'All of it,' Silverdun sighed. 'In addition to being fugitives, we are now destitute as well.'
The wind tore at them as they crested Longmont Pass. It had shifted as they'd climbed toward the narrow opening and now pressed at their faces, feeling its way into their clothing and their ears, noses, mouths. They clutched at their cloaks and bowed their heads. The horses fought every step of the way. Mauritane led them single file, taking the worst of it on himself.
Beyond the pass, the land flattened and gently descended toward the River Ebe, a silver strand glowing gently in the distance. The road wound downward toward the river through a dense clutter of scrub brush, bent trees, and smooth rock formations that were twisted and warped in impossible shapes. Beyond the Ebe, past the horizon, lay the Contested Lands and, somewhere past them, the walled city of Sylvan.
Mauritane rode a bit down the trail until the wind calmed enough for conversation. 'Did any of you get spellrested while we were in Hawthorne?' he asked.
They all shook their heads. 'We were busy being apprehended,' said Raieve.
Gray Mave raised his hand, the gesture barely visible in the darkness. 'I had a few hours of sleep last night. I don't mind taking the first watch.'
'Well, you are Low Chief of Watch,' said Silverdun, sounding tired. 'I suppose it's fitting.'
They rode off the trail and followed a rocky declivity that paralleled a shallow stream. The stream rounded a short outcropping that would protect well enough from the wind and would hide the light of a small fire from the road.
With the horses watered in the stream and tied, Honeywell broke out rations of dried meat and flower petals and passed them around while Mauritane built a fire. 'I picked these daisies up in Hawthorne,' Honeywell said.
Satterly passed on the daisies, contenting himself with the dried venison that had served as the basis for any number of meals at Crete Sulace. After a day of painful riding and the scene in Hawthorne, he found himself ravenous, if a bit queasy.
After a few minutes, Honeywell, Silverdun, and Raieve lay beneath their cloaks and turned their backs to the fire. Eventually, Honeywell began to snore. Gray Mave took his sword and climbed to the top of the ledge above them to keep watch.
Satterly looked at Mauritane over the fire. Mauritane was staring into the flames, pulling strands of his long hair out before him and twisting them into a braid.
'I'm sorry,' Satterly said after a long pause.
'For what?' asked Mauritane, not looking up.
'For freezing today, in Hawthorne. I just sat on my horse like an idiot while you guys did everything.'
Mauritane looked briefly at him. 'I didn't recruit you for your fierceness in battle,' he answered after a breath.
'Well, that's just the thing,' said Satterly, wringing his hands. 'I felt totally useless back there. I just hope that's not an indication of things to come.'
'You'll prove useful yet, I've no doubt,' said Mauritane, returning to his task.
Satterly watched Mauritane create his victory braid, taking the knot of Gestana's hair from his sabretache and weaving it carefully in with his own in an intricate pattern. 'How many braids do you have?' Satterly said.
'It's my fifty-first kill,' said Mauritane, without altering his expression. 'Each of these,' he said, holding out a row of braids on the left side of his head, 'counts for five.'
'You just… killed him,' said Satterly.
'What?'
'You just ran him through. That guard in Hawthorne. You didn't even think about it. Doesn't it bother you?'
Mauritane looked at him quizzically. 'What did you expect me to do?'
'I don't know. I mean, couldn't we have talked our way out of it or something?'
'Would you rather be sitting in a cell in Hawthorne right now, awaiting your execution?'
'They wouldn't have. I mean, they would have contacted the prison and…'
Mauritane raised an eyebrow. 'And Crenyllice would have told them that we were escaped prisoners, just as they suspected. They hang escaped prisoners in the courtyard by the South Tower.'
'I just can't believe that you killed that guy. Don't you wonder about who he was? What kind of person he was? What his life was like? Don't you ever feel bad for their families or anything?'
'Life is fragile,' said Mauritane. He returned to his braiding.
Satterly sat and thought for a while, watching individual fingers of flame merge and separate in the fire.
'I don't know if I can do that,' said Satterly. 'I don't know if I can just kill someone like you can.'
Mauritane tied the braid off with a length of silky black thread that shone in the firelight. 'Then pray to your god that you never have to,' he said.
Chapter 10
The next day dawned gray and cold, smelling of dissipating smoke and old ice. Mauritane rose at the first dim light and climbed the embankment to the bluff where Raieve kept watch. She sat perfectly still, staring into the distance beyond the River Ebe. In the growing light the valley was barren and inhospitable, gray and white slopes marked with evergreen stands and the bizarre rock formations that sprang irrationally from the otherwise even ground. Far beneath them the river seemed frozen in time, its green ice dull and somber.
Mauritane sat next to her and looked out over the valley, following her gaze. 'You fight well,' he said, for lack of anything better.
Raieve turned her head slowly and eyed him sharply. Years in the sun had dusted freckles over the bridge of her nose and drawn thin lines from the corners of her crystalline blue eyes. Her hair moved in the morning breeze, wanting to take flight but refraining.
'For a woman?' she countered, eyebrow cocked, daring him.
Mauritane shrugged. 'A dead man isn't any less dead if it was a woman who ran him through,' he said.
Raieve thought this over, then laughed out loud, a short husky laugh. 'True,' she said.
'How many women, then, do you have in the Royal Guard?' she asked.
'None.'
There was the eyebrow again. 'Aha. Why not?'
'None have applied. It's considered unladylike.'
Raieve gestured to herself with mock courtliness. 'Am I not the very picture of a noble lady?'
Mauritane grinned, the first time he could remember doing so in months. 'Would you want to be?'
Raieve leaned in toward him but kept her eyes fixed on the valley below. 'I do not think you are a man who has much truck with noble ladies.'
Mauritane winced. His wife the Lady Anne-a noble lady if ever there was one-waited for him back in the City Emerald while he sat flirting with a woman he barely knew. It was wrong.
He stood, clapping his hands together against the cold. Raieve stood as well, sensing something amiss but saying nothing.
'How did you come to be at Crete Sulace?' Mauritane asked, regarding her with what he hoped was a professional distance.
'You read my file, certainly,' she said, glaring. 'You know why.'
'Reports contain facts, not motivations. I know what you did, but I don't know why you did it.'
Raieve picked up a handful of rocks and hurled one over the edge of the bluff. 'I was chosen by my clan as an emissary to your government. In the wake of the Unseelie invasion, the Concordat crumbled, leaving the clans to fend for themselves. Many of the clans were left with nothing after the war and turned to raiding for survival. Others have taken advantage of the chaos to settle old grievances.'
She hurled another stone, watching it fall before she continued. 'The Heavy Sky Clan wishes to reform the Concordat, but without weapons and battle thaumatics we don't stand much of a chance. We believed,' she paused
