Child of Flame (Page 293)

Agalleos picked up a finger bone and rolled it along his palm. “Death won. My father died somewhere in these rocks. His body was never found. As you have seen, he had many companions on the road to the other side. The Cursed Ones do not like this place. Queen Shuashaana says that is because they can still hear the screaming of the ghosts who were never laid to rest.”

Alain heard nothing but their own small noises: Rage’s snuffling, the press of Agalleos’ feet as he shifted. A golden eagle glided overhead. Wind picked up, casting grit into his face.

“Come,” said Agalleos. “We are almost there.”

They reached the far side of the slide although by this time they had climbed well up the western slope. Above them the valley’s slope cut into a long escarpment, dark and brooding, that ran all the way down the rest of the broad ravine. Beyond the slide, thorns grew in profusion. It was hard to see where they could go from here. Maklos caught up with them, grinning like a boy ready to play a trick on his rival.

The sun had reached zenith, so bright and glaring that its light seemed like an actual weight. Alain was slick with sweat, and the hounds were laboring. His hand was swelling again. He hunkered down in such shade as he could find—there wasn’t much, with shadows so short—and shaded his eyes to stare back across the valley. Was that movement on the eastern ridge? Hard to tell.

Agalleos pointed. “Twenty or more of them.” After a moment, Alain thought he saw a darting movement at the fringe of the distant thorn growth, there on the eastern slope, but when it fluttered up into the sky, he realized it was only a bird.

A horn call rang out. Had the Cursed Ones found their trail, or were they giving up?

“It’s clear,” said Shevros, stepping out from a shadowed cleft, a natural chimney forged by unknown forces long ago.

“We must tie rope to the dogs, in case we need to haul them up,” said Agalleos.

Alain looped a harness of rope around their chests, backs, and bellies so they wouldn’t choke. He led them into the cleft; although it was still oppressively warm, the shade gave some relief from the heat. The builders had taken advantage of a natural incline already present in the escarpment when they chiseled out the steps. Climbing was hard work because the stair steps were not even. Whoever had hewn them out of the rock had merely worked with what was already there, so at times he had to take tiny steps, followed by a big lift. He was soon breathing hard. Shevros, in front, seemed scarcely winded, as though he climbed such staggering heights every morning before he broke his fast.

After about one hundred steps they came to the trap, a swaying bridge woven out of branches and rope and, poised above it, a lattice gate that held back a jumble of stones overbalanced into a horizontal cleft. Soldiers triggering the trap would be crushed once they were strung out on the bridge, and once the bridge was broken, it would be impossible to continue up the trail.

Maklos waited as the others negotiated the bridge. The hounds whined, nervous of the shifting ground, so Alain had to lead them across one at a time.

“How will Maklos follow us?”

“There’s a ladder hewn into the rock. There, you can see the beginning of it.”

“He’s going to climb straight up the rock face?”

“There are hand- and footholds. You can’t see them from here.”

Below, Maklos whistled, still grinning.

“Has he a sweetheart? I’ll be sure to describe his daring in great detail to her.”

Agalleos chuckled. “Then you’ll have an audience of ten or twelve.”

They climbed on, resting frequently. Once or twice they had to hoist the hounds up steep sections, but in the end they reached the top. Alain’s legs ached and his injured hand throbbed painfully. Scrub grew thinly here; the jumbled ridgeline was mostly rocks. They backtracked to the edge of the escarpment, a dizzying drop that looked down into Thorn Valley and beyond. A vista of rugged country unfolded before them. To the south and east, a line of sharp ridges and defiles gave out suddenly into a gulf of air and beyond that lay a hazy lowland, yellow with summer and bright with heat and color.

Shevros spat. “That is the country of the Cursed Ones. May they all rot.”

It was the longest speech he had yet made. “Why do you hate them so?” asked Alain.

Shevros gave him a disgusted look and turned away, slipping gracefully back into the cover of the rocks.

“We are driven from our homes by the Cursed Ones,” said Agalleos. “They destroyed our cities. Many of our people have died. Many more who escaped the ruins of our towns walked east to the country of our cousins, the tribes of Ilios, to beg for refuge, to make a new home if they can. Of course we hate them.”