Graceling (Graceling Realm #1)(74)

She knocked another man’s sword from his hands and ran hers through his stomach. She whirled on two men who came from behind and killed them both with her dagger while she fought off a third with her sword. She hurled the dagger into the chest of a soldier on a horse who aimed an arrow at Po.

And suddenly only one man was left, his breath ragged and his eyes wide with fear. That man backed away and began to run. In a flash Katsa pulled a knife from another man’s chest and ran after him; but then she heard the smooth release of an arrow, and the man cried out and fell, and lay still.

Katsa looked down at her bloodstained tunic and trousers. She wiped her face, and blood came off onto her sleeve.

All around her lay murdered men, men who hadn’t known any better, whose minds were no weaker than her own.

Katsa was sick and discouraged, and furious with the king who’d made this bloodbath necessary.

“Let’s make sure they’re dead,” she said, “and get them on the horses. We must send them back, to put Leck off our trail.”

They were dead, every one of them. Katsa pulled arrows and blades from chests and backs and tried not to look at their faces. She cleaned the knives and daggers and handed them back to Po. She carried Bitterblue’s knife back to her and found the girl standing, arms crossed against the cold, eyes alert now, lucid. Katsa glanced down at her bloody clothing. She found herself hoping the child hadn’t witnessed the massacre of men.

“I feel warmer,” Bitterblue said.

“Good. How much of that fight did you see?”

“They didn’t have much of a chance, did they?” It was her only answer. “Where are we going now?”

“I’m not sure. We need to find a safe place to hide, where we can eat and sleep. We need to talk about what happens next.”

“You’ll have to kill the king,” she said, “if you ever want him to stop chasing us.”

Katsa looked at this child, who barely came up to her chest. Po’s sleeves hanging almost to the girl’s knees; her eyes and her nose big under her hood, too big for her little face. Her voice a squeak. But a calmness in her manner of speaking, a certainty as she recommended her father’s murder.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE




They kept two horses for themselves. Bitterblue rode with Katsa. They wound their way back to the stream to clean themselves of the blood of the soldiers. Then they turned west. They walked the horses through the stream, moving toward the mountains, until the land around them grew rocky enough to hide hoofprints. There, they struck out south along the base of the mountains and began their search for a suitable place to hide for the night. A place they could defend; a place far enough from Leck for safety, but not so far that they couldn’t reach Leck, to kill him.

For of course, Bitterblue was right. Leck had to die. Katsa knew it, but she didn’t like to think of it. For she was a killer, and the murder should be hers; but it was plain that Po would have to be the one to do it. Po kill a king guarded by an army of soldiers. By himself, and without her help.

You mustn’t go near his castle, she thought to Po as they rode. You’d never be able to get close enough to him.

You’re far too conspicuous. They would ambush you.

The horses picked their way through the rocks. Po didn’t acknowledge her thoughts, didn’t even look at her, but she knew he’d heard.

You’d do best to sneak up on him in the forest while he’s searching for the child, and shoot him. From as far away as possible.

Po rode before them, his back straight. His arms steady, despite his tiredness and the cold and his lack of a coat.

And then run away as fast as you can.

He slowed then and came beside them. He looked into her face, and something strong in his silver and gold eyes comforted and reassured her. Po was neither weak nor defenseless. He had his Grace and his strength. He reached for her hand. When she gave it to him, he kissed it. He rode ahead, and they continued on.

Bitterblue sat quietly before her. She had stiffened when Po came near; but if she thought their silent exchange odd, she said nothing.

———

They came to a place where the land dropped away to the left and formed a deep gully with a lake that shone far below them. To the right the path rose to a cliff that overhung the lake.

“If we cross over to the far side of that cliff and hide there,” Katsa said, “anyone coming after us will either have to cross the cliff as we did or climb up from the gully. They’ll be easily seen.”

“I had the same thought,” Po said. “Let’s see what’s there.” And so they climbed. The cliff path sloped rather unnervingly toward the drop, but it was a wide path, and the horses clung to its top edge. Pebbles slid from under their hooves and rolled down the slope, clattering over the edge and plummeting down into the lake, but the travelers were safe.

On the far side they found little more than rock and scrub and a few scraggly trees growing from crevices. A shallow, hard cave with its back to the gully and the cliff path seemed the best choice for their camp. “It won’t make for a soft bed,” Po said, “but it’ll hide our fire. Are you hungry, cousin?”

The girl sat on a rock, quietly, her hands gripping her knife. She hadn’t complained of hunger, or of anything else, for that matter. But now she watched with big eyes as Po unwrapped what little food they had, some meat from the night before, and one small apple carried all the way from the inn at the Sunderan foot of the mountains. Bitterblue’s eyes watched the food, and she barely seemed to be breathing. She was ravenous, anyone could see that.