The Whitefire Crossing (18 page)

A flat, arid voice spoke from behind me. “What the fuck are you doing, Dev?”
       

My hands spasmed on the pack straps. I turned to see Cara’s lean form standing in the shadows at the edge of my lantern’s glow.

Shit! I’d counted on the sound of her horse warning me of her return. Of all the times for her to walk back instead of ride! Kinslayer had damaged our friendship; this would destroy it. Coward that I was, I’d hoped to be long gone before she realized, so I wouldn’t have to face the look in her eyes.

Maybe I could still delay the moment of truth. “Kellan woke up, and the avalanche rattled him so bad he’s panicked over another slide hitting us while the convoy’s stuck here. I thought I’d take him on an overnight scout, give him something else to think about. We’ll need to know the conditions up ahead, anyway.”

“Don’t, Dev. Just...don’t. How stupid do you think I am? You’ve got enough food there for a week. You mean to leave the convoy, right when I need your help the most.” Each word was barren as the Gosashen blight.

“I have good reason—!” I choked back the truth that crowded my throat. Cara’s life was worth more than our friendship.

She strode forward. The lanternlight fell on her face and revealed the bleak fury she’d kept from her voice. “Good reason! Gods damn you, Dev. Kinslayer was bad enough, but this! Is the profit from your smuggling truly worth more to you than anything else?”

I froze, too taken aback to even blink. Anger warred with contempt in her blue eyes.

“Did you really think I didn’t know about your little sideline? I’ve turned a blind eye because I know how Ninavel works. If it wasn’t you, it’d only be somebody else. Better if it was you, I thought, because I believed you’d never let it interfere with the safety of the convoy.” She directed a meaningful look at the supplies sitting on the ground between us. “I guess I was pretty fucking stupid after all.”

“Cara, I—”

She rode right over my words. “What, you think you’d better cut and run like Pello, because whatever you’re smuggling might’ve earned you the ire of a mage? They’ll say you were in league with Pello, that you brought the avalanche on our heads same as he did. Hell, I’d agree with them if I hadn’t seen you two face off like sandcats marking territory.”

“Wait, what? Pello—what?” I goggled at her, wondering if I’d completely misheard.

“He stole my horse not twenty minutes gone. Rode her down into the basin like a man demon-marked, and crossed the snowfield below the slide, heading west. Meldon ordered us to let him go, says we’re safer without him. He’s sure the avalanche was on Pello’s account, that he must’ve been carrying contraband stolen from a mage and now he’s running for Alathia in hope of saving his worthless skin.”

Or in hope of selling information on Kiran to the Alathians. Shit. Ruslan might chase him down and drag him back for questioning, but I didn’t dare count on that.

The skin around Cara’s eyes tightened, her mouth thinning. “The way the drovers are talking, if Pello ever shows his face back in Ninavel, he’ll get strung up for the vultures. You want to join him, is that it?”

Pello’s move made little sense to me, given he must’ve known he’d take the blame for the avalanche, but I’d ponder his reasons later. If he reached the border before us and spilled his tale to the Alathian mages, we’d never make it through. All the more reason to get moving
.

“Look, Cara, ganglords aren’t exactly patient or forgiving. I promised a delivery date for my goods, and I’ve got to keep that promise. I can’t wait around for days while we dig out the route. Soon as I get to Kost, I’ll tell the importers about the avalanche—they can send Meldon a relief party with replacement mules.” Twenty dead mule teams meant Meldon would have to cache some cargo, even if he distributed as much as he could amongst the surviving teams. Merchant houses never left much weight margin, and the convoy still had to make the steep climb over Arathel Pass.

“Meldon needs experienced outriders right now a hell of a lot more than he needs mules, and you know it. You talk of promises—what about the promise you made when you signed on with the convoy?” Cara’s fists tightened at her sides. “What the fuck is wrong with you? That little bitch tossed you out on your ass, so now you’ve got to prove you’re just as selfish and cold as she is? Congratulations, you’re doing a great job.”

I flinched.
You selfish, backstabbing bitch!
I’d shouted at Jylla.
When your Taint burned out, your soul went with it! All you have left is ashes and greed!
Her eyes had glittered, her mouth curling.
You think you’re any different?
she’d sneered
. Your precious Sethan taught you to pretend, but inside you’re dead as Shaikar’s eyes.

It wasn’t true, damn it. “You think I want to leave? You want to curse me for taking a ganglord’s money, go ahead. I’ve been cursing myself plenty today. But what’s done is done!”

“You’re right about that,” Cara snapped. “Leave, and you’ll never work as an outrider again.”

“Don’t you think I know it?” I couldn’t hide my own anger. I’d give up more than outriding for Melly’s sake, but the loss was bitter as blackroot.

“Then in Suliyya’s name, tell me why!”

I shook my head, mute with frustration.

Cara gripped my shoulders, hard enough to bruise. “Sethan believed in you, trusted you—after all he did to help you, how can you repay him like this?”

Furious, I struck her hands away. “Fuck you, Cara. If you think Sethan was so perfect, then you didn’t know him too well.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The mixture of outrage and disbelief on her face snapped my last thread of self-control.

“This whole thing is Sethan’s fault! I wouldn’t need the money if he’d had the sense not to—” My brain finally caught up with my mouth, and I swallowed the rest before I could blurt out something I’d really regret. Anything I told Cara might end up in Ruslan’s hands. I couldn’t risk a vindictive mage finding out about Melly. Cold sweat dampened my neck at the mere thought. I turned away from Cara, digging my nails into my palms in an effort to calm down.

“Dev...” There was a new, softer note in her voice. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

I kept my back to her. “Forget it, Cara. I’m leaving, and I don’t care what you think about it.”

“Go, then.” The softness had vanished; each word was cold and precise. “But you lay one hand on those supplies, and I’ll cut it off. Hell if I’ll let you walk away with half our gear without even an explanation. You take your personal gear, and that’s it.”

“Damn it, I’ll pay for what I take! I’ve got the coin, just let me—”

“No.” Resolution hardened her voice. “You still don’t get it, do you? Lives depend on these supplies—that’s a hell of a lot more important to me than your Shaikar-cursed money.” She dropped one hand to her belt knife, her pale eyes bleak as winter.

Khalmet’s hand, just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse. Cara was no shadow man—I’d have a fair chance of taking her down in a fight. It’d be messy, though, and even if I didn’t use the boneshatter charm, one or both of us was liable to get badly hurt. I hesitated, weighing the risk of delay. Maybe if we left and I doubled back later that night to steal supplies...

Behind Cara, a shadow moved, stretched to touch her arm. She crumpled to the ground. I rushed forward, yanking the boneshatter charm from my belt.

Kiran hastily backed away from Cara, his hands upraised. “I didn’t harm her, I promise! The effect is temporary.”

“What the fuck did you do?” Cara’s pulse beat steady and strong, and her breathing was regular, though her skin felt worryingly cold to the touch. “You said you didn’t dare use magic!”

He shrugged, watching me. “That wasn’t magic. Touch creates a conduit to a body’s energies. I...dampened hers, that’s all.”

Not magic. Yeah, right. A chill prickled my skin. What did I really know about Kiran? Only what he’d told me, and he’d proved himself a liar ten times over.

“She wasn’t going to yield, and you said we needed the supplies.” He shifted on his feet, blue eyes wide and urgent. “She’ll wake within minutes, I swear to you. We’ve delayed long enough already—we need to go!”

For an instant I hovered on the edge of telling him to go fuck himself. He’d killed Harken, done gods knew what to Cara, and I was supposed to help him? But Melly’s youthful face hung in my mind’s eye, the crimson flame of her hair and her eager smile the very image of her father.
Whatever it takes
, I’d vowed.

“Fine,” I snarled. I slid my arms under Cara and heaved to my feet with an explosive grunt of effort. Kiran started forward, as if he meant to help. I showed my teeth. “Don’t you fucking touch her again.”

His mouth tightened to a thin line, but he backed off. I laid Cara on the wagon bed, gently as I could, and wrapped a blanket around her. Put a hand to her cool, still face, and stood there with my throat knotted tight.

Kiran gave an anxious little cough. I gritted my teeth and left Cara’s side, praying to every god I’d ever heard of that I wasn’t making another terrible mistake.

***

(Kiran)

Kiran gnawed on a thumb as Dev shoved climbing equipment into a pack with vicious efficiency. How long had it been, now? Long enough for Ruslan to make the necessary preparations for a translocation spell?

Translocation is difficult and dangerous,
Ruslan’s voice said in his memory.
There are many avenues for error, and enormous power is required for even the smallest distance. This power must be channeled carefully and properly, or the mage risks failure or even death. For this reason, it is not used lightly.
He’d shown Kiran a channel diagram of stunning complexity. Hundreds of channels spiraled and crossed in dizzying tangles, careful annotations marked above each dense cluster.
Have you ever cast it?
Kiran had asked, looking wide-eyed at the spell. Ruslan had smiled at him, gently.
Let us say there have been certain situations in which the benefits outweighed the risks
.

Kiran shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. No question Ruslan would consider this such a situation.

Dev thrust a pack at him. “Put this on.”

Kiran obeyed. Dev buckled a far larger pack shut and stood, a small pouch clenched in his hand. He strode over to the back end of the wagon, where Cara lay. Kiran heard a heavy clink, as of coin. When Dev returned, he was empty handed, his face dark and shuttered. He stomped past Kiran and surveyed the expanse of the basin, black and silver in the light of the rising moon.

“We’ll scramble down to the basin floor, then make our way west to the edge of Garnet Canyon. Once we drop into Garnet, we can’t be spotted from the trail, and trees will give us cover.” Dev stabbed a finger at Kiran’s chest. “You said that amulet of yours will protect me if I stay close. How close, exactly?”

Kiran called the amulet’s pattern into his head. A spell powerful enough to obscure the bonfire of a mage’s
ikilhia
was too strong to be tightly localized. The
energies would spill over, spreading beyond Kiran’s immediate location and fading with distance. Not enough to hide a second mage, but a
nathahlen
like Dev...Kiran considered the dim glow of Dev’s
ikilhia
and made a rapid calculation.

“You should stay within five hundred yards.”

Dev’s scowl deepened, but he jerked his head in a nod. “Fine. Move quiet as you can at first. I’ll tell you when we’re far enough from the convoy that we can pick up the pace.” Dev settled his pack with a furious wrench of his shoulders.

Following Dev through talus was hard enough, but following Dev through talus in the dark when every muscle in his body ached fiercely and his head was pounding proved to be almost more than Kiran could manage. The tiny amount of
ikilhia
he’d drawn from Cara was but a sand grain in the vast desert of his body’s need. The pack on his back felt full of lead, his lungs burned, and with each jarring hop between boulders, the pain in his muscles rose another notch. He clung to the thought that every step he took reduced the chance Ruslan would find him.

The convoy receded with painful slowness. Scattered magefires glowed like muted stars along the line, and indistinct murmurs of voices drifted through the night air. Dev negotiated the slope with a leashed violence in his movements that made Kiran wince.
I’m sorry,
he wanted to shout.
I didn’t want any of this to happen
. Instead, he concentrated on moving without knocking any rocks loose.

At long last the slope’s angle eased, and Dev turned to him. “Forget being quiet. Now we move fast as we can.”

Kiran fought to churn his aching legs more quickly, stumbling over the rocks. Dev led him westward until a broad snowfield blocked their path, gleaming in the moonlight. A line of deep pockmarks stretched from their side to the far edge.

“That’s where Pello rode across?” Kiran whispered, pointing at the tracks. At Dev’s swift, dark glance, he added, apologetically, “I heard your conversation with Cara.”

“Then you know he’s making for the border,” Dev said. “I hope to beat him by the shortcut I have in mind.” He stamped on the snow. No mark remained when he lifted his foot. “The crust has frozen hard already. Our tracks won’t show, but watch yourself—we can’t use ice axes or boot spikes if we don’t want to leave a trail. Take small steps, and move slow.” He eased out onto the snow, then turned.

“Maybe Pello only took off because once he saw that pretty amulet of yours he feared you’d try to bury him again if he stuck around. But running for the border straight away like that makes a lot more sense if he knew Ruslan was coming. Any thoughts?”

“I don’t see how he could know of Ruslan in specific,” Kiran said, slowly. Most untalented men who met Ruslan didn’t live to tell the tale. “But perhaps he thought as you did that another mage had tried to kill me with the avalanche, and might try to strike the convoy again.”

“Maybe.” Dev didn’t sound convinced, but he turned and continued edging across the icy expanse.

Kiran shuffled after him. The snow felt terrifyingly slick under his boots, and the surface was patterned with awkward lumps and ridges that made balance difficult. By the time they reached snow-free ground again, Kiran’s legs trembled with tension and fatigue.