by Aaron Pogue
I felt my defiance wilt even as I considered it. I had neither the strength nor the patience to lead Toman blindly through the camp. I hadn't even the energy to argue with him. A yawn cracked my jaw, and I let myself sink down on my bedroll.
Everyone who grew up in my father's stronghold grew up strong. Caleb trained us hard and worked us hard. My name had done nothing to spare me that. Even so, it had been a long day's walk, and I had not slept at all the night before. The strain of it washed over me all in one great, crashing wave, and my chin dipped forward against my chest before I could catch it.
I gave my head a little shake, but I couldn't keep my eyes open. I stretched out, and tugged a thin blanket to cover me. In moments I was asleep.
It seemed bare moments later when a quiet noise startled me awake, but the gloom of dusk had settled into deep darkness, scarcely held at bay by the handful of campfires still smoldering. I kept very still and slit my eyes, looking around.
Jen stood a couple paces away, hovering over a tiny, banked fire that Toman had built. As I watched she sank down on her knees and stretched her hands toward the flames.
Toman asked her, "Well? How did it go?"
"More complicated than we'd hoped," Jen said. "But still within our reach. How about you?"
"Me?" Toman laughed. He waved in my direction. "The little prince was easy. Worn out. I told him to get in bed, and he's been out ever since." He gave a dramatic sigh. "Mostly I've been sitting and waiting. I wish I had brought a book. Two thousand in the tower library, and I didn't think to bring one."
"Should've just knocked off," Jen said. "You could use the rest, too."
"And leave him unwatched?"
Jen chuckled. "You said yourself he was worn out. I guarantee you we'll be kicking him awake tomorrow."
"I wouldn't risk it," Toman said. "What if it'd been Caleb who came back first, instead of you?"
Jen didn't answer right away. She pursed her lips, thinking, then shrugged one shoulder. "Caleb has projects of his own. I don't suspect he'll be back before dawn."
Toman almost asked. I saw it in his expression. And I saw him realize that Jen already would have told him what those projects were, if she'd been willing to share. It was gratifying to see his frustration as he snapped his mouth shut. After a long moment he shrugged.
"Get some sleep," Jen said. "We've got a long road ahead."
"You'll take the watch?" Toman asked, but he was already digging his way into his bedroll as he said it.
"Sure," Jen said. "Of course. Diligently."
It was a matter of moments before Toman's snore began to claw at the night's still. Jen smirked, staring into the fire, then after a while she turned her gaze on me. I kept my breathing slow and steady, kept my body still, but still her eyes narrowed.
"Are you awake?"
I didn't move.
After a moment she shrugged. "I wouldn't put it past you, you little snake."
A growl started low in my throat before I could restrain myself, but I did my best to turn it into a convincing snore.
She laughed. "You're pathetic, Taryn."
I stuck to my training with deep, even, calming breaths. Even if she didn't believe the charade, she could hardly keep up an argument if I didn't respond.
But she clicked her tongue as though weighing some deep insight. "Well," she announced, "since you're asleep, Caleb can hardly punish me for speaking my mind."
I winced at that. I wanted to groan. Over by the fire she got down on her hands and knees, and with a grand show of exaggerated stealth she crawled over to crouch beside my bed. She bent over me until her loose blond hair tickled my nose. She smelled like cinnamon and sour beer and sweat.
Then she whispered in my ear, "You could be a major lord in your lifetime. You could be a king if you wanted. You have grown up at the feet of some of the most amazing people in the world, but you waste it. You're spending your life moping that your father left and clutching at your mother's apron strings. It makes me sick."
She sank back on her heels and just sat there staring at me. My control was gone now, my breath panting in and out in something just short of sobs. She couldn't possibly have been deceived.
But I couldn't bear to face her. I kept my eyes and my mouth shut, and after a while she grumbled something bitter and went to sit by the fire. In time, exhaustion took some mercy on me and dragged me into darkness.
Jen kicked me awake before dawn, and a grumpy Caleb snapped at me to serve out breakfast. Jen watched me the whole time, eyes sharp but no expression on her face. She was just waiting for me to complain.
I refused to give her the satisfaction. It was the smallest kind of defiance, but it was the best I could manage. I served the food. I went to fill our waterskins with Toman trailing along behind. I stowed our gear so we were ready to move as soon as the sun rose.
We pressed north until noon, crawling across the scorched earth between black mountain ranges. Nothing changed for hours at a time.
When we finally stopped and Caleb took Jen aside to make whispered plans, she positioned herself where I could see her. The whole time they talked she kept her eyes on mine and a cruel little smile on her lips.
Then she nodded once and darted away toward the front of the train. I tried to catch Caleb's arm, but he shook me off and disappeared as well. Just like yesterday.
Day after day we crept north, and each one was just like the last. Toman watched me constantly. Caleb and Jen plotted and went their separate ways. I did the work of a servant and endured the treatment of a prisoner of war.
My every attempt at conversation beyond coordinating the chores ended in disaster. By the end of the third day I gave up entirely.
Early on the fourth day we turned west toward a great pass in the mountains. My spirits rose a little at that, but when we stopped to make camp ten hours later we still hadn't reached the foothills. I wanted to cry.
By then our process was routine. Caleb slipped away as soon as the formation came to a halt. Jen hung around until he was out of sight, then she left. Toman set out his bed roll and built our fire, then he took a sentry position while I set up the rest of the camp.
And tonight, just like every other night, I stretched out on my blankets to the clamor of my own frustrations. Everything within me itched to slip away and find out what Caleb and Jen were up to. No. I didn't even want to see them. I wanted to make my way to the carriages at the front of the train and spend the rest of this miserable trip with my mother.
But shame pinned me in place. I could not forget the cruel things Jen had whispered in my ear, or the dispassionate speech Caleb had made before. Was I truly such a disappointment? Was I the greatest threat to my mother?
For four days I had tried to show them I wasn't. I had tried to behave the way they wanted of me, but it had gained me nothing. Caleb still ignored me. Jen still mocked me. Toman still dismissed me. If this was all the reward I could expect from obedience, I thought perhaps I would prefer the slander. Even the king had treated me more kindly than this, and he imagined me a traitor!
I was thinking of these things and staring at the stars when I heard the soft, familiar wheeze of Toman's snore. I looked his way and found him slumped near the fire. Asleep on watch. He'd hear from Caleb about that.
But then I grinned. Perhaps there was some reward for good behavior after all. I'd lulled even steadfast Toman into complacency. If tonight were like that rest, Jen would not be back for hours yet. I pushed up into a crouch, but Toman didn't move at all. I gave him to a count of two hundred, then pushed away my blanket and climbed to my feet.
I made no sound, but otherwise I wasted no effort on stealth. He could have caught me with a little subterfuge, but after four days he didn't respect me enough to try it. I looked down on him for a moment, shaking my head, then I turned and slipped off into the night.
I moved slowly, though. Moonlight showed my path, and the hard, dry ground offered little obstacle, but my whole body was tensed, my ears s
training, while I waited to hear a shout from Toman or a returning Jen. I went perhaps twenty paces expecting it at any moment, heart pounding, but then I put the picket of our horses between me and Toman's campfire without any sound of alarm, and my next breath came easier.
Another dozen paces carried me past a camp where three of Souward's foot soldiers leaned close over their own fire, sharing stories and a dirty bottle of smoky liquor. I earned no more than a glance from them as I passed, and then I had their camp, too, between Toman and me. After that I moved swiftly, sure-footed as a fox, and soon I didn't even need to sneak. I left the vigilant knight sleeping and made my way out of our formation.
There were sentries posted beyond the outer edge of the camp, but they were meant to keep enemies and pilferers from gaining entry. They paid little attention to the late-night movements of individuals already inside the lines. I slipped easily along a lane that took me past the supply wagons and the seamstresses and the cooks. I saw perhaps a dozen other souls awake as I moved toward the lines of the military men, but none of them spared me more than a glance.
The military men gave me more trouble. As I approached the first line of infantry, I accidentally made eye contact with someone sitting on the southwest corner of his formation. He might have been a posted sentry or just a sleepless soldier, but he popped to his feet as I approached.
"Oi!" he called. "Who're you?"
I met his eyes and tried my lie. "I'm a squire of Lord Souward's. On an errand."
His eyes narrowed. "What's your errand?"
My heart hammered, but I didn't look away. I kept my voice level. "I.... I'm searching for the officer of Souward's Seventh. He's been missing since we left the Tower."
The soldier peered closer for a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed. "Old Cotter? You might better say he's been missing since Tirah. Doesn't make a lot of difference, though, does it?"
I blinked. "Does it?"
He shook his head and chuckled. "Haven't found him yet? Try the seamstresses' camp. Or the alchemists down east end. Could be either one." His eyes shone with a private humor.
I gave him an amused smile and a bit of a blush that I didn't have to fake. "Tried them both already, and everywhere else I can think of. Just going back to report to Lord Souward now."
The soldier's laughter dissolved. He fixed me with a look of perfect pity. "Being the bearer of bad news, are you? Haven watch over you, boy. Better sooner than later, anyway. Get on."
I encountered two more soldiers standing sentry among the archers' formations, and then an officer, too, who confronted me through a fog of bourbon fumes. I borrowed some of the things I'd learned from the first soldier to smooth out my lie, and each new encounter gave me more to work with.
By the time I reached the drunken officer, I made it through the conversation without a single suspicious glance, and with a gift of a silver coin earned of heartfelt sympathy. I chuckled to myself as I scurried on up the lane, closer and closer to the carriages and the camp where my mother slept.
I held my breath as I passed among the cavalry camps, but I was working my way up the left flank, nearly half a mile from the lane we'd used that first day. Still, I watched the neatly-ordered lines of their fine, tall tents for any sign of a familiar face. I passed two rows of heavy cavalry and saw another single cavalry formation on the northwest corner of the camp, but to the east of it was a smaller camp with a very different feel.
There were no tents at all. There were no bedrolls. There were long lines of men in full armor on the open ground. The soldiers sleeping lay flat on their backs, arms at their sides, with the hilt of a naked sword waiting beneath each man's right hand and four throwing knives arrayed around the left.
But every third soldier, all the way down the line, was on one knee, eyes bright, watching the night. I stepped up to the intersection of two lanes, near one corner of the strange camp, and I stopped in my tracks at the strange sight.
I recognized the armor. I had seen it often in the last week. These were the Green Eagles, the king's personal guard. For a heartbeat I stood frozen, staring in awe, then just as some of the kneeling sentries began to turn my way, I felt a heavy hand fall on my shoulder. It knotted in the cloth of my shirt and jerked me violently back and into the lines of one of the cavalry camps.
Panic flared up hot and razor-sharp in the back of my throat, but I fought it off and reached for the lie that had served me so well. As long as it was not Pollix or the other cavalry officer who had stopped us that day—
The same violent grip that had dragged me aside spun me around, and the lie died on my lips. My jaw dropped open. I almost laughed, but Caleb clapped his massive hand over my mouth.
"Haven's name," he growled. "What are you doing here?"
I raised my eyebrows at him, and after a moment he removed his hand. I couldn't suppress the smile. "What are you wearing?"
He wore the uniform of the Green Eagles. Only, as I looked closer, I saw subtle differences. The cut was not precisely the same, the pauldrons were lighter, the greaves sharper, and his collar rose higher and spread wider. And top to toe, it was far more battered and worn than anything I'd seen in the Tower's courtyard. Still, the design was remarkably similar, and it showed the same rich greens and blacks of the elite soldiers' uniform.
He watched my eyes as I assessed his armor. As soon as I was finished he turned on his heel, fist still locked on my shoulder, and propelled me south along a line between the tents within the cavalry camp.
"I asked what you are doing," he said. "Where are your knights?"
"Resting," I said, as condescendingly as I could make it. "The poor fellows had a long day."
"Cute," he said. "And you?"
I stopped, and he allowed me to. I raised my chin. "I am going to see Mother."
"As easy as that?" he asked.
I shrugged. "I made it this far. The carriages are only just over there! I could almost see them—"
He grunted and shook his head. "Just over there. Right past seven unbroken lines of vigilant Green Eagles."
I tried to meet his stare, but after three heartbeats my chin began to drag down of its own accord. Eventually my eyes did the same, until I was staring at the tips of my boots. "I didn't know," I said. "I would have come up with something."
"You would have spent the rest of the journey in manacles," Caleb said. "Hm. Perhaps I shouldn't have stopped you."
My eyes flashed to his. I licked my lips. "Cute."
"Hah!" The laugh escaped him as a bark, and he looked angry as he suppressed it. But then he shook his head. "Wind and rain. You've wrecked my night. Come on. Got to get you back to your place."
I dug in my heels, but it hardly slowed him. He dragged me three paces before I relented and turned with him, but I didn't give up. "Wait!" I whispered urgently. "Wait. You are here. You must have a reason. You've got your...your disguise." My gaze slipped along the lines of his armor again, and I couldn't suppress the flash of curiosity. "Where did you get that?"
"From a man I used to know," he said.
He said no more, and I let it go. "It doesn't matter," I said. "It's a good disguise. It got you as far as mine did. Together—"
"Together," he said, "we can both get caught. It's foolishness. Come. We must move quickly!"
"No!" I jerked my shoulder, trying to shake him off, and then more violently when he held on. "Let me go! I'm going to my mother!"
A cold voice cut through the night before Caleb could respond. "Well, well, well."
I went still as stone, then as one Caleb and I turned our heads up the lane, to the cavalry officer waiting for us at the next intersection. Three of his own soldiers stood behind him, and with them were two armed crossbowmen and a Green Eagle with his great two-handed blade already drawn. They watched us with serious eyes, alert and ready.
Lord Pollix gave a tight little smile. "I believe I've heard that from you before."
6. Moonlight
"Wait!" I shouted,
raising both hands palms out. "I can explain!"
Caleb's grip tightened on my shoulder, and I shut up. Above me, he only stared at the soldiers facing us and raised his chin.
The Green Eagle among them pressed forward past the cavalry officer. I heard a sound like the sudden rustle of a low wind off to my left, but I couldn't tear my eyes from the soldier before me. He lowered his sword in a naked threat, gaze fixed on Caleb, and demanded, "Where did you—"
He cut himself short mid-question, and his eyes fell shut. The tip of his sword buried itself in the earth before him, then he sank easily down behind it. While I gaped in astonishment, he curled into a spot on the ground, hands folded beneath his head. Beneath the heavy armor, his shoulders rose and fell with slow, easy breaths.
And six other soldiers followed him to the earth. Whatever had overcome the Green Eagle hit Pollix, too, and he closed his eyes and stretched out to sleep upon the road. It washed over them like a wave, and in a matter of moments the knot of soldiers before us was sleeping soundly.
Caleb's head whipped to the right, and only then did I notice the sound. It was the same rustle I'd heard before, and now as I turned I understood it. A sentry from the corner of the next formation over had taken two steps out into the road to watch our altercation. Another handful of men from the same camp had left their fire to stare. All of them now were sound asleep.
I looked behind us, in the direction I'd first heard the noise, and I saw not a single waking soldier anywhere in the formation. The effect had passed right over us and into the next camp.
I looked up at Caleb. "Something's come over them."
He never even glanced my way. Fist still knotted in the fabric at my shoulder, he struck out west, dragging me along beside him. I almost had to sprint to keep up with his long stride. "What's happening?" I asked. "Do you know? What happened?"