The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 37

EXCERPT - needful topic wanted here

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OF DEATHS & REVELATIONS

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When Caris and Willard returned—the old knight wordless, deep in his trance of meditation, and Caris just as remote in communion with Rag and the other horses—Harric mounted and fell in behind Molly, trailing Idgit and Holly behind him.

Smoke hung like a haze in the great corridors of trees, making Harric's eyes and throat raw. Willard set a grueling pace without stopping for rest, and by night both riders and horses were exhausted.

Harric watered Snapper, double-fed him and rubbed down the gelding's steaming muscles. The poor horse wouldn't get much sleep tonight. He'd leave as soon as he had an opportunity to get the horse away without anyone noticing. An hour or two at most, he judged. And then they'd travel all night to get a head start.

When he'd finished checking his hooves and shoes, he packed for his departure by preparing two bags he could carry on foot, in case he couldn't get Snapper out of camp without waking the others. The first was his mother's travel pack, where he stowed all essentials and a two-day supply of strong-bread; the second was Captain Gren's spitfire pack, in which he stuffed extra clothes and food between the spitfires and resin.

As he finished securing Gren's pack, Willard called them together. "Take a good look at this map again, all of you," he said. He pointed to their valley and to the adjacent valley where the fire burned. "It seems this wind is our friend. By blowing the fire back on itself, it appears to have strangled the fire. Brolli will keep watch for any chance the new wind blows the fire into our valley while we sleep, but the chances of that are dwindling."

"That is good news," Kogan said.

"Mudruffle has agreed to show us what he knows of our path tomorrow," said Willard. "Pay close attention so you'll know where to go if we're separated." He nodded to Mudruffle, and the little golem stepped forward, gave a stiff bow, and laid his finger on the map.

"We are here now," he said, indicating a spot near the top of the map, just below the point Mudruffle had named "Toothed Canyon." Beyond the canyon, annotations were scarce, a shortcoming Harric guessed Mudruffle intended to remedy now. "The Toothed Canyon is only a half mile long, but the cliffs there are so severe that I have found only one way through, and that way is hidden by the river for most of the year. We are fortunate that in summer the water is low enough to reveal it: it is ledge of stone that runs the length of the canyon on this side of the river."

"So it's a riverside trail?" said Harric.

"It is."

"Make no mistake," said Willard. "This canyon is a bottleneck in the valley, and if Bannus figured out our trail, he might have run up the other side of the river to cut us off there. I think it unlikely, but we must be on our guard."

The others exchanged uneasy glances.

"So we follow the yoab runs from here to the canyon," said Harric, drawing a line north along the river with his finger, "and when we get to the canyon we climb right down to the water to find the ledge, and follow the ledge through the canyon."

"That is correct." Mudruffle turned away from the map to face them. "When we are through, then we find the pass to the west."

"Right away? We turn west right away?" Harric wanted to be sure of their path so he could precede them on it that night, but he had a feeling Mudruffle didn't truly know of a pass, and that this was why his map was so poorly annotated north of the canyon.