James West - Queen of the North

“By then there wouldn’t be much reason to march anywhere, let alone to the Iron Marches.”

Erryn had been wondering about that, as well. “You also claimed we could trust the report-”

“Mayhap I left out the part about how terrible the storms are,” Aedran interrupted, “but I don’t abide with scaring folk for no good reason. Weather is just weather, sometimes bad, sometimes not, but still just weather. As to the doings of King Nabar, I did not deceive you, nor did the man who sent the message-a man I trust more than any other upon the face of the world.”

“Trust who you will,” she said, “but I want to know why King Nabar-a weak man and a weaker ruler, by all accounts-would act with such boldness?” She realized she should have asked about that long before now, but queenly thinking was new to her. After her father, a woodcutter, had felled a tree on himself, her mother had died of a wasting sickness, Erryn was left on her own to find hot meals and comfortable places to sleep until the day she named herself queen.

Aedran laughed, a deep rich sound that warmed her from the inside out, and brought a flush to her cheeks. “As to Nabar’s way of thinking, it could be the woman he married put a boot to his arse.”

“Mirith of Qairennor?” Erryn knew only that the former princess, and all of Qairennor, had been Cerrikoth’s enemy not a year gone. After the death of King Tazzim, Nabar had taken his father’s throne and ended the long war between Qairennor and Cerrikoth by taking to wife Princess Mirith. “What reason would she have to spur her new husband to such a course?”

“Many of my brothers who’ve sold their blades to the Crown of Cerrikoth all agree that Mirith is a very ambitious woman.”

“That doesn’t explain what King Nabar and his new wife are up to.”

“I couldn’t say,” Aedran admitted. “Highborn do things for their own reasons, and being as they’re highborn, they don’t often feel the need to explain themselves. Rarer still is the fool who questions them. All that need concern you is that King Nabar is acting the fool, and in doing so, he’s given you an opportunity to destroy him.” When she failed to respond, he added, “We’re nearly halfway across the mountains. If you want to surrender and turn around, now is the time to tell me.”

Erryn’s nostrils flared in anger. “Who said anything about surrendering?”

“No one … directly .”

Erryn flung aside her blankets. “I may not know what Nabar intends, but that doesn’t change my plans against him. We go on.”

“As you will,” Aedran said, bowing his way from her tent with exaggerated solemnity.

As soon as she crept from her tent, Aedran had more bad news for her.

“A dozen horses froze in the night,” he called above the wind, “and two sentries have disappeared. Like as not, they also froze.”

Fighting to stand against the frigid blow, Erryn peered at him above her scarf, already crusted with ice. What would a good queen do? What will I do?

At no more than ten paces, the men tending the horses and packing the sledges were slow-moving apparitions. She was tired and cold and hungry, but all she had been doing for days was riding on the back of a horse. Her soldiers had been cutting a path through waist-deep snow and ice. They had earned better treatment than abandonment.

“We must search for the missing men!”

Aedran shook his head. “If they’re not at their posts, and not in camp, then they are lost.”

“How can you know?”

Aedran raised his hands. “If the storm hasn’t buried them in a drift … then something took them. Sending others out to hunt will only end with more missing men. We must to go on.”

“Would you leave me behind?” she snapped.

“As you pay my way, I’d not let you out of my sight.”

“They’re your men- my men!”

“And they died for you here, much as others died for you at Valdar.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Death is death. If it makes you feel better to think they died for a cause, then believe they did so protecting the camp against frost leopards, or mayhap a hunting demon.”

I should never have led them here , she thought with a touch of helpless frustration. Her army had come too far to turn back without running short on supplies, but going forward would only lead to more dead and missing men.

“We have to find shelter!” She might not be a good and wise queen, but she was no fool. If they didn’t get out of the storm, none of them would live to see the Iron Marches.

Aedran laughed. “Unless you can claw a hole into these mountains with your bare hands, how do you expect to find a safe place?”

“There must be something. Even a cave would do!”

“A cave big enough for over a thousand men and near on four hundred horses?” Despite his doubtful tone, something flashed in his eyes, a glimmer of recognition.

A round of muted curses turned Erryn.

Several men were struggling to keep a horse standing upright. The beast tossed it head, stumbled, and crashed over on its side, taking three men down with it. After much effort, the men got back on their feet, buffeted by the wind, swaying with weariness. The downed horse lifted its head once, then gave up the fight.

Erryn spun back to Aedran, but he was still looking at the men and the horse. “There must be some place we can go. If not, we won’t last the day.” She thought about that flicker of recognition she had seen in his gaze, and in her memory heard him telling how best to get over the Gyntors, and something else.

She grabbed his arm with a gloved hand and pulled him around. “You said you knew the safest ways around the places where men once lived. If men ever lived here, they didn’t do so out in the open.”

“I also told you those were places where only the dead walk.”

“But there is shelter,” she insisted. Shadenmok and their savaging hellhounds were creatures to fear, but not ghosts.

He hesitated. “Aye,” he said at last.

“Take us there.”

He pulled away. “Have you heard nothing I’ve said?”

“Obey me, or I’ll find another who will.”

He didn’t bother denying the possibility that one of his men would gladly usurp his position, but his laughter was dry as dust. “You know not what you’re asking.”

“I ask for nothing,” Erryn said. “I am commanding you to help us survive.”

He looked into the howling face of the storm, then shrugged. “Who am I to deny a queen what she wants?” There was wry amusement in his voice, but it failed to reach his eyes.

He’s just cold and tired , Erryn thought, refusing to believe she saw fear in his gaze. “We should also bring the dead horses.”

“Do you wish to honor them for their service?” he scoffed.

“If we’re going to wait out the storm, we’ll need something to eat.”

He gave her a startled look. “You might make a fair warrior queen yet!”

“Only if I survive long enough for anyone to hear of me,” she said, trying her hand at a bit of dire Prythian humor.

“Aye,” he said, without a hint of mirth. That peculiar sheen had come back into his eyes. She told herself again that it could not be fear she saw, but it sounded very much like a lie.

Captain Ostre sent word that the Lamprey was ready to sail before dawn’s first glimmers began to brighten Iceford. The runner, a rat-faced crewman who introduced himself as Gnat, also let Rathe know that if he and his companions were not aboard within the hour, the Lamprey would sail without them.

“We could use an extra pair of hands,” Rathe said, reaching for his coin purse. Other than the Lamprey’s crew, he had never been around sailors, but guessed such men craved gold as much as any.