Práta came beside her, as best as the horses allowed, and rode there quietly for a time. She looked over often, but turned her eyes away any time Socair took notice.
“Is there much danger? At the crossroads.” Práta’s voice was soft, nervous. She had become so stern in the Bastion that the sound sent a tingle down Socair’s back.
“There is, always. The hippocamps are strong if they want for cunning. Their strength is near enough to make up for the lack of the other.” Socair stared off, up the road, at nothing.
“How do we lose so much when we face them, then? Can we not out-think them?”
“The captain of a ship cannot out-think a storm, though he may survive it.” Her eyes turned up to the sky.
“But you have survived. You will survive.” Práta’s words were insistent.
Socair had no kind things to tell her. No soothing reassurance. She looked at Práta and smiled, though she knew her love would not believe such a half-hearted expression. The smile was sad and false and troubled. She wished she could have given Práta more, but there was nothing left inside to draw out what was silently asked.
For the silent moments that followed, Práta’s guilt must have torn at her. She forced a smile all at once and swatted at the air to draw Socair’s attention.
“You will come back to me. You will survive. Again and again.”
Socair huffed and gave a half-smile at the beaming Práta. The words were a welcome warmth and a dagger at once. A blessing and a curse. Silence came over the ride once again and Socair’s mind stuck with the words. She had survived. Again and again. Survived when Doiléir had not. When Silín had not. She looked to Práta, who was again fussing with the reins of her unsteady mount. Hers was the face of all Socair had left. The face that held up what remained of the world.
A few hours of riding calmed the horses somewhat, it seemed. They began to find a steadier pace, though Nath still struggled to move the horse confidently. It was a straight enough road and that eased things. The disquiet in Socair’s head came and went as they rode, testing her with a tiny voice. “Ride north,” it said. “Hide. Why fight? For who?” Her silent answers failed to shut the voice away.
“Ahead.”
Práta called out before Socair had noticed anything. She shook her mind clear and looked down the road. An oddly shaped silhouette was ambling down the road and they were coming closer to it steadily. Another five minutes ride gave some shape to the rider. A boxy elf sitting atop a mule, packed heavier than it ought to be. They came closer to him and he turned on the back of his mount to greet them.
“Hail! Praise be to the Treorai!” He was loud. Unreasonably loud. His voice was a raspy thing, as though a bellows pumped warm air over rough stone.
“Hail,” Socair replied, looking the man over.
He was middle-aged and more muscled than his figure would have allowed one to believe. Chestnut hair rimmed a bald head and he had a bushy beard. With him were the tools of a blacksmith and on his side he kept a warmaul larger than one need be.
“You head south, aye? Hahaa!” He threw up a fist. “To war!” He thundered the words and laughed again.
Práta and Nath kept behind. She heard a snicker from Práta that was quickly stifled.
“I do. Though not with such vigor.”
“Oh? Is it not a glorious thing?”
“War?”
“Aye, war.”
Socair sighed. “Have you seen it for yourself? What war brings? What it costs?”
The man laughed again and pulled his maul, looking at it. The sleeves he wore shifted, showing deep scars, thick at the wrist that must have traveled up.
“I’ve seen it, girl. Paid it six sons and two daughters. They died proud, at home in glory.”
“And did their mother not cry? Did you not?”
“Me? Hahaa!” He tapped the maul against his chest and it made the sound of rustling chain beneath his clothes. “Never once. The woman did.” He laughed and smiled as though lost in a memory for half a moment. “Every time. For weeks.”
Socair gritted her teeth, frustrated with the man whose name she had not even bothered to ask.
“To ask that… you’ve forgotten, girl. The scabbard tells me plain enough what you’ve seen.” He snorted, spitting a large gob onto the road away from them. The mule flapped its ears when he spit, as if it were prompted. “If it is so horrible, if there is so little meaning in it, why do you sit such a ragged horse now? If you do not understand the glory of war, the true glory, then why do you ride to one?”
She looked down at her mount. Something stirred in her heart every time he said the word glory. She had known the answers to his questions before, she knew. Only a season ago, if that. Perhaps only weeks.
Práta, from behind, spoke the words that plagued Socair. “This war is to survive. Killing and being killed are costs. You said as much yourself.”
He turned his head up to the sky to answer her. “Aye! As true as Bais is cold, I said it.” He brought his head back in line with the ground and looked over to Socair. “But we pay it gladly, do we not? For glory.” He nodded, sure of himself. “To protect our own, our land. To say, with our blood, of our own free will, that we value a thing so much more than our lives.”
Neither Socair nor Práta offered a response. There was not even a minute to the silence before the man laughed again.
“Quite a speech, ain’t it? My woman set it down on my head when I was lost in my own mind. She was better’n me, I always knew. We can only manage one out in the country.” He
