The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [122]
With one last cheer the men followed orders. Laz and Faharn worked their way clear of the bustling mob to find a somewhat quieter spot on the edge of the camp.
“This is infuriating,” Laz said. “I suppose these idiot Boars have taken that slave and the dragon book with them.”
“Seems likely,” Faharn said. “We’d better hope we can catch up with them, then, and that we don’t ride into some sort of ambuscade.”
“Ambuscade? I see that unhappy thought has occurred to you, too. Let’s hope it occurred to Voran or, more likely, to Brel.”
“Just so. Here, I’d best fetch our horses. We need to be ready to ride out.”
“So we do. I sincerely hope I can stay away from Bren. I don’t need him recognizing me.”
Fortunately, Bren, newly shaved, trimmed, and dressed in decent clothing, rode next to the prince at the head of the line of march, while Laz and Faharn could lurk at the rear among the servants.
On the second day, another slow crawl up hills and through twisting ravines, the prince gave orders that the fighting men should arm, ready in case of an attack on their line of march. A contingent of fifty horsemen, horse archers among them, moved back to the rear of the line to guard the supply wagons. Around noon, Laz noticed that the forest was thinning out around them. A road of sorts appeared, a dirt track lined with underbrush that the Mountain Folk set about widening with their axes. When the army stopped to rest the horses, scouts on foot spread out through the trees. They returned to report that they’d not seen any sign of farms or settled land.
“It’s too bad the prince wouldn’t believe that I can turn myself into a raven,” Laz told Faharn. “I could scout for him.”
“Indeed,” Faharn said. “You don’t suppose Bren was lying about this place, do you?”
“I don’t. Who would want to farm in this kind of country? Don’t forget that we’re climbing up to a plateau.”
“That’s right. A much better place to put a royal palace.” Faharn thoughtfully spat onto the ground. “Royal. Huh!”
“I share your skepticism. Where do you think the Boars are going, anyway? Not all the way to Taenbalapan, surely!”
“I doubt it, too.”
Faharn considered, rubbing his jaw in thought. “Most likely,” he said at last, “they’re heading to that fortress that the dragon saw a-building. From what he told Prince Dar, it’s properly sited to provide safety for a retreating force.”
“How wise of them!” Laz said. “And may the gods curse them all for their wisdom!”
For some days, Kov and the Dwrgwn had been burrowing south in the hopes of bringing a wyrd more substantial than a curse upon the Horsekin fortress. They had marched through the virgin forest rather than tunneled under it, because they would have had to dig far too deep to avoid the impacted roots of the tall trees. Once they reached the forest verge, traveling on the surface became too dangerous. On a slight rocky rise Kov stood and looked south, a long way south over a landscape of scrub grass and stunted, twisted trees growing only beside narrow streams. If his straggling party of Dwrgwn tried to march across it, any mounted Horsekin patrol would spot them from miles away.
They took shelter underground, but the digging proceeded slowly. They found the topsoil thin over a layer of rocks—bedrock, fortunately, but an oddly random scatter of large rocks, a few boulders, and a lot of loose gravel.
“I don’t understand this terrain,” Kov said. “I’ve seen somewhat like it before, up to the north of Lin Serr, but I don’t know what creates it. It looks like something swept up a lot of mountain rocks, carried them along for miles, and then dropped them, but it would have happened a long long time ago.”
“Giants with brooms,” Leejak said with a shrug. “I care not. Cursed nuisance now.”
“That’s certainly true.”
Rather than try