Chapter 31

For Isana, visits to the largest cities of Alera had never been pleasant. The constant pressure of the various emotions of so many people packed into such a small area was a constant distraction. It was a low but steady "noise," like being constantly accompanied by half a dozen nightmarishly persistent crickets. It was never horribly loud, but it didn't stop, and the intrusive sensations could make it maddeningly difficult to sleep or concentrate.

Isana feared that she might desperately need all of her concentration in the hours to come.

The rooms Tavi had rented for them were plain, but roomy and well kept. They were outrageously expensive by the standards of the steadholts of the Calderon Valley, but her travels had broadened her outlook somewhat even if they hadn't fattened her purse. By the standards of Alera Imperia, the price was more than reasonable-even if each day's rent would also have paid for the food of an entire steadholt for a day.

The boardinghouse, however, was apparently frequented by merchants who were particularly close about their money. Negotiations of one kind or another were in progress in rooms below and above her, as well as in the house's tiny garden, and from the feel of it, they were ferocious affairs. She tried to rest as best she could, once they were there, but the constant, surging flutter of the city made it problematic.

Isana rose quietly from the bed in the room she shared with Kitai, slipped into her shoes, and donned her dress and cloak. Perhaps if she stretched her legs a little, she would tire enough to rest. She drifted to the window and looked out. The lane below, though it was nearly midnight, was well lit with furylamps, and she could see two different pairs of men in the uniform of the civic legion patrolling. The street would be safe enough.

She turned to find Kitai sitting up in her bed, stretching. "Can't you sleep, either?" the girl asked Isana.

"No," Isana answered quietly.

"It's the watercrafting, isn't it?" Kitai said.

"Partly," Isana said, and the word came out with more of an edge than she had intended. She paused, softened her tone, and said, "Mostly."

Kitai tilted her head. Her green eyes were almost luminous in the dim light from the street's furylamps. "Are you leaving the city, then?"

"I thought I'd take a walk," Isana said. "Sometimes a little exercise helps."

Kitai smiled. "I have need to walk as well. Perhaps we should do so together."

"I'd like that," Isana said. She added, diffidently, "Perhaps you should put some clothes on first, dear."

Kitai's mouth turned up in a slow smile. "Why do Alerans always insist on such things?"

Ten minutes later, they were walking together down Craft Lane. The home of the majority of skilled labor in the city, the houses were almost universally dark and quiet. Few people were on the street. Those few were mostly younger men, late apprentices and early journeymen, presumably returning to their beds after time spent in less sober quarters of the city.

"Kitai," Isana said quietly, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you about."

"Yes?" she asked. She wore her cloak with the hood up, hiding both her decidedly conspicuous hair and the canted eyes of her Marat heritage.

"Regarding you and... and Tavi."

Kitai nodded, her green eyes shining with amusement. "Yes?"

Isana sighed. "I need to know about your relationship with him."

"Why?" Kitai asked.

"Because... because of things I am not free to share with you, your... your friendship with him could cause... relations could be a factor in..." She shook her head in frustration. "What does your relationship with him mean to you, precisely? Where do you see it leading you in the future?"

"Ah," Kitai said in a tone of comprehension. "Those kinds of relations. If you wished to know if we were mating, you should have asked."

Isana blinked, then stared at Kitai, mortified. She felt her cheeks burn. "No. No, that isn't what I meant at-"

"Not nearly often enough, of course," Kitai said with an exhalation somewhere between a sigh and a growl. "Not since we left the fortress. We can't on the ship. Never when the Legion was in the field." She kicked a small stone at the buildings on the other side of the street with a scowl. "Alerans have a great many foolish rules."

"Kitai, that isn't what-"

"He was very clumsy at first," Kitai confided. "Except for his mouth." She smirked, and added drily, "But then, he's always been clever with that."

Isana began to feel somewhat desperate.

"It was as if no one had taught him what it was he ought to do. Which I suppose could be another problem you Alerans have. After all, if no one has any idea how to go about it, no wonder you all get so nervous just talking about it."

"Kitai," Isana said weakly.

"They started paying me for doing what I was doing anyway, in the Legion, and I considered purchasing instruction for him. It seemed as useful a purpose for spending money as any. But I was informed by the women working at the Pavilion that it was improper-and that by Aleran standards, practically anything I did was going to make him happy, provided I did it naked." She threw up her hands. "And after all that fuss about wearing clothing in the first place!"

At least no one was walking close enough to hear the conversation. Isana began to mumble something she hoped Kitai would not take as encouragement- then caught a swift brush of the girl's emotions. Isana stopped in her tracks and arched an eyebrow at Kitai. "You're teasing me."

The Marat girl's eyes shone, as she glanced over her shoulder. "Would I do such a thing to the First Lady of Alera?"

Isana felt her mouth hang open for a moment. She closed it again, and she hurried to catch up to Kitai. She was silent for several paces before she said, "He told you?"

"He may as well have," Kitai replied. "His feelings changed every time he spoke about you." Her expression sobered. "I remember what it felt like to have a mother. I felt it in him for you."

Isana regarded the girl for a time as they walked. Then she said, quietly, "You aren't what you appear to be at all, are you?"

Kitai arched a pale brow at her.

"You appear to be this... barbarian girl, I suppose. Adventurous, bold, careless of manners and proper behavior." Isana smiled faintly. "I asked about your relationship with my son. You've told me a great deal about it."

Kitai shrugged a shoulder. "My father has a saying: Speak only to those who listen. Anything else is a waste of breath. The answers to your questions were there, if you listened for them."

Isana nodded quietly. "What you have with Tavi... it's like your people's other totems, yes? The way your father is close to his gargant, Walker."

Kitai's eyebrows shot up. "Doroga was not mating with Walker, when last I knew." She paused a beat, and added, "Walker would never stand for it."

Isana felt herself laugh despite all.

The Marat girl nodded at that, and smiled. "Yes. It is much the same." She touched her heart. "I feel him, here."

"Are there others, like you? With Aleran... I don't know the word for it."

"Chala," Kitai said. "No. Our peoples have never been close. And whelps are usually kept safeguarded from any outsiders. I am the only one."

"But what clan would you go to?" Isana asked. "If you went back to your people, I mean."

She shrugged. "I am the only one."

Isana absorbed that for a few moments. "That must be difficult," she said quietly. "To be alone."

Kitai bent her head, a small, inward smile on her lips. "I would not know. I am not alone."

Love, deep and abiding, suddenly radiated from the Marat girl like heat from a stove. Isana had felt its like before, though seldom enough, and the power of it impressed her. She had thought the barbarian girl an idle companion before now, someone who stayed near Tavi out of her sense of enjoyment and adventure. She'd misread the young woman by a great deal, assuming that the lack of emotion she generally felt from the girl had meant that there was no depth of conviction in the person behind it.

"You can hide yourself, your feelings. The way he can," Isana said quietly. "You let me feel that, just now. You wanted to reassure me."

The Marat girl faced her, unsmiling, and bowed her head. "You are a good listener, Lady Isana."

Isana bit her lip. "I am hardly a lady, Kitai."

"Nonsense," Kitai said. "I have seen nothing in you to indicate that you would be anything other than one of nobility, refinement, and grace." She pressed something into Isana's hands. "Hold this for me."

Isana blinked as Kitai handed her a sack of heavy burlap. She looked around. The Marat girl had directed their steps while they walked, and Isana had not realized that they had left Craft Lane. She was not certain where they were now. "Why do you want me to hold this?"

"So I have something to put the coldstone in after I have burgled it," Kitai said. "Excuse me." And with that, the girl stepped into a darkened alleyway, flicked a rope up over a chimney, and calmly scaled the outside of a building.

Isana stared for a moment, aghast. Then footsteps sounded down the street, and she looked up to see a pair of civic legionares on their patrol. For a moment, Isana nearly panicked and fled. Then she berated herself sharply and composed herself, slipping the bag underneath her cloak.

The legionares, both of them young men, dressed in leather tunics rather than the military lorica, nodded to her, and the taller of the pair said, "Good evening, miss. Are you all right?"

"Yes," Isana said. "I am well, thank you."

The shorter of the two drawled, "On a pretty spring evening like this, why wouldn't you be. Unless you were lonely, of course."

His immediate and... somewhat exuberant interest ran over her, and Isana felt her eyebrows go up. She'd spent comparatively little of her adult life in places where she wasn't known, by reputation at least, if not by sight. It hadn't occurred to her that she would be effectively anonymous, here. Given the apparent youth of a powerful watercrafter, with her hood up and the strands of silver in her dark hair concealed, she would look like a young woman no older than these legionares. "Not lonely, sir, no," she said. "Though I thank you for asking."

The taller one frowned, and a practical, professional kind of suspicion rippled across her. "It's late for a young woman to be out alone, miss," he said. "May I ask what you're doing here?"

"Meeting a friend," Isana extemporized.

"Little late at night for that kind of thing in this part of town," the shorter legionare said.

The taller one sighed. "Look, miss, no offense, but a lot of these young Citizens from the Academy book time, then don't show up for the appointment. They know they're not supposed to be seen down to the Dock Quarter after dark, so they promise the extra coin to get you up here, but-"

"Excuse me?" Isana said sharply. "Exactly what are you accusing me of doing, sir..." She snapped her fingers impatiently. "Your name, legionare. What is your name?"

The young man seemed somewhat taken aback, and she felt his flash of uncertainty. "Urn. Melior. Miss, I don't want to-"

"Legionare Melior," Isana said, pressing her aggression with the kind of self-assurance no younger woman could quite have matched. She reached up and lowered her hood, revealing the silver laced through her hair. "Am I to understand that you are accusing me"-she gave the last word very slight emphasis- "of prostitution?"

The shorter of the two frowned and returned with restrained belligerence, "Well why else would you be out here alone this late with-"

The taller one stepped firmly on his foot. Then he said, "I meant no accusations, my lady. But it is my duty to keep things in order here at night."

"I assure you, young sir, that everything is in order," Isana replied firmly. "Thank you for your concern," she said, then added a slight barb to her tone, "and for your courtesy."

The shorter legionare glared at his partner, then at Isana, and seemed to come to some sort of realization. "Oh," he said. "Right."

The taller one rolled his eyes by way of apology. "Very well, my lady," he said, and they continued on their way.

Once they were out of sight, Isana let out an enormous breath and leaned against the nearest building, shaking slightly. A fine contribution to their mission she would have made, from the inside of a cell with any other wayward ladies of the night they'd collected. For goodness' sake, there was even the chance that she might have been recognized as something other than an anonymous Citizen. She hadn't exactly been a celebrity during her previous visits to the capital, but there had been a number of speeches on behalf of the Dianic League. There was always the chance, however slim it might be, that she might be recognized.

"That was well-done," murmured Kitai's voice. The Marat girl came down the side of the building with the grace of a spider, landed, and dislodged her line with a flick of her wrist. She hissed as she quickly took a pouch whose neck she gripped in her teeth, and held it away from her face. Little wisps of steam trailed from the pouch, and a small patch of frost had begun to form on its surface. "Quick, the bag."

Isana opened the thick burlap sack, and she realized that it was several layers thick and heavily lined, a sack designed specifically to contain the fury-bound coldstones. Kitai opened the pouch and dropped a rounded stone the size of a child's fist into the sack. The evening air was brisk, but a deeper chill followed the coldstone, and Isana hurriedly shut the heavy sack over it.

"What have you done?" Isana asked quietly.

"Acquired something we need," Kitai replied. "Whatever you said to those two was effective. Could you say it again, perhaps?"

"Again?" Isana replied.

"If needed." She nodded at the sack. "I have to get the rest of them."

"And you're going to steal them?" Isana asked. "What if you're caught?"

Kitai jerked her head back as if Isana had slapped her, and arched one pale, imperious eyebrow. "No Aleran in this entire senseless, pointless city has ever caught me," she said, with the perfectly steady confidence of someone telling the truth. Isana could feel that in her voice as well. Kitai sighed. "Well," she admitted. "One. But it was a special circumstance. And anyway, he's asleep right now."

Isana shook her head. "I... I'm not certain what you think me capable of,

Kitai. I believe that you are skilled at this sort of thing-but I am not. I'm not sure you want me to come along."

"Faster, if we can walk openly on the street," Kitai said. "One woman alone will be questioned. Two women, walking quickly, will not be. And I cannot take the heavy bag along with me. I would have to leave it behind each time I climbed. I would feel better if it was being watched than if I had to leave it lying in some alley."

Isana studied the Marat girl for a moment, then sighed, and said, "Very well. With one condition."

Kitai tilted her head. "Yes?"

"I want to talk to you about Tavi as we walk."

Kitai frowned, her features concerned. "Ah. Is that considered to be appropriate, then?"

"Between us?" Isana asked. "Yes. It's something called girl talk."

Kitai nodded as they began walking again. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you can speak openly and plainly to me without fear of being inappropriate-and I won't be outraged or angered by anything you tell me."

Kitai gave the city around them an exasperated glance. "Finally," she said. "Alerans."

Chapter 32

Amara was worried.

The swamps stretched out all around them, an endless landscape of trees and water, mist and mud. Life seemed to boil from every patch of ferns, to drip from the branches of every tree. Frogs and singing insects filled the nights with a deafening racket. Birds and small animals who lived within the trees chirped and cried throughout the day. And always, day or night, the air swarmed with insects, like a constant, buzzing veil that continuously had to be pushed aside.

The terrain was a brutal mixture of shallow water over clinging mud, deeper water that could rise above Amara's chest, and the occasional sullen, damp, insect-infested rise of more solid earth. Twice more, they were rushed by garim, though thankfully none were as large as those lurking around the exterior of the swamp-but they ceased their rush forward when confronted with immediate resistance and simply scattered when Bernard and Amara willed their furies into visible manifestation. The lizards, it seemed, had learned the futility of assaulting wild furies and were quick to avoid those the trio had brought with them.

They were making reasonably good time-so long as one considered that any significant progress was reasonable, in the relentlessly wearying terrain. They had avoided any further mishaps, and they had found a number of edible fruits and berries growing within the swamp. They tasted foul, but would sustain life, for a time at least.

The worst thing about the past several days was how the swamp had absolutely permeated her lower body. She and Bernard were both covered in the thick, rich muck of the swamp floor, nearly to the hips, and constantly walking through water had ruined her boots and left her feet perpetually damp and chilled. They had to stop several times a day just to dry their feet out and prevent them from developing sores. There had been no further encounters with the enemy.

All the same, Amara was worried.

About Bernard.

They stayed in the shelter he'd had Brutus dig for them for less than a day, all told. The instant he woke, he wobbled to his feet and insisted that they had to leave at once. Only the fact that it was already the dead of night, and that the First Lord was still unconscious kept him from staggering into the swamps. But the instant there was light enough to see, he began preparing for the remainder of the journey.

To Amara's surprise, the first thing he did was to skin the dead garim. The soft, supple hide of their throats and bellies had already been ripped open by scavengers and gnawed by insects, and they would be useless for making capes. But the heavy, nodule-studded skin of the large lizards' backs and flanks remained sound. Bernard cut the large sections of tough leather away from the corpses, and laid them flat on the ground. At a murmur from him, Brutus rose and dragged the hides down into the earth. A moment later, they reappeared, the skin side of the leather scoured clean of any remaining flesh.

Bernard went to a willow tree beside the swamp, and drew off a dozen larger branches. Under his hands, they simply came away from the trees, like grapes picked from a vine. Using his wood fury and his broad, capable hands, he bound them together into a long frame within a few moments, complete with wooden handles at either end. He then stretched the hides over the frame and secured and sealed them with thick, resinous sap from another tree.

Twenty minutes after he began, Bernard bore what looked something like a runnerless sled over to the First Lord, and loaded Gaius into it. Then, with repeated nervous glances over his shoulder, he got his bearings and led Amara into the swamps, carrying the frame over one shoulder when the ground was mostly solid, and letting Gaius float in his boat-stretcher whenever they had to wade.

Gaius was asleep or unconscious much of the time. Though Bernard tried to be careful, the First Lord's stretcher could not avoid every jolt and bump, and whenever it happened, his face turned pale and twisted into a pained rictus.

It wasn't until their second day in the swamps that Amara saw that Bernard's course had begun to waver. At first, it wasn't by much, but as the days went by, Amara saw that his sighting of trees ahead and behind had become increasingly sloppy.

"Stop," Amara said, finally. "Bernard, let's stop for a moment. I need to rest."

Bernard, who had been walking over a low hillock with the First Lord's litter over one shoulder, settled the old man down gently and sank to the ground without a protest, his head bowed.

Amara frowned. He hadn't checked the ground beneath him before he sat, something he had repeatedly emphasized as important during their first day in the swamp. Such places, he warned her, harbored a great many venomous serpents and insects with poisonous bites, and it could be worth as much as a man's life to sit down upon or near one of them. Amara checked the ground around Bernard before she settled down, drew out her water bottle, and drank. She offered it to her husband. He drank as well.

"I need to talk to you," she said quietly.

He nodded without answering.

"I've been watching and... and I think your course is wavering."

Bernard frowned and looked up at her. Then he muttered under his breath, and asked, "Are you sure?"

Amara bit her lower lip, met her husband's eyes, and nodded.

His expression became faintly confused, and he shook his head. "How much?"

"It's hard for me to judge. We might be five or ten miles south of our original line of march."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. "I see."

She took his hand between hers. "Love. Tell me what's wrong."

Bernard swallowed. He shook his head once. Flies and midges buzzed noisily about them. A rare breath of wind stirred the water at the base of the little hillock and set a dozen frogs to croaking.

Amara leaned closer, and kept her voice gentle. "Tell me, love."

"It's m'eyes," he half whispered. "They're not... they're not focusing the way they should. Sometimes I have trouble trying to find the right marker to hold our course. But I thought I was getting it most of the time."

Amara felt her heart beat faster with nervous fear. "You did take a blow to the head, love. It can do things to a person's vision until they've had time to recover."

"Yes," Bernard said. He looked up, squinting out at the swamps, then winced and pushed the heel of his hand hard against his head.

"Pain?" Amara asked.

He nodded. "Wasn't much at first, but... it's the light. Everything is too bright. It hurts to move my eyes around."

Amara leaned over and placed her wrist lightly over his forehead. "I've heard of some diseases that can do that, but you don't have a fever."

"I feel fine," he growled, leaning a little away from her hand. "Except for my bloody head."

"That is generally considered to be something important," Amara said. "Even for men."

Bernard smiled faintly at the joke but didn't lift his head. "If I'm not able to do this..." He shook his head. "If I can't trust my eyes, there's no help for it. You'll have to take the lead until this has passed."

Amara frowned. "Are you sure?" she asked gently. "You told me that navigating through a swamp was no task for a novice."

"I'm sure that we haven't got much choice," he replied. "You did well enough before."

Amara grimaced. "I'm not sure it will be as easy, here."

"No," Bernard said. "It won't. So it's a good thing you've had some practice."

In the stretcher, the First Lord stirred and lifted his head. He peered blearily around them. "Still in the swamps?"

"Yes, sire," Amara said.

"Bloody crows. I thought I remembered someone saying we were finally out of them. Have you seen the mountains yet?"

"No, sire," Bernard rumbled. "But with the trees and the mist, we can't see more than a quarter mile or so, at best."

"Oh," Gaius murmured, subsiding again. "Well. Have we another blanket? I'm frozen."

Amara's head came up suddenly, and Bernard's did the same. She traded a long look with her husband. Then she went to the First Lord, who lay apparently sleeping once more. She laid her hand on his forehead and felt the fever at once.

"He's running a fever," she said quietly.

Bernard growled. "Check his feet, first. If anything got into his blood, he might have to heal it and take our chances on alerting Kalarus."

Amara used more water to clean her hands, and checked the First Lord's dressing. His sore foot still looked tender, the flesh red and raw, but there was no swelling or inflammation. His broken leg, bound hard to its splint, was swollen still, but the deep and heavy bruising all around it had faded to faint blotches of yellow and green. She cleaned them both with salted water, which elicited no response from the sleeping First Lord. Then she covered them again and turned to her husband. "I don't think it's come in through the wounds. Perhaps it's just a springtime fever."

"Maybe," Bernard said. He rubbed at his head again. "We need to push harder," he said quietly. "Get as close as we can to Kalare, as fast as we can possibly manage it."

"If he keeps getting sicker, he might not be able to craft himself out of it," Amara said quietly.

"All the more reason for haste," Bernard replied.

Amara frowned, but could hardly argue with him. Their choices were unenviable. Allow Gaius to continue being weakened to ensure the surprise attack he said they needed, or have him begin furycrafting immediately, when they were farthest from any support, and where even the First Lord himself might eventually be overwhelmed by enemy numbers. "How much farther?" Amara asked.

Bernard made a brushing motion at the earth in front of them, and immediately the ground almost seemed to boil, dark loam rising to cover the grass and weeds in smooth, rich brown. Another gesture, and a large, semicircular area of the dirt shifted its contours, becoming an irregular, bumpy surface, not too unlike the skin of a garim. "This is the swamp," he said quietly. He took a small stone from the ground and placed it almost a third of the way across. "Here's us."

He gestured with his hand again, and the earth at the far side of the symbolic swamp shifted, rising up into smooth cones in a broad, elegant sweep like that of a strung bow. "Here are the Kalare Mountains. They half encircle the area around Kalare. Once we cross the swamps, we'll have to make our way to the base of the mountains. Then we'll have to press through them until we find one close enough to see the city. Then we'll have to climb it."

Amara blew out a breath. She hadn't fully realized the implications of the distances and terrains involved. She had never fully appreciated the full meaning of her ability to fly, completely ignoring such obstacles. When one had to walk over, and around, and through them, travel became a completely different sort of challenge. "How long will it take us?"

"Under ideal circumstances, maybe two weeks to the edge of the swamps and another day of fast travel to the pass through the mountains. Like this..." Bernard shook his head. "Three. Maybe even more."

Amara's heart sank. Three weeks or more of this? She wriggled her toes in her boots, or at least tried to. They were so damp and chilled, she wasn't sure that they'd moved at all. "Oh," she said quietly.

"You can't think of it like that," Bernard said.

"Like what?"

He gestured at the swamp. "As three more weeks of this."

"Then how should I think of it?" Amara asked wearily.

"One thing at a time," Bernard said. "For instance. Right now, what we need to do is stand up." Her husband suited action to his words, wearily pushing himself to his feet. He offered her his hand.

Amara took it, and rose.

"Good," Bernard said. He pointed out to her the last two trees he'd used. "Now, find your mark."

Amara did, lining up the two trees, and sighting forward to her next way-point, correcting their course slightly back to the north. "All right."

Bernard grunted and picked up the stretcher again. "Now we go to your next mark." He glanced up at the sky, and though the sun was hidden by clouds and mist, he winced and shielded his eyes with one hand. "We just keep doing that. Walking to the next tree."

Amara took a deep breath, studying her husband, fearing for him. Blows to the head could take days or weeks to kill a man. What if he'd been more badly wounded than he claimed? What if he was already bleeding inside his skull, and it was only a matter of time before the pressure killed him?

Gaius could heal such an injury.

She bit her lip. She was a Cursor of the First Lord. He had given her a task, and it was her duty to see it through. Even if it cost her life.

Even if it cost Bernard's life.

The thought made Amara's knees feel suddenly weak with dread and simultaneously brought up a burst of anger that burned in her chest. Had she not already done enough? Had she not already given more than enough? She had fought the Crown's enemies tooth and bloody nail. She had overcome creatures of nightmare and men of cruel and destructive means as a Cursor, and her body bore more than one scar received in the line of duty. Had she not done enough for the First Lord that he would ask her to sacrifice the man she loved, too?

It would be easy to stop. She had only to tell Gaius that his fever demanded him to take action to save his own life. Or, if that was not enough, it would be laughably simple to ensure that an infection spread to his wound. All she had to do was be careless for a moment, with a single cleaning, a single slip of the bandages. Gaius could heal himself, heal Bernard, and they could all leave this hideous place.

She thought, for a moment, of a lifetime without Bernard. Without ever again knowing his touch, hearing his voice. Without ever again sleeping beside him, waking in the circle of his arms, knowing beyond any doubt that she was desired, treasured. Loved.

Her husband touched her chin with gentle fingers, and she looked up at him. His eyes, though shadowed with pain, were almost invasively aware. She had no doubt at all that he had guessed the direction of her thoughts.

"What do I do?" she whispered.

He was silent for a moment, before he rumbled, "What your heart tells you is right. As always."

She bowed her head, feeling the burn of impotent, shamed tears in her eyes. She refused, absolutely refused, to let them fall.

She looked up at him again, and said, "We'll walk to the next tree."

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***