Blood and ember, p.8
Blood and Ember, page 8
Then his fingers traced up her neck, over a spot that had always driven her a little mad under the right circumstances. These were not them, but her senses didn’t give a damn. Olvir’s touch, without the barrier of wet leather, drew a gasp from her that the sound of the rain did nothing to hide.
Naturally, Olvir stopped. “Did that hurt?” he asked. He was likely trying to ask an honest question, but his voice came out lower than normal and with a smoky quality to it.
“No,” Vivian said before she realized that lying would have been a better idea.
“Ah.”
Silence followed, hot and awkward.
“I’m sorry,” Vivian said. “You know how it is, I’m sure. Survival instinct, attractive companion, and so on. I should’ve had more self-control, though. We can ignore all this.”
Her skull was probably fine, she decided. She’d started to turn when Olvir spoke again. “That’s, er, a situation I’m very well acquainted with. As in, one I have present experience of, I might say.”
It wasn’t the most explicit statement Vivian had ever heard. She had no doubt at all about its meaning all the same. His voice didn’t allow for any. Neither did the expression on his face when she did turn: color high on his cheekbones, his eyes wide and dark. Hunger had never looked so stark to Vivian.
Risk paled in the face of that desire: the man had doubtless bedded other people after all. Whatever would get the fragment of the Traitor to emerge, it probably wasn’t a few hours of pleasure. “Then,” she told him, “I’d say the time for ignoring things has passed.”
Olvir’s hands closed on her upper arms. He didn’t grip hard or close the few inches between them, but Vivian understood the restraint it took for him to hold off.
“Vivian,” he breathed.
“Yes,” she said, then sighed. “But…you know it can’t be now.”
“No.” Olvir groaned softly. That alone was enough to make Vivian catch her breath. “Not for days, like enough,” he went on, the softly burred accent of southern Criwath creeping back beneath the polish he’d clearly learned in the knighthood. “Gods, after that fight we probably shouldn’t sleep tonight.”
“You’re not wrong.” The bear, and the noise they’d made, would give enemies a point to start tracking them. They needed to get significantly ahead of any such pursuit, even if they didn’t know it existed. Vivian wouldn’t feel truly safe stopping for the night until Ulamir had returned from the place where he rested after the fault lines.
Olvir grimaced. “I really had no need of another reason to loathe Thyran. For the future, then.”
He leaned forward. Their lips met, lightly, gently, but with a world of tension on both sides. To let go would mean distraction, and letting go was damned tempting. Vivian allowed herself to cup Olvir’s face in her hands as her mouth opened beneath his to slide her tongue along his lower lip, to twine her fingers into his tangle of wet hair, but no more.
That brief embrace nonetheless left her aching when she pulled away.
“That should keep me warm for a few hours,” she said. “Very…tactical.”
“It would be,” Olvir agreed. He flushed as he went on, but he did go on, and there was a glint in his eyes that let Vivian know he was more than simply flustered. “But my difficulty walking could make it a wash.”
They were laughing, quietly, as they went down the road again.
Chapter 13
Sentinels and knights—all the god-touched, in fact—could see in the dark. Colors were a little dimmer, shapes a trifle less distinct, but night journeys were never a problem, at least not as far as vision went.
Exhaustion was a problem. Cold was a problem. Wet clothing that chafed and never truly dried was a gods-cursed problem. If Olvir had hated Thyran more for keeping him from Vivian’s arms, he doubled that after they’d been walking for a few hours, when the sun had gone down and Olvir was worried that he’d be too sore in some areas to so much as think about enjoying himself with any woman ever again.
Tactically speaking, discomfort was better than lust. He could focus more on staying alert when he really wanted to ignore his body. Being philosophical about that would have taken a far better man than Olvir ever had been.
Whatever part of Letar’s Halls geisbars went to, Olvir hoped it was unpleasant.
The rain itself stopped shortly after nightfall, leaving the forest a dark, dripping mass. Mud squelched below their feet. The footing was not wonderful. Neither was the wind that came up after the rain. Raw weather, people had called it in Olvir’s childhood, the sort that often led to illness.
He and Vivian had donned their cloaks, which helped somewhat. Mostly they kept moving, eating and drinking in shifts while they trudged forward. They fell into silence again as they tried to stay undetected. After a while, Olvir felt as though he’d known nothing but the rhythm of their steps and the dark, wet crowd of trees.
The forest grew sparser as the old road took them uphill. Olvir couldn’t have named the spot where it ended, exactly, but at some point in the night, he realized that they weren’t in it any longer. Trees still stood on either side of the road, but they were dotting a hilly plain, not flanking a path through dense woods.
Enemies would find them easier to spot now. Olvir couldn’t help liking his wider field of vision all the same, not to mention the marked decrease in branches trying to break his nose. Fewer trees also meant fewer leaves to drop rain down his neck when he brushed against their branches.
Ideally, too, they’d left Thyran’s army behind a while ago. Olvir kept one hand near his sword nonetheless and added the loss of his shield to his list of grudges against the geisbar.
The night went on. Eventually, the sky turned from black to coal-gray, then from coal to smoke, with a bit of light breaking through in the east. Then it was day. The path dried out, as did Olvir’s boots and Vivian’s, until their footsteps no longer sounded squashy.
Birds started their chorus. Many were the ones Olvir had known from childhood, but there were other calls among them: a series of four long trills that repeated, a lower one-two-three-ONE rhythm, and a single piercing scream that sounded like some variety of hawk but too wavering to be any of those Olvir had heard.
That was the first sign of life since they’d reached the plains—other than the trees, Olvir supposed, and those seemed like simply taller versions of the tumbled rocks that rose from the earth in spots.
He also guessed that he and Vivian counted as living beings, though that was more knowledge than feeling. Physically, Olvir had walked for longer and put himself through worse, but there was a disconnected sense about the night that he’d never had before, born of rain, silence, and darkness. Even though he could see, he’d noticed the faded colors and the lack of light.
Ghosts came to mind. So did echoes or footprints: tracks of passage, untethered to the thing passing. Olvir thought of the journey’s end, as little as he was able to speculate about that, and felt as if he was leaving the world in addition to the forest.
* * *
You yet live, do you?
It was an hour or two after dawn; Olvir was striding ahead of her with what appeared to be unceasing if solemn vigor. While that notion might have set her mind working in pleasant ways when they’d started walking again, she was just inclined to resent him for it by the time Ulamir spoke. Vivian was inclined to resent everything, in fact, and was continuing to walk mostly out of anger at the earth beneath her feet.
Still, she was glad to hear Ulamir’s mental voice again. He sounded rested, too, which was an asset as well as a source of profound envy.
She sent him her thanks for his assistance.
Performing my appointed task is always an honor. Did the beast die at your hands, did you drive it off, or did the two of you simply escape?
She filled him in as best she could without actually talking, skipping the part where she and Olvir had nearly been carried away by lust. Ulamir had never been unaware of her lovers, but as with most Sentinels and soulswords, actually managing liaisons was always a slightly awkward business. He tactfully vanished to the place where he went to rest as soon as he knew any sort of dalliance was happening. Vivian tried to give him advance warning and did the best she could to keep him unaware of the details.
It more or less worked, like most parts of life.
You were wise to press on, Ulamir said at the end of Vivian’s story. I would advise going until sunset, if you can manage it. Tonight I’ll keep the sole watch.
Vivian hesitated. The soulsword was generally aware of what happened near him, but he saw better through her eyes.
The stone is closer here. Should you cover the ground today that seems likely, by night, it will be closer still. What comes across it will be known to me, and you know I can wake you at need.
That had happened a few years ago, when the inn where Vivian was staying had caught fire. She decided she’d exhausted all the arguments she was obliged to put forward, so just thought her thanks again.
Ulamir was right about the stone being closer. Huge purple and blue rocks, worn smooth by age, stuck out of the ground without any apparent pattern. Even when Vivian couldn’t see stone directly, the soil looked thinner and the trees smaller.
The wind picked up, passing her face in a flensing rush that made her eyes water. Vivian left her hood down anyhow, knowing that it wouldn’t have stayed on in that blast unless she’d laced it so tightly that it impeded her hearing.
It was breaking up the clouds, that wind, but the sky it revealed was a washed-out sort of blue, as though the rain had drained all the life out of it. The land was wide and bare, the trees stunted compared to the ones Vivian and Olvir had recently passed through. They stood lonely or in isolated little groves, casting long shadows on the dark earth.
Vivian couldn’t deny that the walk was easier, despite growing more and more uphill, that her field of vision was better, or that nothing was dripping on her head. But the place was bleak. Even the birds sounded harsh and far away. The small animals, with too much ground to cover and not much shelter, flicked nervously from tree to rock to den, rarely visible.
Nomads had lived there once, until Thyran’s first war. The land might have been more cheerful when it had been full of tents and horses.
All its former inhabitants had vanished, traceless. Bloodlines survived from those who’d been visiting other lands or in descendants of those who’d been on friendly terms with travelers. So did some of the stories, a few of the traditions, maybe a scrap or two of what those customs had meant.
Most of the rest had died or joined Thyran, as humans from other countries had done when he’d been gathering his armies. Many of those who’d chosen alliance might still be with Thyran in some form. A very few might have had a choice in their shape—rumor had it that the lords of the twistedmen, Thyran’s lieutenants, got to pick Gizath’s effects on their flesh.
Everything else was gone. After a hundred years, the land didn’t even hold on to bones.
Time devours all, said Ulamir. Thyran only helped.
* * *
Noon was a pale wash of light above them. Olvir doffed his cloak, and his clothes slowly dried. He spotted flowers clustered near the roots of trees and the bases of rocks but recognized none of the bright-blue and yellow blossoms as edible.
The animals might have been, but there’d be no time to cook them. They moved too fast to hunt anyhow, almost too fast to see. Olvir glimpsed hares, small anteaters, and a squirrel with a scaled, barbed tail, but they were all on the run, dashing into cover almost as soon as he noticed them. Once, a silver-furred marmot bolted up from a patch of grass when Olvir got too close, then stood on its hind legs to stare at him and chitter loudly.
Once Olvir recovered from the shock, he started laughing silently, partly with relief at being a little more certain, on a gut level, that he was alive. He doubted marmots had much to say to ghosts or echoes at least.
“It’s probably good that Emeth isn’t here,” Vivian said from behind him, snickering. “I doubt that you want to find out what he’s saying.”
“My deepest apologies for disturbing you, sir,” said Olvir. He bowed to the marmot, as elaborate and courtly as he could make the gesture while on the road. “I’m sure you’re right about everything.”
He heard Vivian laugh again. That was another line thrown out, stronger than the marmot: Olvir was truly present, truly alive, connected to the rest of existence. He was shaping the world, not only echoing it.
“I think we can talk now,” he said, surveying the rocky, bare land. “Our steps will carry as loudly as our voices on this earth, and we’ll be able to hear anybody approaching. Or so I assume.”
“Thank the gods, Ulamir agrees with you. He says he’ll take tonight’s watch too.”
“That’s generous of him.”
“It is,” said Vivian, “and he’s extremely doubtful about my skills out here when I haven’t slept. Or he thinks that nature’s trying my patience as it is. He’d be right in both cases.”
“I heard you were all at home in the wilderness.”
“Oh, we’re all trained in the basics. I can manage when I have to. But when I could, I took the kind of missions I was on with you, the sort where I could clear out the undead in a haunted castle or lure ice-apes away from a village. Darya and Emeth are better at places where people don’t live.”
“And when there’s no mission, you prefer to stay indoors?”
“Horseback, if I can help it, or with a dog pack, or out in a garden. A walk in the woods on a nice day. Outside is wonderful; it’s just the wild that I don’t enjoy. It’s too…wild.”
“But Poram gave you his blessing?”
“He’s also Sitha’s love. The gods seem reasonably complicated.”
“Or they understand that we are,” said Olvir, recalling the vigil at his initiation.
Vivian gave him a split second of careful regard and then asked, “Have you ever been in contact with yours—with Tinival? That kind of communion isn’t generally one of our gifts. They reshape our bodies, but they mostly leave our spirits alone.”
“When I took my final vows.” Olvir said. “I couldn’t put it into words, really, but I felt Him. I realized that nothing I’d ever do would measure up to…” He lifted his hands and dropped them, trying to express that sense of perfect balance, exact knowledge of the best path—not the one that would benefit him most but the one kindest to most people—and calm perspective. “But I knew that He knew I was trying my hardest. I knew that it mattered to Him.”
“That must be nice,” said Vivian. “That certainty.”
The Sentinels did useful work. Nobody disputed that—but many people, especially those with generally peaceful lives, kept their distance. Olvir had heard the Order spoken of in terms that ranged from “helpful, certainly, but damned strange” to “as likely as not to turn on us if they don’t find prey.” If they had no contact with the gods on top of that… He wanted to offer sympathy and suspected Vivian wouldn’t take it well.
“It’s been very helpful to me,” he replied instead, “especially these last few weeks. Like Marshal Nahon said, Tinival saw all of what I was, and He let me serve him.”
“Has he rejected candidates before?”
“Oh, yes. Not many. Usually it’ll be pretty obvious if you’re not cut out to be a knight, long before the vigil happens. But there are stories—a squire who cut his rival’s stirrups in a tournament, for example. Nobody had discovered it, but he came out of the vigil chamber weeping and confessing, with a red mark like a sword blade covering his face and his hair pure white.”
“Very dramatic.”
“Very. And that was merciful. Edda…my mother…” He didn’t expect Vivian to quibble over the word but brought it out defiantly anyhow. Edda had deserved the term. A long-dead Verengir cultist never would. “She said that she saw a woman die during her vigil once. Didn’t see it exactly, I mean, but opened the door and there she was. Just sitting there, Edda said, staring at nothing. Nobody ever found out what she’d done.”
Vivian made a thoughtful noise. “I could hazard a few guesses, but it doesn’t really matter. People don’t make it through reforging sometimes,” she added, serious but matter-of-fact, “but that’s generally nothing to do with their behavior.”
“Can their bodies just not take the change?”
“For the most part. Sometimes it’s the mind or the spirit that breaks under pressure. That’s usually to do with the minor blessing or the offensive one. We’re channeling some part of the gods then, and they’re a lot to contain.”
Olvir glanced down at his chest, where his heart beat steadily with exercise and his other nature rested silently. “That they are.”
Chapter 14
The moon was a slim crescent overhead by the time they stopped. An elbow in the mountain’s ridge, where the road technically ended before switching back to ascend in the other direction, held a wide spot with a small grove of pine trees.
“That’s as good as we’re likely to find for a while,” Olvir said. Vivian agreed.
When she blinked or turned her head, pink and green shapes lingered in her vision, afterimages of what she’d been looking at. She had to silently tell herself what to do in small sentences, once they’d stopped in the grove and Ulamir had taken watch: Open pack. Take out blankets. Put blankets flat on ground. Sit down. Take off boots.
“I’m not sure whether a fire would be safe or not,” she said, unbuckling her sword belt, “but I’d probably lose a finger if I tried to cut any wood.”
“Picking up fallen branches might be a wise idea tomorrow.” Olvir peered up at the mountain’s expanse. “In case. It probably does get cold up there.” He pulled his armor over his head and glanced sideways at Vivian. “For tonight, if you wanted, we could keep each other warm. I mean that literally. I’m afraid I’m three steps from dead and no use as anything but a hot stone.”
