him if he knew.
“No, my lord. It doesn’t sound like a real name. But the seer said it was near the Wrogg. Not on it, he said. Riverfolk can go there. And it’s near Varakats Pass.”
“So?”
“Then it can’t be far away.” Waels pointed Iceward, to the conical peak peering between the trees, Mount Varakats. “We’ll come to Milk pretty soon, the first village down from Tryfors, where the river splits between lots of islands. The mouth of the Milky River is there. The Milky is a major tributary of the Wrogg-good hiding for boats! I’d guess that High Timber is a short way up the Milky.”
“Well done!”
Waels looked pleased at the praise. “Your brother the seer has been holding out on you, my lord.” His smile was even cuter when he explained what he meant by that.
Sure enough, although the sun was still well above the hills, when Free Spirit entered the maze of brush- covered islands, the riverfolk steered into a minor channel and, after some argument, tied up to the island of their choice.
“Not like I’m trying to give anyone orders, flankleader,” Guthlag said, “but boats have been known to untie knots in the night.” He leered long yellow teeth.
“Appreciate the warning, packleader,” Orlad said. “Hear that, Jungr? The boat stays here. You and Narg take first watch.”
The rest of the passengers were jumping ashore, glad to stretch their legs. Orlad put Namberson in charge, telling him to see the palls spread on bushes to dry. Then he went exploring, as a leader should. The islands were less secure than they looked, for an agile man could wade, swim, or sometimes jump from one to another, and all of them were wooded more or less heavily with spindly trees and high shrubbery. Those would make good cover, but the ground was thick with twigs and dead leaves, so nobody should manage to sneak up on anyone in the night.
He found himself a small, sunny glade, where he could stretch out and do some serious thinking. Or perhaps he just needed to be alone, after his tumultuous day. He clasped his hands under his head and stared up at a cloudless sky through a weave of canes and bare branches. The girl had tried to lecture him about duty. Duty to whom? To what? He certainly owed no allegiance to a bloodlord whose deputy had tried to murder him. Nor any to Arbanerik. Did he owe anything to a father who had given him away? His oath was to Weru, of course, but he owed his life to his followers, his flank, and he certainly couldn’t lead them over the Edge to be mistaken for Stralg men and slain in the upcoming massacre. If Cavotti eventually chased Stralg back into Vigaelia, then Orlad would be the odd one out on this side, liable to be killed on sight. Under Cavotti or Arbanerik, he would be just one more front- fang Werist. As the doge’s son, he would be unique. He certainly couldn’t let the eunuch outdo him in raw courage or the girl in duty. It was confusing.
A shift in the wind brought him a whiff of bungweed, and that provoked a rush of unhappy memory. As the only Florengian child around Nardalborg, he had always been appointed the Mutineer, so all the rest of the boys could be Stralg’s Heroes, who would then hunt him down and beat him up. Bungweed grew in the moorland bogs where the best hiding places were, so its scent whispered of long hours of shivering in concealment, waiting for the inevitable ordeal to follow. He had taught them to do their hunting in groups, though. He had become very good at ambushing the strays.
Lost in reminiscence, he started when he heard footsteps rustling, then realized they must belong to a Werist. An extrinsic would make ten times as much noise. In a moment the celebrated Waels smile appeared above him, more diffident than usual.
“Am I intruding, lord?”
Orlad said, “No.” He wasn’t, surprisingly. “Sit down and talk, Hero.”
Waels dropped, folding his legs on the way down. Orlad smiled-smiling was something he had to remember to do, not something that just happened. After that he was content just to contemplate the sky again.
Eventually Waels grew fidgety. “Talk about what, lord?”
“Anything. The battle? You were great! Or explain people to me. Yesterday I discovered I had family. Today I found friends, too. I’ve never had either before. Don’t know how to handle them.”
“You’ve been doing amazingly well… if you don’t mind my saying so?”
“Have I? Life is complicated, suddenly.” Why, for instance, was he pleased to have Waels as company?
“Um…” In another rustle of leaves, Waels stretched out beside him and leaned on an elbow. “It could be even more complicated.” His eyes were bluer than the sky behind him.
“How?”
“Suppose you had a lover, too?”
That should have been a surprise, but it wasn’t. Waels wasn’t blushing or smirking, and Orlad was certain he wasn’t, either. He remembered their intimate, face-to-face confrontation on King’s Grass. His own reaction had puzzled him. He considered his memories of Musky, last night, which felt like a lifetime ago now. This was not that. Similar-some of the reactions were the same-but more complicated.
“I know even less about love. Nothing at all.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Waels touched a finger to Orlad’s collar and studied it as if he had never seen one before. “Remember the morning you chose me as your buddy? That was the happiest moment I’d known since my brother died.”
“You had a brother? What happened to him?”
“Died in cadet training. He was a spare. I’d been watching you all through the testing, admiring you, and when you appointed me your buddy, I knew that you wouldn’t let them do that to me. I almost wept, my lord.”
Orlad mumbled, “Understandable.” Never forgivable, though.
The smile that Benard admired flashed again, spoiled by the scarlet birthmark. “I’ve known ever since then… Orlad?”
Smile. “Waels.”
After a while Orlad smiled again, this time without meaning to. “This morning, up on King’s Grass-I have never been so glad to see anyone as I was when I found myself looking down at you.” Lying on top of him, in fact. “I’d so nearly torn your gullet out! Glad I didn’t.”
“Me too.” Another pause. “Just wanted you to know.” The blue eyes held challenge. “How I feel about you, I mean. Sorry if I offend… Orlad.”
“No,” Orlad said. “You don’t offend me, Waels. Not at all.” He caught hold of Waels’s collar and yanked him close. “How does one begin?”
Big smile. “Like this, I think…”
FABIA CELEBRE
and her companions had camped on one of the Milk Islands on their way upriver. This one was more wooded, but the trees concealed a level, secluded campsite with a well of sweet water and a fire pit surrounded by tree- trunk benches. Luxury! She and Horth found a sunlit bench where they could sit while the riverfolk pitched tents, and were soon joined by Ingeld, Benard, and Guthlag. Later she saw Dantio playing slave, barefoot and stripped down to breeches, spreading the Werists’ palls over bushes to dry. She persuaded him to come and sit beside her to tell the others what he had told her about the day Celebre fell, fifteen years ago.
“You are the only one of us who remembers it,” she said.
“And I would happily forget.”
Four Heroes gathered around and sprawled on the grass to listen, still wearing riverfolk castoffs, so that only their stubbled heads and the glint of sunlight on their collars showed their allegiance.
It was not a happy story. “Mama carried you into the farmhouse,” Dantio finished. “That’s the last I saw of you for years.”
“What happened to her after that?”
“I don’t know. We cannot see what happens beyond the Edge. I heard extrinsic reports that she was still alive earlier this year, caring for Father.”
