He finished the song with a flourish and a grin, then sent everyone to bed.
“Morning comes early, and we’ll not wait for the sun,” he told them.
He smiled at Seraph and teased her about something that he forgot a moment later. He hid his fear behind a smile and words as he’d learned to do during his years as a soldier. But this was an enemy that he had no idea how to engage in battle.
When Seraph curled beside him, he held her too tightly. She kissed him, wriggled to loosen his grip, patted his hand, and went to sleep. He held his wife against him and hoped the warmth of her body could relax the knots in his belly.
He’d been so worried about losing her, he hadn’t thought he might lose himself first.
Jes got up from his bedroll and walked to him. He crouched down by Tier’s head. “What’s wrong, Papa?” His tone was soft as the night air.
“I’m fine,” Tier whispered. “Go back and go to sleep.”
Jes shook his head. “You don’t think you’re fine. I can feel it.”
Tier found himself wishing it were the Guardian he was dealing with because Jes was the more stubborn of the two. He wouldn’t leave without an explanation for whatever he’d sensed of Tier’s fears.
“Tonight, while we were singing, I felt the effects of what the Path did to my Order,” he said finally, hoping his voice wouldn’t awaken Seraph. He didn’t want her to worry any more than she already did. “It didn’t last long, and it didn’t hurt. It just frightened me.”
Jes nodded his head, “All right. Don’t worry so much. We won’t let anything happen to you, not if we can help it.”
Tier smiled, feeling absurdly better for talking to Jes. “I know that. Go on back to sleep.”
Two days later, Tier was in the middle of telling the story of a boy who found a phoenix egg when it happened again. One moment they were riding up the trail, Kissel laughing, and the next the horses were stopped and Kissel had his hand on top of Tier’s.
“What’s wrong?” Kissel asked urgently.
Tier shook his head, smiled, and hoped he hadn’t done anything too stupid. “I just forgot the next part of the story. Likely, I’ll remember in a bit and finish it for you tonight after supper, if you’d like.”
Kissel nodded slowly. “That would be fine.”
Toarsen caught up to them. “Why did you stop?”
“Waiting for you,” Kissel said, and started a conversation with Toarsen about the relative merits of two different types of saddles as he urged his horse forward.
Seraph had been just behind Toarsen. She coaxed her gelding until she and Tier were riding shoulder by shoulder. “My mending isn’t holding,” she told him. “I’ll try to fix it later.”
After dinner, she tried to patch it again, but, to her frustration, the tigereye Lark’s ring would not or could not cooperate again, and she could do nothing.
Even so, when he took out the lute and played a few tunes, he had not the slightest bit of difficulty. Seraph didn’t sing, just sat near him and stared out into the darkness.
When it was time to try and sleep, Tier held her and wiped the tears from her eyes. “If I can’t sing, will you still love me?” he quipped.
“I’d love you if you couldn’t talk.” She thumped his chest lightly. “Perhaps more.”
He stifled his laugh so he didn’t wake the whole camp. “I love you, too.”
The next afternoon they came to the beginning of the worst part of the trip, a high pass that lay between them and Shadow’s Fall. The steep climb spread the distance between riders until Tier could look down the face of the mountain and see nearly a half a league between him and Jes, who was walking behind the last rider. Tier stopped Skew at a wide spot in the trail and sent Lehr, who had been with him, riding on ahead while Tier waited to bring up the rear with Jes.
Lehr’s chestnut mare’s coat was dark with sweat, but her breath came easy. It bothered her not at all when Skew stopped and she had to go on alone.
There was a small flat area a couple of leagues ahead, just before the highest and steepest part of the pass, where Lehr could start setting up camp while the stragglers trailed in. Tier was worried about how Phoran’s men’s horses were going to handle the climb. In his experience, the horses felt the height of the mountains worse than the people.
Rinnie’s horse, with its lighter burden, was the first to appear down the trail. She stopped it next to Tier while Gura dropped to rest, panting happily.
“Papa,” she said. “There’s a storm front coming behind us with snow. I’m trying to send it around us, but I need to know which direction we’ll be heading.”
“East,” he told her. “East and a little north for a couple of days yet. If you can hold it off us for the next two days, we’ll be back down, so it’ll come down as rain rather than snow.”
“There’s some snow on the ground that direction already,” she said. “We might have trouble coming back this way.’
“We’ll find that trouble when we come to it,” he told her. “We might have to come back a different way. This is the most direct route, but riding home, a few extra weeks won’t make much difference.”
She nodded. When her horse started on up again, Tier said, “I’m glad we thought to take our Cormorant rather than leave her in Redern, where she’d be useless.”
She gave him a grin and turned her attention to riding the uneven surge of her horse’s uphill scramble. Gura hesitated, gave Tier a long look, then took off after Rinnie.
Seraph appeared before Rinnie was quite out of sight. He kissed her as she passed and told her Rinnie was trying to hold off a storm.
“It’s never quite warmed up today,” she said. “I’ll make certain there’s something hot for you when you come into camp.”
“I’ll look forward to it. See you tonight,” he said.
When she was gone, he dismounted and slipped the bit so Skew could graze on the sparse edible vegetation. The trees so high up were all fir and pine, and grass didn’t grow well under evergreens. All the horses would be a little hungry for a day or two.
He sat on his heels and waited.
Phoran came next, with Toarsen at his side. Phoran’s hard-headed stallion looked none the worse for wear, but Toarsen’s horse was breathing hard.
“This is hard on the horses,” Tier said. “You might have to walk some of the steeper bits.”
It was a longer wait for the next rider, Ielian.
“Is someone riding with the Emperor?” he asked.
Tier nodded. “Toarsen was. It looked as though Phoran was holding Blade back so Toarsen could stay with them.”
“Good,” said Ielian.
Hennea came next. “Jes told me to go ahead and let you know that the others are fine. Kissel and Rufort are taking the climb slower to save their horses. Jes told them to.”
“He’s right,” said Tier. “Seraph and Lehr should have camp mostly up by the time you get there.”
It was getting dark by the time Tier and the others caught first sight of the campfire above them.
“Not far now, lads,” Tier told them, standing in the stirrups to loosen his knees which were stiffening from the strain of the ride.
“What’s that?” asked Rufort. “Down there below us, see that flicker of light? Is there someone following?”
“Ah,” Tier said, stopping. “I’d wondered if we’d see them.”
“See whom?” asked Jes.
“What, not whom, I think,” Tier said. “When I was up here last there were lights and voices and… other things all night. I thought it might have been altitude sickness. I was coming from the other direction—we haven’t hit the high stuff yet—and I was pretty well exhausted.”
“So we shouldn’t worry about it?” Rufort’s horse took advantage of the pause to rub its nose against its knee.
“I wouldn’t say that,” replied Tier. “These are the Ragged Mountains, and there are some unpleasant things round about. But these didn’t hurt me last time, so we’ll hope for the best. Come. Camp awaits us.”