“It’s just me, put that away and go back to sleep.” Maylien put her hand gently on my chest and pushed me flat. Then she dropped a second blanket over me, and tucked herself in against my side. “It’s going to be a cold night, and we’ll be warmer if we share.”
I was out before I had time to respond.
I
woke when the dawnlight reached over the treetops and touched my eyelids, though I didn’t look around right away. Sometime in the night, I’d turned and curled myself around Maylien, and I pressed my face gently against the back of her head, trying to put the day off a little bit longer. I wanted to prolong the pleasure of holding a woman while she slept. I hadn’t done that in years, not since Jax and I had last traveled together.
As I woke further, I did a quick assessment of my general state of being. Where our bodies touched, I felt warm and wonderful. Every other part of me was sore and stiff and cold, especially the arm that pillowed Maylien’s head. My right hand was three-quarters asleep as well as half-frozen where it stuck out from under the blankets in front of her face. All too soon, the aches and pains started to outweigh my resolve to hold still, and I was forced to shift around.
“Mmm.” Maylien grumbled sleepily. “Stop moving around.” But then she sighed and stretched. “Too late. I’m awake.” She turned her head to look at me over her shoulder and smiled. “Good morning.”
“Good morning yourself,” I said, speaking into her shoulder. I wanted to kiss her, but after all the raw rice alcohol I’d drunk the night before, I figured my mouth probably tasted like one of the more decayed varieties of restless dead. “Any thoughts on where we might find breakfast?”
“I can offer you yesterday’s cold bacon and last week’s stale black bread,” said a disgustingly chipper male voice from somewhere on the far side of last night’s campfire.
I jerked in surprise and looked up, but that was all I did. The voice didn’t sound like it belonged to someone with dire intent. More importantly, by getting so close without waking us, its owner had proven that if he’d wanted to kill us, we would have already died.
The stranger was sitting cross-legged on a thick pad on the ground about fifteen feet away with the sunrise behind him. I couldn’t make out a lot of detail against the sun, but I could tell that he had on a large, round, peasant hat and dark clothes, and no visibly exposed weapons. Instead, his hands were in his lap, where he was quietly scratching Bontrang’s head.
The little gryphinx’s presence reminded me to worry about Triss—who would normally have warned me about any stranger’s approach. Reaching out through our bond, I could feel Triss’s presence but only dimly. He was still very deeply asleep, and I decided to leave him that way for now.
“It’s not much of a breakfast, I know,” said the stranger, “but it’s all I’ve got to hand.”
Maylien had stiffened in my arms at the newcomer’s first words and slid half out of the blanket. Now she relaxed and shivered before sliding back down to snuggle against me.
“That sounds pretty dreadful actually. Why don’t you go find something better and wake us when you get back.” When our unexpected guest showed no sign of moving, she sighed. “Yeah, I didn’t think that was going to happen.” Then she glanced over her shoulder at me. “But where are my manners? This is Heyin, one of my oldest friends, and—as you will no doubt soon agree—the world’s worst cook.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Heyin. “I’m offering you the same food I was planning on having for
my
breakfast.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Maylien. “Your digestive system is made of old leather and leftover bits of yak intestine. Whether or not you can eat something has no bearing on its relationship to actual food.” Maylien shrugged then. “On the other hand, I doubt we’ll get a better offer. So, what do you think, Aral? Should we take him up on his revolting breakfast?”
“Aral.” Heyin whistled low and soft before I could answer. “Then you
have
found your famous Blade.”
“Actually, this time, he found me.” Maylien squeezed my arm under the blanket. “He saved my life yesterday. Aral, Heyin. Heyin, Aral.”
Heyin clambered to his feet—startling Bontrang, who squawked loudly and flapped over to complain at Maylien. Then Heyin gave me a deep bow.
“For saving my baroness, I owe you whatever is in my power to give. Sadly, for the moment, that mostly consists of a rather inadequate breakfast. However, if the baroness will consent to get herself out of bed and on the road, I will be happy to promise a better meal later, when we get back to Marchon’s house-in-exile.”
“All right,” Maylien mock-grumbled, “all right. I’m getting up. See, this is me getting up.”
Maylien rolled out from under the blankets. When I started to follow, she put a hand on my chest and gently pushed me back down again. “You stay. You’re nowhere near recovered, no matter what you think.”
I wanted to argue, but the fact that she’d hardly had to exert herself to keep me from rising lent weight to her case, so I let myself be convinced. She started poking at the coals, then added wood from the pile.
“Might as well toast the bread and make sandwiches.” She looked up at Heyin. “I don’t suppose you thought to bring along a teapot?”
“No, though I’ve got a tin pan and a couple of moderately fresh cakes of Kadesh Jade I can shave into the pot.”
“Ooh, that changes things. For good tea I can forgive the food.” She pointed over the hill. “There’s a little stream just over that way. Why don’t you go fill your pan while I get the fire built back up.”
“As my baroness knows, I live only to serve.”
Heyin nodded at me and sketched a little bow to Maylien, then started off in the indicated direction. As he moved out of the direct sunlight, I saw that he was much older than I’d have guessed from his voice, with streaks of white in his long ponytail and mustache and several old scars visible on his hands and arms.
I waited a few more minutes, until Maylien had the fire built up, then slowly pushed myself into a sitting position. It was a lot more work than it should have been. I felt like a heap of ground-up mystery meat ready for the sausage maker. Admittedly, I felt like a significantly better cut of mystery meat than I had last night, but that wasn’t saying much. I gently poked at the fresh bruise on my ribs, sliding my fingers though the giant hole in my shirt where the axe had nearly opened me up.
“I think I’m going to need some new clothes.”
“You and me both.” Maylien tugged ruefully at the torn-out left knee of her divided skirts. “We’ll have to fix that when we get to Exile House. These have moved from the category of convenient disguise to polishing cloths, and yours are worse.”
She was right. Between the dust, the dirt, and the travel stains, it was hard to even tell what color my clothes had once been. Add in the rips and tears and the stink, and the only practical use I could imagine for anything I was wearing was lining the nest of a not-very-picky rat.
I decided it was time to wake Triss then and gently poked my shadow. “Triss, are you all right?”
My shadow stirred sluggishly and slowly reshaped itself into a small dragon. “Whazzat?”
“I asked if you were all right.”
“Oh, sure. I’ve never felt better in my life.” He reached back and licked his right wing at the shoulder joint, then growled before going off into an extended string of Shade-talk. It sounded like someone shaking a sackful of angry snakes, and I was pretty sure a translation would have come out all kinds of obscene.
Finally, he shifted back to Zhani, “Still, I think I’ll live.” Then his voice dropped lower, filling with concern. “How are you?”
“Likewise, thanks to Maylien.” I decided to omit any reference to the rummer’s overproofed rice-whiskey—or whatever you wanted to call it—on the grounds that if Triss didn’t remember it, he’d be happier not knowing. “She got us out of Tien and clear of the Elite without much help from me. And now . . .” I looked at Maylien as I realized I didn’t know what happened next. “Well, better ask her that, I guess.”
Maylien frowned. “Back to Exile House to clean up and resupply, though I suspect we won’t be able to stay long. I sent Bontrang there yesterday afternoon with a message for Heyin, to let him know where we were then and that we were coming. I’d expected him to wait there, not come out and meet us on the road. The fact that he’s here suggests all is not well in Marchon.”
“Who is Heyin?” I asked.
“A foolish old man who refused to die when he was supposed to,” Heyin replied as he came back over the hill.
Beside me, Triss started to shift his shape, but I patted him and shook my head. “He knows what we are, Triss. There’s no need to hide.”
Triss nodded at that, then curled up on my shady side, tucking his nose under his tail and going straight back to sleep. That worried me rather a lot, but there was nothing I could do about it. I rested my hand lightly between his wings, trying to reassure myself with the contact of fingers against invisible scales that felt strangely insubstantial.
Maylien gave Heyin a stern look. “That’s not true. Heyin was the captain of my mother’s guard before my sister had him stripped of his position and thrown into the street for failing to prevent the old baroness’s death.”
“Which may be the only thing in the whole world that your sister and I ever agreed on.” Heyin set the pan down on a rock Maylien had laid among the coals for that purpose. “Though she really ought to have had me flogged and beheaded as well.” Heyin’s voice was casual, but his eyes seethed with rage and shame. “I would not have resisted.”
“She couldn’t very well do that,” said Maylien. “Not when your failure was to stop a
suicide
.”
“Not without admitting it was murder, no.” Heyin opened a small paper package, pulling out a slab of smoked bacon, which he proceeded to slice up. “And if she’d done that, then someone might have thought to investigate just who it was that had murdered the old baroness. Which is why I would not have resisted. I did fail to protect your mother in life; if my death could bring your sister to justice for that murder, I would quite happily commit formal suicide in the market square of Marchon tomorrow.”
“That wouldn’t do anything but provide my sister with a great deal of satisfaction.” Maylien admonished him.
“Which argument is how you talked me out of it the first time.” Heyin finished with the bacon and started cutting a loaf of black bread into thick slices, handing them off to Maylien to arrange on another rock for rough toasting. “What I still don’t understand is how you convinced me to become the captain of your guard-in-exile. Or why you chose to do so, when you would have been fully justified in spitting on me and sending me into the wilderness to die.” He leaned his head to one side as he started in on making the tea. “You still could, you know. You have but to say the word.”
Maylien rolled her eyes theatrically. “How many times do I have to tell you that I need you, old man? Without you I could never have set up Exile House or even begun to oppose my sister properly. I was a stranger to my people and far more Rover than baronial heir; you were one of them and respected. Without you to vouch for me, I would have had to choose between fleeing Zhan and remaining to die by my sister’s hand. Now, finally, because you paved the way for me among my people, we may have a chance to see my sister pay for her crimes.” She turned then, and they both looked at me.
I shrugged. “I’ll have to get some fresh clothes and rest up for a few days, but if you want me to kill your sister for you, I can certainly manage that. Even with Devin protecting her, it shouldn’t be impossible. She just doesn’t have the resources to keep a”—but I couldn’t bring myself to say “Blade”—“to keep me and Triss out.” I ran a finger along the spinal ridge of my dragon’s shadow, but he was too deeply asleep to respond—very worrying.
“I wish that were all I had to ask of you,” said Maylien. “But it wouldn’t do the trick. If I am to take the baronial seat and not have Thauvik simply assign it to some unknown cousin, I have to kill Sumey myself in a proper duel and seize the coronet. I need you to get me to Sumey in a setting where she will have no choice but to accept my challenge.”
“You need me to do what?” I blinked. “I think I missed a step there. You’re a mage.” I nodded at Bontrang, who had settled down where he could keep a sharp eye on the bacon. “You don’t even have standing to issue a challenge. Do you? I thought Zhani law forbade the mageborn from dueling for peerages.”
“Not quite. The crown despises the practice because it is believed that a mage has an unfair advantage in combat. But the Right of Challenge is much older than Crown Law. It’s a survivor of the Code Martial of the ancient kingdom. If I can get to Sumey in front of proper witnesses and forswear the use of magic for the duration of our duel, she cannot deny my challenge—we are too close in blood.”
Bontrang made a little growling noise though whether he was responding more to Maylien’s words or to her angry tone was impossible to tell.
Maylien continued, “The trick will be getting there. Crown Law can’t deny Right of Challenge, even from a mage such as myself. What it can do is make it
very
hard for any mage to live to issue such a challenge.”