Snow Like Ashes(21)
“It’s not your fault,” he grunts. “It’s no one’s fault.”
My throat closes and I just sit there, numb and small. It is my fault; I led the scouts here. And I know that staying is pointless—Angra will send far more than five men now, and with only eight of us, the odds are laughable. A death sentence. But I can’t just do nothing—doing nothing will kill me faster than facing Angra’s whole army on my own.
Sir pulls our horses to a stop when we reach the plains on the north side of camp. A heartbeat later we’re joined by every horse, every person, everything they were able to grab in the time Sir allowed. As for our livestock, I hope Angra will treat them better than he treats our people.
“Split up, two riders each. Once it’s safe, we convene in Cordell,” Sir announces. He points at Dendera, who sits on a horse beside Mather on his own mount. “Keep. Him. Alive.”
Dendera bows her head and stays that way until Sir jerks on his horse’s reins. It rears with a mighty whinny, filling all the horses with adrenaline. Over the roll of noise Sir eyes me and nods, beckoning me to follow. When he heaves northwest into the now-dark plains like one of Angra’s cannonballs, I trail a breath behind.
Everyone else follows, a brief stampede before we split off. I look back as Alysson gallops north with Finn, Greer and Henn head east, and Dendera and Mather go northeast.
Mather looks at me, his eyes grabbing mine with the same intensity as before. He urges his horse on beside Dendera’s, then they’re gone, barreling into the night.
Sir pulls his horse back alongside mine. The wind whips against my cheeks, drying the tears as they fall.
Not my fault. Sir said so, and Sir only tells the truth.
After an hour of all-out galloping, we slow. Sporadic groups of trees and shrubs are all we see, their dried, dead silhouettes splayed against the night. We keep going, riding until the sun rises. Until it sets again. Until the horses simply can’t go on any longer. Then we dismount, make sure they have a little water nearby, and leave them. Sir takes all their gear off first—the saddle, the reins, the blankets and small plated armor. He hides the useless parts in dried-up bushes, keeps what remains in his sack; and with a final pat on their flanks, we continue northwest for two days on foot, stopping only to sleep and scan the horizon for Angra’s men.
Sir keeps his supply of food rationed just enough to drive me mad with hunger. Small streams of muddy water run every so often, edible plants are even scarcer, and shade is nonexistent. There’s just sun, sky, yellowed grass, and dead, scraggy shrubs for hours.
I hate heat. I hate the sweat that drips between my shoulder blades, the way the sun’s rays bake every bare area of skin raw. But I hate silence more, and Sir won’t talk. Not just his usual quiet—he’s downright mute. He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t acknowledge me, for hours upon hours of endless walking.
Just when I think I’ll have to tackle him, he drops to his knees next to something in the grass. A stream, little more than an arm’s length wide. It’s the clearest water we’ve seen since we started, and the fog of heat lifts in a burst of relief when I sigh at the small spattering of half-alive green plants clustered around the banks. Tough vegetation that gets roasted in the sun, but it’s more edible than most of the Rania Plains’ delicacies, like crow.
Sir glances at me as he takes the pack from his shoulders. “We camp here tonight and head for Cordell tomorrow. No one’s following us. The sooner we get to safety, the better.”
Though the temptation of clean water sits a few paces away, I stay frozen. He’s talking to me. “Why are we going to a Rhythm Kingdom? I thought you hated King Noam?”
Sir turns to the water, his shoulders slumping a little, but he doesn’t respond.
“I can’t help until I know the plan. And like it or not, my help is all you have now.”
The bite in my voice startles me and I drop my arms. I move forward, hesitate, unsure what reaction will come. But when I step up next to him, all I see are the trails of dried blood that swirl off his hands and into the water. He’s had Spring blood on him for days. Of course he has—when would he have been able to wash it off?
The face of the soldier I killed flashes through my mind. My fault. All the men who died at camp were my fault too.
Sir nods to his left. “Upstream,” he says, ignoring my snap.
I shrug out of my chakram’s holster and drop it in the grass before marching to the left, kicking my way through bits of undergrowth. Every part of me feels bloodied, dirty, like I’m coated head to toe in the guts of Angra’s soldiers. I drop to my knees and dunk my head into the water up to my shoulders. The coolness washes away a bit of the heat, flowing over me and chasing off my panic. My regrets.
I’ve killed before. I’ve seen Sir kill before. I’ve seen everyone at camp, even Mather, speckled with blood and limping from battle. I shouldn’t care that a few Spring soldiers have died; they’ve killed thousands of our people.
My lungs start to burn but I stay down, keeping my breath trapped inside until the painful need for air is the only thing I feel. Nothing else. I don’t have room for anything else.
Fingers wrap around my arm. Before I can shake myself awake enough to realize who it is, I inhale. Water flows into my lungs, icy hot panic rushing into my chest along with the unwanted water, and I yank free of the stream, sputtering and heaving. Sir drags me into the grass, slamming his fist into my back to get the rest of the water to pour out of my nose in a rush of earthy grime.