Caswallinos glared at him with narrow eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, seemed to think better of it, opened his eyes wider, then shrugged. ‘He warned me, Evandar that is,’ the old man said, ‘that our magic would be a fair bit stronger here than in the homeland. I had no idea what he meant until this moment.’
‘What did he mean?’
Caswallinos smiled. ‘Let’s find Adorix,’ was all he said. He turned and strode away with Galerinos hurrying after him.
The tribesfolk stood beside their horses or sat on the ground in the little squares of shade cast by the loaded wagons. A fine film of brown dust covered everyone and everything. Children whined or wept while exhausted women tried to comfort them. The horses stood head-down; the dogs were panting open-mouthed. As Caswallinos walked through, people turned to him and wordlessly held out desperate hands.
‘There’s a river ahead!’ the elder druid called out repeatedly. ‘The gods have promised us water. Not far now. Big river ahead!’
The news spread in ragged cheers. Even the slaves, white savages captured in one battle or another, managed tired smiles in their chains.
Eventually the two druids found Adorix in conference with the cadvridoc, Brennos, as well as Bercanos, head of the Boar clan, and Aivianna, the Hawk woman and moon-sworn warrior. Although none of them wore armour or carried shields, each had their long sword slung in a baldric across their chests, and all four of them had warriors’ hair: bleached with lime until it stood out stiff and straight, as if a private wind had blown it back from their faces. The faces in question were all grim, tight-lipped, narrow-eyed, as they turned to the druid and his apprentice, though Avianna’s was the grimmest of all, scarred as it was by the blue tattoo of the crescent moon on her left cheek.
‘Water straight ahead to the east,’ Caswallinos said. ‘Evandar his very self told me that a big river lies nearby.’
Brennos smiled briefly. The others nodded.
‘I don’t suppose,’ Adorix said, ‘that he had any news of my two cubs.’
‘He didn’t.’ Caswallinos lied smoothly. ‘But Galerinos does. They’re alive up on the mountain. He can lead some horsemen back to them.’
‘There’s no time for that now.’ Bercanos stepped forward. ‘If the savages attack us, our men and horses are barely fit to fight. We’ve got to reach that river.’
Adorix laid his hand on his sword hilt and turned toward him. Aivianna stepped in between them. She stayed silent, merely looked at each in turn, but Adorix took his hand away from the sword hilt and Bercanos moved a good pace away.
‘There’s no time for arguing amongst ourselves, either,’ Brennos said.
The heads of the two clans agreed in sullen mutters. Aivianna’s expression never changed as she returned to her place by the cadvridoc’s side.
‘Evandar brought my apprentice back but not the others,’ Caswallinos said. ‘I don’t know why. The gods are like that, truly. But Gallo here can tell us what happened.’ He cocked a thumb at Galerinos. ‘Tell them the truth, lad.’
‘Just at dawn we rode out to find water,’ Galerinos began. ‘I chanted the prayers and held out my staff, but we rode till the sun was halfway to zenith before my staff began to tremble. It seemed to be tugging toward the hills, so that’s the way we went. We saw a little valley twixt two of the hills where the trees looked fresh and green. You couldn’t see clearly into it, though, and our god sent me an omen about it. Just as we reached the trees a raven flew up, squawking and circling over the valley.’
‘Here!’ Brennos interrupted. ‘Didn’t Rhodorix realize you were riding for an ambush?’
Galerinos felt his stomach clench. He hated to betray his cousin, but Caswallinos was glaring at him, his arms crossed over his chest, in a way that brooked no argument.
‘He didn’t,’ Galerinos said. ‘He led us right into it. I tried to warn him, truly I did, but Rhoddo just spurred his horse forward, and everyone followed him.’
Adorix grunted once, then shook his head. ‘Let them rot, then.’ He held out his hand to Bercanos, who laid his own palm against it.
‘Forgive me,’ the Boar said. ‘My foul temper –’
‘Mine’s no better,’ Adorix said. ‘We’ve got more to worry about at the moment than my stupid son. If he was coward enough to live when his men died, then he can freeze in the hells for all I care. I have other get to take his place.’
‘But –’ Gallo began, then swallowed his words. Arguing with Adorix was a good way to die young. ‘As you wish, honoured one.’
‘Well and good, then.’ Brennos took command. ‘We can’t stand here jawing like a pack of old women. If there’s a river ahead, let’s get on the move. We can’t risk losing our horses.’
‘Let us hope that Belinos and Evandar lend us their aid,’ Caswallinos said and folded his hands with a pious expression on his face, one that Galerinos had seen before, whenever his teacher was hiding something.
Shouting orders, the warleader strode away with the other warriors trotting after. Galerinos turned to Caswallinos. ‘I thought you said Evandar wasn’t a god.’
‘He’s not,’ the old man said, grinning. ‘But they don’t need to know that, do they now? Keep silence, lad, whenever you can, and your life will be a fair bit easier. Now let’s find you a new horse and move out with the wagons. Tonight, however, I want to hear more about this curse of yours.’
The sun crept down the western sky and shone full-strength onto the hillside. Gerontos’s face had turned a dangerous shade of red. ‘If only we had some water,’ he whispered.
‘True spoken,’ Rhodorix said. ‘This cursed stretch of country is all dust and thorns.’
‘I wish we’d stayed by that harbour. We could have built a city there.’
‘The omens weren’t right.’
Gerro nodded, then closed his eyes.
‘It’ll be cooler when the sun goes down,’ Rhodorix said.
Gerro never answered. It’ll be too cold, most likely, Rhodorix thought, and us with not one cloak between us.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a shadow passed across the sun. He looked up to see a lavender cloud, a small smear of colour at first against the blue. The cloud grew larger, sank lower, and formed a perfect sphere of mist. Out of the mist swooped a hawk, an enormous red hawk, shrieking as it glided down toward them. For the briefest of moments it hovered a few feet from the ground, then with a shimmer of silver light Evandar dropped down lightly and stood, back in his more or less human form. The lavender sphere vanished.
‘I’ll take you somewhere safe,’ Evandar said. ‘Can you get your brother onto his feet?’
‘He can’t stand up,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Maybe I can carry him over my back.’
The god frowned, considering Gerontos, who had slumped down against the boulder. Rhodorix had a panicked moment of thinking him dead, but he opened his eyes with a groan.
‘I’ll bring help.’ Evandar snapped his fingers and disappeared.
And how long will that take? Rhodorix wondered if Gerro would live long enough for this promised help to arrive. He scrambled up and stood between his brother and the sun to cast a little shade. He heard Gerontos mutter something and glanced back to see him trying to swat away the flies that were crawling on the blood-soaked bandage.
‘Leave them be,’ Rhoddo said. ‘Save your strength.’
When he returned his gaze to