by A. K. Wilder
“You’re a girl after my own heart, lass, but you realize I’ve already done that.” My hand goes toward the cliff and the wet drag marks leading to it.
“Peace be their paths.” She says it with reverence, revealing her well of contradictions. Then the full gaze of her sea-storm eyes locks onto mine. “Thank you, Kaylin. I want you to know—”
“She’s not serious.” Marcus steals the moment from us as he walks by. “About wanting to cut their throats. She isn’t like that.”
“Part of her seems a bit like that.” I don’t mind the pride in my voice, but I can see the Heir does.
We stare at each other until Ash punches him in the arm, a habit of hers I’ve noticed before. I thought it was affection, but maybe it’s more complex than that.
“Let’s mount up.” Marcus scowls at her, then heads for the picket line without waiting for a reply.
When I turn to see if Ash and I might resume our conversation, she’s already halfway to the horses.
Once packed, Marcus gathers us around him, his authority back in place. “Samsen, you take Frost and the donkey and ride at good speed back toward Clearwater. Cut into the forest over ground that leaves no tracks, then turn back toward the Navren River. We’ll meet upstream in one hour.” He confirms with the Tangeen, who nods once.
“We should keep silent and to the port side of the road,” I add.
“Left,” Ash says to the others and mounts the gray mare, the one we groomed together just two nights ago. Rita, she called her.
Marcus and Piper jog horseback around the camp and muddle the tracks, churning the drag marks and bloodstains into the ground. Belair’s bay lets loose a shrill whinny and paws the ground, staring after Samsen and the donkey. “They’ll catch up, lad,” Belair says to his mount. “Easy now. Silent.”
“Ride with me?” Ash extends her hand and kicks her foot out of the stirrup.
“Delighted to.” I grab a handful of mane, as I saw her do, and swing up behind her, landing lightly.
“Just hang on and move with her.” Ash turns to me. “Like a raft on the waves.”
“Aye, lass.” I encircle her waist. I mean, what else can I do with my hands? Rita’s gait settles Ash against me. For a moment, I’m lost in the rise and fall of her breath, her heart beating through her back and against my chest.
I decide I like horseback riding very much.
The mare trots over the short grass beside the road as the sun burns off the fog. Below the headlands, a good six fathoms down, waves crash against the shore. Buzzards circle and gulls already feast at what their short beaks can pry from the bodies that have yet to be washed out to sea.
Ash frowns. “First glance over the cliffs and the Aturnian troops will know there was foul play.”
“Maybe not. The tide is rising.” The mare stumbles, and I fall against Ash, tightening my grip around her waist.
“Are you all right back there?”
“Not used to the world from this perspective.” I close my eyes and lean closer; the heat of her blush warms my cheek.
“Spent your whole life on the sea?”
“Aye.” Thank the deep sea she’s not inclined to quiz me on those details yet.
“I spent my whole life in the Sanctuary until—”
Marcus hushes us.
I don’t mind. It’s something to ask her later. Perhaps tonight. Oddly, I feel we have all the time in the world, which I know is a lie.
Ash urges Rita into a lope. It is much like a dinghy in choppy waves, and I keep my seat once I find the rhythm. The road drops down toward the river mouth where the grass grows tall and the trees give way to a wide mudflat.
“This is your plan?” Marcus halts at the edge of the mud. “We might as well paint a red arrow to point which way we went.”
“It’s an estuary ford,” I explain. “If we follow the bank from a distance, sticking to hard ground, there will be a rock crossing soon enough. No tracks.”
“You really do know your rivers,” Ash says.
“As a good sailor does.”
“And you’re a good sailor?”
It’s my turn to flush. “Aye.” But it comes out more like a question.
“There it is.” Marcus surprises me with an appreciative nod. “A rocky ford, as you said.”
Not a hundred feet from us, the mudflats give way to a deep riverbed, the water running fast and clear over large, round stones. The banks are hemmed by slabs of granite with gravel beaches between them. Ash twists around in the saddle, her face inches from mine. “Well done.”
“Pleasure’s mine.” This beautiful lass will be the death of me as sure as a sunken ship turns to reef.
“How in all of Amassia did we end up riding through Aturnia together?” Her voice is barely more than a whisper.
“As I recall, we were docked in Toretta, loading apples on a carrack, when a lovely lass bartered for passage to Aku…”
“And then one thing led to another,” she says with a half smile.
My body stills. She says this as if she heard my earlier thoughts. But that’s just coincidence…right?
16
Ash
“Lean back a bit,” I say to Kaylin as I urge Rita down the rocky bank, never more aware of anything so much as his arms around me, the warmth of his body against my back. The water runs gentle but deep, the surface green as spring grass, smooth enough to mirror the giant weeping willows that grace the banks. It’s a beautiful river.
“Tell me horses can swim.” he whispers in my ear as the mare wades into the stream.
His lips so close to my skin send shivers up and down my neck. If there wasn’t a thread of worry in his words, I might have laughed. As it is, I can’t control my pounding heart, and I’m sure he feels it through my coat. And then there’s the blushing. If I would just stop turning around to look at him, he wouldn’t see my glowing face. But here I am, looking over my shoulder, our faces only inches apart, his eyes smiling in his tanned face.
“It’s a fact,” I say. “All land animals can swim from birth—all but us. We have to be taught.”
“An animal expert, are we now?”
Hardly.
But my inner voice is zeroing in on semantics, and I’d much rather it tease me about those than him. I face forward and use my knees to urge Rita into the water.
“And were you taught?”
Huh?
“To swim.”
I turn, again, and blush. “I must have been because I can, even though I don’t recall. I promise it wasn’t Master Brogal, though I could ask. Not that he’d answer—”
“Babbling like this creek,” my ever-helpful inner voice comments.
“Do you not remember at all?” Kaylin asks.
“I have a strange half memory of diving for copper pennies in the deep tide pools near the harbor.”
“Do you really want to explain your orphan, non-savant upbringing at the Sanctuary?”
No. All stocked up on pity here.
I direct the conversation back to Kaylin. “I’m guessing you swim like a dolphin.”
“People from Tutapa start out as landers, just like everyone else.”
“Start out as what?”
He leans in close and repeats the word in a low, rumble of a voice. “Landers. It’s what we call those who cannot swim.” In the next breath, he vaults off Rita, his feet plunging into the knee-deep water without making a splash.
“What are you doing?”
“I prefer to swim alongside at this point.” Kaylin peels off his bloodstained shirt and ties it to the back of the saddle. “I had no time to wash.”
He has his hand on the mare’s neck as he strides into the middle of the stream with us.
“Isn’t it a little cold?” The water seeping through my pantlegs is decidedly frigid.
“You’ll feel it for yourself soon enough. The Navren runs cold and deep this time of year.”
The morning sun filters through the willow branches as the trees close in, making it hard to see much farther ahead. The banks are narrow and steep, and as Kaylin warned, the water is soon chest-high on the horses. I’m glad the donkey went south with Samsen; otherwise she’d be dog-paddling the whole way.
Rita bobs before kicking harder, her hooves meeting only water as the river deepens dramatically. I float off the mare’s back and hold on to the pommel of the saddle as the water reaches the horse’s neck. “It’s freezing!”
Kaylin chuckles.
This will test my scroll cases, the ones not ruined by those marauders. They are meant to be waterproof, but I’ve never had the nerve to fully submerge them and find out. My skin prickles with goose bumps. “You do love the—”
Marcus signals us. “Hold back!”
It’s impossible to follow the command. The horses are not going to tread water like we can. And saying “we” is generous, as only Kaylin, Belair, and I swim in this group. The others, by my sailor’s definition, are “landers,” holding on to their saddles and letting the horses lead the way. Even Marcus can’t follow his own advice.
“Did you just say, ‘my sailor’?”
Shh. This is serious.
“I’ll see what it is.” Kaylin swims to Marcus and then quickly drifts back to me. “Aturnian soldiers crossing upstream. Back the way we came.”
We manage to turn around, which puts Kaylin and me in the lead with Rita. We’re the first to spot a break in the sheer banks, and Rita lunges out of the water and up it without hesitation. The others follow, crashing through the undergrowth behind us.
Marcus signals for quiet, waving his hand downward in short, quick motions, but the horses don’t know the command. They lower their heads, stretch out their necks, and shake like wet dogs, brass buckles and stirrups clanking, leather slapping their sides. We are all dripping wet, holding our breaths, but there’s nothing to be heard save for a few blue jay calls and distant crows.
“We better scout the area, track where they’ve gone,” Piper says.
“No phantoms,” Marcus whispers. “We each take a different direction from the crossing point.”
Kaylin is already slipping away, heading north after a quick wink at me. Happily, I’m too cold for my face to heat this time, and I simply smile back. The others fan out, stiff and limping from last night. I’m left holding all the reins, not an easy task with four wet, restless horses on my hands. I take a deep breath and hope with my whole heart that they won’t whinny or startle while I’m on my own. Peeking through the undergrowth, there is nothing but endless woods, brilliantly colored oaks, hickory, birch, and sweet eucalyptus. Like living fire, the autumn leaves are a wash of red, burnt orange, dark yellow, and pale green. No troops in sight.
If I can’t see the enemy, they can’t see me. Right?
“Not really the case.”
I’m compelled to correct myself, it seems.
By the time they all return, I’m shivering uncontrollably. The Aturnian scouts have ridden past, I’m told, their tracks lost as falling leaves cover them like ochre snow. “So it’s find Samsen, then on to Mount Bladon?” I ask through chattering teeth.
Marcus’s eyebrows go up. “If Kaylin knows the way.”
“I do.” He moves next to me and vigorously rubs circulation back into my arms.
Before we mount, a very large falcon lands in a nearby oak. It’s blue-black with huge talons and a yellow beak. “Samsen’s phantom.” Piper has no doubt.
Soon Samsen appears on Frost, leading the donkey. Unfortunately, the donkey and Belair’s bay gelding see fit to greet like long-lost friends. The donkey sticks out her head, opens her mouth, and brays for all she’s worth, sending hee-haws echoing throughout the woods. The bay gelding whinnies a reply and paws the ground.
“That’s going to give us away!” Marcus shoots a glance to Belair.
“Don’t just stand there.” I give the Tangeen a push. “Quiet her down.”
Belair leads his tall bay to Samsen, churning up leaves and snapping branches until their urgent greetings are replaced by soft whickers. Samsen dismounts, drops to one knee, and calls in his phantom.
“Water,” he says, and Piper trades his empty skin for a full one. “They need a drink, too.” Samsen nods at Frost and the donkey before taking a long swig. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ten Aturnian guards cut very close to you. I’ve been hiding until they were well past to the south.”
“Then let’s ride over this hill and on to Capper Point. There’s still time.” Marcus squints at the late-morning sun.
We mount up and are off quickly, but the deeper we go into the woods, the less sure I am of direction. “Where’s Mount Bladon exactly?”
“Over that rise.” Kaylin points as he pulls on his damp shirt.
“You’ve a scope?” Marcus asks from behind us.
Kaylin nods to the donkey. “In my pack. If there are any tall masts in the harbor below the cliffs, we should see them from Mount Bladon.”
“Tall masts are bad?” I keep my eyes forward this time.
“Not inherently.” Kaylin tightens his arms around my waist even though we are at a walk.
I know he’s been doubling with me for only a few hours, but already his touch feels familiar.
“Does it now?”
I huff.
“Too tight?” he whispers in my ear, sending tingles down the left side of my body.
Marcus clears his throat. “You were saying, about the tall masts?”
“Here they mean the Aturnian Navy. I trust you don’t want your identity revealed to them.”
My blood runs cold at the thought.
“We are savants on our journey to Aku,” Marcus says in a rehearsed voice. “But you’re right. I’d rather not. In any case, we’ll check the view from Mount Bladon before riding on to Capper Point. From there, with all speed, we sail straight to Aku, hours to spare before the gates close.”
We all give a round of hushed, “Hear! Hear!” and ride on.
I find myself in the lead as Kaylin guides us. The ground begins to climb and the trees thin. There’s a stream of midday sun warming my head and shoulders. My clothes dry out, limbs thawing, but I jump at every twig snap and birdcall.
It isn’t spoken, but we all know we’re sitting ducks if they’re watching us.
“I don’t think they’re watching, lass.” Kaylin’s warm breath tickles my neck.
Oh, I guess I let that last fear slip. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because we’re all still alive.”
17
Marcus
Every plod of Echo’s hooves sends stabbing pain through my chest and a pounding in my head. Piper brought me back from the brink, and I owe Ash my thanks for her blood, but I’m far from fully healed, and by the bones, each step this horse takes feels like an ice pick in my brain. I keep telling Piper I’m fine. She knows it’s a lie.
De’ral sulks somewhere in the depths without a word. Maybe he feels the failure on the headlands as much as I do. “But how would I know what you feel? Because you say nothing to me.”
I drill him mind-to-mind, but there is no reply. He doesn’t speak, and yet I feel his presence. It’s a growing, angry pressure behind my eyes.
My ears burn, not just because of the midday sun. It’s also my current view—the rear end of Ash’s gray mare and the sailor’s arms wrapped around her waist. It shouldn’t bother me, and in theory, it doesn’t. Ash’s happiness is mine, and I won’t let this irrational ire show, but curse it, I feel…agitated. What do we even know about this Kaylin? That he saved our lives, all right, but must he cling to her so tightly?
My anger seeps into De’ral—as if
he doesn’t have enough of his own—and Echo senses it. Every new noise has the mare jumping. I want to order phantoms up to travel beside us, knowing Aturnian scouts could be nearby. But Samsen and Piper are exhausted, and Belair and I are too inexperienced to have our warriors careening about uncontrolled.
Brogal’s words come to mind, the High Savant’s face menacing and his voice harsh. The journey may prove hazardous, requiring every able body to protect you. Ash is non-savant. Don’t even think of taking her.
I look again at Ash riding in the lead—what I can see of her around the sailor’s broad shoulders, anyway. It wasn’t a mistake, I think, continuing the imagined conversation with Brogal. I have needed her, just as she is. Already her language skills and counsel have helped enormously, and her blood! But to myself, where no one but De’ral can hear, I admit it would help if she raised a phantom. I’d told Brogal that with five of us on the journey, I would be in good hands…
Then it dawns. Five of us.
Of which we are now six. That explains the avalanche of bad luck! The Bone Throwers did have it right.
I chew on the thought. Not four companions or six or seven, but five were needed to ensure success. This has to be the problem, but until we reach Capper Point, I don’t know how to fix it. We need Kaylin. I’m not going to send him packing now, no matter how mixed my feelings are. His sword, and sense of direction, stays.
A hawk calls in the distance, and the grass rustles. Echo spooks, jumping to the side before I can control her. All the horses stop, heads flying up, nostrils flaring, ears rotating forward and back to locate the source of danger. Kaylin leaps to the ground and draws his sword. Not far to the right, in low-growing scrubs, a flock of birds takes flight.
“Pheasants is all,” he says. Relief floods me. “Carry on.”
Ash continues in the lead, and Kaylin sheaths his sword, swinging up behind her again. I don’t know if we are being flanked by the enemy or not, but Kaylin’s hand stays close to the hilt of his sword. I follow his example and do the same.
Horses and riders swivel their heads left and right, flinching at every new sound, real or imagined. The ground continues to rise, and Kaylin points to a steep climb.