“That I did. I took measurements the other night while you were sleeping.” She stood, her work done. “I am leaving in the morning with Baron Rogan, and wanted to be sure it was complete.”
“You’re leaving?” Jaiden felt a rush of concern he could not explain, overpowering his unexpressed gratitude.
“Aye.” She looked at Palomar for some reason. “Sir Golddrake wanted someone to go with the Baron, and I want to look for my sister, so I volunteered. Besides, we can masquerade as a couple, which should lower suspicions.”
Jaiden’s concern exploded into full-fledged panic. “Is that a good idea? I mean, what if it is some sort of trap?”
“Trap?” Saffron’s face was painted with confusion. “I know it may be perilous, but I shall manage.”
Palomar bowed to her. “Successful journey, Lady Saffron. Practice your songs when it is safe to.”
“I will,” she nodded in return. “I have made progress. Perhaps I can show you when we meet again?”
“I look forward to it.”
“Good evening, then. I have much to prepare for the morrow. Take care of that leg, Jaiden.”
“Thank you,” he finally managed to say as she smiled and walked away. Then, to Palomar, “What am I going to do? He’s going to be alone with her for days, maybe weeks!”
“You are going to learn the expectations of the Order, one of which is chastity, so you can put all those thoughts,” he pointed at Jaiden’s still-bulging erection, “out of your mind.”
“Oh, what do you know about it? Are there even female Aasimar?” Jaiden sighed and grasped the sides of his head. After a moment of silence he looked back at Palomar, who stood with arms crossed in front of his body. “Go ahead, you might as well tell me the rest.”
“Indeed. The Order of the Rising Moon prohibits the accumulation of personal wealth, demands obedience to Criesha and her anointed leadership, and obligates you to defend the weak. You must fight for the protection of relics and places sacred to the Goddess, freedom from oppression, and the destruction of the unnatural.”
“Is that all?”
“All I can remember at the moment.”
“Good. Palomar, could you do me a favor?”
The Aasimar uncrossed his arms. “Has the pain returned?”
“It has, but that can wait.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to help me outside, locate Lothander, and tell him to bring me a lute. I’ve got some practicing to do.”
Chapter 14
The Birth of Fire
B aron Rogan checked his pack one final time, though it seemed everything was accounted for. He could not shake the feeling, however, that he was forgetting something.
“Are you ready?” Saffron asked, hoisting her own pack onto her back. She was wearing heavier, less colorful clothes than usual, per his suggestion. He couldn’t remember seeing her in anything other than a skirt, actually. Rogan knew these gray pants and tunic weren’t her style, but they needed to blend in, and her typical choice of garb would instantly mark her as a foreigner.
“Aye, let’s be on our way.”
Sir Golddrake and Palomar were standing at the entrance of the Caves to see them off. Rogan and the Aasimar clasped wrists in farewell.
“May the sun shine ever at your back.”
“I do not know what that means, but I’ll take it,” Rogan smiled. “All will be fine – I am going home, in a way.” He turned to Sir Golddrake. “Give us a week, and then start sending your men. No more than twenty at a time. Hunting parties, remember?”
“Understood. May Criesha illuminate your path,” he touched his fingertips to his forehead, then drew them away. “Be safe, Saffron…I hope you find your sister.”
Saffron leaned forward and kissed Sir Golddrake on the cheek. She waved farewell to Palomar, but shared no words. Rogan thought he saw dampness in her eyes.
With the sun still concealed behind the western mountains, they began down the winding trail on foot. Horses would not be a boon on the sloping terrain, and once they made the River Chelhos they would have to abandon them anyway.
They traveled light on rations in favor of remaining armed. Stealthy as they hoped to be, neither was naïve enough to forfeit the reassurance of a weapon. Rogan brought his saber and uril-chent dagger, while Saffron kept a long-knife and bow for hunting. She preferred a spear but he forbade it, knowing it would bring too much attention.
Saffron retraced the paths through the hills she had taken with Jaiden, heading for the Harpy Pass. They moved with greater speed, though, unburdened by injury or the care necessitated by laden animals. Rogan kept up, though his guide’s spryness impressed him. They spent the first day on a pace that precluded much conversation.
They stopped only a few times to drink and share a biscuit, for Saffron drove them hard toward the dusk. She seemed to grow stronger and more alive the longer they went. Saffron remembered the several streams she crossed on her first trip, and waited until they reached one to allow them rest, though the sun was merely a glow beneath the horizon. By the time they made camp, Rogan was exhausted and famished.
“This country is beautiful, is it not?” she asked, as she struck up a campfire. Rogan paused from laying out his bedroll to take a look around. The hills were mostly silhouettes against the dim, pink sky, but the air was crisp and fresh, smelling of pleasant plants he could not identify.
“I suppose,” he shrugged. “I spent half of my free life in cities, the other around my manor in Thispany, mostly.”
“And what was it like there?” Two strokes of her steel and she’d caught a spark on her tinder.
Rogan drew nearer, ready to warm his hands by the growing fire. “More damp,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the dirt. “Lush greens, though. The soil is rich in the midlands. Most of our land was farmed, but a bit of wild forest painted the northern edge. My father would take us hunting there, even as young boys; I fell in love with it. I continued even after my parents passed on, and looked forward to taking my son when he was old enough.”
“You had a child?” Saffron asked, one eyebrow and the pitch of her voice raising simultaneously. “You have not spoken of him before.”
Rogan forced a weak, toothless smile. “I lost him the night I was arrested by the King-priest’s men, along with my wife.”
Saffron studied his face. “I am saddened to hear so. I have never been married, but my brother died when he was very young, and I saw what it did to our mother. No parent should have to survive their offspring.”
Rogan sighed, trying to keep his pain packed beneath the surface. “This world can be a harsh place. All we can do now is honor their memories with our actions.”
Saffron reached over and grasped the edge of his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“So, what about your homeland?” Rogan asked, anxious to change the subject. “I am sure these were not the circumstances you had in mind when you left to journey abroad, but I do not recall hearing any stories of Begnasharan. Is it much different than here?”
“Ha, nothing is the same, Baron.” She let go of his hand and gestured upwards. “The sky has not so many clouds, the earth is dry, and there are many places where dunes have overrun to the horizon. But, we have cities, too. Life clings harder where I come from. Everything is precious, nothing wasted.
“I was lucky enough to be born into a family of privilege, but I take nothing for granted. The desert will polish the bones of a wealthy woman just as quickly as a peasant. When I was very young, I heard a woman playing the lyre as I wandered the bazaar with my ma-ma. That was when I fell in love, as you did hunting. I begged her to buy me one so I could play, and cried for three days when she refused. Finally, pa-pa said he did not want to see me dry up into a pillar of salt, and purchased one.” Saffron smiled.
“I played every day. I played until my fingers bled. I got quite good, and in not so long a while, I was playing before the Caliph.”
Rogan could not help but smile,
seeing her so animated. “Wonderful. Is that what led you here?”
She cocked her head to the side, then down, her voice falling with it. “Music was supposed to be a way to see the world, and I begged my parents to let my sister come along.” Saffron shook her head. “She is young, younger still than perhaps Jaiden.” Mentioning his name, she laughed and rolled her eyes. It did not escape Rogan’s notice.
He swallowed hard before speaking. “How long have you known him?”
“Whom?”
Did she really think her nonchalance would fool him? He cleared his still-pesky throat. “Your patient.”
“Jaiden? Not long, I suppose we met a few weeks ago, if you could call it that. He was near-dead – nearer than now, anyway. I do not know why Sir Golddrake makes such a fuss over him; supposedly he has an important destiny.”
“Is that so?” Rogan asked, incredulous.
Saffron shrugged.
“And what do you suppose my destiny is?” He leaned back on his hands, wondering if she would play along.
She reached into her pack, sitting on the ground beside her, and retrieved some travel rations. “Unfortunately, I am no fortune teller.” Instead of a prognostication, he got another cold, hard biscuit. “Sorry, it is too dark for hunting now. Perhaps once we hit the lowlands.”
As they ate their meager dinner, the wind made more noise than they did. Looking toward an early start the next day, Rogan suspended his attempts at wooing and curled up on his bedroll, close to the fire. “Good night, Lady Saffron.”
“Good night, Baron Rogan.” She was still up, gazing at the stars, when he drifted into a chilly, lonesome slumber.
Their second day in the hills saw a similar pace, and Rogan wondered if they were indeed feeding from the same store of rations. Saffron seemed to have boundless energy, far outstripping his. She gave no notice of his struggles, though she paused from time to time to inspect one flower or another, and remarked on how various and beautiful the blooms in the high country were.
He took those opportunities to catch his breath, and it was always too soon before they were off again. She seemed to have a firm grasp of the topography, and showed no concern when their waterskins got low. Sure enough, before they were empty, a creek or reservoir would be right around the next hillside.
The afternoon was wearing on when Saffron finally stopped along a high ridge to take in the view. “Ah, there it is!” When Rogan caught up, he peered over the edge and saw the road.
“Well, that is a sight for sore eyes. I think I’ve got half the mountainside stuck in my boots.”
“We should be able to make the Harpy Pass early tomorrow, if we keep on through moonrise. Our pace will be much quicker once on the road.”
Rogan groaned inwardly. How could it be any quicker than it was? After they navigated down the final hillside, he stopped to remove his boots. Sure enough, a fine collection of rocks tumbled out when he shook them. “So, what do you think about hunting? Or have you not tired of those biscuits yet?”
“I think straying from the road will cost valuable time, as long as the surrounding territory still has elevation. Once we cross into Chelpa, there is a wood not too far south that should make a good hunting ground.”
She was right, of course. Rogan remembered the location she spoke of from when they fled Salmarsh. He was good and ready for some meat, though, and started salivating at the thought of spit-roasted venison.
His thoughts were interrupted by a lonesome howl echoing through the hills. He shared a look with Saffron and they both held still, listening for a response. It came a moment later, though some distance off. “You are right, hunting can wait. We should get down to the road and put some miles on it before nightfall.” With no argument, they did precisely that.
Walking was less taxing on the steadier grade of the trail, which cut between steep slopes. Rogan realized they were probably only a league or two west of where the Order of the Rising Moon was waylaid, and he wondered if the soldiers Palomar rescued had made it safely past this point on their return to Greyhorne.
The wind picked up considerably during the night, extinguishing the small fire they built for warmth. The slapping of tree branches against the stone cliffs woke Rogan, though the clouds were so heavy he could see little in the absence of their blaze. He barely made out the shifting of shapes in the dark, and was about to call out to Saffron when she surprisingly dropped her bedroll directly beside his.
A moment later she was lying next to him, pressing closer until he felt her back against his chest. He said nothing, but draped his blanket over them both, and put his arm around her, hugging tightly. Cold as it was, he eventually fell back asleep with her hair against his cheek, her unique scent filling his nostrils and infiltrating his dreams.
It was still dark when Rogan woke again, this time from something hitting his face. He stirred but brushed it off, not yet alert enough to realize what was happening. A deep breath later no doubt remained, as the heavy clouds that rolled in the night before dumped their load with sudden vengeance.
They both jumped to attention and rolled their bedding as quickly as they could. Rogan was thoroughly soaked by the time he slung on his pack. He looked to either side of the road, devoid of obvious shelter, the sky menacing as far as he could see. Though difficult to judge, he guessed it was near dawn.
Between bursts of lightning he could see the back of Saffron’s hair woven into its customary braid, though the front clung to her face in wet tendrils. She pointed down the road in the direction they were heading, as the pounding rain nearly drowned out her speech. “We might as well keep moving – we can’t get much wetter than we are.”
Rogan nodded, agreeing, but unhappy with the circumstances. They jogged westward toward the Harpy Pass, as if speed could outrun the falling sky. After several minutes of splashing they gave up, succeeding only in tiring themselves and splattering mud on their clothes.
They resumed the previous day’s pace, and even though the sky brightened minimally after dawn, the sun remained hidden behind perpetual clouds. The rain continued, unabated for what Rogan counted as the longest hours since escaping prison. They saw no other soul upon the trail, though that was not unusual in this part of the country, even when not in the midst of a deluge.
The elevation climbed again as the Pass cut through the true base of the Wyvernwatch Mountains. Sir Golddrake warned them to be vigilant for brigands. The Harpy Pass was a favorite detour of smugglers, and provided a multitude of outcroppings with access to the path.
Finally, with the danger of landslides and flooding growing into a serious concern, the downpour relented. Rogan was sure everything he wore or brought with him was hopelessly water-logged. With no sun showing to warm the air or their skin, the travelers started shivering in their wet clothes.
“What do you think, should we build a fire and dry out our belongings?” he asked.
“What are we going to burn? Everything is as soaked as we are.”
“We need to get out of these wet clothes, Saffron, or we’ll catch a fever long before we reach the river. Let us at least check and see if we have anything dry to wear.”
“Certainly.”
Setting their packs on a low ledge of the abutting cliff faces and opening them, they sifted through the contents, testing anything made of cloth for relative dampness.
“Nahh,” Rogan groaned, finally giving up. “Nothing salvageable. I’ll have to wait until we can make camp and get a fire going to hang it all.”
“Perhaps you should learn to pack better,” Saffron said, pulling out one of her traditional long skirts and waist-baring tops, which had been folded together inside the fleece mantle she brought. “Not the proper outfit for this weather, but it will be warmer than wearing these wet things. Look away, please.” She turned her back to him, removed her jerkin, and peeled off her knitted shirt.
Mesmerized by the smooth, tan lines of her back as her arms stretched over her head, Rogan found it impossible to i
mmediately do as asked. As her torso rotated slightly to pull her dry shirt over, he caught the swell of her right breast, and finally shut his eyes. His breath quickened with the image fresh in his mind. He had not been with a woman since his wife, and had not felt the urge until meeting Saffron.
Rogan listened as she pried off her boots and wriggled out of her wet breeches, his imagination supplying what his lack of sight denied. A long moment later she declared it safe to look, and he caught her tying the saturated clothes onto the back of her pack. She had donned the same desert-red outfit she’d worn the first day he saw her. It left a lot of skin exposed, though he knew it was more suited for the hot winds of her homeland than this chilly mountain pass.
Neither complained of the cold, however, as they moved on. Rogan did not see the sun directly until it had dipped below the clouds, though no more rain fell. By then he was looking for a place to camp, rarely holding such anticipation for a simple fire. A break in the ubiquitous vertical rock of the cliff offered a promising spot.
A flat shelf, wide enough to support a small copse of majestic pines, rose a body-length above the level of the pass. The back end ascended steeply up the mountain, but it was traversable on all fours if necessary. Rogan told Saffron to wait while he scrambled up the rocks to scrutinize the area more closely. He particularly wanted to inspect for footprints in the mud, lest any highwaymen had used the spot recently for an ambush.
He had yet to turn up anything when another wolf’s howl broke the easy silence, much closer than the ones they’d heard in the hills. It came from the east, behind them, but more startling was the response that sounded somewhere just beyond sight, on the other side of the northern cliff. This was answered by still another nearby canine – they were being hunted.
“Get up here!” he called to Saffron, racing to the edge of the shelf to give her a hand. A pair of wolves bounded down a tight alley of fissures in the northern rock face, sprinting straight for Saffron as she grasped Rogan’s wrist.
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