spray of blood. He still had it ready when the laryx lunged at him. This time he sank it in the monster’s shoulder. He stood holding it steady, the laryx’s mouth bristling with a carnivore’s teeth, lips and nose twitching. It even pawed the earth, pushing forward and driving Aliver back. But not enough. The wound in its side was too deep. The hole in its shoulder had severed an artery and cut through enough tendons to weaken it. The laryx died there, so close to Aliver’s face that he had only to lean forward to touch his nose to its snout.
“The kill was yours,” Kelis said. His first words since he had awoken.
“But it would not have been mine without you.”
Kelis fixed his lips in a sour expression, not sure how to deny that.
“Let me tell a few more things. First, you should know that I didn’t forget what you did. I didn’t fail to understand that you’d saved me. I think, now that I look back on it, that I felt… a failure, as if the kill wasn’t really mine. I think that’s why I agreed to fight Maeander Mein. I’m not saying I knew that it was because of the hunt. I didn’t, but how often do we do things without knowing our own reasons? I wanted to make sure I was worthy of all the things given to me-and being asked of me. Foolish, yes? It got me killed.”
Kelis started to protest, but Aliver stopped him.
“But here I am again, alive again. I would be a fool twice over not to learn from it. So here’s what I think. I think that the laryx was my kill.” He let this sit a moment, and then said, “But I needed your help to make it. You watched over me when I needed it. You put your life in danger to save mine. That’s what got me out of that tree so fast. I didn’t want your death on my hands. See what we have here? We succeeded because we care for each other and risked our lives for each other. It should never have been about doing it alone. When I fought Maeander, I forgot that. I will never do so again. I have you to thank for that. And I have you to thank for bringing Shen to me. Don’t make that face.”
Kelis did not know what face he was making, but he must have frowned.
“Don’t! I know what you are thinking and I don’t want to hear a single word of it. Don’t tell me anything about your responsibility for bringing the Santoth to Acacia. Don’t act like that’s your fault. It’s bigger than you, Kelis, so don’t be so vain. You think the Santoth wouldn’t have found a way here without you? They are a sickness that attached itself to something pure-to you and to Shen and to all the labors you and others went through to bring her to me. That is not-and never can or will be-your fault. So don’t be the person who wallows in self-pity that way. It’s not you, and I couldn’t bear it. Such a waste. I need you to march to war with me, not to be sitting here feeling sorry for yourself.”
“To war?” Kelis rasped, lifting his metal-flesh hand. “I cannot be a warrior for you. Not with this.”
Aliver stepped nearer. His voice dropped, tone softened. “You have a choice. This thing”-he placed his hand over Kelis’s metal one-“has become part of your destiny. It doesn’t end it; it changes it. Perhaps this is a gift. How can you know? It may be a gift to urge you to return to your destiny. Do you remember the boy you told me you were? The dreamer. You were born with that in your heart. You told me that in dreams you read the future, and that you spoke languages you could not speak when awake and that this gave you joy. So return to it. Don’t bemoan the loss of a spear arm. What is that compared to the gifts of a dreamer?”
“I have already had a dream,” Kelis heard himself say, “while I slept here.”
“Do you remember it?”
“Some things.”
“Are they things you could tell me?”
Kelis had to think about that for a while. He knew his answer, but what he had to be slow with was the feeling of hope that rose with it. Could he really be blessed? Could it really be that-after all the things that had come before, and after all the ways his life was and wasn’t what he thought it should be-he would still be permitted to return to where he began? To be a dreamer, and find in the sleeping world things that could help the ones he loved in the waking one?
He said, “I dreamed that the queen rode a sea beast into the depths. It gave her no fear, Aliver. It was what she wished.”
Aliver sat down on the stool and set a hand on his arm. The two men sat in silence for a long time. Kelis began to fear that he had given the prince ill tidings. He should explain more of the dream, he thought, but that was filled with images that might further seem ill.
“If… if the queen is near I could tell her.”
“She’s not,” Aliver said. “Is that all? Did you dream anything else?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell it to me.”
“I dreamed that you had seven children.”
“Did I?” Aliver said. He smiled sadly. “I don’t believe that will happen.”
“You had seven children other than Shen. I could not see their faces. You walked with them away from me. I could not see your face either. But it was you, and there were seven children with you.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” Aliver said. And then, putting it aside and lifting his voice into a kingly register, “Kelis of Umae, will you march to war with me? I don’t need you as a warrior. Not this time. Not ever again. Come with me as a dreamer if you like. Or just come as my friend. Speak to me, as you used to. Puzzle through that dream of seven children with me. Will you do that-be a friend to me? A brother?”
Kelis closed his eyes. He wanted to nod. He wanted to say, Nothing would mean more to me, but he still doubted he could be that blessed. Part of him feared that reaching for a future would be just the thing to pull it away from him. He wanted to…
“Good,” Aliver said, not waiting for his response. “We leave tomorrow.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Chafing from the sabotage and accidents, the Auldek halted forward progress for a time. Work crews hewed a thoroughfare through the slabs. The crews labored nonstop, through the short day and long night, lit by pitch lanterns that glowed in the howling white dark. They cut and sawed and melted the ice, creating one wide track, smooth and safe enough for the entire army, the animals, and the slaves to walk on. It took several days, and during the first few the Scav managed to set traps in the ice or pick off lone laborers and scouts. When Menteus Nemre and the sublime motion took up protecting the workers, things progressed more steadily.
A full week after the opening battle, the bulk of the Auldek force slipped through the cleared passage. Rialus watched his own station begin the journey, standing on the ice beside Sabeer one gusty, overcast day. The blizzard had cleared, but it seemed even colder for it. Rialus could not keep from shivering. He had woken several times from nightmares of being trapped within his room as his station broke through the ice and water rushed in a torrent on top of him. He had no wish to see this dream realized during the day.
Menteus Nemre stood a little distance away, legs set wide, arms crossed, surveying the progress as if he were a king and not a slave. He wore no hood. The wind tugged at his long, knotted mane of white hair, making him look every bit the leonine merging of man and beast that so perfectly embodied his totem.
“Oh, look at that,” Sabeer said. “You beauty. You’ve caught another one.”
Thinking she meant Menteus himself in some way, Rialus did not notice at first that a real snow lioness trotted toward him. She skimmed along the thoroughfare at the edge of the enormous wagon and station wheels, oblivious to the rotating danger of them. She carried a corpse in her jaws, held high to keep it from tripping her. Behind her, more feline shapes ran to keep up.
The cat went directly to Menteus. She dropped the body at his feet and circled away as he bent to inspect it. The other lions joined her, milling around, looking expectantly at the warrior. Without going any nearer, Rialus knew the corpse was a Scav. It was clothed just like the other one; bloodstained just like the other one.
Menteus took only a moment. He stood, pressed one of his booted feet against the corpse’s side, and kicked it toward the waiting animals. He coughed some command to them, and they pounced on the corpse. They tore into it, clawing at it, growling and snapping at one another.
Rialus looked away, trembling still more.
“My poor chilly boy,” Sabeer said, moving in close to blow a plume of warm air in his face. She had not been so near him in days. She slipped her hands inside his hood and rubbed his cheeks. “Rialus silver tongue, what
