I led the sylph nearly a mile on foot before I mounted and it felt odd. Odder than riding a horse, its movements were more catlike and agile than a horse. Smoother and gaited unlike the normal walk, trot and canter but as smooth as gliding on water. It responded to leg aids and weight shifts instantly as finely tuned as a cutting horse used to herd cattle. Yet somehow, it felt just like riding a horse to me and I was able to get it to gallop for hours. I had to push the animal, I wasn’t sure how long I had before I was reported missing and I definitely wanted to be on the other side of the Wall before Averon called me back.
I had thought about letting myself fall and bringing one of the Condorla, killing the guard and stealing the bird but that posed two problems. One, I wasn’t sure how to fly and two, I wasn’t sure if the pilot would be missed immediately or later.
I knew the stables weren’t guarded nor checked on once they closed the barn for the night. It posed no problem to sneak in and take the first animal I found nor to saddle and bridle the mare.
It wasn’t long before the sylph reached the mist that defined the boundaries of the Wall. Now, all I had to do was find Arianell among the miles of white fog. I didn’t want to trigger the spell that notified the guards when someone approached the Wall. No point in letting anyone know I was loose and headed over the border until I was exiting and ready to cross.
I used my enhanced hearing and let the blood cravings take full control. Like an arrow drawn from a bow, I could sense her heartbeat among all the others and there were others. A whole squad of men and a few other women were with her. All around the glow of a campfire. I didn’t know how to call her without alerting all the others so I did the next best and worst thing I could think of. I steered the sylph for the Border Wall and touched it with one hand setting off alarms up and down its length and all the way back to the Palace. I could only hope that their first thoughts weren’t on me escaping, that they assumed I was snug in bed but that someone from the Newlander side was attempting an invasion. I ran the sylph up-and-down the Wall, touching it as many times as I could before racing back into the mist and seeking cover in the deep forest band that preceded entry to the Wall’s corridor. I made it just before a trio of Imperial Rangers spotted me; the only reason I saw them first was because their hearts glowed like fog lights.
Just my luck none of them were Arianell. We stood in the shadows and the sylph’s head came up to watch curiously as the ghostly figures trotted past us. None of them whinnied to the other. In fact, I had never heard them make more than a low grumbling in the back of their throats but they never called to one another like a horse. Which was good for me as I didn’t want to draw attention to myself standing there like a great big dummy.
When Arianell rode past, I threw a rock at her mount and it sidestepped as it turned to look at me. Her head twisted but she kept on for several strides and I waited.
A few moments later, she came out of the woods behind me, grabbed my reins and led us both deeper into the trees for another hour. Only when we were surrounded by rocks and running water did she dismount and pull me down beside her. She was weeping so hard that I could not understand her words and had to be patient until she could collect herself.
“You’re alive! Free! How did you get away? Are they searching for you?”
“Yes, yes, and I don’t know if they know I’ve escaped yet,” I answered her.
“I’m sorry about Beau and Diomed,” she whispered. “I tried to save them, I told Lyr Averon they would be an asset to his racing stable.”
“I would make the same choice again to save your life, Arianell,” I told her soberly.
“What is your plan, Tobias? Do you expect to escape back to your home, Cayden’s Valley?”
“I can’t. That would be the first place both grandfathers would look for me. Both of them want me. I thought we could run across the Borderlands to the lost city you spoke of. We could hide there until I learn what I can do or what I need to do.”
“If you do not cross the Wall, the curse will not return,” she said.
I said bluntly, “Averon never reversed it from me. Not all the way, Arianell. The bloodlust is still in me and you must keep to your promise.” I kept my eyes on her face and not the pulse in her neck.
She slapped her mount and drove off the sylph, saying that it would return to the camp where the others would gather. It would add confusion to the group making the others think she had been knocked off or engaged in combat with one of those that had tried to breach the wall.
“Can they carry double?” I eyed the slender horse-like animal with misgivings.
“They are twice as strong and fast as a horse, Tobias. Not even Diomed could keep up with one of the sylphs.” She climbed on behind me and steered back towards the edge of the forest. We rode well into dawn and in the morning, I saw that we were following a narrow game trail that must’ve been used by deer and elk. Certain trees had the bark rubbed off but the height startled me. These deer must’ve stood 7 foot at the shoulder.
“Do you have any weapons or gear?” She asked and she felt my head shake.
“I came away with the clothes I’m wearing, a cup given me by Sinise and a belt wand.”
“Oh, that’s good. The cup may be spelled so it never empties and the belt wand does many things.”
“I know,” I said softly, wincing.
“Did he torture you with it, Toby?” She sounded sad.
“Not very often. Mostly, I obeyed him because I couldn’t do anything else. He made me swear allegiance to him. At least, my body did. I fought him in my mind but truthfully, I was out of my mind for quite a while. How long has it been, Arianell? Since he took me?”
“Nearly a half year, Toby. There have been many breaches of the Wall but mostly in the Southern and Western Reaches. Only a few warriors have made it through the mist. It is weakening, though. Once it killed the Newlanders, now it only sickens them for a day or so. Worse, they are using silver in their weapons.”
“Silver? I thought silver only affected me.”
“Silver kills the magic that we are part of, but it will kill you with the slightest scratch.”
“They’ve been feeding me silver since I was captured by my grandfather Spencer,” I pointed out and she nodded.
“In small doses it weakens you, keeps you under control. Unfortunately, your body cannot pass it through, it will remain inside your system until a spell replaces it.”
She paused and sat still before she uttered what I knew was an incantation as my body seized in a cramp, and I started sweating profusely. It literally poured from me and floated in the air, sparkles of glittering motes that formed a human shaped figure that dropped to the ground. It lay there like a corpse and I instinctually stepped the sylph away from it.
“So much silver,” she whispered. “How did you stand it? How did you not die? Even this close, I can feel a drain on my magic.”
I felt lighter, more substantial and yet, the thirst hovered at the back of my throat and mind like a beast hiding in the shadows. I knew I would have to feed soon or risk hurting the one person that meant the most to me.
“We have to leave. I have to hunt soon. Is there a place we can camp?”
“We are still too close to the Ranger Retreat. They could track and find us in this forest if we stop. Once we are over the Cliffs of Mohr, we are out of their range. I know the land there well, it is where I grew up.”
We rode on, stopping only to water our mounts and for Arianell to feed them and herself. I would dismount, let my sylph graze until she was done. I could suppress my cravings with motion, diverting my thoughts with the need to keep my feet moving.
We reached the boundary of the cliffs by midafternoon of the second day. In all that time, we had seen nearly a dozen parties out scouting for us yet between my newly tuned senses and Arianell’s forestry skills, we were not spotted. Even our sylphs’ footprints did not register on their radar. In truth, the creatures left barely any mark upon the forest loam and needles.
I had picked up their feet and saw a hoof very like a deer but broader and softer, more like the paw of a cat than the hard horny growth of a horse.
The forest gave way to rocky slopes where smaller versions of the giant trees clung to the hills in groves of forty or more. Their crowns were a mere 20 to 30 feet over our heads and reminded me of giant redwood pines with their flat, spiky needles. They had a scent that was mild and pleasantly spicy; it seemed to calm the burning in my stomach.
Beyond them rose a rampart of yellow and bronze stone walls that went on for miles. A literal wall of rock that I doubted we could ride up–so sheer that surely only a bird could ascend them yet I could clearly see great homes built atop the ridges. Beyond those soared mountains that were so high, they were perpetually snow-covered. I could even see the hanging face of a glacier.
A cramp hit me, doubled me over in the saddle and I straightened up trying to hide it from Arianell. “What’s wrong?” She asked, putting her hand out to me. I didn’t let her touch me, the scent of her, the warmth of her skin, the slow tide of her blood through her veins and under my hand would trigger something I could not control.
“Please, go away,” I begged through gritted teeth. “I can’t. Arianell, I can’t. Not if you touch me.”
“Then, you must eat. Take the cup that Sinise gave you and see if it fills.” I dug through my pack taking out the cup and raising it to my lips. The only thing that filled it was water. “Then you must hunt. We are not far from the road up. Atop the crest, there is a vast hunting preserve and you will find something to quench your thirst.” She turned the sylph and aimed it for section that looked no different to my eyes than any of the rest. It opened up to reveal a cave with a well-traveled trail had zigzagged up emerging at times in an open gallery that allowed me to look down and see how far we had climbed. The heights and closed-in tunnel did not seem to bother the sylphs and I remarked on it.
“They are born and raised in places like this,” she explained. “Her name is Laoch, and mine is called Dafydd. Laoch means child.”
“Dafydd? David?”
“Named for my father. They were both a gift to ensure my acceptance in the Rangers.”
“Are your parents alive, Arian?”
“Yes. I have two brothers and two sisters. All of them are involved in the farm. We raise sylphs for the Lyr’s Army.”
“Why did he call you low-bred? You are not common, nor poor,” I was puzzled. She was as learned and as beautiful as any of the maidens I had met in the King’s Palace. She spoke with the same accent and used the correct dinnerware. The only difference I saw in her was that she was less frivolous and had more in her head than securing a dance with the Lost Prince.
“A generation ago, my grandmother escaped a rent that we call a Rift, in the Border Wall. Sometimes, there is a…quake beneath the earth and it shakes the foundations that the Wall’s Magic stands upon. It rips apart and people are thrown out into the Newlands and sometimes the Oldlands.
“One of your people found her and she was very beautiful. They fell in love, married and had children. Many children which is not common for the Elassa. One is the norm and two is very rare.
“When the Rift came again, my grandmother brought her family back through not knowing that the mist would kill. All of them died except her and the new life she carried in her womb. She returned to her parents and they made her welcome, even after she had been gone for fifty years.
“Her son was born. He grew, married a local and began the farm. Prospered and had a large family. He was envied by all around him–for many sons and the best sylphs ever bred. My father. Though he came from a long distinguished line of Elassa, his blood was not pure and is considered base-born. As am I.”
I knew of the heartbreak of class distinctions. I had seen it many times even in the Newlands. We had left the Oldlands to make a new start and get away from such small tyrannies yet it was as prevalent here as there.
We reached the top and stepped out on a scene of immense beauty. The valley before me was breathtaking, vistas of trees, open meadows and vast mountains. Color everywhere. Rivers glinting with blue and white foam.
Arianell pointed to her home and we began the descent to the cliff ridge where her house lounged.