The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [112]
Looking the other way, he had an even better view. The River Ef wound through a pleasant valley checkered with pastures and orchards. On a rise about a league away he made out the bell tower of the monastery where Stephen had been headed when first they had met. The last time Aspar had been here, he’d been wounded and half out of his mind, and if it hadn’t been for Stephen, he would have died.
At the moment the valley looked peaceful in the twilight, cloaked in a slight mist drifting through the neat rows of apple trees where they waited for spring’s kiss to bud them.
Where was Stephen now? Dead, probably, since he had been with the slinders. Ehawk was probably dead, too.
He ought to feel something, had felt something back when he saw the boys fall. But his heart had tightened up inside him, and the only emotion he recognized was anger.
That was a good thing, he reckoned.
Night seeped down through the clouds, and as the world his eyes knew faded, the deeper domain of scent and sound intensified. Winter sounds were spare: the chilling shrill of a screech owl, the wind catching its belly on bony branches, the scuff of small claws on bark.
Smell was the more palpable sense: leaves steeping in cold pools, the smell of rot kept slow by cold, the grassy scent of cow dung from the pastures below, and smoke—hickory and old apple burning down in the valley, wormy witaec when the wind shifted from the Midenlands, and something nearer—oak, yes, but he also made out the minty scent of sassafras, sumac, and huckleberry: understory plants.
And pine kindling.
He strained his ears and heard the faint ticking and popping of a fire. It was downslope, not too far away.
He eased out of the tree, afraid to breathe. If there was a monk down there who had walked the same faneway as Stephen…
Then they already would have heard him, probably. The Order of Mamres—from which most of their churchish enemies had come—fought like mad lions but did not have senses any sharper than his. It was they who had walked the faneways of both Decmanus and Mamres who presented the greatest danger.
He found Winna sleeping and again had a moment’s indecision, but the fear of leaving her unguarded was overridden by the need to know who was just down the hill. Besides, Ogre was still there; he would at least create a fuss, even in his weakened state, if someone came around.
He began his slow creep down the slope, going hand to hand and foot to foot with shrubs and small trees that clung to stone and shallow earth. He wasn’t in a hurry; he reckoned he had all night. That was good, since he had to move by feel and instinct.
He reckoned it was two or three bells past midnight when he finally saw the touch of orange glow on a tree trunk below. He couldn’t make out the fire itself, but he could guess where it was. He knew he’d come down too far east, with a sheer drop keeping him from getting the position he wanted.
So he worked his way back uphill and west. The glimpse of light vanished, but he knew where he was going now, and shortly before sunup he found it.
By then the fire was mostly embers, with just a few licks of flame. Aspar could make out someone sitting and someone lying flat but not much more. The campsite was about twelve kingsyards below him, beneath a long, shallow rock shelter.
Would he be able to get a clear shot at them? The angle was bad.
The clouds were gone, but there was no moon, only the distant, unhelpful lamps of the stars. Maybe when the sun cracked his eye, Aspar would be able to find a better position. He settled in to wait, hoping Winna didn’t wake and panic. He didn’t think she would, but after today…
The earth below him was rumbling.
He heard a stone crack and then the sudden rush of rocks sliding down a slope. It wasn’t close, but it wasn’t far, either.
Quickly he heard the rush and roar of breathing and smelled