The Bloodforged (11 page)

“Of course we have rank,” she said, tossing her head proudly. “But it is earned, not born into.”

“Well, here it's both. Would it surprise you to learn that my second is common-born and has a very nice bloodblade? He
earned his rank by virtue of his competence, and his weapon by virtue of his rank. I'd love to put one in the hands of every man and woman in my army, but we have one bloodbinder, and it just isn't possible.” He gestured with his cup at the bloodbow sitting beside his shortsword. “I've had that bow since I was twelve years old. The greatsword since I was eighteen. The shortsword—that's new. A commander general spends most of his time on horseback, which makes my preferred weapon a bit impractical. So I had that made.” He arched an eyebrow. “Does that explanation meet with your approval, Daughter?”

She hitched a shoulder. “You don't need my approval, obviously.” Her tone was sullen, but there was a stubborn cast to her mouth that Rig found more than a little appealing.

“I might not need it,” he said with a grin, “but it's nice to have. Not unlike fine wine.”

“You're making fun of me again.”

He didn't deny it, but he did make a peace offering. “Earlier,” he said. “You had an idea, I could tell. I'd be interested in hearing it.”

She narrowed her eyes over the rim of her cup, wary of more teasing.

“Something to do with the Andithyrian Resistance,” he prodded. “Tell me.”

She hesitated, took another sip of her wine. “If you truly wish to know, I was wondering if I might do better.”

“Meaning?”

“Contacting the Resistance. I thought perhaps I might have more luck.”

He blinked; he certainly hadn't expected
that
. “And how would you propose to make that happen?”

She gave him a flat look. “A dark spell, naturally. Or perhaps a well-targeted seduction. I am undecided.”

“I thought we were having a serious conversation.”

“By going there, obviously. How else?” She gazed boldly into his eyes, daring him to mock her.

“By going where? Andithyri is a small country, but it's not that small.”

“Where have you been sending your spies?”

“Spies? I don't know what you're talking about. More wine?”

She sniffed, but handed over her cup. “It's not so outlandish. The Andithyrians are strong in their faith. They might trust me, even if I am a woman.”

“They might, assuming they ever laid eyes on you.” Rig headed to the mantel and poured more wine. “The Oridians would pounce the moment they saw you. You have bronze skin and black hair. Not an asset if you're in the business of espionage in the land of the white-hairs.”

“I'm sure we could come up with an appropriately convincing story.”

He paused, a cup in each hand, the sweet-smelling steam tickling his nose. “You're serious about this, aren't you?”

“Why shouldn't I be?”

He handed her the wine. “Take no offence, Daughter, but it's a bit early in our relationship to be planning espionage.”

Something flitted through her eyes, something Rig couldn't place. It was gone almost instantly, replaced by a coy little curve of her mouth. “Do you expect our relationship to advance, General?”

Rig knew a shield when he saw one. Whatever she'd been about to say, she'd lost her nerve, and now she was hiding behind the sultry priestess act. That didn't mean he had to play along, though. “I'll consider it,” he said. And he would—at his own pace. He'd just met this woman, and her commander. He wasn't about to entrust so important a task to just anyone, especially someone he had as much trouble reading as this mercurial priestess of Eldora. “We'll talk about it again another time. Assuming we survive tomorrow, that is.”

She turned her gaze on the fire. Sipped her wine. “Do you think it will work? This preemptive strike of yours?”

“Defensive provocation. You seem to be well familiar with the tactic.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“I know enough for today.” He smiled to soften the words, took her empty cup. “If you'll excuse me, I need sleep. Tomorrow's sort of an important day for me.”

“For us all,” she said solemnly. “If I do not see you on the morn, may Eldora be your sign, General.”

Rig started to make his customary reply about Eldora not fancying him, but thought better of it. Somehow, he doubted
Vel had much of a sense of humour where the Holy Virtues were concerned.

When she'd gone, he picked up the greatsword, slid it into its scabbard, and set it in the corner with his shortsword. He dropped onto his bed fully clothed. The firelight cast strange shadows on the ceiling; they seemed to take the shapes of borders and coastlines, mountains and rivers, a giant map that shifted every time he got a fix on it. By the time he fell asleep, thoughts of espionage and prickly priestesses were far behind him.

He dreamed of war.

T
he ram raised its head, nostrils twitching, scenting the air. A glorious specimen, with great coiling horns as thick as a man's arm. Its glassy black eyes stared in Erik's direction, but he was downwind and well hidden, invisible to the animal. Only the creak of his bloodbow had given any sign of danger. The ram stood on a rocky outcropping, framed against jagged peaks and a clear blue sky, barrel-chested and posing like the symbol of Destan himself. Erik's arms started to ache, his eyes tearing against the glare of the melting snow. Still he hesitated. Such a magnificent creature . . .

But his men were hungry and half frozen, and this was the first decent game they had spotted in days. Sighing inwardly, Erik let fly. The enchantment guided his arrow straight between the animal's eyes; it pitched to its knees with a grunt before slumping to the ground.

He approached the carcass warily, bow nocked in case he should stumble upon another ram ready to charge. Cresting the rock, he found the rest of the herd grazing contentedly along a grassy slope down into the valley, clustered around their lambs
and blissfully unaware of anything amiss. Erik debated dropping another, but the ram weighed at least twenty stone, difficult enough to carry back to camp.

“Need a hand with that?”

He glanced over his shoulder. Alix already had her knife out, blade glinting in the ever-present sunshine of the Broken Mountains. “Thanks,” he said. “It will go faster.”

Alix considered the fallen ram. “A nice one. We used to keep a couple of these mounted on the walls at Blackhold.”

“The horns are impressive.”

“And useful. The tribes make all kinds of things from them. Jewellery. Cups. Even blades.”

“And warhorns,” Erik said—and immediately regretted it. Alix was tense enough without the reminder of the lurking danger of the mountain tribes. She tried not to show it, but she was too exhausted to fool anyone, least of all Erik.

She knelt and took the ram's hind leg, splaying it out and slicing open the abdomen. It was a gory scene against the snow, crimson and purple and steaming, but they worked efficiently. They needed to finish and get back to camp as quickly as possible; they were too exposed out here.

“You've done this before,” Erik remarked.

“Once or twice. Mostly, I watched Rig do it. I used to come along on hunting trips as often as he'd let me. I enjoyed the stalking part.” She straightened, examining her bloodstained hands. “This part, less enjoyable.”

“Agreed.”

They cut off the head, washed the cavity out with snow, and trussed up what was left of the carcass. Alix tried to dig a hole with her knife, but the ground was still too frozen, so they kicked snow over the mess. With luck, by the time it was discovered, they would be well gone from this place. A flock of carrion birds or a pack of scavenging wolves would be certain to draw the attention of any passing tribesman—just the sort of thing to get them all killed.

“This isn't going to be easy,” Erik said, staring ruefully at the carcass. “Next time, we should bring the horses.”

“Too easy to spot at a distance. We'll take turns. I'm strong enough. I carried you over my shoulder once, remember.”

As though he could forget. “I daresay this ram still weighs
more than I do, even without his guts.” That, and Alix was not as strong as she had once been. Aside from ordinary exhaustion, she was still recovering from the fever. Two days on, and she could barely keep her food down. She tried to hide that too, but of course Erik noticed.

As it turned out, however, they did not have far to go. After less than half an hour of walking, a figure stepped out from behind a rock and into their path and, at the sight of what they were carrying, clapped her hands in a manner rather at odds with her function as a concealed sentry. “Oh, Your Majesty, how wonderful!” exclaimed the little blond scout called Kerta.

Erik let the carcass slide off his shoulder and rolled his neck, wincing. He would be feeling that for days. “If you don't mind, I'll let someone relieve me from here. How much farther to camp?”

“Another half hour or so,” Kerta said. “Alix, help me drag this behind the rock while I fetch Frida. She's just over that rise . . .”

Alix wasn't listening. Instead, she stared grimly at the footprints they had left in the snow. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for a light snowfall. That trail's going to be there for days. Weeks, if it gets cold again.”

“It can't be helped,” Erik said. “Let's worry about the things we can control, Alix.”

“It's my duty to worry about everything, sire.”

Erik was too tired to argue.

They made their way down into the valley and the protective cover of the pines. The Condor's Nest was not the easiest pass through the Broken Mountains, but it was thought to be less frequented by the tribes. So far, that intelligence had proved reliable; the only evidence they had seen of human activity was the shaft of an arrow embedded in a fir tree. At least two seasons old, if Erik was any judge, and perhaps a good deal older.

Even so, he worried. Of course he worried, and not just about the tribes. Five days out from Blackhold, and already they had lost a man after a patch of melting snow gave way beneath his feet. Then there was the fever, striking a handful of them, including Alix, virtually the moment they quit civilisation. Morale was low. That obliged Erik to be even more cheerful, even more sanguine about their success, though he risked looking the fool.
Already they were falling behind schedule. Erik could feel the time slipping through his fingers like fresh-fallen snow, and with it, their chances of salvation. If they did not reach Ost in time . . .

He shook his head. It did not bear thinking about.

They arrived at camp to find the tents already pitched, the horses rubbed down and fed. The men clustered around a single fire built deep in a pit. It was warmer down here in the pines, but still barely above freezing, even by day. “Mutton tonight, lads,” Erik called, and was rewarded with brightened expressions. “Enough to go around and then some.”

One of the men came over with a basin of warm water for washing. “Saw some panther tracks down by the creek, sire,” he said. “Fresh ones.”

Erik smiled, as if the news delighted him. “If you see it, I'd happily take the pelt off your hands. It would make for a handsome cloak, don't you think?”

The guardsman grinned and promised to deliver it if he had the chance.

“Not good news,” Alix said in an undertone when the guardsman had gone.

“No. Would it dare attack the camp, do you think?”

“I doubt it, but with the scent of food around, you never know. A scout on her own, or a man relieving himself in the dark . . .”

Erik sighed. Just one more thing to worry about.

But not tonight. Tonight was for roast meat and warmed wine, and maybe, if they were lucky, just a little bit of cheer. The gods knew they needed it.

*   *   *

Alix filled her
lungs with pine. The smell of home. Something familiar, comforting. This forest could be in the foothills of the Blacklands, just a little above the birch and the poplars and the heart-shaped aspens, those well-loved woods where Alix had learned to move silently through the brush, soggy leaves squelching beneath her boots and wild roses snatching at her clothing.

It could be, but it wasn't. Instead it was hostile territory, untamed and ungovernable, full of prowling barbarians and
natural booby traps. It had claimed one of them already. It would claim more, Alix felt sure.

She sighed.
When did I become such a pessimist?
About the moment she'd agreed to be the king's bodyguard, presumably. She'd aged a decade overnight.

So had Erik. She looked over at him, riding silently beside her, gaze abstracted as he mulled over the task ahead of him. War had aged him too. Not physically—if anything he was stronger, fitter—but in spirit. Erik carried the weight of the kingdom on those broad shoulders of his. All those smiles and blithe predictions of success—he didn't fool Alix for a moment. He was every bit as anxious as she was. How not, with the survival of his kingdom at stake, and their party falling further behind schedule with each passing day?

“Last night was nice,” she said, to break him out of his thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“Supper. It was nice.”

“It was, wasn't it? Though I feel badly for the advance party. It hardly seems fair they should miss out after working so hard to scout the way for us.”

“Don't worry about them. They're being relieved tomorrow, and I've saved them all a taste. It'll keep in this temperature.”

Erik smiled. “You're a good leader, Alix.”

“I learned from the best.”

He looked away, staring off into the trees. Silence fell again, broken only by the horses' hooves punching through a hard crust of melting snow, the trickle of water at the edges of the ice. The snow lasted a little longer here in the shade of the pines, but even that would be gone soon, leaving only the peaks above them wreathed in white.

“How much longer until we're out of the mountains, do you suppose?” Alix thought she knew the answer, but she'd be damned if she let that silence, whatever it was, sit between them.

“About a week, I should think. It takes about ten days from Blackhold in summer, so I suppose it takes half that again in conditions like these.”

She'd thought as much, but she couldn't help the sour turn of her mouth. A week . . . it might as well have been forever.
And then another three days after that to get to Ost, though at least they'd have an escort at the foot of the mountains.

“A long time,” Erik said, reading her expression, “but we'll be heading down soon, and things will warm up. That should make things easier. Warmer nights, more plentiful game.”

“Fewer tracks in the snow.”

He sighed. “Alix . . .”

“Though I suppose if they know these mountains as well as Rig says, they don't need footprints to track us. They'll see it in the lichen on the rocks, or the scatter of pine needles, or some such.”

“Honestly, Alix, I hardly think it helps to—”

A crack of thunder sounded in the distance, trailing a low rumble. Alix swore and looked up. The last thing they needed was a storm descending on them. The rain would freeze on top of the snow, making it even more treacherous, and . . .

She frowned. “Did you hear that?”

“The thunder?”

“But look—not a cloud in the sky.”

He glanced up. “On the other side of the peaks, perhaps.”

An airy hush settled over the pass, soft and unblemished, like a blanket of fresh powder. Then a cackle of ravens drew Alix's eye up the slope. A clutch of them had burst from the pines, rising like a cloud of smoke. Black wings swept the sky, a dozen or more, grating voices scolding the silence.

Alix looked from the blazing blue of the sky into the blazing blue of Erik's eyes.

Seeing her fear, he paled. “Alix, what—”

The thunder returned, a low, steady growl on the slopes above them. But this time, it didn't go away; instead it grew louder, deeper, and now the horses were whinnying, dancing, and there was shouting from the men behind them.

Alix's blood froze in her veins.

“Ride, Erik! Go, go, go!”

But it was too late. A roar unlike anything Alix had ever heard broke over them in a wave, drowning out the shouts of men and the screaming of horses and the panicked calls of the ravens. The pines shuddered and bowed, sending a sheet of snow down upon them, and a heartbeat later, the ground gave way.

Alix went down, swept into darkness, tumbling in a torrent
of ice and branches. Her hip cracked against a stone. Snow rushed into her mouth and up her nose. She tried to grab hold of something, to brace herself, but a frigid, smothering weight pressed down on her from all sides, pinning her arms and legs against her. She was in a coffin of ice, banded in iron, layer upon layer piling on top of her in an ever-deepening grave. Panic flared through her, a mindless, numbing terror that stole every thought until all that was left was a silent scream.

She slammed up against something hard, light exploding between her temples. The thundering roar filled her head, her chest, crushing, freezing, dragging the world over top of her.

And then, gradually, the rumbling died away, the shifting slowed, until all that was left was a soft
hiss
and the crowding dark of oblivion.

Stillness.

A crack of light over her shoulder.

Alix twitched. The crack widened, snow spilling away. Drunk with panic, she took a moment to react. Then she was bucking, twisting, clawing her way free of a prison of pine branches. The tree she'd been swept against lay half buried; Alix couldn't get a foothold in the loose snow. She scrabbled and swam, fighting not to be drawn back into the dark.

“Erik!”
She looked around wildly, but all she could see was a smooth white slope peppered with broken branches. The windy hush had settled again. It was as if the mountainside had been scoured clean, as if none of them had ever been there.

“Erik!”

Somewhere down the slope, a horse screamed. Alix twisted, still waist-deep, but she couldn't locate the source. There was no sign of her own horse. She'd managed to pull her feet from the stirrups just as the snow hit; the animal had been torn out from under her. She waded away from the tree, gaze raking the scene for any sign of clothing, flesh, anything that might stand as a marker of the place where her friends lay buried. She called Erik's name again and again, her voice splitting the terrible silence.

Movement caught her eye. Alix dragged herself toward it and saw a hand wriggling free. Too small to be Erik's. Too small to be anyone's but . . . “Kerta!” Alix scrabbled at the snow. “Kerta, I'm here!”