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Vittoria set a fast pace. Edwin was quickly reminded that her job, in its most basic sense, was carrying messages, and that she was used to spending whole days at a time in the saddle. He, in contrast, was used to the more leisurely pace of an army on the march, with regular halts and time for the supply train to catch up. And even then, he’d spent the whole winter in Pinburg, doing nothing more strenuous than practicing his archery and chasing Meredith Barras. He was aching and exhausted by the time they finally halted outside Hagansburg, after a ride of more than eighty miles. Elwyn must have been tired and in pain, too, but she didn’t show it. Edwin had no idea how she managed that.
Vittoria led them to a hilltop near the village where there was an ancient stone circle. “We will rest for an hour or two. We’re safe here.” She pointed up into the evening sky, where there was a hawk turning slowly. As they watched, the hawk dipped, flapped its wings furiously, and shot away to the east. “We’re being watched now,” she added, smiling.
“Ah, Caedmon,” said Elwyn with a sigh. She spread her cloak beside one of the stones, lay down, and was asleep in seconds.
Edwin tried sleeping, but the ground was uneven, and every time he rolled over or shifted, he managed to find another pebble or root or pinecone. He was starting to finally drift off when he heard low voices and smelled sausage cooking. It was still dark when he opened his eyes, but the sky was turning blue in the east. Looking around, he saw Vittoria and Caedmon seated on either side of a small fire, sheltered by one of the standing stones. There was a small cooking pan over the flames, and from time to time, Caedmon would poke at its contents with a long metal fork.
Edwin caught the words, “exile” and “reinforcements.” And he distinctly heard the names “Moira Darrow” and “Faustinus.” Those were the Immani hillichmagnars who had hired Vittoria and sent her to Myrcia. They were friends of Caedmon’s, and they had helped Edwin and his family before. But they were no longer welcome in Myrcia personally, so they had to rely on ordinary people to do their job for them. Assuming one could call Vittoria an “ordinary person,” of course.
Caedmon looked over and caught Edwin watching them. “Ah, so you are awake, your majesty. Good. Breakfast is nearly ready, and we will need to move quickly today. There are Gramiren troops all around. We are near the castle of the Earl of Kelwinn, a staunch Gramiren supporter, as you know.”
Elwyn was already awake and saddling her horse before Edwin even got untangled from his cloak. They each had one of the sausages Caedmon had been cooking, and then they started off. First they skirted the edge of Hagansburg. Edwin could see lights in the castle there, but there were no soldiers on the roads. Then they headed up a valley and into a twisting country of little hills and tiny streams and hidden waterfalls.
They barely saw any other people—only farmers here and there in their fields. But around midday, Caedmon’s hawk returned to him, and the hillichmagnar announced that they were being followed. “Two riders. Hawks have no memory for livery, but by her description, I would say our pursuers serve the Earl of Kelwinn.”
“Let’s split up,” said Vittoria. “You take the king. Princess Elwyn, you can come with me.”
Caedmon frowned, seeming to ponder the wisdom of letting Vittoria and Elwyn go off together, for some reason. But then he shook his head and said, “Yes. Let us meet again at Jilsby. The usual spot.”
“Naturally,” said Vittoria. She shook his hand, and then Edwin’s. Then she led Elwyn away into the hills to their north.
“And we shall take the southern route, your majesty,” said Caedmon with a smile.
They crossed the Kelwinn below the little forest town of Merrin, and then took a long, slow semi-circle to avoid Pinburg. Twice they saw men on the forest paths who might have been scouts; they hurried into the dense underbrush so as not to be seen. Caedmon held up a hand, ready to cast a spell. But both times the men rode by, apparently unaware they were only a few yards away.
Their luck held until well after dark, a few miles east of Circenwell. Caedmon had just decided they could stop to rest, when his hawk came soaring down, chirping and squawking with avian distress. Minutes later, they heard horses nearby, and an arrow whistled out of the dark, sailing right between Caedmon and Edwin. The hillichmagnar muttered a spell, and a ball of red flame streaked off into the trees, exploding in a shower of flame.
Everything was still, and after a minute, Caedmon crept off in the direction of their attacker, where the foliage was still smoldering. Edwin followed. Three corpses lay there, or possibly four. It was distressingly difficult to tell. Edwin did manage to find a scrap of surcoat bearing the arms of Pinshire. These were Duke Roger’s men—men who had been on Edwin’s side a few weeks earlier.
“Alas. The fortunes of war,” said Caedmon sadly.
“I wonder if I knew any of them,” said Edwin, feeling a bit numb.
“It would be best not to think of it,” said Caedmon, gently leading him back to their horses. “We should find somewhere else to rest.”
A few miles away, they stopped by a stream in a quiet hollow surrounded by huge old cedars wide as a house at the base. Edwin fell asleep almost the moment he hit the ground. When he woke, he offered to stand watch while Caedmon slept, but the hillichmagnar claimed he was not tired, and indeed, he seemed a good deal more aware and awake than Edwin.
That whole day was one long blur. Trees, and trees, and more trees. Up one hill and down into a valley and up the hill on the other side. On and on and on it went. There were no paths or roads where they were going, but Caedmon didn’t seem to need them. At one point, the hillichmagnar stopped and bartered for fresh mounts with a woodsman, and Edwin didn’t even realize what was happening until they brought him a new horse.
It got dark again, and Edwin kept thinking, “Surely we’ll halt at the next stream,” or “maybe in this clearing here.” But Caedmon kept going, and then, from the top of a low hill, Edwin could see the lights of a town nearby.
“Jilsby,” said Caedmon. “We have reached the end of this particular leg of our journey. But there will be more tomorrow, I am afraid.”
Up the next hillside, covered with azaleas and rhododendrons, they found a little cottage with a thatched roof and a half-collapsed old barn covered in ivy. Elwyn and Vittoria were already waiting on the front porch, sharing a bottle of wine and looking as if they’d done nothing more strenuous than go out for a quick morning ride.
“The Hagansburg men followed us,” said Vittoria. “But we ambushed them at the crossing of the Telga.” She raised a glass. “We’re celebrating now.”
Caedmon frowned at her. “H’m...yes, I am glad you did not pause to...celebrate along the way.”
Edwin blushed as it suddenly struck him what Caedmon was talking about, and why the hillichmagnar had been reluctant to send Elwyn off with Vittoria. He was a little surprised when the two women took separate beds in separate rooms in the cottage.
The next morning, Edwin woke to find that Rada and Sir Walter had arrived in the night. “We were about to come looking for you,” said Rada, giving Edwin and Elwyn hugs. They still had their little boy, Louis, with them, and he had started talking in earnest, inquiring after everything and insisting on answers to fundamental questions, like, “why?” and “how?” and “what’s that?”
Walter kept the boy entertained with a toy soldier while the rest of them gathered around the hearth and planned their next move. The Sahasran border was barely forty miles away now, but if they crossed at Darrasford, they would be doing precisely what the Gramirens probably expected them to do. Especially if Duke Roger of Pinshire was now passing information to the enemy. The duke knew the route they had taken on their way into the country, almost two and a half years earlier. In the end, though, they all felt that speed was safer than secrecy; the longer they spent in the Bridweld Forest, the more likely they would get caught. Best to get to the border as quickly as possible.
Outside Darrasford, however, Caedmon’s hawk reported soldiers spread out through the woods ahead.
“Blast it all,” said Sir Walter, “they were expecting us.”
Lady Rada, with her magysk ring full of combat spells, took the lead with Caedmon. Then Elwyn and Walter fell in on either side of Edwin, with Vittoria acting as rear guard. This sort of thing always made Edwin uncomfortable—he didn’t like people thinking that he was more important than anyone else. He wanted to be the one protecting others. Particularly Elwyn.
The Gramiren soldiers were waiting at the bottom of a long, wooded slope, a few yards from the River Bewerian, which marked the border between Myrcia and Sahasra Deva. Caedmon looked at Edwin, and Edwin nodded. This was it. This was the last challenge. Safety was just across the water; Edwin could see it through the trees.
Rada launched the attack with a blast of red lightning, which caught two horsemen and blew them to flaming bits. Then Caedmon followed up with a shower of razor-sharp ice daggers. The way seemed to be clear. Edwin spurred down the slope, keeping his eyes on the water as trees flashed by on either side.
Suddenly, arrows tore through the air. One glanced off Elwyn’s saddle. Another stuck in the rump of Sir Walter’s horse and made the animal buck and start to stumble. Rada sent a sheet of green flame into the forest, but the arrows kept raining down. Two stuck in Edwin’s horse, and he was knocked to the ground. Elwyn ran up, trying to throw herself over him, but an arrow hit her in the back and she dropped with a cry, skidding through the pine needles and fallen leaves.
Caedmon and Rada were still firing off spells, but their magy was nearly exhausted, and they could hardly summon a warm breeze now, let alone lightning or fire.
“We’re going to die here,” thought Edwin. “A hundred feet from safety, and we’re going to die.”
Then blue lightning forked and crackled through the trees, lashing back and forth like a whip. Wherever it landed, there were screams and explosions. Edwin looked around, expecting to see that Caedmon or Rada had somehow rallied. But the spell was coming from across the river.
Riders surrounded him, and soldiers in gilded armor pulled Elwyn onto a stretcher. Edwin struggled to his feet and saw Caedmon shaking hands with a beaming little Sahasran woman in leather riding trousers.
“Just in the nick of time,” she said.
“Pallavi!” cried Edwin. She was a hillichmagnar, like Caedmon, and worked for the Sahasran government.
She came over and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Officially, your majesty, my troops and I were never on this side of the river. Let’s get across, and then we can talk.”
It took less than a minute; he splashed across the ford on foot, and then climbed up the other bank, to where another Sahasran sorcerer with a magysk ring was healing Elwyn’s arrow wound.
“We made it,” said Rada, giving Pallavi a hug.
In a low, flat tone, Elwyn said, “Yes. Here we are. Again.”
All at once, it hit Edwin. They had failed completely. Two and a half years had gone by, and thousands of men were dead, and he and Elwyn had been chased back out of Myrcia. He ran a hand over his eyes as they started to burn from tears. Vittoria came over and tried to put a comforting arm around him, but he pushed her away and slumped down under a nearby tree to cry by himself.