“Sweet dreams,” Ceredon whispered in the empty chamber.
CHAPTER 18
The horse faltered, almost pitching Roland and Kaya to the ground.
“Whoa, girl,” Roland said, trying his best to keep them both firmly in the saddle. The poor horse straightened out, took a few firm steps, and then its leg crumpled once more. Roland cursed and pulled back on the reins, halting the animal. If it had pitched any lower, they would have been thrown to the rocky, root-infested ground. He and Kaya dismounted, Kaya caressing the horse’s side, while he circled around to face her head on, watching her shake her head and blow her nose as if in frustration. Roland tugged on his belt, trying to swing the uncomfortable sword that hung there into a less dangerous position.
Azariah trotted up beside him, his gold-green eyes focused on the horse. Tall trees rose up behind him like swaying sentries.
“Check the hoof,” the Warden said.
His friend sounded sullen, depressed, and fully unlike himself, a change that had come upon him since their last day in Lerder. Roland grimaced up at the Warden, then bent down and coaxed the horse into lifting her leg. The poor creature whinnied, blood dripping from her hoof. Roland immediately spotted a jagged piece of stone wedged into the soft tissue on the inside of the hoof.
“What is it?” asked Kaya from over his shoulder.
“Rock got stuck,” he said. “Comfort her as you can. I’m going to pull it out.”
He glanced at Azariah, who nodded.
Kaya did as he’d asked, her tone soothing as she spoke to the horse in words he was sure the animal couldn’t understand. Yet the horse seemed to relax nonetheless, her leg muscles going slightly limp, allowing Roland to cram his fingers beneath the stone and give it a solid tug. It came free with a thwop, the blood from the sensitive tissue running a deeper red. Azariah handed him a swath of yellow fabric, and Roland stuffed the cloth into the horse’s hoof to soak up the blood.
“It’s best we find a place to rest for a time,” the Warden said. “I will need to heal her.”
Roland shook his head. He looked behind them, at the procession of panting horses in the forest, each holding two or more frightened individuals. A hundred more walked behind them.
“You don’t mean here, do you?” Roland asked, looking around at the tall trees that circled all around them. “Shouldn’t we find someplace more suitable, where the horses can graze on something that isn’t poison berries?”
Azariah peered at the canopy above their heads. “It is almost dusk, Roland. Travel will only grow more dangerous.”
“I still think we should find a different resting place,” Roland said. “We shouldn’t be too far from some settlement or another, right?”
“And what will we find when we get there?” the Warden asked with a frown.
Roland hung his head, dejected. Even Kaya rubbing his back wasn’t doing much to soothe him.
They had kept off the Gods’ Road in their travels, steering through the northern hill country in hopes of throwing off any potential pursuers. At first every village or hamlet they passed was deserted, but for a handful of humans and Wardens, but soon they discovered that the war had, in fact, crossed in front of them. Two settlements they’d encountered on their quest for the Wooden Bridge had been reduced to rubble and ash, the bodies of human and Warden alike strung up in trees. The areas surrounding each settlement had been trampled under countless feet and burned, leaving Azariah’s group with little opportunity to restock their dwindling supply of food. In other places even the fruit trees had been decimated, each apple or pear snatched from the branches, nothing but rotting remains around the trunks. Fields had been stripped clear of all vegetation. And that didn’t even take into account the problems they’d encountered with the horses. The poor beasts were constantly getting rocks or splinters lodged into their hooves, and at least three had broken limbs during the journey, costing them precious time while the Wardens healed their wounds.
“We’ll find what we find,” Roland replied softy. “And make do with that.”
Azariah gave him a strange look.
“I cannot decide if you are stubborn, foolhardy, or wise, though I do find it amusing that you feel you know best. So let us continue, Roland, and discover which of the three it is.”
The trek continued, the land rising and falling as they headed forever west. Just as the sun began to dip closer to the horizon, they came upon a small stream, and where they took a few moments to water the horses, who were exhausted to the point of collapsing. Roland refilled his waterskin and shared it with Kaya, who stayed latched onto his side like a growth. The water tasted off somehow, rotten and unseemly, but he drank it down just the same. He was parched beyond belief, and it hadn’t rained since the day they’d left the riverside community. It amazed him that he actually wished for the rain to return. While building the wall, he’d hated it with a passion, but now he stared at the sky with desperate hope each time he saw a cloud.
But the stream meant there was probably another settlement nearby, which buoyed Roland’s spirits slightly. When they finally began the journey once more, he had Kaya ride in the saddle with her younger sister while he walked beside the horse. The pair started singing, and he felt almost hopeful.
That hope died the moment they came upon civilization-or what was left of it. Jaquiel the Warden introduced the place as the village of Lockstead, yet no village remained. Ashhur had been here, that much Roland could tell; there were shattered chunks of stone and wood everywhere, the remnants of the wall the god had raised for the unfortunate few who’d stayed behind. Beyond the crumbled rubble were the burnt scraps of tents, a few toppled huts, their thatched roofs still smoldering, and a single demolished granary. The grass was scorched black, and when Roland squatted down to trace the outline of a large boot heel in the earth, he realized it was still warm.
“This happened recently,” he said.
“So did the others,” Azariah replied.
“But where are the bodies?”
The Warden shrugged.
Roland stood and circled, looking into the trees, but other than a few blackened lower branches, nothing had been disturbed. Strangely, the lack of bodies made him shudder. It was almost worse than seeing them all swaying in unison.
Kaya tugged on his shirt.
“Roland, I hear water,” she said excitedly.
“The brook might be wider here. Perhaps it is even a stream,” said Warden Jaquiel as he knotted his long auburn hair behind his head. “We might be able to snatch some fish.”
Kaya’s sister jumped in place.
“We could stay here for the night then?” she asked.
Roland exchanged a glance with Azariah.
“I think we should,” Roland said. “It’s dark now, and Karak’s Army has already passed. There’s no one to spot us. What do you think, Az?”
Azariah let out a sigh.
“Yes, we’ll stay. Roland, come with me. I wish to check the nearby stream. Perhaps Jaquiel has the right of it, and there are fish to be had.”
As the rest of the people flooded out of the forest, Roland and Azariah crossed the hill leading to the bubbling stream. As they neared the water, Roland felt his stomach twist into a knot. There would be no fish, not that night. The dead of Lockstead, perhaps seventy of them, bobbed there in the water. They had not drifted far, the stream too shallow and littered with twigs and felled branches to move them. The corpses had snagged and halted, colliding and piling on each other into a dam of sodden, rotting flesh. Roland dropped to his knees and vomited. The water…the peculiar taste of the water…
When finished, he popped the top of his waterskin and dumped the rest of it. Azariah watched, quiet, his face ashen.