“Kira,” Jason said in a thin voice. “I’m pretty scared.”
“Me, too. Just stay with me.” She realized that having Jason with her helped. Alone, the fear of the fall down that cliff might have overcome her. But Kira knew that if she failed, Jason would die. So she had to succeed, had to keep taking step by step along this ledge. Not just for herself, but for him. Because she could not fail him, not when he had never failed her.
How long had it been? She didn’t dare look around for the position of the sun. The winds that swept through these mountains were gusting again, pushing at her and Jason, numbing their hands with cold. They continued to creep along the side of the peak. In a few spots the ledge grew so narrow that only part of their feet rested on it, but each time it expanded again to offer still-perilous but slightly wider footing.
What was that at the corner of her eyesight? Kira, her eyes locked on the side of the mountain so that she could see the ledge and nothing of the abyss beyond it, thought that something was there just beyond the ledge. What? How far down was it? It felt like they had been moving along that ledge for hours, though it was certainly far less time than that. What was beneath them now?
Kira paused in her movement, her breaths coming fast and shallow. “Jason, put your hand nearest me over my hand nearest to you.”
“Are you okay?”
“No. I thought that was obvious.” She tried to breathe deeply. “I need to look down. I can’t do that unless I can feel you holding me to the side of this mountain. If you're holding me, I'll know I'm safe.”
“Okay.” Jason’s voice quavered with both fear and tiredness, but Kira heard the rustle of movement and then his hand pinned hers to its frail hold on the face of the mountain.
She closed her eyes, calling on every lesson her father had taught her about maintaining calm, about remaining centered when the world tried to tear at you. Another deep breath, and Kira opened her eyes and swung her gaze far enough over to see down the side of the cliff beneath the ledge.
Tree tops?
No. Bushes.
Ahead of them, beneath the ledge, sparse, scrubby grass pocking rock-flecked dirt. Kira looked a little farther, directly below, and shivered at the chasm still looming.
Kira breathed out, then in again, and looked farther ahead. She had to wet her mouth before she could speak. “Jason, we’re four or five lances from being above a wide area that has a slope but vegetation on it. I can’t be sure, but I think the ledge merges with it maybe fifty lances ahead. We only have to go about a dozen more lances to be sure we’re well over that slope.”
“You’re not telling me that so I’ll keep going, are you?” Jason asked in a strained voice. “I can keep going.”
“It’s true, Jason. Just stay with me a little longer and we’ll be able to rest.”
She moved onward again, her feet sliding sideways on the ledge faster now that she knew that the drop beneath them was no longer so far and that a place to rest was close. The ledge was getting thinner as they went, but still offered just enough room for their feet.
Kira wasn’t sure how far she had gone when the narrow remnant of the ledge under her feet gave way completely, her hands found no purchase on the wall of rock before her, and she dropped with a gasp of fear.
Jason grabbed for her, catching her hand, only to be yanked down as well.
She barely had time for a moment of horrifying guilt before her boots hit solid ground and she went tumbling down the slope.
How far was she from the edge that dropped off into the chasm?
Kira grabbed at everything within reach, sliding to a halt on her stomach.
Jason came sliding past her.
She shifted her grip on a patch of touch grass, flinging out her hand just in time to grab Jason. The grass gave a little as Jason jolted to a halt, but held.
She lowered her face to the ground, breathing heavily. “Can you get a grip on something?”
“Yeah.” She felt Jason moving at the end of her arm. “Okay.” The weight of him eased. “I got a good grip. Rock. You can let go of me.”
Kira raised her gaze again and reached for a hold where a loose rock had left a divot in the soil. Pulling herself up, she finally let go of the grass and managed to grip a bush that felt firmly rooted.
Jason kept pace with her as they crawled up the slope.
Finally looking up, Kira saw that they had only fallen about a lance when the ledge gave way beneath her.
She crawled another lance up the slope before daring to look back.
The grass patch she had held onto was easily visible, some of the roots pulled partway from the ground.
The end of the slope, where it gave way to nothingness, was less than two lances beyond that. She had to look away, terrified by how close they had come to falling.
“Kira?” Jason lay nearby, gazing anxiously at her.
“Don’t look behind us yet.”
“You know what? This time I'm going to listen to you.”
Kira raised herself enough to view the slope ahead. “Another few lances and it looks like it levels off a bit. Slow and steady. Test every hold before you put weight on it.”
She covered more than a few lances at a cautious crawl low to the ground before feeling safe enough to get to her hands and knees. The slope crested, dipping for a short distance before gradually continuing to rise to a rounded ridge some ways ahead.
They tumbled into the sheltered groove in the landscape, shaking with relief.
Jason, breathing heavily, grasped her hand. “That wasn’t fun.”
“Yeah,” Kira agreed. “Let’s try to look ahead better next time.”
“It was a great trap,” Jason said, staring up and back at the thin line of the ledge as it ran along the mountainside in the direction they had come from. “In a game, I’d be saying that was awesome. It just gradually got worse and worse, and it always seemed harder to go back than keep going forward, until we found ourselves on that. Awesome trap,” he repeated. “I can't believe I thought games like that were fun.”
“Is there any water left?” Kira asked, her throat painfully dry.
“A little.” Jason passed her one of his bottles. She worked out the cork and swallowed half of the remaining water, which was too little to even fill her mouth once. Kira passed the bottle back and Jason drank the rest.
“How are you holding up?” Kira asked.
“Still here. Really hungry,” Jason added. “We have to get into lower spots, don't we, Kira? We’re not going to find water or anything to eat this high up.”
“The legions will be moving faster on the lower spots,” Kira said. “But you’re right. If we don’t get more water and find some food we won’t be moving at all. We’ll have to risk going lower and following any paths or roads we find.”
Wincing, she stood up. “Nothing broken or sprained, I think.”
“Same here.” Jason got to his feet, following as Kira staggered up to where the slope crested and looked down the other side, where the land fell away not too steeply into a gulch winding between peaks.
Eventually, the gulch widened, opening into a meadow choked with what were either tall bushes or stunted trees. Kira’s eyes widened as she saw a path leading through the brush, the first clearly human route they had found.
Kira paused before entering the vegetation, drawing her pistol. Jason saw her and pulled out his knife.
She started along the winding path, listening intently for either sounds of water, the movement of animals, or any sign of Imperials who might have made it here.
She had heard nothing when the path turned a corner and Kira was shocked to find herself face to face with an equally surprised man in the lightweight leather armor of an Imperial scout.
Chapter Twelve
Kira and the scout grappled, the scout grabbing her gun hand while swinging a dagger toward Kira.
She threw herself sideways, pulling the scout into the brush alongside the path, branches raking both
of their faces, and locked her free hand on the wrist of the scout’s knife hand. Both of them rolled to the ground, straining to keep the other’s weapon away. The scout slammed his forehead toward Kira, who twisted her head to avoid a direct blow, grunting with effort as she suddenly let go of the scout’s knife hand and drove her stiffened palm against the side of his head. During the instant that the scout was dazed, Kira rolled on top, using her knee to pin his knife hand while she pulled out her own dagger and thrust it into the scout’s unprotected neck without pausing.
And stopped to stare, appalled, as the scout convulsed beneath her, shuddering before dying.
Kira got up, staggering backward. “Jason! Imperial scouts usually travel in pairs!”
She finally saw him, standing and looking down with a dazed expression. A second scout lay at Jason’s feet, Jason’s knife driven at a slightly upward angle through the scout’s leather armor, between his ribs and into the heart in what must have been a perfect strike.
Jason looked over at her, unable to accept what had happened. “I…I was rushing to help you, and the other one suddenly jumped out at me, and…”
Kira knelt to check Jason's knife, then pulled it clear, wiping the blade on the dead scout’s trousers. “It’s a good thing Bev has been drilling you on knife fighting.”
“I didn’t think! I did what she’d showed me and I…just… Dead?”
“Yeah,” Kira said, lowering her head and trying to breathe calmly. “So’s mine. Jason, don’t feel. Just think. We don’t have time to feel.”
“Who—?”
“They’re Imperial scouts. Forward reconnaissance, ranging ahead of the regular legionaries. Which means regular legionaries are somewhere behind these.” She yanked the canteen from the belt of the scout that Jason had killed and tossed it to him. “Water.”
He caught it without thinking, staring at the canteen as if it were a deadly snake. “I…I can’t…”
“Water, Jason!” Kira rolled the scout’s body enough to pull off his light pack, tossing that to Jason also. “There should be iron rations in there.” She ran the few steps to the scout she had killed, picking up the dagger the scout had dropped instead of retrieving her own from his throat. Grabbing his canteen and pack took only a few moments.
She stood up. Jason stared back at her, the canteen and pack of the scout he had killed seemingly forgotten in his hands. Kira met his eyes, knowing that he was looking at her with bafflement and horror at her looting of the dead. “Jason, I was taught my whole life to defend myself, and that sometimes it would require me to do things I would not want to do. Things that I would never do if given a choice. But I will do them, Jason. I can’t just be a victim. It’s not in me. I will fight. If that means you want to reconsider your future promise, if you can’t handle the idea of being with me anymore once this is over, I will understand.”
He shook his head, looking down at the dead scout, then back at her. “I don’t want to leave you. But…games don’t feel like this.”
“It’s not a game,” Kira said. “They lied to you, Jason. The people who said those games you’ve told me about were just like something real. Because in your gut you know they are just games. You know someone you ‘kill’ hasn’t really died, and you know that you can’t die. This is real, and real hurts. Listen, we don’t have the luxury of standing around. We have to get moving, and head northwest or west again. Are you with me, Jason?”
“I’m with you.” He grimaced, unscrewing the top of the canteen and taking a drink. “It’s not just water.”
Kira finished taking a long drink from the other canteen, coughing before she could speak. “Water and brandy. We’ll have to be careful how much we drink.” She looked at the bodies of the scouts, thinking they should try to conceal them off the path, but blood had pooled on the ground around both. There was no way to hide that, so time spent dragging the bodies any distance would be time wasted. Come on.”
She moved as fast as she dared through the brush, finding the path forked not much farther on, and taking the westward fork without pausing. Her pistol was in both hands, questing ahead of her, Jason following with both packs and canteens.
“Food,” Jason called in a low voice.
She paused long enough to reach back and grasp a strip of dried meat with dried fruit pounded into it. Most of the taste had gone out of the meat and fruit but it was food and it was energy. Kira chewed without really paying attention to the task as she and Jason made time through the brush.
Taken on a very empty stomach, the brandy in the canteen water was going to her head, making her slightly dizzy. Kira mumbled a curse at Imperial taskmasters who thought brandy made a fine stimulant.
They reached a cleft leading out of the meadow, the path continuing along it. Kira swallowed her bite of tasteless iron ration, took another, shook her head in a futile attempt to clear it, and led Jason onward at the fastest pace she could manage.
* * *
“Have the people in the Free Cities eaten every animal in these mountains?” Jason grumbled as he chewed on another piece of Imperial iron ration. “We see birds at a distance, we get insects swarming us, but nothing edible shows up. Why didn’t the scouts have more food and water on them?”
“Because they’re supposed to move fast for a few days, then get relieved by another pair of scouts when they’ve hit their endurance limit,” Kira said, eyeing the last chunk of iron ration from the pack she had, trying to decide whether to eat it now or in the morning.
“I saw something that looked like rabbit tracks. I don’t know much about real hunting. What do you think your chances are of getting something?”
“Slim to none. But if I kill it, you have to clean it,” Kira told him. “I suppose I should drink its blood first, though.” She laughed quietly.
“Have you been drinking from your canteen again?” Jason asked.
“Yes, I have.” Kira raised herself up just enough to see off to one side the path they had been following. Near sunset they had found a welter of boulders near the path which offered cover as long as they kept low. In the growing murk as evening twilight turned into night, the path was visible only as a lighter strip amid the dark ground. “I’m getting a headache. Oh, wait.”
She dug in the scout pack and found a leather pouch that proved to be a field medical kit. Among its contents were several white pills. “I’m saved.”
“How do you know what those pills are?” Jason asked.
“They’re embossed with a hammer. See? That’s the universal sign for aspirin.”
“It’s not exactly universal,” Jason said as Kira took two of the pills washed down with another swig from her canteen. “Kira, why am I alive?”
She settled back again, sighing. “You haven’t had that much to drink, Jason. Did you take some of the blue pills?”
“No,” Jason said, his expression serious. “I’ve been thinking.”
“I like that in a man.” Kira sighed again as the brandy in her latest drink hit. “As long as he doesn’t think when he should be doing something. When’s the last time you kissed me?”
“Kira, I’m not joking. Maxim told you his Mages got into the palace in Tiaesun and got you out without being detected.”
“Right,” Kira said, eyeing him. “What does that have to do with you being alive?”
“If the Imperials wanted me dead, why didn’t they kill me then? They could have, right? Like, smothered me or something so no one could tell I'd been murdered.” Jason shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Kira rubbed her temples with her fingertips, trying to decide what to say. She had spent a lot of time when imprisoned on the ship thinking about that same question, and had come to some unpleasant conclusions. “I can tell you exactly why I think you weren’t killed at that time, Jason. But you won’t like it.” He waited, obviously wanting to hear. “Fine. You asked for it. Maxim wanted you to suffer.”
“How?”
“Let’s see,” Kira said. “I
disappear, having apparently flown to Palandur on a Roc. You are left, without me, apparently abandoned even after buying me that nice piece of jewelry. Public humiliation and private agony. Word comes back that I am in Palandur and married to Maxim. How are you feeling right about then?”
“Pretty awful,” Jason said.
“Then maybe you hear that I’m carrying Maxim’s child. Huge public announcement about the future heir to the Imperial throne and the 'happy mother.' How do you feel then?”
“Kira, that’s not funny,” Jason said, staring at her, his voice as strained as it had been on the ledge over the precipice.
“It’s not meant to be,” she said. “I’ll bet you that was Maxim’s plan. Steal me from you, because to him a woman he wants has to be a thing to be owned, and then rub in your face what he’s doing to me. What would you do, Jason?”
He stared past her at the rock that Kira was leaning against. “I’d have tried to get to you. Get you out of there.”
“And gotten caught,” Kira said. “Doing your lone-hero thing into the heart of the Empire, where they’d be waiting for you. Caught and tortured at Maxim’s leisure and for his amusement. Probably while I’m forced to watch, because that would avenge my putdowns of Maxim at the reception. I suffer, I get to watch you eventually die in great pain, and of course you suffer and die. That’s why Maxim didn’t have you killed in Tiaesun. Do you feel better now?”
Jason looked at her, perplexed. “Shouldn’t you be more upset?”
“I’m screaming inside, Jason,” she told him. “I do that every time I think about how it could have happened just the way Maxim planned. Remember those Mage visions we were told about at my parents’ house? Me as an Imperial consort and you dead? Those were possibilities. The idea scared me then. Now, what might have happened terrifies me. But Jason, I think between us we've messed up all of those possibilities and have created a whole new set of possible futures.”
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