The Walsark Crossroads was the main junction of the roads that led from Krakandar City in the east of the province to Walsark in the north, Byamor, the capital of Elasapine Province in the west (the road Damin and his army had taken a few days ago) and the road south through Izcomdar and Pentamor Provinces to Greenharbour, some eight hundred miles away on Hythria’s
southern coast. There was a large inn located at the crossroads and after a brief stop for lunch and some mulled wine to warm their chilled bones, Wrayan and Kalan pushed on, taking the south road, hoping to get as far as Kelvington before dark.
Even under ideal conditions, the journey to Greenharbour would take the better part of three weeks. With plague on the loose, refugees running from it, and the Warlords struggling to maintain control over the major cities with reduced numbers of Raiders, the highways of Hythria were in a state of anarchy. Even Wrayan’s status as the head of Krakandar’s Thieves’ Guild was unlikely to impress a band of hungry refugees looking for food.
For that reason, they opted to stick to the major highways while they were still in Krakandar Province, riding past winter-brown fields, divided by tall green hedgerows and populated with countless woolly sheep waiting patiently for the spring shearing. Once they reached Izcomdar, they would turn off, taking the lesser-used roads in the hope of missing the worst of the marauders, which was the reason they had brought the packhorse along. Wrayan was quite certain he could live off the land if required, but he doubted it was a skill Kalan owned. They were travelling with many more supplies than he normally would have bothered with, had he been travelling alone.
Wrayan rode in silence for much of the way, worried less about Kalan’s ability to travel in less than princely comfort than the wisdom of leaving Starros in Krakandar. He’d wanted to bring him along, certain the young man would be much safer under the protection of Princess Marla in Greenharbour than alone in Krakandar if Mahkas Damaran discovered The Bastard Fosterling was still alive. It was not meant to be, though. Starros wasn’t going anywhere. He wanted to be near Leila and his grief would not allow him to turn his back on the place where she had been so recently laid to rest.
“What are you thinking about?” Kalan asked curiously.
Wrayan looked at her blankly. “What?”
“I was just wondering what you’re thinking about, Wrayan. By the expression on your face, anyone would think you’re riding to your own mother’s funeral.”
“I was just thinking about Starros.” He straightened a little in the saddle and glanced at the rolling barley fields on either side of the road, relieved to discover the rain had stopped. The air was cold and although still overcast, a rainbow shimmered faintly on the horizon as the afternoon sun fought its way through the dark grey clouds.
“He’ll be fine, Wrayan.”
“I suppose.”
“Starros was always the brightest of us and he’s not impulsive. He won’t go looking for trouble.”
“I’m more worried about trouble finding him. Did you want to stop at Kelvington tonight or push on?”
“I’d rather push on,” Kalan replied, leaning forward to pat her mare’s neck encouragingly. “We need to get to Greenharbour as quickly as possible and we’ve a much better chance of avoiding the plague if we stick to ourselves.”
“Are you sure?” he asked doubtfully. “It’s going to be cold tonight.”
“Don’t you think I can handle roughing it a bit?”
“You rode into Krakandar with a baggage train, an honour guard and half a dozen slaves, Kalan.”
She tossed her head, offended by what he was implying. “I’ll have you know I can be every bit as rustic as you when the occasion calls for it, Wrayan Lightfinger.”
“This isn’t about being rustic. This is about sleeping on the wet ground on a cold night, probably without a fire because every twig and log in a thirty-mile radius is soaked through. There’s nothing wrong with taking shelter in a comfortable inn when it’s on offer, you know.”
“Is it my comfort you’re concerned about? Or your own?”
“Mostly my own,” he admitted. “I’m not as young as I used to be. The romance of roughing it in the wilderness has long since lost its allure for me, I’m afraid.”
“You’re not old,” she laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I’m a lot older than you, Kalan.”
“But you’re part Harshini,” she reminded him. “So your chronological age doesn’t really matter. Didn’t you say Brakandaran was over seven hundred years old, and didn’t look a day over thirty-five?”
“I’m not the Halfbreed, either,” he pointed out, wishing she wasn’t quite so enchanted by his ancestry.
But Kalan was totally dismissive of any concern he might have that he was getting too old for this sort of adventure. “I’ve known you since I was two years old, Wrayan. You haven’t aged a day in all that time. You still look like a man in his late twenties.”
“I may look it,” he countered, “but that doesn’t mean I feel it.”
“Then we’ll stop in Kelvington,” she conceded. “So you can rest your weary, aching bones, you poor, decrepit, old thing.”
“Thank you, my lady, I’d appreciate that.”
She studied him, her face creased with concern. “You don’t really think of yourself as old, do you, Wrayan?”
“I try not to think of it at all, actually.”
“I never think of you that way.”
“That’s because you’re a nice girl who’s too polite to offend one of her mother’s oldest friends.”
“I think of you as my friend,” she corrected, a little miffed. “Not my mother’s friend. And I’ll have you know, I’m not a ‘nice girl’ either. I’m a woman.”
“I did notice that.”
She looked at him sideways with a very suggestive leer. “Did you, now?”
Wrayan shook his head, recalling what Rorin Mariner had said about Kalan and the trail of cast-off lovers she left in her wake. For a brief moment, he was afraid she had plans to add him to her list. “Don’t waste your court’esa-trained wiles on me, Kalan Hawksword. I’ve fought off far more irresistible creatures than you, in my time, and still emerged with my honour—and my sanity—intact.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“A Harshini princess, for one,” he admitted, thinking the truth of how different they were might be the easiest way of
convincing Kalan her childhood crush was just that, and never likely to blossom into anything more. They would be on the road a long time together in the days to come and much of it alone. Better to get this cleared up at the outset.
“You turned down a Harshini princess?” she asked in surprise, although whether it was because he had met the Harshini or she was impressed by his strong moral fibre, Wrayan wasn’t sure. “Weren’t you even a little bit curious?”
“Don’t worry, Kal, I had my curiosity sated plenty,” he assured her, immediately wishing he’d never brought up the subject. He’d expected Kalan to shy away from the topic, not interrogate him about it.
Her eyes lit up at the news. “So you did sleep with your Harshini princess?”
“Actually, we didn’t sleep much at all.”
Kalan laughed delightedly. “You really are quite the lad, aren’t you, Master Lightfinger? I always wondered what you really got up to with the Harshini. All those tales of wise kings, indescribably beautiful music, playful demons and learning how to use your magic properly, when in fact, you were just bed-hopping your way through Sanctuary. No wonder poor old Fee could never pin you down.”
“I wasn’t bed-hopping.”
“Of course not,” she laughed.
Her laughter was starting to irritate him. She simply didn’t understand. “Well, before you get too envious of my conquests, Kalan, spare a thought for what it’s been like for me since then. There’s a reason the Sisters of the Blade set out to destroy the Harshini, you know. It was fear as much as vindictiveness.”
“You mean the legend that once you’ve had a Harshini lover, nothing else can ever make you happy, is really true?”
“Painfully so,” he admitted.
Kalan studied him curiously. “I gather that hasn’t stopped you trying, though?”
Despite himself, Wrayan smiled. “I’m a thief, Kalan, not a Karien priest.”
“Well, there’s still hope, then,” she said, and pulling the
lead rein of the packhorse, kicked her horse into a trot. Kalan rode ahead, towing the hapless beast behind her, leaving Wrayan staring after her, more than a little concerned by what she meant.