"You will know that one by his red beard," Bitterblue said. "But if you're close enough to see him, then he's most certainly spotted you already. Once you're spotted they'll raise the alarm."
"Po," Katsa said. "Let me come with you as far as the outer circle. There are too many of them, and you may need help."
"No," Po said.
"I would only fight them and then leave."
"No, Katsa."
"You'll never – "
"Katsa." His voice was sharp. She crossed her arms and glared into the fire. She took a breath and swallowed hard.
"Very well," she said. "Go to sleep now, Po, and I'll keep watch."
Po nodded. "Wake me in a couple of hours and I'll take over."
"No," she said. "You need your sleep if you're to do this thing. I'll keep watch tonight. I'm not tired, Po," she said as he started to protest. "You know I'm not. Let me do this."
And so Po dropped off to sleep, huddled in a blanket beside Bitterblue. Katsa sat in the dark and went over the plan in her mind.
If Po didn't return to their camp above the gully by sunset, then Katsa and Bitterblue must flee without him. For if he didn't return, it might mean the king was not dead. If the king was not dead, then nothing would protect Bitterblue from him, except distance.
Leave Po behind, in this forest of soldiers. It was unimaginable to Katsa, and as she sat on a rock in the cold and the dark, she wouldn't let herself think it. She watched for the slightest movement, listened for the smallest sound. And refused to think about all that could happen tomorrow in the forest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Po woke in the early morning cold and gathered his things together quietly. He pulled Katsa close and held her against him. "I'll come back," he said; and then he was gone. She sat guard, as she had done all night, and watched the path he had taken. She held her thoughts in check.
She wore a ring on a string around her neck, a ring that Po had given her before he'd climbed onto the back of his horse and clattered across the cliff path. It was cold against the skin of her breast, and she fingered it as she waited for the sun to rise. It was the ring with the engravings that matched the markings on his arms. The ring of Po's castle, and his princehood. If Po didn't return today, then Katsa must take Bitterblue south to the sea. She must arrange passage somehow on a ship to Lienid's western coast, and Po's castle. No Lienid would detain her or question her, if she wore Po's ring. They would know that she acted on Po's instructions; they would welcome and assist her. And Bitterblue might be kept safe in Po's castle while Katsa thought and planned and waited to hear something of Po.
When light came and Bitterblue awoke, she and Katsa led the horse down to the lake to drink and graze. They collected wood, in case they stayed in this camp again that night. They ate winterberries from a clump of bushes beside the water. Katsa caught and gutted fish for their dinner. When they climbed back up to the rock camp, the sun had not even topped the sky.
Katsa thought of doing some exercises, or of teaching Bitterblue to use her knife. But she didn't want to attract attention with the noise it would make. Nor did she want to miss the slightest glimpse or sound of an approaching enemy, or of Po. There was nothing to do but sit still and wait. Katsa's muscles screamed their impatience.
By early afternoon she was pacing back and forth across the camp, utterly stir-crazy. She paced, fists clenched; and Bitterblue sat against the boulders in the sun, knife in hand, watching her.
"Aren't you tired?" Bitterblue asked. "When did you last sleep?"
"I don't need as much sleep as other people," Katsa said.
Bitterblue's eyes followed her as she marched back and forth. "I'm tired," Bitterblue said.
Katsa stopped and crouched before the girl. She felt Bitterblue's hands and forehead. "Are you cold, or hot? Are you hungry?"
Bitterblue shook her head. "I'm only tired."
And of course she was tired, her eyes big and her face tight. Any person in this situation would be tired. "Sleep," Katsa said. "It's safe for you to sleep, and it's best for you to keep up your strength."
Not that the child would need her strength for flight that night, for doubtless at any moment, Po would come scrambling over the cliff path on his horse.
The sun crawled behind the western mountaintops and turned their rocky camp orange, and still Po did not come. Katsa's mind was frozen into place. Surely he would materialize in the next few minutes; but just in case he did not, she woke Bitterblue. She pulled their belongings together and removed all trace of their fire. She scattered their firewood. She saddled the horse and strapped their bags to the fine Monsean saddle.
Then she sat and stared at the cliff path that shone yellow and orange in the falling light.
The sun was setting, and he hadn't come.
She couldn't help the thought, then, that shouldered its way into her mind – that wouldn't be held back any longer, no matter how hard she pushed at it. Po could be in the forest, injured, the king could be murdered and all could be safe, and Po could be somewhere, needing her help, and she not able to give it because of the chance the king was alive. He could even be near, just beyond the cliff path, limping, stumbling toward them. Needing them, needing her; and she, in a matter of minutes, mounting her horse and galloping it in the opposite direction.
They would go then, because they must. But they would backtrack just a bit, on the chance that he was near. Katsa glanced quickly around the rock camp to be sure they'd left no sign of their presence. "Well then, Princess," she said, "we'd better be going." She avoided Bitterblue's eyes and lifted her into the saddle. She untied the horse's reins and handed them to the child. And that's when she heard the pebbles bouncing along the cliff path.
She raced back to the path. The horse was coming across the ledge along the top of the cliff, stumbling across, its head hanging. Too close, just a little too close to the drop. And Po lying on the horse's back, unmoving; and an arrow, an arrow in his shoulder. His shirt soaked with blood. And how many arrows in the horse's neck and side she didn't try to count, for suddenly pebbles were spraying over the cliff edge. The horse was slipping, and the whole path was sliding under its panicked hooves. She screamed Po's name inside her mind, and ran. He raised his head, and his eyes flashed into hers. The horse shrieked and struggled madly for ground to stand on, but she couldn't reach him in time. Over the edge the horse tumbled, over the edge, and she screamed again, aloud this time; and he was gone below her, falling through the yellow light.
The horse twisted and turned in the air. Po smashed face-first into the water and the horse crashed in after him, and stones flew up helter-skelter from Katsa's feet as she tore down the trail to the gully, feeling nothing as her shins bashed against rocks and branches whipped across her face. She knew only that Po was in that water and that she must get him out. There was the barest ripple on the surface of the water to direct her dive. She threw her boots into the rushes and plunged. In the shock of the lake's icy water, she saw the place where mud and bubbles rose and where a great brown form sank and another, smaller form struggled. He struggled, which meant he was alive. She kicked closer and saw what he struggled with. His boot was caught in a stirrup. The stirrup buckled to the saddle, and the horse sinking fast. His struggles were clumsy, and the water around his shoulder and his head flowed red with his blood. Katsa grabbed his belt and felt around until she found a knife. She whipped the blade out and sawed at the stirrup. The leather broke, and the stirrup sank with the horse. Katsa wrapped her arm around Po and kicked fiercely upward. They burst to the surface.
She lugged his dead weight to shore, for now he was unconscious; but as she pushed him into the rushes at the edge of the lake he became suddenly, violently conscious. He gasped and coughed and vomited lake water, over and over again. He wasn't going to drown, then; but that didn't mean he wouldn't bleed to death. "The other horse," Katsa shouted to Bitterblue, who hovered anxiously nearby. "The horse has the medicines," she shouted, and the girl slipped and scrambled back up to the camp.