In such times, they would look for somewhere to hide, a big tree to put their backs against, an overhang under which they would huddle quietly, waiting to see if this would be the time the creatures would find them and finish the work they had begun at the Akalians’ barracks. They’d spent the last night in a small cave, one Caleb would never have seen but that Tianya, her vision aided by her Virtue’s gifts, was able to make out clearly, despite the undergrowth covering its entrance.
Caleb’s own Virtue had also proved of use, allowing him to know—from half-remembered conversations and books, many of which were memories from one of the Virtue’s previous bond mates—which plants and berries were edible and which would kill them or make them violently sick. Still, despite their foraging, they had not stopped to hunt for hardier fare—knowing that to do so would be as good as signing their own death warrants. Each day, the patrolling creatures seemed to draw closer and closer around them, and the plants they’d managed to scavenge only kept the worst of the hunger pains at bay.
He was thinner, he knew, and there was a slight tremble to his hands that spoke of malnourishment, but it wasn’t himself he was concerned about. Despite all of her assurances that she felt fine, that she was fine, Caleb knew that Tianya’s condition was growing worse. Whatever good the few days spent resting at the Akalians’ barracks had done her was quickly being reversed as her already weakened body was forced to endure hardships that would have been difficult even for those in peak physical condition. She was tired, malnourished, and the signs of their exertions were beginning to become impossible to ignore, never mind her assurances.
Caleb suspected it was simple will, more than anything else, that kept her upright and putting one foot in front of the other. But even such a strong will could not last forever, and if they didn’t find succor soon, neither her will nor their Virtue-enhanced senses would save them.
Thankfully, they were close to where he suspected Aaron and the others were, now. Using the increased intelligence his bond afforded him, Caleb had predicted with what he considered an acceptable margin of error where Perennia’s army would be. Assuming, that was, that they hadn’t run in to trouble. If they had, there was really no telling where they were, and he and Tianya—who trusted in his deductions about which direction they should travel without complaint or question—might simply pass by them without ever knowing it. And if that happened…well, such a thing didn’t bear thinking about.
And even if the army hadn’t run into trouble, still he and the woman might miss them, for though Caleb thought he had accounted for everything—the speed at which the army would move, considering their size and the necessary supplies they would be forced to bring—he couldn’t shake the feeling he had missed something. Even a small error in his calculations could result in adding another day, even two, to their journey, and he was painfully aware that either would be more than the woman could handle in her weakened state.
Relax, young Caleb, Palendesh said into his mind. Your calculations are good. You will find the army soon. You are less than a day’s travel from them.
He wished he shared the Virtue’s—and apparently the woman’s—unquestioning confidence, but he couldn’t. All he could think about was how, not so very long ago, he had been a dim-witted servant in a tavern most people wouldn’t have been caught dead in, a young boy whose own mother had known to be a fool.
Your mother’s recriminations, Caleb, had nothing to do with you and everything to do with her. You know this.
And he did. At least, intellectually. Logically. But not everything a person felt was logical, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of being an impostor, a failure. A fool. He couldn’t rid himself of the idea that the woman was trusting him and that he would, inevitably, disappoint that trust. That he was a child playing at intelligence, wisdom, and that even now they were walking past the army, had, perhaps, done so already, and they would remain lost in the woods until malnutrition or Kevlane’s creatures did for them both. He had thought of telling the woman as much, over the last few days and nights, but had not. His worries were for him and him alone—she had enough to concentrate on just to put one foot in front of the other, and he had no wish to trouble her with his own doubts.
“Which way?”
He started at the rasping sound of the woman’s whisper, and looked up to see her slumped against a tree. Despite the cool evening air, she was covered in sweat. Another sign—had one been needed—that her body was on its last reserves of strength.
He looked around, his Virtue-enhanced mind taking in a thousand things at once, signs of where they were—moss on one side of the trees and not on the other, the sun only just beginning to set, lowering in what he knew would be the western part of the sky. Then, with that knowledge, he quickly examined their course for the thousandth time, looking for any mistakes or errors he may have made. “This way,” he said, pointing in the direction that—he hoped—was right. “But listen, Tianya, it will be dark soon. Maybe we should…”
“We press on,” the woman wheezed. “I’m fine, boy, so stop looking at me like I’m a corpse that stood up and decided to talk.”
Caleb felt his face flush at that. “Yes, ma’am.”
She grunted what might have been a laugh. “Ma’am, is it? Well, as you will.”
With that, she rose from her place against the tree, unable to completely hide her wince of pain and exhaustion, and started out once more. Caleb did his best to silence the voices of doubt in his head and followed. After all, there was little else to do.
***
They’d been walking for a few hours and dark had come on in full, when Tianya’s shuffling steps slowed, and she froze, her hand going up. It was a gesture that Caleb had come to fear over the last few days, as it signaled that Kevlane’s creatures—or something, at least—was close. More than once, the woman’s heightened senses had picked up sounds of movement, and they had rushed to the nearest cover only to find after several tense minutes that it had been nothing more than a squirrel or a deer going about its business.
She closed her fist, then held up two hands, displaying seven fingers in all, and Caleb’s breath caught in his throat. This time, it seemed, wouldn’t be a false alarm. Unless, that was, squirrels had suddenly decided to band together in large groups, roaming the forest like a street gang looking for trouble. Seven. So far, when Tianya had picked up on movement, it had almost always been from only one or two sources and—on one particularly frightening occasion—it had been three. The fact that she now heard seven, seven of Kevlane’s creatures who were close enough for her to make out the sounds of their movement, sent a shiver of terror running down his spine.
He stood frozen, fearing even to breathe too deeply, lest the creatures somehow pick up the sound. When the woman started back to him, she did so carefully, slowly, taking great care in raising her feet and placing them on the forest ground, avoiding any dry leaves or twigs that might crinkle or snap underfoot and give away their position. The creatures didn’t possess Tianya’s own incredibly powerful senses, but Caleb knew they could still see and hear better than a normal man.
He waited tensely, sweat gathering on his brow, and it seemed to take an eternity for her to make it the dozen feet back to where he stood. “Seven?” he asked, “are you su—”
He cut off at a sharp, negating gesture from her, and she spun to stare off into the forest, her muscles tense and rigid. After a while, she let out a breath she’d been holding slowly, turning back to him. “Seven, maybe more,” she said, her voice so low that he could barely hear her despite the fact that she was standing right in front of him. “The bastards are fast, and it’s hard to tell for certain.”
“What…what do we do?”
“I think,” the woman said, her eyes roaming the forest, “that they’ve all wandered off for—” She paused abruptly, her eyes going wide. “Hide!” she hissed. “And be quiet.”
Heart hammering in his chest, Caleb cast his gaze around the surrounding
woods, searching for anywhere to go, but there were no overhangs now, no caves in which they might shelter. Only trees and more of them. The woman seemed to see as much too, for she grabbed his arm, pulling him roughly toward the nearest one, a towering oak that looked as if it might have stood for thousands of years. “Up,” she snapped, cupping her hands, and it took Caleb’s terrified mind several seconds to realize what she wanted. Swallowing hard, he planted his boot in the bowl she’d made of her hands. She groaned, and he could feel her trembling, but she lifted him high enough to reach the lowest limb of the tree. He flailed at it, barely managing to grasp it with one hand before her strength failed her.
For a moment, he was sure he would fall. It was only eight feet, yet it would kill him as surely as a sword thrust, for it would alert the creatures to their position. But then he managed to get his other hand around the limb, and he strained, pulling himself up.
That done, he reached a hand down, and the woman grabbed it. She was thin from the days spent in the grip of her madness—far too thin—and his fear lent him strength. His teeth gritted with the effort, his breath hissing between them, he pulled for all he was worth and, a moment later, the woman was in the tree beside him. Caleb had a second to notice that her face was sickly pale now, her skin almost translucent, before there was a snap of something below them. He looked down, and nearly screamed in surprise as he saw one of Kevlane’s creatures standing only feet away from where they had been seconds before.
Like the others he’d seen, the creature’s face was twisted and scarred, its features barely recognizable as human, but Caleb felt a stab of pity make it through his fear as he realized that what he could make out of the figure’s face showed it to be a young woman, perhaps only a few years older than he. But whatever the woman had once been, whatever hopes and dreams she may have had, they were gone now, and what remained in her gaze was hardly human at all.
The creature cocked its head, as if listening for something, turning slowly to gaze around the forest. Caleb watched it, not even daring to so much as breathe. There was little cover in the tree in which they squatted. If the creature happened to look up, there was no way it could miss the boy and woman crouched in its branches.
He glanced at Tianya, more for comfort than anything, and saw that she was swaying drunkenly on the branch, her eyes closed, her face slack. Oh gods, he thought wildly. Just hang on, Tianya. Just for a little while longer. He reached out tentatively, aware that even the slightest sound would doom them both, and touched the woman on the arm, nearly recoiling at the fevered heat of her skin. Her eyes opened slowly, and she stared at him with a vague confusion, as if she couldn’t remember where she was or how she’d come to be there. She opened her mouth as if she would speak, and Caleb’s other hand shot up, bringing a finger to his lips.
She frowned as if she’d never seen the gesture before, then, suddenly, her eyes rolled up in her head, and her chin drooped to her chest. Slowly, she started to tip to one side, and Caleb caught her, straining with the effort of holding her upright. With only one arm able to balance her, the other holding on to the tree itself for support, he struggled to keep her from falling off the limb where she would land practically at the creature’s feet.
He risked a glance down at the creature, sure that they must have made some sound that had warned it of their presence and that, even now, it was preparing to kill them both, but the creature didn’t seem to have noticed them. It looked around the forest for a few seconds more, its head still cocked, and if it was capable of any human thought at all then no evidence of it showed on its face.
Caleb’s arm began to shake, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold her in such an awkward position for long. Just when he thought he had no more strength left in him, the creature abruptly spun, as if hearing something off in the woods, and there was a blur of movement and a rustle of dry leaves. Then the creature was gone, vanished into the woods. Thank the gods, Caleb thought. But now what do I do?
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Aaron was exhausted. He’d gotten little sleep since the army began its march. He spent his days consulting with Brandon Gant and the other officers, his nights scanning the woods for any signs of life, any tell-tale indicators that might warn him of another impending attack. There’d been many such since they started out, and it seemed that each time he closed his eyes to steal even a few hours of rest, the creatures would come. He’d long since lost count—a hundred, two?—of the number of soldiers that had died. Deaths which, he believed, would have been largely avoidable had the soldiers been alerted of the attack before it came.
So instead of giving in to his body’s demands for sleep—demands starting first as suggestions, then as declarations, and now approaching uncompromising shouts—he spent his nights sweeping the surrounding woods with the power of his bond, searching for any sign of the creatures.
He walked the camp’s perimeter now while those soldiers not chosen for sentry duty slept. Bastion, the giant youth who was a member of the Ghosts, and Seline, the Speaker’s daughter who was also in possession of the Virtue of Speed, walked with him. With her and Aaron’s Virtue-gifted powers, they’d set up a sort of a relay system over the past several nights: Aaron seeing where the attack was coming from, and Seline using her unnatural swiftness to warn the soldiers before it came. It wasn’t perfect, for the creatures were fast too—if not as fast as Seline—and she wasn’t always able to arrive in time, but it was the best they had been able to come up with.
If the woman felt any exhaustion at the last several nights spent patrolling the camp, she didn’t show it, but Aaron supposed she could make up some of that lack of sleep during the day while he was bogged down with all manner of reports. He was beginning to think the bastards were just making up things to send him as a sort of competition to see who could drive him insane first.
He glanced over at Bastion and only just managed to repress a sigh as he noted the big man watching him with the unblinking, almost worshipful gaze with which nearly all of the army’s soldiers viewed him, as if he was a god that might at any moment perform some miracle, and they didn’t want to chance missing it.
“Eyes on the tree line, Bastion,” he said for what must have been at least the hundredth time since they’d started their patrol a little over an hour ago.
“Of course, General, sir,” the youth said, nodding and obediently looking past the torches ringing the camp and into the shadowed darkness of the forest.
Aaron rubbed at his eyes, studying the woman who didn’t so much as turn. She hadn’t spoken since they’d set out, and seemed almost unaware of the two men walking beside her. He wondered, not for the first time, what thoughts plagued her. Did she think about her father, the Speaker of the Akalians? About hardships she had endured in her life, the quest for vengeance now abandoned? Or was the vaguely troubled expression on her face a sign of the worry anyone might feel after nights spent fighting creatures out of nightmares?
You could stop wondering altogether, you know? Co said into his mind. You could figure out what is bothering her quickly enough.
By using the bond? Aaron thought, then slowly shook his head. No, Firefly. Some thoughts, some feelings, should remain one’s own, and I’ve no right to go digging into her mind without asking. I don’t think she’d thank me for it. Besides, you know as well as I that it’s more difficult to use the bond on another Virtue-bearer. Odds are it wouldn’t even work.
I meant, Co said, as if he were a fool, that you could ask her.
Oh. Right. “Eh…how’s things, Seline?”
The woman started as if surprised to hear her name. “What’s that?”
“I said, how are things? Everything good?”
She stared at him for a moment. “You mean besides the fact that, until recently, I’d spent most my life searching for my father so I could kill him? Or that I’m currently sharing my body with an ancient Virtue out of myth, one who—despite my best efforts to dissuade him of i
t—insists on scolding and fussing over me like a nursemaid after a particularly unruly child? Or, instead, are you referring to the fact that I am currently patrolling an army camp, searching for creatures that should never have existed, marching to a city full of them with the intention of defeating not just them, but also the ancient mage who created them?”
Aaron cleared his throat. “Eh. All of it?”
She shrugged, turning back to the forest. “Things are fine, I suppose.”
“Good. That’s good. And how’s Leomin?”
She smiled at the mention of the Parnen, an expression that looked alien on her normally dour features, but one that was pleasant for all that. “Leomin is…Leomin. I find he can be rather difficult to describe in words.”
“Yeah,” Aaron grunted, smiling himself at thoughts of the talkative Parnen. “I find that cursing helps.”
She laughed. “Leomin is certainly…interesting. But he is refreshing, too. I have never met anyone else like him.”
“Me neither,” Aaron agreed. And thank the gods for that. One Leomin is more than enough. Still, despite the thought, he knew that the Parnen had become one of his closest friends, and he found himself wanting to talk to the man, if for nothing else but the dubious reassurance he always offered. “He’s a strange man,” Aaron said. “But he’s also a good one.”
“The best,” she agreed.
They walked on for some time in silence after that, and Aaron felt better. He realized the conversation had been the longest he’d had with the woman since they’d started their nightly patrols. She was not normally very talkative—in the same way that a rock could be said not to be talkative—and she, at least, didn’t seem impressed by the stories and rumors about him. A fact for which he was extremely grateful. It was nice to have at least a few people who didn’t look at him as if he were about to shit a brick of gold any minute.
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