'And what have I seen of the world, sir? Scant little. Bodyguard to a Holy Falah in Aren -'
'Bodyguard? Why mince words? You were his private assassin.'
'My journey has just begun, is what I was trying to say, sir. You — your soldiers — what you've seen, what you've been through. ' He shook his head. 'It's all there, in your eyes.'
Whiskeyjack studied the man, the silence stretching.
Kalam removed the pot and poured out two cups of the medicinal-smelling brew, handed one up to the commander. 'We'll catch up with them tomorrow.'
'Indeed. We've ridden steady the day through, twice the pace of a soldier's jog. How much distance have we closed with these damned mages? A bell's worth? Two? No more than two. They're using warrens. '
The assassin, frowning, slowly shook his head. 'Then I would have lost the trail, sir. Once they entered a warren, all signs of them would have vanished.'
'Yes. Yet the footprints lead on, unbroken. Why is that?'
Kalam squinted into the fire. 'I don't know, sir.'
Whiskeyjack drained the bitter tea, dropped the tin cup to the ground beside the assassin, then strode away.
Day followed day, the pursuit taking them through the battered ravines, gorges and arroyos of the hills. More bodies were discovered, desiccated figures that Kalam identified one after another: Renisha, a sorcerer of High Meanas; Keluger, a Septime Priest of D'riss, the Worm of Autumn; Narkal, the warrior-mage, sworn to Fener and aspirant to the god's Mortal Sword; Ullan, the Soletaken priestess of Soliel.
Deprivation took its toll on the hunters. Horses died, were butchered and eaten. The surviving beasts thinned, grew gaunt. Had not the mages' trail led Kalam and the others unerringly to one hidden spring after another, everyone would have died, there in Raraku's relentless wasteland.
Set'alahd Crool, a Jhag half-blood who'd once driven Dassem Ultor back a half-dozen steps in furious counterattack, his sword ablaze with the blessing of some unknown ascendant; Etra, a mistress of the Rashan warren; Birith' erah, mage of the Serc warren who could pull storms down from the sky; Gellid, witch of the Tennes warren.
And now but one remained, ever ahead, elusive, his presence revealed only by the light footprints he left behind.