The Path of the Sword (63 page)

Actually, he decided uncomfortably, worst case was for Gaven to happen upon them. Jurel or Kurin would have to silence him, maybe kill him, and Jurel did not relish the thought.

They would wait for an hour to make sure no one stirred in the camp and they would slip out. A quick stop at the wagon, maybe see if they could get a horse or two and they would be off. That was the hope. In theory, it was a simple plan. In reality, he knew that executing the plan would require stealth and a vast amount of stamina. The former should pose little difficulty. The latter...well that was different. After weeks of beatings and barely sufficient nourishment, Jurel could only hope for the best.

He lay a card down on the small pile of face up cards and drew one from the larger, face down pile. One Royal, one knight and a bunch of off cards. It was not much of a hand and he sighed. He would have liked to win at least once more. Immediately, Gaven picked up the card Jurel had played with a faint chuckle.

The horses were all unsaddled. That would be a problem. He had ridden bare-back enough to know that riding horses without saddles would put them at a disadvantage. They would have to travel a little slower in order to avoid falling off. Perhaps they could saddle up first. That would be a huge time expenditure. Time during which any soldier would be able to see them. That would be all they needed: some soldier stumbling upon them while they saddled horses because he could not wait until bloody morning to take a bloody piss. A morbid idea came to him: he wondered if the Soldiers would leave their corpses out here to rot. He shivered as he imagined carrion eaters picking away his flesh until nothing but off-color bones were left to molder under the sky.

One of his off cards joined the pile and he drew another. A Knight. Helpful, but still not much of a hand. Before Gaven's own card reached his hand, he crowed in delight and slammed his cards onto the bed, unsettling the two piles.

“Bones!” Gaven cried out triumphantly.

* * *

It took two more hands before Jurel could finally convince Gaven that he was too tired to continue. Disappointed, Gaven had gathered up his cards and asked Jurel if he was sure they could not play one more hand.

“Come on, Gav,” Jurel whined. “I'm exhausted. Besides, the cards are not liking me tonight. Maybe tomorrow night, I'll have better luck.”

He never did, of course. Whenever they played, Gaven always managed to win the great majority of the time. He won so often that if Jurel did not know Gaven to be an honest man, he would suspect cheating. Perked by the prospect of playing the next night, Gaven asked him if he needed anything else.

Yes. A few hours with no interruptions if you don't mind.
“No, I think I'm good.”

With that, Jurel waved good night and Gaven left, platters in hand, promising to drub Jurel but good again when next they played.

Jurel laughed, feeling guilty and strangely sad that there would be no more nights of playing cards.

When the tent flap fell behind Gaven, he sighed and whispered, “Bye Gav. Hope you won't think too badly of me.”

Giving himself a shake, he lay on his cot and closed his eyes. Composing himself, he let his mind go still. The world seemed to recede from him as he pushed out his thoughts, and he saw a field of ethereal stars twinkling in the night all around him. This part of the process had stunned him. It was like he had managed to reach the heavens on the clearest night. In near utter blackness, the stars twinkled, some hot, bright pin-pricks, others fuzzy and dim. The first time he had seen it, he had stumbled and cut his hand open on a rock. He did not take too much time pondering it that night. Instead, he let himself be drawn to one star that he knew very well.

“
Kurin?”
he whispered silently.
“Kurin, are you there?”

“
Well, it's about time you decided to show up.”
He was crabby. Joy.

“
Sorry. Gaven didn't want to leave and I didn't want him to be suspicious.”

“
Fine, fine. Is everything clear now?”

“
I think so. I figured we would wait a bit so that Gaven can fall asleep.”

“
I'll fetch you in an hour.”

“
'Fetch' me?”
His indignant retort was lost. Kurin had already broken contact.

He doused his brazier and waited, counting out the minutes by the thudding of his heart. He felt his shirt grow sticky with sweat and he had to fight to keep his breathing steady. His shoulders began to ache and it took him some time to realize that he was as taut as a drawn bow. It was another small battle to loosen muscles that screamed with pent energy. It seemed an eternity when suddenly, silently, his tent flap rose and Kurin entered. Jurel instantly felt the energizing flow of adrenaline in his veins. His eyesight sharpened and he thought he could hear the faint crackling of embers, all that remained of the fires set by the Soldiers, but that was impossible. The nearest fire was twenty paces away, beyond a row of tents. It was far enough that it did not even leave a glow on his tent, let alone bring a sound to his ears.

Kurin gestured for Jurel to follow and they made their way between the tents, skirting wide of the embers lest some vagrant lick of flame cast them in light. The cool air smelled crisp, and except for a light scent, a mingling of sweat, ashes, and manure, it smelled clean with a promise of more late season snow later on. Cloud cover was sparse yet; a half-moon sailed lazily behind a thin curtain and stars sparkled where the clouds were shredded open. Except for a Soldier who snored like a hacksaw, the camp was quiet. They passed neat rows of tents, stepping carefully to avoid tripping on the tension lines, or on any vagrant piece of equipment—a cookpot, or spear, or any other sundry item that littered the ground of a military encampment—and on to the wagon.

Silently, Jurel withdrew his sword and clutched it in one hand while Kurin sifted through the sacks for their supplies, adding food from the stores. Provisions in hand, they approached the horses. One nickered a quiet greeting and Jurel rubbed its glossy nose. Taking a closer look, he recognized the coloring. This was Lieutenant Higgens's horse. He smiled.

“There, there boy,” he whispered. “It's all good. Be a good lad now.”

The horse bowed his head and nudged at the pack that Jurel had slung over his shoulder.

“Oh, you want what's in here, do you? Well, if you're good and quiet, I might be able to find you something.”

Rubbing the horse's sleek neck and whispering in its ear, Jurel turned and found Kurin rubbing a piebald mare three tethers down. Anyone watching might have wondered why these two escapees would spend so much time playing with the horses before making good their escape. Especially when they were surrounded by a band of some thirty Soldiers of God. But they knew horses. A horse was like a person. A horse could hold a grudge for a good long time. One does not just hop onto a strange horse's back and expect it to do what was desired. Not if one wanted to avoid bruises. The animal might play along for a while but sooner or later—and often at the most inopportune moment—an impatient or disrespectful rider might suddenly find himself on his backside in the mud. It was always best to take the time to get to know the horse and to let the horse get accustomed to the new voice, the new scent. They wasted precious minutes but those minutes could mean the difference between escape and capture, between life and death.

Satisfied that his new mount had taken a liking to him—it only took two carrots—Jurel gave one final pat and went to Kurin's side.

“Saddles?”

Kurin hesitated, searching the darkness and pointed. There was a tent, larger than the others at this end of the camp. Presumably, this was the tent where the tack was kept so it would remain dry. Nothing, but nothing, was as nasty as riding in a wet saddle all day, for rider or horse.

Keeping to the deeper pools of shadows, they reached the tent where they were relieved to see that Kurin's deduction had been correct. A light flickered to life and Jurel started, barely keeping an exclamation of shock locked in his throat. Kurin smiled apologetically over the candle flame worth of fire that hovered a hand's breadth above his palm then rummaged along the row of saddles until he found one he liked. Doing likewise, Jurel almost laughed when he saw Higgens's saddle and picked it up.

“Sentries,” Jurel whispered urgently. “Did you take care of the sentries?”

Kurin responded with a wolfish grin and a wave of his hand. Jurel understood: Kurin had ensured that they would not be bothered.

Leading the horses out of the camp, they picked their way carefully through the treacherous field, the darkness hiding all manner of pitfalls and potholes, until a few hundred paces on, they veered slightly and stepped onto the road. The mud that made up the road bed had frozen over again as the temperature dropped for the night. It was their ardent hope that it would be enough to throw off their trackers for a while.

When they were a stone's throw from the camp, they mounted, soothing their new mounts for these were trained war horses and did not take easily to new riders, and kicked them to a canter. Another hundred yards and they kicked to a trot, letting the night air pinch their faces and caress their cloaks. It was cold; they both knew they should gather their cloaks close for the warmth but they had been confined for too long, and they did not want to feel caged, even by their own clothes.

They rode for a time, savoring the air that riffled their hair, savoring freedom. When the cloud cover thickened and obscured what little light they had, Kurin waved his hand and raised his palm. A spark, a sputter, and then a ball of fire woke to burn cheerily and cast its yellow light for maybe ten feet ahead of them. Jurel eyed the ball of light in admiration. Useful trick, that.

After what had to be one or maybe two hours, Kurin glanced up to the depthless void of the sky and nodded to himself.

“I think,” he said, “that the snow will start soon. Now that the horses are warmed up, perhaps we should give them a little run.”

Jurel spurred his horse and with a powerful kick of its legs, it lurched forward and stretched out into a gallop. Kurin kept pace, his own mount flowing smoothly over the ground. He had brightened the ball of flame and sent it out ahead so that it seemed to hang twenty feet ahead of them and the pool of light was plenty for them to see by. They pounded on, the air turning to a wind that billowed their cloaks behind them like flags. They flew ahead, exhilarated; though they could not see the world slip by, still they felt it, felt the river struggling to keep up, felt the blur of long, rolling hills slide past, felt their prison recede into the distance.

When the snow started, their tracks would be visible. The farther they were from the camp when that happened, the longer it would take for their trail to be found. So they ran.

Chapter 53

There it was again. That light that flickered on and off. Xandru could not see much in the darkness of the stand of trees, but he saw that light. It seemed to be moving at about the speed of a horse's gallop, he guessed, and it was perhaps a half mile or so off and heading south toward him and his men. It beckoned him, that light, flickering through the trees, teasingly calling out to him like a whore that begged for him to come see what could be revealed to him for the right price.

Rarely in his lifetime had he ever been torn by indecision. This was one of them. Should they investigate the light or should they continue on. They were not far from the big stone cesspool that the southlanders called Threimes and that meant his time was running out. Could he afford the price demanded of him? Could he afford the time? But what if whoever controlled that flame knew something about his target? He hesitated. Then just as the first flakes began to sift through the dense weave of limbs he decided.

* * *

He could not help it. He laughed gleefully as his mount thundered under him and his cloak whipped and snapped behind him like a banner. Kurin, hunched over his mount's neck, glanced over and shot Jurel a tight smile. They flew down the road at breakneck speed though not once, not for an instant did Jurel believe that either of their two splendid mounts would trip. And they did not. They flew as only trained cavalry mounts can, with a fluid grace that could leave hardened men breathless and a deafening power that could break walls of steel and flesh without slowing, and even if it was broad daylight, even if they could have seen the undulating hills spotted with dense copses of pines, maples and birches to their right, they would not have been able to discern one tree from the next, for they were as the wind.

A cold prick touched Jurel's cheek then, and another alit upon his forehead. The snow was starting and he laughed all the harder.

* * *

“Come on, you lazy bastard. If Tight-ass caught you sleeping on the job, he'd have your hide,” Gershan rumbled and nudged, none too gently, the sleeping Dax with his boot. It was enough that he had pulled lots for the last shift, had to climb out of his warm blankets so that he could sit here and freeze to death while he watched blackness, now he had to cover for Dax not being able to keep his bloody eyes open? He hated waking up so early. Damned bloody pits of darkness, but he hated waking up so early.

“Dax.
Dax
! Wake up.” He kicked again, harder this time, and Dax slipped from the tree trunk he leaned against and toppled to the ground. “Dax?”

Confusion began to replace anger as he crouched and shook Dax by the shoulder hard enough to wake a dead man. Hard enough to jar Dax's helm loose and expose his face. He was pale, almost the color of the snow and his eyes were half open and glazed.

“Oh shit,” muttered Gershan as a slow horror started to creep up his spine on icicle feathers. “Dax!” he called, louder this time.

Leaning closer, he noticed a faint puff of steam emanate from his friend's parted lips. He was alive. That was a relief. But...

“Dax!” he barked. “Wake up!”