* * *
They set out at sunrise, walking back into Tombara where he purchased a pair of horses and supplies for the trip ahead. She had said it would take them at least a week, so he spent his coins accordingly, allowing enough for a few days extra in case things did not go exactly as planned. He asked her what had happened to her supplies and weapons while traveling to find him, and she told him she had used up the first and had not bothered to bring the second. When he suggested she needed both for the journey back, she surprised him by saying weapons were of no use to her.
Even so, he provided her with a long knife and sheath and a backpack. Since she had nothing to put into the backpack, he stuffed the blanket he had given her inside, along with a few coins, and suggested she rethink her needs.
Then leaving her to make her own decision on the matter, he went down through the village and made a few discreet inquiries regarding the Het. Had anyone seen them? No. Had anyone talked to them? No. Apparently, they had tracked Lyriana all the way to where she had met with him and then decided he was the one she had come to find–and this was reason enough to put an end to both of them.
Still, it bothered him. They had clearly followed Lyriana, but if she suspected this–which apparently she had–then why hadn’t she done more to hide her trail? She seemed capable enough about so many other things. Was she simply inexperienced at concealing her tracks?
As they rode out of the village and traveled north along the base of the Wolfsktaag Mountains, he thought more than once to ask her. But each time he was on the verge of bringing the matter up, he backed away from doing so. It was hard to say why. Perhaps it felt too intrusive, too accusatory, when he did not want to appear to be either. Perhaps it bordered too closely on assuming a confrontational posture with someone he did not feel deserved it.
Or perhaps it had something to do with the inexplicable need he felt to share her company, a compelling pull on him he could not begin to explain.
Whatever the case, he let the matter drop and concentrated on the task of guiding them north along the base of the Wolfsktaag to where they could cross the Rabb River and travel on into the forests of the Upper Anar. By nightfall of the first day, they were well on their way toward the Ravenshorn and the darker forests that layered those jagged peaks all the way to the Tiderace.
When it was nearing nightfall, he brought them to shelter provided by trees and a series of rock outcroppings. Once the horses were cared for and their camp set, he cooked them dinner. Afterward, they sat together in front of the fire and watched it turn slowly to embers.
“Will your people join me in my fight against Kronswiff and his Het? How many of you live in Tajarin?”
She gave him a look. “More than enough. But they are not war–like. They do not understand fighting. They are helpless in the face of aggression of the sort that Kronswiff represents. So, no, they will not help you.”
He shook his head. It seemed hard to believe that any people could be so passive. Yet there were examples of this sort of domination throughout history, of a few intimidating many. He was being judgmental and he had no right to be so, especially when the leader of the enemy was a warlock. “Men do what they can, I guess.”
“Men and women,” she corrected, as if the distinction was important. “Perhaps you will inspire us.”
“Have you family?”
“None. All of them have been gone a long time, save for my brother. He was one of those who stood up to the warlock.”
He remembered something she had said earlier. “The warlock drains them, you said. He bleeds them out. Literally?”
Wrapped in her heavy cloak, she had the look of a shade. Everything but her face was covered, and the shadows cast by the folds of her hood had reduced her features to vague outlines. He watched her consider his question and took note of the sudden stillness that had settled over her.
“He bleeds them of their souls,” she said at last. “He feeds on them as a dracul does. It is the source of his power.”
“He nourishes his own life with theirs?”
Her eyes glittered. “He reduces them to husks. Then life fades and they are gone. I have watched it happen. I have witnessed the results of his invasion. He would have taken my life, as well, if he had found me. But I escaped his notice for a long time. And finally, at the urging of others, I fled the city and came looking for you.”
She paused. “But I am not a good and noble person, so do not try to make more of me than what I really am–a coward, fleeing what I fear to face. I am the representative of my people, but I do this as much for myself as for them. I do not pretend to any sort of elevated status, or to a courage I do not possess, or to anything but desperation.”
“I think you underrate yourself,” he said. “Coming to find me on your own, daring to risk capture and worse–that was brave.”
“You risk more than I do.”
“But I am better equipped to risk more. I have skills and experience.”
And I have less to lose, he almost added. But he chose not to say that, because it would have required an explanation he did not want to give. He did not want to tell her his life held so little value that he barely cared if he lived or died. If he told her that, he would have to tell her, too, that the men he had killed and the risks he had taken were all he had to persuade him that his life had any meaning at all. When you began walking the path he had walked since he was twelve years of age, you found out quickly enough that it did not offer convenient escape routes. When you were so good that fears and doubts were almost nonexistent and challenges that heightened both were your sole pleasure in life, you kept walking because turning aside was a failure you could not tolerate.
She moved over to sit beside him–an act that surprised and pleased him–and he suddenly felt a need for her that was almost overpowering. He wanted to love her; he wanted her to love him back. What would it hurt, out here in the middle of nowhere? What harm could come of it, the two of them sharing a few fleeting moments of even the most temporal form of love.
But when he reached out to take her hand in his, she drew back at once. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered. He watched her shrink visibly. “Please, just sit with me. Just be with me. I cannot give you more than that.”
So he settled for what she was willing to offer, and they sat together until the embers died and the night closed down.
But all the time he was thinking of what it would be like to share more.
* * *
They set out again at daybreak, the first light a slivery blush against the eastern horizon, creeping skyward above the mountains and trees of the Ravenshorn and the Anar. He had slept soundly after they had gone to bed, their brief closeness ended, and the feelings he had experienced the previous night now seemed a lifetime away. He could not recapture them, though he sought to do so as they rode. He was troubled by this, but even more troubled that he had wanted her so badly. It was not his way to desire the company of others. He lived alone, he traveled alone; he existed as a solitary man. It could never be any other way, and he knew this as surely as he knew that his skills set him apart in a dozen different ways from normal men and women. Yet her failure to respond to him had left him strangely despondent.
Why did he feel this way? Why was Lyriana different from every other woman he had ever encountered? Because it was undeniable that she made him feel something others didn’t; he could admit it if not embrace it. He was attracted to her–had been attracted to her from the first–in a way that was both visceral and emotional. It was a deep and painful longing, one that transcended anything he had ever felt.