was tepid, but it felt good on her parched throat. Outside, gray clouds smudged the sky, but still no sign of snow. She touched her belly. Would Caim be happy? Or disappointed? She thought back to the one night they had shared together, the night he had told her he was leaving Othir. She’d hoped she could change his mind. She cried for days when he didn’t. Only Hubert understood why. And now a child grew inside her.
Another thought insinuated its way into her brain and forced her to remember a different night, a hideous night. The night at Kas’s cabin in the woods when the Sacred Brotherhood came for her. She saw Markus’s face again, mottled with half-healed scars, and remembered his hands upon her. The cup slipped from her fingers. The sound of shattering pottery filled her ears. The room spun before her.
As the door opened and her maids rushed in, one thought hammered at the inside of her skull.
What if Caim wasn’t the father?
Caim’s heart beat faster as four bronze arrow points centered on his chest. He sank into a lower stance. The hooded figures were spread out in a loose arc. He cast out his senses for the shadows, and a tingle slid down his back. The sword.
“Gaelan!” Liana shouted as she ran toward one of the figures.
Caim started to draw his knife, but she threw herself onto the man. Thick arms came up to seize her in a fierce embrace.
“Caim.” She extricated herself. “This is my cousin. Gaelan, meet Caim.”
Hoods were pulled back, and hard eyes stared at him. The men reminded Caim of the outlaws who had taken him from Hagan’s house: big, rawboned men at home in the wilds. Caim was aware of how he must have looked to them-torn clothing, nasty scars, dried blood crusted all over. So while Liana explained who he was and what they were doing out here, he stayed a few paces away and scanned the landscape ahead. The gentle slope they’d been following continued to rise as it approached the range of hills. The land was pocked with folds and ridges. It would be easy to get lost in this country. Suddenly he felt a new sense of vulnerability. He might have been born in this land, but it was still a stranger to him.
Two of the outlaws turned and started up the hillside on makeshift snowshoes. Clever. They hardly leave any tracks.
“They’re going to escort us to the castle,” Liana said.
Her cousin raised a bushy eyebrow, but he didn’t contradict her.
“Wonderful,” Caim replied. By “escort” they really meant “guard,” as in him specifically.
Liana started out walking beside Gaelan, but after a while she dropped back to Caim. “I asked, but they haven’t seen any of the others.”
The anxiety was plain in her voice. Caim tried to sound reassuring.
“That blizzard must have blanketed this entire region. I’m sure Keegan is fine. He’s a strong kid.”
Liana nodded as she marched alongside him. A strong woman, fetching in face and figure. She would be a fine wife one day. For someone else.
The scouts took them up the face of a winding ridge and down into a shallow defile. The woods thinned around them, but the snow thickened. By the time it reached Caim’s waist, he was half dragging Liana by the hand, despite her protests that she could make it on her own. They crawled up the foot of the center hill in this way for the better part of two candlemarks until Caim was bathed in a cool sweat under his leathers. Exhausted from fighting the snow, he was grateful when he saw their guides had halted up ahead.
When he and Liana reached them, Gaelan nodded his head up the slope. “The castle lies before you. We go back to our post.”
Liana gave him a brief hug. “Thank you, Cousin. When will you return?”
“Two days from now, if the weather holds. Otherwise, Killian will use it as an excuse to leave us out there for another turn.”
As the outlaws left, Caim gazed up the way before them. The defile sank deeper between the ridges on either side to disappear into the hillside. A good place for an ambush. The ridges commanded a view of the entire approach; sentries would spot intruders long before they got this far. His gaze touched on the places on the hill where he would place watchers.
Liana didn’t wait for him, and he was forced to follow her. Fortunately, the sides of the defile had shielded it from the worst of the storm so that the snow here was lower than in the surrounding countryside. By the time they reached the summit of the narrow pass, the crust on top of the powder no longer reached their ankles, but Caim hardly noticed as he looked ahead.
The canyon descended into a magnificent valley nestled between the mist-shrouded peaks. Sheer cliffs fell on either side more than five hundred feet to the valley floor. Between clusters of evergreens stretched snow-covered fields choked with the withered husks of rotted brush and stunted trees. A heap of stone stuck out from the canyon like a rocky fist. The outlines of once-proud walls and square towers peeked from under the mantle of snow. A fort, or the remnants of one. It was not as impressive as he’d dared to hope. Swathed in ice and dead ivy, the lone fortification looked centuries old.
“This,” Liana said, “is what Caedman calls the last bastion of freedom in Eregoth.”
Caim grunted as he followed her down the stony path. Their arrival did not go unnoticed. Before they were halfway down the slope, a group of men came out of the trees and gathered at the foot of the trail. All had spears in hand, with more weapons belted to their waists. He didn’t see any women among them, but a small army could have been hidden among the trees.
Caim stopped beside Liana as one of the group, an older man, stepped forward. His long gray hair was pulled back and tied at the base of his neck. Though well into his middling years, he looked tough enough to wrestle a bear. And I know exactly what that feels like.
“I see you, Hagan’s daughter,” he said in a strong, deep voice. “But who is this you have brought?”
“This is Caim, a friend.”
The group leader’s eyes were the clear blue of snowmelt. “You know our laws. Strangers aren’t allowed here, Liana. And those that find us can’t never leave.”
Caim shifted his feet, not liking the sound of that.
“He is no stranger,” Liana said. “He comes from Nimea to help us in our fight.”
A shaggy mountain of a man standing at the rear of the group hawked and spat on the ground. “No help comes from Nimea.”
“That’s what Ramon believed,” Liana said, “until Caim fought by his side at Guthern Prison. He helped us free Caedman.”
“Where is Caedman?” the leader asked.
Caim looked to Liana. What to tell them? The truth might get him lynched on the spot, and he hadn’t come this far to fight these people. But how to convince them of that?
“He follows with the others,” Caim replied. “He was injured.”
“Tortured.” The older man worked his jaw like he was chewing something bitter. “We heard the rumors, though we didn’t want to believe them.”
The others looked downcast by the news, and Caim understood. Caedman had been more than their leader; he was their inspiration. Without him, they were just a band of farmers and herdsmen.
“If the weather holds, they’ll be here by tomorrow,” Caim said, hoping he was right.
The leader nodded. “Caim, is it? I am Killian of the Indrig clan.”
Liana put a hand on Caim’s shoulder. “We are tired from the journey. May we enter?”
“Take your ease.” Killian gestured, and the men parted. “We shall speak more tomorrow.”
As he followed Liana through the gauntlet of outlaws, Caim felt their eyes upon him. Once again he was the outsider. You think I’d be used to it after all this time.
Liana took him down a narrow trail through the fir and pine trees. It emerged under the spur of rock and climbed to a gap in the crumbling walls. Inside they found a wide bailey yard. Longhouses of raw timber, roofed in pine branches, were built against the outer walls. A few people, mostly women and a few children, worked and played in the courtyard. Ignoring the glances cast at him, Caim followed Liana to a hut set off by itself in a dark corner of the yard. There was snow piled in front of the door, and the place had an abandoned look to it, but Liana entered without hesitation. The interior was dark. Leaves were scattered across the floor, and a small drift of snow rested against the back wall. Liana set to gathering sticks from a pile.
