Vincus gestured at the water pitcher.
"Of course," the druid replied. "Have all you like. Then you should leave quickly, the same way, I think. Prayers are short in these times, and your master will expect you in his quarters."
A scowl passed over the open face of the young man. Balandar, Vincus's master, was not unkind, and his library boasted the best collections among the Istarian clergy. But servitude was servitude, and it went hard to trade the freedom of the streets and the night for confinement and the slave collar-even if the collar was made of shining silver.
Vaananen turned away uncomfortably. In a moment Vincus would climb back through the win shy;dow and into the garden. He would reach Balan-dar's quarters in plenty of time to make the fire, pour wine from a rare and valuable stock for the ancient cleric, then set out his robes for the next morning. In an hour, old Balandar would be snor shy;ing, and Vincus would recover the time-for reading, for sleeping or eating.
For anything but freedom. Vaananen did not like to think about it.
Vincus's father had died in servitude, and the Kingpriest had visited the man's punishment on the next generation, but unlike the elves miles below them, digging into rock and oblivion, Vincus could have his freedom eventually. Someday, he vowed silently, Vincus will go free.
Carefully, the druid traced the glyphs once more in the pristine sand. Fordus would live. He had to.
And he would need water and tactics at once.
The Tine. The sign that would take him to the ancient dried fork of the river. There was water underground. Easy enough.
Third day of Solinari was more complex. The com shy;pressed, multiple meaning of the glyph. Water three feet below the surface, Istarian forces three days away…
Blanking his mind, Vaananen looked at the third symbol.
No Wind. Favorable weather, favorable strategy. The principal Istarian force lay miles and miles away, regrouped in defensive positions.
Good news on all fronts-news to be sent to For shy;dus over the miles.
But there was also this unsettling news Vincus had brought to him.
Rocking back on his heels, the druid inspected his handiwork. He needed a fourth glyph, to show warning.
He drew the chitinous exoskeleton, the antennae, the wide, hinged mandibles.
Springjaw. It would be fresh in Fordus's mind.
Beware. The ground is unsteady.
Chapter 7
Three days into Fordus's absence, the rebel camp grew more and more uneasy. They were nomads, and three days in one place was too long. The livestock had grazed the scrub completely to the cracked and stony ground, and the last water was nearly gone. All the while, the camp was abuzz with new arrivals, as Plainsmen from all over the region came and went in Fordus's itinerant quarters.
It was not unusual for Fordus to be gone a day, perhaps even overnight. The rebels were accus shy;tomed to their commander's retreats into the desert fastness: Fordus leaving Stormlight in charge and departing for the kanaji, to the level lands beyond, in search of water or, sometimes, enlightenment. Fre shy;quently, after a night alone in the wasteland, fasting and meditating, he returned to the encampment exhausted but strangely alert, speaking cryptically of his desert visions.
The elf would give them words of direction, settle poetry into policy, oracle into tactics. Then the battles would follow, and the victories. It had been that way since Fordus became the War Prophet.
It was the way things worked when they needed water. But this time they were three nights waiting, in the wake of their most costly victory.
Even Larken began to watch the horizons with more than a little fear.
Apprehension spread like poison through the rebel camp, and Stormlight gathered scouts and out shy;runners to search for the missing commander. How shy;ever, a different sort of gathering took place where the plains tumbled down into desert, not a mile from the site of the recent bloody battle.
Just north of the grassy rise where Fordus had watched the battle unfold, scarcely an hour before sunrise on the second day of his absence, two Istar-ian cavalrymen rode south toward the Tine, cloaked in black against the fitful white moonlight. They were lean veterans of a dozen campaigns, hard and cynical and almost impossible to fool, borne by a mysterious summons to a moonlit council with the enemy.
They had come to this spot in the boulder-strewn rubble, awaiting the man who approached them now on foot and alone, trudging across a wide expanse of packed sand and sawgrass.
"No place for 'em to hide an escort, sir," the older of the cavalrymen observed. Absently, he stroked the sergeant's bar on the shoulder of his breastplate. "There's a mile between him and the cover of shadow."
The younger man nodded. He was the officer, the one in charge. By reflex, he rested a gloved hand on the hilt of his sword and traced the cold carving on it.
There was something very odd about this walking stranger. He moved heavily through the uneven ter shy;rain, never once dodging briar or gully. He did not break stride-not until he was within hailing dis shy;tance. Then, in a low, conversational voice, he greeted the Istarians.
"The time is now, gentlemen," he declared. His amber, slitted eyes narrowed, and he drew the black silk tunic close around him as cover against the desert night. "The time is now, if you're men enough to seize it."
"Come with us," the officer demanded curtly. "Tell me what you know."
The man stood his ground and turned stiffly to his left, his black hair cascading over his face, and pointed to a mesa low and dark on the horizon.
"The rebels are there," he announced, ignoring the circling horses. "Camped at the base of Red Plateau. It's been three days since they've seen For-dus Firesoul, and in his absence a dozen warring factions have sprung up in the camp. The old guard, the ones with Fordus since he became the Prophet, they all follow Stormlight and Larken. But some of the Que-Nara and many of the barbarians are looking to Northstar, while the bandits go with Gormion. And then . . ." the informer concluded,
pausing meaningfully, "there are those of us … secretly loyal to Istar. Those whose future is tied intimately to the fortunes of the Kingpriest." • The Istarians exchanged a skeptical glance and a curled smile.
"I tell you, their commander is missing," the informer insisted. " 'Tis now, or 'tis a long and bloody war, I tell you. I offer you a great gift!"
The officer considered this ultimatum. A dozen miles to the north, the defeated Istarian army huddled against the outer walls of the city, awaiting reinforcements recalled posthaste from their stations along the Thoradin border. Until relief arrived, the decimated remnants of Istar's pride crouched ner shy;vously at their campsites, imagining rebels in the shadows of rocks, in the moonlit tilt of the grass.
No. Though something about the informer's words edged on the truth, the time to attack was not now.
And yet. ..
Accustomed to quick, uncompromised decision, the young Istarian officer resolved the issue at once. He would send this veiled informer packing, then follow at a distance.
"What you advise is impossible," he said.
The man scowled. "And why?"
"I owe you no explanation."
"You already regret your decision," the informer growled, pointing a pale, almost translucent finger at the two men on horseback.
The officer did not reply, his gaze on the distant plateau. Out there, if the informer spoke the truth, hundreds of rebels camped by fires carefully banked and concealed so that their collected light would not lift the purple shadows on the horizon. "After all," he finally said, "how do we know that you are not sent to lure us into even greater troubles? Perhaps you are Fordus himself!" He laughed mockingly.
Angrily, the informer turned away, casting a last venomous glance over his shoulder. He moved quickly and silently back into the desert, a dark shape passing over the moonlit sands. The cavalry shy;men sat silently atop their horses until, on a dune at the farthest reaches of sight, the informer stopped and lifted his arms to the cloudy heavens.
"Dramatic sort, ain't he, sir?" the sergeant asked with a chuckle.
There was no answer.
For a long, idle moment, the sergeant watched the horizon. "Shall we follow him, sir?" he asked, turn shy;ing slowly toward the younger man.