The Sentinel Mage (36 page)

And then, as if a veil had suddenly been drawn back from her eyes, she saw them: cavities that had been bricked up. Both the bricks and the crumbling mortar were the same color as the sandstone.

“This used to be fields,” Tomas said, with a sweeping gesture at the desert. “When the grain was harvested, they stored it in caves and bricked them up.”

Innis shook her head. It was impossible to imagine the sand dunes covered in grass and the river running high, filling its banks. “Fields?”

Tomas nodded.

“What happened, sire?”

Tomas shrugged. “The grass died, the trees died, the river dried up.”

“When?”

“More than a thousand years ago.”

“Magic?” Prince Harkeld asked. “A curse?”

“What else could it be?”

Innis chewed on a piece of sausage. She studied the cliffs, the sand dunes. She couldn’t see any signs of an ancient curse.

“It was natural,” Dareus said. He sat across from them. “A drought.”

“But the tales say—”

“Do you believe every story you hear?”

Tomas closed his mouth. His expression was mulish. Innis read his thoughts clearly on his face:
You think I’d trust the word of a witch?

A
S THE AFTERNOON
progressed, wind began to gust off the desert. With it, came swirling clouds of red sand. When they finally halted for the night, Harkeld slid wearily from his horse. Sand grains were gritty in his eyes, in his mouth. He unslung his waterskin and drained it, gulping the lukewarm water greedily.

They sat around two small campfires and ate a stringy stew made from dried fish. Sand crunched between Harkeld’s teeth as he chewed. “How far ahead is Ditmer now?” Tomas asked the shapeshifters. He put his bowl to one side and unrolled the map.

“He was setting up camp...there.” Ebril pointed with his spoon. “Where the river enters the canyon again.”

“We’ve gained on him, then.”

Harkeld leaned forward to look at the map. The distance they’d covered seemed tiny. “How many days to Ner?”

“A week or so. We’ll catch up with Ditmer before then.” Tomas traced the river’s course on the map with one finger. “Somewhere here. In the canyon.” He grimaced. “Horrible place.”

“Horrible? Why?”

“You’ll understand once we get there.”

One of the soldiers around the second campfire shouted.

Tomas surged to his feet, half-drawing his sword.

Harkeld stopped chewing. The soldiers were stamping at an object in the sand.

“Scorpions.” Tomas sheathed his sword and sat again. “They like fires. The heat, the light. It draws them.” But his manner wasn’t as nonchalant as his words; he glanced uneasily at the ground before picking up his bowl.

“Are they poisonous?” Harkeld asked.

“They won’t kill you,” Tomas said. “But for a day or so you’ll wish they had.”

“Painful?”

“Very.”

Harkeld half-choked on a mouthful of stew as shouts rose from the soldiers again. There was a note of pain inone of the voices.

“Someone’s been stung.” The girl, Innis, put down her bowl and hurried across to the other fire. Dareus and Tomas followed her.

After a moment, Harkeld rose and followed them.

Innis crouched beside the stricken man. The sting was on the soldier’s calf; his face was twisted into a grimace of pain.

The girl laid her hand over the puncture wound. She closed her eyes for a long moment, an expression of concentration on her face.

“Well?” Dareus asked, crouching alongside her.

Innis opened her eyes. “It’s a strong poison, but not deadly.”

“Can you heal him?” Tomas asked.

She glanced up. “I can’t draw out the poison, if that’s what you’re asking. But I can alleviate some of the symptoms.”

“Poison’s difficult for us,” Dareus told Tomas. “It’s much easier to fix a broken bone or repair torn tissue.” He reached for one of the soldier’s hands, turned it palm up, and laid his own hand on it. “To remove poison from the bloodstream requires us to clean each drop of blood—a task that would take many mages many days.”

The soldier was shivering. Sweat stood out on his face.

“Will he be well enough to travel tomorrow?” Tomas asked.

“We’ll do our best.”

At Tomas’s order, they extinguished the campfires, smothering them with sand, then retrieving the precious, half-charred wood.

Without the firelight to coax them in, no more scorpions came scuttling over the sand dunes. Even so, Harkeld slept fitfully, jerking awake several times to the sound of the witches working on the soldier—the low murmur of their voices, the man groaning.

By morning, the soldier was well enough to travel—after a fashion. He lurched and stumbled towards his horse, blinking as if his vision were blurred. Despite the chilly dawn, a sheen of sweat covered his face.

Dareus rode beside the soldier, easing the cramps that periodically racked him. “How long does it take a man to recover?” Harkeld asked Tomas.

“Three or four days before they can even stand upright.”

Harkeld glanced at the soldier riding hunched over on his horse, at Dareus alongside, his hand resting on the man’s arm.

“We’re lucky we’ve got the witches with us,” Tomas said. He pulled a face and laughed. “Never thought I’d hear myself say that!”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

T
HERE WERE TWO
maps left to copy. Britta used red ink to mark the arrows, as the duke had done. The fourth bell was ringing by the time she finished the last one. She laid down the quill and flexed her fingers.

“Britta?” Yasma appeared in the doorway to the bedchamber.

Terror froze her in the chair. Her heart seemed to stop beating. “He’s here?”

“No.” Yasma shook her head. “But the fourth bell has rung. You need to stop.”

Britta pressed her hands to her face for a brief moment. Her fingers were trembling. “I’ve finished.” She picked up the maps and thrust them at Yasma. “Here, hide them.”

T
HE DUKE EMERGED
from the bedchamber, flushed and smug. Karel stared stolidly at the opposite wall and imagined drawing his sword. He listened to the duke’s footsteps come closer. His fingers flexed, touched the sword hilt.
Here, when you’re this close, I’d take your head.

Once the duke had departed, Yasma went into the bedchamber. Nearly an hour passed before she emerged again.

“How is she?” Karel asked. It was a stupid question.
How do you think she is? The duke’s just spent an hour rutting her.
The daydream blossomed in his mind again, so vivid he could almost smell the duke’s blood.

“Sleeping,” Yasma said.

The afternoon passed slowly. Yasma was busy in the dining room, lining baskets with silk. Karel watched a band of sunlight slowly move, sliding along a wall, making silver threads glint in a tapestry, then inching across the floor, where the thickly piled rugs came alive with color. He paced the salon and looked into the dining room. Baskets were lined up on the long table. Inside them, crystal vases lay on beds of silk. One vase stood on the table, a delicate fluted shape. Yasma was bent over a basket lined with moss green silk, sewing. He thought he heard the crackle of parchment. “What are you doing?”

Yasma started so violently that her elbow thumped the table. The vase teetered. Karel strode across and steadied it before it could fall. He had a flash of memory: the king’s atrium, a gilded vase smashing.

Perhaps Yasma had the same memory. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with fear. “I was just... The lining was crooked. I’m re-sewing it.” She thrust the vase on top of the moss green silk and stood, her movements jerky and flustered.

“Are you all right?” Karel asked.

“Yes,” Yasma said, but she still looked pale. “You startled me, is all.” She rubbed her elbow. “What time is it? I should check on her.” She hurried across to the door.

Karel eyed the moss green basket. The silk lining looked thicker than the others. He reached out to touch it.

“Karel.” Yasma’s voice was sharp. “Don’t touch them.”

Karel looked over his shoulder.

Yasma stood in the doorway, anxious, edgy. “The vases are fragile. You might break one.”

I don’t think that’s what you’re afraid of.
“They look nice,” Karel said mildly. And then he followed Yasma back into the salon.

O
NCE
Y
ASMA WAS
closeted with the princess, Karel returned to the dining room. He studied the long table. Twenty-three baskets were lined up on the polished wood. Delicate crystal vases nestled on beds of crimson and yellow, leaf green and sky blue. Only one basket was lined with moss green.

He walked over to the basket with the moss green silk. The needle and thread still dangled from it. Karel carefully picked up the vase and placed it on the table. He fingered the lining, heard the rustle of parchment beneath the silk.

A gilt-edged card lay on the table.
Lady Pirnilla
, he read. The wife of Lundegaard’s ambassador.

Karel sat in the seat Yasma had vacated. He slid the needle from the thread, undid half a dozen stitches, and lifted up one corner of the lining. Sheets of parchment lay folded underneath the silk.

Karel pulled the sheets out and laid them on the table. Pages of writing, folded maps.
What’s going on here?

He opened one of the maps. It showed the border between Osgaard and Lundegaard. Red arrows were drawn on it.

Understanding flared inside him. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, could only stare, then he reached for the top sheet of writing and began to read swiftly. It was a letter, written in the princess’s hand, more scrawled than usual, but with the fluidity Yasma’s writing lacked.

Karel skimmed it quickly.
Osgaardan soldiers
, she’d written.
Guise of refugees
. And further down the page,
Take the gold fields
, and
Sarkosian mercenaries
.

The princess finished simply:
I enclose copies of the maps and plans. Please believe that every word is true.

She had signed the letter:
A friend.

Karel refolded the map and replaced everything in the basket. He understood Yasma’s fear now. The maps, the pages of writing, were proof of treason. To be found with them would mean death.

He rethreaded the needle, his fingers clumsy with haste. If the duke returned now, if the pages were discovered—

With the lining stitched back the way Yasma had left it and the vase lying snugly in the basket again, he felt only marginally safer. Fear sat beneath his breastbone as he hurried back into the salon and took his position alongside the door.

If you knew what she was doing, you’d approve
, Yasma had said.

Karel shook his head. He didn’t want to see Lundegaard conquered, he truly didn’t, but—

Cold sweat broke out on his skin at thought of what would happen if Princess Brigitta’s treason was discovered. She was walking an extremely dangerous path. One misstep could kill her. And Yasma.

Karel closed his eyes.
All-Mother
, he prayed.
Keep her safe. Please
.