The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [63]
“I didn’t think you minded it at all when Leshya joined us.”
“This isn’t about Leshya,” Aspar said desperately. “I’m trying to tell you something.”
“Go on.”
“So, then all of a sudden there are fifty of us, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m not a knight, not a soldier. I work alone.”
“So what does that say about me?”
He took a deep breath, feeling as if he were about to dive into a very deep pool. “Being with you—and just you—is like being alone, but better.”
She stared at him, blinking.
He saw dampness appear in her eyes, and his heart fell. He knew what he wanted to say, but clearly he didn’t have the right words.
“Winna—” he started again.
She held up a finger.
“Hush,” she said. “That’s the best thing you’ve said to me in a long time—maybe ever—so you probably want to shut up now.”
Relief took hold of Aspar. He followed her advice and settled into the ride.
Snow drifted fitfully, but he didn’t have much worry that the trail would get covered; the tracks of one or two slinders he might lose in a heavy snowfall, yes, but not the several hundred that had come this way. And it wasn’t just tracks they were finding but trails of blood and the occasional corpse. It might be that they didn’t feel pain or fear, but they died just like everything else.
Daylight surrendered without much of a fight a few bells later, lead tarnishing to black, with a wicked promise of hard cold. They lit torches. The snowfall thickened, and the flames hissed and fussed in it.
Though Aspar didn’t want to admit it, he was tired, so tired that his knees were quivering against Ogre’s flanks. And though she didn’t complain, Winna seemed on the verge of dropping, as well. It had been a very long day, a day lived almost entirely at the edge of death, and that could wear iron down to rust.
“How are you holding up over there?” Aspar asked.
“The snow will cover the tracks if we stop.” She sighed.
“Not so I can’t find the trail,” Aspar said. “Even if there aren’t any more bodies, they’ve scraped tree bark, broken branches—I can follow ’em.”
“What if we stop and they kill Stephen while we’re resting?”
“They won’t, not if we’re right.”
“But we might be wrong. They might cut his heart out at midnight, for all we know.”
“They might,” Aspar agreed. “But if we find him now, in the shape we’re in, do you really think we could do anything to help him?”
“No,” Winna admitted. “Is that really the point?”
“Yes,” Aspar said. “I’m not some kinderspell knight, ready to die because the story says I ought. We’ll save Stephen if I think we’ll survive it or at least have a decent chance. Right now, we need a little rest.”
Winna nodded. “Yah,” she said. “You’ve talked me into it. Do you want to camp here?”
“Nah, let me show you something. Just up ahead.”
“Feel the notches?” Aspar asked, searching up through the darkness and finding Winna’s rump.
“Yah. And watch your paws, you old bear. I’m not that forgiving, not with you making me climb another tree.”
“This should be an easier climb.”
“It is. Who cut the notches? They’re old; I can feel bark that’s grown back on ’em.”
“Yah. I cut ’em, back when I was a boy.”
“You’ve been planning this a long time.”
Aspar almost chuckled at that, but he was too exhausted.
“Just a little higher,” he promised. “You’ll feel a jut.”
“Got it,” Winna said.
A few moments later Aspar followed Winna onto a hard flat surface.
“Your winter castle?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he replied.
“It could do with some walls.”
“Well, I couldn’t see anything then, could I?” Aspar said.
“We can’t see anything as it is,” Winna pointed out.
“Yah. Anyway, it’s got a roof to keep the snow off, and there ought to be a piece of canvas we can raise to hold the worst of this noar’wis off of us. Just mind the edge. I only built this for one.”
“So I take it I’m the first woman you’ve brought home.”
“Ah—” He stopped, afraid to answer that.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry, I was just joking.