“In one piece,” he said. The dead bear was blocking the road, so Olvir began to pick his way between the trees on the side, heading toward where Vivian stood by a thick-trunked evergreen. She was cleaning Ulamir, pouring a little water from the skin at her waist onto a cloth, then wiping the blade clean of blood. “Though I’ll miss my shield.”
“It served its purpose well.” She wiped her own hands and face clean, then took a second, dry rag out of her belt pouch and started to dry her sword.
Olvir reached her side and began the cleaning process himself. “Sitha rest it, it did.”
“So did we.” Vivian assessed the hulking pile of fur and meat that lay across the road and pursed her lips in a silent whistle. “I’m glad Thyran hasn’t managed to warp any of these to his will. They’re bad enough as it is.”
“The baron’s son where I grew up lost half his face to a bear,” he said. “That was only the regular sort.” Hunting a common bear, the smaller sort that had four paws and was where it appeared to be, took four or five people, on horseback, with dogs. Even then, things went wrong, as young Faltienne had learned.
If Olvir and Vivian were more resilient than most mortals, they also had to be. On their mission, any wound worse than a few cuts and bruises would be a much greater hindrance than normal. “I’m glad there were two of us,” Olvir went on, “and that you knew about those beasts.”
“I can’t say I’m an expert,” said Vivian. “Nobody I know has fought one. They’re among the creatures you hear about in training, but there are plenty of those. I wouldn’t have recognized it if you hadn’t told me the name.”
There was a trace of awkwardness in her smile that Olvir recognized. If either of them had been under the other’s command, it would’ve been an occasion for praise. Since they’d each spent the last few months commanding other people, it would’ve felt condescending to saygood job, as though either of them were in a position to approve of the other or to seek the other’s approval.
It felt good to have hers, despite that, as much as he could infer it.
“We should check each other,” he said, changing the subject before the moment could get too uncomfortable. Deep enough cuts might not hurt, and the blood might not show under their armor.
“Good thought,” said Vivian. “Let’s get a little distance first, though. The noise may have drawn some attention, and the smell certainly will before long.”
Chapter 12
It started raining as they began to walk away. Vivian, who’d had things on her mind other than the sky, blinked when the first drop hit her, then looked up to see gray through the trees and got another drop directly in her right eye. She sighed. Under the circumstances, it probably wasn’t worth putting her cloak on. She’d just have to take it off again after a little while, and in the meantime, it’d get covered with bear blood.
The rain did help with that, she had to admit. And it’d probably hide their scent. The traces of the road would keep their tracks from being too visible. Poram was likely being kind, all things considered, which was especially gracious of him since they’d killed one of his creatures not long before.
“It’s a shame we can’t stay to make use of it,” she said, glancing backward at the giant dead lump.
“Other creatures will,” said Olvir, rather than pointing out how heavy the fur would’ve been or how long butchering the thing would have taken, either of which Vivian would’ve expected. “The earth doesn’t waste.”
“You sound like Emeth.”
“Thank you. Though I’ll try to be less irreverent.”
“I’d findreverenceunnerving,” Vivian said, laughing quietly. They’d have to resume their silence soon, but the fight with the bear and the squelching of their footsteps meant it would do no good just then.
“Maybe less profane, then,” Olvir suggested from behind her.
“That’s between you and your conscience.”
“Have you known her long?”
“Five years, maybe six,” said Vivian. “She was taking her vows in a chapter house in Silane when I was there healing up. We encountered each other off and on since. That’s generally the way it goes with us.”
“That must’ve been quite a battle,” he said, “if you had to stay in a chapter house to heal.”
“It was,” she said. “Hunger-ghost.”
Olvir recognized the term. Vivian saw him wince. The hunger-ghosts weren’tdirectlyThyran’s creation, but they were more common in the years since his first wave of storms. People had gotten desperate for food, so desperate that they’d turned to acts they’d never so much as consider otherwise. That left marks on the nature of a place. Some of those scars drew forces from outside.
“Had it raised many dead?”
“About a dozen. Mostly animals.” She glanced back again, but the bear’s corpse had vanished behind a bend in the road. “It was the same problem I had just now, but more so—old wounds didn’t trouble them particularly. On the other hand, my major blessing was useful.”
Olvir, who knew her blessings as well as the other Sentinels she worked with, groaned. “You didn’t.”
“Set myself on fire? Notdirectly. Or not at first. I put together some incendiaries, then plunged in after the ghost once her minions were more or less ablaze.”
