Miach was on the verge of telling him to just be silent or he would find himself helped to silence when he caught wind of a change in the air. He turned and looked behind him to see the rest of their company riding as if the very demons of hell were after them. Morgan walked over to him.
"They look unsettled," she remarked.
"Is it Glines outrunning a disgruntled gambler?" Miach asked, trying for levity.
"I wonder," Morgan murmured.
Paien thundered up and jumped down off his horse with the energy of a man half his age. He ran up to Miach, panting hard.
"We must away."
Miach looked at him in surprise. "Why?" What had he missed? He'd been concentrating on the border, true, but surely he would have sensed something coming toward them with evil intent. Then again, given his experience near Chagailt, he knew he shouldn't have been surprised by anything. Apparently, there were things going on in the realm that he was not marking.
An unsettling trend, to be sure.
"Ghouls," Paien said succinctly. "Tales of them everywhere. We heard they were searching for something."
"Or someone," Glines said, coming to stand next to Paien. He looked at Miach seriously. "We saw a few. Not many, but terrifying just the same. We outrode them easily, but that safety will not last. I daresay we would do well not to camp in the open unless we are prepared to be assaulted. "
Miach nodded, considering furiously. Someone was being stalked. He could only assume it was Adhémar. Lothar couldn't possibly know anything about Morgan. It was he and Adhémar who drew the evil to them. The sooner that they were away, the better it would be for Morgan.
The safer for Morgan.
The truth of it sank into his heart and refused to move. He tried to turn away, but found he couldn't. He wanted to walk away, but his feet remained rooted to the ground. The reality of it was as bracing as a blow across the face.
The farther north they rode, the more danger Morgan unwittingly rode into.
Perhaps Lothar did not seek him; it was a certainty Lothar sought Adhémar. That did not begin to reckon anything about the magic Miach still couldn't identity. It was a treacherous mire of danger Morgan walked into without any idea of what she faced. She thought she simply carried a blade to the king of Neroche.
Miach knew better.
He wrenched himself away from where his body seemed to want to remain and started to pace. Perhaps he was wrong about her, about all of it. Just because she had dreamed once of the Sword of Angesand didn't mean that she was destined to be the wielder of it. Just because she dreamed dreams of Gair of Ceangail that were so detailed she could repeat while awake the spells she'd heard while asleep did not mean she possessed magic enough to wield the Sword of Angesand. Just because he was certain that she was Gair's daughter didn't mean she was destined to wield that same sword.
He could take Nicholas's knife for her.
He could send her far away from Tor Neroche.
What he could not do was send her to her death.
"Let us ride, then," Morgan was saying to Paien.
Paien didn't move. "Morgan, lass, you know I'll follow you anywhere, but don't you think 'tis time you told us where we're going?"
Morgan bowed her head for a moment, then lifted it and looked at him. "I'm going to the palace of Tor Neroche." she paused. "I can say no more."
Paien did not look all that surprised. The man was canny indeed. "No more needs to be said," he said briskly. "Let us be off."
"Are you too weary to ride?" Morgan asked.
"We aren't. And the horses will do as we ask." He shook his head in wonder. "Magnificent beasts."
"Great-hearted," Morgan agreed. "We'll break camp and be ready to ride immediately. Miach?"
Miach felt her touch on his arm. "Aye?" he croaked.
"Come," she said simply. "We must away. "
"Aye," he agreed. He looked down at her and would have liked nothing more than to have taught her a spell of shapechanging and bid her fly off to safety with him.
