This was different.
The mountain rose around them in stages. First the gentle slopes of the foothills, brown grass and scattered pines. Then steeper terrain, the road narrowing as it wound between outcroppings of gray stone. The air thinned and sharpened. By midday her ears had popped twice and her nose was running from the cold.
Varek's arm never moved from her waist.
He didn't speak much. None of the warriors did. The column moved in a kind of focused quiet, broken only by the creak ofleather, the clop of hooves on stone, the occasional sharp whistle from a scout riding ahead.
Mab found she didn't mind the silence.
Around midday, the column stopped in a small clearing where a stream cut across the road. The warriors dismounted, led their horses to drink, pulled dried meat and hard bread from their packs.
Varek lifted her down before she could figure out how to do it herself. Her legs buckled when her feet hit the ground, muscles she didn't know she had screaming their objection to hours in the saddle.
His hand caught her elbow. Held her steady until she found her balance.
"It gets easier," he said.
"When?"
"Third day."
She huffed an exhale through her nose that wasn't quite a laugh. He pressed a strip of dried meat into her hand and walked toward the stream, leaving her standing on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else.
Annie appeared at her side, her cheeks pink from the cold, her eyes bright.
"Brownie ate," she announced. "All of the scraps Drogga gave her. And the puppies are sleeping."
"That's good." Mab bit into the dried meat. It was salty and tough and required more chewing than she had energy for. "This, however, is awful."
Annie giggled. "Drogga says it's good for your teeth."
"Drogga," Mab said, "is welcome to eat my share."
The column moved on. The road climbed higher. The pines grew thicker, then sparser, then gave way to bare rock and patches of stubborn snow that clung to the shadows where the sun couldn't reach. Mab's backside went numb somewhere around the third hour, which was almost a relief.
Varek's arm stayed where it was. His chest was warm against her back. Occasionally his thumb would move against her belly, a small absent gesture, like he was reminding himself she was still there.
She found herself leaning into him without deciding to.
The sun was sinking below the peaks when the column stopped again.
Mab lifted her head from where it had been resting against Varek's shoulder. She hadn't meant to doze, but the rhythm of the horse and the warmth at her back had pulled her under somewhere in the last hour.
The clearing they'd stopped in was larger than the midday rest. A flat stretch of ground sheltered on three sides by rock walls, with a stand of twisted pines breaking the wind from the north. Warriors were already dismounting.
Varek's arm tightened around her waist. "We're stopping for the night."
The words took a moment to land. Night. A real stop. Not just a brief rest for the horses. Relief flooded through her. She wanted to get where they were going, but her body wanted to stop moving more.
Varek swung down from the saddle and reached up for her. This time she didn't hesitate, just leaned into his hands and let him lift her down. Her legs protested again, but less violently than before. Progress.
The camp took shape around her faster than she'd have believed. Warriors moved in patterns that suggested long practice. Tents went up. Horses were picketed along the treeline. Bedrolls appeared. And in the center of the clearing, two fires began to crackle to life.
One of them had a spit being assembled over it.
Real food. Not dried meat that fought back when you tried to chew it.
Mab watched a warrior she didn't know pull a brace of rabbits from a saddlebag. Another was already cutting potatoes into a pot.
