Chapter 10: The Road to Nadia

The stads of Abaria, like the masters who rode them, were ill-accustomed to the clear cold air of Nadia. They snorted visible jets of vapor into the crisp air as their splayed feet scratched and slipped, seeking purchase on the ice-covered, up-tilted rocky plain.

“It’s an accursed country, lord,” Hultax told the king of the Abarians as their steeds advanced shoulder and shoulder.

Retoc sat tall and straight on the stad’s broad back, his black cloak with the royal emblem billowing in the stiff wind, his hard handsome face ruddy with the cold air, his cruel eyes mere slits against the Nadian wind. “Quiet, you fool,” he admonished Hultax. “Everything we Abarians say and do in Nadia must be sweetness and light--now.”

The vanguard of the long column of Abarian riders had reached a rushing mountain stream, its waters too swift to freeze in the sub-zero temperature. Lifting one hand overhead, Retoc called a halt.

“They’ll find out, lord,” Hultax persisted. “They’ll find out what you did. I know they will. They’ll find out it was you who killed Jlomec, their ruler’s brother.”

Retoc smiled. The smile made Hultax’ blood run cold, for he had seen such a smile before--when Retoc witnessed the execution of disloyal Abarian subjects. The smile hardened on Retoc’s face, as if it had frozen there in the cold Nadian wind. “Dismount your steed,” he said in a soft voice which only Hultax heard.

Trembling, Hultax obeyed his master’s command. His stad, suddenly riderless, pawed nervously at the frost-hardened ground on the edge of the stream. Retoc withdrew his whip-sword and fondled the jewel-encrusted haft. “If you ever say that again, here in Nadia or elsewhere, I will kill you,” he warned his lieutenant.

“But the brown girl--”

“The brown girl be damned!” roared Retoc in sudden fury.

“We haven’t been able to find her. That day at the cave, she came rushing out, lord, while you--”

“I was detained,” Retoc said, some of the passion gone from his voice. He would never forget the sight of the iron-thewed young man, who once had almost strangled him, growing suddenly, incredibly transparent, then disappearing. He had stood there, whip-sword in hand, mouth agape, while the brown girl ran past him and--according to what Hultax had told him later--mounted his own stad and vanished across the Ofridian plain.

“But lord, don’t you see?” Hultax demanded. “The brown girl knows what happened to Jlomec, prince of the royal Nadian blood. If she attends the royal funeral. She will--”

Retoc laughed. Hultax blanched. He had heard such laughter when enemies of Retoc and thus of Abaria had died in pain. “Fool, fool!” he heard Retoc say now. “Think you a bedraggled wayfaring maid of the Ofridian desert will be invited to the funeral of a prince of the Nadian royal blood?”

“Nevertheless, sire,” Hultax persisted, “that day at the cave I took the liberty to send three of our best stadsmen after the girl with orders to capture her or kill her on sight.”

Slowly, as a thaw spreads in spring over the broad Nadian ice fields, Retoc smiled at his second in command. Hultax too let his face relax into a grateful grin: until now he had been teetering on the brink of violent death, and he knew it.

“You may mount,” Retoc said.

Hastily Hultax climbed astride his stad. Retoc lifted his arm overhead and made a circular motion with his outstretched hand. The first of the Abarian stads advanced with some reluctance into the swift cold shallow water of the stream.

“What about the white giant?” Hultax asked unwisely when the entire party had reached the other side and Retoc was urging his stad up the slippery bank.

“Have your scouts been able to find the wayfarers who saw him?”

“No, sire. Only the girl nursed him back to health. The others fled.”

“And wisely. They have learned to hold their tongues, as you should learn, Hultax. They will give us no trouble. As far as they are concerned, there is no white giant.”