CHAPTER 8
The Collapse
Hetarth looked at their mule-stubborn expressions and sighed. They were camped up in the foothills of the Mountains of the Guard, Haldon Anciri, overlooking the fortified town of Donlin. It squatted at the mouth of the pass, dark timbers cutting a sharp contrast to the snow. It was the last trading town in Amanheld and the land route to the harsh but wealthy land of Cavilnor and its mines. Hetarth was insisting on entering the town alone.
"You know you can't come. They're looking for three people travelling together." He said patiently.
"We managed to cross the pass without anyone noticing!" Elaina protested.
"That's because there was no one there. There will be people in the city, Elaina, we'd be noticed for sure." Hetarth pointed out dryly. "One man alone will blend in." Elaina glowered in silence, but Landon had another argument.
"So send me! If one man blends in, then I'll do as well as you—only I can run if things go bad." Landon fumed. Hetarth returned his stubborn glare, crossing thick arms across his chest.
"I think not. I can hide my face—you can't. I'll be the only one of us in Donlin, today, you both understand me?" He looked to them both for reluctant agreement. "Good. I will be back as quickly as I can. Elaina, keep watch with the spyglass. If something happens, don't wait, and whatever you do, don't come back. Run. Run as fast as you can. Get lost in the mountains.” Hetarth commanded, “Don't. Come. Back." Elaina opened her mouth to disagree, but when Hetarth's bushy eyebrows met in a scowl, she nodded instead.
Hetarth shouldered his pack and turned toward the road to Donlin. Before he could take three steps, Elaina ran after him.
"You'll be careful, won't you?" she asked anxiously, "All these warnings . . ."
"Just in case," he assured her.
"But nothing's going to happen," Elaina pressed. Her uncle smiled quietly and put one finger under her chin.
"I'm just getting some warmer clothes. Soon we'll be deep in the northern mountains, safe for the winter." He promised, "I'll be right back, little 'Laina, dasfinya." She smiled at the name he called her when she was younger, reassured by his promise. The word meant “truly” in the language of the Guardians.
"Goodbye." Giving her a quick hug, he turned back down the hill. Before Elaina's eyes, he shimmered and changed. A stooped old man had taken his place, white hair trailing down his back: his disguise.
Elaina watched him from the hill as long as she could. Once he disappeared down the road, she went to sit with Landon and their things, scattered amongst the pine needles and boulders. Pulling the spyglass from Landon’s pack, she began her long watch.
As if by some trick of the Air and Fire, when she put the thing to her eye the world rushed up to her and it was as if Hetarth weren’t but two spans away. She’d examined Landon’s spyglass on more than one occasion, but there was nothing enchanted about it. It just seemed that way.
She scanned the plain until she found the thin dark ribbon of road, then followed it to Hetarth. He was moving fairly quickly, she could just make out the walls of Donlin in the distance. Landon tried to explain how the lenses bent the light without actually reflecting it, so Illusions still held up. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Elaina, who didn’t understand how you could possibly bend light.
When he made it to the gates, Elaina could see five men standing there. Squinting, she asked anxiously,
"What do agents look like?" They had been so far away last time, she hadn’t been sure. Landon frowned at her, then held his hand out of the spyglass. Reluctant to give it up, Elaina memorized the figures at the gate. One looked like a normal guard, though he was better prepared for his job than the old gatekeeper in Tar Haviel with those broad shoulders, chain mail, and heavy sword buckled around his waist. The other four seemed far too grim. Why would there be four extra guards? Uneasy, she handed the glass to Landon, who was already explaining:
"Some of them wear the dark grey the Drethlords do, the color of wet ash. Some look just about like everyone else, only with the seal on their shoulder: the three black towers of Hurndrith. The worst ones wear all black. They are the Watchers, the casters’ special guard.
“My father saw one fighting a man once, though it didn't last long—their battles usually don't. Father's a swordmaster, one of the best in Loth Daer, and he said the Watcher would have killed him in four strokes."
Elaina stared at him while he searched the wall for the gate—it could be hard to locate things when you first put it up to your eye. "Why do you ask?"
"Because there are too many men at the gate, and I think they're wearing that seal." Elaina muttered, her heart leaping into her throat. Landon jumped down from his perch on an enormous outcrop of granite and knelt down to steady his elbow on his knee.
“He’s close enough to see them now, and he isn’t stopping.” Landon reported tersely.
"Why's he going in? He knows what they look like!" Elaina moaned, hands flying to her face. Instead of hiding her eyes, she peered between her fingers at the town, though she couldn’t see anything. Landon kept up a commentary.
“He has greeted the guards, they’re uncertain about something. One of them looks like he’s whispering to another . . .” Her breath caught in her throat. “They’re nodding, he’s in!” Landon looked over in wide-eyed relief.
"Glad you didn't try to sneak in?" Elaina asked him weakly.
"Yeah . . ." he breathed, settling back on his heels. "very, very glad."
Elaina took the spyglass and scanned the roads, waiting to catch Hetarth again when he reappeared.
Landon stared down at Donlin. “It isn’t much of a city, is it?” he commented, “All the houses are wood and the roofs thatch. Even the walls are just sharpened logs.” Elaina supposed he was right, it would be more impressive in stone. But it was still bigger than anyplace she’d ever seen. How do they ever stop fires in there? Just as she was about to ask Landon what people in cities did about that—he had gone back to the boulder and was absentmindedly picking apart a pine cone—she swung the glass around to follow Hetarth through the gates. Men were following behind him.
"He’s in black!" She gasped.
"Who?"
"One of the guards from the gate—he’s got a brown cloak on, but underneath he’s in all black, just like you said!" she cried as Landon hurried back over to her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, he was holding the cloak shut before, but now he’s being careless."
"I thought they didn’t go in after him?" he asked.
"They didn’t have to!" she replied shrilly, "They just waited for him to come back! He probably doesn’t know they’ve figured it out!" The disguised Hetarth ambled down the road with large bundles on his back. Elaina had a stranglehold on the spyglass, as if controlling the glass might let her control the scene it showed her.
She could make out all five guards clearly now. The normal guard looked bored and kept checking back over his shoulder at the abandoned gate. The others were obviously tense, save for the man in black. His stride didn’t falter, and he didn’t look about anxiously, just watched Hetarth and waited. He was like a cat waiting patiently at the mouse-hole.
"Maybe they're not from Hurndrith," Landon offered, "If they aren't going after him.”
"Maybe they're just biding their time!" Elaina replied fearfully. "We should have gone with him!" she wailed. Landon shifted his stare from the road he couldn’t see to look askance of her.
"How would that help?"
"Honestly!" she snapped, "You could use that thing," she nodded at his sword, "and I could burn the whole damn place to the ground!" Elaina scrambled to her feet, as if that would give her a better view.
"Can’t you burn it down from here?” Landon suggested.
“I can’t do it from that far away. I'm going." She said resolutely.
"No."
"You can't stop me!"
"No, I can't, but your promise should." Landon pointed out.
"I co
uld help him!" she protested. He shook his head.
"No. If they really know, you’d only give them exactly what they want: you. And if they don’t know, then Hetarth doesn’t need any help."
"But he—!" she cried.
"Knows what he's doing." Landon finished, "and has a better chance of getting away if he's not worried about you." Elaina bit her lip, uncertain. "He told us to watch so we would know if we should run—run into the mountains, not back to Donlin." At last, Elaina sighed and sat down again, resting her elbow on her knee to hold the spyglass steady.
“They’ve still not moved closer!” she breathed, then, “Oh.”
“What?” Landon demanded.
“They’re definitely following—the only other person just turned off the road. I can’t tell if he knows. He hesitated for a moment, but that might have been the limp." Landon began gathering their things. She took a moment’s break from the spyglass to stare him. He explained.
"If he doesn't know he's being followed, he'll lead them right to us. We should circle around and be sure no one comes with him. No need to hide the camp, just hide our tracks from here." Elaina blinked. That was good thinking.
Snagging her worn and battered satchel with one arm, Elaina stumbled backward up the hill to keep her eye on Hetarth. He was walking faster, awkwardly jerking his leg behind him.
"This way, Elaina," Landon called quietly in front of her. "The more you walk on the rocks, the less you’ll have to hide later."
"I think he knows."
Landon glanced back at her, then whipped his head around to face the town, as if he could see that far without the glass just by wanting it so much. Elaina stopped in her tracks.
"He's going the wrong way," she said, staring, "I-I think he's lost—we have to go back." Elaina stammered, stepping back down the hill.
"Hetarth's not lost, Elaina." Landon said. Something about his voice made her stop, and she turned to face him.
"What?"
"He knows where he's going. They're after him, and he's leading them away. We have to go. Now." Stunned, she only stared.
"He's buying us time—let's use it." Landon’s voice was sad but stern.
"No!" Elaina cried, "I won't leave him to those men, I can save him!"
"Elaina, he doesn't want you to. He wants you to run, remember? You promised him you would run." Landon reminded her with soft urgency.
"I said if something happened," she protested, changing her argument, "and nothing has!"
"It will!" he said sharply. The hillside was perfectly still in the silence. Elaina stared up at him.
"He can find us later," Landon amended more gently, "He's been a Guardian for over a hundred years." Still she didn't move.
"The only people who want us to stay right here or go down there," he nodded toward the road and Donlin, "are the agents. Come on, Elaina, we have to run."
Tears stung her eyes, but she nodded, hiking back up the hill to him. With one long last look toward Donlin, Landon led her deeper into the mountains.
Elaina was struggling to keep up but Landon didn't slow. She would go as slow as he let her to keep checking the spyglass. After their argument, she hadn't told him what was happening anymore. Landon didn't know if that was because she was angry or just if there was nothing to tell. He was about to say something when she gasped.
"They're catching up! He's stopped, the Illusion is gone—they have him!" her voice caught. Landon watched her face contort in pain, lips parting to say something.
A flash of white light filled the horizon to the south, blinding them both for an instant. Blinking away the purple haze that filled his vision, Landon looked to Elaina, mute horror filling his mind. Surely the agents had died in that, surely whatever he did had killed them. For a moment she wavered, then she collapsed onto the rocks.
Fear filled him as he scrambled back down to her, taking the glass from her hands and peering at a large swatch of the road that was now blackened and burned. A great dark circle was melted out of the snow, and standing in it was only one man, all in black.
"No." Elaina whispered, "No, no. No." She dug out the little stone bird of hers and murmured to it in a the old language. It didn’t move. Landon knew it was supposed to swing about in her hand and point to Hetarth.
She turned it another way and tried again—if it were already pointing to him, by chance, it would appear not to work. It still didn’t turn. There was nothing to point to. The little sparrow didn’t have a pair anymore, it was alone.
Landon raised his eyes to Elaina, who sat cradling the little bird in her hands, tears streaming down her face. And now she’s alone too.
Fighting down the disbelief and terror that rose up his throat, Landon took Elaina's free hand and pulled her upright.
He had not known Elaina's uncle long, but time seemed longer when you saw one another from sunrise to sunset. Hetarth had kept them alive and free for weeks in the wilderness all while teaching Elaina how to be a Guardian. What are we going to do? I can get us lost in the mountains, but then what? Then what?
Landon had no answer for the insistent voice in his head. He had no idea what to do. But there was no time to dwell on it. He pushed down the gloom that grew around him with the dusk. Plans were for tomorrow and the day after. Tonight they had to get far enough away. Just have to keep walking. By changing his path, Hetarth had bought them some time.
They staggered on through the rocks and trees until well after night fell. Elaina didn't complain, didn't speak at all, and Landon didn't let go of her hand. When he did at last, and quietly told her they would rest a few hours until the moon was up to light their way, she stopped where she was and sat, staring blankly into the darkness. After an hour, Landon dared to speak again, wincing as he did.
"Elaina, we have to know if the agents are close . . ."
She handed him back the spyglass. He scanned the paths below them. Nothing. Perhaps they’d gone searching in the wrong direction—taking the path they assumed Hetarth would have taken. Landon sighed, tipping his head back to stare at the stars that pierced the velvet black of the night.
"They’re nowhere in sight." There was blessings in that, he supposed, but nothing felt that way. Maybe I just can’t see them. Maybe they’ve given up now. But probably not. He closed his eyes against the light that flashed across his mind as it had the moment Hetarth died.
Elaina still had not released the little bird. A tiny frown wrinkled his forehead. She’s casting for him again. Despite knowing the truth, Landon felt hope swirl painfully in his chest before he could crush it. Elaina’s hopeful face made him ache as she pored over the swallow. Suddenly, she hurled it into the night with a choked cry. The stone crashed and bounced loudly down the mountainside until he heard it crunch into soft snow. Landon had nothing to say. It felt like a fist punching through his chest, listening to her sob herself to sleep.
Thankfully, exhaustion overcame grief quickly, and her breathing became slow and even. When he was sure she was asleep, Landon rose. As quietly as he could, he picked his way down the rocks, searching in the silver half-light. He ran his hands over the stones and through the snow until he found it.
Tucking the tiny statue into his belt, Landon climbed back up the hill to sit and wait for moonrise. In a few hours, they would be running again. It was too cold to keep heading north, so he would take her east. The closer they got to his home, the more of an advantage they'd have. Maybe they could spend the winter in the Fens, or sneak into little hamlet somewhere and disappear. If they made it to Jernal, they could hide amongst the roving bands of the horselords . . . If. Resting his head in his hand and his elbow on one knee, Landon closed his eyes and tried to sleep.