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Little served to mark the border with Uscora. There was only a stone at the side of the Wolf’s Way, a pair of crossed swords carved into its face. They chanced the road now, with Dom guarding the rear and Sorasa riding on ahead, scouting the villages and farmland dotting the undulating landscape.
“I smell smoke,” Corayne said, turning her face into the cold wind. She scanned the horizon, her black eyes eating up the hills.
The Gates of Trec loomed to the south, the wide gap in the mountains barely visible through the mist. Snowy peaks thrust into the sky like the spires of a cathedral. It reminded Andry of Ascal, the New Palace, and the home left far behind.
Andry took a breath. The air did smell of campfires and cooking meat, charred wood and ash. But there was nothing in either direction, only gray-golden fields and rocks, the outcroppings like giant fingers forced out of the dirt. Snow pooled in the shadows of the rocks, clinging to the shade.
“There must be a war camp somewhere nearby,” he answered, looking sidelong at Corayne. She raised an eyebrow. “They rove the borders, fighting Jydi raiders, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Sometimes the war bands get restless and a glory-mad captain or lord rides into Galland, spoiling for a fight.” Andry sighed. Many knights went north to the Treckish border, dragging their squires with them. “War is sport to them.”
Hoofbeats sounded around the bend and up the rise. Before Andry had time to worry, though, Sorasa’s silhouette appeared, perched in the saddle of her sand mare. Her hair hung freely around her neck now, the ends still jagged from an Amhara blade.
“Trouble up ahead?” Sigil called, standing straight up in her stirrups. She made a towering sight. “My ax is ready.”
From beneath her hood, Sorasa pressed her lips into a thin line. She shook her head back and forth, then held up one hand, displaying three fingers.
Sigil nodded. “Three miles to Vodin,” she muttered to the rest of them.
Andry had never been so far north, but he had some idea of what to expect. Treckish ambassadors came to court often, dressed in knee-length coats trimmed in fur, with hats to match. They wore long curved sabers, belted at the waist, naked without sheaths, even to banquets and parties. Andry remembered them, sweating in their thick clothes, unaccustomed to the warmth and sheer size of the Gallish court. Erida liked to put them on display, her version of a joke. They stuck out like sore thumbs, and no one did anything to make them feel a little more welcome. Squires like Lemon would join in, picking on the Treckish page boys and servants who came south. Andry had never had a taste for it.
He was the sore thumb now, shivering beneath his cloak as they rode the Wolf’s Way toward the Treckish capital. Again he adjusted his cloak, trying to hide any sign of Galland on his person.The Treckish wolf holds no love for the Gallish lion,Andry knew.
They passed two long lines of pike walls ringing the city, spaced out to stop a cavalry charge. The empty landscape was no more, the rolling fields and rocky hills now clustered with farms and villages, each one bigger than the last. Peasants, farmers, and merchants joined them on the road, forming a steady line of traffic toward the fortress city, which was only a mile away now. All of them were armed, Andry noticed, if only with a long knife. Most were on foot, with a few donkeys, horses, and carts rolling beside them. The travelers ambled in small groups, forcing the Companions to ride closer together, with Dom and Sorasa taking rear and lead.
Vodin sprouted over two high hills, each one ringed with a wooden wall fortified by stone gates and domed towers, the roofs painted pale orange. On one hill was the castle, where Prince Oscovko and the royals made their home. To Andry’s eye, it looked more like a fortress than a king’s palace, with thick stone walls, squat towers, and few windows he could see. On the other hill stood a magnificent church, twelve-sided, with an onion-domed tower at each point. Real gold gilded the church spires, each one the figure of a god or goddess. Syrek rose largest of all, his mighty sword thrust high into the gray sky.
Like Galland, Trec favored the god of war.
Most of the city lay in the saddle between the hills, and the road ran right to it, passing through the main gate. It yawned, a stone mouth of iron points, the portcullis raised to allow passage for the day. Orange flags flapped in the shivering wind, sewn with the black wolf of Trec. There was no moat, but a small ditch dug around the base of the wall. It, too, was lined with sharp pikes carved into murderous points.
“Trec remembers the might of the Temurijon,” Sigil muttered, eyeing the moat with a flush of pride. Like the pike walls circling the city, it had clearly been constructed to fend off a mounted army. “They fear us still, even twenty years into the Emperor’s peace.”
They are right to,Andry almost said. Even in Galland, his lords and instructors spoke of the Temurijon with wariness, if not respect. Emperor Bhur and his Countless nearly broke the north in two, carving an empire of the steppes, forcing nations like Trec up against the mountains. Only a strange change of heart had sparedthe kingdoms from conquest, leaving them to their new borders and old rivalries.
Erida is not the same. Nothing can change her heart now. She’ll conquer the realm with Taristan, or die trying.
Smoke trailed on the wind again, and not just from the city. Andry spotted a war camp to the east, barely more than a muddy smudge clustered around another city gate. Tents stood in haphazard lines, an eyesore compared to the camps of the Gallish legions.
Andry peered at the war camp as they approached the gate, his lip in his teeth as he counted the tents.
“What do you think?” Corayne muttered alongside him, also staring.
The squire tightened his grip on the reins. “Disjointed, unorganized. A mess,” he answered. “But they’re better than nothing.”
A smile cracked across her face. Grinning, she raised her hood, ready to hide her face. “That’s the spirit.”
The gate traffic pressed in, but Andry didn’t mind the jostle. He was used to Ascal, the largest city upon the Ward. The stream of travelers narrowed before the gray, old gate wardens, passing under the portcullis without difficulty. The two men waved everyone on with gloved hands and disinterest, the grip on their spears relaxed. Even though all of Trec looked ready to fight off a sudden invasion, it was just another day for the gate wardens.
The Companions approached the gate together, dismounting from their horses to pass through the city walls. They stood out sharply from the other travelers, who were mostly farmers, pale-skinned and fair-haired, with light eyes and heavy carts laden with the autumn harvest. The old ones eyed Sigil unkindly, their fear ofthe Temurijon giving over to blind disdain. They remembered the wars best. Andry glared back at them on Sigil’s behalf.
“Gallish?” one of the wardens called out in Paramount, his long gray beard waggling.
Andry jumped, realizing the gate warden was looking at him.
The old man pointed to Andry’s tunic beneath his cloak. The blue star on dirty white, his father’s heraldry. Andry touched it softly, feeling the rough fabric. The star was earned in service to a crown that killed him and betrayed the Ward.
