“If there’s one new devil, I don’t see why there couldn’t be more,” Remin agreed. Flying devils, for all he knew; didn’t they tell stories of such creatures in Daitia? He cared less about where they were coming from than where they might be headed. His jaw tightened as he looked at the distant walls. “Those walls don’t look so sturdy now.”
“We cannot prepare for every conceivable disast—”
It happened even as he said it, in the cruel irony of the universe. The guide rope yanked loose and Juste cursed as he twisted, grabbing for the nearest tree. It was already too late. He was falling.
“Juste!”
Swearing, Remin floundered after him, the crust of snow giving way beneath his weight. He had to drag himself forward from tree to tree and it felt as if there was all the time in the world to see Juste sliding ahead of him, twisting fruitlessly as he shot down the icy slope. His body spun sideways, and the trees rushed up.
There was a sickeningcrunch.
A moment of silence.
Then Juste yanked the muffler off his face and turned the air blue with profanity.
“Don’t move!” Remin cursed as the snow broke under him again. Snowshoes. He would have given anything for snowshoes. At least Juste wasn’t hurt too badly to swear. “Did you break something?”
“My shoulder,” Juste said tightly, and as Remin waded toward him, he could see Juste’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “I distinctly recall telling those simpletons to mind how they secured the ropes. I will tie the lines to their boll—”
“Hold still,” Remin replied, pulling out his belt knife to cut off Juste’s shirt. It was so cold, the air had fangs, but it was too risky to try to move him without a clear idea of what was injured.
“It’s dislocated,” Juste said through his teeth.
Both of them had seen this injury often enough to identify it. His right shoulder was misshapen, his arm hanging loose from the joint, and Remin plunged his knife into the snow to make a rapid survey of the rest of him. He hardly needed to speak; Juste knew the routine as well as he did, a check of bones and joints to make sure nothing was broken before he dealt with the shoulder. Their eyes met, and Juste’s lips pressed together.
“Do i—” The order ended in a howl as Remin took his hand, braced his back, andyanked.
Anothercrunch.Juste unleashed a second volley of insults, the cords of his neck standing out.
Remin was glad he couldn’t understand more than a third of it.
“Sorry,” he said, making a sling to bind Juste’s arm to his chest. Juste had a very slow temper, but when he lost it, it was cataclysmic. “Looks like we’ll have to check out the harbor another day.”
“Not for some weeks, unless I am much mistaken.” Juste’s cold, flat voice promised a terrible vengeance, and he grunted in pain as Remin carefully hauled him over his shoulders. “My lord. This is unnecessary.”
“I suppose you might still break the other arm, or just go straight into the Brede if you fall again,” Remin retorted, using Juste’s uninjured arm to settle him into place. “Quit whining.”
This kind of thing had happened during the war, too. Sometimes Valleth hardly needed to be clever when there was sheer, stupid mischance to bungle a plan: a lamed horse, a broken wagon, a dislocated shoulder. They were silent as Remin trudged back up the hillside, testing every foothold before he committed his weight.
There was no need to speak. They were both doing the same thing.
Counting the weeks that remained until they left for the capital, and wondering if Remin would be able to count on Juste’s sword.
***
Until recently, Ophele would have never dared to think it.
It was disrespectful. He was a national hero. A Knight of the Brede. A teacher, a scholar, a man of cool and rational judgment whose opinion she trusted absolutely. It was the last thing she had ever expected to see, and mentally she tiptoed around the idea, poking it to see what happened.
Sir Justenin was cranky.
“But they all just want to help,” she protested. “I don’t think everyone is…plottingevery time they come to visit.”
“They may not be, but you must consider that they are,” he replied shortly. Sitting together at the table in the solar, his right arm was all but bound to his side. She had heard both Genon and Remin telling him it was not to come off for any reason whatever, and every time he looked the least bit tempted, Leonin and Davi stiffened to attention, as if they might swoop down on him like hawks.
It was very inconvenient that Justenin was right-handed.
“Did any of them ask you for anything?” His lips tightened as he scribbled laboriously with his left. Even from the other side of the table, she could see that his handwriting was worse than hers.
