“Southwest,” Mirren said, “toward the nearest town.” She started to say something more, but her voice broke.
“They stripped the dead,” Bolt said, “swapping clothes.”
“This is what you meant,” I said. “This is the kind of war we can’t fight.”
He nodded. “Not unless we’re willing to kill our own,” he said. “Not unless we’re willing to become the thing we’re fighting.”
I turned to Erendella and Herregina. They looked at Mirren and me as if we had the right to command their obedience and expect it, but I had no desire to shoulder that responsibility. “Your Majesties, I would suggest that we expend whatever effort required to conceal our passage. It would be wiser if we supplied ourselves at each town we passed through, but made our camps in hiding.”
“Is the forest after us, Lord Dura?” Herregina asked.
“I think so,” I said. “At least in part.” I started thinking through all the different ways my plan could fail. Two leapt out at me.
“If Cesla can kill me, he’s won. The knowledge of how to call the Fayit would die with me. But that knowledge is useless without the six kings and queens who hold the gift of kings. I can’t call them without all of you. Cesla wants us badly, and the best way to keep us all safe is to hide our journey.”
They didn’t speak. “It’s just a suggestion,” I added.
“But if you’re smart, you’ll listen to it,” Bolt said. “Eight men and women from the forest made tatters of an entire outpost of a hundred soldiers. And that was in an enclosed space where they didn’t have room to move. Out in the open and in the dark, they’d go through us like a sword falling through water.”
Herregina and Erendella regarded each other in silence for a moment. “Your advice is sound, Lord Dura,” Erendella said. “Since it is a mere hour until sunset, I suggest we make for the nearest concealment and endeavor to contact the other monarchs.”
Hiding proved the least of our worries. Thick stands of trees covered much of the northern half of Caisel. We sent scouts before and behind to ensure we were unobserved and then left the road, riding for a large copse of cedars to the east that offered cover. Erendella’s men made what defenses they could in the fading light, but we didn’t light a fire and we hadn’t brought tents.
We huddled in our cloaks as Erendella pulled the scrying stone from her pack. I tried not to think about sleeping under the trees. My experiences in the Darkwater and the Everwood had taught me to be wary. The two forests couldn’t be more different, but the trees attracted power.
“King Rymark,” Erendella called into the stone. “Hear me.”
We waited. Gael edged closer, her hand worming its way into mine. My gloves kept me from dropping into her thoughts, but I could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin leather and it comforted me.
“King Ellias,” Erendella called. “Regent Cailin. Queen Ulrezia, hear me.”
We waited. After a few moments, the queen of Caisel repeated her call.
“I hear you,” Rymark said. “King Ellias is with me. Where’s Boclar?”
“King Boclar has died,” Erendella said.
“Who rules in Vadras?”
“I do,” Erendella said. Rymark couldn’t see her, but she stiffened, her shoulders moving back.
“I mean no disrespect, Your Majesty,” Rymark said. “It’s imperative to know if you hold the gift of kings.”
Erendella looked at me in the fading light, and I leaned toward the stone. “This is Willet Dura,” I said. “I was present at Boclar’s death. He passed the gift to his daughter.”
“Dura.” Even through the stone, Rymark’s voice held a growl of disapproval. “You seem to be cutting a wider swath than usual. Tell me, Lord Dura, just how many bodies have you left in your wake?”
Erendella’s eyes flashed, but she held up a hand to Herregina who appeared on the verge of yelling at Rymark through the stone. “Lord Dura’s presence during the king’s passing was my father’s doing.” She glanced at me. “My father hoped Lord Dura could heal him of his affliction.”
The scrying stone didn’t do much to lessen Rymark’s derision. “Dura is hardly a healer.”
Erendella nodded. “As it turns out, King Rymark, you are correct, but that fact didn’t prevent him from trying to cure my father of the Darkwater’s evil.”
“Boclar went to the forest?” Rymark and Ellias said together.
“I was taken,” Erendella said. “Father thought to outwit Cesla by bringing solas powder to keep the effects of the Darkwater at bay. It almost worked.”
“Foolish,” Rymark said. “He should never have risked the forest.”
Erendella’s mouth tightened. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t agree. I didn’t contact you to offer justifications, Your Majesty. We encountered soldiers today, returning from the cordon you placed around the forest. They were the sole survivors of an attack on their outpost by men and women who then took clothing off the dead. Lord Dura thinks they’re coming for the Vigil and the monarchs.”
Intermittent sounds of Rymark’s swearing came through the scrying stone. In between we could hear orders being given in staccato bursts. “My compliments to Lord Dura’s insight,” Rymark said. “He’s a fount of welcome news. If they’re stealing uniforms from the dead, we have to suspect our own. Where are you now?”
“A few miles north of the city of Leogan,” Erendella said.
“Queen Erendella, Lord Dura, meet us in Treflow as soon as you can,” Rymark said.
The scrying stone went silent. “It’s difficult to decide what troubles me most,” I said to Gael. “I’ve got a long list to choose from.”
Bolt spoke into the pause. “If Cesla has enough men and women to put this plan into place all along the border of the forest, it’s going to be impossible to tell friend from enemy. There’s no way for you and the rest of the Vigil to delve every threat.”
I sighed. “That’s one.”
“Cailin and Queen Ulrezia didn’t answer the call,” Gael said. “Where are they?”
I nodded. In the silence my fear had conjured the worst. If Cesla had taken even one of the rulers captive, we were beaten. “That’s two,” I said. “There’s one more.”
“Where are Fess, Toria, and Pellin?” Mirren asked.
“And that’s the list,” I said. “I thought Fess and Toria would be back with Rymark and Ellias by now.”
Rory cleared his throat. “Whoever heard Rymark knows where we are.”
Everyone turned to look at our thief in the last charcoal light of dusk. “If I were Cesla,” Rory said, “the easiest way to find you would be to place a spy in Rymark’s camp.”
I didn’t want to admit that our situation could be so precarious. “There’s no way for them to know exactly where we are,” I said. “And our camp is dark.”
Rory shrugged as if my argument didn’t really matter. “If he’s got enough people, he’ll find us. They can see in the dark.”
I looked around, the stand of cedars no longer comforting me. Cesla’s soldiers would slip in and out of the woods like ghosts. Most of us would be dead before we knew we were being attacked. “Get everybody down,” I said. “No sentries. A man patrolling the perimeter might as well be waving a torch.” I turned to Rory. “If there is a spy, and they’re coming after us, they’ll expect us to be near the road. Can you hide close enough to spot them?”
He grinned as he nodded at me. “There are trees near the road. People never think to look up.”
His words put a sudden itch between my shoulder blades, the expectation of a stroke I wouldn’t see coming. I checked the branches of the cedars above us, sighing with relief when I found them empty.
“You see,” Rory laughed. He took just long enough to check his knives and sprinted away.
Bolt grimaced. “We’ll have to put the horses on the far side of the trees. That should keep them hidden from the road.” He shook his head. “‘Never ask how things could get any worse . . .’”
he quoted.
I didn’t bother to finish it for him. I didn’t want to hear it out loud.
C
hapter 59
We spent the night huddled on the ground, hoping the trunks were thick enough to hide us. Gael lay beside me. If we were found, my safety would depend on my betrothed, a thief, and a Vigil guard who’d been put out to pasture nearly six years ago. The soldiers Erendella had brought with her, gifted and semi-gifted guards, were tasked with keeping the two queens and Mirren safe.
I’d given Mirren all the memories she needed to call the Fayit. Deep in my chest, I hid the certainty that I wouldn’t survive the attempt to destroy Cesla’s power. He knew I was a threat. The best use I could make of myself was as a decoy, allowing Cesla to expend his energy against me while the rest of the Vigil brought about his downfall.
My throat tightened. I’d really wanted to marry Gael. Months earlier, she’d offered me herself in marriage. I’d refused, citing my need to focus on my fight with the Darkwater. That decision seemed foolish now.
Sometime in the deep of night I started awake, unsure of where I was, but knowing darkness had drawn near.
“What is it?” Gael whispered. The crisp words communicated that she hadn’t slept.
I resisted the urge to stand and point. “They’re here.” I couldn’t hear anything, and the sliver of moon in the sky couldn’t alleviate the night for a gnath, a physically ungifted person like me.
Slowly, I watched Gael shift, sliding away from me until she could peek from behind the tree. Then she became so still she might have been part of the forest.
“I don’t see anyone. It’s too dark,” she said, her mouth next to my ear once more. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to tell her what was inside my head had opened up to tell me. “I can feel them. How long is it until dawn?”
“Three hours.”
We huddled in the darkness as I willed time to go faster, praying snatches of the liturgy and the soldier’s prayer for fools.
In the midst of my prayers, Gael’s mouth rested against my ear. She spoke so softly I felt as much as heard it. “I hear footsteps in the grass.”
She tensed beside me, a coiling of muscle that presaged violence. Bolt, hiding behind the next tree a couple of paces away, would be watching. Now I heard the steps as well, a shuffling gate through the grass to brush aside any twigs that might give them away.
A distant snap, a cascading crash of something falling through a tree, broke the heavy silence, and I heard the muffled sound of footsteps, a lot of them, pounding away. I let a trembling breath loose and pulled its twin into my lungs.
“Don’t move,” Gael whispered in my ear. “They’re not all gone.”
Footsteps, a solitary pair, continued toward us from the other side of the tree. The moment he stepped around the trunk, he would see us. Gael curled into a crouch without making a sound, her legs coiled beneath her.
I groped for a dagger, though how I would be able to use it in the darkness, I had no idea. The footsteps stopped. The air filled with restrained violence. One sound from our attacker would bring the rest. Gael gathered herself, waiting.
The footsteps moved away, slowly at first but gathering speed.
After a few moments, Gael resumed her place at my side. “Don’t move,” she whispered. “I don’t know how good their hearing is.”
About an hour later, my heart resumed its normal rhythm and I dozed until someone nudged me awake.
“Let him sleep for a few more minutes,” I heard Gael say.
“He’s going to want to see this, yah?” Rory’s voice came from right beside me. “I’ll get Mirren.”
I stood up, my hands shaking from too little sleep and the rush of fear, but I didn’t see any immediate threats. “What’s he talking about?” I looked around. “Where’s Bolt?”
Gael shook her head.
Rory came back with Mirren in tow. Erendella and Herregina followed, each with a pair of hulking guards looming protectively over them. “Hurry, before they move,” Rory said.
We ran toward the road half a mile away. Well before we got there, I saw Bolt standing near a figure in a soldier’s uniform. He had his sword in hand, his posture threatening. The soldier shifted his feet as if he wanted to run away.
Rory pointed to a solitary tree by the road that stood a bit taller than the rest. “It’s easier to see from up there, but you’ll understand in a moment.”
I stepped up onto the fitted stones of the road. Checking south, I saw a solitary figure, moving away from us, with backward glances, the universal language of flight. A moment later, he left the road to disappear into the trees. To the north, the road ascended a slight rise that went on for over a mile. Along that stretch, I saw two soldiers, moving as if their lives depended on evading capture.
“Were those the men hunting us?” I asked Rory.
He nodded. “Came within a hairsbreadth of spotting you, I think.” He pointed to a stretch of woods on the far side of the road. “I threw a stick to draw them off of you. At first light, they split up and fanned out, running away along the road.”
I still had enough fear coursing through me that my hands trembled. I checked to make sure the sun was visible over the horizon before I walked over to Bolt and the soldier he guarded. I stripped off my glove.
“Every minute you take is one we lose,” Bolt said.
When I reached out, the soldier’s eyes went wide and he gathered his legs and jumped, his arms straining for my throat. Bolt’s stroke took him through the heart, and he fell at my feet, the life draining from him. His gaze, already beginning to empty, locked with mine, and one hand reached for me, curling into a claw. With a sigh, his arm fell to the ground and he lay still.
That’s when I noticed his eyes were a light brown, like tea with cream. “What’s your eternity like?” I asked him. His gaze went through me, just like all the others. “What’s out there?”
“Willet,” Bolt’s voice broke the spell the dead man had cast over me. “It’s time to go.”
“Yes,” I said looking up the road. “I want every man or woman in a soldier’s uniform brought to me.”
Bolt shook his head. “That’s going to take time we may not have.”
“There’s a way a man looks at another he knows or has been taught to recognize,” I said. “This one knew who I was, but there’s more to it than that.” I pointed ahead and behind. “Why did they split up?”
His mouth opened to reply then closed. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because it’s not what people do in war—especially injured ones,” I said. “They stay together.”
“But they’re not in enemy territory anymore, yah?” Rory said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “By the time I got done with the war ten years ago, you couldn’t pry me away from my squad. In battle, stragglers die. So why is this man alone?” I wedged my knife beneath the thick, bloody bandage around the dead man’s leg and cut it away, making sure I kept the knife edge away from his skin. Then I ripped his breeches up to the groin. The flesh was already pale with death but unmarked.
“Should have expected that, I guess,” Bolt muttered.
“I don’t understand,” Rory said. “Why would they pretend to be injured, yah?”
“The only reason I can come up with is that they’re casting a net and they don’t want people to know it,” I said. “If you give someone a wound to look at, they won’t notice much else—they let down their guard.” I looked at Bolt. “Can you think of any other reason healthy men and women with vaults would separate and line the road?”
He shook his head.
“But that means they knew exactly where to look,” Rory said. He didn’t bother with the fake accent this time.
“Not exactly, thank Aer,” I said. “We didn’t tell Rymark that much.”
“It still means someone within earshot of the king is a spy,” Bolt said. “Rory was right.”
I nodded
. I had no way of warning Rymark short of getting to him. “I don’t understand how Cesla is doing this.”
“Doing what?” Rory asked. “Aren’t these people acting the same as the ones at Bas-solas?”
“That’s his point,” Bolt said. “Laewan was able to control the people with vaults because he was in Bunard—near them. If Cesla were anywhere near here, he could have killed us himself.”
Rory nodded, but Bolt had missed an important detail. “There’s more,” I said.
Bolt snorted. “There usually is. What?”
“A man with a vault acts normal during the daytime,” I said. “Something about their behavior is off.” I looked down at the dead soldier near my feet. “I wish I’d had the chance to delve him.”
“Let’s go, Rory,” Bolt said. “We’ll have to hunt down the rest on foot. They’ve scattered into the forest by now.”
I backtracked to our camp. Everyone was ready to travel, but the mood had turned sour, and Queen Erendella’s men wore the grim expressions of soldiers who didn’t hold much confidence in returning home alive.
Gael came toward me. “How bad is it?”
“I don’t know yet, but we saw the men and women who were searching for us last night. They separated and lined the road—waiting for us to show ourselves, I think. I’ll know more as soon as Bolt and Rory catch another one.”
The morning sun caught the wealth of her hair and skin, and I smiled. Few men could boast that their betrothed looked as beautiful outdoors as well as in. Then, because we had a few moments, and because I wanted Gael to know how I felt, I peeled the gloves off my hands. “I’m going to show you something,” I said.
I took her hands in mine and escaped into her thoughts. She appeared in front of me, younger, as everyone did, but in the full flower of womanhood. “I can see you,” she said.
I nodded, keeping myself from the river of her memories. “That’s because you knew I was coming. This gives us a measure of privacy.”
She laughed, a seductive, deep-throated sound that set fire to my skin. “You know I’ve never been shy about my affections for you, Willet.”
The Wounded Shadow Page 44