“Darya,” said Olvir with a quick grin that vanished as quickly. “Or that was true until Oakford. She mentioned, after the battle was over, that she was surprised to be hoping for a long stretch of safety. I’d bet even she and others who enjoy danger have had their fill of it for years by now.”
“Possibly. And those who never liked it before may have developed a taste for it.”
“I’ve seen that happen on occasion, yes. Some of them make good knights, but generally they’re not so suited to working with others.”
“It’s a quality more suited to us. Or the Blades.”
“Do you mind me asking if it’s one of your qualities?”
Vivian shook her head. “Or, rather, no, I don’t mind, but no, it’s not. I like getting things done, having a mission. I don’t mind danger. It’s a part of my life, and that’s all right. But it’s not what I seek.”
This holds true,said Ulamir,until the moment you mount a horse.
“Ulamir thinks otherwise,” she said, “but he never understood how riding can be enjoyable. He could have a point, I suppose—”
Thank you.
“But I’ve never thought of speed as danger, exactly.” She studied Olvir for a moment, watching the sun glint off his armor. “What about you?”
“No. When I was young, I believed I might, but—” He rubbed a hand across his square chin, with its half-day growth of dark stubble. “Danger means people are going to get hurt, and there’s only ever so much I can do to prevent that. Knowing as much takes away from any thrill the risk might have had for me.”
“There is that.” The awareness of other lives in jeopardy and how little ability she had to keep them safe had been one of the largest changes Vivian had experienced when she’d taken command. “Usually, in normal times, there’s already been a death or two before we get called in. There are rare occasions where we happen to be in the right place at the right time, or a wise villager reads the signs and summons a Sentinel before events turn fatal, but mostly it takes a body to summon us. Then the only further risk is if we fail, at which point we’re probably too dead to worry about it.”
Death prevents worry, does it?
“Unless we become soulswords,” she added with a glance at Ulamir so Olvir would understand what had prompted her to speak. “Or otherwise feel inclined to remain and fret about the living, which I admit is rather kind, up to a point.”
Olvir nodded. “There was a man who called on us for help because the ghost of his mother was holding him captive—barring the doors and windows whenever she suspected he was going to put himself in any sort of danger, right down to going outside when it was a little too cold. It sounds a bit funny in retrospect, but he was going out of his mind.”
“I would be.” Vivian squinted at the horizon, trying to decide whether the glints of light and motion there were the Battlefield’s edge or water. Not wanting to raise either of their hopes prematurely by putting her speculation into words, she went on. “I don’t have children, of course”—the Reforging prevented it—“but I get the impression bringing them up, once they reach a certain age, is a lot like command. You give people a certain amount of guidance, and then you have to let them do their jobs or live their lives, I suppose, even if you’re sure it won’t end pleasantly for them.”
Yet commanding is a matter of what you cannot do yourself,Ulamir said,and raising young a matter of what you shouldn’t.
“Fair,” said Vivian and explained.
“There’s that. I should talk to Edda about it, perhaps, next time…if I see her again,” Olvir replied after a pause where he clearly decided that putting uncertainty into words was better than tempting fate. “Is that a stream, do you think?”
“I’ve been wondering.” Shading her eyes against the sun, she could see that the movement was all heading in a single direction, not the swirling chaos of the Battlefield. Trees screened that motion in places, and they were taller and closer together than elsewhere on the plains, some of them pearly-white rather than the square black ones Vivian had started to get used to. “Looks that way.”
Neither of them spoke of fish or drinking. There was no guarantee that the water, or any living being in it, would be fit for human consumption, and they were in no position to take risks. All the same, there was a chance that there’d be fish in the stream they’d recognize or familiar plants growing on the banks. Even the change in the landscape would be welcome, a landmark in the unending plains.
Vivian felt new life in her feet. She didn’t hurry, she kept herself alert, but eagerness rose up within her regardless, making the land go by faster even though she and Olvir kept the same pace. Before long, they were a few yards from what was clearly a small river. Soon after, they’d closed that distance to a matter of feet.
That was when the horror stepped out from behind a tree.
Chapter 30
It was familiar in type, if not as an individual. Features on a hairless head had run like wax, leaving only pitted eye sockets full of squirming flesh and a narrow lipless hole below them. The shape below was roughly humanoid, save for too many fingers on each hand, and dressed in gray and orange robes. This was one of Thyran’s wizards. Olvir had fought them on occasion and seen them once by their master’s side.
He drew his sword in an instant.
Vivian was already in motion. The sun flashed off Ulamir’s naked blade as his holder sprinted forward.
One of the wizard’s hands drifted upward. The forest of fingers waved gently, and a beam of gray-orange fire flashed outward toward Vivian. She dodged sideways, letting a nearby tree take the brunt of the spell.
The substance of its trunk shifted before Olvir could blink. Bulges and tendrils sprouted from some bits. Other sections vanished entirely, holes appearing in the tree’s middle. He saw it all while he charged at the wizard.
Vivian swerved directly back into her original path, then leapt in a strike that should have put Ulamir through the Twisted’s heart.
