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Kiril had watched Bryar’s strength improve hourly during the three days of hiking through the hills, making him aware of the rock-hard muscles in the man’s legs and back. The persistent frown of pain had vanished, replaced by a face carved in granite. Bryar neither smiled nor scowled. He moved forward like a machine, with no show of emotion.
Three days on the trail had done nothing for their overall cleanliness. They were scruffy as hell. Although they took advantage of streams to wash, their clothes were becoming rank.
At the herbalist’s, they’d cleaned Bryar up, but after all the trauma his skin was too sensitive for shaving. While a beard didn’t bother Kiril, Bryar sported only a few scraggly hairs where the red mark covered half his face, creating an odd, incomplete appearance.
This morning gave every indication of being the same as the previous ones. They had camped well up a slope, where vegetation was sparse and the morning mist thinner. From their altitude Kiril could track the trail as it meandered around the hills before plunging into a valley to cross a swollen river.
His companion was the same also – taciturn to the point of rudeness. By now Kiril accepted the silence between them. As long as they got back to the Midland safely, he wasn’t complaining.
Over a brief stop for food at midday, Kiril had no sooner taken a bite of dried fruit than Bryar spoke, his first voluntary words since they climbed out of Borgonne. “I’ll take the cell now.”
He replied around the chewy dried abricoe clinging to his teeth. “There’s no need.” Possession of the cell meant security. It assured he wouldn’t be abandoned in the hills, where he’d be helpless without an Auric connection.
Bryar reached over and snagged his pack.
“Just a damn minute-”
Bryar shook off his hand as if he were a fly. “Get this straight. I’m taking the cell. We’ll swap packs so we don’t risk breaking the shield.”
Kiril watched his few possessions land in the scrub at their feet. Then Bryar upended his own pack. “Here.” He tossed over the empty bag and crammed his belongings in with the dirt-packed cell.
Kiril hadn’t expected it. But the look on Bryar’s face reminded him that as long as they traversed the hills, he didn’t have a single card to play. He bit back his retort, repacked his possessions, and finished the fruit.
That evening, he studied his traveling companion across the fire. All along, despite the battles first with the beast, then with Duncan, he had viewed Bryar as no more than a pretty boy who spun tall tales. He’d missed the reality.
The man stirring the thin soup was no pretty boy.
In an effort to establish fellow feeling and ward off the unease that crept up his spine as darkness encroached, he tossed out, “You’ll be a hero when we get back.”
“Pass over your bowl. This is as edible as it’ll ever be.” Bryar reached across with his uninjured hand.
Kiril handed him the dish and accepted a serving of the soup. Bryar had trapped some kind of ground animal that afternoon, killed, skinned, and cleaned it, mostly one-handed. Kiril hadn’t caught anything, to his embarrassment. In fact, he had twisted an ankle in the attempt.
“Must be good, knowing your people are going to worship at your feet,” he prompted.
Bryar ignored him, spooning mouthfuls of soup and staring at the fire.
Tomorrow they faced a steep descent into the valley that now, in the early evening chill, sent those creepy tendrils of mist up the trail. Kiril could hear but not see the river below them, with a waterfall off to the right, and was glad they hadn’t attempted to go any further. The footing promised to be treacherous, and the mists imparted an eerie, other-worldly atmosphere.
In fact, the hills gave him the creeps, as they had since his first abortive attempts to cross them when no matter what he did, he found himself within a few kilometers of where he started. Sure, the scenery was magnificent but... maybe it was just the absence of people. He’d never spent so long without teammates, bunkmates, fellow crew members around him. Even in the Midland, hamlets rarely were more than a day apart, and nothing about the in-between stretches had given him the willies like the hills did.
If he were fanciful, he’d say a spell gripped the land. Fanciful or not, he wouldn’t want to be lost in these mountains.
He dunked a piece of waybread into the bland soup. After forcing it down, he tried again. “You fought well. You deserve the accolades.”
“Yeah.” Bryar set his bowl aside and stood. As he walked around, stowing his utensils and their meager food supply, Kiril once again sensed the power behind the supposedly mild façade.
Without explanation, Bryar stood a little straighter, holding himself stock-still, then turned away and moved at a near run down the trail.
“Where’re you going?” Kiril pulled the packs closer, guarding the cell.
“To meet them.” Bryar disappeared around a turn.
Them? Was help on the way?
“Who?” he shouted, but received no answer. He waited.
Not five minutes later a call split the quiet. “Bryar!”
Kiril sprang to his feet and limped around the bend in time to see the magnificent dark-skinned woman, Quinn, launch herself at Bryar and hang on for dear life, her legs wrapped around him, hands clinging like talons to his back and neck. Her feet hit the ground and... Kiril’s mouth dried up. She kissed Bryar in a way Kiril hadn’t been kissed... ever. He couldn’t force his eyes away.
An older man came up the path in Quinn’s wake. He waved and walked over to where Kiril stood rooted. “Might as well move on. Those two will be checking each other out for a while yet. Remember me? Dal.”
“Sure. Good to see you again.” Kiril turned and strode back to their camp, the Healer following. For all the awareness Bryar and Quinn showed, locked together like that, he and Dal could blast off and fly unnoticed to the moon. If this planet had a moon.
“You’ve hurt your leg.”
“It’s nothing.” He’d done his best to hide the limp. He didn’t need mollycoddling.
“It’s never nothing. Have you eaten? We caught a couple of rabbits earlier.”
Kiril gestured at the pot they’d used to cook the soup, thinking as he did that what they called rabbits bore only a passing resemblance to the pictures he’d seen on Terra. “Go for it. We just finished.”
“But you’re still hungry, so this will be welcome. I have a turnip and savory seasoning.”
Dal moved with efficiency, so Kiril sat back and rested the aching ankle. Dal was the oldest of their merged party by a good ten years, yet he showed no fatigue. He simply got on with the task at hand.
“You crossed the river in these mists? Strikes me as dangerous.”
“Not really. The stepping stones are a little slippery, but flat enough to keep your balance. Quinn knew we were close,” he added as an afterthought. After tossing herbs and the chopped turnip into the cook pot, Dal sat and started skinning the animals. “Probably we should dry and smoke one of these. No telling what we’ll find tomorrow. How’s the ankle?”
“How’d you know it’s my ankle?”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. After a Healing, I expect you’ll be able to walk comfortably. You two must be eager to get home.”
Home? “It’s not my home.”
Dal glanced up and seemed to look right through him. “If you say so.”
Bryar and Quinn joined them. Quinn shivered and reached toward the fire. “I’m soaked through, thanks to the mist. Diou, but I hate being out here.”
My sentiments exactly. It didn’t help Kiril’s peace of mind that the blaze, seemingly of its own accord, grew stronger. He’d never adjust to the way the Weavers just did things like that.
Dal stood, poured water over his hands, then rubbed a plant stalk from his pack between them. “Okay, Bryar, let’s see.”
“I’d rather not.” Whatever warmth he felt for Quinn, the affection didn’t extend to the Healer.
“But you will. I’m not messing around here.”
Bryar sighed and squatted in front of Dal, who carefully unwrapped the outer bandage. The two inner bandages were clean, Kiril noted, so there had been no seepage since Bryar last dunked the remains of his fingers in an alcohol solution, grimly suppressing any reaction to what had to be an agonizing ritual. Dal untied the bandages and studied Bryar’s hand.
“Pain?”
Bryar shrugged.
Quinn nudged him. “We didn’t come out here so you could be stubborn. You know Dal’s going to Heal you. Why not let him do it?”
Grudgingly, he said, “It hurts.”
“Movement?”
Bryar flexed the stumps and winced. He’d lost two joints of his middle finger, one of his index finger, and had a nasty gash where the blade failed to sever his ring finger. Kiril hadn’t seen the wounds in days, but he saw no sign of infection or putrefaction.
“I approve your use of alcohol, but now we can go to a less harsh remedy. As soon as I’ve eaten, I’ll do a Healing. Don’t shut me out on this,” Dal cautioned, his voice level. “You think you don’t care how they heal, but you do. Or you will, eventually.”
“Bull-merde,” Bryar snapped. He rose in one smooth movement. “This hand’s useless to me. It doesn’t make any difference what happens to it.” Holding in check a tension so fierce even Kiril could sense it from his place across the fire, he turned and started toward the trail.
“Bryar.”
He froze.
“You will join us, you will eat more soup and help me stretch the meat for drying, and we will do a Healing. I will compel you if I have to. Clear?”
“Damn you,” Bryar hissed under his breath.
“Do I make myself clear?” Dal’s voice brooked no dissent.
“Yeah.” Tight-lipped, Bryar returned to the fire and sat next to Quinn. He allowed her to re-wrap the fingers while Dal made a production of merging and sorting their supplies, turning everyone’s attention to the food.
Shifting the focus away from the music man, Kiril thought. Giving him a chance to regain his equanimity after Dal’s tongue-lashing.
Following their meal, which passed largely in silence, Dal undertook the Healing for his ankle. He wrapped it in an ice-cold poultice, not explaining how he created the chill temperature, then sat dead still in the weird way of Healers, his hands cradling the injured joint. Perhaps ten minutes later he nodded and muttered, “Good.” Standing and stretching, he added, “Keep the poultice on overnight. You should be well in the morning.”
It felt fine already. Kiril remembered his broken leg, which had healed in record time. He might even be forced to start believing in their magic.
Dal gathered a ground blanket and a handful of vials and pouches of herbs, then addressed Bryar. “There’s a level area a little way along the trail. Let’s go.”
Bryar sat by the fire, cross-legged and hunched over, Quinn’s hand on his back. He made no move to rise.
“Now.”
“Go on,” Quinn murmured. “Please.”
Without a word, Bryar rose and followed Dal. From Kiril’s perspective on the ground, it looked as if they vanished in the mists. He shuddered.
Quinn sighed. “If Dal’s moved them away, it probably means it will be long and ugly. I wish I could help.”
“You’re no Healer.”
“That’s for sure. Tell me about the fight.” She didn’t ask, she commanded.
“Talk to your boyfriend.”
“No doubt you failed to notice he’s not very communicative. It’s important I get unbiased information, Kiril.”
Game on. It hadn’t taken long for the energy between them to crackle with hostility. Sparring with Quinn was one of his rare pleasures in this benighted place. “Then perhaps you should try asking nicely, instead of acting like a commanding general dealing with a peon. You need an attitude adjustment, lady.”
Night had fallen during his Healing; she’d become little more than a shifting pattern of light and dark as the fire sputtered, but he heard her intake of breath.
“I would be grateful,” she said, her voice tight and sarcasm dripping from every word, “if you would grant me the wondrous boon of explaining how my friend was injured.”
“Sure. Happy to.” Satisfied that he’d won a round, he leaned back on an elbow and gave her the short version, using the variation in which he, not Bryar, killed Duncan.
She didn’t buy it. “Bryar says otherwise.”
“He passed out. He doesn’t have a clue what happened.”
“Why are you making this up? He’d be better off facing facts, not hiding behind your skirts.”
Skirts? He mentally scored her a point. “That’s how it played. Believe it or not, I don’t really care.” He nonchalantly stood and experimented with the sore ankle. Not a twinge.
Quinn made a rude sound, then spread out her bedroll. She unearthed Bryar’s and laid it alongside hers. “I suppose I should thank you. Bryar says you got him out of that place.”
“I wanted to escape myself. It was a package deal.”
“Now that, I believe. Look out for number one, right?”
“Sometimes that includes being there for others. Get over yourself. I don’t need a steady diet of your insults for the next seven days.”
“You are such a jerk.”
In answer to that he pulled out his own bedroll, spread it on the other side of the fire, and turned his back on her. For a few minutes she rustled around, preparing the camp for the night, then sounds faded into nothingness. He couldn’t remember the last time sleep came so easily.