Chapter 15

The road leading towards the East-West Pass rose sharply under Cinnabar’s hooves. Khamsin felt the horse strain as they picked their way around large boulders strewn in their path. They were in the mountains that separated the tranquil forest villages west of Noviiya from the wilds of Darkling Forest.

The Pass was the only way through the high ridge that ran from north to south. Khamsin kept alert lest they veer off in error onto one of the lesser pathways and find themselves lost.

And many side trails there were, too, as the region was dotted with Hill Raider ‘nests.’ But the trails were as treacherous as those who’d carved them. Several times Khamsin was forced to dismount and stare at a cross-road, seeking signs of the most well-traveled way.

The closer she came to the East-West Pass, the more difficult traveling became, as few ventured this far into the Land. The pass led to Darkling and Darkling bordered the Khal. She wondered if she were the first of the Cove people to willingly set foot on this part of the Land.

A chilling wind whispered through the pines. She drew her cloak more tightly around her, the hot tea of the morning now just memory. Tonight, perhaps for the first time, she’d build a fire. She hadn’t done so before. Traveling alone, she avoided attracting attention of those who roamed the forests at night.

Suddenly, Cinnabar reared. Khamsin clasped the reins in one hand and Nixa with the other. The horse’s great front legs pawed the air.

"Whoa, Cinnabar, whoa!" The quiet horse wasn’t easily spooked. She glanced to her right. Something dark slithered across the road and out of sight.

A snake. A long, black shiny-scaled snake. But in winter?

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She transferred Nixa to her left hand. Quickly she reached down to her boot top and pulled out her short hunting knife.

She longed to draw her sword. A black snake this time of the year wasn’t natural. The flash of the blue spellbound metal would be a reassuring sight. But Ciro warned her to use her magic sparingly. And only when absolutely necessary, lest the Sorcerer or his siblings pick up on her whereabouts. What was the use in shielding her identity if she then broadcast it loudly through the powers of a spell?

She waited, listening, her gaze flicking left and right. She heard only the sigh of the wind and Cinnabar’s soft breathing. And nothing more came crawling from the rocks.

She urged Cinnabar onwards, but slowly, her eyes keen to every movement around her.

The path narrowed through a small grove of bristling pines. Their scent was almost sickeningly sweet. It stuck in the back of her throat. Nixa sneezed.

Then she heard an almost imperceptible scratching sound over her heard. She jammed her heels hard into the horse’s side. Cinnabar bolted. Khamsin turned just in time to see the snake drop from an overhanging branch. Its two-inch long fangs almost grazed the horse’s flank. She yanked him around as she threw the short knife with deadly aim. It pinned the snake in the center of its flat head, splitting the skull. A green ooze gushed from the opening and a foul smell. A familiar unworldly, foul smell. The body spasmed and disappeared.

Slowly Khamsin climbed down from the horse, her boots touching on the graveled surface as if she feared a flood of more reptiles at any moment. But no such scaly black creatures sprang from the stones.

She snatched her knife from the ground, which was bare and dry with no sign of the snake. Just Cinnabar’s hoof marks in the dirt.

She shoved the knife back into her boot and rode on for over a mile before her hands stopped shaking.

There were stories, legends about those who attempted the East-West pass into the Darklings. Tales told around the hearth fire late on Fool’s Eve night to scare little children and timid adults. Tales of horribly deformed creatures that crawled out of the Black Swamp and into the hillsides, seeking the flesh of innocent travelers to feast on. Was the black snake such a creature, a poisonous vampire seeing her as something warm and blood-filled? Or was it something more? An omen, a message-bearer, a warning?

Did its jeweled eyes see her as Camron the Traveler or Khamsin the Healer?

Without her magic, she couldn’t even begin to guess.

High, bare cliffs rose on either side of her. Her progress was slowed by the unevenness of the road.

Without the protection of the forest, it was badly rutted from furrows dug by driving rains. Small boulders cascaded down from the heights, leaving a crumbling trail that was almost impassable. Finally, she was forced to dismount and in the waning light of the setting sun, led Cinnabar carefully around the obstacles in their path. She hoped to clear through the pass before nightfall. But the lengthening shadows around her told her that wouldn’t be so.

Darkness settled quickly. The moons had yet to rise. The pale light from the few stars overhead did not help. Again, Khamsin longed to use her magic, to cast fiery elementals to light their way. But she feared the power of the Sorcerer more than she feared the pass at night. She settled for sending Nixa on ahead and keeping a light mental contact with the feline who had the natural ability to see in the dark.

They were on the descending trail for more than an hour when the moons finally rose pale into the sky.

But it was an overcast night and their glow diffused into the clouds. Everything was deathly still. No owls hooted, no mountain wolves bayed. Even the wind seemed to have vanished. The steady clop-clop-clop of Cinnabar’s hooves took on an eerie resonance.

Finally, the trail widened and small clusters of trees cropped up again, sparse and thinning. Nixa darted on ahead and came back with the news of a grove of pines on the left.

With Cinnabar tied to a low branch and Nixa snuggled in the safety of her arms, Khamsin fell into an exhausted slumber on the bare ground, foregoing even the promised pleasure of a fire.

Twice Cinnabar snorted softly. The sound carried through the early morning mists of lavender and gray, rising from the frost-covered ground. Khamsin stirred and rolled over on her side, her knees curling up against her chest, her eyes tightly closed. She stretched out one arm in the languid, clumsy movement of someone in a deep sleep. Then she slowly edged her fingers towards the hilt of her hunting knife and, feeling the coldness of the metal, lay her hand firmly against it.

Nixa twitched her ears and relayed back to her mistress what she and the horse sensed. Intruders. Men.

In the pines around them. Coming closer.

How many?

An image of three forms flashed into her mind. From the perspective of height, she knew the information came from Cinnabar.

Nixa?

The cat lazily opened her eyes, slit-like.

One. She saw only one.

That made four. Only Nixa’s approached her, the other three fanning out through the small grove.

Khamsin felt a man’s touch on Cinnabar’s soft nose. The horse held still at her instructions, though the desire to rear and strike out at the intruder was strong within him.

No. Khamsin didn’t want either of her animals injured.

At her signal, Nixa scampered into a nearby bush. It was a normal reaction as the intruder knelt down beside Khamsin, his hand stretching out towards her. She waited ’til he was only inches away. She sprang into action. She grabbed the outstretched wrist and forced it backwards. The man fell on one elbow with a loud grunt, collapsing onto his stomach as Khamsin wrapped his arm in back of him and yanked, hard. She knelt on his back, her meager weight not as much of a deterrent as the sharp point of her knife just under his ear.

"Stay where you are or I’ll slit his throat!" She yelled her warning out into the pine trees. The three men moved towards her, their own knives drawn.

"I mean it!" She nodded to Cinnabar, who with two quick shakes, unwrapped his reins from the tree limb and reared up at the closest man, snorting and whinnying. Had the men carried spears, she wouldn’t have allowed the horse his glory.

"Druke, hold up!" came the muffled command from man beneath her. He spat dry twigs out of his mouth. The men stopped and Cinnabar shook his head pridefully.

"Damn it, lad, didn’t mean you no harm!" It was her intruder again.

Khamsin looked down at the point of her knife and saw the soft beginnings of a downy beard on a well-tanned, square-jawed face. Chestnut-colored hair fell across his cheek and over one ear.

She had almost killed Elsy’s father.

She stood up abruptly and shoved the knife back into her boot top.

The Kemmon-Ro Hill Raider rolled over into a sitting position, ruffling the pine-needles out of his thick hair. He glared up at Khamsin but with more amusement than anger in his gray eyes.

"You’re pretty quick for a light weight." He offered her a crooked grin.

"I could’ve killed you."

"Aye, I know, lad. My mistake. I thought you were still asleep or I would’ve hailed you, proper. As I said, I mean you no harm."

Khamsin nodded. "My apologies, Sirrah."

"Egan!" A stocky man with a fringe of black hair surrounding a bald spot on his head stepped out of the brush. He was clothed in the same manner as Elsy’s father, but his black-edged vest barely covered the plumpness of his stomach. He eyed Khamsin warily, a thin dagger still in his grip.

"Put your knife away, Druke. The rest of you, too." Egan waved at the other two coming into the small clearing. They were clean shaven, and looked as if they’d not yet seen their twenty-first birthdays. Their hair, like Egan’s, was a deep reddish-brown and their faces had the same strong lines hinting at a blood relationship between them and the older man.

Daggers slid from sight.

"You have business in Darkling?"

"My uncle." It was the tale she’d told him in the small village. She hoped it would be adequate now.

"So you said. But my daughter told me neither he nor you are Kemmon. What makes you think you’ll find him here?"

"Because that is where I was told he was." She answered as a fourteen-year-old lad would; stubbornly, but with a trace of respect.

"Perhaps he is, then. Give me his name."

"Aric. Aric of Tynder’s Hill." She borrowed her late brother-in-law’s name and combined it with an inlander town from Ciro’s chart.

Egan looked at Druke then back to Khamsin. "I know of no man who calls himself such."

She shrugged. "Perhaps he’s changed it, then. Hilma and her family were none too pleased when he left.

Though she did name the child after him."

Egan only raised one eyebrow but Druke chuckled knowingly. "Wanted the milk but not willing to buy the cow, eh?"

"So you seek him now in the Darklings? Well, lad, many a man has hidden out here for the very same reason. Your uncle has lots of company."

As Khamsin adjusted her satchel on Cinnabar’s back, Egan lay a hand lightly on her shoulder. "Where are you headed now?"

"West, as the main road goes."

"We go that way as well. Ride with us for awhile, if you like."

"Thank you, Sirrah." Khamsin was surprised at his offer. Hill Raiders weren’t known for their generosity towards travelers, though in truth, she’d never heard of any North Landers attacking a young farm lad traveling alone. Only old, fat wealthy merchants and land barons were considered prey. No doubt they surmised from the cut of her cloth she owned nothing worth stealing.

She snapped her fingers. Nixa sauntered out of the bushes. She placed the cat on Cinnabar’s back before she grabbed the horse’s strong neck and with a practiced jump, flung herself onto his back.

"You travel with a cat?" Druke voiced the question that was also evident in Egan’s mind, from the look on his face.

"A gift," she explained, having only moments before concocted the story. "From our village Healer. For luck, I was told."

"Guard him well, then." Egan stroked the short fur on Nixa’s nose. Khamsin wasn’t sure if he had spoken to her or her cat.