Kevin J Anderson (8 page)

"Sometimes," Vailret interrupted, "you can get so busy trimming those roots that you don't see the tree about to fall on you."

Corim yanked on the reins of his horse. When the Black Falcon rider spoke, he seemed to disregard everything they had said. "I don't have time to share a meal with you, Delrael. I'll bring your terms to Annik, our leader. We'll meet again. Perhaps as allies."

"I hope so," Delrael said. He wondered if he was starting to sound more like a true commander.

Corim rode the horse directly between Delrael and where Vailret and Tareah stood. Vailret stepped back, exaggerating his reaction to how close the horse had come. The horse charged through the trees and plunged over the black line into the river.

It sank up to the top of its saddle and began to swim across the current, tossing its head but keeping its gaze on the line of the opposite bank. Corim did not turn back. His blond hair glinted in the sunlight. The current yanked the horse at a diagonal across the river, but the Black Falcon rider seemed unconcerned about where they would come to shore.

Delrael turned back around and refused to watch Corim's receding silhouette against the rushing water. Vailret put his hands on his hips, scowling. "Well, what are we going to do about that, Del?" The other characters were listening.

"We're not going to do anything about it," Delrael answered, realizing that his voice had grown testy. "We'll let them make their move. If they want to fight with us, they can help a lot. But we'll succeed without them, and I won't have them in my army if they go slaughtering the khelebar or the ylvans."

He sighed, then clapped his hands, raising his voice so that the characters would pay attention. "Enough of the show! We've got bigger problems to worry about."

Delrael looked over his shoulder at the river. Corim, small now in the distance, worked his way around a dead tree half-submerged in the current.

" ― such as crossing this river."

Normally, he would have asked Vailret's help in planning such an operation, but Delrael felt heady with responsibility. He could do it himself. He made it clear in his mind exactly what he wanted to do.

Delrael separated his fighters into different groups for building rafts that would carry them to the opposite bank. He selected teams to scout out nearby trees, others to work at felling them, still others to trim away the main branches and tie the trunks together. The army had enough work to keep busy for several days, but they would cross in a grand procession.

Jathen plunged into his job with enormous stamina, hacking at branches protruding from fallen trunks. His woodworking ax smacked into the wood with the solid sound of a sword connecting one of the practice posts. Chips of bark and sweet white wood sprayed in the air around him. Jathen pulled off his tunic even in the cool air. Dust and dirt smeared his chest, clinging to his sweat. Jathen's whole world seemed focused on what he was doing, as if to distract him from anything else that might haunt him.

As Delrael watched them fall to their directed tasks, he felt a growing pride ― all these scattered fighter characters from villages up and down the map were now mobilized into a real unit, like a Sitnaltan machine where all the pieces worked together.

Delrael's idea was to construct several rafts the size of barges to haul his fighting force across the water. There, the characters would cover the rafts with brush. If his army was on the run from Siryyk's horde, if their ambushes and defensive battles failed, they could uncover their rafts and escape down the river, leaving the manticore and all the monsters stranded behind.

As the other characters worked, Tareah wore an atypical scowl. Even in her mended clothes, she still looked beautiful to Delrael, with her long pale hair and the sapphire Water Stone hanging at her neck. He smiled at her, but she only glared at him. He felt crestfallen, wondering what he had done wrong.

Vailret finally spoke with her out of earshot. Tareah said something to him, shaking her head; Vailret looked surprised, rapping his knuckles against his forehead as if to demonstrate his own stupidity. He grabbed her arm, dragging her toward Delrael.

"Del, Tareah's got ― "

"If he wants to ignore my abilities, I'll let him." She refused to look at Delrael. "He's the one paying in sweat and sore muscles, after all."

He still couldn't fathom what had upset her. "Tareah, what did I do to make you angry ― "

She stood with her hands on her hips. For a moment Delrael saw a reflection of furious Sardun, who had attacked them when they first entered the Ice Palace.

"Why do you keep stopping me from doing anything to help you? I'm one of the most powerful characters on all of Gamearth. You made a
point
of that to the Black Falcon rider ― and yet, when you have to cross this river, why doesn't it occur to you that I could make an ice bridge with the Water Stone? Would your fighters really rather spend days building rafts by brute force?"

Delrael blinked his eyes in surprise. He felt shocked and stupid. The other characters stood up beside the fallen logs and pressed sweaty hair away from their eyebrows. The forest looked churned up from their efforts; stripped logs lay scattered about.

Delrael felt his cheeks burning. Tareah was right. She could help them cross with a single spell. He always tried to do everything he could to impress her, but in the back of his mind he still remembered her as the little girl who had waited to be rescued on the island of Rokanun,
waited
for some hero to come because that was how she thought the Game was played.

But she had changed much since then.

The weary characters glared at him, upset that they had done their work for nothing. Jathen stood up, blinking, but impatient: he didn't seem to mind the work, but just didn't want to stop.

Delrael stared at the gray, fast-moving river behind them. It looked treacherous even if they were on rafts. He forced himself to meet Tareah's eyes. "The rafts are a known risk, Tareah," he said. "And we'll have them there waiting for our return. Can you be sure your bridge won't collapse with our army halfway across?"

"If the spell works, it works. You'll know that as soon as I roll."

"Even with the Rules breaking?" Vailret said.

Tareah considered the question only long enough to shrug. "If that's the case, how do you know the rafts will float?"

Delrael knew how long it would take them to complete the rafts and slowly work their way across the current. He could well lose as many characters over the sides.

"Tareah, will you help us cross the river?" he asked.

Looking more relieved than smug, she nodded. "Yes. I will."

Tareah brushed her cheeks and arms as if preparing herself ― her expression looked truly eager to be part of things, to be helping out. Vailret nodded to her in encouragement.

"Get the fighters ready," Tareah said. Her voice was low and husky. "My father used the Water Stone to maintain the entire Ice Palace, but I don't want to hold up a bridge any longer than I have to. I'm not quite as confident as he was."

Delrael called to the other characters. Jathen pulled his tunic on again, tugged the lacings, and stood restless, shuffling his feet. Some fighters dipped their hands in the cold river water, trying to scrub away splinters or chafed skin.

Bryl went beside Tareah. "Need any help?"

She shook her head, then stepped between the trees to stand at the black line at the edge of the Barrier River. Her brown blouse and many-colored skirt had belonged to Delrael's mother. "Fielle liked this skirt," Siya had said when she took it out of a storage trunk and gave it to the newly grown Tareah.

Delrael didn't know what to think about Tareah fitting his mother's clothes. He rarely thought of his mother any more, not since she had died of a fever years before. Because of that, Delrael's father had gone into grief-stricken seclusion. He eventually fled the Game entirely, going in search of a legendary Pool of Peace inhabited by the Rulewoman Melanie.

Drodanis had left Delrael to run the Stronghold, without much training and experience. Delrael resented him for that, sometimes ― but other times he saw it as a trial by fire that had forced him to grow into a better fighter, a better player in the Game. Drodanis had made no contact with them for years, until he sent a message stick to warn Delrael about the threat of Scartaris. While offering no assistance of his own, he charged Delrael with a quest to find a way to save Gamearth. That message stick had caused Delrael to bring about the Barrier River, to protect them.

And now Tareah gazed at the immense river Sardun had created ― she, too, had to live up to the greatness of her father.

Tareah held the gleaming Water Stone in her hands. In silence, Delrael motioned his hands backward, making the other fighter characters step away. He bumped into Vailret's elbow, startling both of them.

Tareah held her head high, and her pale hair continued to drift back in the river breeze. Delrael remembered her in her little-girl body standing up like a great Sorcerer queen, using the power of the Stones against the dragon.

He heard only the rippling water and the occasional cough and shifting noise of the gathered characters. The army seemed to be holding its breath as Tareah knelt. She rolled the Water Stone on the ground. A smooth sapphire face stared upward into the clear sky, showing a chiselled "4."

Tareah, staring with half-closed eyes and acting as if she didn't want to break her concentration, snatched up the sapphire. She planted her feet squarely apart so that her boots dug into the soft mud and rested high on the black hex-line. One of her hands crooked, the fingers moved.

The water of the Barrier River responded, pushing up in a hump and then squeezing forward like clay, frosting and turning solid as it became ice. More water curled up under it, lapping, freezing, and extending the curved surface out.

Tareah moved her other hand, bringing her elbows close to her ribs in a silent pushing gesture. The tongue of ice bucked, widened, and lurched farther out, suspended over the choppy surface of the river.

The magic flowed through Tareah now, and the water churned into froth around the base of the ice bridge. The wide white footpath looped but held firm, rippling and thrusting like someone squeezing dough through a tube.

As the arch rose through the center of the hex-wide river, it began to curve toward the opposite shore. The base in front of Tareah's spread feet grew thicker and wider. Icicles dribbled down from its sides, growing thicker and plunging into the water as support struts.

Tareah made a coughing sound. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut; her forehead was wrinkled. Delrael wanted to place his hands on her shoulders, to comfort her or to add strength somehow ― but he didn't dare break her concentration and send the ice bridge crumbling into the swirling waters.

The characters began to mutter in appreciation and awe. Jorte, the keeper of the village gaming hall, made an enthusiastic cheer. But Delrael whirled around with a glare and silenced them all.

Tareah clenched both her hands into fists around the Water Stone. She lifted her head up, and it was as if she could see even with her eyes closed. The ribbon of ice fell a hexagon away and struck the opposite shore, completing the link. She relaxed a little. Her shoulders slumped, her fingers remained curled around the sapphire.

The ice continued to thicken and widen as more water flowed up to freeze along the bridge. Its surface became stubbled and rough, with steplike projections on the steepest part of the curve.

Tareah spoke, but kept her face directed across the river. "Send them across. It'll hold now. But don't take any longer than necessary."

Delrael motioned with his left arm. Some of characters acted uneasy; Delrael climbed up onto the bridge first, in his role as their brave leader, moving at a brisk pace. Vailret followed behind, then Jathen. Bryl came up with Siya, and then the other fighters started to march along.

Delrael hurried. He didn't know how Tareah would come over herself, but he kept moving. The air around the bridge blew bitterly cold. Less than a man-length wide, the ice bridge felt hard and slick under his feet. He had to pay attention to where he set his feet and could not allow himself to be distracted by the gurgling waters against the icicle struts below.

He did peer over the edge and see, submerged in the current, rocks and the murky shadows of toppled trees. Some distance to the south he made out a black line parallel to the bridge, which marked the boundary of the next river hexagon.

The last time he had crossed this river had been on Enrod's raft, pushed by the cursed Sentinel. Delrael wondered about Enrod now. He could sense Jathen close behind him, and did not want to mention the fallen Sorcerer who had been a hero to the Tairans.

Delrael found it difficult to keep his balance on the downward curve of the opposite side, but managed to set foot on the bank again. Behind him Vailret slipped with the heels of his boots and fell on his backside into the mud. It showed the others to be careful, and Vailret managed to laugh at it; Delrael wondered if he had done the stunt on purpose, to make a point for them all.

Delrael reached out to take Siya's hand, but she refused. Bryl scowled at her and worked his own careful way down. "You don't get much help these days. You should take it when it's offered."

She snorted. "
You
might be an invalid, but I'm not yet."

Vailret turned and squinted toward Tareah waiting on the opposite bank. The line of fighters continued to cross over the walkway. They began milling in the nearby forest terrain to keep from crowding the base of the bridge.

Jathen stood beside the other characters, but remained silent. He looked at the river, then gazed deep into the forest terrain that hid their long journey toward Taire. Delrael wondered what it had been like for him to take a log and swim across the cold river. No wonder Jathen had been sick and exhausted by the time he reached the Stronghold village.

Scattered around the riverbank, Delrael noticed the burned spots of many different campfires, as if a great number of characters had waited there. Up and down the hex-line, he saw other dead fires spaced equally apart. One still smoldered.