alone.”
Caim scanned the plaza. Everything was quiet now. The dark had closed around them, making even the nearest buildings look distant and aloof. It made him miss Kit all the more. “I suppose you can stay with us until we get to another town.”
The Eregoths were mounted up on the surviving horses. Dray held his brother's spear balanced on a stirrup. His eyes scanned the broken ruins as if he expected the shadow warrior to return at any moment.
Caim exhaled through gritted teeth as he hobbled over to his mount. His leg was stiffening up. He turned to Shikari. “Here. Can you ride? It's going to be tough keeping up on foot.”
“We are accustomed to walking,” she said.
Caim held out the reins. “So am I. Get on.”
She did as he asked, although she was a little wobbly as she swung her leg over the saddle. At least she wore pants, which made for easier riding than a skirt. Caim and Hoek trailed her out of the plaza. His leg ached with every step, but he felt better keeping them both in his sight. Just in case.
As they marched through the ruins' crumbling streets, Caim wondered if Kit was nearby, maybe watching him. Punishing him for what he'd said. She would turn up eventually. If not tonight, then certainly tomorrow or the day after.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The wind tugged at Caim's cloak as he stood on the rocky plain. The morning was bitter and gusty. Snow floated in the breeze, and the clouds smudging the slate-gray sky promised more to come.
The cairn was just a pile of rocks. Not much of a grave for a friend, but the ground was too hard for digging. Malig and Dray stood on either side of the grave like sentinels, Dray leaning on Aemon's spear.
Caim shifted to ease his injured leg. Egil's stitching wasn't as good as Aemon's had been, but it would serve. Dray started humming, and Malig joined in. The dirge didn't have any words, but its heavy tones suited the gloomy morning. Caim shifted again. He was going to miss Aemon, but part of him just wanted to be back on the road.
Caim looked north, following the pulling sensation. It had returned not long after they left the ruins, and now he could tell the subtle difference between the two magnetisms. This one was the low droning tug he'd been following since Othir. The other had only been a mirage of some sort, possibly created by the shadow swordsman. It had been a cunning trap, and they probably would have been caught, or killed, if not for Shikari and her protector.
The two escaped slaves sat on a flat rock away from the funeral. Shikari had tried to engage Caim in conversation while they traveled, asking him where he came from and why he was here. Though her interest seemed genuine, he deflected her questions until she fell silent like her mute companion. The big Einarian deferred to her in everything, following her around like a lost child. When they stopped, he built a fire for her and gave her his cloak. She hadn't bothered to thank him. An odd pair.
“Our father died when we was just boys,” Dray said, breaking Caim out of his thoughts. “Our ma took care of us the best she could. But she took sick when I was eleven. Aemon was just nine. She never got better. Just kept getting sicker and sicker. By the end she couldn't leave her bed.
“Aemon wouldn't leave her side. He fed her, washed her face when she got fevered, even slept beside her. One night I went in to see her. Aemon was asleep, and I thought she was, too, but when I went to leave, she opened her eyes. She told me she was dying and made me promise I would take care of Aemon as best I-” His voice caught.
“He was my little brother. But damn me if he wasn't always the one looking after me. Mal, you remember the time we broke the ice in the creek behind your house in the middle of winter and went swimming?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“You fell in and I went in after you, and neither one of us could climb out. Fuck, that water was cold. If Aemon hadn't pulled us out…”
“He was too good for this world.” Malig looked up with a scowl. “Right now Aemon's sitting at the right hand of Father Ell, hoisting a big cup of mead.”
Dray lifted the spear to the sky. The wind fluttered their hair and cloaks. A pebble rolled down the cairn.
“What are we doing here?” Malig asked. “What's so damned important up here that Aemon had to die for it?”
They turned to Caim, and he looked down at the cairn. It was time. He owed them the truth. So he told them about the raiders in black who had attacked his father's estate, about Othir and Levictus and his familial tie to Sybelle. He finished with how he had learned of Erebus. “So I'm here to find out what happened to my mother.”
“Bugger me,” Malig grumbled. “Between you and Dray, ain't there no end to the tragedy?”
“I never asked any of you to come.” Caim was finding it hard to talk above a whisper. His throat had closed up tight. “You were always free to go back.”
“Back? Across all those miles and over the mountains? Are you fucking serious?”
Dray hadn't moved. He still stared down at his brother's grave, but his fingers were white around the shaft of the spear. “What am I going to do now?”
“I understand if you want to go back to Eregoth,” Caim said. “But I'm going to see this through.”
Dray let out a long breath that curled around his head. “All right. But I want blood. I'm going to send Aemon to the afterlife on a river of it. That one you were fighting. He was part of what happened to my brother, wasn't he?”
“I suppose so.”
“I want him. I want to send him down to the Dark myself.” Dray lifted up Aemon's spear. “On the end of this.”
Malig scowled at them both. “That's it, huh? We're decided? Fine. So where in the name of all that's holy is this Erebus place?”
Caim looked to Egil, who squatted at the foot of the cairn. “North, I'm guessing.”
The guide shook his head. “No one goes there. It's not wise to-”
“To speak of it,” Caim finished for him. “I know. But what do you know about it?”
Egil stood up, brushing his hands. “Just what I've heard from others. It's far up past the Bear lands. That's where the dark lord keeps his court, in a city with walls a thousand feet high.”
While Malig started a long litany of curses, Caim gnawed on his bottom lip. Levictus had mentioned the Lords of Shadow-it seemed like years ago now. “We can make our own way from here if you want to go back home.”
“I'll stay on, if it's all the same to you,” Egil replied.
Shikari walked over, with Hoek shadowing her footsteps. “We would also like to accompany you.”
“Now we're taking on strays?” Malig asked.
“It won't be safe,” Caim told her. “We'll find a place for you to stay. A village or a homestead.”
She stepped closer. “I don't ask for myself, Caim. My sister was enslaved the same as me. While I was given to a barbarian chief, she was taken north. I believe she may be at this place you speak of.”
“If we find her, we'll-”
“How will you know her? No, I must come with you.”
Caim sighed, wanting to argue, but it was pointless. He nodded, and Malig's string of curses grew. Dray saw to his horse, but Aemon's spear never left his reach.
While the others prepared to leave, Caim looked back in the direction of the ruined city. Where was Kit? He cursed her for leaving, and then cursed himself for a fool. He had all but driven her away. Why couldn't he just tell her how he really felt?
Something moved on the plains. Caim tensed until a low, four-footed shape emerged. The wolf's eyes were amber coins in the dark, staring in their direction. All by itself.
