He glanced once up the hillside toward Lisana’s tree. I knew how badly he longed to climb the steep snowy slope, so that for even a moment he could rest his brow against her tree and let her know that he loved and missed her still. But I daunted him with a reminder of how cold and arduous such a climb would be, and finished it with the idea that if he hadn’t slept in like a lazy pig, perhaps there would have been enough time for him to attempt it. But now it was out of the question. He’d barely have enough time to ready his half-trained troops for their suicide mission.
I knew the instant I pushed him too hard. He recognized my influence and suddenly I was at arm’s length from him. I found out something else then. He did not banish me as he had before because he did not want to expend that much strength and attention on me. I could not contain my joy to find that it had cost him to hold me in that limbo, cost him more than he dared spend on me now.
Night deepened around us, and with it came the cold, an absence rather than a presence. All drew closer to the small fires that did little more than taunt winter. They dared not build them big enough to cast out any real heat or light. As it was, Soldier’s Boy scowled at them, hoping that no errant hunter or night wanderer would see them and report them.
Never had an evening stretched so long. When the time to venture toward the town finally came, Soldier’s Boy ordered that Clove be brought to him. The lack of a mounting block made climbing up on the patient horse’s back an undignified and lengthy process. Dasie did little better with her horse. Clove at least was accustomed to bearing a heavy rider. Once I was up, he shuddered his coat as if settling himself and then stood quiet. Dasie’s cart horse mount disliked the fuss and noise of the warriors who helped their Great One up on her horse’s back. Once Dasie was up, the mare sidled and then, as Dasie gathered her reins too tightly, backed up nearly into one of the groups huddling around a fire. Soldier’s Boy had to ride to her aid, and then waste precious moments in giving her a lesson in basic horsemanship. Although he had not planned it that way, he decided that he would ride at the front of his warriors, with her just behind him and flanked by two of the warriors who were more experienced with horses.
He rode Clove through the camp, savoring the height and command that the big horse gave him at the same time he cringed from the aches and strain that riding was awakening in his softened body. He spoke to his sergeants, making sure that they had checked their men’s supplies. The torches were the most critical to his plan, and each man carried three. Some of the warriors would carry fire pots, clay pots lined with sand that held coals. If Dasie’s magic could not prevail against the iron present in the town and fort, the torches would be kindled from the fire pots. He’d allowed each warrior to select his own choice of weapon. Some carried short swords, others bows with full quivers on their backs, some had spears or long knives, and a very few carried only slings. He formed them up in two columns, spaced his horses out among them, and then rode back to the head of his forces. From here to Gettys, they would travel on their own feet. Both Kinrove and Jodoli had told him that their strength for the quick-walk had been taxed to its limits, canceling his original plans to appear suddenly just outside the town. They could not move the force magically toward a place so saturated with iron. Soldier’s Boy wished it were otherwise, that they could simply appear in the vicinity of the fort and likewise vanish again. Yet he knew he would have to work with the limitations set on him. The night was fully black around them when he finally lifted his hand and said, in a low voice, “Forward!”
The word was passed back, and like a feeble caterpillar, the two columns began to move unevenly. He led them on, to the very edge of the forest, and there he paused briefly. The clearing and beyond it the road were coated with smooth snow. There was a bit of light from a quarter moon and the myriad stars in the black winter night. The white ribbon of road seemed to gather the light to itself and then offer it up to the sky again. There was, as Jodoli had predicted, little sign of the effects of my desperate magic. Most of it had been repaired already. But that was actually all right. They’d cleared the road before the snows fell. It made Soldier’s Boy’s path plain. He would lead his men down the very road that had threatened to destroy them, and when they reached Gettys, they would turn that death and destruction back on those who had brought it.
He kneed Clove and the big horse stepped out easily from the sheltering trees. He negotiated the uneven earth of the clearing under its blanket of smoothing snow and then reached the road itself. The unbroken snow and crust was knee-high on the big horse. With a sinking heart, Soldier’s Boy realized that he’d have to break trail for Dasie and her guard and for all the troops that followed him. He steeled his will, sat his horse well, and urged him forward into the night.