Chapter 22

“We’re like thieves in the night,” Alomar whispered. “Why?”

They had departed the Court before first light, when only the first of the birds were tentatively chirping. The rest of the world was silent as the twenty men walked their horses from the stables and through the main gate. Only when the gate closed behind them did they mount up and begin trotting through the city to the highway. All was dark but the bakery, which had smoke curdling out of its chimney.

Two hours later they were gnawing on rolls and hard cheese as they continued down the highway. The road was filling up with farmers riding packed wagons, merchants with goods, and other folks coming to the capital for market day. Fortunately, they were heading in the opposite direction. When they passed beyond the first circle of farms that surrounded the city and the traffic thinned out, North finally answered.

“The traitor has been glimpsed prowling Mt. Albion,” North said. “We’re heading directly to his last location.”

“What’s he doing there?” Alomar asked.

“Searching for the Butcher’s last Power stone, the egg thing. Only four of the five have been accounted for and our Queen fears the worst.”

Alomar snorted. “Ard is shrewd. He capitalized on an unnatural career booster of having a former Chancellor in his family tree to his advantage. He was never a great Power wielder though. Why is the Queen so worried?”

“We’re all asking that question, and no one has been given an answer, Alomar. All I know is that the Power Egg doesn’t feed Power like our stones do. In some manner that we soldiers were not informed, the Butcher’s Power was different than ours.” North shivered.

“Yep, too many evenings, too many beers, and not much to show for it,” Alomar agreed. “I guess this means we’re not taking a grand tour of the countryside.”

“Nope,” North said, answering the only thing of which he was confident. “We are going straight on through. I know soldiering; all the rest of the crap at the Court is beyond my ability to care, much less understand. The Court tests my patience every, single, day. I recently found my center and I want to get back to Paquin as fast as possible. Finally, I have something I want, and I can’t have it yet. The situation has the stink of the Court and her Majesty through and through.”

“Ach, you cry over spilt milk. You’re a mage warrior, one without the need of a Power stone,” Alomar said. “Everyone wants what you have; they want to be you. Except for me, of course; I know you’re a lunkhead.”

North sighed. “Aegis had the right of it. The Power is a tool, a damn fine tool but it’s no more and no less. If Soreng Ard had listened to Aegis’s wisdom, we wouldn’t be running towards this fool’s errand. Where in the annals do our ancestors not warn us about the lust for power?”

“I think they were speaking of political power, North.”

“I cannot tell the difference in this case,” North said. He glanced at the sun. “Another hour of riding and then two hours of walking.

After three days, Alomar finally asked, “How do you know it’s love?”

“The earth moved, that’s for certain,” North retorted. Then he sat back as he considered the question again. “You’re married. You should know what love is.”

Alomar let out a sad chuckle. “I found her and she found me, and nobody cared. No one was willing to draw near a shaky mage warrior with anger issues and no one was going to bed a woman with the face of a cow and strength of an ox. She’s got a short temper too. We didn’t fall in love, North, we fell into meeting the needs of the other.”