The King's Blood (29 page)

Just as Marciano passed onto the forest road he thought to himself, "I hope Gian finishes with that pointless business I sent him on soon." Either way, the boy was a master tracker. He'd catch up in his own time.

The General spurred Peter into a gallop. There would be blood tonight.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

W
inter winds, now in full frost biting swing, clung to the fresh skirts wrapped around Ciara's ankles. "Pull!" she shouted, only her smoky breath visible beneath a hood of furs.

"I bloody well am pulling!" Chance said, his grip growing slick in that conundrum of icy sweat.

"What? Did ya want pull or push?" Chase asked, his head poking around behind the wedged caravan's wheel.

"You push," she said extending an uncovered hand to Chase, then called to Chance, "And you pull."

Chance dropped the rope and tried to spit on his hands, but the saliva froze to goobery ice before it landed. Sighing, he picked up the rope once more and gave haul.
 

A sheepish head rose from inside the caravan's window. He didn't mean to steer the thing into the snow bank the other three expertly avoided but there'd been a fly. He insisted upon it even after the others calmly pointed out that in the dead of winter the only living insect was the moronic historian who just drove head first into an avalanche of snow. But that may not be true for long.

"Are you still inside, Dean Dean?" Ciara yelled to the head.
 

Dean Dean panicked, his breath fogging up the grey glass, and vanished back inside. The other historians hadn't been much help, most pointing to their stacks of mounting research. Some claimed that exam time was coming up and they needed to prepare,
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and most inexpertly hid behind crates in the hope the girl wouldn't notice them. Only Chase and Chance, who were finally fully-fledged associate professors now, volunteered to help (but neither were on the tenure track if they kept agreeing to things they needn't do).
 

"Cia, we're going to have to dig more of the wheel out," a voice called from beneath the carriage's underbelly.

In the passing pair of months, Aldrin grew more adventurous, shaking off his scholarly duties to stride about in the heavy falling snows carrying about a hammer until someone pointed him at a nail. It was probably all that Ostero blood, but he seemed to come alive in the wintry weather that refused to let up.

Cia, who shuddered at the easy shortening her name took, walked to the front of the carriage where Chase was still leaning heavily into the un-moveable wheel. Picking up one of the shovels tossed haphazardly into the bank, she sat down then leaned back in the snow. With her heels, she pushed herself under the carriage. A cold pair of boots blocked her path. Aldrin had managed to stretch himself on his stomach and was half way into the snow pile. Only parts of his legs were visible, swaddled in enough fur to give him the appearance of the satyrs of old. The fact his boots were so poorly made he often slipped them on the wrong foot half the time completed the cloven look.

Ciara stared up at what she suspected the inside of a giant clock looked like. Aldrin tore the under panels off to try and unclog the axle and some other stuff he babbled to himself about. He scattered a few extra pieces across the ground to pick up after the carriage was moving again. A hand dropped out of the snow bank and smacked into her furry head. "Sorry," the prince mumbled, his mind off on its own.

Ciara passed the shovel to him and the hand vanished back into the bank. She only had enough time to slide out as the prince moved down from his snow fort towards the still wedged wheel. Standing, she tried to shake some of the snow off her back like a dog out of a bath. Chase patted her back to help, but it was already seeping into her skin.

It was going to take a few mugs of spiced whatever alcohol they still carried to shake off this growing chill in her bones. Assuming they got moving before spring set in. Deep below, a few grunts matched the scraping sound of iron clanging against iron. Ciara wondered where Aldrin was putting all the snow he dug out, though there was a good chance he was eating it.
 

"Ah!" the shovel flew out from under the carriage and a pair of unclothed hands gripped the sides. The familiar visage appeared, as flushed about the cheeks and forehead as a girl dreaming of her first crush while a long drip of snot coated under his nose. Trying to be more presentable, Aldrin swiped his face, leaving a trail of snow embedded in the smattering of cracker dust lip hair in his wake.
 

"Should be ready to go now," he said, holding out a hand. Ciara grabbed it and pulled him out, his body leaving a widening divot in the snow. He stood, trying to shake the snow clinging to his sweaty brow and hair. The red robes he disguised himself in since the castle barely reached past his calves anymore. A small patch of increasingly hairy ankle flashed the frozen world.

As Aldrin dug snow out of his ears, Ciara counted out to the brothers. "Okay on my signal you p...do what I told you to do before. One, two, now!"

Together Chance and Chase yanked and pushed, pulled and leaned until first one wheel, then another finally found traction. Gaining enough momentum, the third finally sided with its fellows, dragging the fourth along against its will.
 

The other historians huddled around their own windows watching the progress cheered as the caravan rolled out of the snow bank and down the small hill. "Stop pushing!" Ciara shouted as the carriage started to make a break for the second snow bank on the other side of the road.
 

Nodding, Chase grabbed the now turning wheel, putting the breaks upon the errant caravan while Chance keep tugging uselessly upon the rope. Aldrin laughed, still shaking his head heavy with ice in the hopes it would help. "Grog?"

Ciara jumped up and down on her frozen feet, nodding to him. "Later we turn that thing so it can actually go down the road," she said to the brothers circling it like vultures, "For now we warm up lest anyone catch their death."

"I tried to catch my death once but he refused to wait for me," Chase said.

"Uh, right," Ciara agreed nonchalantly. Half the time the brothers spoke in riddles, the other half made no sense at all. Stuffing her fingers deep into her sleeves, she made for Medwin's caravan, Aldrin nipping at her heels.

Medwin was already over pouring a trio of glasses with enough of the good stuff to give Aldrin the giggles for a week. Ciara stripped off her fur coat, moth eaten and older than her mother's mother, but a welcome addition to her shivering skin. Ever since the first snowstorm she lived inside the overcoat she traded Aldrin's shirt for what felt decades ago. Layers were about the only defense one had against the brutal winds the caravans faced as they crawled north.

"It sounds as though you were successful," Medwin said, calmly passing a mug to his reader.
 

Ciara, in kind, passed it to Aldrin, who was digging snow out of his boots with his fingers and tossing it back out the door. He spun around and smiled at her, his soggy hair dribbling down his face as it melted. She smiled back and pushed the mug into him, he barely noticed the added warmth.

Her fingers screamed in pain as life flowed back into them, warmth thawing the ice crystals forming in her blood. But she ignored it and happily accepted the other warm mug, "There wasn't too much trouble. Assuming we can keep Dean from steering again, we should make for Breckenridge before nightfall."

"But keep a safe distance," Medwin intoned.

"Yes, Sir," Ciara said, sadly. They hadn't seen a single piece of black armor in nearly six weeks during their flight, but the Chancellor still insisted they keep as far from civilization as possible. Only Kaltar and a few of the other robes who stayed in the green closet would make the occasional trip into a town to secure some supplies, maybe tell a mind numbing tale about how the water levels in the area used to contain a 0.05% metal impurity, scoop up the coins tossed their way to get them to shut up, and try to slink back to the caravans without being followed.

On top of the bags of oats, ink and vellum, they also came with rumors. The east was burning, or so locals camped out in front of a roaring fire with nothing more to do than talk about burning towns claimed. Some said it was the Empire, alighting every town they passed to display what happened to those who threatened their rule. Others that it was the Ostero Queen, spurned by vengeance for her husband and wiping out all of the Empire's Arda. A few of the creative ones tried to convince everyone else it was a dragon but that got a "Sit down George, yer drinkin' too much again."

Aldrin took a long draw of the brew, a secret mix of everything in the liquor cabinet with a sprig of dried mint. "The main crank shaft could use a good lubing and the chains on the axle are beginning to rust."

Ciara shrugged, clanking the spoon in her mug. Medwin, about as mechanically minded as a dryad commune, nodded along to the boys machinations, "I shall inform Chase and Chance to pick up some, um 'chain lube.'"

The giggle in Aldrin's throat died with another splash of grog. It wasn't quite the same as what they had at castle Ostero, that was like putting a hot poker in your mouth while someone kicked you in the stomach. A real family drink. But it still reminded him of home, his younger days vanishing into snow banks that could drift so high you'd only need a small step stool to scale some castle walls.
 

Ciara glanced at the boy's winter attire. He favored the same overcoat, not buttoned up, and the single robe all the other historians wore two or three of, on top of their scarves, mittens, and shawls wrapped manly around their shoulders. By all rights he should be a prince-sicle, but he smiled as if he was having the time of his life wading knee deep into snow and rolling in it.

"You must be part arctic bear," she muttered.

"They say Ostero blood runs hot," Aldrin confessed, "If'n you talk to my Uncle he'd tell you it's because our ancestors drank the blood of the dragon. If you talked to my other Uncle it's because they drank something else." He'd have blushed there if his cheeks weren't still flushed from his dragon blood trying to keep him alive.

"I freeze if I even look at a north wind," Ciara confessed.
 

"Oh, is that from..." Aldrin pointed to her skin, still glistening from the icy exertion.

She said overtly loud, "My mother, my very Ardan mother, would spend all of winter draped in five different coats in front of the kitchen fires. It was my father who'd perch upon the parapets as the winds rattled the stones, watching the forests. Or trying to get away from the teenagers roaming the castle halls," she admitted.

Aldrin nodded, "He seemed the type. I mean being out in the cold. Not the avoiding you part." Their conversations came more easily, especially when the prince was trying to avoid another long conversation about provisional battle support in the event of a sea attack upon land locked Ostero with the robes. But he stumbled whenever they touched upon their uncrossable differences. At first she'd glared him into silence, but after a few weeks of growing used to him, she'd simply ignore his blunders.

"We'd never get the deep snows they have here, the mountain kept most for itself. But every morning of the first snow, my brother would wake up extra early, gather the ball of white into his hands, sneak into the room and chuck it at my face."

Aldrin laughed as Ciara twisted her features into feigned shock and horror as she reminisced. What was it about the cold of winter that brought ones mind back to home and hearth no matter how far away they may be? "I swore every year I'd get him back, but I never did," she said quietly.

"Madlaina was always putting breadcrumbs under my sheets. I'd chase after her with my old socks and she'd shriek, running from room to room until I tackled her," Aldrin sighed, looking into his half empty mug.

"What happened to her?" Ciara asked, feeling more interest than was probably healthy in this girl on the prince's mind.

"They married her off. She was only twelve when father bundled her to one of the warmer provinces talking about alliances and heads of cattle and other things I didn't much care about."

Out of his three older sisters, Madlaina was the only one that paid any attention to Aldrin. So close in age at barely a year apart, they were always chasing each other across the castle, getting into the best hiding places and spying on the knights fresh returned from battle. Then she was taken away and raised to be a proper lady while the spare was left to run wild, save for the occasional box about the ear from his nurse. Even then, she'd still sneak out every chance she got to give her younger brother hell.

As whispers of war heated up, his sisters began to vanish one by one, taking the gaggles of maidens that flocked about them with. Aldrin was the happier for it. The eldest, Tegria always sided with Henrik about everything. She was as certain as the crown prince that their mother's death had been the babes fault.