by Jackie Dana
Chapter 18
She couldn’t escape the battlefield. All around her bombs exploded, and dozens of mangled, twisted bodies and dismembered limbs lay piled on the muddy ground. In the middle of thick smoke she searched for signs of life, lifting the bloody corpses in a desperate hunt for survivors, but in the maddening way of dreams, she was able to do nothing but repeat her futile efforts over and over without success. Then there was a huge bang, and she was sure it was the bomb that would kill her.
She awoke with a jolt, her heart pounding.
Utterly disoriented, she sat up and struggled first to remember where she was, and then to reassure herself that it was only the thunderstorm that had startled her awake. Even when she finally recognized the dingy room of the inn, she was not comforted; everything around her was alien and unsettling. As she lay back on her pillow, lingering images of men dying around her feet plagued her sleep for the rest of the night, and she flopped around restlessly.
Rising in the morning after such a sleepless night was bound to be unpleasant, and it was made worse by someone tugging at her arm. She lifted her heavy head to find Noresa, the innkeeper’s wife, frantically trying to get her attention.
“My lady, the men are in the stables, preparing the horses.” She returned Kate’s dress to her, now warm and dry from hanging by the fire. Once she had slipped her gown on, Noresa held out her leather slippers. “They sent me to see what was keeping you.”
She had not lied. By the time she entered the cramped stables, the men had saddled up, their supplies tied to their horses. When she walked in, no one spoke, though she briefly caught the attention of Lysander, who gave her a quick nod before returning his concentration to a buckle on his saddle. Nyvas kept his head lowered, as if focused on the saddlebag he was packing, but she could see him grinning to himself. However, Fantion, who was tying back his mop of red hair, glanced at her only briefly, and he seemed displeased.
“Ah, very good.” This came from Dosedra Arric, who waved Noresa over, and gave her a coin from his pouch. “Now we can depart,” he said, as he led his horse, a sizable gray mare with a broad head, into the yard beyond, the other men following behind.
Once outside, the Dosedra called out to Kate. “Bhara, can you ride?” The question came in lieu of a greeting.
His actions the night before, although partially forgiven, were not easily forgotten. Despite being a city girl who had only gone riding once (on her thirteenth birthday) pride inspired her to say, “of course I can.”
“Glad to hear that,” he announced. “You will be riding with me.”
“With you?” she repeated. “I’d rather not.”
“Then you will have to walk, for Trill, my battle-mare, is the only horse that can handle two riders over the distance we must travel. Come, climb up.” He stood beside the horse and held out his hand to assist her. “You will need to pull up your skirt and then straddle the horse. It’s not particularly dignified, but it’s the only way you will stay in the saddle.”
She assessed the horses and their riders. It was true enough—the other horses were small and a bit on the thin side, and would not possess the strength of his large mare. “Fine, whatever.” There was no saddle horn, so she slipped her foot into the stirrup and grabbed onto the saddle with both hands. As she quickly discovered, she had neither the upper body strength nor coordination to pull it off, making what seemed simple in theory impossible—and rather embarrassing—in practice. After a couple clumsy attempts that were complicated by her long dress, she had to admit that she was unable to climb into the saddle on her own.
The Dosedra placed his hands on her hips, but she slapped them away.
“Just give me a push,” she said, too annoyed for anything else. “I just need a little more momentum to get my leg over.”
He nodded silently, but then she heard a chuckle behind her. She turned to see Fantion step beside the horse, on the other side. “In all my days I have never seen a woman who was this reluctant to be around Arric,” he said as he offered his own hand to her. “Perhaps you will humble him.”
“Me?” The Dosedra said, suddenly laughing. “You have a few lessons to learn on that score as well, my friend.”
She wanted to offer a few choice comments herself, but she bit her tongue. She was determined not to provoke a new conflict this morning, and promised herself to do her best to get through this experience with as little trouble as possible.
There was still the matter of mounting the horse, though, and even with his help, she was still unable to master the combination of lifting her leg over the saddle without becoming hopelessly tangled in the dress.
“Allow me,” Nyvas said. “Sander, would you stand on the other side?”
As Lysander did as his friend requested, Nyvas leaned over and locked his fingers together. “Place your foot here, and I will give you a boost up,” he told her, “and then Sander will help you with your skirt.”
Feeling less of a need to prove herself to these two men, who seemed less inclined to ridicule her, she agreed, and with their combined efforts, she was seated properly on the first attempt. “Thanks.”
“It was nothing,” Lysander assured her, and returned to his own horse.
Once she was settled on the horse, the Dosedra placed his own foot in the stirrup and in a single fluid motion, pulled himself up onto the saddle behind her. His quick movements betrayed his skill as an expert rider, no doubt one honed during his years as a soldier. A fact, Kate reminded herself, that she would do well not to forget.
Meanwhile, Fantion asked him, “shall we return through Camwall? It is the quickest route.”
“The mountains will be difficult riding for the young lady,” Lysander said.
In the daylight she had her first chance to examine their clothing. While the Dosedra was wearing a simple linen shirt, an unadorned leather doublet, and wool trousers, all of his clothing was well-made and sewn to fit him. Lysander, on the other hand, had a torn pale tan shirt pieced together from rough fabric under a faded woolen doublet that had been repaired several times, and his trousers were baggy, hanging loosely on his thin frame. Turning her attention to the others, Kate noted that Fantion and Nyvas also wore clothing that was serviceable but ragged, as if they owned nothing else. Fantion’s trousers were constructed from goatskin with makeshift patches on the knees, and Nyvas’s shirt was a shabby grey fabric with a torn hem and frayed cuffs. They also all had woolen cloaks, though the one the Dosedra wore was the only one that was without holes or torn hems. All of this struck her as odd, because they treated one another as social equals, not as she would expect from poor men in the company of a prince.
“Perhaps,” the Dosedra replied, in reference to Lysander’s suggested route, “but the lady’s comfort cannot be a consideration right now. There seem to be too many troops in the direction we came, so our only option will be to follow the Elsasir River through the Muras, something I had hoped to avoid. Still, with such a route we may be able to elude the Senvosra entirely.” For her benefit he added, “the Muras is the swamp to the north. In fact, even now we are at its edge.”
Swamp? She thought of the swamps she knew about, and considered all the potential dangers, including snakes, alligators, and biting insects. Then again, encounters with wildlife would be just one of many problems. There was likely to be mud, quicksand, and water. Lots of water. “Won’t we need a boat?”
“Boats cannot pass through the growth,” he explained impatiently. “We will ride when we can, and lead the horses when we cannot.” In words heavily laced with sarcasm, he added, “it will not be easy for a woman, but I suspect you’ll manage it well enough.”
Even as she worried about her ability to keep up with them, she resolved not to be made to look like a fool. “I’ll be fine. Let’s get going.”
Chapter 19
The Muras was not at all what she had expected, but also not what she had hoped. If someone had broken a water main, flooding an entire forest, and then abandoned it all to sta
gnate, it would be still a bit better than the Muras. Under the shady canopy, ivy and moss clung to the trees, while in areas where the trees thinned, thick stands of horsetail and briars popped up randomly. Where there was a passable route—if one could consider any route through the Muras truly passable—the ground was soft and spongy. Birds of all sizes zigzagged from tree to tree, and insects filled the air with their cacophonous shrill whistles and chirps. The air was thick with humidity, with a pervasive stench rising from the rotting leaves and other organic matter in the water. The smell of decomposition combined with the lack of a breeze meant that the simple act of breathing was unpleasant.
They had been riding for the better part of the morning. Even as their horses were splashing through murky water, Fantion and Lysander rode on ahead, seeming not to mind the environment, and were engaged in a lively banter. Nyvas rode closely behind them, but remained silent. This left the Dosedra and Kate to bring up the rear.
Riding with him meant close physical contact, something she wished she could have avoided. Memories of the previous night were still fresh. She chose not to speak to him unless it was required, and even then she spared no extra words. On this point they seemed to agree, for he was likewise reticent, and only addressed her when he needed to give instructions.
As much as she disliked riding with him, she soon discovered that there was something much worse. The first time they had to dismount, she sank her feet through a crust of dark scum into ankle-deep water, and she mumbled every epithet imaginable. The water was disgusting, and she cringed when she pulled out her foot, now coated with sludge. Several hours into the journey, her dress was soaking wet halfway to her hips, sticking to her skin and tugging at her shoulders; her feet were cold and blistered from sliding around in her damp shoes; and her calves felt like stiff, solid tubes of cement. Even on so-called dry land, she stumbled on rotting logs and various other debris, and she lost count of the times she stubbed her toes against rocks. As if the persistent damp wasn’t enough, gnats swarmed her face and arms, and more than once someone spotted a snake curled around a water-logged tree stump in their path.
Adventures were one thing; this was pure misery.
Despite her discomfort, she did her best to keep pace with the men, and she struggled not to complain as she slogged through several inches of water that reeked of sewage. Back home she enjoyed an occasional hike, but never anything as arduous as this. Still, her pride clung to her as closely as the damp air, and she refused to admit that she couldn’t handle it.
After several hours of travel, she noticed that even Fantion and Lysander, who had been chatting throughout the morning, had finally fallen silent, and now walked with their shoulders hunched and their heads down, their arms slack and the horses’ reins hanging limply in their hands. Dosedra Arric was behind them, looking equally glum and uncomfortable. It seemed as though everyone was tired, bruised and sore—the strong men were just as miserable as she was, and struggled equally. It wasn’t much, but she allowed the realization to cheer her a little all the same.
Just as Kate took a moment to appreciate the fact that she wasn’t alone in her misery, one of her leather shoes came untied, and the thick mud sucked it right off of her foot. “Oh, that’s just great,” she grumbled as she tried to balance on one foot long enough to pull her shoe free.
“Need some help?” Nyvas asked, but before she could answer, he had already retrieved it for her, and dumped out the mud. “Lean on me,” he offered as she struggled to put it back on her foot. She was determined that whatever else happened, it wasn’t coming off again, so she tied the lacing around her ankle with a knot. Just to make sure, she retied the other shoe’s laces as well.
“Thanks,” she said, once the task was complete. “You came by at just the right time.”
“Aye, so it seems.” He smiled at her, and then looked up. Already the other three men were quite a distance ahead of them. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
“Right—just keep moving.” She spoke more to herself than to him, and as the words came out of her mouth, her voice sounded almost mechanical.
“Cheer up,” he consoled her. “We don’t have much longer to walk today. We’ll set up camp before sunset.”
“Well, I guess that’s something.” She was discouraged by the idea that there might be several more of these torturous miles ahead. With each step, her toes clenched against the dampness, and at the pace they had been traveling, her shins burned so badly she couldn’t walk faster if she wanted to. She privately wondered how much longer she could hold out.
“I know it’s difficult for you, but I promise that Arric would not have pushed all of us so hard if he hadn’t thought it necessary,” Nyvas offered. “He just wanted to get as far from Bhoren as he could before nightfall.”
“Whatever.” Nothing she had seen of the Dosedra today had improved her opinion of him.
Nyvas sensed her frustration. “He did it for our safety, Kate. You understand that, do you not?”
Her head hung down as she tried to focus on the task of walking. “To be honest, I don’t understand anything about what’s going on. Least of all why he has to run away from his own soldiers.” After his disappearing act in Loraden, she wasn’t surprised men had followed him, but surely no one would harm him.
Nyvas grunted. “They are Senvosra. That means they are the Vosira’s men, not his.”
“Same difference, isn’t it? I mean, he’s a prince, right? I don’t see why he’d be so worried about them. It’s not like they’d do anything to him, would they?”
“That’s hard to say, because I don’t know what Bedoric would do. Nor does Arric, I’d imagine. What I do know is that he’s far more worried for me and my friends than for himself.”
She shrugged but didn’t reply.
Nyvas was undeterred by her silence. “You do know what we are?” He had lowered his voice, as if he worried that even with the distance between them, the others would overhear.
Based on their appearance, they clearly weren’t members of the Bhagali. Farmers, perhaps? That didn’t match with the casual manner in which they interacted with the Dosedra, though, so she had already discounted that. Then she figured that perhaps they had been soldiers that had served with him, though Nyvas did not seem at all right for that vocation, and was likely too young anyway. As he brought up the question directly, she realized that she really had no idea who they might be or what their relationship with the Dosedra was. “No, I guess I don’t.”
“We are fhaoli.” He said it without emotion, as if it was utterly normal to make such a pronouncement. “Do you understand what the term means?”
She remembered what Davor, the riversmith had told her about fhaoli. “You’re outlaws? That doesn’t make any sense.” Rapidly she tried to piece together what he was saying, but in her exhausted state was unable to understand. From what she knew of history, outlaws would never interact with royalty in this kind of intimate fashion, as if they were equals. As she kept walking, she turned to look at him, measuring Nyvas’s appearance as if it was for the first time. “You’re serious?”
He nodded. “Aye.” After a moment’s pause, he continued, “so now perhaps you can understand why he’s so worried that we might be discovered by the Senvosra. According to the law of the land, we have no rights whatsoever.” He paused for a moment to let the idea sink in. “Being fhaoli means that if we’re caught, the soldiers can do anything they wish to us, as if we were nothing more than wild animals.” He spoke with such solemnity that it caused a shiver to run up her spine. “Arric worries that the Senvosra will kill us on the spot if they find us.” He paused to skirt around a low branch. “The funny thing is, Fantion’s not nearly as concerned about our safety as he is about the risks the Dosedra has taken to be with us.”
She hadn’t really expected this development, and wasn’t sure what she thought about it. These men were criminals? Suddenly all of the things she had heard back in Loraden started to make sense, and she u
nderstood why Rynar had been so worried for her. She wondered what kind of trouble she had landed in this time. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It wouldn’t be good for his brother to find out he was here, would it?”
“Nay, it would not.”
Chapter 20
“We’ve gone too far this way—we need to go back,” the Dosedra announced. They had been stumbling in heavily wooded, muddy terrain for hours, and with his pronouncement he sounded equally annoyed with the situation, and confident with the assessment. Without another word, he tugged on his mare Trill’s reins to turn her around.
The others followed his lead without question, but Kate hesitated, shaking her head. He had made this decision without a map or compass, and it seemed rather arbitrary to her. In the twilight, she strained her eyes to see what would have caused the Dosedra to reverse course. She called out, “why are we going back the way we came?” Having come as far as she had, she wasn’t inclined to backtrack now.
“You do want to camp on dry land?” the Dosedra snapped over his shoulder, his patience threadbare.
“Of course I do, but how do you know there’s any in that direction? It’s just the same that way as any other. There’s been nothing but mud for hours now.”
He sighed. “Just trust me.”
In response, she rolled her eyes. In fact, she was still fuming privately when, after only a few minutes, the Dosedra led them up an incline, following a dry creek bed overgrown with grasses and small bushes. At the top of the hill, the trees opened to a small meadow. Unlike the swamp, this land was dry, the soil was sandy rather than rocky, and the entire field was covered with soft grass that swayed lightly in the breeze. A tall granite cliff sheltered most of the clearing, blocking the wind and concealing their location. Had she designed her perfect campground, she scarcely could have done better.
As the men began to secure their horses to the trees around the edge of the meadow, she boldly walked up to the Dosedra. “How in the world could you have known this clearing was here?”