The Way Into Chaos (28 page)

He addressed Reglis and Arla directly. Wimnel was no soldier, and was not a concern. “The grunt that bit the king before we left was once a man. In fact, it was Colchua Freewell.”

“Freewell!’ Arla spat.

“Once, I would have agreed with you,” Tejohn said. “I have no love for the Freewells. But Colchua was bitten while defending his king. What no one realized at the time was that the bite cursed him. It transformed him into a grunt.”

There was an appalled silence. Reglis and Arla both glanced nervously at the king.
 

“Yes,” Tejohn said. “The king has also been cursed.”

“When did you know?” Wimnel said from the corner.
 

Tejohn wanted to strike him for asking a question, but he remembered Lar and the substitute swordmaster. He was the king’s counsel now and would have to act with the king’s wisdom. “Last night,” he said, his voice more snappish than he’d planned.
 

“When will the transformation complete?” Reglis asked stonily.

Lar shook his head. “Not. Tonight.”

Arla turned to Tejohn, her expression grim. “That’s why you hoped to find a sleepstone,” she said. “Not for the driver, but for the king.”

Lar shook his head again. “Wouldn’t.” There was a long pause before he managed to say “Work.”
 

“Nonetheless,” Tejohn said. “We three will keep watch tonight, in shifts. King Lar must sleep--no, do not protest. You are as exhausted as the driver. The king does not expect to--change tonight, but we must watch him while we watch over him.”
 

“If I change,” Lar said, forcing the words to come out, “bless me. Kill. Me. Bless, blessing blessed
bless
.”
 

The king bit the back of his hand to stop the words coming. No one spoke for a while, until Tejohn broke the silence. “Yes, my king.”
 

In the morning, they ate again. The king was ravenous but finally forced himself to stop after a double portion. Tejohn, Arla, and Reglis loaded their packs in silence. The king stood a bit apart from the others as they filed out of the building; Tejohn could see Reglis and Arla were uneasy.
 

Then Wimnel offered the king a bundle wrapped in black cloth. “I saved half of my rations for you, my king.”
 

Lar took them gratefully and, after a moment’s hesitation, put them in his pocket. Then he took Wimnel’s good arm and helped him navigate a dry streambed back down the trail.
 

They made better progress than the previous day, if only because the way was less steep. At Tejohn’s command, Arla scouted well ahead. By midmorning, she’d returned with troubling news.
 

Tejohn followed her along the path, jogging lightly to keep up. The king and Wimnel were in no condition to hurry, so Reglis stayed behind with them.
 

“There,” Arla said as she crawled to the crest of a hill. “Do you see?”

“I can not see far,” Tejohn said, “but it looks like a small village down there. I can see a stripe of pink that must be a scholar-created wall.”

“Not a village,” she responded. “A mining camp. They are flying a Finstel banner.”

The Finstels were loyal to the Italga family. Tejohn had been born and raised on Finstel lands, and he’d been a Finstel subject. Splashtown was the Finstel city, in fact. They had risked much for King Ellifer, and been handsomely rewarded with the service of the king’s scholars. “Do you think they will have a sleepstone down there?”
 

“A camp that size? I would expect so.” Tejohn’s heart leaped. Lar Italga might not think a sleepstone would fight his curse, but Tejohn intended to try. Who else did they have who could learn Ghoron Italga’s spell and lead Peradaini troops against the grunts?
 

He started to scramble to his feet, but the guide grabbed his arm and pulled him flat beside her. “My Tyr, before you rush down there, can you see the loaded cart out in the yard? Near the gate?”

“No.” Tejohn did not care about a loaded cart. They had little time to save the king, and he didn’t want to waste any of it.
 

“It’s small,” she said as though reassuring him. “That cart is a Durdric design, my Tyr. Little more than a wheelbarrow. I think the camp, and its sleepstone, are in enemy hands.”

Chapter 14

They kept going until sunrise. Cazia wanted to stop well before, but she did not say anything, and Vilavivianna insisted, urging her on. Cazia convinced herself that Peraday was somewhere out here, holed up in a lookout’s blind. Or something. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask where the guard could be found later, and now she was angry with herself about it.

I killed Colchua.

They heard no howls from grunts and saw no carts pass overhead. The sky turned bright blue without any sign of the sun. The two girls made good progress by the reflected light. Cazia thought she should say something to the little princess walking ahead of her, but she knew the first word that came out of her mouth would result in a flood of tears. Her brother was dead and it was her fault.
 

She’d felt such pride after she’d done it.
I am not an archer. I’m a scholar
. Fire take her for an arrogant fool.
 

But of course, Col had been attacking Lar, and her brother would never have chosen to do that on his own. The beast had taken over. The curse. Probably, her brother would have
wanted
to be killed rather than attack his best friend and king, but no, no, no, she couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t even approach that thought. She had killed Colchua—had swept him from The Way as though she herself were Fire—and she wasn’t going to pretend it had been a favor.

They walked along quietly. Eventually, tears did flow down Cazia’s face, but the princess didn’t look back, and she probably didn’t know what they might mean, anyway.
 

It wasn’t enough. She owed her brother more than a few silent tears--he deserved more--but she didn’t have it in her. She was too exhausted and frightened to fall to the ground and wail; it would have been a performance. Who would have been her audience? This little foreign princess wouldn’t care.

Those same thoughts churned all morning until they reached the crest of the pass, where the land began to slope down to the Sweeps, when Vilavivianna asked to stop.
 

They clambered uphill out of the path, taking shelter behind an outcropping of rock. As she unslung her pack, Cazia was startled to see an arrow sticking out of it. She broke the shaft and threw it away, then hunted for the arrow head among her things.
 

The copper point had struck her canteen, passing completely through the wood and skin and protruding into her blanket. Luckily, she hadn’t filled it yet, or all her things would be wet.
 

Vilavivianna was looking at her with wide eyes.
You could have died,
her expression seemed to say. Cazia felt goose bumps run down her back. She could have died. Would her quilted jacket and leather vest have stopped the arrow? She looked again at the punctured wood and shuddered. Fury had favored her last night, although it would have been true justice if she had taken the arrow in the neck and died.
 

Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.

Her prayers brought no comfort, leaving her feeling odd and hollow. It was as though she had stolen Colchua’s place in the world. Cazia squeezed the little princess’s hand and laid out her blanket. She lay down without eating and fell into terrible dreams.

They slept for a few hours, waking only when the sun peeked over the eastern peaks and shone on their faces. They ate hurriedly. Cazia filled Vilavivianna’s canteen several times, until both had their fill and she had a full canteen to carry. The little princess seemed to have questions, but they set out in silence.
 

The trail down the far side of the pass was rockier than the southern side, and in some places, it was steep enough that they had to take switchback trails. Cazia looked ahead down the slope. She could see the narrow space where the mountains opened up and the Sweeps began. She had never been there, of course, but she had always been intensely curious about it. Would they see alligaunts? She’d heard they swam through the lakes, trailing water vines and fallen leaves, and she thought that would be a wonderful thing to see...from a safe distance. The alligaunt skeleton back in Ellifer’s graveyard menagerie had given her nightmares when she was small.

She wished her old self--the one that had not yet committed murder--was taking this trip. She would have enjoyed it more.

Vilavivianna spoke only occasionally, and only on the subject of flying carts. Would one catch up to them? Would they be taken alive, even if they ran or fought back?

Cazia promised that she would count her steps and look behind at every tenth one. A cart would come up on them quickly, she explained, and only by checking continually, all day long, would she be able to see it in time.
 

That mollified the princess somewhat, and they fell into a pattern of walking and glancing back. By midafternoon, Cazia realized that the top of the pass would have been a perfect place for Peraday’s lookout post, but she’d forgotten to search for her, or even to call her name. Turning around now, she could see nothing along the mountain cliffs that suggested a lookout station, and she certainly couldn’t see a glint from a steel cap.
 

If Peraday had been stationed there, she would have seen the fleeing girls. Either she was not there or she wanted nothing to do with Cazia. So be it.
 

The sun moved beyond the western peaks, then the shadows swept up the mountainside. The sky was nearly dark when Vilavivianna decided they needed to stop for the night.
 

“I was hoping we could make it to the Sweeps tonight,” Cazia said.

“It is too far,” the princess answered. “It’s easy to misjudge distances in the mountains. Besides, we will not have starlight like last night, see?”

She was right. The sky was gray with clouds blowing in from the Sweeps. It didn’t look like rain, but there would be little light.
 

They found a flat, dry spot behind an outcropping of rock. “I wish we had wood for a fire,” Vilavivianna said. “I wonder why so little grows here.”

“I wish we didn’t have to walk so far.” Cazia arranged their blankets.
 

The little princess smiled. “We have not walked far at all,” she said. “My mother told me that the Southern and Northern Barriers are very narrow ranges, nothing at all like the Seahook mountains in southeastern Indrega. I once spent fifteen days walking through a pass to visit another clan’s sea house.”

“Fifteen days!” Cazia thought it sounded like punishment. She took out a small loaf of meatbread and broke it in half, handing the little girl the slightly smaller portion.

“My uncle Nezzeriskos of Beargrunt thinks the Northern and Southern Barriers were once a single range, and that some great power swept all those peaks and rocks away, splitting the mountains and creating the Sweeps.”

Cazia didn’t like the sound of that. “What could do that? The wind?”
 

“A great worm, perhaps? A powerful magic? A godly being with a godly plow and a godly urge to plant some beets?”

They both laughed. “Godly beets,” Cazia said. “Or a godly urge to plant alligaunts and herding peoples.” Their shared laugh had startled her; it felt good. She silently offered an apology to her brother’s memory.
 

“My mother says that alligaunts are demons who must be destroyed at every opportunity.”

“I’ve only ever seen bones in the palace,” Cazia said, hoping to keep their conversation light. “Never a live one.”
 

“Let us hope it stays that way.”
 

They ate in silence for a short while. Finally, Cazia asked the question that had been bothering her all day. “Where are we going? We’re fleeing the grunts, yes, but where are we fleeing to?”

Vilavivianna set her chunk of meatbread on the cloth wrapping. “This is very dense and salty.”
 

Cazia shrugged. She didn’t think it was particularly salty, but she felt reasonably full. She wrapped their food and put it away. Best to make their provisions last.
 

Finally, Vilavivianna said, “Where do you want to go?”

“Tempest Pass,” Cazia said immediately. “I want to join Lar in his quest, but that’s impossible.”

“We could never catch up to them on foot,” Vilavivianna said. “Not only is the way very dangerous, they would be long gone by the time we arrived. My mother says one should never travel the Sweeps without a guide.”

“I supposed we could go to another fort. Piskatook is closest, isn’t it?”

The princess gave Cazia a wary look. “Would I be safe there?”

“We could disguise ourselves,” Cazia said. “Take jobs somewhere, blend in until Lar finds a way to fix all this trouble.”
 

“Become servants? Put ourselves under the care of a master? Who could order us to marry any other servants he liked?”