It wasn’t the worst assumption I was going to have to rethink, but afterward I really felt bad about it.
Sperrin
Only a direct order to Guthre saved the chancellor’s life on the trail. She would have knifed him for his words and left him for carrion, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Guthre and I took turns scouting while the other kept the chancellor and Ketya moving as quickly and quietly as possible; I suspected that Guthre led the chancellor through thornier brush than he might have encountered otherwise—his own fault if he hadn’t learned to avoid it by this time. It wouldn’t hurt him to learn to be polite to the soldiers guarding his life, but I doubted the chancellor would ever evolve that far.
We traveled a shaded trail along a ridgeline, with a rock wall to our left and a curtain of ancient grayleafs between our path and a sheer drop. Far below, a river churned over rocks, heavy with runoff. Near midday, I heard a quiet cough and froze: We had reached our objective.
One of the rearguard scouts materialized from behind a cluster of brush. He guided us into the camp while Guthre waited behind in his post. “We’ll have a hot meal for you and your refugees before we go, ’Captain,” the scout said. “We’re glad you’re here.”
“You’ve done well enough,” I answered.
“I know,” said the scout. “The sergeants have saved us a hundred times. And we’ve done what we had to. But we haven’t fought back. Not enough, anyway. Not like you did.”
“That was another war,” I said, “and you know I had channelers to help.”
The scout didn’t seemed dissuaded. “The channelers didn’t win your battles. Soldiers know. You fought with the tools you had, ’Captain.”
“We’ll see,” I answered. “We’ll see.”
I had met both sergeants the previous night and briefly heard their story: They’d been on a long patrol with a half-strength company of the Riverhead Scouts, with the rest of the company detached to train new recruits. Long patrols look for poachers and fugitives, make sure the trails are in good repair, and watch for Alliance infiltration attempts—unlikely as those might be in this part of the mountains. They had one young channeler with them, only a year or so more experienced than Ketya and learning the mountains as part of her own training.
What had saved them? Many of the soldiers had grown up in the mountains, as I had. Unlike Ananyans bred in the flatlands, they had never lost their suspicion toward fey, or their sense of an enemy presence in the world around them.
The sergeants had been leading a detachment of troopers on patrol when the main camp had been hit by a wave of nightmares from old legends—wolves ridden by fey who threw magical darts and spears. The scouts in the camp had fought back with no-longer-magical weapons, but been nearly swamped before the troopers on patrol hit the fey from behind and drove them off, at least for that night. The rescuers found the captain and channeler both dead, along with the subcaptain and about half of the scouts. Most of the survivors had been wounded, but the dead channeler didn’t have a mark on her.
In the succeeding days they had rescued refugees from the lake region where they had been patrolling and had begun to work their way slowly toward their headquarters at Whitmount, harried by fey but—so far at least—strong enough to fight them off if they kept to defensive ground. In recent days the fey had grown more numerous, and more determined to keep the scouts from the best defensive ground.
The sergeants had been wary when Guthre reported other soldiers nearby, but glad when I found them. None of the scouts knew me personally, but my reputation as a field commander, it seemed, remained known in Whitmount a decade after my departure.
Although as a palace officer I technically had no authority over field soldiers, they took it as a matter of course that I would assume command.
And, I realized, so did I.
* * * *
I found both sergeants in camp, though Kern, a young man with a thick red beard, was preparing to leave to check on the forward defenders. We clasped hands briefly before the sergeant left. The second sergeant, Talye, was a few years older and the more talkative of the two: She had told most of their story to me the previous night. Although smaller and a little stouter than most of the female scouts I’d known—they tended to be leggy like Guthre, built for long runs—the ferocity in Talye’s eyes belied her ready smile.
She seemed to see me as a kindred spirit, or perhaps as a potential mentor.
I wondered what stories they told about me in Whitmount, and how the stories had survived for a decade after my transfer. And then it hit me: Just because you left your past behind doesn’t mean everyone else did. You were a hero, a proven killer. And in their eyes, you’ve returned when they need you.
Are you prepared to be that person again? I wondered. You left once because of what it was turning you into.
The problems now were more pressing than the war I had mostly left behind, though. If the price of saving Ananya is becoming a monster, than I suppose I will need to become one. The words seemed so reasonable in my head. Something I would even enjoy, despite the price. I just hoped I would have a chance to find my daughter before the transformation changed me completely.
After a meal we got underway quickly, even with nearly a hundred scouts and refugees in my new command—a quarter of them injured and the rest carrying packs of food and supplies. Not surprisingly, Ketya made herself useful among the refugees. Even her father didn’t actively hinder things. The chancellor had found an appreciative and respectful audience among the older refugees. He pointedly ignored the soldiers, as if holding court in his tower chamber.
I spent the afternoon getting a sense of the troopers: watching them, talking with them, taking my turn with the advance scouts ahead of the column. The last seemed to pain Kern, who respectfully discouraged his new overcaptain.
“Why risk yourself in a common scout’s job?” the red-bearded sergeant asked. “You’re needed here, alive.”
“I need to know the soldiers,” I said. “If you want to fight I need to know what your troopers can do.”
“You can trust your sergeants,” Kern answered.
I nodded. “You and Talye have done very well. I trust your scouting. But I haven’t seen any of your troopers skirmish, much less fight. And they need to know me by more than reputation before I ask them to fight.”
“Every soldier here would happily die at your order,” said Kern.
“I know that. But I don’t want them to die. I want them to win.”
I didn’t think like a scout, I knew. I was a field soldier, trained for battles and ambushes. The finest scouts weren’t good for more than light infantry when it came to actual fighting. But without channelers and war-engines to support them, even line infantry couldn’t put up much of a fight. Hundreds of years of Ananyan training and tactics had honed a military where the role of most soldiers was to defend and support the channelers while those channelers did most of the damage to the enemy.
That meant I would have to substitute trickery for magic. I can do that, I thought, remembering that day on the wall at Powder Gap watching Alliance soldiers stream into my elegantly laid trap. I felt my face flush in spite of myself. The scout pacing me didn’t seem to notice. I can do that again.
Ketya
The Mountain Road: Eighteen days after the Loss
Over the next couple of days, we settled into a new routine with the soldiers and refugees. In spite of myself, I felt a little jealous of Sperrin, and the easy way he seemed to have taken command. His days were consumed planning with the two sergeants, disappearing for hours with Guthre and the other scouts, coming and going and seeming welcome everywhere. The soldiers lionized him. I wasn’t jealous of the way he had taken over the scout troop, which he clearly was suited for. I was jealous because of the way he fit in: Sperrin was back in his element while I had never been farther from mine.
Even my father, gossiping with worshipful headservants, seemed to have settled back into his world. There wasn’t
really a place for a channeler with no magic in this new and unsettled world.
Although the soldiers seemed much more comfortable with Sperrin than he did with them, everyone else in the camp but me seemed in good spirits and optimistic. Sperrin fit in smoothly, as if he had always been in command.
I missed the times he’d spent showing me how to fight and throw knives. Now that he had real soldiers to work with, I’d been relegated to refugee status, I supposed.
He wouldn’t have time to work with me, and I knew it was silly to even wish for it.
He did go out of his way to speak kindly to me. But that didn’t make me feel any more useful.
* * * *
Three days after we joined the scouts, the wolves returned.
The first time I had heard wolves howl, I thought they sounded incredibly lonely. I no longer felt that way.
Wolves howled all around our camps at night, and harried any scout who strayed too far away from the main column alone. They stayed far enough away to avoid being attacked by the scouts, but close enough to constantly remind of their presence. Now and then we saw the huge black wolf with the golden eyes, staring down at us from commanding ridges. A few of the scouts had slings for hunting small game, but the wolves stayed largely out of range—even if the slings had enough power to do more than annoy a healthy adult wolf.
It felt almost like we were being herded—as if sheepdogs harried us rather than wolves.
Sperrin ordered patrols doubled up, and didn’t allow any of the refugees to leave the perimeter of the camp unless we stayed in sight of an armed soldier.
Mostly that didn’t bother me, but right now—when I needed to step into the woods to relieve myself while the column made a rest stop—it certainly did. I waved self-consciously to a scout on sentry duty to make sure the woman could see me, then wandered through the trees until a curtain of underbrush gave me at least a little privacy while leaving the upper half of my torso visible to the sentry.
Years worth of fallen brown leaves covered the ground, clumped here and there from the passage of large animals. Unlike the rocky path, the dirt underfoot felt spongy. Something had crushed the leaves in the clearing down, forming a slight depression: I had to glance at he sentry to make sure I remained in view. I found myself nervously glancing around, waiting for wolves to appear at any moment. The clearing had an odd smell, faint but musky, slightly cloying like rotting flowers. Something I had smelled before. Thinking back, I tried to place it.
I froze when the memory hit me.
Then I pulled up my clothes and bolted straight for the camp, not caring if the underbrush scraped me.
I raced past lounging soldiers to the command area at the center of the halted column. Kern stood there going over a guard rotation with an undersergeant whom I knew only by sight. They both looked up at me as I halted abruptly in front of them.
“Where is Sperrin?” I asked, out of breath. “I need to talk to him. It’s really important.”
Kern looked at me drily. “He’s not here. And he’s busy. I can tell him you are looking for him when he has time.”
“Where is he? I need to talk to him.”
“If you haven’t just seen a wolf, it can wait. And even if you have, someone else will already have told him.”
“You don’t understand—”
Kern snorted. “I do understand. You’re a channeler and you’re used to everyone dropping everything for your every whim. Only right now ’Captain Sperrin is working on keeping us all alive, and you don’t have any magic to help. So whatever you think is so important will have to wait.”
I stamped in frustration, realizing it made me look even younger. “Where is he?” I asked, more plaintively than I meant to.
“I told you—” Kern started, but by then the undersergeant’s eyes had given away the answer I needed. I ran for the front of the column, not waiting for the bearded sergeant to finish.
Talye yelled something to me when I reached the front of the column, but I kept running. A scout started to lunge for me. Talye’s arm stopped the soldier and let me pass.
I never saw Sperrin as I ran forward, but suddenly he stood beside me. He caught me as I stumbled, shuddering for breath. As I sank to the ground I caught a glimpse of Guthre over Sperrin’s shoulder, before the scout disappeared. Covering us, I realized.
First I reached to the small of my back to check on the Talisman, and then I caught my breath for a second. I expected some kind of rebuke from Sperrin, but it never came. He squatted in front of me, waiting until I could speak.
“I saw something you need to see,” I finally managed. “Well, mostly I smelled it, but I saw it too. You need to see it. Kern didn’t want me to come, but I knew you would want to....” I trailed off as my breath ran out.
“Of course,” said Sperrin. It seemed an oddly nonspecific answer. “Can you tell me what it is?”
“I think there are giants here. One of them slept here last night, I think. That’s what the wolves are herding us toward. There are giants waiting to ambush us.”
Unexpectedly, Sperrin smiled. “Show me,” he said. Then more quietly, so at first I thought he was talking to himself: “This will be fun.”
Guthre murmured an assent from nearby and I knew she had heard the whole thing. “Wait here until I send someone to relieve you,” said Sperrin. “Then come and join me. I’ll want your eyes on this, too.”
“Of course,” Guthre said, a lilt in her voice. “You’re probably going to need me to bait your trap.”
Sperrin nodded. “I may at that. You and Ketya will need to talk. She’s been closer to giants than anyone else in this camp that’s lived through it.”
He strode quickly back toward the front of the column, where Talye waited quietly. The vanguard scouts surrounded her in a loose skirmish line, weapons drawn.
Sperrin sent two of them forward to relieve Guthre, and motioned to Talye. “We’ll be here at least an hour,” he said. “Deploy skirmishers, but don’t let them stray too far until we know the situation. As soon as Guthre returns, I would like both of you to join Ketya and me.”
Noticing me struggling to keep up with his strides, Sperrin slowed down. “Now show me what you saw, please.”
* * * *
When Talye and Guthre arrived, things began in earnest. While they hadn’t had my recent experience with the smell of giants, both of them could read signs in scuffed leaves and spongy earth that even Sperrin hadn’t noticed.
I found myself appreciating scoutcraft more than I ever had before, at least in the way the two women practiced it. It reminded me of my dancing days, and the way the choreographer would elaborately map everyone’s movements on the stage. This sort of looked like a reverse choreography: like reading the stage to reconstruct a dance after the performers had departed.
“Four giants,” Talye finally concluded. “They slept here, left to hunt, and then came back to sleep again. They left this morning before we got too close—long enough for their spoor to dissipate, except in hollows like this one. They’re staying close enough so they don’t lose contact if we change direction, but waiting for a favorable place to ambush. That wolf-thing is probably keeping them informed about where to find us.”
Sperrin nodded his agreement. “You and Kern and I will plan tonight. Likely, we’ll start probing at first light. We’ll need to find their ambush site without them catching our scouts, and then set up our counter ambush.”
Guthre licked her lips.
“Go on,” Sperrin said to Guthre. “Pick two others you work with well. Find their position, but don’t let the giants spot you, or the wolf either. I know you want to bait the trap, but we need information first. Get back by dark if you can. We’ll need the time to plan, and I’ll want you well-rested for tomorrow.”
Guthre’s grin broadened, and then she left the clearing at a sprint. When she smiles she looks even younger, I thought. I wondered what could make a girl my age so willing to bait a deathtrap.
&nbs
p; * * * *
Kern didn’t apologize to me, exactly.
He approached at dusk, while Sperrin inspected the camp’s defenses and Talye supervised a work crew. Kern looked tired, his beard and forehead streaked with grease. All the soldiers had been thrown into feverish activity, with the refugees mostly left uninformed for the moment.
That might be for the best, I decided. I hadn’t mentioned the giants to my father or anyone else except for Sperrin.
“Do you have a minute?” Kern asked. He seemed reluctant to make direct eye contact. He’s only a few years older than I am, I realized suddenly. This is hard for him.
How do you make it easy for someone to apologize? I wondered. That wasn’t a skill I could ever learn from my father.
“Of course,” I said.
He fingered the sheath at his belt. “Overcaptain Sperrin tells me that he taught you to throw a knife. He said you had some skill with it.”
I blushed. “Really, I’m just a beginner. He taught me what he could in the time we had.”
“I understand,” said Kern. “Did you want to learn more?”
“I would love to. I know Sperrin doesn’t have any time to teach me, though.” I may be a selfish channeler like you said, but I’m not that selfish. But I held back the words. Kern was trying.
“If you can be up early, we set up a practice target at the south end of camp at first light for the troopers to practice. They rotate, one squad each day, since there isn’t time for all of them before the morning meal and the day’s march. But you can practice with each day’s squad if you like.”
“Thank you. I would like that,” I said.
“Tomorrow, then.” He inclined his head slightly before returning to his duties. In the fading light the gesture made him look almost gallant.
The Lost Daughters Page 24