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“Right, him.” Sigil heaved a breath and set to washing, splashing her face again. She spoke through her fingers as she worked the blood away. “I told him the Ward will fall without the Countless, and the full strength of the Temurijon. I told him Erida will swallow the entire realm. Even him.”
Sorasa’s teeth began to chatter. The cold water, snowmelt from the mountains, felt like needles in her skin. “Will he believe you?”
“I hope so.” Sigil climbed out of the stream and onto the bank, her bronze skin a pop of warmth in the gray forest. “But he might not want to risk his precious peace.”
The air was almost as cold as the river, and Sorasa wrapped herself up in her cloak, trying not to tremble. “Unfortunately, war is the only option left to save it.”
“I said that. Not as well, but.” Sigil shrugged, taking her time drying off. How she wasn’t frozen, Sorasa had no idea. “That’s in there. What about you?”
Her eyes flashed, black as a polished stone. Sigil had no skill for manipulation either, and her meaning was plain to see. Sorasa shuddered beneath her cloak and dodged the question.
“I thought I might send a letter to Mercury,” she said, trying to rub her limbs back to warmth. “But he would never listen. Not after whatever price Erida paid. And—” Her voice caught. “Not after what I did.”
Sigil scowled openly and spat in the stream.
“He cannot blame you for failing to die,” she crowed in indignation, smacking a fist against her naked chest. Again Sorasa wondered how the Temur woman hadn’t turned to ice. “Feel no shame for it, Sorasa Sarn. Your lord should be proud, really. It’s a testament to his teachings.”
In spite of herself and her mask of calm, Sorasa flinched and sucked in a painful breath.Sigil is right. It isn’t my fault I managed to survive,she thought.But it isn’t their fault either. They were sentto kill me, raised to obey as I was.
“Sorry,” Sigil said quickly, her scowl melting, replaced by a soft look of pity.
That stung worst of all.
“It’s fine,” Sorasa muttered, waving her off. She tried to think of the corpse army, and not the assassins who had fallen to her blade. “The Amhara are small in the scheme of things.”
She threw the cloak from her shoulders and braved the cold air, pulling on her underclothes and then her leathers. They were still grimy, but there was little to be done about that so deep in the woods.
Sigil did the same, donning her clothes and boots. A rare grimness set in, her broad smile far away. She eyed the stream, then the woods beyond, where Oscovko buried his men.
The bounty hunter threw her cloak around her shoulders, sighing. “Many things are now.”
They could not linger in the Gallish foothills. There were no garrisons nearby, but Ascal was only a few weeks’ ride to the south, and being so deep in Erida’s territory set them all on edge, especially Oscovko. He made his war band ready to head home before nightfall, lashing the worst of the wounded on stretchers between their horses. Andry was one of them, a fresh bandage on his leg. As she secured him to a stretcher, Sorasa examined his stitches herself, expecting a hack job from a Treckish mercenary. Instead she was pleasantly surprised by the neatly treated wound. The squire would make a quick recovery, and be walking again by the time they crossed the border.
Returning to Trec felt odd, but it was safe and relatively close. Sorasa knew it was their best option to regroup, and even Corayne agreed. She was given a new horse, and rode alongside Charlie, with Andry strung between them on his stretcher. Sigil led the column with Oscovko, her silhouette standing out sharply against the smaller men. Sorasa and Dom took the rear, not far from Corayne, with another dozen or so men behind them.
Two hundred riders set out through the Gallish woods, leaving behind one hundred fallen, lost to the Spindle.
A small price to pay,Sorasa knew.
The ride north seemed quicker than the way south. Such was the way of things. The Spindle no longer loomed over their journey, the ancient temple left to be forgotten once more. It faded away among the trees, white against the battlefield. Perhaps in a few years the clearing would be green again, the grass fed by blood and bone dust. The tragedy grown over, lost to the inexorable march of time.
As he led them home, Sorasa saw that Oscovko kept a quicker pace, too. He’d lost some of his prideful swagger, the color gone from his face. Sorasa supposed the corpse army had something to do with that. Now that he knew what they faced, and what Erida of Galland had loosed upon the Ward, he was eager for speed. The horses moved swiftly, making for the old Cor road.
For once, Sorasa didn’t shudder at the thought of the open highway. They needed speed now more than secrecy.
Built during the time of Old Cor, the roads spread wide across the former boundaries of the empire, linking together their great cities and many crossings. This particular road, the Watchful Line,ran back to Gidastern on the sea before following the coast all the way to Calidon. It linked with many other paths and roadways, all of them crisscrossing Galland, with Ascal at their heart.
The Cor road was the quickest way back to the Treckish capital, but also the quickest way for an army or garrison to travel. Sorasa’s horse followed the rest onto packed dirt and paving stone, wheel ruts dug deeply into the road. They were able to ride three horses abreast without the slung wounded and even the litters moved swiftly, making better time than they would in the forest. Still, Sorasa felt too exposed, and she huddled in her cloak, her furred hood raised.
She looked back over her shoulder, through the many lines of riders and trudging soldiers. The horizon stretched beyond the forest, the winding blue ribbon of the White Lion bisecting the flat valley. Black clouds gathered to the east, toward the sea. If she squinted, they looked like a gathered army rolling over the gray and golden lands.
Then she shook her head. Things were hard enough without inventing new enemies to fear.
At her side, Dom seemed just as off-kilter. His immortal eyes hunted the last stretches of forested foothills, roving through the branches before shooting skyward. He barely blinked, his stare like a piercing sword.
Sorasa clucked her tongue. “I don’t think Taristan is going to jump out of the trees.”
“A dragon might,” he replied in a low voice, near to growling.
