Echoes of Betrayal by Elizabeth Moon Page B

something lumpy. She ripped open tunic and shirt with her dagger, and there it was—Liart’s emblem.
    The sergeant whistled. “That’s bad.”
    “We’ll have to take his body and keep watch for the body of the man he killed. And we need to follow Daryan quickly. Get this loaded on his horse.” She glanced aside; the horse he’d ridden was gnawing on a lichen-covered limb.
    She turned away, tucking the message case and ring into her doublet, and mounted her horse. She felt—different. But not different in a bad way.
    When the body had been lashed to the horse, the sergeant told off three to stay with it and follow at a slower pace, and then with Dorrin set off at a hard gallop. The track was open now, unobscured, after the work she had done on it; even at night she could see the way, the snow seeming almost to glow in the starlight.
    Dorrin hoped to catch up with Daryan before he reached the shelter, but he’d had a good start and she’d told him to hurry. She wished she could see the hoofmarks on the track more clearly. In daylight, she’d have known which were those from Gwenno’s party the day before, which were the courier’s, and which were Daryan’s, but in the starlight that was impossible. Still, the rumpled trodden snow should keep Daryan from getting lost.
    At last they came out into the clearing around the shelter. Dorrin stared. No fire. No horse. No welcoming call from Daryan.
    “Where is he?” asked one of the militia.
    “I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “In trouble, I expect.” She kept her voice calm with an effort; her thoughts sped. If the one she’d killed had not been the only one—if others had lurked nearby, had seen Daryan ride away—She tried to put that aside.
    The shelter had a supply of dry wood and ready-made torches; by their light they found the body of the real courier, his hands charred, his eyes gouged out, wounds all over his body, his blood darkening the snow and ground around him.
    “Blood magery,” the sergeant said.
    “Yes.” Dorrin could scarcely speak. She touched the ruined eye sockets, the charred hands. “Falk’s welcome for him and great reward for his service.” To one side she saw footprints leading into the woods. “Bring a torch nearer.” Three sets of footprints coming toward the shelter’s unwindowed north side from the woods … two going back. So the mage had had help subduing the courier, just as she’d feared.
    And Daryan might have found two—or more—with mage powers when he arrived. Or they might have ambushed him along the track.
    “Who’s best at tracking?” she asked the group.
    One hand went up, one of the Verrakai vassals. “M’lord, I can read sign.”
    “Did you see any indication that Daryan had veered off the track we were on?”
    “No, m’lord, but we was riding too fast. I can look now.”
    “We’ll start at this end,” Dorrin said. “Five of you—it’s not safe with fewer—and you nontrackers stay back, don’t confuse the marks. We need to find the trace of Daryan’s horse. Is there anything distinctive about it? You were on patrol with him.”
    “Hisn’s got bigger hooves, m’lord. And more width at the heel than any of ours. I know it well, m’lord.”
    “Do you think he’s captured?” the sergeant asked.
    “I don’t know,” Dorrin said. “It cannot be good, whatever it is.”

    T hey soon found where Daryan’s horse had left the trail; the tracks were easy enough to follow. In a short time, they saw light ahead, flickering light that glittered on the snow, and as theyneared, they could see torches burning on stakes, forming a rough circle. The stumps of saplings showed where the stakes had been cut. In the center, bound to a larger sapling from which limbs had been cut, Daryan: alive. Light and shadow danced over his body, his face; it was hard to see how badly he was injured.
    Or if he had been invaded.
    One of the militia started forward. “Stop,” Dorrin said. “It is a