Olvir’s smile when she landed made the earth feel steadier beneath her.
Take care, my Sentinel,Ulamir said.You are as well aware as I am that you walk a narrow path with him.
She knew. She did her best to remember. Vivian still clasped Olvir on the shoulder before turning back to the rope, stretching up to cut it off as high as she could. There was no way to get the spike out of the rock, but they had most of the coil, and it would be that much harder for pursuers to follow them.
There was no particularly dramatic difference in the trail on the other side of the boulder. A low drift of smaller stones made a gentler hill for Vivian and Olvir to pick their way over before they could continue, but the path forward was essentially clear. Vivian glanced down and saw the same mountain face below them, the same red grass below that. Now she could spot trees on the plain, sprawling dark and spiderlike over small pools of water.
She averted her gaze before she could look too far into the distance.
The sun was high overhead and beginning to slip into the west. By Vivian’s estimation, though, they had at least one day left to them until they reached the mountains’ feet. It was considerably less than if they’d tried to go up and over to avoid the boulder, assuming they’d survived that route.
“Good idea,” she said. The path was wide enough for a while that they could walk two abreast, so she didn’t have to turn her head to glance at Olvir when she spoke.
“Unexpected memory,” he replied.
“Effective, either way.”
“I’ll be sure to tell Lord Farren.” Vivian heard the empty space where all the caveats would’ve gone. If they got back alive, if Lord Farren himself survived the battle, if the storms didn’t break. Olvir filled the silence not by changing the subject exactly but by going down a side trail. “I’ve found, at times, that what I pick up from others, in our idle moments, has been almost as useful as the temple’s official training. Stories, names… You must have similar experiences.”
“I work alone more often, or I did, and people don’t talk to Sentinels as freely. But once in a while.” The trail narrowed to single file again. Vivian took the lead, contemplating haylofts and taverns, flashes of insight while saddling horses, snatches of conversation that stayed in her head. “Half the time, I think we pass on what we don’t mean to more reliably than what we do.”
“I’ve seen that with families too. It can be a good thing, in some cases. Much less so in others.” That wasn’t her gentle companion of the road who spoke but the instrument of Tinival’s justice, a man who’d seen the face of mortal evil as often as Vivian had seen the monstrous sort.
“It was in yours,” she said, flattening herself close to the mountain wall. The trail was older here. If the nomads had ever traveled the path, it had been long before Thyran’s first rise. “Not just your training. I can’t imagine all Edda taught you was deliberate on her part.”
“There’s a compliment implied there, unless I’m wrong.”
“You’re not.”
“Then I thank you.”
“Only one of the many ways I try to be of assistance. I’m sure all the knights you work with are as helpful.”
“We’re all trained to exhibit courtesy.”
“Good manners and nicely polished armor, among other appealing traits.”
“Should I test my luck by asking further?” Olvir’s voice developed a teasing lilt.
“About Tinival’s servants in general or you in particular?”
“Am I only allowed a single question?”
Vivian chuckled. “The oracle is feeling generous, but I’d wager you have a fair idea of the answers to the second.”
She walked with caution, alert to noises that might signal avalanche or ambush, but without some of the knotted-rope tension that had been forming between her shoulders and in her stomach when they’d begun descending the trail. Talking with Olvir almost allowed her to ignore what waited for them—what she could make out the edge of if she looked a little farther into the distance.
Chapter 20
Another night in the wilderness. Another night where Vivian stood by the fire, Ulamir bare in her grip, and watched Olvir sit cross-legged and pray before he took the journey into his own soul. Another hour of waiting, dry-throated and cold-minded, for signs she could only hope she recognized before it was too late.
There were a few changes. Olvir had come up with the idea of pillowing their cloaks behind him, giving Vivian both hands free even if he collapsed. There was a waterfall in front of them, its roar a counterpoint to the flames, the spray shining in firelight and moonlight. At dawn, they’d take the path behind it.
Of course, they’d both have to live through the night for that to happen.
Vivian didn’t feel any more optimistic about this bit of meditation than she’d been about the last ones. Granted, Olvir had gone through it so far with no apparent bad results, but poking a bear didn’t become any safer the more often you did it. The fragment was likely to be more alert each time. It might have been able to realize the situation it was in, to come to resent it, and to plan.
And they were nearer to the Battlefield every night.
