The False Martyr (118 page)

He cleared his throat and
looked away. “Alright, we’ll try it,” he said. His voice was husky.
“We have some time before the sun’s down. We’ll continue to where
the trees rise over there then cut across the rocks with that wall
at our side. I’ll let my horse go. She’s hungry, so she’ll want to
get away from this high country as fast as possible. She might even
lead them for a day before they catch her.”

Noé smiled at that. “Thank
you,” she whispered.

Cary took another breath,
felt exhaustion weighing on him like he was carrying the mountains
on his back. His stomach rumbled and cramped.
Be the man your sister needed
, he
repeated to himself.

#

Cary reached a hand to Noé
and lifted her as she leapt across a three foot gap between the
last two rocks. She panted as he placed his hands on her hips to
steady her. She shook, legs wobbling. Despite the cool of the
night, sweat ran from her hair in great beads down her face. The
fur at the top of her dress sparkled with droplets as if laced with
jewels. She rubbed her hands together, wincing against the pain of
the scrapes that marked them. A line of blood ran over her ankle
and stained the top of her shoe from her knee. Her face,
illuminated perfectly by the full moon behind them was marred with
streaks of dirt so that he could hardly see the scabs and bruises.
Her hair was pulled back into a great frizzy tail tied by a leather
band. It was knotted and matted, would probably have to be cut just
to get a comb through it. Still Cary’s hands trembled as he held
her. He told himself it was from exhaustion.

Feeling his legs shaking,
wondering if he had enough left for the final few paces, he looked
back over what they had just accomplished. Ahead of them was a tiny
stream, its progress down the slope lost between the rocks below.
It ran from between two boulders that marked the entrance to a
narrow valley. As Noé had promised, the moon had illuminated their
way, making the grey rocks nearly glow, but the climb had been
farther, steeper, and far more grueling than it looked. It had
taken the entire night, moving slowly, cautiously, silently from
stone to stone, leaping over gaps, straining through each step,
fighting to keep moving up. The miraculous, Order-sent horse had
led the way, its reins providing Cary with a boost when needed. Noé
had follow, with Cary helping her through each step. She had fallen
once – scraped her hands, cut her knee – but she had done it
silently and had not said a word about it since. Cary had never
seen anything like it, would have never imagined a woman making
this climb, but then if her life had given her anything, she was
strong, she knew pain, and she knew how to survive.

Lifting his eyes, Carey
looked for the Morgs that he still thought should be somewhere
behind. There was no sign of them. They had been maintaining their
camps down the slope, keeping themselves where game was plentiful
and their quarry would be trapped against the mountains. And they
were still there. A single slim streamer rose through the night
from the trees well down the slope and only slightly to the west.
Too close, Cary realized. Noé had been correct. The Morgs would
have surely overtaken them if they’d stayed on their previous
course. Now, with any luck, they would follow the mare back down,
would waste a day searching for their true track, or not find it at
all.

“
Come on. We’re almost
there.” Noé slid past him and pulled on his hand to lead him around
the last boulder. Cary scanned the rock field below one last time
to see if they had left any obvious traces of their passing. In the
fading moonlight, he could only imagine. Noé tugged again on his
hand. He turned and followed her.

Around the boulder was a
long, narrow passage. Faces of rock rose fifty feet on either side
leaving a valley a couple of paces across. Water ran through the
bottom, rising up the rock walls deep enough to reach their knees.
Cary eyed it skeptically. The valley was almost perfectly dark. The
moon was low enough now that only the slightest glimmer reflected
off the rock wall to their left. Almost nothing made it to the
bottom. The water could have been ink. There was no way to tell
what dangers awaited them.

“
Water flows down,” Noé
reminded him as if reading his thoughts. “We can’t hear it falling,
so the ground must be level.”

She was right, Cary knew.
The trickle of the water running between the rocks they’d just
traversed was the only sound in the stunningly quiet night. If
there were a falls, they’d certainly be able to hear it. And the
water had to be running constantly down, there could be no sudden
cliffs or obstacles.

“
Where the horse?” Cary
asked suddenly realizing it was missing. He looked behind them, but
the rocks were clear. He listened but could not hear the animal’s
steps or breaths.

“
There’s only one place it
could have gone,” Noé answered. She took his hand and led him
around the boulder into the stream.

The water was ice. Rising
above Cary’s knees, encompassing his feet and shins, his legs were
almost instantly numb. He winced against the pain of it and felt a
shiver rise all the way through him. A tug on his hand reminded him
what they were doing, so he stepped cautiously, forcing his feet
through the icy water that resisted him with a stronger current
than he’d expected. So it was, step after step, that they made
their progress through the stream, feet numb, teeth rattling,
bodies shaking, locked hands the only parts of them still
warm.

Until they came to a slab
of rock. It stood at least twenty feet and filled the canyon
completely on either side. There was no way past it. The faces of
rock on either side were sheer. The boulder itself slanted toward
them so that it hung over them from the top. Maybe in the light,
maybe with a rope, maybe by himself, maybe rested, Cary could find
enough footholds to climb the boulder at one of the two sides where
it was pressed against the walls. Now, he was almost too tired to
walk, let alone climb. His hands were shaking with the rest of him,
would never be able to hold the rock. His feet were beyond numb,
would never be able to feel out footholds. And the water, rising
now above their waists, only made it harder.

“
Where is that damn
horse?” Cary asked again, teeth rattling so that he could barely
form the words.

“
Does it matter?” Noé’s
words seemed less affected than his, almost normal.

“
I don’t think we can get
around this,” he finally said, “but the horse must have made it out
somehow. If we knew how, we could follow it.” He looked again at
the rock faces on either side. Had the damn thing found a path up
there?

Noé took a deep, shaking
breath and squeezed his hand. “Maybe it can fly and just never told
us.” Somehow, she laughed. She let go of him and stepped to the
stone, placing her hands on it. Her feet shuffled to the side in
the icy pool. Cary could only watch her, arms wrapped around
himself, shivering so that he could barely move. Eventually, her
feet carried her to the far edge of the stone. Her hands fell
beneath the water, and she went to her knees, allowing the frigid
water to almost completely encompass her. She squealed, but it was
with delight. “The water has to come from somewhere,” she exclaimed
and plunged her entire body into the pool.

A second later – it felt
like forever – she rose again, nearly lost in the darkness a few
feet away. “There’s a way through. It’s tight, but we can push
ourselves through. It’s only a few feet. Follow me.” And with that,
she disappeared again into the black water. Cary wanted to scream
at her to stop, but he was too cold, too tired. Instead, he
shuffled toward her and watched the shadows of her slim, white legs
kick and push at the rocks, creeping slowly forward until they too
disappeared.

Cary’s breath caught as he
stared at the bottom of the rock. Had she made it?

“
Come on, Cary,” a voice
called from the far side of the boulder. “You are no bigger than
me. You can make it.” Her words came in gasps. It sounded like she
was working hard to make them. It must have been a strenuous
journey. Cary wondered if he still had the strength for
it.

Be the . . .
he cut off the idiot mantra, took a deep breath,
and lowered himself into the water. It felt like his entire body
was encompassed in ice. He brought his head back up but could
barely breathe. His chest ached, arms hurt, head pounded, fingers
burned from the cold. Still it took several seconds and a number of
additional breaths before he could force his head back under. He
felt for the opening, found it with his hands, but it was pitch
black in the water and he had never felt anything so cold. Body
barley responding to his commands, he forced his head into the
passage, felt the current pushing him back like a gale wind. He
drove against it with his feet, pulled with his hands. His feet
slipped and pushed and slipped again. His hands clawed for
purchased. His entire body writhed to move forward. His lungs
burned, heart hammered, head throbbed. But slowly, ever so slowly,
he made his way through the opening until he could wiggle his arms
out. They pushed on the far side of the boulder. His legs followed,
but the water did not end.

Eyes flying open, he
nearly panicked. The water still surrounded him. It was lighter
now, illuminated by the moon. He looked up, saw the light several
feet above, and pushed toward the surface.

Noé grabbed him as soon as
he broke through, held him by the collar of his shirt as he
sputtered and gasped. She clung to a cleft in the boulder and
kicked with her legs to stay above the water. His hands found the
same cleft and held though he could no longer feel them. He could
barely breathe for the cold. His entire body shook beyond his
control. What little energy he still had was seeping quickly away,
drawn greedily into the icy water, and all he could do was cling to
that rock and let it take him.

“
Can you swim?” Noé asked
in his ear. “We’re in a small lake. The shore’s not far, but I’ve
never swum in anything bigger than a bath. You . . . you’ll have to
help me.”

Cary nodded. He looked
toward the moon hanging in the sky above a large, flat plain. It
illuminated the water, shimmering off its black surface. That
shimmer stopped fifty feet away. That was the shore. “Hang . . .
hang on to my belt. I’ll pull. Try . . . try to . . . kick.” He
could barely manage the words, but there was only one way to escape
the cold. He pushed off from the rock, felt Noé’s fingers wrap
around the back of his belt and pulled for all he was
worth.

#

The horse was waiting for
them. Cary had no idea what the creature had done but it wasn’t
even wet. Thanking the Order, nonetheless, he pulled the fur cloak
from the bag at its side – he was shaking so hard that he could
barely manage even that – and began to wrap himself in
it.

“
Clothes off first,” Noé
scolded. Cary gawked at her in the moonlight. He could barely stand
for the convulsing of his frozen muscles. His teeth chattered so
that he thought they might break. His hands and feet were numb, but
his toes and fingers burned like they were on fire. He needed to
get in that cloak before he froze completely, but Noé just tore it
from his hands and started unlacing his shirt, ripping off his
vest, and unbuckling his belt. Somehow, she seemed barely chilled
despite having been in the same water for the same amount of time.
“Do you think I’ve never seen people claimed by the ice?” she asked
as she pulled down his pants. “Staying wet will kill
you.”

Cary didn’t even register
that he was naked. Never in his life had a woman undressing him
meant so little. The fur was the only thing he could think of. Even
when she pulled her own dripping dress down over her shoulders and
allowed it to fall to the ground, even with the moonlight perfectly
illuminating her, he felt nothing but the cold.

Only when they were
stripped did she pick up the great cloak. Holding it with both
hands, she positioned it so that the fur was across her back and
then embraced him from behind, encompassing him in her warmth and
that of the fur. “Shhhh,” she urged, warm breath in his ear. “I
will warm you. Concentrate on me, feel my heat, feel it driving the
cold away.”

And Cary could feel her
warmth, her softness, her nipples pressed against his back, her
legs rubbing on his, her arms holding him, her face on his
shoulder. She repeated her words, and Cary felt his shaking ease,
felt feeling returning to his hands and feet, felt his sense come
back to him. But the shaking was replaced with exhaustion. The
stream, the lake, the cold had taken what little energy he had
left. He eased to the ground with Noé supporting him, she tucked
the great cloak under him as he came down then laid beside him,
still pressed to his back, leg draped over his. Somewhere, some
part of him told him that he should want more from that, but the
call was lost to the hum in his head.

#

Somehow, Noé had built a
fire. That was the first thing Cary noticed when his eyes came
open. He was looking at a small, dim fire that had burned nearly to
embers. Hanging by that fire were their clothes laid out on piles
of rocks gathered from the banks of the nearby lake. It seemed far
less daunting now, less than fifty paces across each way, little
more than a depression that led down to where the boulder had
blocked its progression down the side of the mountain. The sun was
up, rising just above the peaks to the east, illuminating a great
high pasture stretching for miles until it hit the crags that caged
it. It was a breathtaking scene, the kind of scene that most people
would never see, that they could not even imagine, that they would
not believe existed in all the world. It held Cary’s attention for
only seconds.