Skies (36 page)

Brisson nodded, not asking what the man had been up to. Gavin didn’t know and, frankly, didn’t care. It was all he could do to stay on his feet and keep his teeth from chattering. Evrouin looked just as bad.

“Hurry,” Gavin breathed.

Brisson started off, moving quickly through the snow. The snow muffled their steps, but bit at Gavin’s feet. Before long, they were numb and frozen, all feeling gone. Every few tents, Tadeo would tap Brisson on the shoulder and the man would stop, allowing the group to rest. They didn’t talk at all, not wanting to chance waking whatever sleeping occupant lay within the tents. Gavin kept his eyes on Evrouin, watching the man turn more and more pale with each step. His lips were turning a deep shade of purplish blue, though Gavin was only able to see it when they passed through the dim light of a distant lamp or fire. Gavin wondered what he must look like himself.

They reached the end of the tents after only four short stops. They hadn’t crossed paths with any Orinai soldiers or anyone else, thankfully, though even if they had, Gavin wasn’t sure what he would have done. He stumbled as he walked now, and Evrouin had already fallen once. He didn’t know how they were going to make it any further without cover. He knew from earlier that over two hundred spans separated the Orinai camp and the closest thing they had to shelter. Part of him also wondered what the snows meant for their return to the valley. Would their path still be passable even if they made it to them?

Tadeo signaled Brisson to stop, and they all crouched together by the last tent. The wind rushed passed them, carrying a flurry of snow and buffeting their already numb bodies. Gavin reached out to steady Evrouin as the man halted and stumbled to his knees.

“There is no safety out there for great distance,” Tadeo whispered. “I fear you will not make it.”

“Just shut up and show me where to go,” Evrouin said, teeth chattering. From what Gavin could see of him, he looked as pale as sun-bleached bone, so much so that it was noticeable by contrast to the darkness around them.

Shouting erupted behind them. Though the sound was muffled, it was easy to identify. They’d been discovered missing. Lights flared up throughout the camps, pale yellow orbs cast out against the snow, as lanterns were lit. Gavin stood up enough to look out over the tent they were hiding behind and then immediately fell back down again. A red-clothed archer rushed by in the opposite direction on the other side of the tent, headed for the center of camp. Where had
he
come from?

“Run!” Brisson said, getting to his feet.

“They will find us,” Tadeo said, voice sounding grim. “This thing is certain.”

Brisson reached out and grabbed hold of Evrouin and Gavin, yanking them to their feet. Tadeo rushed forward, drawing the curved dagger, but Brisson pushed the other two men away from the camp and between him and Tadeo.

“Run!” he shouted, then spun around and dashed toward the camp.

Gavin stumbled forward after Tadeo and Evrouin, then stopped, turning around to look after Brisson. He had started running, not toward the center of camp, but out along the edge. What was he doing? He was sacrificing himself for them? Why would he do that?

“Gavin,” Tadeo shouted. “You must run. This thing, it will not last long.”

Gavin’s eyes lingered on Brisson’s form. The early morning light peeking out above the mountain peaks gave the falling snow a reddish cast and made a hazy mask which distorted Brisson’s shape. As he ran, Brisson grabbed a lantern—just a small dot on the horizon against the snow—and tossed it against some tents, which immediately burst into balls of raging fire.

A hand closed around Gavin’s arm.

Gavin yelped and tried to pull away, but it was only Tadeo, come back to pull him along. Despite the man’s stern face and angry expression, the grip on Gavin’s arm was a weak one. Snow fell around him in great, swirling patterns of enormous flakes.

“Come now!” Tadeo growled. “We must—”

He cut off abruptly, eyes narrowing as they focused on something behind Gavin. Gavin whipped his head around in time to see Brisson’s small, hazy form
lurch
to one side and fall into the snow. He got back up, then stumbled backward as if struck by something. He fell to his knees, then toppled into the snow and didn’t get back up. Fires blazed in the tents around him.

“Run,” Tadeo said, grip tightening on Gavin’s arm. “Run!”

Gavin swallowed hard, though his throat was dry, and stumbled after him. Tadeo released his arm and charged forward toward the small, huddled form that was Evrouin a score of spans ahead of them. Gavin struggled to think clearly, to process what Brisson had just done and sacrificed for them, and to focus on their escape. It was like trying to walk in sand. For each step forward, he slipped at least a half step backward as well. He tripped, stumbled, but caught himself and kept running. He couldn’t feel his legs, couldn’t feel his arms. The snow swirled around him, like a white mist that twisted and undulated like the sands in a storm. It was, Gavin decided, not an unpleasant thing.

Something tugged at his arm. He looked down as he half stumbled, half ran along the expanse toward the mountains. They had no real plan where they were going. They just ran. A fresh line of red crossed Gavin’s arm, exposed flesh a mixture of olive skin, brownish-red dried blood, and bright red fresh blood. Had one of his cuts opened back up? Gavin’s foot got caught on a loose stone beneath the snow and he flew forward, falling face-first into the snow. Something zipped over his head, almost like the buzz of an insect but sharper, more ferocious. What was that?

He got to his feet and resumed running, ignoring the new abrasions the fall had created. He honestly didn’t feel the pain of them at all. Part of him knew that was a bad sign, but his brain wasn’t able to focus on anything but keeping his feet moving forward. He looked up, trying to see how far ahead of him Evrouin had gotten. All he saw was white. The snow had picked up, falling hard enough that it covered everything around them. Gavin stumbled to a stop, skidding in the snow and feeling panic burn through him like a fire.

Where are we?
He couldn’t even see the mountains anymore. Snow settled on his arms, face, and shoulders, but he didn’t even feel their freezing caress.

Something
slammed
into him. The force of it spun him around and sent him back into the snow. Pain blossomed in his shoulder and in his arm. His head hit the ground and Gavin struggled to remember where he was or what was going on.

Pain lanced through his arm. He welcomed it. It meant he could feel. The rest of his body felt sluggish and stiff, as if great weights were attached. His left shoulder burned as if subjected to hot coals.

Brisson is dead.

Gavin pushed the errant thought aside, knowing, deep down inside himself, that he wasn’t going to make it out of this. He turned his head, still lying prone in the snow. A green arrow shaft stuck out from his shoulder, flakes of snow settling on the black fletching. Blood moved sluggishly down his arm, an odd spot of color against the whiteness around him. Groaning, Gavin rolled over onto his right side, looking behind him. A hazy group of archers stood at the edge of his vision, bows leveled in his direction, arrow tips glistening with reflected light even through the snow. Another figure strode forward in front of them and was likely the reason the archers hadn’t yet filled him with arrows. Gavin twisted further to the right, looking up and squinting through the snow. The Orinai commander. The man who had tortured him.

Gavin tried to shuffle back, right arm scrabbling against the snow, but he couldn’t find the strength. He tried to reach out for his powers,
anything
, but nothing came.

The Orinai stepped closer, drawing a long, thin, double-edged sword. He knelt down in the snow next to Gavin, face hard. His red cloak flapped in the wind behind him.

“I am curious,” the man said, voice sharp and hard against the screaming wind. “What you were thinking in trying to escape? Did you not think we would capture you?”

Gavin didn’t have the strength to answer. Snow swirled around him and assaulted his eyes. He blinked the flakes away.

“Did you think to show Strength, perhaps?” the man’s voice still held the sharpness it had before, but the man’s face betrayed a small measure of curiosity, as if he were pondering why the sun rises each morning. “Regardless, I suppose now it does not matter. We know where you are hiding. As the Sisters command, we will eliminate the scourge that is your people.” The man got back to his feet and swished his sword through the air with an economy of movement that left Gavin feeling dizzy. “Know that I honor your tenacity, little slave.”

He raised his sword high into the air. Gavin thought he was going to bring it swishing down to cut him, but then saw the archers draw back their bows, shafts pointed directly at him, metal tips glinting dully.

Fear ran through Gavin, but not as intensely as he’d thought it would when staring into the face of death. Farah’s face flashed through his mind. He’d miss her smile and the strength she’d lent him. But his grandmother’s face also passed through his memories, standing alongside his parents. They were smiling.

The Orinai commander nodded at Gavin, his expression still as impassive as always, though Gavin thought he saw a measure of respect and acceptance there. He found it hard to reconcile that look with the man who had tortured him and his friends for the entire night. The sword fell. Arrows loosed. Gavin breathed in normally, time slowing as he watched his death approaching.

Less than an inch from Gavin’s face the arrows jackknifed backward as if they’d hit an invisible wall. The Orinai’s sword reacted too, ripping free of his grip and disappearing into the white haze of snow. Gavin blinked, confused, and not really believing he was still alive. His pulse raced and his lungs heaved, though they burned from the cold with each breath. What had just happened? The Orinai commander shouted at the archers, who readied to fire another volley.

A form materialized out of the mist, a dark, vaguely-human shape that became more distinct with amazing rapidity. The archers fired and the form raised a hand almost negligently. The arrows spun away and, this time, Gavin felt the earth rumble beneath his feet, shaking and rocking like the sands during a Migration. The man form stepped closer. The archers drew and fired again at the prompting of their commander. The arrows flew away again. The form turned its head—or what Gavin assumed was its head—toward them and brought his other arm up. The score of archers flew back suddenly, thrown back by the force of the push against the metal on their bodies. The Orinai commander skidded across the snowy ground.

Gavin looked over at the man, recognition hitting him with the force of a cold, winter tempest.

“Nikanor?” Gavin breathed.

“But who shall save the guides, if they stray from the Path? Are they too lost, and their followers forever fallen?”

—From the Discourses on Knowledge, Volume 17, Year 1171

Farah pulled her hair back out of her eyes, tying the blond tresses back with a length of cord. That done, she went back to what she’d been doing before.

Pacing.

“You’ll wear a hole in the floor doing that,” Shallee said without looking up. The short woman had Benji sitting before her and she was pulling a comb through his thick brown hair. The boy fidgeted a little, glancing up at Farah, but Shallee rapped him on the side of the head with her comb and he went back to how he’d been before.

Farah forced herself to stop pacing, stopping in the middle of the room. It took her a moment to realize that she was chewing on her nails.

Shallee sighed and put a hand on the side of Benji’s shoulder, tapping it lightly. “Off with you, then. That’s the best I can do with your hair. If you washed it more . . .”

Benji made a face, but bounded to his feet and scurried to the table with the speed of a diving aevian.

Farah felt her lips tugging toward a smile, but then she glanced at the door and the smile died.

Where is he?

“I’m going out,” Farah said, after another long moment. She turned toward her room, meaning to retrieve her cloak.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Benji said, holding his hands out to the fire set in the hearth. “That snow’s turning into a right old blizzard out there.”

“Blizzard?”

“Giant snow storm. Lots of wind, and snow, and badness. You won’t be able to see further than your own nose. If you don’t get lost, you’ll probably die from the cold. I heard about this one man, once, who froze to death right in front of his own house and didn’t even know it because he couldn’t see through the snow. His wife found him the next day, his back up against his own door. Stupid fool. He shouldn’t have even gone out.”

“Hush now, Benji,” Shallee said.

Farah felt her stomach twist into knots inside her.
Gavin
was out in that.

“What? I was just saying what I heard, alright? It wasn’t like I wanted the idiot dead.”

Shallee cleared her throat and Benji quieted, though didn’t actually fall into total silence. He grumbled something else under his breath but Farah was too distracted to fully grasp it.

***

Gavin blinked away the snow, his eyes feeling as if they had lead weights attached to them.

Nikanor?

No, it wasn’t Nikanor. Nikanor was dead. The figure loomed before him and bent low and put his arms underneath Gavin’s and pulled him to his feet.

“Darryn?” Gavin breathed, voice a rattle that barely broke through the screaming wind.

Darryn pulled one of Gavin’s arms over his own and half-pulled, half-supported Gavin as they headed back in the direction of the valley. No arrows flew in their direction.

“Move, sands take you,” Darryn cursed. “I didn’t come all the way back here for you to get us both killed.”

Gavin forced whatever strength he had left into his legs and started walking more quickly. Darryn grunted approval.

“Why—why are you—are you here?” Gavin’s breath came in short gasps, but he pushed ahead anyway. His mind refused to process correctly. He knew they were in danger, knew he should be worried about where Evrouin and Tadeo were, but he couldn’t force his mind to focus on anything. Thinking at all was painful.

“I couldn’t just let you die,” Darryn grumbled. His cloak slipped off one shoulder and draped down over Gavin, the wind wrapping it around part of his body. “Lhaurel’s sacrifice wouldn’t have meant anything if I let you die.”

“Lhaurel?” Gavin felt confusion tap at the icy edges of his frozen mind. What did Lhaurel have to do with anything?

The wind howled and snow flurried around them. Cold, so terribly cold. Gavin blinked at the growing darkness around him. Some small part of him felt there was something odd about that, but it wasn’t that important to him at that moment.
What am I doing?
The world seemed to spin for a moment in his vision, a vortex of white, grey, and shadow.

Whiteness surrounded him and he found himself having difficulty breathing. His mouth filled with something cold and wet.

Snow?

Had he fallen?

Hands wrapped around him, though Gavin barely felt them. A piercing, high-pitched sound hit Gavin’s ears, but he wasn’t even able to wince. Hands hauled him up to his feet. Something crashed into the ground near him and more sounds tore through the air, mingling with the screaming winds. Light flashed through the sky and Gavin blinked against the sudden whiteness of that light reflecting off the snow. His skin tingled and he felt somehow stronger. Strength surged through him and his vision cleared for a brief moment. The light vanished, but the afterimage of several forms remained burned in his eyes, even as they readjusted to the odd half-gloom.

“Nabil?”

The massive white aevian couldn’t be here, could he? A muted sound rumbled through the skies.
Thunder?

Gavin’s eyes adjusted as the hands that held him pushed him up onto Nabil’s broad back. Darryn was there alongside him, anger and fear on his face. Pain lanced through Gavin as his body scraped against the leather of the saddle and the leads, but he took that as a good sign even as he ground his teeth together to keep from screaming.

“Evrouin? Tadeo?” Gavin asked, wrapping his still-numb fingers around the pommel of Nabil’s saddle.

“They’re safe.” Darryn ducked under Nabil’s wing and scurried through the snow to where his own aevian waited, another white monstrosity almost as large as Nabil. Their mottled white and black plumage blended into the swirling snows. Darryn vaulted up into the saddle and clipped his harness into the saddle beneath him.

Nabil screeched and reared up, forcing Gavin to focus all his attention on staying on his broad back. Light flashed again and, this time, Gavin recognized it for what it was as his body tingled with the energy of it all. Lightning. By reflex, he reached out to his abilities again.

This time, the sensation of everything around him feeling muffled wasn’t nearly as strong. It was there, muting his perception of the lightning as it flashed, but it didn’t stop him. He pulled on the energy, felt it surge through his veins, appearing along his arms as white sparks that buzzed and snapped.

Nabil leapt into the air, Darryn’s aevian only a half a heartbeat behind.

The energy
flowed
through Gavin. Pain vanished and he felt some of the shallower cuts begin to heal. He felt the storm radiating outward from him, like he was the center of a giant somewhat circular blanket of energy suspended in the sky. It moved out in all directions, building as the snows came down. He felt the incredible potential within the storm, held back within the clouds just waiting for an escape. More than that, with the energy thundering through him, crackling around his arms as Nabil climbed higher into the air, Gavin felt the tendrils of—
connection
—tethering the storm to the air and world around it. He felt it slipping out toward places he didn’t know, though the bulk of the storm’s energy remained here. It was all, he realized, interconnected.

He pulled on the storm, moving it back away from the valley where his people remained hidden.
His
people. There
were
all his people, he now realized. They, like the storm, were interconnected. He didn’t push the storm too far back, however. Now that his mind was working more clearly, the energy within him providing a blaze of crystalline thought, he realized they needed the snows to fill the mountain passes, making it impassible.

They climbed higher into the air, moving toward the valley, flying through the storm. The aevians struggled against the wind, but they managed it. Gavin suspected that the aevians, the larger grye at least, were adapted for weather and storms like this.

The storm wind weakened as they neared the valley, though lightning struck in regular intervals around them and thunder rumbled in the background, like distant drums pounding out an irregular beat.

Darryn waved to get his attention and gestured toward the ground. Gavin looked down through the swirling snow, noticing an outcropping of rock jutting out from the stone. Two blurry forms stood in the snow atop the rock. No, there were
four
shapes there, two large and two small. Evrouin, Tadeo, and two aevians, perhaps? Gavin leaned forward and Nabil pulled into a shallow dive, icy wind biting at Gavin’s exposed flesh. Even with the energy thundering through him, he felt the bitter chill creep through him.

They landed in a swirl of snow and wind and Gavin leapt from Nabil’s back, landing in a spray of snow and energy that flung outward from his body and made Nabil back away with an angry hiss.

Tadeo walked forward, his skin almost as pale as the snow though he now wore a thick cloak and much of the blood was gone. The cuts on his body were still fresh, red and standing out against the paleness of his skin and the white snow.

Evrouin huddled against the rocks, a cloak pulled so low over his head that it made him look like little more than a corpse shrouded in burial clothes. The wind tugged at the cloak and left little white marks down its dark length.

“Is good to be seeing you,” Tadeo said, with a flat smile. The wind howled and Gavin had to strain to hear him. “This thing will bring much happiness to the people even with Brisson’s betrayal.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Gavin almost shouted.

“We should wait here until the storm blows over,” Darryn said. “Then we can head back to the camp.”

Tadeo shook his head. “This thing is not wise. This storm, she will drop many feet of snow before she is done. This is the small part of the storm.”

“I’ve been hiding up here for almost a day.” Darryn’s face looked as hard as any Gavin had seen on Tadeo. Why
had
the man come back for them? His memories of being rescued were hazy at best, but he thought he remembered something about Lhaurel. “We wait.”

“Tadeo’s right,” Gavin said, feeling out for the storm around him. The sparks on his arms had died out, but he still felt the storm around them. His heart pulsed with the beating throbs of storm. “We have to go now. The storm will only get worse. It lightens up near the valley.”

“How do you know?”

“I can feel it,” Gavin said. “I—I think I
created
this storm.”

“Sands take me,” Darryn swore. “You’re one of
them.
”

Gavin felt something twist inside him, gripping him with the force of a blow.

“I am who I’ve always been. I thank you for saving me, but if you start accusing me of things you don’t understand I will not hesitate to beat it out of you.” Gavin’s voice was hard. With everything that had happened, Brisson’s betrayal, being tortured, nearly being killed after Brisson’s sacrifice to help them out afterward, Gavin didn’t have room to trust anyone right now. He didn’t have room for argument or disagreement. “We’re leaving. Now.”

Darryn didn’t move. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I say we’re staying.”

Gavin balled up a fist and punched Darryn right in the stomach, hard enough that the man—who hadn’t been expecting the blow—crumpled over, gasping for air.

“Tadeo,” Gavin said. “Tie him in the saddle if you have to. We’re leaving right now.”

“As you command, oh great leader.”

Tadeo didn’t have to tie Darryn in place, though the look the man leveled at Gavin could only be described as murderous. Gavin honestly didn’t care. The time for pleasantry, the time for optimism and patience, was over. Gavin knew that now, more clearly than he’d ever known anything else before. Gavin didn’t rise to the bait. Instead he strode over to Evrouin and pulled the man up to his feet, surreptitiously checking the man’s fingers for signs of frostbite.

***

A scream of pain tore through the room.

Farah jumped and spun, immediately drawing on the energy in the room to give herself a spike of alertness, even if it wouldn’t have been enough to do her any good in a fight. Benji leapt to his feet and the bench he’d been sitting on toppled to the floor with a crash. Shallee flinched slightly, but other than that her eyes simply darted to the room where the scream originated. Cather’s room.

“The baby!” Cather’s voice came again, though this time the words were articulate through the scream of pain. “The baby is coming.”

“Baby?” Benji asked, eyes darting around the room in a wild panic. He looked ready to run, though it was obvious that there wasn’t anywhere else to go.

Farah felt his pain, feeling panic grip her. She was a warrior, a fighter and teacher of other warriors. She fought battles, planned and organized the aevians, and cared for the people as a whole when she had to, though she preferred the former two over the latter.

She had absolutely no experience with childbirth. The entire idea terrified her. She didn’t want children, let alone to help with someone else’s. She wrung her hands together, trying to figure out what to do.