He’d have to content himself with finding out her secrets. Where they were headed. What they sought. And why. But those mysteries were much easier to solve than the ones presented by Thalia Burgess. And while he knew he shouldn’t learn her secrets, they were becoming much more intriguing to Huntley than anything else he’d ever come across in his jumbled life.
Sunrise was not for some time, but Thalia was already awake. Despite the long hours in the saddle and her physical exhaustion from the trying day, her sleep had been shallow, her dreams troubling. She kept seeing the face of the man she had killed, kept watching him ride up the hill over and over, and each time she raised her rifle and the shot fired sounded louder than disaster. But in her dreams, the man would fall off his horse and roll down, down the hill, until he lay sprawled at her feet, and his face would no longer be his face, but her father’s. Blood, bright and accusing, covered her hands.
Many times, over the course of the night, she would wake, gasping and sick. Then she would turn her head toward where she knew Captain Huntley was sleeping, and, somehow, he was always awake when she was, because she would hear his voice say to her softly, “Easy, lass. The dreams will stop, in time.”
It didn’t seem that way. It didn’t seem that she could ever fall asleep again, but she would, after hearing the captain. She didn’t know why she found his presence nearby comforting, and it disturbed her that she did. Even so, she did drift off again, back to the nightmare. Would it always be this way? He didn’t think so. She wanted, at least, to believe that much.
Thalia now lay still as she fully wakened, looking up at the dark sky, marshalling her strength and her cunning. She and Batu would have to be extremely quiet, more quiet than silence itself, if they were to evade the captain. She supposed they could knock him unconscious with the butt of Batu’s heavy muzzleloader, but after everything that Captain Huntley had done for them, it would be unforgivable for her to physically hurt him. He’d helped save her from the Heirs’ violence, and she could not repay him with more of the same. But she did need to be free of him, for the sake of the Blades and everything they protected. She had no choice in the matter.
She would have to move soon. Thalia watched as one star, and then another, began to wink out with the approach of morning. They had camped for the night, wrapped in blankets that had been packed on the horses. Had she been traveling for any other reason, she would have stopped at a nomad’s ail for the evening and saved herself and Batu the discomfort of sleeping on the hard, bare earth. She understood that she could receive hospitality at any ger, whether she knew the family or not. It was the Mongol way never to refuse food or lodging to anyone. But she hadn’t the time to stop, pay the usual respects, socialize over a meal, and perhaps perform a few chores to repay her hosts. So she had gone out of her way to avoid any gers, making sure that she and her party could not be seen by anyone at the encampments. To pass a ger without stopping was highly peculiar and almost rude. Better to stay out of the line of sight and avoid any speculation or unpleasantness.
It would be unpleasant to abandon Captain Huntley, but she saw no alternative. As befitting a soldier, he had traveled well and kept his council, only asking her now and again to identify certain animals or plants. She rather liked his curiosity, how he seemed interested in even the ridiculous marmots who would stare at them from their holes. He was focused on their journey, but had an expansiveness of mind that allowed for taking in new things. It was dreadfully appealing.
For their evening meal, she had handed out typical Mongol foods for travel: borts, dried mutton, and aaruul, dried cheese from goats’ milk, nothing that required a fire for cooking. Out on the steppe at night, a campfire shone like a beacon, and if the Heirs were out there, Thalia could take no chances in giving away her location.
“You’re not eating,” the captain had noted after she had distributed some food to him and Batu.
She had shaken her head. The idea of putting food into her mouth, chewing and swallowing it, after what she had done earlier in the day, seemed impossible. She didn’t think she could hold down anything.
Captain Huntley had gotten up and walked to the bag holding their provisions. He took a measure of borts and aaruul, and pressed them into her unwilling hand. “Eat,” he had commanded. “You can’t bring that man back by starving yourself, and you wouldn’t want to, anyway.”
“I can’t,” Thalia had answered, but he would not take the food back.
He had insisted. “You can and you will. If we have to sit here all night, I’ll make sure you finish those rations.”
“Don’t talk to me as though I’m a child,” she snapped.
“You’re not a child, and I don’t think of you as one,” he replied. “But after a soldier’s first kill, he can hurt himself. Not eating, not sleeping. I make sure that doesn’t happen. Not with them, and not with you.” He sat down opposite her and watched, waiting, until she began to nibble at the dried meat. At first, it had been difficult, and she nearly gagged, until he had said, “Breathe through your nose. Go slowly. And keep drinking.” She’d taken sips of airag, fermented horses’ milk, and gradually, bit by bit, finished her small meal. Despite her resentment toward Captain Huntley for his high-handed way of commanding her, she had ultimately been glad to have eaten something, recovered some of her strength because of it, which annoyed her. She didn’t want him to be right, not where knowing her own body’s needs was concerned, but he had been. She had a strange, unwanted thought—how well did the captain know women? Probably very well, indeed, with a face and form like his. Not that it mattered to her at all.
At the least, as they readied their beds for the night, he hadn’t pressed her for further answers. She appreciated his discretion, yet she also had an idea that he would take another tactic to learn the truth. He might not believe it, but for his sake, she could never tell him everything. And she had to lose him. Immediately.
With that in mind, Thalia now slowly, slowly pulled off her blankets and rolled into a crouch. It was too dark to see much, but she knew that Batu slept not but a yard away to her right. She crept toward him and woke him with a hand on his shoulder, another hand over his mouth to keep him from speaking. Thalia pointed toward where Captain Huntley slept, and Batu nodded with understanding, then got to his feet. They both tiptoed toward where the horses were hobbled and began packing them as noiselessly as possible, using touch, rather than sight, as their guide. The animals snorted and stamped to warm themselves for impending travel. Thalia glanced over her shoulder, alarmed. Nothing from the captain.
The horizon turned pink and the rocky hills around them began to burn with dawn light. It wouldn’t be long before the sun’s rays reached their position, which would undoubtedly wake Captain Huntley. Even though he’d been awake whenever she had roused from a nightmare, he seemed to sleep soundly now. Maybe she had worn him out, with her frightening dreams. At least she could be grateful to the nightmares for that. She couldn’t rely on the captain’s exhaustion, though. They had to move quickly.
Thalia debated with herself whether or not she would take the captain’s horse. No Mongol liked to walk. Even small children learned to ride soon after taking their first steps. But the steppes were not uninhabited, nor uninhabitable. Taking Captain Huntley’s horse was not a death sentence. If he set out on foot, he could reach a ger within a day, if not less. She could surely lose him if she deprived him of a horse, and do him very little harm in the process.
As quietly as she could, she moved through the horses to find the tall mare he rode. Yet something was very strange. The mare was somehow eluding her, because she kept finding only her own horses. She fumbled toward Batu and whispered into his ear, “Where is the captain’s horse?”
Batu had been raised as a nomad and knew horses better than most people knew their parents. After a cursory examination, he whispered back, “The horse is gone.”
Thalia was alarmed. The captain had hobbled his horse when they had made camp, and she had discreetly watched him to ensure that he’d done it properly, which he had. So where in blazes was his animal? It couldn’t have wandered off on its own. Had it been stolen?
A strange intuition had Thalia cautiously approach where Captain Huntley slept. As she did, the first rays of light began to illuminate the basin. And that was when she saw it.
The captain was gone.
There was a slight depression in the ground where he had lain, but that was all that remained of him. His horse, his gear, everything had vanished. She found herself crouching down, touching the earth where he had slept, as if trying to catch the lingering warmth of his body, perhaps judge how long it had been since he left. Of course, the ground was cold.
She felt a stab of panic. What if something had happened to him? Had the Heirs kidnapped him from the camp, as she and Batu slept on, unaware? No. He was a soldier, and a good one. Nothing ill had befallen him. There was another explanation for his absence.
She straightened. “He left us,” she said to Batu as he came to stand beside her.
“Without saying anything?”
“It appears so.” Irritation flared as she contemplated this development. “All his protestations about accompanying us, that we needed his help—I suppose they had no weight.” Annoyed with the captain for leaving, more annoyed with herself that she should care, Thalia stalked back to her horse and adjusted the saddle.
“Or perhaps,” Batu suggested, following, “he finally took your words to heart and headed for home. A man will only wait around so long while a woman holds him at bay.”
Thalia scowled at her old friend, who merely looked back at her with a calm, unperturbed expression. She took out her frustrations on her poor horse by giving the saddle cinch a hard tug, and the animal snorted and pawed at the ground in protest. Thalia patted it, contrite.
“We should get going,” she finally said. “Morning is here and we have at least three more days of traveling.”
Batu agreed, and together, they finished packing, then mounted their horses and began to ride west. They had camped in a wide gulley, and had to crest a small line of hills to continue on their way. Thalia felt strange and out-of-sorts, and tried to dismiss it as the result of a poor night’s sleep, but, deep inside herself, she knew it was because she had not said a proper farewell to Captain Huntley. He was gruff and commanding, yes, but he had also shown her an unexpected compassion. Between that and the insistent pull she felt toward him whenever he was around, she could have compromised herself badly had he stayed. He could have been more dangerous than Sergei. A letter shouldn’t hurt, though. If she only knew more about him, where he was headed, she might be able to write him a letter, thanking him for his service. But she knew almost nothing of him besides his name and rank, and finding him could be nearly impossible.
Thalia shook her head, clearing her thoughts. She needed to focus her attention on the task at hand. The Heirs would be hard on her heels, and she had to protect the Blades, do their work. This was the opportunity she had longed for, and she would be damned if she let anything, including herself, get in her way.
Yet all of her carefully constructed resolve fell away just as she and Batu came over the top of the hills.
Captain Huntley was waiting for them.
He was atop his horse, and, judging by the sheen on the animal’s hide, they had been riding for some time. As he wiped some dust from his face with a kerchief, he did not look at all surprised to see them, unlike Thalia, who felt a confusing mixture of happiness, relief, and anger.
“Good, you’re up,” he said as she and Batu trotted to meet him. “I’ve scouted the area and it looks clear, so we can move ahead.”
Thalia vowed to herself that she could be just as sanguine as the captain, while her heart, clearly not receiving the telegram from her head, capered inside her chest. “There’s a narrow gorge about three miles from here,” she said. “It could be a good place for an ambush.”
“Already secured it,” he answered.
“And a stand of larches a mile beyond could hide a group of riders.”
“That’s been taken care of, as well. Your friends don’t appear to be anywhere in the vicinity. I spotted a grouping of tracks, but they were headed north, not west.”
Thalia took a breath, scanning the horizon. She finally allowed herself to look at him directly, and found that the morning light turned his eyes to burnished coins. He must have slept less than she did, yet seemed to suffer no lingering trace of tiredness, no ill effects. In fact, with the golden sunlight playing across his cheekbones, the hard line of his jaw, and the slight fullness of his bottom lip, he looked quite enticing. It didn’t seem quite fair, not when Thalia was certain that she looked like the underside of a saddle.
“You’re quite thorough,” she said after a moment.
“Always am.” An almost teasing glint appeared in his eyes, warming them, warming her. “In everything.”
“Ah,” she cleverly answered. Thalia actually felt herself blush, something she hadn’t done since…since Sergei. And look how well that had turned out.
She resisted the urge to rub at her face, to try to hide the signs of her awareness of him, which would only draw further attention. His attention. Which she did not want. For so many reasons. Including the fact that she could easily respond to his attention, easily and eagerly. She would have to be careful, watchful, as much toward herself as toward him. Which meant that there would be no more blushing. There was a sizable difference between telling herself something and actually having it happen, however. She would have to take action, beginning immediately.