At sunset they made camp close against the Dragon’s Teeth beside a tributary of the Rabb, settling themselves in a grove of ash that climbed into the rocks like soldiers on the march. They ate their evening meal as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, its hazy mix of red and gold melting across the plains and sky. When they were finished, they sat watching the dusk deepen and the river’s waters turn silver in the light of the moon and stars.
“Padishar told me you saved his life,” the girl said after a time.
She hadn’t spoken a word all through dinner. Morgan looked over, surprised by the suddenness of the declaration. She was watching him, her strange blue eyes depthless.
“I saved my own in the bargain,” he replied, “so it wasn’t an entirely selfless act.”
She folded her arms. “He said to keep watch for you and to take good care of you. He said I’d know you when I saw you.”
Her expression never changed. Morgan grinned in spite of himself. “Well, he makes mistakes like everyone else.” He waited for a response and, when there was none, said, a bit huffy, “You may not believe this but I can take pretty good care of myself.”
She looked away, shifting to a more comfortable position. Her eyes gleamed in the starlight. “What is it like where you come from?”
He hesitated, confused. “What do you mean?”
“The Highlands, what are they like?”
He thought for a moment she was teasing him, then decided she wasn’t. He took a deep breath and stretched out, remembering. “It is the most beautiful country in the Four Lands,” he said, and proceeded to describe it in detail—the hills with their carpets of blue, lavender, and yellow grasses and flowers, the streams that turned frosty at dawn and blood-red at dusk, the mist that came and went with the changing seasons, the forests and the meadows, the sense of peace and timelessness. The Highlands were his passion, the more so since his departure weeks earlier. It reminded him again how much home meant to him, even a home that was really no longer his now that the Federation occupied it—though in truth, he thought, it was still more his than theirs because he kept the feel of it with him in his mind and its history was in his blood and that would never be true for them.
She was silent for a time when he finished, then said, “I like how you describe your home. I like how you feel about it. If I lived there, I think I would feel the same.”
“You would,” he assured her, studying the profile of her face as she stared out across the Rabb, distracted. “But I guess everyone feels that way about their home.”
“I don’t,” she said.
He straightened up again. “Why not?”
Her forehead furrowed. It produced only a slight marring of her smooth features but gave her an entirely different look, one at once both introspective and distant. “I suppose it’s because I have no good memories of home. I was born on a small farm south of Varfleet, one of several families that occupied a valley. I lived there with my parents and my brothers and one sister. I was the youngest. We raised milk cows and grain. In summer, the fields would be as gold as the sun. In fall, the earth would be all black after it was plowed.” She shrugged. “I don’t remember much other than that. Just the sickness. It seems a long time ago, but I guess it wasn’t. The land went bad first, then the stock, and finally my family. Everything began to die. Everyone. My sister first, then my mother, my brothers, and my father. It was the same with the people who lived on the other farms. It happened all at once. Everyone was dead in a few months. One of the women on the other farms found me and took me to Varfleet to live with her. We were the last. I was six years old.”
She made it all sound as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. There was no emotion in her voice. She finished and looked away. “I think there might be some rain on the way,” she said.
They slept until dawn, ate a breakfast of bread, fruit, and cheese, and began their trek north again. The skies were clouding when they woke, and a short time after they crossed the Rabb it began to rain. Thunderheads built up, and lightning streaked the blackness. When the rain began to come down in torrents, they took shelter in the lee of an old maple set back against a rocky rise. Brushing water from their faces and clothes, they settled back to wait out the storm. The air cooled slightly, and the plains shimmered with the damp.
Shoulder to shoulder, they sat with their backs against the maple, staring out into the haze, listening to the sound of the rain.
“How did you meet Padishar?” Morgan asked her after they had been quiet for a time.
She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms about them. Water beaded on her skin and glistened in her black hair. “I apprenticed to Hirehone when I was old enough to work. He taught me to forge iron and to fight. After a while I was better than he was at both. So he brought me into the Movement, and that’s how I met Padishar.”
Memories of Hirehone crowded Morgan’s mind. He let them linger a moment and then banished them. “How long have you been looking after the Whistledown?”
“A couple of years. It offers an opportunity to learn things that can help the free-born. It’s a place to be for now.”
He glanced over. “But not where you want to end up, is that what you’re saying?”
She gave him a flicker of a smile. “It’s not for me.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know yet. Do you?”
He thought about it. “I guess I don’t. I haven’t let myself think beyond what’s been happening these past few weeks. I’ve been running so fast I haven’t had time to stop and think.”
She leaned back. “I haven’t been running. I’ve been standing in place, waiting for something to happen.”
He shifted to face her. “I was like that before I came north. I spent all of my time thinking of ways to make life miserable for the Federation occupiers—all those officers and soldiers living in the home that had belonged to my family, pretending it was theirs. I thought I was doing something, but I was really just standing in place.”
She gave him a curious glance. “So now you’re running instead. Is that any better?”
He smiled and shrugged. “At least I’m seeing more of the country.”
The rains slowed, the skies began to clear, and they resumed their journey. Morgan found himself sneaking glances at Matty Roh, studying the expression on her face, the lines of her body, and the way she moved. He thought her intriguing, suggestive of so much more than what she allowed to show. On the surface she was cool and purposeful, a carefully fixed mask that hid stronger and deeper emotions beneath. He believed, for reasons he could not explain, that she was capable of almost anything.
It was nearing midday when she turned him into the rocks and they began to follow a trail that ran upward into the hills fronting the Dragon’s Teeth. They entered a screen of trees that hid the mountains ahead and the plains behind, and when they emerged they were at the foot of the peaks. The trail disappeared with the trees, and they were soon climbing more rugged slopes, picking their way over the rocks as best they could. Morgan found himself wondering, rather uncharitably, if Matty Roh knew where she was going. After a while they reached a pass and followed it through a split in the rocks into a deep defile. The cliff walls closed about until there was only a narrow ribbon of clouded blue sky visible overhead. Birds took flight from their craggy perches and disappeared into the sun. Wind whistled in sudden gusts down the canyon’s length, a shrill and empty sound.