Yards of dirt-covered road-and then scores of yards-passed beneath their feet in relative silence, broken only by the scuff of hooves and feet, the rustling of leaves in the breeze.
"What's wrong?" he finally asked. His voice drew her focus from the passing trees.
"Kaleb, I'm not sure I should be here."
"What? Why not?"
She shook her head, gazed morosely down at her feet. "Do I even want to find him? I've told myself for years that I deserved answers, that he deserved some measure of justice. But… Gods, I can't even imagine… What could he possibly say, what could I possibly do, that would make everything right?"
"Not a thing." Kaleb reached out, took her hand in his. Her skin was cool to the touch, the night air chilling the faint sheen of nervous perspiration. "This isn't about making things 'right.' There is no 'right,' not with him. All we can do is ensure he hurts no one else."
"Maybe I don't want to be the one to do it," she whispered, refusing to look up. "Maybe I'm better off with my memories of Cerris untainted by Corvis Rebaine."
"They're the same man, Mellorin. No matter how much you might wish otherwise. And you'd never be able to live with yourself if you decided to spend the rest of your life in ignorance-or if he caused more harm that you could have helped prevent." He paused. "I wish I could promise I'd never let him hurt you-"
Finally, her head came up. "My father would never-"
"Not even if you were trying to kill him?" Then, as her face fell, "Actually, I really don't think he'd try to physically hurt you. But yes, he would hurt you. He already has." He reached out, wiped a single tear from Mellorin's cheek. "I can't promise he never will again. But I can promise to help you deal with it-and I can promise that you're strong enough to handle it."
"Am I? I'm not so sure anymore."
Kaleb smiled. "I'm a sorcerer. It's my job to know these things."
Mellorin could offer only a shallow smile, but after a moment she shifted closer. For many miles they walked, hand in hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, until the time came to teleport once again.
Chapter Eighteen
GRUNTING WITH THE EFFORT, Corvis yanked Sunder from both the Cephiran body and the rock face beyond in which the demon-forged blade had embedded itself, and made himself ignore the sensation as the weapon gave an almost erotic shudder. Powdered stone and the metallic tang of blood tickled his nostrils, but he lacked even the energy for a proper sneeze. Just moving his head was a struggle as he surveyed the latest in countless scenes of carnage.
Half a dozen bodies, made crimson by both wounds and tabards, sprawled in the dust. A few warhorses stepped carefully between them, awaiting new orders that would never come. Some way back, at the edge of the tree line, the more skittish, less well-trained mounts pranced nervously, disturbed by the scents of death.
For two days now, Corvis and Irrial had sought some compromise between stealth and speed. They chose back roads and even the occasional cross-country gallop rather than the main highways, rode well into the night, and holed up in overgrown copses to placate their fatigue with a few hours' slumber. And still the Cephirans were everywhere, ubiquitous as ants. Every night, they spotted the gleam of campfires in the distance. Every day, they picked their way through fields of dead horses and dead men, littered with broken armor and shattered blades, redolent of old blood and new rot. Irrial's predictions, however cynical, had been spot-on: Torn banners suggested that these were all that remained of the brave forces fielded by those Imphallian nobles desperate enough to take a stand. And to their credit, they'd taken a great many Cephiran soldiers with them, but not nearly enough. A patriotic gesture, the fielding of these tiny armies, but a futile one. There seemed no end to the crimson tabards.
This patrol was the fourth-fifth? Corvis had lost count-that they'd already been forced to battle, and they'd outrun or hidden from half again as many.
Damn it! Scattered as the Cephirans must be, to cover so much terrain and still maintain their hold on the cities, they had to be spread thin. If the Guilds had just gotten off their asses and contributed, the Imphallian soldiers might've actually accomplished something, instead of just smashing themselves to pulp against the Cephirans like birdshit on cobblestones!
'My, how poetic. "Birdshit" are they, Corvis? And you always used to think so highly of people…'
He strove, as always, to ignore that voice. Instead he watched Irrial sink exhaustedly to the earth, back pressed to the slope of one of the region's scattered foothills and rock formations, weeds of stone sprouting from Daltheos's garden. Her eyes were dark and sunken, her hair hanging limp, and though she tried to hide it, Corvis could see she favored her left arm where, just yesterday, a Cephiran broadsword had split muscle from bone. Seilloah had done her best to heal the injury, but in her current state, her magics weren't quite up to completing the task.
The witch herself lay slumped over a rock, paws dangling, tongue lolling in an uneven pant. A smattering of open sores beneath mats of fur oozed a constant trickle of yellowed pus and the sickly sweet scent of disease.
And Corvis knew damn well that he was no better off. The face he'd seen that morning, reflected in a small pond at which they'd halted to rest, was hollow, skin grey with fatigue. His neck and back ached as though the horse had been riding him, rather than vice versa, and it took him longer and longer to catch his breath after each engagement.
'Crybaby. I'm feeling just fine.'
Axe trailing in the dirt like a child's toy, he staggered over to the others and collapsed, badly scraping his left palm. The pain scarcely registered; just another complaint among many.
"We can't keep this up," he wheezed, gulping for air.
Irrial managed what was probably meant as a shrug. "What choice have we?"
Corvis nodded, frowning. They had no idea what territory was whose around here, how far the invaders had moved beyond Emdimir. Worse, some of the patrols seemed to be hunting them specifically; they might even pursue beyond Cephiran lines. Clearly, whoever in the ranks of the Black Gryphon had been studying Corvis Rebaine-General Rhykus, Ellowaine had said-didn't want them escaping with what they'd learned.
On the back roads, it would still be days before they reached any major Imphallian cities, before they could be certain they'd moved beyond the reach of the Black Gryphon's claws. On the main highways, it would take less than one-assuming half the invading army wasn't spread out along the way.
Either way, they'd have to fight both enemy forces and their own fatigue for every yard they covered. For long moments, Corvis stared at the rock above Irrial's head, ignoring the squawking crows and buzzing flies bickering over the bodies, ignoring the instincts that ordered him to get up and keep moving before another patrol happened by-ignoring everything but a weariness so heavy it threatened to crush him against the unyielding earth.
They'd still not decided if making for Mecepheum again was truly their best option, and right now the question brought nothing but the sting of bitter laughter to Corvis's throat. The idea that they'd survive to get anywhere near Mecepheum seemed about as likely as climbing to safety on beams of moonlight.
Climbing…?
Corvis peered more intently at the rock face, then around at the hill-really just a spur of stone-against which they'd slumped.
"Most people fail to realize," he said didactically, "because they're so far apart from one another, that most of Imphallion's southern mountain ranges are actually all part of the same range. They're sort of a smaller mirror to the Terrakas Mountains."
The cat and the baroness looked at each other, then at Corvis. "Yes, that's true," Seilloah told him, using very much the same tone in which one might address a small boy who was proving just a bit slower than the other children. "I've seen the southern mountains, remember? I was with you when…" She blinked, her back arching and tail growing bushy. "Corvis, what are you thinking?"