She said this with all the calm resolution she could muster, and then she stood as the men filed out. She wondered that she could manage to show so little emotion on her face, and then she realized it was because she felt so little emotion. She was just saying what was true. What she believed, and had to say and to do.
A nd yet an hour later she could not pretend, as she approached the doors behind which the entire army was gathered in the Calathrock, that her insides weren’t knotted and her palms sweaty and her jaw muscles sore from being locked in a clench she was not even aware of. She was supposed to be returning with a blessing from Aliver reborn. Instead she had returned with a choice of life or death. What would she do if each and every one of them took her up on her offer to leave? She had no plan for that. No speech to change their minds. No heart to keep them against their will.
If it comes to that, she thought, the Auldek will truly witness a sight to laugh at, a lone princess with a sword, come to vanquish the lot of them all by herself.
A soldier pulled the door open for her. She stepped into the underground chamber and knew that she never had anything to fear. Not with soldiers like hers. Not with free hearts like theirs. Men who knew why they fought and did so out of their own convictions. That, she thought, is what Acacia should be. It was what it could be, and it was the reason she would not be standing all by herself before the Auldek. Not by a long shot.
T he next day the first contingents of scouts and supply trains began the march that would prepare the way northeast along the perimeter of the Black Mountains, around them, and north into the Ice Fields, where she intended to meet the invading Auldek. Not one of her soldiers had abandoned her. They playfully shamed her for even thinking any of them might. They joked, Perrin told her, that she had been mistaken if she thought she commanded them against their will. Perhaps in the first few weeks, yes, but after that they were with her because they wanted to be. She was one of them and they would be proud to die with her. Soldier after soldier told her this, each speaking it low like a secret. Like a declaration of love. Morbid as it was, it was good, very good, to hear.
The body of the army left the steaming warmth of Mein Tahalian in a long, narrow column. They traveled mostly on foot, draped in layers of furs and woolens and oil-treated outer skins, hoods pulled tight around their faces, with glass shields to protect their eyes. They carried packs on their backs, necessary, for they did not have enough sleds or dogs to pull all their supplies. It would be slow, tortuous progress, but they had all known that.
The day never fully lightened. Instead, the sun skimmed the rim of the world, sending slanting rays of light over the land for several hours before disappearing. They traveled on in the dark, sighting on fires the scouts had prepared for them.
Mena would have marched right along beside them, but Haleeven convinced her that was a self-indulgent gesture. “The troops know you would suffer beside them, and that means you don’t have to prove it. You mean more to us in the sky, Princess. That’s what the men need to see.”
So she had taken to the sky. On Elya, Mena soared above them, riding down the long column from end to end, marveling both at how small it was on the landscape and at how much it filled her with pride. The first week out, she flew back from the marching column to Tahalian as often as she could, knowing that any correspondence from Acacia would not easily get beyond the fortress. No bird could be trained to seek out a moving army in a hostile landscape, and any messenger sent after them from Tahalian would have to travel slowly, in pursuit of a target that was moving away from them.
Eventually, she had to give up hope of receiving any correspondence. She did not even have a bird left to send with a final message. She did write two missives, though, and left them with the villagers gathered to shelter in the fortress. When a bird did reach them from the south, they would forward her letters for her. One addressed to her sister and brother. One to her husband.
And then she left. She circled above Tahalian for a time, looking down at the scruffy, snow-covered wildness of it for what she thought was likely her last time. Strange how a place that she had once thought of as an enemy’s lair had come to feel so quickly like a second home. Is all the world like that? she wondered. Perhaps, if we take the time and give our enemies a chance.
O ne morning a week later, Gandrel requested Mena join him on a glacier-scoured hillside. As Perrin was briefing her for the day, he went as well. The hillside afforded a view of the passing army and well out toward the terrain ahead of them. The Black Mountains gnawed at the sky off to the west, but they were no obstacle to them. It was the jumble of frozen debris out on the northern horizon that was. Mena had seen it from above yesterday, but had planned on getting a better look today. The low light made the shapes mysterious, hard to make sense of. All shadow and highlight, the stuff seemed to change shape and color even as she stared at it.
“Those are slabs of sea ice,” Gandrel said. He handed her his spyglass. “Beautiful stuff to look at, like green and blue glass when the light hits it right. But it’s treacherous. It’s been getting pushed up against the shore since Elenet threw the Giver’s world into chaos. Crossing it will be miserable. Rife with fissures, crevices, and weak spots. It’s always moving, see, breathing as the season changes-believe it or not. It’ll be a few days of all-out scrambling, I’d say. Feet and hands, ropes, hauling and praying to the Giver. It’ll be hard to camp in there. Might need to divide up at night to find decent spots. We’ll lose some men. Animals, too. Only good news is that beyond it, once we’re well out away from where the ice buckles against the shore, it goes smooth. Good place to have a battle, I’d say.”
“There’s no other way?” Perrin asked. “I never came this far north, so I don’t know, but are you sure there isn’t some alternative?”
“No, there’s no other way. From what the Scav told me and from where Mena met them, the Auldek will come this way. Take Elya out and scout just in case, Princess, but I’m as sure as I can be.”
“I don’t doubt you,” Mena said, lowering the spyglass.
“We could wait for them here,” Perrin said. “Let them do the work of crossing the stuff.”
Gandrel pursed his thick lips. Released them. “Won’t be the obstacle for them that it is for us, not if they’ve come this far already.”
Mena thought for a while. “No, we can’t sit here waiting for them. We’d lose more than we’d gain. The Auldek wouldn’t do it. If we do, they’ll see it as a sign of cowardice. Plus they have many flying creatures to our one. Those alone could make life miserable for us.” And, she thought, our men might start to think they can flee south if things go bad. I don’t want them thinking that. Not yet, at least. It was an uncharitable thought, out of keeping with the brave mood of the men. She could not help having it, but she did not choose to voice it. “I’d rather we meet them boldly, all at once.”
Both men seemed to accept this. Gandrel moved on. “I called you because I wanted to show you something else. Here.” He motioned for her to lift the spyglass again, waited for her to squint an eye and pressed the open one against it. He adjusted its direction. “A little way before the ice begins. Just west of due north. Do you see them?”
She would not have unless he had directed her to them. And still it took a moment to see the moving figures, antlike even within the warped view of the glass. A line of people worked their way toward the ice slabs. They were not numerous.
“Who are they?” Perrin asked. “Those aren’t Auldek soldiers. And they’re not ours.”
“No,” Gandrel agreed. “They’re Scav.”
“What are they doing here? They want to join us? If so, somebody should tell them to wait.”
“Not join us, no. That’s not the Scav way.” He squinted out toward them, though Mena could not imagine he could see them with his naked eye. “They’ve got something planned, though.”
Perrin motioned for the spyglass. Looking through it, he asked, “How do we know it’s not treachery against us?”
“To aid the Auldek?” Gandrel scoffed. “No chance. They hate them with every stringy muscle in their bodies. And they’re not hiding. Even at this distance, they’ll know exactly where we are. The Scav want us to know they’re with us, but I don’t imagine they’ll want any official welcome. When they want to become invisible, they do. If I know them, we’ll not see much of them. However, if they’re going to help us, they’ll follow no one’s orders but their own.”
Smiling, Mena said, “They sound like trouble.”
“For the Auldek, let’s hope. Wave to them, and wish them well, I say.”
Mena happily did so.
T hey crossed the edge of the ice fields as soon as the light allowed the next morning. From ground level it was hard to measure what faced them. From above Mena could see the width of the jumble, but it was still hard to
