“Then go,” Joelle said. “If we protect the caravan, we protect the Eye.”
“Most likely,” Kleef agreed. Before leaving, he reached down between his horse and Joelle’s, then he looked up and said, “We’re going to be riding hard. You need to let me do this.”
Joelle hesitated, then took a deep breath … and a sharp crack sounded as Kleef snapped the arrow lodged in her leg. Her mouth fell open, and it looked as though she were fighting to stifle a scream.
Kleef did not look the least bit apologetic. “Give it a minute. You’ll be fine.”
He tossed the broken shaft aside, then rode off while Joelle’s eyes were still wide with pain.
While they remained wide, Malik said, “This is what comes of trusting the clumsy oaf. He loves nothing more than the pain of others.”
Arietta shot him an angry frown and snapped, “If you believe that, you are not only a coward, you are a fool.”
Malik’s eyes flashed with fury.
Looking away before he could reply, Arietta turned back to Joelle. “Are you all right?”
“I will … be.” Joelle was clutching her reins so hard her knuckles had turned white. “Just give me a minute.”
Arietta nodded, then glanced back to make certain there was no trouble coming up behind them.
With nearly a hundred riders between them and the curtain of black smoke at the end of the bridge, it was impossible to tell what had become of the orcs. But she saw no signs of panic, and no spells could be heard cracking or booming above the general din of alarm. The attack was starting to look very much like the probe Kleef had suggested, and by now, Arietta suspected the orcs were halfway up the slope, nursing their wounds and plotting their next attack.
When Arietta turned forward again, Joelle was riding easier, and much of the pain had drained from her face.
“Well, you look better.”
Joelle nodded. “It still hurts, but Kleef was right.” She smiled and added, “I just hate that in a man.”
Arietta laughed. “So that’s why you stopped pursuing him.”
They reached the end of the bridge and started up the slope with the rest of the caravan. When the outriders took their places on the flanks of the column, Arietta decided it would be smart to keep her hands free so she could reach her bow. She passed the leads of both strings of pack horses to Malik-and had to endure five minutes of complaining because that forced him to ride behind her and Joelle instead of between them.
Soon after, a herald came back with word that stragglers would be abandoned to the orcs, and the caravan settled into a ground-eating pace that left Joelle clenching her teeth against the obvious pain of having her leg constantly jostled. Hoping that a little conversation would help keep Joelle’s mind off her pain, Arietta eased her horse near enough that they could talk in quieter voices.
This drew a fresh round of muttering from Malik, but he was far enough behind them that Arietta simply chose to ignore it. She turned to Joelle and spoke in a chummy tone.
“So why did you stop pursuing Kleef?”
At first, Joelle seemed surprised by the question, but she recovered quickly and gave Arietta a sly smile.
“I didn’t think you were paying attention when I was pursuing him.”
“It was hard to miss,” Arietta said. “Though I certainly don’t blame you. Kleef is a good man.”
Joelle’s expression grew wistful. “He is, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
She caught Arietta’s gaze and held it. “His heart belongs to another.”
“Is that so?” Arietta was disconcerted to feel her pulse pounding faster. “I hope you aren’t referring to me.”
“Would that be so terrible?”
“Perhaps not terrible,” Arietta said. “But certainly inappropriate. He’s just a watchman.”
“He’s a Chosen of Helm,” Joelle countered.
“Yes … I suppose there’s that,” Arietta said. “But he still has no title, no lands. What could he bring to a marriage?”
“Marriage?” Joelle seemed genuinely amused. “Arietta, I’m talking love … not marriage.”
Arietta felt the heat rising to her cheeks. “Oh,” she said. “I see.”
Joelle chuckled, then reached over and took Arietta’s hand. “Trust me,” she said. “Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.”
She squeezed, and Arietta’s head began to spin.
CHAPTER 12
As the caravan continued onward, Arietta and Joelle rode side by side, talking steadily in an attempt to keep Joelle’s mind off her pain. They discussed men, Kleef and his code, the difference between romance and love, their lives before the world went mad. The longer they conversed, the more Arietta enjoyed Joelle’s company, and it was not long before she realized she had never met anyone quite so open and willing to share her true feelings as the heartwarder.
Eventually, the conversation turned to how they had become Chosen, and Joelle revealed that she had become a Sune worshiper only after a threat against her beauty prompted her to offer a rather large tithe to the Firehair Church. Arietta confessed that she found most noblemen unworthy of her affections and had deliberately sabotaged her father’s efforts to arrange a suitable marriage for her. It was not something she had ever admitted before, even to her maid Odelia, and Arietta began to understand what it was to have a true confidante, someone with whom she could share her most intimate feelings.
The only damper on their growing friendship was Malik, who often came forward to intrude on the conversation. His remarks were cutting toward Joelle and resentful of Arietta, and he soon became an angry presence smoldering just out of earshot behind them. His behavior was at least partially a reaction to Arietta’s harsh words earlier, but she knew his hostility went deeper than that. Aboard the Lonely Roamer, Malik had made it clear he didn’t want anyone else competing with him for Joelle’s attention-and apparently that included women.
After a few hours, the caravan finally left the road to make camp atop a nearby butte. Littered with loose boulders and ringed on three sides by hundred-foot cliffs, it was a good place to regroup. While Kleef and the rest of the guards prepared their defenses, Arietta helped Joelle dig the arrow out of her leg and cleansed the wound.
The two women passed the night sleeping side by side in the open, and the next morning the caravan woke to find the butte surrounded by thousands of orcs. Faroz ordered the column to form up anyway, then had his wizards unleash a barrage of spells that rained sheets of fire and stone down on the orcs’ heads. The horde fled in disarray, leaving half their number lying dead in the field behind them.
The caravan returned to the road and continued on its way toward Ormpetarr. That night, it made camp behind a circular thorn hedge raised by the eladrin traveling with the caravan-and the companions spent half the night listening to orcs being strangled to death by blood-sucking vines. The night after that, the caravan slept inside a ring of mud created by Faroz’s wizards, and they had to endure an endless chorus of panicked squeals and snorts as the orcs tried different methods of sneaking across the moat.
On the fourth night after crossing the River Arrabar, the caravan made camp at the edge of the Chondalwood, inside the ruins of an ancient hilltop fortress. The citadel stood on a tor so high that anyone peering over its eastern walls found themselves looking at the forest canopy from above. A well in the courtyard still supplied clean sweet water, though its shaft was so deep that bringing a bucket of water up required several minutes of cranking the winch.
It was an hour after dark, and Arietta was changing the bandage on Joelle’s arrow wound while Malik sat in front of the horse line, drinking tea by moonlight and glowering at them across a small campfire. Kleef was inside the doorless tent, trying to get some sleep before he took command of the late watch. He did not seem to be resting very well, as he was thrashing around in the throes of yet another nightmare, grunting and growling as though locked in a wrestling match. Finally, he gave an incoherent bellow and rolled up against the tent wall, where he lay mumbling and flailing against the canvas.