With my head bowed, I battled the wind as I kept moving forward, knowing those behind me were fighting the same struggle.
Before the weather turned against us, I noticed no one had spoken about Skallfen. The silence itself was a kind of horrifying memory. Only eight members of the King’s Guard remained. One was badly injured, but sheer grit and determination kept them going. I also noticed who was processing what had happened and who wasn’t. Paying attention to such details was what kept you alive on the road.
Who were the ones struggling? Who were the ones ready to turn and run before we got any farther north?
Sergeant Gralen had not been quiet. In fact, his mutterings about “traps” and “planned attacks” were really beginning to annoy me. Still, I bit my tongue. I would not give the bastard any reason to complain about me, not any louder than he already was.
Captain Marson had been quiet since leaving the town. Not checked out, but as if he were contemplating his life choices. It was a look I’d seen on many travelers as they trekked alongside me across Crystallese’s frozen lands.
If you ever wanted time and space to reflect on your state in life, the endless winter in the land of ice and snow was the perfect place for bleak reflection.
My lips twitched at my inner snark. I saw a flash of a golden braid and glanced to the left, where Larana had been walking ahead. I couldn’t figure her out. Like the captain, she had been quiet since we left the town, but her eyes were alert. Not haunted like Marson’s, she looked ready to fight.
Larana reminded me of the warrior women in old books. She fell back, and I heard the faint murmur of voices. I didn’t need to look to know she was talking to Baxley and Nicco. She rarely spoke to the soldiers who traveled with us.
Baxley gave me a slight nod when Skallfen was behind us, but like Larana, his gaze never lingered on any one spot in the terrain for long. Always watching for danger.
Nicco, predictably, looked like a man who’d already filed away what had happened before we cleared the town walls.
I was sure the man was as dead inside as the current look in Captain Marson’s eyes.
The cold pierced my cloak like a dog nipping at my heels, as if I were an unwelcome guest in their home. I’d been this far from a settlement before. In warmer months, when snow fell only every other day, some would venture north eastward, to go ice fishing.
Frozen rivers snaked across the land, their surfaces cracked and covered with thick layers of ice that reflected the cold blue light.
The weather warmed enough for the ice mountains in the sea to part slightly, allowing fresh fish to swim in the icy waters. Sitting in the snow on a stool, with a circle cut out of the ice anda line from a fishing rod dropped through it, was not my idea of fun. However, I’d led merchants, even some nobles, to the known ice ponds where they could sit and... relax.
I thought they were crazy. If they wanted to relax, they went south to the lands of Florlunia, the land of springtime, or traveled farther east to Darysia to bask in the warmth of summer. But trailfinders found it hard to get coins into their purses when they told their clients their honest thoughts.
The wind’s sharpness cut across my eyes like a slap, making me pause and squeeze them shut. I’d seen a merchant once lose his sight when ice in the wind shredded his eyes to nothing.
I shouldn’t need the eye wraps yet, but I’d also never gone this far at this time of year, when the heart of winter still held the land in its grip. I pulled the lodestone from my pack, pausing to let it find north and confirm I was still on course.
If the wind battered us any more fiercely, the snow would blind us, and I could lead them to their deaths long before we even realized I’d misstepped.
Keeping the lodestone clenched in my hand, I moved on. The weather in Crystallese was as unpredictable as it was brutal. The wind that had been battering us suddenly quieted, and we were surrounded by serene calm once more.
I sent a prayer of thanks to the gods for the reprieve, and I turned back to see if my companions were still there.
I saw Gralen look ready to pass out with exertion, and I couldn’t help but poke at him.
“Enjoying the walk?”
He glared but had no breath to bark at me. I grinned behind my wraps.
“Why would you choose to live in this place?” one of the soldiers asked as he got his breath back, and I shrugged.
“It’s home.” I pointed at the small rise to our west. “Shelter. Come before it picks back up again.”
We made camp when the light failed.
They did as I said, not because the captain ordered it. The sky shifted from gray to black faster than it seemed possible, and the wind from the north picked up again with a force that made arguing pointless.
One moment, we were moving quite fast. The next, we weren't.
I found the hollow between two outcroppings of rock, sheltered enough to cut the worst of the wind, but exposed enough that nothing could attack us from behind without crossing open ground first. I didn't explain my reasoning. I just stopped walking, and after a moment, the mercenaries stopped too, which seemed to be enough for the rest of them.
The soldiers were efficient. I'd give them that. They’d learned over the past few nights, and the fire was up quickly. Bedrolls were spread out, and watches were assigned without my involvement.
