The Orphan Queen (24 page)

“You know a lot of history.”

He grinned and waved away my comment. “We all have our passions. I do my reading on these trips, once we get to West Pass Watch. There's a lot of off-duty time coming up. The merchants need fewer guards in the Watch, so most of us spend time training with any in the Indigo Army that won't look down on us for being hired. I split my time between training and looking through old journals and history books.”

“Old journals and history books are only as good as the people who wrote them.”

Josh laughed and patted my cap. “You've got a wise young mind. How old did you say you were? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

Nearly eighteen. “Old enough to work.” I added a defensive note to my words, but I didn't mean it.

He grunted, but talked my ears off the rest of the way up to the Watch, pointing out specific bits of architecture he liked, or where a king once drunkenly lost a fistfight with one of his daughter's suitors.

The caravan leaders guided the wagons off the tracks and—once the bigger wheels were on—directed them around the lower bailey. Soldiers on the ramparts cheered and trumpets blared. A caravan of merchandise was as good a reason as any to celebrate out here.

“When will we have time off?” I asked Josh. “I'd like to see off the western wall.”

“They don't like us wandering around too much.” He pressed his mouth into a line. “But I know a few people who won't care about my showing you around, if you don't mind the company.”

“I'd appreciate it, in fact.”

The castle itself was deceptively familiar. Now that I knew it was twin to the old palace—East Pass Watch—I could see the similarities of the core structures, though centuries of upgrading had marked the ancient keeps in different ways. While the old palace was regal like an aged queen who tried to disguise unfortunate sagging by dressing in ever-more elaborate gowns, West Pass Watch had aged gracefully, with additions that complemented the original design.

After an hour, we finally made it to the west-facing ramparts, and I had my first glimpse of the wraithland.

“There it is,” said Josh. “That glow just beyond the mountains.”

“There are so
many
mountains.” I hadn't expected that, though I should have. I'd seen the maps.

“The mountains are what protect the Indigo Kingdom from the worst of the wraith storms and beasts,” Josh said.

Probably so, but if the mountains we'd already crossed had seemed endless, these looked even more formidable. Though they were all dressed in their autumn best, what had been beautiful and rolling before became unbearably severe. Some of those peaks were higher than the one West Pass Watch stood upon. To get to the wraithland, I'd have to go through all of that.

“I guess the stories about glowmen—soldiers here watching them fight one another when they're dumped in the wraithland—that's just fiction, then?”

He nodded. “Lots of stories about the wraithland are just stories. But there are even more things out there than are conceivable—things too awful to be stories.”

“Have you ever been?”

“Once,” he said softly. “To the very edge of it. I was hired to map its progress just a few months ago. At first I wasn't sure how I was supposed to know when I'd reached it. But I did. I knew the moment I stepped into the wraithland, and I don't mind saying that I stepped right back out. Just placed my marker and left.”

“How long did it take to get there?”

The older guard just studied me for a moment, like he could see through to all of my plans. “About three days, walking. I suppose it'd have been much faster on horseback, but I couldn't imagine doing that to an animal. I wished for one, though, on my way back. I don't care how well it pays. I'll never take that job again.”

I lowered my eyes, as though ashamed for making him talk about it. “I see.”

He patted my shoulder. “I'll let you be for a while. Go on
to the southern apartments when you're ready. We'll get dinner there in”—he checked a pocket watch—“two hours.”

I thanked him again, and when he and the others were gone, I slumped against the wall, already regretting my decision.

I could almost hear Melanie and Black Knife now: I didn't
have
to go. I could wait the two weeks here in relative comfort, read some of Josh's books, and head back to Skyvale.

But how could I come all this way only to turn back?

What had I told Melanie? A queen who wouldn't take risks for her people wasn't worthy of being a queen at all.

I would take this risk.

Before I headed down to dinner, I found the map room—just a brief wave on our earlier tour—and went to studying. There were several roads into the wraithland, many well maintained—and well guarded—which meant I had to find a less desirable route if I didn't want to get caught.

It took an hour and a half of searching and comparing routes with maintenance and surveillance documentation, but at last I found something I could live with—hopefully—and carefully wrote out detailed directions, copying maps and lifting any papers that looked useful.

Armed with a plan, I went to dinner late and took my bunk in the spare barracks meant for visiting caravan guards. When snores resounded through the building, I gathered my backpack and map, stole as many rations from the kitchen as I could carry, and hurried through the keep to take a few other supplies I might need.

In the stables, I liberated a gelding horse from his stall, along
with a sack of oats. There was still enough grass on the ground to supplement his feed.

I adjusted my cap and put on the small Indigo Army jacket I'd just stolen, and on my way out of the keep, I told the gate guard that I was a new messenger; I showed him a sealed paper I'd nicked from the map room. Without comment, the guard waved me on.

Dawn was still hours away, but the wraithland's glow shed plenty of light to see by. The chestnut horse picked his way down the road, keeping close to the old railroad tracks that wound through the mountains.

The first day was much like my journey to West Pass Watch, but much faster. I managed to spear a rabbit for dinner, but when I began skinning it, I realized how big and heavy it was—much larger than normal rabbits. Swirls of dark, dark blue crawled up from its hindquarters; I'd thought they were shadows before.

With an acid tingle in the back of my throat, I heaved the wraith rabbit back into the woods and ate some of my rations instead.

The second day, I entered the wraithland.

Josh's warning had been good; I knew the moment I stepped across the border.

Cold prickled over my face, like I'd stepped into a fog bank. The air was wetter, heavier, and the sun dimmed as though it had receded a great distance. Gray tinged the sky.

“It's as though half the color has seeped out of the world,” I muttered to my horse. His ears flickered back, but the muscles in his neck remained taut as he stared into shadows so deep they looked like night.

I petted him and murmured reassurances, but he didn't acknowledge me.

Fingers of white mist reached through the waist-high grass, rustling the browning blades until they sounded like voices.
“Who's watching?”
it sounded like.
“Someone's watching.”

I twisted around, horse tack squeaking as I scanned the forest around me and the base of the mountains behind me. There was nothing unusual, though; just that vague, growing tension and sensation of being followed.

As the sun arced across the sky, West Pass Watch became invisible among the russet heights of the mountains. I was truly alone now.

My heart felt like it fluttered in my chest. “Do you have a name, horse?” I reached forward and scratched his ears. “Not that you can tell me, I suppose. What about Ferguson?”

He shook his head and grunted.

Good enough. “Ferguson it is.”

It was stupid, but having a name for the horse made me feel a little better. A little.

Hyperaware of every gust and gasp of wind, I pushed deeper into the wraithland until nightfall. With Ferguson tied to a wilting tree, enough slack on his lead so he could chew on the yellowing grass, I climbed into the cradle of an oak tree's branches.

Deep slashes marred the trunk and branches, evidence of huge predators nearby. The wooden ridges pressed against my spine as I settled in, then forced down a small meal of deer jerky and water. I didn't feel safe exactly, but with a hundred golden leaves veiling me, I hoped I'd get a little rest.

Acrid-stinking wind cut through the forest. Something—a leaf?—caressed my cheek with a dry scrape. I jumped and scrubbed my palms over my face, but whatever had touched me was gone, and the area was too dark to see anything.

I bit back a panicked
meep
and dug through my bag for Black Knife's spare mask. When the cool silk covered my head and the eye slit was faced forward, I tried to breathe more deeply to slow my racing heart.

“There's nothing out there,” I whispered.

The only sound was the wind in my ears and the soft thumps of my horse moving below.

I lit a candle stub and pulled out my notebook, pen, and a flat bottle of ink that I'd found would sit in my packs without getting in the way. By the flickering candlelight, I wrote about my first day in the wraithland, recording detailed notes about the smell and wind and ailing vegetation.

It's watching me,
I wrote, and closed my notebook.

Trees groaned all night in the wind. Every time I closed my eyes, something crashed in the woods. Part of me wanted to find it and face it.

Instead, I pulled my blanket higher and my mask lower, trying to ignore Ferguson's grunts and sighs. In the fits of sleep, my body grew stiff and tense, overwhelmed with this unfamiliar place and unfamiliar sounds. The night had never seemed so long.

Sometime before dawn, a shout tore from the north. A
human
shout.

I jerked awake and peered through the darkness.

“The trees told me there's someone here.” Brush crackled
and the man stomped through the forest.

A jumble of other voices replied, too many to distinguish their words or number. If they spotted me—or my horse—I was in trouble.

Torchlight broke through the trees. The light floated higher than any normal person would hold it. When shapes began to appear between the trunks, it was clear:

They were glowmen.

I MOVED AS
quietly as possible, shimmying down the side of the tree opposite from where the glowmen were approaching. My belongings were already in my bag, and I hadn't unsaddled Ferguson the whole way. If I could get down, tighten the girth, and adjust the bridle without being spotted . . .

My toes breezed over the ground. I felt around for a heartbeat to make sure I didn't do something stupid like step on a twig and alert the whole wraithland to my presence. But my footing was good, and I lowered myself from the tree and crept around the trunk.

Torchlight silhouetted my horse. Metal clanked on his bridle as he swung his head around to look at me.

“Hush,” I whispered, running my palms over his sweat-dampened neck. Reins snaked around my fingers, alive.

Strangling a gasp, I jerked back my hands and stared hard at the leather straps, but they hung against Ferguson's withers,
inanimate again. Maybe the motion had been my imagination.

Even if it had been real, I had to hurry.

“I heard something!” The crashing of glowmen was louder and nearer.

Quickly, I tightened the bridle and girth, but just as I hooked my bag onto the saddle, enormous hands grabbed me from behind and lifted.

“Got it!” The giant hands squeezed my torso.

Air whooshed from my lungs. I flailed, blindly groping for the saddle, as though I could still pull myself onto the horse, but Ferguson was straining against his tether, fighting to get away from the glowman.

“Hold it still. We want to see.” The rest of the pack crashed through the woods, waving their torch around as though they didn't care about setting the whole place ablaze.

I kicked backward, but I couldn't reach him. I was high above my horse—almost as high as I'd been in the tree. These glowmen were bigger than the ones I'd fought in Skyvale, probably from being out here in the wraith so long. Already, dizziness buzzed in my head. The giant's grip tightened, making my ribs ache.

“It squirms.” His voice was like thunder, vibrating through my bones.

Blackness swarmed in my vision. My breaths were shallow gasps.

The others came nearer and peered at me, their huge, malformed faces gaping. The stink of sour breath rolled over me. I couldn't reach the weapons at my hip.

“Let me see it.” One of the others grabbed for me. The fingers around my waist loosened and I sucked in a lungful of air
as I was passed from one monstrosity to the next. But it wasn't enough. My ribs ached, making every breath like fire. “It has no face. Only eyes.”

“I want to look.” Another glowman plucked me from the other's grip, this time by my elbow.

Torchlight burned my eyes as I swung through the air, but finally I could breathe and had one arm free.

With a hacking cough, I drew my sword and sliced open the glowman's wrist. Blood sprayed and I dropped, my knees and knuckles slamming into the ground. But I kept my grip on my sword. Nothing could make me drop it.

“You're so stupid!” One of the glowmen shoved the one who'd dropped me. “You have to hold on to them.”

I scrambled to my feet, out of the way of grasping hands, and drove my sword deep into a giant foot.

The glowman yowled and staggered into the others, knocking over some. One reached for me, but I was faster. I stabbed another in the knee. Blood oozed down the length of my sword.

The ground shuddered and brush cracked. The night was chaos: glowmen fighting one another, grabbing for me, and the sudden howling of a beast nearby. It had scented blood.