Cyrus looked to Aisling but didn’t say anything. She smoldered, looking back at him. “I told you,” she said finally, “I’m here to give you what you need, no questions.”
Cyrus looked back at her. “Aisling … I’m s-”
“Don’t.” It was only a little pointed, the way she said it. She didn’t flinch, didn’t react, just took the reins of her horse and urged it forward to lead the way along the snowy road.
“How far is it to Caenalys?” J’anda asked, starting his horse forward, the smooth landscape a long, rolling plain of white broken only by the snow-wrapped trees, jutting out of it like an ocean of bones.
“A moon’s change, at least,” Martaina replied, coming alongside him. Aisling was ahead of them both now, and Cyrus was only just turning Windrider around to follow.
“A month?” J’anda asked. “With those two in a snit? Hm.” The enchanter shook his head. “Well, that won’t be dreadfully uncomfortable.”
Chapter 92
They caught up with the Army of Actaluere on the following day, and outrode them three days later, packs on their backs and laden with provisions. The sky remained a dreary color for the most part; only the occasional daybreak found beauteous pink in the sky with the dawn. Most mornings it was grey all the way through, and the snowy ground persisted for the first week, the brisk air chilling Cyrus’s nose until they could set the fire every evening.
The flavor of hard cheese was long familiar to them by the second week, coupled with the conjured bread that J’anda could provide, and the smaller servings of salted pork and pickled eggs that helped break the monotony. The snow began to disappear in the second week, becoming patchier and more occasional until one day it yielded to brown earth and bare trees, with leaves still on the ground, uncovered. They rode through deep brown woods that smelled of fresh air, found empty houses and inns along the way that had been stripped of everything edible by the masses of refugees passing down the highway. They began to run across stragglers and slow-moving bands a day later. By the end of the week they traveled on full roads, and every soul they encountered was a beggar, starving for the most part.
The smell was overwhelming, a stink of a people who had not bathed in a month, coupled with horses, manure, and all manner of other things-poor food, muddy roads. The sound of them was incredible, babies and children crying from hunger. J’anda conjured bread from morning until long after the sun had gone down and yet still had not enough to provision the people they encountered. Cyrus watched the faces that came to them, tired, beleaguered, desperate in some cases.
Martaina killed a cutthroat who crept into their camp in the dead of night with a sword. A few nights later a haggard man had tried to corner Aisling when she had gone off into the woods on her own, and when she returned she casually mentioned that someone had tried to “force his way with her.” After an alarmed query from Cyrus, she led them to the place where the body lay, already stripped of its belongings. Though he cast a sidelong glance at her, Cyrus did not bother to ask her whether the man had any possessions of note before he had died.
Aisling had not forgiven Cyrus in the truest sense of the word, he could tell. She had not, however, withheld her favors from him, not even for a night after rejoining him. She did, however, become less charitable and-he noted one morning while feeling the shape of a bruise on his neck-more vengeful. He did not complain, continuing to lie with her at night.
By the third week of their journey, the ground had returned to a somewhat green state, albeit a darkened one. Some of the trees retained their leaves, and the roads became choked with refugees. Cyrus watched one day as J’anda’s spells to conjure bread turned from their usual white aura to a reddish one and he shook the enchanter by the shoulder. “Stop,” Cyrus said.
“I can’t,” the dark elf said, his lower lip quivering, “these people are starving.”
“You won’t do them any good if you kill yourself trying to feed them.” Cyrus watched the enchanter carefully for the rest of the trip and warned Martaina to do the same. He rode in silence, for the most part, the perpetual glimmer gone from his eyes, staring ahead in silence. He conjured bread at every occasion, and water too when necessary, for anyone he could as they passed.
On the fourth week, the sun came out and the land turned flatter, the road less winding. “We’ll have entered the lands around Caenalys by now,” Martaina said, studying a hand-drawn map that had guided them thus far. “There is a signpost ahead just a bit farther, and it will put us upon the last leg of the way.” She let her jaw tighten. “After that, we’ll be at the gates soon enough.”
“Are you certain about this?” Aisling asked, flicking her eyes to him in the barest hint of impatience.
Cyrus paused. “Certain as I can be. The people of this city deserve a chance to flee, to survive, and the Baroness …” he felt his throat constrict. “I owe her a debt.”
“Is that all?” Aisling asked.
Cyrus looked down. “It’s all I’ve got for now. If that army has to besiege the city, she dies. She suffered a lot to make sure I lived. I owe her.”
“She wasn’t the only one who helped bring you back to life,” Aisling said quietly. “Don’t forget that.”
He looked at her evenly. “I haven’t.”
That night she was particularly vicious, more frenzied than before, and he felt the pain of it in the following morning’s ride, with scabbed-over nail marks along his back. He felt them pulse and sear with each step of the horse, each bump in the road.
The land was green now, green with spring, grasses gone dormant for the winter returning to life. “This is canal country,” Martaina said to him as they rode along, “we are likely no more than two days’ ride from the city.”
“And an army,” Cyrus said.
“I haven’t forgotten them, I assure you,” Martaina said with a roll of the eyes.
The flat lands and coastal swamps gave them a day of blessed warmth at the next dawn. The sun shone down and Cyrus felt the heat upon his armor at midday, and realized that he felt warm for the first time outside the presence of a fire in months.
“I could become used to this,” J’anda said, turning his face to the sun, closing his eyes and letting his horse meander down the path.”
“What can we expect when we get there?” Aisling asked.
“We should be outside the city gates in a few hours,” Cyrus said, though he saw no sign of any city on the flat horizon. There were few enough travelers and refugees here, most having turned southeast at the previous crossroads. There were scarcely any travelers at all, and their number grew sparser as the day went on.
“It’s a fishing town, a seaport,” Martaina said, repeating the same information that Milos Tiernan had given them before they departed the army. “But the port is closed, I suppose, and the gates under watch.”
“If King Hoygraf can’t hold the city voluntarily,” Cyrus said, “he’ll squeeze it to death by force.”
J’anda looked at Cyrus accusingly. “When you pick an enemy, you don’t do it in half measures, do you?”
“My only regret is only half-killing him,” Cyrus said.
Martaina cast him a cocked eyebrow. “That’s your only regret? Not-” She stopped and looked to Aisling, who glanced at her sideways without turning her head. “Never mind.”
Night fell, the skies darkened, and soon enough the swaying of the trees was only visible by moonlight. They rode on, quietly. The gates of the city grew larger in the distance, braziers lit all around the perimeter of the wall to give the city an imposing feel. It was wide, huge.
“Any bets on them seeing this coming?” J’anda said.
“I’m not much of a gambler these days,” Martaina replied, tense.
The walls were wide and flat, and reached a hundred feet up. There was nothing visible behind them save for a few lanterns hung in high towers.
The thundering hooves of the horses around Cyrus lulled him into the quiet as they went. “Are you sure you’ve got this, J’anda?”
