The Dark Throne (47 page)

I shook my head. “Not as far as I know.” The Caedbranr hummed a little in agreement. I slid a finger through Gwyneth’s pendant, the metal warming beneath my touch. “Do you know a rune or anything?” I couldn’t keep the hopefulness out of my voice.

“There are runes for nearly everything,” said Luca, “but that does not mean they should be used.”

“I thought you were going to say something like that.” I sighed and rested my chin on my knees, staring at the barely-glowing ruin of the fire.

“I’ll stay here, if you’d like, but I do not want you to take my offer as one of self-interest.”

I lifted my head and looked over at Luca. “If you
want
to stay, you can. But I don’t want you to take my acceptance of your offer as teasing you.”

Luca made a considering sound. “Well. It seems as though we’re both afraid of offending the other. I’ll tell you if anything you do gives offense, if you’ll do the same.”

“Sounds perfectly fair,” I said. “That way we don’t have to worry about tip-toeing around one another.”

“I have never tip-toed in my life,” Luca replied.

I chuckled as I slid back down onto my cloak, resting my head on my pack for a pillow once again. I still sensed Luca sitting beside me; after a moment he moved and I felt his hand settle on my head, his thumb stroking my hair in silent comfort. I focused on the simple pleasure of his touch, closing my eyes and finally letting sleep carry me into darkness.

We rose before dawn, our silhouettes stark against the grayness of twilight. Few words were spoken, which suited me perfectly fine. I wasn’t much for conversation this early in the morning. I focused on rolling my cloak and strapping it to my pack; I saddled Nehalim and slipped the simple bridle over his nose, even as he tossed his head and pranced, dark eyes gleaming with excitement. I lifted my breastplate over my head and silently tightened the straps, thinking with a rueful smile of the first time I’d worn this armor, which seemed like years ago now. No one came to me to say farewell, and I accepted it as part of the new Court’s warrior tradition: no good-byes and no emotion on the morning of a journey. I did glimpse Calliea as the Valkyrie gathered for her last instructions. She sat astride her winged
faehal
, her robin’s-egg blue breastplate gleaming even in the faint morning light, the gouges from the dragon still visible in the bright color of her armor. She looked like an artist’s imagining of a goddess of war: blade at her hip, back straight and chin raised as she surveyed her warriors, the golden braid of her hair glimmering about her head in an echo of a crown. Her
faehal
shook her head and flexed her wings; Calliea quieted her mount with a touch.

I turned my attention back to Nehalim. I checked all my gear one more time for good measure, and then I heaved myself up onto his back, having come to grips with the fact that I’d never be able to leap effortlessly into the saddle like the Sidhe or the
ulfdrengr
. The sun rose, and the Valkyrie launched into the air, dappling us with the shifting shadows of their mounts’ swift wings. I looked out over our gathered vanguard; the other two groups were barely visible in the early morning twilight as they readied for their journeys a short distance away.

Luca moved to the head of our vanguard, astride one of the largest mounts, one axe strapped to his saddle and the other across his back. He wore his broadsword on his other hip, and I could pick out several other daggers strapped to his body, visible even in the half-light. He surveyed his gathered warriors, then gave one brisk nod, turned his mount and touched his heels to its sides. Without any prompt from me, Nehalim quickly moved to the head of our forming column, positioning himself at the right flank of Luca’s mount. Kianryk materialized out of the shadows, keeping pace with the
faehal
easily. We flowed over the hill, some of the vanguard saluting the small tree at the crest, the roses with blooms now half-unfurled and the little tree unfurling new green leaves. Carrion birds scattered into the sky as we rode past the carcass of the dragon, now skeletal in places; I glimpsed glowing, baleful eyes watching us as scavengers hid in the recesses of the monstrous corpse. I pulled my scarf up over my face as we passed, unable to suppress my disgust at the stench of decay. But then we were past, the air still heavy but not foul with rot, and I sat straighter in the saddle as the weak light of the sun broke over the Deadlands.

Luca placed the rising sun on the vanguard’s right flank; the core components of navigation remained the same in Faeortalam as in the mortal world. We rode north, our
faehal
’s hooves thundering over the gray dirt. I soon missed the companionship of Forin and Farin. I watched the Valkyrie keeping pace with us overhead, their graceful forms stark against the flat gray sky. They flew in a loose arrow formation, reminding me of geese—if geese were deadly and graceful, the stuff of myth and legend. As we rode further from the camp, pairs of the Valkyrie broke off from the formation periodically, their
faehal
stretching their wings and speeding over the horizon, scouting ahead and then cutting a wide arc back to the group. Luca watched each pair, and the lead rider swooped low and gave him a signal that I came to recognize as “all clear:” hand flat, palm parallel to the ground, swept straight from the chest. I watched the other Valkyrie and noticed them signaling each other in the air when it was time for another pair to scout, or to switch the leader of the formation; I marveled at the astonishing speed at which they’d developed their own silent language. It had barely been a full month since their creation, and they moved with the familiarity and ease of a group of warriors that had been training together for years.

I picked out Niamh by her white-gold hair and the golden stripe painted down the flank of her
faehal
. She watched both Luca and her other riders; I noticed that she didn’t fly as a scout, letting her riders handle the task while she ensured that the formation kept pace with the ground riders. Our formation was much looser than that of the Valkyrie, a sort of diamond shape that flowed and flexed with the whims of the individual riders. Luca didn’t seem concerned with keeping us in any strict order. He looked relaxed but alert as we rode through the morning, the sun now high over our shoulders.

We didn’t stop for a noon meal. I felt a small bit of pride at the fact that I’d anticipated this fact; I’d packed
kajuk
and some bread in one of my belt-pouches. We’d each packed a few bricks of a kind of grain and oats mixture for the
faehal
, in case the desolation of the Deadlands continued into the mountains. I wondered how long we could go without finding water. Then I reminded myself that Luca—and many of the vanguard—were experienced travelers, and I had some experience myself, from our journey to the Seelie stronghold.

A few hours before sunset, Luca called a halt. I slid from Nehalim’s back and grimaced as I stretched my legs. I offered my faithful mount a few handfuls of oats, which he ate delicately from my hand, his muzzle velvety against my skin. We both drank some water and then he shook his head and pawed at the ground, as if to say that he didn’t need a rest. I chuckled and patted his smooth neck. Two of the Valkyrie still circled overhead like great birds of prey, keeping watch for any approaching danger. I took a deep breath and stretched, lacing my fingers together and pressing my hands overhead, muscles protesting. I was suddenly very grateful for the elegant Seelie craftsmanship of my armor: I’d barely noticed my breastplate during the day’s ride. It was so light and fit so perfectly to my torso that it felt as though I was merely wearing another shirt.

After checking for chafing beneath all the straps against Nehalim’s body, I patted his shoulder and he huffed a breath, impatient to travel onward. I found Luca in conference with Niamh and Robin, a traveling map held between them. When I looked skeptically at Robin, he grinned and said with a little bow, “I’m the navigator for this motley crew.”

I smiled. “It doesn’t surprise me.” Beneath his light-hearted façade, the young red-haired Seelie was determined to earn his place among the Wild Court. I stepped closer, gazing down at the map, which was inked on a pliable, well-tanned pelt. This map, clearly produced specifically for this journey, focused on the Deadlands and the mountains to the north, painstakingly copied from the larger map that Merrick had unrolled in the Queen’s tent.

Robin produced what looked to my eyes like a more complex compass; he glanced at the map and then at the dial of the compass. Luca looked up at the sun and then down at our shadows. I waited for them to pronounce their calculations. Out of all of the military science courses I’d taken in college, I’d been the worst at navigation, hopelessly bad at both preparing nautical charts and navigating through the woods with a compass and a map. The Caedbranr hummed in sleepy amusement in its sheath, its equivalent of opening one eye and chuckling. I smiled a little too, the sting of failure so far in the past that I could see some of its humor.

“Are we heading for their last known location, or slightly south of that?” Niamh asked, breaking the silence.

My breath quickened. Known location? Merrick wouldn’t have found Liam in his scrying glass without telling me…would he? Had he been
told
not to tell me? Questions whirled in my head. I bit my lip and swallowed my words, waiting for Luca’s reply. As more and more doubt rose in my mind, I coaxed the little ember of anger into a flame again and let it burn away my anxiety. It didn’t matter who told me what, as long as we found Liam and I destroyed any creature that had the temerity to hurt him.

“The Arrisyn didn’t actually
see
them,” Robin replied. “He found what looked like their entry point, and some evidence of a fight, but they’d already left. Corpses of a few nasty creatures, and that’s all.” He tapped a marking on the map that I estimated still had to be at least a week’s hard travel away from our current position, if not more. “My recommendation is to continue toward their entry point. We do have to take into account at some point, though, that they’re moving.”

Luca looked at me. “Would your brother be able to See us coming, Tess?”

I pressed my lips together and then shook my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t really get to talk to him for long about his abilities. It’s
possible
, but we shouldn’t count on it.” I looked at the map but didn’t really see it, thinking. “What
is
for certain is that he won’t stay in one place, especially if they’re being hunted. That’s just part of his training.” I swallowed. Liam and his team all carried knives and other blades in preparation for a worst-case scenario; most of them had long metal screwdrivers strapped to the outside of their packs, the handles taped for grip, making it a long and deadly improvised weapon. One member of his platoon even favored a tomahawk. I’d learned this both from observation of Liam’s various packs and tools in his sparsely furnished apartment, and from our email exchanges over his training and deployments. But even though I knew they prepared for worst-case, Liam and his teammates were used to utilizing modern weaponry. I wasn’t certain, but those weapons were probably useless pretty soon after coming through the veil. I thought of my old wristwatch, stashed in my backpack in Darkhill, the hands frozen at the exact time that Finnead had carried me through the Gate. Even if they
could
use their weapons, they had limited ammunition.

“We’ll continue on this heading,” said Luca, “and we will need to send the scouts out further as we draw nearer to this point.” He slid his finger across the map toward the mountains. I glanced at the horizon, unable to glimpse even a hint of change in the flat gray land. Then Luca gave a brisk nod and Robin rolled up the map, quickly strapping it to his pack. We mounted again, the Valkyrie launching back into the air without the benefit of any hills; and we rode on, our pace slightly faster as the sun sank toward the western horizon. I rode with Luca and Robin, mostly silent, the Sword’s power awakening every now and again as though to check on me. I slid one finger through the loop of Gwyneth’s pendant, left alone with my thoughts. The riders behind us sang songs and raced the Valkyrie overhead now and again, a pair of riders on the ground keeping pace with the winged scouts shooting overhead. Luca seemed unsurprised with the almost festive air of the vanguard. Kianryk contributed to the restrained merriment, weaving through the column and even sprinting off with the scouts once. That brought a slight smile to Luca’s face.

Despite our swift
faehal
, I still couldn’t see any sign of the mountains as dusk fell over us, the sun sinking below the horizon in a bloody smear of scarlet. The strange sunset sent a thrill of foreboding through me. I distracted myself by weaving little balls of light from sparks of my
taebramh
, tossing them aloft to light the vanguard’s way.

“If there are creatures about, let them come,” Luca said when I asked him if he was concerned that the lights gave away our position. Once the lights left my hands, I couldn’t get them to travel fast enough to keep pace with the riders, but I discovered that the lights flickered out after I’d traveled a certain distance away from them if I didn’t connect them to me with a thread of
taebramh
. So I tossed the unconnected little lights in front of us, and they drifted along in the current of our passage until the last rider had passed through its nimbus of illumination; and as I traveled away, the light flickered out like a fading spark. The lights were simple and took almost no effort to create, but the members of the vanguard enjoyed the sight of the gently floating balls of light, and the constant activity of weaving the little bits of sorcery proved a pleasant preoccupation for me. A few times a Valkyrie swooped low over our formation, appearing out of the dark sky like an incredible owl diving for prey, catching a flickering ball with a triumphant grin.

Thanks to my illumination, born out of boredom and continued out of necessity as darkness fell completely, we rode well into the night. Finally Luca raised his hand. Our
faehal
slowed to a walk almost as one, tossing their heads and snorting as we halted and slid from their backs. Without the distraction of weaving the lights, my body forcefully informed me of my tired legs and aching back. But I smiled a little, because I knew that until I was used to long days of riding again, each day would be tougher than the last.