"They couldn't be bothered to send a senior representative?" Aria asked.
"They assumed it was a trap," Doroga replied with a shrug. "And acted accordingly."
"How long?" Isana asked. "How long before he returns?"
"As long as it takes," Doroga replied calmly. "Patience is important when dealing with the Gadrim-ha."
"Time is critical," Isana replied quietly.
Doroga grunted. "Then perhaps Sextus should have sent someone sooner than today." He nodded to them, then went back to the gargant, Walker, and hauled himself swiftly up the saddle rope. He lifted his cudgel in salute, and said, "I will signal your legionares when they have returned."
"Thank you," Isana replied.
The Marat nodded to them and muttered something to Walker. The gargant turned and plodded calmly through the snow, following the footsteps of the Icemen.
Isana watched him go, then exhaled heavily and nodded. "Come on," she said quietly to her companions.
Aria's eyes lingered on the trees where the foreigners had disappeared. "Where are we going?"
"Back to the Wall," Isana said. "There are questions that need answers."
Chapter 22
Amara leaned close to her husband to whisper directly into his ear, and said, "We must talk."
Bernard nodded. Then he put his hand on the ground, and Amara felt a faint tremor in the earth beneath their feet as he called upon his earth fury, Brutus, to create a hiding place. A few seconds later, the ground under them simply began to flow away, a slithery sensation in the soles of her feet, and they sank downward.
Amara shuddered as walls of earth reached up to surround them. The view, as the night sky with its sudden, horribly cold sleet receded, must have been almost exactly like that had by a corpse as it was lowered into a grave. A moment later, all view of the sky vanished as the earth above them flowed into the form of a roof to the small chamber Bernard had created, leaving them in complete, subterranean darkness.
"We can talk here," he murmured. He spoke in little more than a whisper, but even so, after days of silence, it almost seemed like a shout to Amara.
She conveyed to him everything she had seen at the end of the battle.
Bernard exhaled heavily. "Lady Aquitaine. Taken?"
Amara shook her head, then realized that in the darkness he could not see the gesture. "I don't think so. The people we've seen taken were just walking corpses. They never had any expressions on their faces. They weren't..." She sighed in frustration. "They all looked like something was missing."
"I know exactly what you mean," Bernard rumbled.
"Lady Aquitaine looked... I'm not sure. Smug. Or excited. Or afraid. There was something underneath the surface. And she looked quite healthy. So did the Citizens I saw near her."
"Bloody crows," Bernard said. "Would even she side with the Vord against Alera?"
"I don't know," Amara said. "Once, I wouldn't have thought anyone would do such a thing."
"No," Bernard said. "It's got to be some other kind of control. If you saw them taking prisoners, then it would appear that the Vord intend to place them under similar constraints."
"That was my thought as well," Amara said. "But what are we to do about it?"
"Take our findings to the First Lord," Bernard replied.
"The Legions are already running," Amara countered. "We would have difficulty catching him-never mind the fact that we have not yet completed our mission."
"We observed their crafters during the battle, just as he wished."
"Observing and understanding are not the same thing." She fumbled for his hand and squeezed it. "Right now, I can't tell the First Lord anything but superficial details. We need to understand more before it will do any good. We've got to see what's going on before we go back."
Bernard made an unhappy growling sound, low in his chest.
"You don't agree?"
"I'm getting tired of sleeping on the ground. Must be getting old," Bernard said. "What do you have in mind?"
She squeezed his hand tight. "We have an idea which direction they took the prisoners. I think we should find out what's being done to them."
Bernard was quiet for a moment before he said, "Whatever they're doing, it seems obvious that they're going to be doing it in a very well-protected location."
"I know."
"We won't be dodging the occasional patrol or outbound raiding party. They'll have real sentries. A lot of them."
"I know that, too," she said. "But so far, none of the Vord have spotted us. If I didn't think we had a real chance of succeeding, I wouldn't even suggest it."
Bernard was silent for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, "One condition."
"All right," she said.
"Once we get what we need, I want you to get out, immediately. Fly, fast as you can, back to the First Lord."
"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped.
"Nothing ridiculous about it," he said. "If you leave at once, odds are excellent that you'll make it back to the First Lord. If you stay with me, you'll double your risk of being found and killed before you can get the information back."
"But you-"
"Have worked alone before, love. I'll be harder to locate alone in any case. You won't be doing anything but improving my odds of getting out."
Amara frowned at the darkness. "And you're quite sure that you're not doing this simply to protect your poor little helpless wife?"
He let out a quick, amused chuckle. "Don't let her hear you refer to her like that. She'll call up a windstorm that rips the hide right off you."
"Bernard, I'm serious."
His fingers stroked over hers, the motion somehow reassuring. "So am I. If we're going to take on additional risk, I want to be crowbegotten sure that what we learn gets back to Gaius." He paused meditatively, then added, "And if it makes my poor little helpless wife a little more likely to come out of it in one piece, that's a happy coincidence."
She reached out in the dark and found his face, cupping his cheek with the fingers of her free hand. "Maddening man."
"I am what I am, Countess," he replied, and kissed her palm gently. "We'd best get moving. There's not much air in here."
Amara sighed. "Back to quiet again. I miss talking to you."
"Patience, love. We'll have plenty of time for that when the work is done."