Gaborn felt inside himself, wondering. Yes, the danger was still strong.

"Go left!" Gaborn warned, ordering Langley to head into spa.r.s.e cover. To the left, most of the golden leaves of the alders had fallen. They lay in deep piles on the forest floor. Logically, riding into the open seemed wrong.

The Darkling Glory came, a roaring wind that whipped low through the woods, racing after them just above the treetop It dove toward them, and the golden leaves on the forest floor began swirling, swirling everywhere in a blinding maelstrom. The wind shrieked Lightning flashed, blasted a tree beside Gaborn.

"Left," Gaborn shouted.

Sir Langley and Gaborn's Days veered, racing to beat the wind.

Suddenly Gaborn realized what the Earth wanted. The Darkling Glory could not see through the swirling leaves any better than he could. Gaborn had been circling the monster, stirring up the leaves, and they had blinded the beast.

"Now drive hard right!" Gaborn shouted. Langley complied. Gaborn's Days raced at his tail In a moment they were galloping south over a trail through the trees, running parallel to the path of the Durkin Hills Road, while the Darkling Glory roared in confusion behind.

They drew into a copse beneath the shelter of a few dark pines and hid there while the horses wheezed and trembled in terror.

In moments the Darkling Glory rose from the forest floor and winged north, attacking any man foolish enough to remain on the road.

"It has lost us," Sir Langley whispered. "We were fortunate."

Gaborn shook his head. Mere luck had not saved him. Gaborn recalled his meeting with the Earth spirit in Binnesman's garden more than a week past. The Earth had drawn a rune of protection on Gaborn's forehead, a rune that hid him from all but the most powerful servants of fire.

Gaborn smiled grimly. Binnesman said that the Darkling Glory was a creature of air and darkness, a creature that consumed light rather than served it. Gaborn suspected that the beast had not known he was here, would not have been able to find him in any circ.u.mstance, and had only chased after Langley and Gaborn's Days.

"Hide!" Gaborn sent the message to his troops once more.

Almost as if in response to his command, the Darkling Glory flew high into the air, momentarily breaking off the attack. The swirling coil of flame above it grew thicker, broader.

The beast let its own powers expand, drew light from the farthest reaches of the skies, as if all its hunting had made it hungry.

It's like a cat, Gaborn thought. It only attacked because we were easy prey. So long as it has to work for its pleasure, it wants none of us.

Then the Darkling Glory did something unexpected. In an instant it shot across the horizon at a speed that not even a force horse could hope to match.

It sped toward Castle Sylvarresta, seventy miles back. But at the speed it suddenly attained, it would reach the castle in moments.

Gaborn let tendrils of his power creep out. Distantly, he felt the death aura wrapped around Iome like a cloak, and he wondered why she had not yet left the castle.

"Flee!" he sent one last time. "Flee for your life!"

The effort of making so many sendings cost him. He was so dizzy, so weary and fatigued from the loss of endowments that he still felt as if leaves swirled around him, swirled and swirled with him at the center.

Too thoroughly drained to remain astride his horse, he clutched for the pommel of his saddle as fatigue took him, and then dropped to the forest floor.

CHAPTER 24.

WAITING FOR DARKNESS.

Myrrima had been right when she told Iome that it would take hours for her garrison to search the city.

Iome had them search it anyway. Iome took her pups and let them run in the bailey just inside the city walls, while she held court, having the city guard drag in every townsman found haunting the place.

A large city surrounded Castle Sylvarresta, an old city with thousands of homes. Some were fine manors, like Dame Opinsher's, while others were hovels perched above the crowded market streets along the b.u.t.terwalk.

Everywhere the soldiers looked, they found people. They caught thieves ransacking the empty homes of the wealthy and poor alike.

Iome didn't want to execute the thieves, but feared that to leave them or imprison them with the Darkling Glory coming was the same as killing them. Most of the thieves were not evil so much as stupid--witless old men and women, relentlessly poor beggars who failed to rise above temptation when they saw so many empty homes.

These people she relieved of their goods and sent away, warning them to do better.

Yet other looters were shifty-eyed creatures of foul disposition whom Iome would never want to meet in a dark alley. Such cunning and cruel people troubled her. She'd wanted to save her people, not take their lives.

These were not fools tempted into wrongdoing, but clever men and women who made a profession of bringing misfortune to others. So she had the guards place them in the dungeon.

Not all those found within the walls were thieves. Some were crude or ignorant. One old codger complained that the King was making a "big to-do" about nothing.

On and on it went. Iome seemed determined to bring her dream to pa.s.s, to make sure that she was the last bit of human fluff to ride the wind away from Castle Sylvarresta.

A gale blew in, a strong steady wind from the south, driving steelgray clouds that lay low against the hills, promising rain. The clouds brought a chill that raised goose pimples on Myrrima's arms. She worried for her mother and sisters, traveling south in such weather.

Iome dared not flee herself, though she ordered those city guards who did not have force horses to race for the Dunnwood.

All day, Binnesman the wizard hurried about the King's Keep, strewing herbs, drawing runes above the gates.

At two in the afternoon, Gaborn's command came stronger than ever before. "Flee now, I beg you! Death is upon you!"

Binnesman raced down from his tower. "Milady," he called to Myrrima, for Iome was engaged in a discussion with a clothier who would not leave his shop. He was dying wool in scarlet, and if he pulled the wool from the vats early, it would be a muddy pink. If the cloth was not turned, the dye might take unevenly. If he left it too long, the wool would expand and loosen the weave, ruining the cloth.

"Milady!" Binnesman urged Myrrima again. "You must get Her Highness away from here now! The Earth King has spoken: There can be no more delays!"

"I am her servant," Myrrima said. "Not her master."

Binnesman reached into the pockets of his robe, drew out a lace kerchief filled with leaves. "See that you give some of these to Iome and Sir Donnor and Jureem. There's potent goldenbay, and root of mallow and leaf of chrysanthemum and faith raven. It should offer some protection from the Darkling Glory."

"Thank you," Myrrima said. Binnesman's power as an Earth Warden let him magnify the potency of any herb. Even a small bundle of his herbs would prove a great boon.

Binnesman turned and hurried up the b.u.t.terwalk, toward the Boar's h.o.a.rd.

Myrrima went to Iome. "Milady, I beg of you, let's go. Most of the town has been searched, and it's growing late."

"Nightfall is not for hours yet," Iome argued. "There will be others left here in town."

Jureem stood a few yards away, hands folded under his chin, looking apprehensive.

"Leave the city guard to care for them," Myrrima begged. "You can appoint a commander to issue judgment in your stead."

Iome seemed flushed and anxious. Beads of perspiration stood on her brow. "I can't," she whispered, so that none of the city guard would hear. "You see how they are. They're rough men. I have my people to care for."

Iome was right. The captain of the guard seemed overjoyed to have found so many thieves. After years of hunting criminals, he was ready to dispatch anyone he caught. Iome could not trust the guards to exercise her degree of constraint and compa.s.sion.

Myrrima pleaded with her. "Remember, you have a child to care for, too."

The expression of anguish that crossed Iome's face was such that Myrrima knew she had said the wrong thing. Iome was thinking about her child. She probably worried about little else.

But Iome said coolly, "I can't let concern for one child growing in my womb cause me to neglect my duties."

"I'm sorry," Myrrima said. "I misspoke, Your Highness."

At that moment, the captain of the guard brought a clubfooted boy up out of the b.u.t.terwalk. He did not drag him as if he were a thief; but instead steadied the boy's arm, helping him. The boy was in pain and seemed hardly able to drag his monstrously swollen leg.

Caught between manhood and childhood, he probably felt too afraid to ask others for help, yet could not flee alone.

"What have we here?" Iome asked.

"Orphan," the captain of the guard answered.

Myrrima checked on the horses, tied to a hitching post not far off. But Jureem had already cinched the girth straps tight, had tied water bottles and packs onto each beast. He'd also gathered the puppies, tied them into two wicker picnic baskets. The pups barked and wagged their tails as Myrrima neared.

Sir Donnor stood by the mounts. "Milady," he said. "We must go. I'd feel better if you'd leave the castle at least."

"Leave Iome?" Myrrima asked.

"She'll have me to guard her," Sir Donnor said. "Her horse is faster than yours. Even if you accompanied Jureem a few miles. down the road, you could have a good head start. You would be able to hide under the trees, if necessary."

Jureem, who already sat ahorse, said frantically, "He is right, let us reach the edge of the woods at least."

Before she had time to reconsider, she'd mounted up and was thundering over the drawbridge, out of the castle.

Myrrima glanced into the moat, saw the huge sturgeons wheeling in desperation, still drawing their runes, though they had been here for a night and a day. Out in the field, larks wheeled about in a cloud, nervously shifting this way and that, as if fearing the approach of winter and unsure which way to flee.

The sky above them had been darkening steadily the past few hours, so that now it was a dirty lead-gray. But beyond it, Myrrima thought she saw a great black thunderhead rushing from the south.

They raced uphill, and Jureem veered toward the shelter of the autumn woods. The pups in his basket snarled and yapped like hounds who have scented a boar.

As they galloped under the shelter of trees with limbs nearly barren of leaves, Myrrima touched the pouch of herbs in her vest pocket, suddenly realized that she had not dispensed them as Binnesman had asked.

The black cloud rushing from the south disturbed her deeply. She looked up, realized the source of her apprehension: The cloud was not blowing with the wind, but moved at an angle to it. Lightning flashed in the heavens, and thunder pealed.

The Darkling Glory would not wait for nightfall to strike, for it brought the darkness with it.

And I have left milady defenseless, Myrrima thought.

She grasped the reins from Jureem's hand, turned her mount, and raced back toward the castle.

CHAPTER 25.

AT THE KING'S KEEP.

Iome interviewed the clubfooted boy in the lower bailey. He stood on the cobblestones with his head down, clearly embarra.s.sed to have been dragged before the Queen. His embarra.s.sment did not concern Iome so much as his infirmity.

His right leg was a swollen monstrosity, so large that he could not have worn pants. He wore nothing but a tunic of old sackcloth that looked as if the poorest inhabitant of the castle might have discarded it.

"How old are you?" Iome asked gently.

"Ten," the boy said. Then after along moment he added, "Yer High...uh...Ladyship."

Iome smiled. He might have addressed her as "Your Highness" or "milady," but had instead invented his own uncouth concoction.

"Ten years?" she asked "Have you lived in Castle Sylvarresta so long?" She'd never seen him before.

"No," the boy said slowly, never daring to look up. "I come from Balliwick." It was a village on Heredon's western border.

"That is a long way, nearly a hundred miles," Iome said. "Are you an apprentice to a carter? Who brought you?"

"I come to see the Earth King," the boy said. "I walked. I got here Wednesday, but he was at the hunt...."

The boy's leg was as swollen as a melon and his foot twisted inward at a horrible angle. No boot would have fit it, so he'd merely wrapped the thing and walked about on the bandage. She imagined that he must have had his leg broken as a babe, and that it had healed poorly. Yet she could not imagine that anyone with such a leg could walk all the way from Balliwick. He'd have dragged it, painfully, step by aching step.

"The Earth King is gone," Iome said, "headed south into wan"

The boy stared hard at the ground, fighting tears. She wondered what to do with the lad.

I could put him in the inn, with the others who are sick, she thought. But to leave him here in the castle would be dangerous.

This boy had walked a hundred miles to see her husband, but Gaborn was riding south, and Iome realized that this child was so slow he might never catch the Earth King, might never be able to obtain his lord's blessing. While the merchant princes of Lysle hadn't bothered to walk from their camps to see her husband, this boy had crawled halfway across Heredon for an audience.

She couldn't abandon him. She couldn't easily take him, either. "I'm going south," Iome decided at last. "You could ride with me. But first you must get into some proper clothes."

The boy looked up in wonder, for no pauper would have hoped for such a boon. But as he looked up, Iome fretted. Myrrima had already left the castle with Jureem. But by the sun, it could not be much later than two o'clock. Nightfall was hours away. She had almost managed to bring her dream to life. The city guard had searched the whole east end of the city, gathered every last one of her va.s.sals and sent them south.

"Go to the King's Keep," Iome told the boy. "On the top floor, take the hallway to the left. There you will find my apartments. Look in the guest wardrobe to the left and get yourself a decent tunic and a traveling cloak, then take a moment to wash in the horse trough there in the bailey. When you finish, come back and wait until we can leave."

"Yes, Yer Lordship," the boy said. Iome winced at his use of a masculine t.i.tle for her. He leapt up and half limped, half ran on his twisted, clumsy foot, lumbering up Market Street.

Iome closed her eyes, savored the moment. The guards had only to search the north end of the city. Two more hours. That is all it would take to clear the city.

But now Gaborn's warning rang through her. "Hide! You are too late to flee. Hide--all of you!"