Dragon Blood (Hurog #2)(85)

Axiel, Tosten, and Oreg set up camp - such as it was - while Garranon, Tisala, and I consulted her father's maps by my magelight. Tisala showed me where we were and lined the map up with the trail. Then she and Garranon made educated guesses as to where Jakoven was from the information I could give them.

There were only two passes through the mountains into Tallven that Jakoven could be headed for. The first was the pass I had taken into Oranstone four years ago, and the second was more difficult and less used.

If we followed Jakoven at our present pace, we'd catch up to him well into Tallven, but still a day's travel from Estian. If we chose correctly, we had a chance of catching up much sooner, because the direct route to either pass was chock-full of swamp and mire. Jakoven'd have to ride around, and Tisala knew a better route to either pass. If we chose the wrong one, there was a chance that Jakoven would get to Estian before we caught him.

I left Garranon and Tisala discussing the relative merits of both passes and approached Oreg, who was struggling with one of the oilskin tent coverings. My extra hand made short work of the problem.

"I need to talk to you," I said to him.

Oreg found a seat on the raised root of a walnut tree. I crouched in front of him.

"Jakoven probably has his wizards with him," I said. "He has Farsonsbane and he is something of a wizard himself. I don't know how good he is, but Jade Eyes and Arten are both very strong - if ignorant by your standards."

"You want me to take on the wizards while you attack the Bane," he said neutrally.

"There is some connection between the Bane and me," I said. And I worried that if it was I who confronted Jade Eyes, my fear of him would defeat my desire for his death.

He nodded his head. "Have you considered that the connection goes both ways? It might make you an easier victim."

"Yes," I said. "What do you think?"

"You said that you felt it recognized you?"

I nodded my head. "It felt a little like the magic of Hurog but more intelligent. I think it's like the memories of Menogue - still tied to the remembrance of being dragons. I made it curious."

Oreg rubbed his hands together as if they were cold. "Did it feel like one creature or three?"

I closed my eyes, trying to remember. "There was a ... texture to it, yes. Not really separate, more like a rug where several strands of yarn are bound together."

"So after your blood touched it, it recognized you," he murmured.

"No," I shook my head. "Before. It's hard to explain. I don't think the Bane was ever completely dormant - just powerless. As soon as Jakoven took it out of the bag he'd enspelled to hide the Bane, I could see blackness flowing from it, though neither Jakoven nor Jade Eyes seemed to see it. When the black power touched me, it knew me - or maybe it knew Hurog's magic."

"Did it feel evil?"

I shook my head. "No more than Menogue or Hurog."

"And after he used your blood?"

I tried to remember how it had felt. "The stone turned blue, and I felt a wild surge of magic." I remembered something else. "I think it was connected somehow to Jakoven - the stone's blue magic. But the blackness was a separate thing."

"We'll play it the way you want to, if we can," said Oreg finally. "I'll try to stop Jakoven's wizards and leave the Bane to you."

I gave up crouching and sat on another root. It was wet, but not very muddy. "I wondered if the spell binding the dragon's magic to the stone might not be similar to the one your father used to bind you to the keep."

Oreg nodded. "Probably."

"When I broke the spell that held you to Hurog," I said, with a flash of visceral memory of my knife sinking into Oreg's side, "I felt the weave of the magic binding. I might be able to unbind it."

"That might not be what you ought to do," said Oreg after a moment. "It's not just magic that is bound to the stone, but the spirits of three dragons who are not very happy with the human race right now. Farson tried to use the Bane the way other wizards used a rowan staff - but the only magic he could work with the Bane was destructive, and that was when the spell was new."

"What do you suggest?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I've never gotten as close to the Bane as you have. You'll have to play it as it comes. Just be careful."

We ate the stew Axiel had created with dried meat and bits of this and that. Flavored by hunger and cold, it tasted better than it was. Tisala and Garranon between them had decided that Jakoven was headed for the less well-known pass.

"I wouldn't have thought that a Tallven would even have heard of the pass, but Garranon tells me that Jakoven knows geography," said Tisala before she blew on the stew steaming on the small chunk of dry bread.

Garranon nodded. "He's smarter than he lets on. There'll still be merchants traveling the greater pass to Estian. He won't want to meet anyone. The only people who use the other pass are hunters and bandits. With the Bane and his wizards he has little to fear from bandits, and the hunters on this pass are a wary bunch. They'd never approach a party of strangers."

"I know a path that bypasses most of the swamp that Jakoven seems to be traveling through," said Tisala. "If he's where Ward says he is now, we'll beat him to the pass and wait there."