“Maybe we don't need so much money,” he mumbled, aware that he was stepping onto thin ice. “Jus' enough for me.”
Behind him, Fiora sucked in a sharp breath. Lark gave him a look.
Despite the warnings, he committed to it. “I'm thankful t' you all for comin' with me this far, but I think I should go alone. After the black water—”
A fist rammed into his kidney. He took a half-step forward, more startled than hurt; the Guardian armor still sheathed him in a thin layer of stiffened sand. The next fist, at rib-level, just made him scowl.
“How dare you!” shouted Fiora as he turned. Her face was clenched tight, sunburned skin beginning to flake from her flushed cheeks. “You can shove that staff right up your ass, Cob, if you think I'm gonna run!”
“I'm not sayin' to run, I'm sayin'—“
Her nostrils flared, and she hit him again—one, two, three—right below the ribs, then rammed her boot into his shin. He let her, not sure how to deal with this. “Stop,” he tried. “Look at what you're doin'. We hollered about this at Enkhaelen's place; I don't wanna do it again now.”
“You are not leaving me behind!”
“It's the best choice! Fiora, no offense to your goddesses, but they're not gonna help against the Ravager. You said it yourself: he killed dozens of priestesses and templars. Your lot, they're light and fire and metal but so's the Ravager, so's the Emperor. Pikes, if he's truly the Outsider—“
“Then he needs to be assassinated!”
“It can't be done! The Seals need to be replaced, and he'll be shut back out. That means killin' Enkhaelen; that means usin' the silver sword while under cover of a power that can stand up t' both of them.”
“Well, that's not the Guardian,” she said sharply.
He looked away, not wanting to let slip what he was coming to believe was necessary. Down there in the black water, he'd nearly made a deal with the Dark—to quench the Light in exchange for the safety of his friends. For all that it sickened him, he'd begun to wonder if that urge had been right.
The memories in the arrowhead pinpointed Enkhaelen's true presence as right behind the throne. If the Guardian could barely stand up to the Ravager... If it had been incapable of approaching the Outsider's Portal during the Sealing...
If nothing in the physical realm was strong enough to stand up to the Imperial Light, then he would have to call the Dark again. No matter if it consumed him.
He could feel the Guardians' anger, but Fiora's all the more. “What aren't you telling us?” she said, rapping him on the chest once again with her fist. “It's not just protectiveness. There's been something wrong with you for ages.”
“No there hasn't.”
“Hog-crap! If there's nothing wrong, explain the water! Explain your nightmares, because I know you have them! Explain why you're such a dour fatalist that you'd cast us away without even listening!”
There were so many answers, none of which he could bear to say. Instead, he pushed away from her, taking pains to be gentle. She would have none of it, and matched him step for retreating step.
“You complained when they wouldn't come into Haaraka with you,” she said, “and you welcomed me along. That was just as dangerous as this.”
“It wasn't—“
“It was, and we knew it from the start! None of us are blind, Cob! We accept the piking danger! Nothing's changed!”
“It has. You're—“
The word caught in his teeth. He didn't want to say it—didn't want to start that fight, or acknowledge a future he didn't expect to see. But her eyes narrowed and she moved closer, grabbing him by the tunic and making a futile attempt to pull him down.
“I'm what?” she growled.
Arms held out in surrender, he said, “You're pregnant. I jus'...I need you to be safe.”
She blinked, then went pale—then red. “What?” she said through bared teeth.
“The Guardian can feel it. The baby—our baby. It's still tiny; it hasn't even got a heart yet. But it's alive despite everythin', and I want it to stay that way. And you. I want you to—“
“I don't care what you want!” she screeched, and for a moment her near-feral expression made her a stranger. “You don't get to tell me what to do! Only my goddess— Oh no, no no no no no.“
Startled by the change, he tried to clasp her shoulders, but she ripped free and stumbled a few steps back. “No!” she snapped. “Curse you, that's why she wouldn't hear me. I've gone over to Brigydde!”
“What? How?”
“How do you think, you idiot? Breana gets her power from Brigydde. The moment one of us kindles, the Hearth Mother senses it. She takes us for the sake of the baby and we can never go back!” Her voice hitched; wetness glittered in her eyes. “You hear me? I can never be a Breanan again!”
Cob didn't know what to say. He'd suspected it, but her confirmation and her tears were too much. He tried to hug her but she struggled from his grip, elbowing and spitting, and he thought better of going after her. To the side, Arik and Lark both watched in silence.
For a long moment, the only sounds were Fiora struggling to get her sobs under control, the rasp of her hidden chainmail and the clack of the sword across her back. At this moment they seemed like a mockery.
“Surely...surely it's not the end,” Cob dared at last. “The goddesses can't force it on you, right? Y'could always—“
“Quit the temple?” Her voice was watery, ragged. “And do what? Oh, I could become a Branciran in a year or two, once the brat is weaned—learn a craft, shadow a judge—but I don't want to! I want to be a soldier! I want to fight for the faith!”
“Then maybe you shouldn't've jumped on Cob's dick.”
Fiora wheeled on Lark for that comment, but the Shadow girl stood her ground. “The Guardian is the spirit of fertility,” she continued. “That's never been a secret.”
“I took precautions! I drank the tea every day, I prayed not to kindle, I—“
“Did you tell him about it? You know, your piking partner?”
“It's not his business.”
Lark laughed incredulously, then looked to Cob with raised brows. Fiora did the same.
He fish-mouthed, then tried, “Tea?”
“The maiden tea,” said Fiora dismissively. “To prevent the bleed and this...sort of thing.”
“Pretty sure the Guardian is stronger than some herbs,” said Lark. There was a dangerous edge to her voice, spiteful, contemptuous. Her hands were clenched so hard on the goblin's bundle that the knuckles had gone pale. “So that makes you piking stupid.”
“Shut up, you lock-legged prude! You know nothing!”
“I know better than this. And you, Cob. With the Guardian in your head, how could you not have expected this? You know how babies happen.”
Cob flushed. He had vague memories from childhood, of breeding their goats and helping birth the kids, but otherwise... “I guess.”
“You guess?”
They both turned to stare at him. He fumbled for an answer. “Look, I— Come on, it wasn't somethin' I thought about! The Guardian didn't say shit to me until jus' the other day!”
“When?” snapped Fiora.
“The day of Hlacaasteia.”
Her eyes narrowed. “We've been walking for two days, and you didn't tell me?”
“I—“
“And the Guardian, why didn't it alert you sooner?”
“They said they didn't want to hurt me, if it didn't live—“
“Hurt you? Hurt you? Did they do this to me?”
His mouth dropped open. “No, that's...ridiculous,” he said, looking around for any sign of the Guardian phantasms. They were nowhere to be seen. He tried to reach inside and drag them out, but they evaded his fingers, and his stomach sank. Either they didn't want to confess to the accident, or—
Did you do it on purpose? So I'd send her away?
“Listen, maybe this is a sign to all of us,” said Lark. “I'm already leaving, and the rest of you shou
ld too. Fiora, you've been hobbled. Arik, you have a chance with the Great Wolf. Cob, you need to let go before you drown us all. The Guardian isn't trapped any more. Kick it out and let it find a new vessel. We're not winning this fight.”
Looking at his friends, bedraggled and worn and whittled down to just three, Cob was tempted. But when he closed his eyes, he saw all the others awaiting him in the darkness: those he'd hurt or who had been hurt because of him, those he'd lost. He saw the Ravager at the entry to his childhood home, its wings filling the gap—its presence within Enkhaelen the death-knell to any normal life he might have had.
“I can't,” he rasped. “I need to kill him. And I can't get there without the Guardian.”
Fiora laughed curtly. “Now you know how I feel. My family, my city, my faith... We owe the Emperor in blood. I won't let this stop me.”
“You crazy pikers deserve each other,” said Lark. “Let's get to town so I can be quit of you.”
*****
Marks later, weary of bickering over their plans, they stood together beneath the child moon's thin glow and laid Rian to rest. The mother moon had set not long ago, as if unwilling to watch as Lark lowered the small body into the hole Cob had excavated.
No one spoke. They'd run out of words, both kind and cruel. Instead, Lark cut off a braid to lay across the goblin's shoulders, and Cob removed the armband he had worn for so long, that Jasper had said would protect him. He slipped it onto Rian's wrist instead, and Fiora draped her chainmail shirt over him; they'd already decided it was too conspicuous to keep. Arik, with nothing else to give, set a wolf-quill in his little hand.
They didn't talk afterward either. Wary of enemies and with no food to cook, they eschewed fire-stones to just rest in a hollowed-out dune, none sleeping.
Cob focused on his task. For their infiltration of the upcoming city, Lark had chosen the role of a traveling Circle mage, with Fiora and Cob as her servants and Arik a fashionable pet. He had already cleaned their clothes with the water elementals, then transferred one to Lark, where it coiled around her arm like a friendly snake. Now he worked to form rough jewelry from the sand and stone around him plus the minerals that still rimed the tectonic lever. That was Lark's idea too—both to support her role and to sell once they were in the city.
It was strangely comforting to have her bossing him around. Not that she wasn't still grieving; he could see it in the glassy way she stared past the elemental—past all of them. But she was thinking rationally again. He hadn't realized how much he valued that.
Fiora rested against him in equal silence, hands clenched on the silver sword. He wanted to put an arm around her, but doubted she'd welcome it.
A part of him couldn't understand how swiftly everything had broken down. It conjured shapes in the shadows, of Dasira and Ilshenrir and Rian—here and alive and together. When he concentrated, he could almost hear their voices, their laughter, and remember the play of firelight on their eyes.
But there were other voices, and so he focused on rolling beads from softened stone and pulling glassy fused-sand bangles from around the end of the lever. He had a lot to make before they'd look sufficiently fancy, and not much time.
Not much time at all.
*****
Late afternoon of the next day found them crouched behind the brow of a hill, peering down onto a well-kept road and the city beyond. It was a curious-looking place, small to Lark's eyes but encapsulated by a high wall, with its center-point a rocky spur too narrow for a fortress. Dozens of tall spiky buildings clustered to its south side as if trying to emulate it, but elsewhere everything was low-slung and flat.
For several miles behind them stretched saltbrush scrub, dotted with goats and their keepers—the desert just an unpleasant memory. They'd passed no homesteads on the way in, but saw some now on the other side of the road: heavy shed-like buildings that led into underground dens, their territory firmly delineated by stakes and fences. No farms, not that they could tell, but a proliferation of herd-animals, fortified pens, and the occasional pair or trio of hunters returning through the scrub.
“Any idea where we are?” hissed Lark, glancing back at the others.
They all shook their heads. She had fixed them up as best she could with what little supplies she had. Fiora wore a scarf-kerchief and a skirt and vest made from Lark's Riddish robe, with her red Trifolder tunic repurposed into a blouse. Cob's tunic, as usual, had been unsalvageable and thus cut up to use in patching his breeches, with Arik's chiton over it plus both of Fiora's swords on straps. His boots were long gone, but he'd quick-formed a pair of clogs from the bracken. Lark thought they looked awful but she couldn't afford to be picky.
Arik had surprised them all by shedding his quills and somehow darkening himself. Now he was no longer a pewter-grey wolf but a greyish-brown one—a passable mixed-breed. “Other wolves can smell that I'm not Riddish,” he'd told them, “but it should fool the humans.”
Lark almost wished she was a skinchanger just to be so malleable.
They were all bedecked in glassy ropes, beads and bracelets, which though earth-toned were sufficiently sparkly for Lark's tastes. She'd braided everyone's hair too, and thought they looked as good as they possibly could, in the circumstances.
The concern now was whether they were expected.
“We have enough for a standard entry tax, but no bribes—at least not on a level that would protect us,” she murmured, patting the coin-pouch Fiora had ceded to her. “If the guards start pushing for one... Well, the door is made of wood. I'm sure you can open it for us, Cob.”
He grunted.
“Lots of watchmen on the walls,” said Fiora. “And we don't know the layout of the city. We can't afford to start a fight.”
“True. Backing off would be suspicious though.” Chewing her lip, Lark considered it, then shook her head. “No other option. Let's go, and hope for the best.”
“Oh yeah, that's a plan.”
Ignoring the Trifolder, Lark rose and started down the hill, trying to inject as much confidence into her walk as possible. With luck, she could bluff their way in, pawn the jewelry, get some pilgrim robes, then hitch a ride on the next westbound caravan and escape this forsaken land and its people. It would be a pleasure to be alone.
I'll always be alone, now.
She steeled herself against tears. There would be time enough to weep and wail once she reached Bahlaer. Here, now, she had a mission, and she would carry it out with aplomb.
The others kept at her heels, quiet but for the jingle of Arik's bead-bedecked 'leash'. Under her left sleeve, the water elemental coiled restlessly as if it could sense her nerves; she had managed to teach it some simple commands, but didn't know if it would perform on cue.
The uncertainty gave her a little thrill. As much as she prized security, there was something to be said for living by her wits.
Their approach did not go unnoticed. She saw men moving on the walls, the tips of their bows poking above the crenelations, and wondered how often they were called to use them. Even without a map, she knew they were somewhere within the Riddish interior, and thus presumably protected from enemy incursions—yet no structures spilled out beyond the walls, the city and countryside cleanly divided.
Dasira could have explained it, she thought grimly. Dasira would have been a lot of help.
The lowering sun threw the wall's shadow toward them. She took that as a good omen and crossed into the shade at a swift clip, squinting to make out the men who emerged from the gate-house. The great gate was shut—again, odd for an interior city—but when she saw the low dunes that had collected against the walls, she realized why.
“Declare yourselves,” called one of the guards, raising a lantern. Lark halted at the edge of its beam and raised a hand to shade her eyes. Beyond the light, she thought they wore Sapphire blue, and wasn't sure whether to be concerned. Was this a military outpost, or...?
“Dzurena Setara Yenasi of the Silent Circle, with my attendants,” she
declared. “I request entry into your fair city.” It felt strange to use her birth-name, but that was what she'd had printed on her travel papers.
“You come from the Salt Wastes?” said the guard.
“Yes, an expedition. I think we've gone a bit off track. This doesn't look like the capital...”
She was fishing, and took pains not to show her relief when the man gestured toward the road. “Thyda's a good three days north, walking. This is Finrarden.”
“I see. That's acceptable, I suppose.”
Someone on the wall gave a mutter, someone else a coughing laugh. “Come forward then, and show your papers,” said the spokesman.
“Yes, yes,” she said, drawing her papers from her cleavage where she'd stuffed them. From behind, she heard the others retrieving theirs, and the scuff of Arik's nails on the pavings, the occasional clonk of Cob's staff. He'd coated it in bark to hide the stone.
By the lantern's light, she saw the two guardsmen eye her up. Her orange robe didn't show as well as in sunshine, but its silver embroidery and her jewelry glittered sufficiently, especially the bangles and the big necklace of sand-glass.
Holding the papers out, she said, “Here, you see?” On cue, the water elemental peeked its blunt head out from her sleeve, liquid skin shimmering even better than her jewelry, and the hatchet-nosed guard who'd started to reach for them recoiled in alarm.
Feigning bafflement, Lark shook the pages, then glanced down at her arm. “Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Ripple, stop that. Really. Yes, you've suffered terribly in the desert, but you still can't hydrate off of people. No, not even strangers.”
“Ah, is that thing dangerous, madam?” said the guard as the elemental retreated meekly up her sleeve. His partner took a subtle step back as if to leave him to it.
“Oh no,” she said, “not as arcane vipers go, really. He's just very thirsty. It's been a pain to keep him off of my attendants. You do have a wellspring, I hope.”
“Er, yes. Finrarden was built here because of—“
“Good, wonderful, is there a bathhouse? Or an inn with private baths?”
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 56
