One of the two sentries poked his head in through the tent flap. 'Sir?'
'Stir up my squire, would you? Have him find something for this starving Warrior to eat and drink.'
Tarma had stumbled to the other side of the tent and was already collapsing onto the cot, her weari-ness washing her under with a vengeance. The blankets felt as welcoming and warm as they looked, and she curled up in them without another thought, feeling Warrl heaving himself up to his usual position at her feet. As the tent and the voices faded, while the wave of exhaustion carried her into slumber, she heard Idra chuckling.
'You might as well not bother Jons,' the Captain told Leamount, just before sleep shut Tarma's ears. 'I don't think she cares.'
Three
Kethry shifted her weight over her mount's shoulders, half-standing in her stirrups to ease Hellsbane's balance as the mare scrambled up the treacherous shale of another slope. They were slightly more than halfway across the hills; it was cold and damp and the lowering gray clouds looked close enough to touch, but at least it wasn't raining again. She wasn't too cold; under her wool cloak she wore her woolen sorceress' robe, the unornamented buff color showing her school was White Winds, and under thaty woolen breeches, woolen leggings, and the leather armor Tarma had insisted she don. The only time she was uncomfortable was when the wind cut in behind the hood of the robe.
She was a member of the last party to leave the camp and make the crossing; they'd left their wounded to the care of Leamount's hillclansmen and his own personal Healer. Tresti, the Healer-Priest, had been in the second party to slip away from the camp, riding by the side of her beloved Sewen. Oreden and Jiles, the two hedge-mages, had gone two groups later; The herbalist Kethaire and his two young apprentices had left next. Kethry had stayed to the very last, her superior abilities at sensing mage-probes making her the logical choice to deflect any attempts at spying until the full exchange of personnel was complete.
She felt a little at a loss without her partner riding at her left. Tarma had preceded her more than half a day ago, leaving before midnight, as the guide with Idra and the first group. Of all the party that had made the first crossing, only Jodi had remained to ride with the tailguard group.
Jodi was somewhere behind them, checking on the backtrail. That was not as comforting to Kethry as it should have been. Kethry knew her fears were groundless, that the frail appearance of the scout belied a tough interior -- but --
As if the thought had summoned her, a gray shadow slipped up upon Kethry's right, with so little noise it might have been a shadow in truth. Hellsbane had been joined by a second gray mare so similar in appearance that only an expert could have told that one was a Shin'a'in full-blood battle-steed and the other was not.
That lack of sound was one clue -- there was mountain-pony in Lightfoot's background, somewhere. Jodi's beast moved as silently as a wild goat on this shifting surface, so quietly that the scout and her mount raised the hackles on anyone who didn't know them.
Jodi wore her habitual garb of gray leather; with her pale hair and pale eyes and ghost-gray horse, she looked unnervingly like an apparition of Lady Death herself, or some mist-spirit conjured out of the patches of fog that shrouded these hills, as fragile and insubstantial as a thing of shadow and air; and once again Kethry had a twinge of misgiving.
'Any sign of probing?' the scout asked in a neutral voice.
Kethry shook her head. 'None. I think we may have gotten away with it.'
Jodi sighed. 'Don't count your coins before they're in the coffer. There's a reason why we are running tail, lady, and it's not just to do with magery, though that's a good share of it.'
The scout cast a doubtful look at Kethry -- and for the first time Kethry realized that the woman had serious qualms about her abilities to handle this mission, if it came to something other than a simple trek on treacherous ground.
Kethry didn't bother to hide an ironic grin.
Jodi noted it, and cocked her head to one side, moving easily with her horse. Her saddle was hardly more than a light pad of leather; it didn't even creak when she shifted, unconsciously echoing the movements of her mare. 'Something funny, lady?'
'Very. I think we've been thinking exactly the same things-about each other.'
Jodi's answering slow grin proved that Kethry hadn't been wrong. 'Ha. And we should know better, shouldn't we? It's a pity we didn't know each other well enough to trust without thinking and worrying-especially since neither of us look like fighters. But we should have figured that Idra knows what she's doing; neither of us are hothouse plants -- or we wouldn't be Hawks.'
'Exactly. So -- give me the reasons this particular lot is riding tail; maybe I can do something about preventing a problem.'
