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“So how do we find Colcium?” Revni’s question snapped Eavus back to the present.

If he wanted to survive the next few days, he needed to eliminate the more immediate threat. And that was Revni.

“We stick together.” Revni let him pull her to standing with appropriate wariness. “I need a guarantee, too. You travel with me peacefully—and I’ll keep us towards Colcium.” He couldn’t help flex the words to keep himself honest, but Northern wasn’t the natural language for either of them. Maybe she’d chock it up to that.

Revni gave what almost could have been a smile. But then she suddenly spit into the dirt, making him flinch. She looked at him expectantly.

What did the girl want from him? Was he supposed to spit? Half-heartedly, he gave a weak attempt. This seemed to satisfy, because she let go. Her hands hadn’t been as rough as he expected.

“No running for me, then,” she said dryly, enough to make the corners of Eavus’ mouth twitch.

“Lots of running,” Eavus corrected. “We leave now.”

THIRTEEN

There was little time to make arrangements: fresh bandages, food, a few blankets—more of a cloak, Eavus thought vaguely, when Revni wrapped one around her shoulders and pulled up the hood. But when the dark-haired woman—Elg? Halge?—handed Revni a short ax, Eavus had protested.

“Going to chop wood with that sword?” Revni asked, and Eavus relented. No, he had done enough damage to Costae’s sword already. There were fresh nicks he was worried would be noticed. But it wasn’t right that his prisoner should be armed, and the way Revni slipped the ax handle so smoothly into its carrier, twisting the sharp edge away from her neck with such ease, gave him a moment’s queasiness. He couldn’t shake the feeling it was another witness, a little friend riding along to judge him.

“You’re still my prisoner,” he had argued.

“I don’t feel imprisoned.”

“You will when you get there.”

“Okay.”

Had he won the argument or lost it? A cook on the Pinay campaign had called Eavus befuddled once—he couldn’t remember why now, something to do with the choice of sauces—and he hadn’t known what it meant at the time. He did now. He kept feeling like he’d taken a hard smack and still hadn’t gotten his vision right. He kept being surprised at things that he didn’t feel he should be.

Women that had been dressed in simple tunics had re-emerged in the one-skin dresses, circling together before a large, wet bucket. They dipped their hands, mud oozing from their cupped palms, spread it over every exposed inch of skin. Eavus remembered the Aleterian scouts at Pinay, donning a wolf’s skin before scurrying into the mountains, but the two images didn’t match—the strategic organization of the Aleterian army overlaid with the feckless locals too primitive to bathe. Those with small children had herded them into the large hut Eavus had woken in. A limping man had passed out spears. Eavus had taken one and rolled it over his knuckles, getting the feel. It was light. Coppiced wood most likely. Good to throw. Not great at blocking a thrust.

Was it curiosity? Or had his intentions pulled towards something else? Because Revni’s eyes had also darted to all the people preparing, then turned to him with a pointed gaze and said, as if in agreement: “These people—they are not fighters.” He’d tightened his grip on the spear and seen Revni square her shoulders and gotten a sudden odd feeling in his chest. Like soil absorbing rain.

But then someone had peeled his fingers away from the weapon, and instead of staying to fight, here he was—running away instead of doing the one thing he was good at, unable to get the image of those bodies slipping into the trees out of his head. What remained of the Dinaeii had gone to distract the Caerdeneii, while a red-haired girl led him and Revni the opposite direction, running at a crouch to an escape route down a creek.

Was this for him, that these people would risk themselves?

And then other things, too—the massive oak he and Revni came across that first night after. Years of heavy rains, or maybe some resourceful animal, had scooped the dirt from underneath it, and Eavus had the feeling its thick roots were long arms, stretching to hold the eroding slope together. Revni had craned her neck to find where leaves met sky. “Imagine the ships!” she’d murmured, and Eavus couldn’t help but look around with new eyes himself—the massive trunks, the soft carpets of leaves. And when he looked for her again, she’d curled into the little cave, and then she slept, trusting Eavus’ watch. And when he woke her, she took watch without an argument, and was still there in the morning, and because of that ax in her hand, he had to begrudgingly admit, the few hours’ sleep he got were actually peaceful. From the way she collapsed whenever they stopped to rest, Eavus’ pace clearly wasn’t one she was used to, but again, she didn’t complain.

He’d been right about the coppiced wood. When they came to the line of mother trees, they followed it, as instructed, Eavus inwardly groaning with yearning. All those straight, thin trunks in easy access! If his cohort had known, it would have saved them a lot of blisters. But why the trees surprised him, he couldn’t really figure. It wasn’t like coppicing was some sort of advanced skill.

But it was, he realized. Fresh-cut stumps shot up springy leaves of new growth, and Eavus had to stop himself from fingering the sprouts to test if they were real. That the local tribes were basically animals was common fact. They roamed the land like herds, fought for their territories like badgers, scratched out sustenance like rats. That they might engage in things like planning for needs years in advance was as oddly unsettling as the fact that they had decent medical knowledge. His injuries had gone from life-threatening wounds to dull annoyances, and it didn’t make any sense.

The more he thought about it, however, the more he worried he was playing directly into their hands. If the Dinaeii were clever—which he had to admit maybe was true—why would they simply help them and send them on their way?

“They had made a peace with the Caerdeneii,” Revni said. “They did not want to risk breaking it by being caught with us.”

But that explanation only made Eavus more concerned. The Dinaeii were playing both sides. Offering a treaty to Aleteria while they negotiated different terms with Caerdeneii—and who’s to say which were the terms they would keep? Alliances made his head hurt. But what he did know was that the Dinaeii, for some reason, had sent him and Revni on a roundabout route, instructing them to go south for two days before doubling back. And for what? Why purposefully delay them?

Eavus, yet again, tried to do the math in his head. Eight days, at a minimum, that he hadn’t checked in. He’d have been labeled a deserter no later than that first nightfall. People had seen him leave, sword in hand. His only hope was his tent party coming to his defense, which he was sure they would, and that his centurion would vouch that he wasn’t the type to run.

But.

The law was the law. No matter how much his compatriots tried to make his excuses, official reports would be sent, signed, delivered with all the other official dispatches, where some clerk would stamp it and file it and write another letter, this one to Eavus’ master, declaring that his son’s proxy had deserted, and that Caeas Septemius would now be expected to take his rightful place within the army of Aleteria and serve the remainder of Eavus’ required twelve years. It wouldn’t matter that Septemius was the sole son and heir, or that Eavus had slashed his personal time of service in half through valor on the battlefield and hard work and caras propitas from his superiors all over the continent. Ricaea Marceas Eavus might have only one final summer campaign left before his freedom was available for purchase, but Caeas Septemius would be expected to earn his own rewards. If Eavus didn’t get word that he was alive, still doing his duty, still loyal to the empire, before those official missives went out, the entire House of Caea would put a price on his head. They may be a thousand miles away, but money always traveled. Especially when sailing winds of betrayal and revenge.

And had it only been eight days? He couldn’t be sure, and the frustration spurred him. Eavus had never kept a calendar in his head—there was no need. His centurion told him when to rise, when to sleep, when to rest. They worked six days on and one day off, unless something came up: a battle, a visiting general to impress, a deadline some principiary wanted to surpass. Then they worked seven, and got a day of rest when they got it. Was a deserter high enough priority to hire a courier? He doubted it, but his disappearance certainly would make the weekly reports. Would they include a description? Or just a name—the name carved into his arm.

The Caerdeneii, his cohort, the House of Caea—he could feel them, one pushing at his back like a hard wind, the others yanking him forward with such force it was all he could do not to break into a run.