Chapter 18
Beyond the boundary, the Contested Lands proved bleak and dry, littered with sharp stones and dust. Dry brush and gnarled trees grew in places, and shadows lay low upon the ground, even at noon, with nothing to cast them. A bitter wind scraped along the floor of the valley in which they rode; it was warmer here than in the Eastern lands they'd just left, but the wind was harsher and it blew dust and sand in their faces. Will o' the wisps darted among the dry branches of the trees and small rodents skittered through the dust. In the sky above, carrion birds waited, circling.
Their progress west had been halted by a mountain range that ran north and south across the Contested Lands. They'd followed it north for most of a day before discovering this valley, and Gray Mave's weak Gift of Premonition indicated that it was passable. So far the valley's bottom had been level enough, following the course of a tiny stream which was frigid but unfrozen. At least they didn't have to melt snow over the fire in order to drink.
Raieve rode in back, tasting dust, keeping watch behind them. That was fine; the steppes of Avalon were dusty as well, and feeling the grit against her teeth almost made her homesick.
Thinking of home made her stomach twist inside her. She'd been gone for three years; anything might have happened during her absence. Had the Tongul warlords conquered the steppes in the Unseelie's absence? Had her own Heavy Sky Clan managed to unite the other clans and reform the Concordat? Or had the Unseelie perhaps returned and begun their predations anew, this time with better leadership and in greater numbers?
There was no way to know, and the not knowing ate at her.
Ahead of her, Mauritane rode point, insisting on silence and stopping often as they progressed through the valley. He'd told her to watch for any sign of an ambush, and she held back a hundred yards or so, eyes searching all around for signs of trouble. For the moment, though, she only watched Mauritane.
Here was another mystery. She'd been brought up to believe that the Fae were capricious, spineless fools. Her experience with the Unseelie in Avalon had gone a long way to confirm the impression. Their strategy had always been to make sloppy attacks with overwhelming numbers, seeming not to care how many of their own soldiers died as long as they achieved their objectives. Their invasion of Raieve's world seemed to progress almost randomly, without any apparent forethought. Granted, their lack of strategy often wreaked havoc on the plans of the insurgence movement, but it was also the Unseelie's ultimate undoing. Five years ago, the attempted occupation had proved a failure in both governance and profitability, and Queen Mab's army simply stopped fighting and left. Cowards. Barbarians. Fools.
Raieve had come to the City Emerald in the hopes that the Seelie Fae would prove to be the opposite of their counterparts to the North, but as yet they'd turned out to be as frivolous and untrustworthy as any Unseelie she'd ever encountered. Until she met Mauritane.
At Crere Sulace, Mauritane had been gloomy and taciturn. He'd never said a single word to her until the day he interposed himself between Raieve and Dumesne, may he be damned to a thousand hells. And yet she'd been drawn to Mauritane even then. He was not charming or easy with words. He wasn't particularly handsome. But he had something, an inner strength-a solidity-that had shown through his guarded demeanor at Crere Sulace and practically blazed now that he was back in command of something.
And yes, she was attracted to him. She wanted him. Raieve had never wanted or needed the protection of any man. But if he were to put his arms around her and whisper, 'Everything will be fine,' she feared that she would listen and believe.
Worse, she feared that she would like it.
How he felt about her, however, was impossible to tell. There had been moments since they'd left Crere Sulace that she'd been certain that he reciprocated her desire, but only moments. He was married, so he'd said. But was he loved, and did he return that love? Somehow she thought not. Intuition told her that a pampered lady from the City Emerald could never be a match for him. Raieve, however, was up to the task.
Most men were so transparent that she might as well have the Fae Gift of Empathy. But she was not Fae, not entirely, and the half of her that carried Fae blood did not carry the Gifts along with it. And so Mauritane remained a knot in her mind, one that she itched to undo.
As night began to fall, they reached a stepped incline over which the stream fell in a small waterfall. Mauritane went ahead, taking Streak lightly up the rise, but then froze and motioned them all to stop. With slow movements, he nudged the horse back down and rejoined them. He dismounted, indicating that they should do the same.
'There's a camp ahead,' he whispered. 'Six or seven men. Soldiers with mounts.'
'Theirs or ours?' asked Silverdun.
'It's hard to say in this light, but my guess would be Unseelie. We're closer to their border than ours, and in all my years in the Guard, I never knew the Seelie Army to send men this far north.'
'Things may have changed in your absence,' said Silverdun.
'Too much has changed in my absence,' Mauritane said.
'Does it matter either way?' Satterly asked. 'No matter which side they're on, it's not like we can just walk up to them and say hello, given our… peculiar circumstances.'
'True,' said Mauritane, 'but if they are Unseelie, I'll be much less concerned about killing them.'
Mave gaped at him. 'Will you truly kill Seelie men?'
'Not if I don't have to,' said Mauritane.
'So what do we do?' said Satterly. 'Do we double back and try to go another way?'
'No,' said Mauritane. 'We've lost too much time as it is, and there's no guarantee that there's another pass through these mountains anywhere near here. We go through.'
Mauritane pulled out his pipe and stared at it, then tucked it away again with an annoyed grimace, looking toward the hill. 'But first, let's be certain who we're dealing with. We need someone to reconnoiter. Silverdun, you do possess Poise?'
Silverdun sighed. 'Not a shred. I can barely dance a quadrille.'
Raieve stood up to her full height. 'I don't claim any Gifts, but I damn well know how to move quietly. I spent my entire childhood avoiding Unseelie soldiers.'
Mauritane nodded. 'Fine. But be careful. And if you're spotted, signal us with a whistle and run.'
Raieve smiled, tying back her braids with a bit of string. 'If I'm spotted, your signal will be the scream of the first man I kill.'
'A whistle will suffice,' said Mauritane.
She gave Mauritane a curt salute and started up over the rise. Silverdun hissed after her, 'Try not to kill them all before we get there.'
Raieve crept along the side of the valley, moving from shadow to shadow. Here the valley narrowed, becoming almost a ravine, and it become more and more difficult to skirt its edge. The valley's bottom here sloped up gently for about thirty feet, then became nearly vertical, its rim at least a hundred feet above her head. As she approached the firelight ahead of her, she felt something akin to nostalgia overtake her. Tracking the Unseelie across dusty terrain, looking for an opportunity to strike; it was just the way she remembered. It was comfortable. It made sense to her.
And they were Unseelie, she could see that clearly now. There were seven of them, light cavalry, in a loose circle around the fire. They'd propped their long lances against a nearby rock. Their mounts stood too far from the fire, too much in the darkness, the reins looped haphazardly over the branches of a tree. In Avalon, Raieve and her friends had regularly stolen horses such as these. The men's boots were off, and they drank and laughed without caution.
One of them stood a desultory watch, but he spent as much time looking over his shoulder at his companions as he did watching the valley. If she timed it right, she could walk right up to him and cut his throat before he even