DREAMWIELDER Book 1 of The Dreamwielder Chronicles

Chapter 24: SECRET PATHS

Caile stopped at the top of the small ridgeline clearing and dismounted to wait for Talitha to catch up. The nearest peaks of the Barrier Mountains towered before him. They looked close enough to touch, but Caile knew firsthand how their tremendous size fooled the eye and warped one's sense of distance. For two days now they had been climbing through the wooded hills beyond Ulmstadt, and the mountains looked nearly the same now as they did then. Perhaps even more foreboding were the dark clouds coming in from the south to nestle along the base of the mountains. Caile turned away and looked back in the direction they had come. Ulmstadt was long gone from sight, but from his vantage point he was able to make out sections of the forest tract they had been following. The tract had long ago been abandoned and was little wider than a game trail now. At times, it disappeared altogether, buried beneath a landslide, blocked by a tree fall, or merely overgrown with time. Still, they had been successful thus far in always finding the trail again, and they had made good time—better at least than they would have fared setting out cross-country through the heavily wooded hills.

Talitha reached the top of the ridge and slid from her saddle to join Caile. "You set a grueling pace," she said.

"The horses are doing most of the work," he replied with a shrug. "They're sturdier than they look."

"Northern animals always are. It takes strength and fortitude to live out here."

Caile motioned toward the clouds in the distance. "Are we going to make it before the snows come?"

"Those are not snow-bearing clouds. At least not yet. We have another two days before we reach the caverns. With any luck, the first storms will hold out until then."

"And then what?" Caile asked.

"Then we journey into the mountain. It is another four days from the entrance to Issborg."

Caile had refrained from voicing all his concerns for fear of sounding too worrisome and cynical, but he had heard of Trumball before and the caverns of Issborg. "I thought the caves were gone," he said. "Weren't they destroyed when Trumball was killed?"

"The southern entrance was collapsed, that is all."

"That's where we are going isn't it? The southern entrance?"

Talitha smiled. "Trust me. I know another way."

"You say that a lot," Caile remarked. "You'd be a lot more trustworthy if you were more forthcoming with information."

"And you'd be a much more pleasant traveling companion if you weren't so worrisome."

Caile waved one hand at her in exasperation and hopped back onto his horse. "Lead the way then. These caverns aren't going to find themselves."

~~~

Makarria was awake, but she did not stir when Roanna entered their chamber. Typically she was up and awake when Roanna arrived to fetch Taera each morning, but with Siegbjorn gone Makarria saw little reason to get out of bed and so stayed hunkered down beneath her covers.

Taera, on the other hand, threw aside her covers and started to get dressed out of rote habit as soon as she heard Roanna enter.

"Don't bother," Roanna said. "You're staying here today."

"What?" Taera asked, still groggy. "Why?"

Roanna sat Taera back down on her bed then sat beside her. "The time of reckoning is upon you, Taera. Kadar grows impatient with your lack of growth. I have been stern with you, I know, but you will find he is a much crueler master than I if you fail now."