Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion) (12 page)

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.

Chapter 10

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.

Gnat proved him wrong.

“Don’t have a moment to waste toting baggage,” he said, his long nose wrinkled as if he smelled something bad. He drew his hood over his filthy black hair and scurried from the room.

“The rain has given over to snow,” Nesaea said at the window, letting the curtain fall back. She wore a cloak of dark blue wool over green breeches and a voluminous shirt of cream muslin. “I loathe all this cold. Monseriq is never so bitter and wet.”

“I should hope not,” Rathe said. “The Sea of Grelar reaches far south before breaking upon the shores of your homelands. I’d like to see those lands one day.”

“One day
soon
,” Nesaea agreed.

“First, there’s the matter of finding your sister.”

“Yes, and that means getting free of Iceford and the Iron Marches.”

After squaring their bill with Master Tyron, they hired a pair of his stablemen to load their belongings into a small cart and wheel it through the snow-quieted streets of the village.

Rathe kept a sharp eye along the way to the quays. He saw no one resembling Edrik or the Shadowman skulking about. When he had told the others about Edrik, only Nesaea had seemed troubled, but soon agreed with Loro and Fira that the man had probably been lying about who he was and the reason he wanted Rathe to join him. Rathe had doubts, but he wanted to believe as his friends did. It was too soon to relax, but he felt a loosening of the knots in his shoulders. In a few hours, Iceford would lay leagues behind him. In a few days, the whole of the Iron Marches, and all the troubles these lands had brought him, would fall into memory.

They found the
Lamprey’s
deck teeming with crewmen. Captain Ostre bawled orders, and his Prythian quartermaster enforced his commands. While Nesaea took Fira below decks—the fire-haired woman had become greener every step closer they came to the ship—Rathe and Loro hauled their baggage to the cramped cabins Captain Ostre reserved for his infrequent passengers.

“A thief would never serve as a porter,” Loro grumbled. “Not unless he’s taking the measure of a future mark.”

Rathe straightened from stuffing a haversack into a compartment under the bed he and Nesaea would share. “You’re not on about that again, are you?” Ever since he had met the man, Loro had yearned for the life of a bandit-king pillaging along the shores of the Sea of Muika.

“Well, I can’t have you forgetting now, can I?” Loro asked, brushing melting snow off his bald head.

“I’m not sure Nesaea and Fira would enjoy that life.”

Loro spread his hands. “I enjoy their company well enough, brother, but those two are the
best
reason to run away and never look back.”

Rathe arched an eyebrow.

“Just look at us,” Loro said with a scowl, “fetching and carrying like a couple of servants—and that after spending little more than a fortnight with them. Soon, they’ll have us wearing fancy clothes and sniffing pomanders, like a pair of highborn dandies.” He cast a pointed glance at Rathe’s fine wool cloak draped over a red coat fastened with shiny brass buttons.

Rathe rubbed his chin, making a show of considering Loro’s words. “Could be you’re right,” he said in a low voice, as if concerned Nesaea might hear. “And I cannot deny an itch of late to gut someone who wants to gut me—not some crazed witch, mind you, or any freakish beasts, but man against man in a good, clean fight.”

Loro’s eyes lit up. “Aye, brother! We need a proper bit of bloodletting to make us right. We’ll not have any of that while running about with a pair of comely wenches.”

Rathe nodded as though growing excited by the prospect. “I don’t know about you, but all this rich food and wine of late doesn’t satisfy as well as a tankard of pissy ale, a heel of moldy bread, and a trencher full of gristly meat.”

A frown creased Loro’s brow. “Well, now, not all ale tastes of goat piss, and not every meal must be foul.”

“And these beds!” Rathe went on quickly, slapping his hand against the featherbed, which was finer than those in the Minstrel’s Cup. “These will make a man soft as butter. Better to sleep on roots and rocks, or maybe in a damp cave. Such as that makes a man stony, keeps him sharp and ready for all dangers.”

Loro’s frown deepened. “That’s so, but there’s no reason a good thief cannot enjoy a proper bed on occasion.”

“Just so!” Rathe said merrily. “And I ask you, who better to fill that occasional bed than a poxy whore? As long as she has a set of plump teats and a warm mouth, who cares if she might think to rob us while we sleep?”

“Not all whores are poxy or troublesome,” Loro said, sounding doubtful.

Rathe half closed his eyes and put on a sublime smile. “Once we’re south of the White Sea, we ought to just drop off Nesaea and Fira, and strike out on our own. Of course, we’ll have to worm our way into a known band of thieves, or they’re apt to see us as rivals. Course, that just brings us back around to killing any fools who want to kill us. I expect in a year, maybe two, we’ll have surrounded ourselves with a pack of worthy cutthroats—you can never truly trust such a man, of course, but that just adds to the adventure. I can hear the songs about Rathe and Loro, sung in all the winehouses and brothels along the coast. We will be famous, revered.”

“I suggest we not get
too
famous, otherwise we’ll have armies after us.”