Flamecaster (Shattered Realms #1)(31)
Leaving the bodies where they lay, Lila and Ash carried their gear down to the first floor. The guards that were usually posted in the doorways were gone, and the corridors yawned, empty and sinister.
The kitchen yard, so busy during the day, was tenanted only by moonlight and by Scraps, the Mistress of Kitchens’ battle-scarred tomcat. The lock on the kitchen door easily gave to Lila’s practiced hand. Scraps watched balefully from the doorway as they gathered as much travelers’ food as they could carry: salted meat, bread and cheese and dried fruit, two skins of wine. Given the carnage in the dormitory, a raid on the kitchen would receive little attention in the morning.
While they worked, they argued, debating which road to take.
Lila favored the Tamron Road, which would get them into friendly territory quicker and keep them away from Ardenscourt. She didn’t feel it necessary to mention that it would also make it less likely that they would run into someone she knew. The last thing she needed was to be seen with Princeling sul’Han.
Ash pushed riding east to Ardenscourt, then north through Delphi. “The Tamron Road is the logical choice, which means they’ll be watching it,” he said. “Only an idiot would head straight for Ardenscourt.”
“Exactly,” Lila said. “Only an idiot would try that. I don’t like it. That road is heavily traveled, always crawling with southerners.”
“We are in the south,” Ash said, rolling his eyes. “More traffic means we’ll be easier to overlook.”
“Unless we run into more of those bloodsucking crows of Malthus.” Or some other people I’d just as soon avoid, Lila thought.
“Let’s split up, then,” Ash suggested. “I’ll go via Ardenscourt and you go via Tamron. We’ll lay bets on who gets there first.”
You’re trying to get rid of me, Lila thought, so you can go south to Freetown, like you planned. Well, I’m not going to let you. But that meant giving in.
Once that was decided, they hurried on to the stables, where Ash insisted that they pick out horses to steal, arguing that they couldn’t take their own if they wanted to play dead. Ash chose Maribel, a spirited piebald mare that had belonged to the messenger service, so she’d been exercised more than most of the students’ personal mounts. Lila picked Brady, a bay military gelding newly arrived from Arden with a student at Wien House.
Less than an hour after the last man died, they rode away from Oden’s Ford. At least Lila convinced Ash not to leave a note for Taliesin, dean of Spiritas, the healing academy. She was determined to win that one.
“I don’t want her to worry about me,” Ash said, looking down at his hands.
“Maybe she’s the one that outed you,” Lila suggested. “She knows you better than anyone, right?”
Ash flinched when she said that, but then he shook his head. “If she wanted me dead, I would be dead,” he said.
“That’s an odd thing to say about a healer,” Lila said. “Anyway, she won’t worry if she thinks you’re dead. And it’s probably best for now if that’s what everyone thinks. Especially while we’re traveling through Arden.”
So far, the princeling had met all of her admittedly low expectations. He was a major pain in the ass. Still—she couldn’t get the image of the bloodsucking crows out of her mind.
They rode first in the moonlight, and then in the darkness after the moon had set, and finally in the mist of the early morning, climbing the long, gradual slope away from the river. As the light grew, the great trees of Tamron Forest gradually became visible on either side, like rooted ranks of soldiers. Their horses moved at a brisk pace, their hooves flinging up the mud of the road, splashing through the puddles of a recent rain. They didn’t have much to say to each other.
“I wonder how wide a net they’ll cast,” Ash said, after an hour’s silent riding.
“Who knows?” Lila said. “Depends on how committed they are to killing you.” She studied him critically. “Your size and that copper head of yours make you stand out.”
Ash reached up, fingering his hair, as if he’d forgotten what color it was.
“Too bad the weather’s not colder,” Lila said. “Once it’s light out, it would be best if you kept your hood up.”
As the day came on, the landscape around them began to emerge, the colors muted and grayed. The autumn mist clung low to the ground, filled the ditches on either side of the road, and shifted and swam as the horses moved through it. Now and then the dense forest was punctured by a clearing along the road, centered on a farmhouse and other buildings. The shapes of people drifted through the yards like ghosts. Farmers rose early.
Tamron Forest crowded close to the road, as if anxious to reclaim it, and Lila found herself startling at every sound. The roots of great trees broke through at the berm, and the canopy often met overhead, shutting out the frail light. Any assassin hidden along the road would be but an arm’s length away. Lila imagined a rush from the undergrowth, sinewy hands reaching up to drag Ash from his horse and slam him to the cold earth, a circle of pale faces within dark cowls.
Once, they heard hooves behind them on the packed surface, horses coming fast. They shoved off through the small growth that fringed the road and hid behind the massive trunk of a moss-covered oak. A dozen black-clad men on dun-colored horses thundered past, ringmail glittering. Among them, Destin Karn, the only one unarmored, eyes fixed forward, slitted against the wind and dust.