Well enough. Better than both of you physically, since I have no actual physicality, and…surprisingly well, otherwise. Or perhaps my emotions simply haven’t gotten out of one another’s way enough for me to feel any of them devastatingly.
“Either makes sense,” said Darya. “It’s not as if it’s a situation that happens often. I—”
In truth, she wouldn’t have known how to proceed, really, if the subject at hand had been a death rather than the sort-of-reverse. She’d never had a family to mourn. When a Sentinel died, there was an official, rather mystic funeral and an unofficial, extremely drunken evening in their honor, and then the business of life the next day. She couldn’t get Gerant tipsy and pat him on the back. Nor did the respectful nod andSorry for your loss, sir,that she used on civilians work.
“I hope you don’t end up feeling too badly about it, in the end,” she said.
Thank you. Of course, regardless, I’m glad we found him—and not only for humanitarian reasons. You work well together. It’s a pleasure to witness.
“We all work well together,” said Darya quickly, “or we have done so far.”
Chapter 17
With each dawn, the world Amris had known dwindled in the distance. It became memory, half-dreamed, though as yet he had little to replace it with: a forest, a ruin, tales of horror, and a deadly sylph of a woman who carried his lover’s spirit. He’d known a whole world once, not long ago as he remembered it; he’d traveled its paths and seen its maps. Now he had only those few stars to steer by.
“You hunt things like the cockatrice,” he said, scooping dirt over the embers of their campfire. “But you don’t know korvin. Have the Twisted come as armies before, even small ones?”
Darya was sitting on a rock, braiding her hair. Her hands moved deftly, and her head not at all. “No. There’ve been some in packs, and some raiding parties—assuming those were all Twisted, and not other things that formed during the hard years—but nothing more organized than a band or two with a big enough bully at the head.” Nimble fingers tied a leather thong tight. “They come, they go. They don’t age, we’re pretty sure, and they don’t breed the way we do—er, mortals, I mean—although the big ones have ways of making more little ones. Did you know about that?”
“To our sorrow, yes,” he said, and watched Darya to soften the memories of old horror. Nothing would banish them.
“Right. So, there were a bunch up north after the storms. They fought among each other, they fought us. Once in a while they’d work together if one was powerful enough to make the others do what it wanted. We never thought there was more to it than that.”
Not precisely,said Gerant.
Seeing a woman look suspiciously at her own belt wasn’t the oddest thing Amris had seen since he’d reawoken, but it was incongruous nonetheless. “What do you mean?” Darya asked.
We—the wizards, the Adeptas, the seniors—have been seeing hints for a while now. Remember that Twisted wizard we killed a few months ago, when we were retrieving that chalice a stretch westward of here?
“Sure.”
We’ve had five or six similar incidents in the last year. They’re seeking out enchanted items more and more often now. In fact, if I had to speculate, I’d say that’s how one of them came across Thyran in the first place. A few of the raids lately have also been different, more focused on taking beasts in quantity than on killing people.
There was a pattern forming. We simply weren’t sure what it was.
“And you mentioned none of that,” said Darya flatly, while Amris stood silent, dirt specks lingering on his hands.
We didn’t know for certain. We had no means of finding out more except to wait for more information, or an opportunity. You know our limits. What could those in the field have done? We don’t even have the resources to reinforce all the fortresses all the time.
“We could have known.” Her eyes were green glass.
Why? So you could sleep less easily at night? When have you ever needed more context to an assignment?
“There’s never been more—” Darya stopped herself as her voice started to rise, sucked in a breath through her teeth, and added, quietly, “as far as I knew. All right. We don’t have to fight about this now.”
Amris could call to mind half a dozen similar moments in the tents of generals and the private offices of dukes: decisions made, decisions resented, feelings put carefully aside but not forgotten. He knew the reasons that command often kept knowledge from its troops, deliberately or not. At times he’d disagreed; at times he’d thought it for the best; at times the idea had been his own. He knew, too, the ire of men whose commanders had kept them in the dark when it had turned out to matter, and had felt it himself. There was no side for him to take—and no need for him to take one. Over their partnership, Darya and Gerant had clearly found their own ways of fighting and making up. They needed no help from him.
Amris was glad of it, and yet more alone for it, and neither emotion lessened the other.
He brushed his hands off, let Darya turn to packing, and bent to his own supplies, meager as they were. After a while he asked, “Which of his creatures have you hunted? Are there many with wings, for instance?”
“No. Cockatrices—I’ve gotten three of those. Flocks of skyrzaki, but it’s not like they could carry anything heavy. There are always rumors that Thyran or another cultist managed to twist a dragon, but nothing certain.”
“Any sort of dragon was only a rumor, even in my time.”
They’re only partly flesh in any case,Gerant put in, as deliberately calm as Amris and Darya.I don’t know that Thyran’s magic, or Gizath’s power in general, would have worked on them. I suppose one might be recruited, but I don’t know how.
“It may depend on the dragon,” said Darya. “In all the stories I ever heard, they were like people—some good, some bad. Just different from people in the way they think. But I don’t believe it’s likely that they’ve got one.”
