Shadow's Edge nat-2 Page 28

  “Can’t you leave me?” Baron Kirof was pathetic. Ferl had brought him along because he didn’t know what would happen when he fled, and he’d wanted a bargaining chip. But maybe it had been a mistake. The fat man had slowed him down.

  “They want you alive. If you stay here, that Vürdmeister will blast me off the rock. If you’re with me, he might not.”

  “Might not?”

  “Move, Fatty!”

  Ferl Khalius looked at the dark clouds grimly. His tribe, the Iktana, was a mountain tribe. He was one of the best climbers he knew, but he’d never liked climbing. Battle he liked. Battle made you feel alive. But climbing was arbitrary, the mountain gods capricious. He’d seen the most devout clansman plunge to his death when he’d put his weight on a stone that had held Ferl—who was heavier—only a moment before. In battle, a stray arrow might kill you, of course, but you could move, you could fight. Death might still come, but it wouldn’t find you scared, clinging to a bit of rock with slick fingers, praying against the next blast of wind.

  This traverse wasn’t the worst he’d seen. It climbed perhaps a hundred feet and its entire length was narrow, maybe three feet wide. Three feet was pretty damn wide. It was the sheer drop that made that three feet seem ever so much smaller. Knowing that if you slipped you had absolutely no chance of catching yourself, that stumbling meant certain death, that did things to a man.

  It was doing things to Fatty Kirof.

  The baron, unfortunately, had no idea why he was important. Ferl hadn’t been able to find out anything either. But Fatty was important enough that the Godking had sent a Vürdmeister after them.

  “You’re going first, Fatty. I’ll take all the gear, but that’s all the mercy you get.”

  It wasn’t mercy. It was practicality. Fatty would go slower with a pack, and if he fell, Ferl didn’t want to lose his supplies.

  “I can’t do it,” Baron Kirof said. “Please.” Sweat was coursing down his round face. His little red whiskers quivered like a rabbit’s.

  Ferl drew his sword, the sword he’d given so much to protect, the sword that would make him a clan warlord. It was everything a warlord could want, a perfect sword, down to the highland runes on the steel that Ferl recognized but couldn’t read.

  He gestured with the sword, a little shrug that said, “Take your chances with the path, or take your chances with the sword.”

  The baron started onto the path. He was muttering too low for Ferl to hear him, but it sounded like he was praying.

  Surprisingly, Fatty made good time. Ferl had to slap him once with the flat of his blade when he froze up and started scooting. They didn’t have time to scoot. If they weren’t far enough away from the Vürdmeister when he made it out of the trees, Ferl was dead. He’d chosen to go behind Fatty because it was the only way to keep the man moving, but it meant that he was exposed to whatever magic the Vürdmeister threw at them. If they weren’t far enough away to make the Vürdmeister worry that he would kill the baron, it would be all over.

  The view was breathtaking. They were past the middle of the exposure, and they could see forever. Ferl thought he could see Cenaria City, far to the northwest. It made it seem that they’d hardly covered any ground at all. But Ferl wasn’t interested in the cloudless expanses to the north. He was interested in the slight prick he’d just felt on his skin. Snow.

  He looked up. The leading edge of the black wall of clouds was directly above them.

  Fatty stopped. “The path is getting narrower.”

  “The Vürdmeister’s out of the woods. We’ve got no choice.”

  The baron swallowed and started shuffling forward, his face pressed to the rock, his arms spread-eagled.

  Behind them, the Vürdmeister was standing with his fists on his hips, furious.

  Ferl looked ahead. Another thirty paces, and just one more hard section where the ledge narrowed to a foot and a half across. Fatty was sucking down the thin air, frozen.

  “You can do this,” Ferl told him. “I know you can.”

  Miraculously, Fatty started moving, shuffling, but with confidence, as if he’d found some well of courage in himself that he’d never known he had. “I’m doing it!” he said.

  And he did. He made it past the narrowest part of the ledge and Ferl followed hard on his heels, kicking gravel out into space and trying not to follow it.

  The ledge began to widen and Fatty turned to walk rather than shuffle—even though the ledge was still less than three feet wide. He was laughing.

  Then there was a blur of green past them and the ledge exploded in front of them.

  As the smoke blew away in the icy winds, the clouds opened up and it started snowing. Big, fat flakes were driven in circles and horizontal lines by the wind. Fatty and Ferl both stared at the gap in front of them.

  It was barely three feet across, but there was no room to run for the approach. The far side didn’t look stable, either.

  “If you do this,” Ferl said, “I’ll never call you Fatty again.”

  “Go bugger yourself,” Fatty said—and jumped.

  He scrambled on the other side, but he made it.

  Another missile hit the rock over Ferl’s head and rock chips cut his face and rained down over him. He shook his head to clear his eyes, lost his balance, and then found it again, all in a moment. He took two steps and leapt.

  The ledge crumbled under his feet faster than he could scramble up it. He threw out his arms, grabbing for anything.

  A hand grabbed his. The baron yanked him to safety.

  Gasping, Ferl bent over at the waist, hands on his thighs. After a moment, he said, “You saved me. Why’d you—why?”

  The baron’s answer was lost as the rock behind them exploded again.

  Ferl surveyed the rest of the ledge. It was another thirty paces before they would disappear around a corner from the Vürdmeister. The ledge from here on was five feet wide or wider, too wide for one of the missiles to demolish, but they were still exposed, and Ferl sure as hell wasn’t going to stay in the back anymore. He sheathed his sword and grabbed the baron, turning him around.

  “This is the only way we get out of this,” he said.

  “It’s fine,” the baron said. “I’m not climbing back across that ledge, and I have no idea what to do in the wilderness anyway. I’m with you.”

  They started backing up together, Ferl looking at his feet and then at the Vürdmeister across the face from them. The young man had a glowing green missile circling slowly around his body. He knew his quarry was getting away from him. The missile started spinning faster and faster.

  Ferl forced the baron closer to the edge in a silent threat.

  The missile slowed and they could see the Vürdmeister’s mouth moving in inaudible curses. Ferl extended his middle finger to the man in a silent salute. A moment later, laughing, the baron copied the gesture.

  Then a stone shifted under Ferl’s heel as he stepped backward. He was slipping, pulling Baron Kirof right on top of himself.

  There was only one thing to do. He pushed the baron toward the edge as hard as he could, propelling his own body to safety.

  He landed on his butt on the ledge. He could see the baron’s fingers clinging to the edge. Ferl rolled close and saw the baron’s eyes as round as saucers.

  “Help!” the baron shouted.

  Ferl didn’t move.

  In the end, Fatty was simply too fat. He held on for a moment longer, then his spindly arms couldn’t hold him anymore. His fingers slipped off the rock.

  The fall took a long time, but Fatty never screamed. Together, Ferl and the Vürdmeister watched him sail to the rocky shores of death.

  On the other side of the mountain, the Vürdmeister’s face seemed to fall as far as the baron’s body. The Godking was not understanding of failure.

  Ferl scooted back from the edge and around the bend. He congratulated himself on having the foresight to keep the pack.

  42

  The Gyre estate at Havermere
had undergone huge changes since Kylar passed through with Elene and Uly on the way to Caernarvon. Then, it had been nearly empty. Without a lord to protect them, some of the farmers had moved away. The coming harvest and this year’s fortunate lack of Ceuran or Lae’knaught raids were the only reasons the rest stayed.

  Now, the estate was filled to overflowing, and it took Kylar only a moment to guess why. The resistance had moved its base to Havermere. They were a few days’ hard ride outside Cenaria, which put them close enough to strike at patrols but far enough to flee if the Godking mustered a large force against them. The richness of the harvest and the resources of the Gyre household—which included hundreds of the best horses in the country, a substantial armory, and walls that would be defensible at least against anyone who wasn’t using magic—made it a perfect base. Kylar wondered if they had seized it by force, or if the Gyre steward had welcomed the army in.

  He paused as he first caught sight of the company in the early morning darkness. If he wanted to, he could probably avoid detection—or at least interference. They probably hadn’t seen him yet, not in this light, though he had no idea how good their sentries were. Finally, he figured he might as well find out what was happening in Havermere. If Logan were still alive and Kylar managed to rescue him, this would be where they would come. If he could let Logan know what was waiting for him, all the better.

  Still, before he rode on, he fixed his Durzo disguise to his face. It was much easier than the only other disguise he’d constructed—Baron Kirof—and probably less dangerous. The rebels who knew Baron Kirof would want to kill him. The rebels who knew Durzo would probably pretend they didn’t—no one in their right mind would admit to knowing a wetboy. And it was better than going as himself.

  A Kylar Stern who showed up in the rebel camp was a Kylar Stern who was committing himself to their cause. Besides, he didn’t know yet if the Kylar persona was safe. Elene had told Lord General Agon, and Kylar didn’t know if Agon had passed the word along.

  So here he was, sitting on his horse, trying to fix Durzo’s face to his. It wasn’t easy, even though he’d spent days—weeks—perfecting the disguise. The problems were manifold.

  First, you had to remember the face perfectly. Even after years of looking at Durzo Blint, that was harder than Kylar would have imagined. He’d spent weeks after initially starting the project remembering just how the little lines at the corners of Durzo’s eyes turned down, placing the pocks that had pitted his cheeks, getting the shape of the eyebrows right, adjusting the wisps of his thin beard. Then, when he’d thought he had that perfect, he’d realized he was only beginning.

  A static face wasn’t a disguise. He needed to anchor every moving spot of that face to his, so that it moved almost the same way. Almost. The fact was, even after ten years of being raised by Durzo and years of picking up little mannerisms from him, Kylar’s facial expressions weren’t much like Durzo’s. So, the Durzo face glowered when he frowned, smirked when he smiled, and sneered when he grimaced, plus a hundred other things that he’d added as they occurred to him during long hours spent making faces at himself in the mirror.

  Even then, the disguise wasn’t complete. Durzo had been tall. Kylar was just pushing average. So after making his disguise, he projected it upward a good six inches. When someone tried to stare Durzo in the eye, he was looking over Kylar’s head. It took a lot of discipline to remember to stare at the person’s neck so Durzo would be looking back into their eyes. That was one thing Kylar hadn’t fixed yet: he’d tried to make it so he could look wherever he wanted and Durzo’s eyes would follow from six inches higher, but he hadn’t figured out how yet.

  And of course, if anyone tried to touch the face or the shoulders he projected, the illusion was destroyed. Kylar had tried to make the illusion ethereal, so something that touched it would slip right through. It hadn’t worked. The Talent mesh—or whatever it was—was physical. If anything thicker than rain hit it, it broke apart. Kylar had tried to take that the other way, too, and give it physical form, so that light touches against it might feel resistance like a real face or real shoulders would provide. That hadn’t worked either.

  All in all, it was a damned lot of work for what turned out to be a mediocre disguise. Now Kylar understood why Durzo had preferred makeup.

  He nudged his horse’s flanks with his heels, and they descended into Havermere.

  The sentries didn’t appear surprised to see him riding out of the dawn, so maybe their perimeter was better than he’d thought. “State your business,” a tough-looking teenager said.

  “I’m a native of Cenaria but I’ve lived in Caernarvon for the last few years. I heard things had settled down for the most part. I’ve got family in Cenaria and I’m going to see if they’re all right.” It was quick, and he’d probably explained too much, but a nervous trader would probably do the same.

  “What’s your trade?”

  “I’m an herb merchant and apothecary. Normally, I’d take the opportunity to bring some herbs along with me, but my last cargo was destroyed by bandits. The bastards burned my wagon when they found it didn’t have any gold in it. Tell me, who did that help? Anyway, I can make better time this way.”

  “Are you armed?” the young man asked. He seemed more relaxed, though, and Kylar could tell he believed him.

  “Of course I’m armed. Do you think I’m mad?” Kylar asked.

  “Fair enough. Go ahead.”

  Kylar rode into the camp that was spread out before Havermere’s gates. It was well-organized, laid out in neat rows with toilets at regular intervals away from the cooking pits, numerous permanent or semi-permanent buildings, and clear lanes for foot and horse traffic. But it wasn’t very military. Some of the structures looked like they were planning on staying through the winter, but the fortifications around the camp were laughable. From the looks of things, all the nobles and their personal guards had taken residence in the Gyre estate, while the soldiers and civilians who had thrown in their lot with the rebels were out here, trying their best to make do.

  Kylar was looking at a wood building, trying to divine its purpose, when he almost rode down a man wearing a pince nez and limping on a cane. The man looked up and appeared as shocked as Kylar was.

  “Durzo?” Count Drake asked. “I thought you were dead.”

  Kylar froze. It was so good to see Count Drake alive that his control of the disguise almost wavered. The count looked older now, careworn. He’d walked with a limp since Kylar had known him, but he’d never needed a cane before.

  “Is there some place we can talk, Count Drake?” Kylar barely stopped himself from calling him “sir.”

  “Yes, yes of course. Why are you calling me that? You haven’t called me Count Drake in years.”

  “Uh …it has been a while. How did you get out?”

  Count Drake squinted at him, and Kylar stared at Count Drake’s chest, hoping that Durzo’s eyes were meeting Count Drake’s. “Are you well?” Count Drake asked.

  Dismounting, Kylar extended his hand and clasped Count Drake’s wrist. The man clasping his wrist back felt real, solid, the way Count Drake had always felt. He was an anchor, and Kylar was overwhelmed between an urge to tell him everything and shame just as strong.

  The danger in talking to Count Drake was that everything became clear as he listened. Decisions that had seemed so muddy became suddenly simple. Something in Kylar shied away from that. If Count Drake really knew him, he’d stop loving him. A wetboy doesn’t have friends.

  Count Drake led him to a tent near the center of the camp. He sat in a chair, his leg obviously stiff. “It’s a little drafty, but if we’re still here we’ll shore it up before winter.”

  “We?” Kylar asked.

  The joy leached out of the count’s eyes. “My wife and Ilena and I. Serah and Magdalyn didn’t—didn’t make it out. Serah was a comfort woman. We heard …she hanged herself with her bed sheets. Magdalyn is either a comfort woman or one of the Godking’s concubines, last w
e heard.” He cleared his throat. “Most of them don’t last very long.”

  So it was true. Kylar hadn’t thought Jarl was lying, but he hadn’t been able to believe it. “I’m so sorry,” Kylar said. Words were totally inadequate. Comfort women. Bound into the cruelest, most dehumanizing form of slavery Kylar knew: magically sterilized and given a room in the Khalidoran barracks for the convenience of the soldiers—a convenience used dozens of times a day. His stomach churned.

  “Yes. It’s a, an open wound,” Count Drake said, his face gray. “Our Khalidoran brethren have given themselves over to the worst appetites. Please, come inside. Let’s talk about the war we have to win.”

  Kylar stepped inside, but the churning in his stomach didn’t stop. It intensified. As he saw Ilena Drake, the count’s youngest daughter, who was now fourteen, that guilt crushed in on him. God, what if they’d caught her, too?

  “Could you heat up some ootai for us?” the count asked his daughter. “You remember my daughter?” he asked Kylar.

  “Ilena, right?” Ilena had always been his favorite. She had her mother’s cool complexion and white-blonde hair and her father’s penchant for mischief, untempered by her father’s years.

  “Pleased to meet you,” the girl said politely. Damn, she was becoming a lady. When had that happened?

  Kylar looked back to the count. “So what’s your title or your position here?”

  “Titles? Position?” Count Drake smiled and spun his cane on its point. “Terah Graesin has been bargaining off titles, trying to tie families into the rebellion. But when it comes to actually getting things done, she’s glad to have my help.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Afraid not. That’s why we’re still here—what is it? Three months since the coup? She’s only allowed small raids against supply lines and poorly defended outposts. She’s afraid that if we get handed a big loss the families will back out and swear their allegiance to the Godking.”

  “That’s no way to win a war.”