The Exiled Queen (9 page)

We need to better honor the old ways, she thought. This is my blood, my inheritance, overgrown and neglected. We once ruled the Seven Realms, and now we can barely manage one.

Her prayer finished, she turned to find that Amon had come up beside her. He stood, hands tucked under his arms to warm them, the wind stirring his hair, studying the cliff face, as if he really meant to climb down there.

“That’s a road?” she asked, pushing up to her feet. Surely not.

“That was the only road before we built the new one. The Waterwalkers don’t use horses, so they had no need of a road that horses and wagons could use.”

“And you helped build the new road?”

“Aye. My da offered up the sweat of my brow in trade for learning Waterwalker ways.” He paused, chewing his lower lip. “They have a debt and payment system they call gylden. They’re proud—they’d rather you were in debt to them than they to you.

“Lord Cadri is ruler of the Waterwalkers. Years ago, my father saved his life when he would have bled to death after a hunting accident. Ever since, he’s been trying to find a way to pay off the gylden, and my da’s trying to keep him beholden. Not because he expects repayment, but because it’s an advantage to the Fells. My da asked Lord Cadri to foster me for a summer. That should’ve offset some of the debt. But I helped design and build the road—so he still owes gylden to my father.”

“Does Queen Marianna know this is going on?” Raisa asked.

Amon shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. She’s never paid much attention to the Fens, given the war in Arden and troubles at home. Da tries to make sure she doesn’t need to. I don’t like hearing that there’s trouble along the border.”

Raisa couldn’t help remembering her mother warning her away from any dreams of a match with Amon. They’re soldiers, the queen had said, and that’s all they’ll ever be.

You have no idea what a treasure you have in the Byrnes, Mother, Raisa thought.

“How do we get down?” she asked, mopping freezing slush from her face.

Amon knelt at the edge of the precipice, examining a rusted metal apparatus bolted to the rock. “We use ropes as a fail-safe,” he said. “It’s too risky to go down unroped.” He turned and shouted orders to the other Wolves, who produced coils of rope from their saddlebags.

“What about the horses?” Raisa asked.

“They go down roped, too.” Amon shouldered open the rotting door to the garrison house. Raisa heard him rummaging around inside. He emerged several minutes later, smeared with dirt, cobwebs powdering his hair, but looking pleased with himself. He carried an armload of leather straps, iron fittings, and swivels.

Raisa eyed them distrustfully. How long had they been there? How badly were they damaged by rot and rodents? Switcher tossed her head and snorted, as if sensing Raisa’s dismay. Raisa stroked the mare’s nose to soothe her.

Amon deftly looped a rope around the large pulley attached to the rocky outcropping, secured it with an iron catch, and attached a swivel. Then he strapped a broad leather harness around his body and between his legs, clipping it to the rope.

“How do you know this will work?” Raisa asked, imagining flailing horses slamming against the cliff face, breaking their legs.

“I’ve done it before.” Amon turned to Mick and Hallie. “I’ll go down first, secure the other end, and scout the situation at the bottom. I’ll pull on the rope three times to let you know when to pull me up.”

Amon tugged on a pair of deerskin gloves. He grasped hold of the rope with both hands, backed to the edge of the cliff, pushed off, and dropped out of sight.

Stifling a cry of dismay, Raisa leaned over the cliff and looked down. The cliff jutted into a severe overhang, nothing but yawning space below. Amon was a hundred feet down already, running rope through the pulley, using his legs to kick off from the cliff face. A moment later, he was swallowed by the mist.

He’s done this before, Raisa told herself. How many other secrets was he hiding?

It took the better part of the day to lower the horses, soldiers, and all their supplies down the cliff face to the bottom. The Gray Wolves cut down several thick lodgepole pines and used them to build a hoist for the horses. Amon blindfolded the horses before they lowered them in great leather harnesses fashioned for the purpose. This arrangement kept the horses far from the rocky escarpment, so they couldn’t injure themselves, and kept pony panic and mayhem to a minimum. To Raisa’s relief, the leather strapping held.

Raisa descended halfway through, when there were equal numbers of guards on top and bottom. Aside from a nasty bruise on her elbow where she struck the cliff face once, some rope burns on her hands, and a raw place on her thigh where the strap chafed her, she arrived uninjured. She found the bounding descent exhilarating—like flying. It helped that she couldn’t see all the way to the bottom because of the fog.

Amon seemed vastly relieved when she made it down in one piece. “Just don’t ever mention this to the queen, all right?” he said, as if there weren’t already a whole list of things not to mention to Marianna. “And don’t tell my da you went down on your own.”

By the time everyone was settled at the bottom, the daylight was fading. They pitched their tents in the shadow of the rock wall and struggled to kindle fires in the misty damp. After feeding and watering the horses, they stuffed down a quick cold meal. Nobody said much. The freezing fog seemed to press in on them from all sides.

“I’m surprised nobody is here to greet us,” Amon said. “The Waterwalkers usually keep a close watch on the Cascades. I’d think they’d come meet anyone crazy enough to use the old road. Rivertown’s just a little ways south, right on the river. Tomorrow we’ll stop there and pay our respects and ask permission to pass through.”

The wind picked up as dusk fell, and the mist stirred and eddied like restless spirits. Several times, Raisa thought she saw pale faces gazing at them through the trees, their eyes like dark holes torn in linen corpse wrappers. It was a relief to crawl inside her tent with Talia and Hallie and close the flap, shutting out the weird landscape.

What would it be like to live here full-time, walled in by mist?

The Gray Wolves rose early the next morning and struck camp without prompting. Everyone seemed eager to mount up and ride on.

The Dyrnnewater was like a river transformed. Rough and rowdy above the falls, it became a sluggish, placid, wide river that leaked listlessly into tributaries on all sides.

It was an alien landscape—tall grasses quilted with waterways and no way to tell where the solid ground was. Fallen trees lay everywhere, like a giant’s game of pitch sticks, rotting and covered in a white, leathery fungus. The mist had frozen overnight, and the ground crackled under their boots. Ice glazed the still pools and every blade of grass, twig, and branch, transforming the marsh into a surreal, colorless world.

“It used to be drier here,” Amon said. “They’ve dammed the Tamron River downstream, and water’s backed up into these wetlands. That’s what killed the trees.”

The murk closing around them was oppressive. An enemy could be lurking a few feet away and there’d be no way to know. Plus, the moisture seemed to dampen and distort sound, so Raisa couldn’t tell what direction it came from or how close the source.

Raisa’s teeth chattered, and not just from the cold. It was like walking through a nightmare when at any moment a demon might reach out with cold fingers and grab you, claiming you for the Breaker. The cadets peered about, straining their eyes; their hands never far from their swords. Their usual cheer dissolved in the frigid damp.

After a half hour of walking, they rounded a curve in the river, and Rivertown loomed out of the mist. What was left of it, anyway.

“Blood of the Demon,” Amon whispered. “Who could’ve done this?”

There hadn’t been much to begin with—just a collection of frail stick-built dwellings centered around a small temple at the river’s edge. Now it lay in ruins—most structures knocked down or burnt to the ground. A few boats lay foundered at the edge of the river like empty crab shells, their hulls pierced through or crushed. A series of pilings marched out from the shoreline, the remains of what had been several small docks.

The Gray Wolves dismounted to search the site, looking for traces of those who had once dwelt there. They found no corpses, at least, but perhaps they’d been dumped in the river or the survivors had carried them off.

Amon bent and picked up a rotting fish basket woven of twine and reeds. He turned it in his hands and poked at it gently with his forefinger. “Well, this was Rivertown,” he said grimly. “Looks like nobody’s been here for a couple of months at least.”

“Do you think they were attacked, or did they destroy it themselves before abandoning it?” Raisa asked.

Amon shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’d guess they were attacked or driven off. These people didn’t have much to start with. They’d have taken everything with them, if they could.” Blinking away raindrops, he looked downriver. “Could’ve been freelancers, come up from the south. But it’d be bloody hard to get to for what they got.”

“I wonder where they went,” Raisa said. “The Waterwalkers, I mean.”

“Who knows?” Amon whistled to recall the other Wolves, who had spread out over the village. “Guess all we can do is go on,” he said, when they had regathered. “Have your weapons to hand and stick close together. Morley, you’re with me.”

They rode on—for miles, it seemed—following the river until, as Amon had predicted, it fragmented into a web of streams in a trackless maze. Raisa had hoped the murk would clear, but it seemed only to thicken. It was impossible to get her bearings by looking at the sky. Up, down, all around—everything was a milky white blank.

The damp cold began at Raisa’s fingers and toes, gradually penetrating her very core until shivers rolled through her. It was possible she would never be warm again.

Amon pulled out his compass and pointed them south. Now that they weren’t following the river, the going got even rougher. They splashed through freezing pools and thickets of sharp-bladed grass that tore at the horses’ legs and the cadets’ heavy canvas trousers. They dismounted and led their horses, worried their mounts would step into hidden holes and end up lamed. The light changed as the sun went down, but there was no other evidence of time passing, save Raisa’s growing weariness and the cavity in her middle that said she hadn’t eaten for hours.

She soldiered on grimly, taking three steps for every one of Amon’s.

Several times he caught her when she stumbled, as if he knew she was about to falter.

Finally, the ground rose a bit. The footing became more solid as they passed through a grove of scrubby bushes with thick, leathery leaves lacquered in ice.

Amon grunted in satisfaction. “This is what I was aiming for. This is the highest ground for miles around. It should be as dry as anywhere in the Fens, and if the mist clears, we can take a look around. A little ways on, we can stop for the night.”

Mick groaned. “We have to stay here in this — muck another night, sir?”

“Can’t we just keep going?” Garret flexed his gloved hands and slapped them against his thighs, trying to thaw them out. “I’d rather walk than sit and freeze.”

“The headwaters of the river are still a long ways off,” Amon said. “We won’t get clear of this for a few days, not this time of year. Besides, we can’t walk in the dark. We’ll break our necks or end up waist-deep in a bog.”

“Buck up, Garret,” Hallie said, cheerful as usual. “You’ll feel better once we’ve a fire going and you got something in your belly.”

“If we can even build a fire in this wet,” Mick grumbled.

Raisa didn’t like the idea of passing the night in this freezing swamp any more than the rest of them, but she did look forward to a fire. She increased her pace a bit.

They walked single file, leading their horses, the mist so thick they could scarcely see the person in front of them, when a shout from the rear brought the column to a halt.

“Hallie! Where are you?” Long pause. “Don’t you fool around now. Hallie!”

Nothing.

“What is it, Mick?” Amon called from his position in the lead.

“It — it’s Hallie, sir. She’s gone.” Hallie had been bringing up the rear.

“Gone? Since when?” Amon asked.

“Within five minutes, I’d guess, sir. I just looked back and she wasn’t there.”

Amon swore. “I told you to stick together.”

“We did,” Mick insisted. “She was right behind me, I swear it.”

“Form up!” Amon shouted, and the Gray Wolves bunched in close, clutching their horses’ reins, faces pale and anxious. “All right. We’ll find her. She can’t be far away.

“Garret, Talia, Morley, and I will build a fire and set up camp. The rest of you, form two teams of three and scout the back trail. Check back here in fifteen minutes. And be careful. Rope yourselves together if you need to. I don’t want to have to explain to my da how I lost my triple in the Fens.”

Ordinarily, there would have been some jibes and catcalls in response to this, but no one seemed to be in a joking mood. The other six cadets disappeared into the mist, walking back the way they’d come.

Raisa methodically laid a fire, pulling dry tinder out of the weatherized pouch at her belt and digging the clan-made fire kindler out of her saddlebags. Amon and Garret raised the tents while Talia stood guard. They set their weapons in easy reach.

Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty, then twenty-five, and none of the other Wolves returned. Raisa soon had a fire going, shielded from prying eyes by a wall of icy reeds and mud. She strung cording up to dry their wet clothing. Digging out the travel bread and smoked meat and dried fruit that would be their supper, she put water on to boil for tea. She forced herself to pretend that everything would be all right.

As the deadline came and went, Amon transitioned from impatient and irritated to tense and uncommunicative. He jumped at every sound, and there were lots of sounds in the surrounding marsh—frozen twigs creaking, and icy marsh grasses hissing as if stroked by unseen hands. The mist eddied and swirled about them, forming monstrous shapes in the firelight.