Chapter 44. A Whetstone, a Fire, and a Truth She Wouldn’t Say Out Loud

Chapter 44: 44. A Whetstone, a Fire, and a Truth She Wouldn’t Say Out Loud

On the night of the first day, Elsbeth sat by the campfire sharpening her sword with long, slow strokes of a whetstone.

I sat down beside her and didn’t say anything.

For a long time, the only sound was the rasp of the stone on steel and the crackle of the fire.

"The arrow..." she said at last. "It was made by my clan."

I turned to look at her.

"The fletching is the northern pattern... gray goose feather, three-fold binding."

"It is what the third watch uses." She kept her eyes on the blade. "Someone from my clan shot that hawk."

"Maybe they stole it...? The Chain, I mean."

"Perhaps."

"But you don’t think so, right?"

"No." She ran the stone down the steel again. "I do not know what I think..."

"I do not want to say it... because if I say it out loud, then it will be real."

So it’s like that she doesn’t want to raise any red flags, huh...? Very sensitive in any situation, indeed.

I didn’t tell her that it was going to be okay. And yes... I didn’t tell her anything, actually.

I just stayed where I was and let her sharpen her sword, and after a while she said very quietly, "Thank you for sitting here..."

"Anytime..."

"Do not mistake this for sentimentality."

"I would never..." I giggled, and she was still the same old Elsbeth that I loved with that extra clarification.

Across the fire, I caught Velora watching us with her arms folded and an unreadable expression, her golden eyes reflecting the flames.

Yikes... this panther... when would they even give me a break? Don’t see getting it that even a wolfkin like Elsbeth can trust me this close too?

Now I’m starting to hate the character that needs some character development through me, but eh... maybe this time I can actually teach her a goddamn lesson for treating me like this.

When I met her gaze, she turned away without a word. And yeah... figures.

Earlier that day, when one of her riders’ horses had slipped on loose gravel, I’d run over and caught the bridle before the horse could fall. Velora had seen it.

She hadn’t said anything about it... But she’d stopped looking through me, and that felt like progress, or at least like a very slow glacier changing direction.

I checked the little window in the corner of my eye before I fell asleep that night.

[Lust Energy: 96/100]

[Passive Decay: 2 per day.]

[No injury penalty.]

Ninety-six. And probably... it was fine for me.

It was totally, completely fine. I told myself that over and over, and I almost believed it.

...

The Hollow Pass showed up on the evening of the second day, and the first thing I thought when I saw it was that nobody sane would ever walk through it voluntarily.

It was a gorge, a long, narrow crack in the mountains with sheer stone walls rising hundreds of feet on either side and a frozen river running along the bottom.

The path was just wide enough for two horses to ride side by side. The only way out was straight ahead or straight back, and the light at the bottom was already dim and blue, like the inside of a deep well.

"This is the fastest route," Elsbeth said. "Without it, we add two days to our journey..."

"It’s also a really good place to die," I pointed out.

"It is a good place to be ambushed... but I would not make the distinction."

"That’s very comforting... we all needed that." I nodded.

She didn’t smile, but the corner of her mouth moved a fraction.

We rode in.

At first it was quiet in the ordinary way, with the clop of hooves and the creak of leather. Then, slowly, I realized it was quiet in the wrong way.

There were no birds.

There was no wind, not even a whisper of it... which is weird in a gorge, because normally... a gorge funnels air like a pipe.

But this... The whole place felt like a held breath.

Up ahead, Sylvara raised her hand, and the column stopped.

Her little lights, which had been bobbing happily around her for two days, were going out.

One by one, they dimmed and vanished like candles being pinched, until only a single pale gold one remained, trembling near her shoulder.

"Something is... wrong," she said softly.

Behind me, Bonette made a choked noise and pressed her fist to her chest.

"The thread," she whispered. "It is pulling...! It has never pulled this hard!"

Elsbeth swung off her horse and knelt on the path. She ran her fingers over the frozen mud, and her whole body went tight.

I crouched next to her and looked where she was looking, and my stomach dropped.

There were paw prints... Hundreds of them, all heading north to south, and they were perfect...

Evenly spaced... in neat parallel lines, like the tracks of a marching army.

Wolves don’t walk like that... I know it because I always see how Elsbeth walked. Wolves wander, spread out, and hunt in messy arcs.

But these tracks, though... they were so orderly that they looked like they’d been drawn with a ruler.

A scrap of cloth fluttered from a thorn bush at the edge of the path. Elsbeth snatched it and held it up.

It was gray and silver, with a torn edge, and I recognized the pattern from the old crest she wore on her coat.

"A third watch tabard," she said in a flat voice.

"Yours?"

"Not mine... But mine is the same."

Velora rode up and surveyed the path with narrowed eyes. "We are not turning back... It would cost us two days."

"It would also cost us fewer people," Elsbeth said quietly.

"We proceed. Close ranks."

Chills... literally chills on my body when Elsbeth and Velora talked. Both share the same coldness... I wonder what it would feel like to have them double-team me.

She gave the order, and the Nightclaw riders drew together, shields up, and with their blades half drawn.

The mood in the column had gone cold and tight. I looked up at the rim of the canyon, a jagged strip of fading sky far above, and something in the back of my skull... the same small, ugly part that had kept me alive when I was running from angry boyfriends, started whispering.

"If I wanted to trap someone here," I murmured to Elsbeth, "I’d wait up top, you know."

She looked at me. Then she tilted her head back and stared at the cliff edge.

One by one, in the gathering dark... a line of pale blue lights flickered on along the rim of the canyon.

They were small and cold and perfectly still, evenly spaced like a string of lanterns.

And what’s even worse is that...

Eyes. Not just two... but lots of them.

"Oh, shit," I said.

They came down the cliffs like an avalanche.

I’d never seen anything move like that. There were about thirty of them, tall, lean Wolfkin in thick gray winter gear, dropping from the ledges in a silent, coordinated wave.

They landed on the path without a sound, rose from a crouch in perfect unison, and charged us with those cold blue eyes glowing in the twilight.

Not a single one of them shouted or snarled.

They didn’t speak at all.

Some carried bows and fired from the rim in a rolling volley.

Some had swords.

Some just ran at us with their bare hands, which were glowing faintly with the same cold light, and when one of them punched a boulder, the whole thing cracked down the middle.

"DO NOT KILL THEM!" Elsbeth screamed. "DISARM THEM!"

I had never heard her scream before. Her voice was ragged and high, and it cut through the chaos like a blade.

She had drawn her sword, but she wasn’t attacking. She was standing in the middle of the path with the blade lowered, staring at the faces of the charging wolves.

"They are my clan!" she shouted. "Do not KILL them...! Please!"

She was calling names. I heard her do it.

"Halla! Evrin! Torvald! Ingeborg!" Her voice cracked on every one.

She knew them, I realized.

She knew every single one.

Probably training partners, old teachers, the guard who’d let her in through the gate every night. And not one of them turned their head.

Velora swore in a language I didn’t recognize, but she didn’t hesitate.

"Flat of the blade!" she barked. "Nets and sheaths! Do not strike to kill!"