Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [17]
Through the mist came the sound of splashing. Someone was coming through the lake and moving fast. The belkagen went stone-still, listened, then relaxed.
"I thought you said we were on an island," said Amira.
"Arzhan Island," said the belkagen. "I often winter here, but we're only a few dozen paces from the north shore, and the water is no more than waist deep."
The splashing stopped, Amira heard footsteps approaching, and moments later a large figure materialized out of the mist. It was the man who had come to her rescue last night. Gyaidun, was it? She got her first good look at him. He stood tall, and his leather-and-hide clothes obviously covered thick muscle. Tattoos twined down his bare arms, much like those on the one called Lendri, but strangest of all were the scars on his face. He had three long slashes down each cheek, and one slash bisecting them. No battle wounds, certainly. They were too precise. His unstrung bow rode on his back, but Amira's heart leaped when she saw what he carried in one hand: her staff and spellbook.
The man spared Amira a glance, gave the sleeping elf a longer look, concern creasing his brow, then looked to the belkagen. "Dead," he said. "They were all dead. Every last one of them. Captives, horses, dogs. Even that slaving whoreson Walloch. Frozen solid."
CHAPTER FIVE
The Endless Wastes
Out on the open steppe, the wind never stopped. Tucked as he was in the bottom of a dry gully, Jalan could not feel it, but he could hear it whispering over the grasses, and every now and then dirt and late autumn seeds rained down on him. He sat hugging his knees with his back to the dry earth wall. After the five pale northerners and their leader had taken him from Lendri, they ran north all night, leaving the Lake of Mists and surrounding woods far behind. When Jalan's legs finally gave out, one of the northerners grabbed his bound wrists and dragged him, but that slowed their pace, so the northerners took turns carrying him. So exhausted was he that he actually slept while they ran.
When dawn began to paint the eastern horizon, the northerners split up. The sky was just changing from a weak gray to the first yellow of true dawn when they sought shelter in the gully. Their cloaked leader had found the deepest, most shadowed part of the gully and huddled inside his cloak. The northerners ripped dry bushes, their leaves long since gone, out of the ground and covered their leader with them, placed their own cloaks over the makeshift canopy, then covered it all with a thick layer of dirt.
One of them untied Jalan's wrists, gave him a few meager bites of food and two long swallows of water, then shoved him to the ground and said, "Sleep. Now."
Jalan lay on the ground but kept his eyes open. He'd never been so cold. An aura seemed to emanate from the cloaked figure, an almost elemental presence that drained all warmth from the area. It reached beyond the air to seep into Jalan's mind.
The northerners built no fire, so Jalan huddled in his cloak, shivering. He'd been concentrating all his energy into clamping his jaw shut to stop his teeth from chattering when sleep finally claimed him.
When he awoke, the first thing he saw was the crack of sky overhead. Clouds, high and thin, had blown in while he slept, and they were painted the fiery orange and royal purple of evening. Four of the northerners were sleeping in the gully. The pile of brush and dirt that was the makeshift bed of their leader was the same as it had been since morning. Jalan could not see the fifth northerner but assumed he was standing watch somewhere.
Jalan sat up and listened. Nothing but the sound of the wind. The nights had gone cold enough that all but the hardiest of the flies had laid their eggs and died. There wasn't even any birdsong, just the whispering of the wind over miles and miles of grass.
Jalan stretched his legs out and winced. They were stiff. He listened again. Still nothing, and the four sleepers had not stirred. Jalan looked up. Still no sign of the guard. Jalan scooted over to the waterskin.