Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) 00

Agalleos measured the hounds, and then Alain. “This is a mystery,” he admitted, “since I started speaking to you in my own language once it seemed to me you understood me well enough.”

“How can that be?” demanded Alain, alarmed and confused by Agalleos’ statement.

The sound of a horn calling soldiers to battle rang faintly in through the cave’s mouth. Shevros scrambled in through the opening and jumped down to stand beside his brother. The resemblance between the two was uncanny; Alain could tell them apart only because Shevros had a scar on his belly and because Maklos had belted his linen kilt—the only clothing except sandals that the men wore—lower along his hips than the other two, exposing a great deal of taut belly.

“The Cursed Ones come,” said Shevros. “The horn has been raised at the fort. They have found the dead ones.”

Agalleos frowned. “This is bad. They will swarm like locusts into the defile. Now we cannot go down again by the low ground.”

“Are we trapped here?” Alain asked.

“There is a longer road back. We must move quickly, before light comes.”

It wasn’t easy to wrestle the hounds out of the cave’s opening, nor to maneuver them into position. Alain carried Sorrow as a heavy weight draped over his shoulders, and brave Maklos took Rage. Shevros led the way, climbing up toward the ridgeline above, while Agalleos hung back at the rear. Clouds drifted across the crescent moon, but Alain still felt the prickle of unseen eyes watching his back as they ascended. The horn blasted thrice more. Calls and shouts drifted to them across the gulf of air. Just as they reached the ridgetop and let the hounds down, throwing themselves on the rocky ground to rest, a line of torches sprang into life along the fort’s walls, spilling out the unseen gate and scattering like falling sparks down the slopes of the defile.

Agalleos regarded Sorrow and Rage solemnly. “From here we know only two paths which can lead us safely back to the camp of our queen. But the shorter of these the hounds cannot walk.”

“Even with ropes, and our assistance?” asked Alain.

“Even so. It is a worm’s path, underground and underwater. We cannot risk it. We will have to go north and circle around the river.”

Maklos hissed sharply.

“Go soon,” said Shevros. “Look.”

Torches had reached the bottom of the defile and a dozen now began to search for a way to climb while the rest followed the course of the stream. Cursed Ones spread everywhere, as numerous as a nest of baby spiders spilling into life. Pink painted the eastern horizon, the brush of dawn.

“Will Adica reach Shu-Sha’s camp safely?” Alain whispered, horrified that he had let her be carried away. He should have gone with her to see her to safety. Yet Sorrow, lying beside him, whined softly, and Rage licked his hand.

“Nothing is certain,” agreed Agalleos, “but theirs was the safest, swiftest path. Oshidos is a strong fighter, and they’ll go anyway through the labyrinth. The Cursed Ones have never caught any of our people in there.”

With an effort, Alain buried his fear. What use would he be to Adica if he got himself killed by the Cursed Ones because he was worrying about her? “Very well. North of the river, if that is the only path. I have come a long way with these comrades, and I won’t abandon them now.”

“Crazy outlander,” muttered Maklos.

“I can see they are powerful spirit guides. The gods have woven a mystery about you, comrade.” Agalleos pushed himself up to a crouch, poised and ready. “To get out of Thorn Valley we’ll have to go by way of the Screaming Rocks. Shevros, you lead the way. Maklos, you’ll take the rear. You must set the trap and follow by the ladder.”

Maklos seemed pleased to have been given the dangerous assignment. Alain could imagine him boasting of it afterward to his admiring sweethearts.

If they got back safely.

So began the scramble, first along the ridgeline, using boulders and scrub for cover, and after that dropping down into the next canyon over where an escarpment of eroded limestone pillars thrust up out of a tangle of vegetation to form a landmark. Thorn Valley was aptly named, a steeply-sloped vale covered entirely with bushy undergrowth sporting thorns as long as the hounds’ claws. There was no way they could get through that.

Shevros vanished into one of the cavelets worn out of the pillars. “Go,” said Agalleos, glancing behind them. On the ridgeline behind them, a torch appeared, then a second. Inside the cave, cunningly concealed where a fallen boulder seemed to be crumbling into the sloping walls, lay a tunnel. Shevros had shinnied partway down; Alain could see his shield, glinting where he’d strung it on his back. Alain moved to follow him, but Agalleos held him back.