pay more attention to what’s going on elsewhere. She suggested that I should ask for your help. I know concubines handle a lot of correspondence, and they keep in touch with other concubines to stay up to date on the latest news. Is that something you learned how to do?”

Treya stopped moving and stared at him. “You want me to be your concubine?” she asked, startled. Behind her, Katrin burst out laughing.

Corec stopped too. “No! I mean, that wasn’t what I was talking about. I just meant helping with the correspondence and keeping track of things.” Treya suspected he’d be blushing if his face wasn’t already red from the cold.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, there’s no great trick to it. It’s just writing letters back and forth. But it takes time—maybe years—to build up a network of Sisters and other contacts, and the people you look for will depend on what sort of information you want to collect.”

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Katrin trudged past on her snowshoes, still snickering. “Don’t fall too far behind, you two.”

Treya shrugged at Corec and they resumed pulling their sleds before she continued speaking. “The King of Tyrsall’s concubine would correspond with a different group of people than, say, my friend Nallee, whose patron is a blacksmith in a village south of Four Roads. If she writes to anyone at all, it’s probably just someone who can give her a good deal on iron shipments.”

“But it’s something you can do?” Corec asked.

“Mystics don’t usually do it, other than keeping in touch with the chapter houses, but I suppose I could. What sort of information are you looking for?”

“I’m not entirely sure myself. Yelena seems to keep an eye on everything, but I don’t want to do things the same way she does. I guess we’ll just have to figure it out as we go.”

Treya started to get interested in the idea herself. It would give her something to do if she decided to stay in one place rather than travel. “There are Sisters of the Three Orders from Telfort to Tyrsall, and from Lanport down to Sanvara City. I don’t really know who keeps track of what, but there are people I could talk to about it. It can’t happen until we find a place to settle, though. The Sisters I write to need to know where to send a reply.”

“That makes sense,” Corec said, “but I don’t know where we’ll end up settling down yet. I keep coming back to the idea of Four Roads, or somewhere else in the free lands. That would be near a chapter house and the Terril Forest, and I prefer smaller towns anyway.”

“I don’t!” Katrin called back to them over her shoulder.

Treya laughed. “I’m from Four Roads originally. I wouldn’t mind going back, but I’m open to a larger city, too.”

Corec said, “The biggest problem with the free lands is finding jobs. We’re not going to get any bodyguard work there, so how do we support ourselves? I don’t plan to go back to working the caravans.”

“I don’t know. Shana does a job in the free lands every now and then, but not enough to keep her occupied all the time.”

“Well, it’s something to think about while we help Ellerie find Tir Yadar. Maybe we’ll find some other city along the way that everyone likes—there are still a lot of places we haven’t been to yet.”

#

Early the next morning, Ellerie bundled up her camp tent and tied it down to one of the sleds. She was wearing a travel pack for her clothing and personal items, but without their horses and mules to help carry the load, much of their gear had been distributed across the five sleds.

Sarette, Boktar, Bobo, and Corec had each been pulling a sled behind them as they traveled. Treya and Katrin shared the fifth one, taking turns. Ellerie had offered to help, but neither she nor Shavala could manage one for long.

After leaving the wagons behind the day before, they’d only managed to make another eight miles along the Tarvist Road before stopping for the night. The storm had continued until the early hours, and the snow was now over two feet deep.

While Terevas didn’t get much snow, it was the cold that bothered Ellerie. The only thing that made it bearable was the thick, gambeson-style coat Boktar had convinced her to buy. It constricted her movement more than she liked, but it did keep her warm. She’d even bundled up in it overnight, since her tent and bedding weren’t enough to keep the chilly night air from seeping in.

As she finished packing, Bobo approached her, carrying the old book in one hand and a stack of papers in the other.

“I finished that little section in the middle last night,” he said. “Thanks for the mage light.”

“How did it go?”

“Your translators got better as they went, but the one who did this part is still messing up pronouns. Other than that, there were a few little issues, but nothing important. The entire section was about a trip the author had taken to the sea when he was young, plus a recipe for trail bread. Absolutely nothing about his journey to Tir Yadar.”

She nodded. She’d known that already, but they’d decided to go over the entire book more carefully in case there were any hints they’d missed before.

“You should let me look at the amulet,” Bobo said.

Ellerie frowned. “Why?”

“Because it’s important! What if I miss something because I don’t know what I’m looking for? You should have told me about it.”

“So you could steal it, too?” she asked.

“We’re working together now, aren’t we?”

“Fine,” she said with a sigh. She slipped the jewelry out of the inside pocket of her coat and handed it to him.

“Thank you,” he said. “And you think these seven mountains represent the starting point for the directions given in the book?”

“You remember how the author says he started from home? He always emphasizes home with the same larger symbols he uses for Tir Yadar. I think he’s talking about Tir a Tir. I learned that much before I ever brought the book to you.”

Bobo furrowed his brow. “Home of Home? Or Land of Land? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We have records of it in Terevas. The nilvasta historian I spoke to before I left said it wouldn’t have been translated literally. It would have been something more like First Home or The Home, but if someone was writing informally, it would have been written as Home, with the emphasis of a proper name. Just like it is in the book.”

“The Ancient’s language doesn’t distinguish between proper names and everything else.”

“Each author used their own method—you know that better than I do. This one used larger print.”

“True, true. You discovered the amulet and the book together?”

“No. The amulet had been in an old private collection for the last two thousand years, and the only thing anybody knew about it is what’s written on the back. The View From Tir a Tir, according to the translator.”

Bobo flipped the amulet over, then nodded. “So…what? You stole it?”

“No!” Ellerie exclaimed, flushing. “It belongs to my family.” Sort of, she amended in her mind. The collection was owned by the crown of Terevas, but her family had held the crown for fifteen hundred years. She’d always planned to return the amulet when she was done with it.

“Your family has a private collection of ancient artifacts from the first peoples?” Bobo asked. “The sort of artifacts that might be kept in a Glass Palace, perhaps?”

She glared at him. Apparently he’d paid attention to what the oracle had said. How much had he guessed?

“There’s more than one glass palace, you know,” she said.

“Indeed. I visited Terevas once—I remember what it’s like. But we digress. The amulet and the book…don’t you think the connection is rather tenuous?”

“As tenuous as you running off to the hills just because people have lived there for a long time?”

“I get your point, but that only affected me. There are seven of us now, and I understand Sarette may be joining us in the future?”

“You’re welcome to leave. That would help keep our numbers down.”

“No, no, I’m willing to see this through.” Bobo grinned. “Imagine what the librarians back in Matagor would say if we bring back proof of Tir Yadar’s existence.”

Ellerie couldn’t help smiling back at him. That was something she’d thought about herself, more than once.

Before she could reply, Gregor, the stormborn scout that had accompanied them on the trip, returned to the camp from the west, still on the slender wooden skis. He stopped to speak to Sarette in the stormborn language, but when he saw the others gathering close, he switched to the trade tongue.

“Was there a problem?” he asked. “You didn’t make it as far as I thought you would. The closest road marker is twelve-west.”

“No problems,” Sarette replied. “Everyone’s just getting used to the sleds. We’ll probably be even slower today—I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m sore.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“Did you camp out alone last night?” Corec asked the scout. “You didn’t take your tent.”

Gregor nodded. “It was late by the time I made it back to the ten-mile marker. I went a little farther, but when I didn’t find you, I stopped and made a snow cave. Just a little one, but it kept me warm.”

“What’s a snow cave?” Ellerie asked. From the expressions around her, she wasn’t the only one who wanted to know.

“It’s something like a rabbit burrow or a beaver’s den, but built out of snow. I’ll show you when we pass it. I’ll stick around today and help with the sleds.”

How could sleeping in a cave made out of snow keep someone warm? Before Ellerie had a chance to ask, Sarette grasped the lead ropes on her sled and said, “Are we ready to go?”

#

Leena stumbled as she appeared out of midair, then stumbled again after looking up at the immense trees in front of her. She’d thought she’d gotten used to the tall pine trees common to the north, but she’d never imagined trees as large as the ones she saw now. A small house would fit within one of the trunks, and she had to crane her neck back to see the tops.

Based on Sarlo’s descriptions, this had to be the Terril Forest—which was good, since that’s where she’d been aiming. To the west, there were fewer trees, most of them much smaller, and they quickly gave way to prairie grasses. The line between the grasslands and the forest was sharp and distinct enough to suggest that the trees had once been cleared out on purpose. Supposedly the prairie had all been farmland once, until the dragon came.

Sarlo had suggested Leena would be safe if she set up camp near the forest. She eyed the trees with trepidation, but with the elves on one side and the dragon on the other, all she could do was take his recommendation. She’d never met an elf before—she’d never even seen one before arriving in Telfort—but growing up, she’d heard tales of humans going into the elf forest and never returning.

She’d have made another jump if she could have, but between the Seeking and the Traveling, a single jump was enough to exhaust her. After she and Sarlo had gone their separate ways, she’d taken to walking south each morning, then, at midday, Seeking a good spot as far out as she could reach, and teleporting to it. Her Seeking range seemed to be something over fifty miles, and added to the walking, she was making over sixty miles a day, which was certainly better progress than when she’d first been stranded in the northern plains.

Sarlo had considered sticking around longer—while he couldn’t go as far as Leena in a single jump, he could make several jumps per day, and after she teleported, he could Seek our her location to catch up to her. In the end, though, Leena had felt guilty about how much of a burden she’d been to him, and had insisted she’d be fine to continue on her own. He’d already spent a great deal of time and money helping her, for no reason that she could determine. She had no idea how she’d ever pay him back, but he’d left her well equipped, and she was confident she could make it back to Sanvar.

The first few moments after teleporting always left Leena with a momentary weakness, but once the feeling passed, she got started on setting up her camp. With a real tent and bedroll, plus plenty of food—and money to buy more—it almost felt like she was living in luxury. Even better, the temperature had remained above freezing for the past three days. Any other southerner might still consider it to be cold, but after her experience in the north, Leena understood what it meant to truly be cold, and the air here, which was merely chilly, seemed almost warm in comparison.

She was an experienced hand now at setting up her tent, constructing a fire ring, gathering wood, and getting a campfire started. In less than an hour, she was warming her hands over the fire, debating whether to cook something or wait until nightfall.

She happened to be facing away from the forest, looking out to the west, when a faint shadow passed over the prairie grass, barely visible in the pale winter sunlight. She looked up to see a small figure high in the sky. It had to be a bird, but it didn’t look like any sort of bird she was familiar with.

Then a voice suddenly spoke behind her, in broken trade tongue. “Human. You come with we. No stay here.”

Leena whirled around to find six people arrayed facing her, all carrying bows. She hadn’t heard them approach. They were elves, she realized, as she got a better look. They were all men, most no taller than her, and their clothing was a mix of earth tones that blended into the forest behind them. Their skin was a light tan with a hint of green, and their hair was a mottled brown, like tree bark.

“Wh…wh…what?” she asked, stammering. Was she inside the forest after all? Had the elves come to steal her away? She reached for her magic but it slipped through her grasp. She wasn’t strong enough to teleport again yet—even back to her camping spot from the previous night, which she wouldn’t need to Seek first.

The man in the lead pointed to the sky. “Dragon. Come closer each moon. Danger. You come forest. Human talker at camp say more.” He motioned to the other men, two of whom started taking down her tent while another used a hand shovel to dig up dirt to extinguish the fire.

Dragon? The figure in the sky was the dragon? With elves on one side and a dragon on the other, the choice turned out to be easy after all. Leena helped the men disassemble her camp, then followed them into the forest.