Free Darkfire: A Book of Underrealm by Garrett Robinson Page B

our duty to do so. We can even admonish them, or discipline them for wrongdoing. But their choices must always belong to them. Tis a truth for everyone under the sun.”
    Loren looked at him curiously. “You are of a strange mind, Jordel of the family Adair.”
    The Mystic bowed. “Come. Tis time we were back on the road.”

ten

    THEY PASSED THE GREAT MOUNTAIN in the valley’s middle nearly a week after returning to its floor. There the path split again. One branch carried on straight, while the other rose into the mountains. Albern gave Jordel a pointed look.
    “Which road shall it be? The faster road has its risks as you have seen, but as ever the course is yours to choose.”
    “The faster,” said Jordel without hesitation. “Rock slides cannot have blocked every path north, and the weather now is milder than it was. Mayhap we can recover lost time.”
    “As you say,” said Albern, and he led them up.
    Gem accepted this new path without grumbling, for once. Perhaps he remembered Albern’s chastisement the last time, or mayhap he was still too angry at Loren to speak when she might reply. But they rode the first day in silence without trouble, then the second, and the third.
    Four days had brought them to their obstacle the last time, and as the sun wound down on the fourth, Loren could feel relief wash through the party. It made little sense, she knew; there might well be a rock slide still ahead, just around the next twist. But when they stopped to make camp, a light mood seemed to have settled over the party. Albern hummed a song as he removed his saddlebags, while Gem and Annis spoke with spirit to each other — though still not to Loren.
    But Xain did not join their cheer. He fared ever worse by the day, and Loren had begun to worry. He seemed little more than skin and bones. The defiance and anger in his eyes were now heavily tempered with pain. More, he seemed to be senseless much of the time. Occasionally when Jordel took him from the horse, the wizard would stare at them not with fury, but with fear — a wide-eyed, frantic terror, as though he did not know who they were or why he was bound.  
    She barred her thoughts from Xain, though Loren thought she heard him whispering at the back of her mind while standing first watch. The night was warmer than usual, and her time passed quickly. When Jordel shook her awake just before dawn, she found the skies clear and a rosy glow above the eastern mountains.
    Albern gestured toward the sky. “A fair morning, and promise of a fair day.”  
    “Mayhap our luck has changed at last,” said Gem.
    Loren wanted to warn him against boasting, but held her tongue. He was angry enough with her as it was.
    But mayhap she should have anyway, for not long after they started riding, Albern called a sudden halt. He gestured to the side, and they all guided their horses to huddle against the mountain.
    Jordel stepped up beside him, hand on his charger’s reins. “What is it?” he said in a low voice.
    “Satyrs ahead,” said Albern. “They have not yet seen us.”  
    They leaned out to look ahead. There they were: smallish creatures, a few inches shorter than Loren, with bodies like men but legs like goats, and horns sprouting from their foreheads. At first Loren thought they were floating in the air; then she saw that they were sitting on the mountainside, though she could not see how. The cliff face looked almost sheer, yet the creatures perched upon it as though it were a level shelf. They were perhaps thirty feet above the path.
    Loren quaked in her saddle. She whispered, “Satyrs? We should run.”
    Albern looked back at Loren with a grim smile. “You have heard stories, then. Fear not — they are not so dangerous as many tales might suggest, though it is true that they are nothing to trifle with. They are a quick and cunning breed. Though thankfully they do not poison their arrows.”
    “Will they attack?” Jordel locked his eyes on the