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The Chalk Path shone before them, cutting straight through the forest like a line of power outlined in gleaming white. They approached cautiously, listening for other travelers, but the night remained silent. Gray teased the eastern sky. Dawn was coming. Chalk marked a road wide enough for two horsemen to ride abreast. It struck east and west as far as he could see, an unbroken line demarcating the chalky surface of the even road from the uneven forest loam and litter on either side.
They paused just beyond its border. Agalleos drew a pouch out of his gear and poured a mess of seeds, chaff, and scraps of herbs and torn petals into a hand.
“Stay close together. Walk swiftly. We must cross as soon as I throw these up, or else the Cursed Ones will know we have passed this way.”
“How can that be?” Alain grasped Sorrow’s collar tightly but let Maklos take hold of Rage.
“The Chalk Path marks the border of those lands that the Cursed Ones consider their own. It tracks any who walk on it. Once their scouts find our crossing point, they would be able to track us for days just from the dust on our feet. Queen Shuashaana’s magic will conceal us. Now. Go.”
o;I was driven from my home.”
“Do you not hate the one who forced you to go?”
He shook his head, thinking of Geoffrey. “He did not understand what he was doing. He thought he was right, that he was only taking back what belonged to him.”
“Well,” said Agalleos, “you are young. Come.”
A cistern lay hidden within the rocks, enough water to drink their fill and even wash the dust off their faces and hands. To Alain’s surprise, he found Maklos there, chatting with his twin and looking pleased with himself.
“They’ve lost our trail,” he said to Agalleos. “They came no farther than the rotting pillars.”
“Good.” Agalleos sluiced water over his head, letting it dribble down his face in streams. “We’ll not lose this route today, then. Tomorrow it may save another one of us.” He measured the sun’s height, now halfway down to the western horizon. “We’ll go on at dusk. I want to cross the Chalk Path at night.”
Alain welcomed a chance to sleep. He woke, smelling smoke and cooking meat. Agalleos had built a fire deep in among rocks, letting dry tinder and many smoke holes disguise its presence. Sorrow and Rage were already eating, cracking bones in their haste to wolf down their meal. Shevros had snared a dozen small rock partridges, quickly devoured by the hungry companions. As the sun’s rim touched the western horizon, they shouldered their gear and walked north and west where the ridge spread into a large massif. There remained light to move quickly along the spine of the ridge. By the time it was too dark to move easily, they’d reached the high plateau which all the ravines and defiles and ridges spilled out of.
“Will the others have reached safety by now?” Alain asked when they stopped to water the hounds at another hidden cistern.
“Long since,” replied Agalleos. “Now we rest until moonrise. After that, we must walk quietly. No speaking.”
Alain was given leave to sleep while the others stood watch. No doubt, they understood better than he did what to watch for; they knew this land, while he did not. The injury to his hand made him woozy as exhaustion hit. He slept, grateful for his companions’ generosity.
They woke him at moonrise. With the heavens so clear the waning moon still gave enough light to negotiate the rocky ground as they hiked onward into pine woods. The night was alive with birds and insects. The ground litter, parched by summer, crackled under his feet. Now and again craggy outcrops, like uneven rock blisters, thrust up out of the earth, devoid of any vegetation except a few tenacious grasses. It was easy to see the stars through the thin foliage. The River of Souls streamed brightly across the sky. Had he already begun to forget the names of the constellations that Deacon Miria had taught him? The Heron struggled upward as it sank into the west; the Eagle, likewise, was beginning to slip west out of the zenith. Yet which was the name Adica had taught him, and which from his old life? Did it even matter anymore? This was his life now. He had given everything else away in exchange for his life; all that mattered was what he had here. Knowing that, at the end of this detour, Adica would be waiting gave him strength. A shadow of fear fluttered up, like a bat out of night. Had she woken from her trance? What if her vision trapped her? What if she never woke? He pushed fear aside. He had sat patiently beside her while she suffered through worse trances than this, last winter; it was the burden of being Hallowed One. As long as he watched over her, she would be safe. The sooner he returned to her, the safer she would be.
The Chalk Path shone before them, cutting straight through the forest like a line of power outlined in gleaming white. They approached cautiously, listening for other travelers, but the night remained silent. Gray teased the eastern sky. Dawn was coming. Chalk marked a road wide enough for two horsemen to ride abreast. It struck east and west as far as he could see, an unbroken line demarcating the chalky surface of the even road from the uneven forest loam and litter on either side.
They paused just beyond its border. Agalleos drew a pouch out of his gear and poured a mess of seeds, chaff, and scraps of herbs and torn petals into a hand.
“Stay close together. Walk swiftly. We must cross as soon as I throw these up, or else the Cursed Ones will know we have passed this way.”
“How can that be?” Alain grasped Sorrow’s collar tightly but let Maklos take hold of Rage.
“The Chalk Path marks the border of those lands that the Cursed Ones consider their own. It tracks any who walk on it. Once their scouts find our crossing point, they would be able to track us for days just from the dust on our feet. Queen Shuashaana’s magic will conceal us. Now. Go.”
He flung seeds and chaff into the air. They bolted across the path as the mixture drifted down, shimmering like sparks around them, and tumbled panting into the scant cover of the trees beyond. Agalleos and his companions ran onward, eager to get out of sight of the road, but Alain turned to look back.
No footprints marked the path where they had crossed.
He saw no sign of their passage at all. Even the seeds and chaff had vanished. A last drifting flower petal, as light as down, spit brightness as it burst into flame and, a finger’s breadth from the betraying chalk trail, winked out of existence.
They traveled all that day overland, resting that night in a ruined town, long abandoned although soot still streaked the tumbled walls. Here they ate a meal of smoked venison and crumbling way-bread, flavored with aniseed and very sour.
“This road is longer than I thought,” said Alain as he reclined on a bed of leaves. Clouds hid the stars, although no rain fell. “How far have we come? How far have we left to go?”
Agalleos knelt beside him, constructing a hidden fire pit with stone and tiles. Shevros and Maklos had gone out to set snares. Birds were easy to catch in the wilderness that the war had made of these lands. “Queen Shuashaana’s magic is too powerful even for the Cursed Ones to defeat. That’s why she’s stayed here when most of our people, those who survived, have walked away to find new homes. The hills of this part of the country have many caves and tunnels worn into them, because of the soft rock. The queen sealed the labyrinth with her magic. There is a gate there, that she wove, where you can step from the land of the Cursed Ones into the loom outside her camp. But to walk is a path that takes many days. We must go north, and then cut back south and west.”
“Except for the worm’s path you spoke of.”
Agalleos grinned. “Truly. The worm’s path cuts back through the underside of the hills into the labyrinth. That saves three days’ walking. But the worm’s path is for young men.” He sat back from his work and patted his midsection. He hadn’t much fat on him, but certainly he was stockier than his young companions, having an older man’s girth. “I fear I’m too round to crawl on the worm’s path any longer, although I knew it well when I was a boy.” He picked up a few tiles. “Nay, friend. Rest your hand. I can do this myself.” A quail’s whistle sounded out of the dark, and he answered it, low and sweet. Shevros appeared carrying a string of partridges and two pheasants. “Be patient,” said Agalleos as he built a fire. “Caution will serve us well. Three more days.”
