She spat again on the path before plucking an errant strand of hair that had escaped her scarf and releasing it to the wind as if it were her past, blowing away behind us. I licked my cold-chapped lips and felt the strain of a long walk weighing down my legs. The moon had reached zenith. We had been walking at least four night hours. All told, I supposed I had been walking fourteen or more hours since dawn, although of course the daytime hours in winter were of shorter duration and the nighttime hours longer. Tiredness was making me clumsy and dull.
“Do you think we might rest?” asked Kayleigh.
“Not yet.”
With the wind rising steadily like a beast slowly curling out of slumber, we walked for at least another hour. Rounding a corner and stumping to the top of a gentle rise, we reached a crossroads stone, a squat pillar more chipped at than shaped and no taller than my head.
The wind had changed timbre and smell. It blew into our faces from the south—one might almost say out of the stone—and it might even have been said to possess the memory of warmth, something once known and mostly forgotten. This change kindled in me a strange emotion, in the way one imagines the breath of a mother on a cold, frightening night calms her restless babe. I waited until Kayleigh had poured a few offering drops at the base of the stone, and then I went forward myself and let fall the last drops from the first of the two leather bottles Duvai had given me. It was a vinegary drink, tart and bitter, but in the instant of offering, I smelled as through the stone itself a sweeter, summery scent like flowers in bloom. I blinked, wondering if the shadows of the landscape beyond the stone had altered, but after all they had not. In moonlight, I saw the path ahead of me, and the empty hills, and very, very far away and below us in elevation a tiny burr of light marking a town’s watch fire. Was it possible we might reach Lemanis, the first leg of our journey, tomorrow? Sooner than I had dared hope?
The stars lay half hidden beneath a gauze of moonlight. My eyes warmed with tears, although I did not understand why I should wish to weep.
“Ah!” said Kayleigh.
I turned at her gasp.
Riders approached us on the path, hooves and harness muffled. She grabbed my arm, wrenching me sideways, and at first I thought she was trying to pull us out of sight, so I went with the drag of her weight. Then she kicked out my legs from under me, and not expecting this assault, I crumpled as the riders closed. She threw herself on top of me as I thrashed and shoved and got my left hand free. I punched her hard enough that she grunted, and with a burst of furious terror, I heaved her off me and scrambled to my feet as the rider in front pounded up and resolved into Andevai.
His mouth set in a grim line, he drew a sword. Its cold-steel blade gleamed where moonlight kissed it. His mouth was set in a grim line. The wind died, and the air grew so cold so fast I shuddered convulsively. I fumbled at the twisted mess of my garments and belt, knocking my bundle of provisions aside as I groped for my sword’s hilt.