North Star Guide Me Home (3 page)

‘I had a little bit of food,’ Alameda said. ‘You don’t need much, really. I never had much to eat when I was a slave. Your belly hurts, but if you drink enough water it stops. When I was little, I slept near the fireplace, so I know the stone holds the heat long after the fire dies. Each night I found rocks and made them hot. I met a bear once and it wanted to eat me, but I chased it away. After a while I met some herders, and they took me to some soldiers who brought me here.’

Mira twisted around in her seat to catch Ardamon’s eye. He grimaced and shrugged.

It was too convenient. She wanted to believe the girl, but if the Akharians had sent her to spy upon them, what better story to concoct than one that went to the heart of the divisions between their cultures? The herders hadn’t known what to do with her, and the soldiers had brought her to the ranges for the same reason. If the Akharians had planted her, they couldn’t invent a better story.

But if she was telling the truth, sending her away would be a travesty and a waste. Mira had grown used to having a mage on hand, and since Isidro and Delphine had been lost, she was keenly aware of her disadvantage.

‘Very well,’ Mira said. ‘You may stay. Rhia, can you fit another fledgling in your nest?’

‘I believe we can squeeze her in, my lady,’ Rhia said, and turned to Alameda. ‘You must understand that Amaya is not a slave now. You are to help her with her work, and when I am not there you must do as she says.’

Alameda nodded. ‘I promise, madame.’

‘Amaya,’ Mira said, nodding to the girl standing by the tent door. ‘Show Alameda to your tent. And Alameda, perhaps when we find Delphine again, you can continue your studies.’

At that, Alameda turned to Mira with wide eyes. ‘Do you mean to go west, madame? I’ll go with you if you command, but please don’t make me stay there or they’ll find me.’

‘West?’ Mira said. ‘Why would we go to the empire?’

‘Because you said … madame, that’s where Madame Delphine is. I heard the general talking about it while I was waiting to see him. Madame and the barbarian prince went into the empire after the Blood-Mages.’

Mira studied the girl’s face, searching for any guile in those wide blue eyes. She
seemed
to be telling the truth, but Mira knew many to whom lying came as easily as breathing — she was one of them, trained from her earliest years for the games of politics. ‘Did they?’ she said. ‘How interesting. Rhia, please stay a moment. Amaya, you may go.’

Amaya bowed, and beckoned the Akharian girl to follow her.

As soon as they were gone, Mira buried her face in her hands. She straightened with tears in her eyes, but she was smiling despite them. ‘Twin Suns be thanked, they’re alive! Oh, by all the Gods …’ She slumped over again, while Anoa hunkered down to rub her back.

‘I knew they had to be safe,’ Anoa said. ‘They’re too bloody-minded to die after coming all this way …’

Mira gulped and swept her hair back from her face, blotting her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Well, this does change matters a little, but first things first. Rhia, what do you think? Can we trust the girl?’

‘I … think so, my lady,’ Rhia said. ‘Amaya says the girl never struck her as deceitful.’

‘They must be desperate if they’re sending a fifteen-year-old girl to spy for them,’ Ardamon muttered.

‘Does the fact that she was a slave argue for her telling the truth?’ Anoa said.

Rhia grimaced. ‘Not necessarily. There is a saying in Akhara: no one’s as prideful as a freed slave. Her talent concerns me. How are we to know if she makes contact with her commanders?’

‘Witch-stones,’ Mira said, turning to Ardamon. ‘We must have some, like the ones Mesentreians have on the pommels of their knives. Give some to Rhia and Amaya and they may spot her using power.’

Ardamon nodded. ‘I’ll see to it. And Rhia? Watch her closely. If you see any sign of duplicity, tell us at once.’

‘I will,’ Rhia said. ‘But, my lady, what if she speaks the truth and Cam and Delphine really went into the empire?’

Mira heaved herself up. ‘We can’t keep skulking around these hills forever. We need allies, perhaps Cam and Issey and Sierra do, too … ah, I don’t know. It would seem foolish to look for shelter in the bear’s den. But heading east to shelter with the Owl Clan is a temporary measure, and puts even more distance between us.’

‘We need to think,’ Ardamon said. ‘Let’s just focus on moving camp for now. Once you’re safe, we can come up with a plan.’

Cam lay on his belly, squinting into the yellow dust.

Delphine lay prone beside him, breathing in the baked scent of the soil. For now, she could still lie face down. How much longer would it be, she wondered, before the swelling of her belly began to show? She knew nothing of babies, or bearing them, and she hadn’t dared ask any of the women they’d passed for advice. She hadn’t mentioned her pregnancy to anyone but Cam.

She pushed that thought from her mind. ‘What do you see?’

‘I think it’s just another herd,’ Cam said. ‘There are horses, but no spears or pennants, and no armour or shields.’ Still, he didn’t move away, but lay with his chin on his hand to watch a little longer.

Delphine slowly shuffled backward down the slope, until she could stand without casting her outline against the horizon. She shook her head as she walked over to the tethered horses lipping the last of the grain from their nosebags. A few months ago, she wouldn’t have recognised herself: covered in dirt, wearing layer upon layer like a desert herder, hands calloused with the work of tending the camp and without so much as a spot of ink staining her skin.

Stowing the nosebags, Delphine tipped her head up to watch the last of the morning stars. One day she would look back on this and it wouldn’t be the dirt she remembered, or the smell of horse and old sweat, or the bone-deep weariness of a body that never seemed to get enough rest. In the years to come — if there
were
years to come — her memories would be coloured by what came next. Kell and Isidro, and Sierra and Rasten, lay ahead of them, and sometimes the anxiety of what she feared to find seemed to tear her apart. Who was dead and defeated, or victorious and alive, would shape the future along two vastly different paths. After so many months of waiting, hoping, wondering and dreading, Delphine just wanted it over with. She wasn’t sure how much more of this uncertainty she could take. As Cam began to descend at last, she tightened the horses’ girths, swatting at Cam’s gelding’s nose as the beast turned to nip at her.

The leather-faced herders watching over skinny goats, stunted cattle and stocky, stubby horses had been their only source of news for months. From them, they’d learnt that Kell had tortured and killed anyone who crossed his path. They’d learnt that soldiers were moving up from the south to surround this arid corner of the country, together with the troops that had followed them east from the border.

But a few weeks ago Delphine noticed one herder peering closely at Cam’s face, asking too-casual questions as to where they were headed and where they intended to make camp. Perhaps she and Cam were worth less to the empire than those they were trailing, but even so the insult of Delphine’s defection would not be overlooked and Cam was too valuable a prize to be left unsecured.

When he joined her, Cam spread out the map against his saddlebags. Delphine looked it over as he measured the distance to the water-hole near the ruins. She had perused every inch of that map so often that she ought to have it committed to memory, but there was a certain comfort to be had in running one’s eyes along the roads and old riverbeds yet again.

‘Two or three days should get us there,’ Cam said, ‘if you think that’s where we should go.’

Delphine wasn’t certain, she just didn’t have any better ideas. ‘Whatever Kell has in mind, he needs Sierra to be isolated —’

‘Delphi,’ Cam broke in, letting the parchment roll shut, ‘I didn’t mean to sound as though I doubt you. It’s our best bet, I agree.’

But what if we’re wrong?
Delphine bit her lip to keep from speaking that thought aloud.

‘Cam … it was my suggestion that brought us here …’ Back in the spring, on that rainy morning when she and Cam had found the horses Mira left for them, coming west had been her idea. Now they were trapped and the little lump of guilt that congealed in her chest reminded her constantly that it was her fault.

‘And I agreed to it,’ Cam said. ‘I knew you had no experience of living rough, running and hiding from soldiers. We took the chance, and there’s no use worrying over what might have been. Wherever they are and whatever’s happened, we will find them.’

Rasten turned the leather sling over in his hands.

‘You must have used one before,’ Sierra said. ‘I had mine the moment I could throw a stone straight.’

It came to him in a flash — a man with warm, calloused hands showing him how to pinch the knotted end between thumb and fingers. For a moment, he saw his face, deep grooves around the man’s eyes crinkling as he smiled encouragement. Rasten tossed his head like a fly-stung horse, and when he turned to Sierra with her hand outstretched, a few rounded stones in her palm, it was all he could do not to slap it away.

Her face fell. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said, reaching for him.

‘Don’t touch me!’ he snarled, recoiling. The sling tangled around his fingers and he flung it away, a pathetic length of brittle leather. That face filled his mind and he could almost recall the voice that went with it, the smell of his clothes.

Rasten’s chest clenched, a sudden, visceral pulse, as though he’d taken a punch to the gut. He raked his hands through his hair, and the sting as his fingers snarled on tangled curls was a welcome distraction. He turned away from Sierra while his power flexed, enraged at the sudden pain tearing into his head and his heart. For years, the only way he could deal with that pain was by turning it on another, and he refused to let it fix upon her as a target.

He didn’t want to remember. He’d buried those memories years ago. Why was she torturing him by dredging up the faces of those who had loved him, who had died to protect him? If they could see what he’d become they would spit on him, repudiate their sacrifice and curse him from the next world.

Rasten dropped to his knees. The face lingered in his mind’s eye, the voice just beyond the edge of his hearing, and Rasten knew that if he heard it his world would shatter and his sanity would melt away like snow. In front of him was a large rock, and the urge swept over him to smash his head against the stone until the face and voice was lost forever like blood spilled into the sand.

Then, he felt Sierra’s hand on his shoulder, warm against the chill evening air. ‘Rasten?’ Her voice was small, quiet. He tried to speak, but made only a choking sob, and she dropped down to wrap her arms around him. Focusing on her warmth and the scent of her skin, he crawled back from the crumbling edge of memory, breathing through the pain as he had so many times.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last. ‘I had no idea it would take you that way.’

‘No more did I,’ he said, his voice thick and rasping. He still couldn’t let himself look at her. In the last few months he had grown too used to using her as a refuge, letting sex and sensation drown out fear and pain. The time for that had passed; with Kell’s death a new age had begun. He couldn’t go back, no matter how desperately he craved sanctuary and respite.

The circle of her arms loosened, but she remained at his back. ‘I … I should find us some food.’ It was dusk, prime time for hunting, but the light would fade fast. ‘Will you be alright alone?’

Rasten nodded, but he covered his eyes with his hand. ‘Go.’

‘Shall I take the sling?’

‘No. Leave it.’

‘Alright, then. If I don’t find you back at camp we’ll collect you as we ride out.’

She pulled away and he heard her retreat. Rasten slowly uncurled from his huddle as his back twinged; a touch of dampness at his shoulder suggested that he’d torn a stitch, but Rasten ignored it and crawled across the dirt to retrieve the sling.

It lay in a sad tangle. The hide was old and worn, but Sierra had done her best and he’d given her scant thanks. Rasten steeled himself to pick it up. Though his hands shook, he kept his mind fixed on her and pushed aside the memory of that weatherworn face and smiling eyes.

The sling was a child’s weapon. Sierra had honed her skills when she was a herder-girl watching over the goats, perfecting her stalk against prowlers sniffing after the new kids. Rasten couldn’t remember if he had practised the same way, and didn’t dare dwell on the thought. Gritting his teeth, he slipped the loop over his fingers and pinched the knot with his thumb, and when he slipped a stone into the pouch the weight of it was familiar. Perhaps if he could recall enough to hunt, he could be of some use to her, after all.

Three days ride southwards brought them to a region of low hills and dry gorges lined with scrubby trees. They made camp beneath an overhang of rock, above the sandy bed of a dead stream.

Rasten and Sierra rose as the sky grew light. When she went to check on Isidro, Rasten heaved himself up, scrubbed his face with his sleeve and set about rolling and flexing his wounded shoulder.

Isidro slept restlessly, with his forehead creased and his blankets pulled tight around his shoulders. When she laid her hand on his brow he pulled away, muttering something unintelligible.

‘He’s still feverish,’ Sierra said. ‘I think it’s worse than before.’

‘Might be best to stay here a few days and let him fight it off.’

‘Do we have any willowbark?’

‘A little.’ Kell hadn’t kept much. The old man had no need of anything that would relieve the pain of his victims. ‘Keep an eye out when you go out hunting.’

‘Are there willow trees in this part of the world?’

Rasten didn’t answer. He merely raised his gaze to the sky, where the brightest stars still lingered against the dawn. ‘Maybe try your luck north,’ he said. ‘See if anyone’s following us.’

Sierra bit her lip. There was no telling how far behind them Cam and Delphine were — or even if they were still on their trail. ‘I’ll do that,’ she said.

‘Do you think there’ll be any game?’

‘I saw goat tracks,’ Sierra said. ‘I might be able to take one down with a sling.’

‘And if there’s a goatherd?’

She shrugged and reached for her boots. ‘If they’re tame, it’ll be easier. I’d best get going.’

‘You don’t want to eat first?’ He’d kept back some of last night’s meal, but Sierra shook her head.

‘See if you can get Isidro to eat it,’ she said.

He watched her go through the pale grey light, before collecting water from the hollow in the sandy soil below their camp. He set it to boil, and then led the horses down to drink.

Then, reluctantly, he crouched by Isidro’s side. After several long moments, he gingerly felt for his pulse. It seemed to rouse him, for Isidro turned his head with a groan and his eyelids flickered open.

Rasten edged away as Isidro forced himself upright.

‘Sirri left some food for you,’ Rasten said. ‘I’ll get it, and I’ll pour you some water once it’s boiled.’

Isidro nodded, wincing, and Rasten felt a rippling echo of the pain it sent through his head. He could sense the power it gave off, but the part of him that had once been able to absorb it, as Sierra did, was too thickly scarred to draw it in.

When he turned back with last night’s gruel and a bowl of water, Isidro had let the blanket fall from his shoulders and rolled his sleeve back to the elbow of his right arm. The bandages were filthy and spotted with blood, and at the edge of them, Rasten saw the dark red streaks beneath his skin, reaching up into his arm like fingers of fire.

Isidro hastily pulled the sleeve down again. He took one look at the congealed gruel and turned away. ‘You have it,’ he said. ‘Or save it for Sirri. I don’t want it.’ He was beginning to shiver and groped behind him for the blanket.

Rasten set the steaming bowl down at Isidro’s side and dropped the blanket over his shoulders. With a sigh Isidro lay down again, his eyes clouded with sickness and pain. When Rasten stayed where he was, the other man stiffened and slowly turned his way with narrowed eyes. ‘Get away from me.’

Rasten backed away, but he didn’t shift his gaze. He’d seen the arm for only a moment, but that was enough. Those red streaks meant only one thing: the wound had turned foul, poisoning his blood. ‘I’ll wash it out again —’

‘It’s too late. It has gone too deep.’ Isidro let his head sink, closing his eyes. When Rasten shifted his weight, the loose pebbles clinking beneath his feet, Isidro roused once more, but not for long. He lacked the strength to keep his eyes open. ‘Has there … been any word from Cam or Delphi?’

‘Not yet,’ Rasten said.

‘How long has it been?’

‘Four days now.’

Isidro fell silent, curling into a ball as he shivered beneath the blankets.

Rasten retreated to the far side of the fire, but he kept watching the huddled form. Infection was always the greatest threat. He’d taken every care, but perhaps the contamination had been lurking ever since Rasten shattered the bones at Kell’s command last winter. If so, then the foulness was too deep for any potion to leech it out.

The simplest answer would be to carve away the contaminated flesh and bone, but as Rasten watched the shivering man across the fire, he wasn’t sure Isidro would survive it. He’d already lost a great deal of blood — much more and his life would dwindle away like a flame starved of air. That was if the shock didn’t kill him first … and if the poison leaching into his blood wasn’t already enough to doom him. But doing nothing would kill him, too.

Rasten turned towards the sacks and boxes strewn around their campsite. He had the implements; Sierra had found them when she ransacked the cavern. They both knew it might come to this. Only now Rasten was afraid they’d left it too late.

Isidro stirred again. ‘Rasten? Are you there?’

‘Right here,’ Rasten said.

‘Tell Sirri … tell her it’s alright. Don’t let her hate herself … you have to look after her, you have to …’

Look after her?
Rasten thought.
I don’t know how. I don’t even know how to look after myself. She’s the one who looks out for me.

He went to the packs, sorting through them until he found what he sought. His hands shook as he lifted it from the canvas pack. It was finely made of inlaid wood, although the gilded fittings had corroded and the gold leaf was flaking off. How many times had Kell ordered him to fetch this box? For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to hurl it against the rocks and kick it to splinters, but Rasten clenched his teeth and set the case beside the fire, then went back for the other items he would need: the herbs and medicines, the needles and silk thread. He could use his belt for a tourniquet, and he’d have to hunt down the scrap of soap they had …

While he sorted everything, Rasten reached for Sierra. He found her crouched on dry rocks in a rubble-choked gorge, her gaze fixed on a handful of goats on a ledge above.
Sirri?

At the touch of her mind he could feel that her throat was parched and her belly cramping.
What?

Isidro’s in bad shape. I think we have to take the hand. I need you back here.

He felt her hand clench around the sling, felt the sting of tears and a flash of pain as she bit her lip.
You said it would kill him.

He’ll die without it.

She glanced up at the goats, and turned away. Rasten heard one of the beasts bleat in alarm, and then the skitter of stones as they bounded away to safety.

Delphine squinted up at the sky. Her legs were cramped and her back ached, but she didn’t dare move. Their little rocky niche faced full east, and already the rising sun was beating down upon them.

She stole a glance at Cam, but he was scowling at the gravel, his head cocked to listen to the men below.

‘They’re here somewhere. Those are their horses down below. They’ve gone to ground in this Gods-forsaken rock pile.’

‘Well then, where are they? We’ve looked —’

‘No, you’ve spent half an hour wandering along goat-tracks waiting for the bastards to flag you down and surrender. They’re holed up in some crevice. There’s no cursed way they can slip past us, so get the men out there and find them!’

‘We’re supposed to be hunting the cursed Sympath —’

‘Would you rather face her empty-handed or with a pair of hostages? Pull your thumb out of your arse and go look for them! Where are those cursed mages? I know they’re green as new grass, but even they ought to be able to track down a soft, civilian academic. Move!’

Soft, civilian academic.
Delphine wrinkled her nose. After months of travelling rough she was no longer soft, and while she may not be a Battle-Mage, she was hardly the same sheltered scholar she’d been at Demon’s Spire.

The men were coming towards them. Even though the camouflage enchantment covered them completely, Delphine held her breath as the squad marched past. The device would hide them from sight, but it did nothing to cover sound. One of the men peered into their alcove, but his gaze passed right over her. Even without the shield of the enchantment to conceal them, it was too shallow and exposed to make a good hiding place. They simply hadn’t had time to find anything better.

Once the soldiers passed, Delphine reached carefully into her sash for the stones she had tucked away. They’d slept only a handful of hours since finding them at the water-hole — the rest of the time had been spent keeping ahead of the soldiers. In the darkness of the moonless night, they’d lost the trail and drifted westwards, exhausted, until another party of soldiers sent them scrambling for shelter. They’d abandoned the horses at the foot of the slope, taking only the bare essentials — the nearly empty water-skins, the map, and the stones.

Delphine pulled out a stone and clutched it in one filthy hand, feeling the odd warmth and resonance of the rock. But if the others couldn’t send help …
We’re not lost yet
, Delphine told herself fiercely. Perhaps they could creep out after dark and steal fresh horses … it was a long shot, but in the last few months it seemed long shots were all they had. Back in the spring she’d held only the barest hope that they’d make it this far, and yet here they were.

Isidro was still alive. She’d wept to see his footprints in the sand. Cam showed her the tracks, Isidro’s tall and long-legged strides; Sierra, smaller and light of foot; and the ones that could only belong to Rasten. She’d shivered at the sight of them, her mind running over what she knew of this creature who’d tormented the man she loved, and yet now seemed to be living alongside him. As soon as it was safe, she would craft the enchantment that would let her reach out to those they followed. She could only hope they were in a position to help.