The Complete Legends of the Riftwar Trilogy: Honoured Enemy, Murder in Lamut, Jimmy the Hand

The tracker sighed inwardly, but let no expression betray his feelings. He looked at his master and nodded. ‘First back to the bridge, my lord. That is the way.’

Bovai looked at the fallen span, as if willing it back into place. He knew that they were in alien lands. He stared at the mountains before him, as if committing them to memory forever. To the east, arching off along the northern side of the valley he saw below, he knew the Teeth of the World rose up, impassable for the most part. On the other side would be the great Edder Forest, home to the barbaric glamedhel. The moredhel of the Northlands were no less bold than his own clan, and they gave those woods wide berth. Bovai cast his eyes to the southern peaks that ringed the other side of the valley and realized that even if another pass existed from the Kingdom, the hills around it would be alive with stockades and castles garrisoned for the winter by men from Yabon and Tyr-Sog.

Back to the bridge, and along the Broad River, around the Edder Forest, and seek a pass in the mountains through the winter snow. Bovai knew it might take months to find another way into this valley.

One of the trackers said, ‘My chieftain?’

Quietly, Bovai replied, ‘Someone got into that valley, years ago, so that they could be on the other side of this gorge, and take the rope thrown from this side. That means there must be another way.’

The tracker nodded.

‘Back to the bridge, and we start looking for that way.’

Bovai looked at his troops. He knew questions would be asked around the fires this night. Victory and vengeance had to be won, no matter how long it took, otherwise he knew with a grim certainty he would be dead at the hands of his master. Murad would brook no insult to his clan, and when he learned it was Tinuva who ran with the humans …

Bovai nodded once, and turned, leading his men back through the narrow gap in the rocks. Best not to think of Murad discovering Tinuva’s part in this until the moment when he could present the Paramount Chieftain with both Hartraft’s and Tinuva’s heads.

Past freezing and injured goblins he strode, his mind lost in dreams of bloody vengeance, and none who saw his expression doubted for a moment that the chase was not over, but was merely postponed.

• Chapter Ten • (#ulink_fc52b9a9-6629-5b98-9f77-372e0dd2efea)

Valley (#ulink_fc52b9a9-6629-5b98-9f77-372e0dd2efea)

THE VALLEY WAS RICH AND FERTILE.

The high mountain peaks which surrounded it blocked off most of the snow so that the tall grass in the pastures was still exposed and stood nearly waist-high.

The stream they were following bubbled over rocks and swirled into eddying pools and more than one of his men exclaimed how they saw fish just waiting to be caught. Even for the unpractised eyes of the Tsurani, game signs were abundant and all were commenting on the fact, pointing out the does grazing in distant fields, wild mountain goats and the tracks of bear and elk.

Dennis asked, ‘How can this place exist?’

Tinuva knelt at the edge of the stream and said, ‘Feel the water.’

Dennis did as he was bid and exclaimed, ‘It’s warm!’

Asayaga knelt next to him and after he had plunged his hand into the water, said, ‘I would not call this warm, but it lacks the icy bite I would expect from melted snow.’

‘Exactly,’ said Dennis.

Tinuva pointed to the north-west. ‘Above us lies Akenkala, a volcano. In my youth she spewed liquid rock and filled the sky with smoke that lasted for more than a year.’ He stood up, wiping his hand on his tunic. ‘She sleeps now, but there is still fire within her.’

‘Which heats the water running down into this valley,’ said Asayaga.

Dennis looked around. ‘The air here is warmer than it is to the south, in Yabon.’

Asayaga nodded. ‘It is a wondrous place.’

‘The bounty of this place is beyond anything I’ve seen,’ said Tinuva. ‘We passed orchards as we scouted.’

They resumed walking. The men were not lulled by the relative kindness of the environment. They were still in enemy territory, and it would be foolish to expect whoever lived here to be a friend.

For they knew someone live here.

They had yet to find a single person, but the valley was clearly inhabited. They had passed three farmsteads, constructed of heavy logs, all of them still intact. In the fireplace of one the fire was still smouldering and in the barn a dozen chickens were to be found in a coop.

As the afternoon progressed the men became more and more uneasy at the eerie silence, the sense that they were walking through a realm of ghosts.

Tinuva and Gregory had ridden ahead and Dennis finally called a halt, moving the men up towards the treeline to rest, but forbade them to light fires. The afternoon sun, however, was relatively warm and in the still air it was actually rather comfortable. Soon nearly all the men had drifted into an exhausted sleep, including Dennis.

Brother Corwin was quietly tending to the wounded, seeing to their comfort, working with skilled hands to clean an arrow-wound in the arm of one of Asayaga’s men, who wandered over to watch.

The priest deftly bandaged the wound, laid out a blanket for the soldier to rest upon and stood up, wiping his hands. He saw Asayaga watching.

‘All these men have been pushed beyond the limit,’ Corwin said slowly, speaking in the manner one does when talking to a foreigner and is not yet sure of his skill with the language.

Asayaga grunted and said nothing in reply.

‘Even the men without hurts need several days with a roof over their heads, plenty of hot food and sleep. If I could get the wounded into shelter I think I could save all of them as well.’

‘Perhaps there is something ahead,’ Asayaga ventured.

‘This is a strange place. It’s on no map.’

‘You have a map?’

‘Ones I saw in the monastery,’ Corwin replied quickly. ‘I studied them before coming up to join the army.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Many places, but from Ran originally. Why?’

‘Just curious. How far from here?’

‘A month or more by caravan.’

‘And this is your first time in battle?’

‘No,’ said the monk, obviously not wishing to repeat his personal history. ‘I’ve seen a scuffle or two. I joined the order late, I was in my thirties when I got the calling to serve.’

‘Why?’

‘You are full of questions, Tsurani.’

Asayaga smiled. ‘It is my job to learn. I understand there was some trouble regarding you. You didn’t start with this unit, they found you and as a result a close friend of Hartraft was killed.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I have ears, I listen when the Kingdom troops talk. They all speak of it.’