NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 2: One Cold Trail)

CHAPTER THREE: GAEL

My mare gives a little start as Shay's spectacularly huge grey stallion thunders past with Kesla's equally impressive black stallion close on his heels. With a firm pull on her reins and a gentle stroking pat of her neck, I bring her back under control again long before there's any danger she'll throw me, but I still glare after them with all the reproachful ire they're both due. They peel off in a very wide circle after that, Shay still just staying ahead, but as I watch them both break away to pound back up along the bank of the river I can hear Shay laughing a little, and it eases my nerves to hear it.

Eventually they've both got it out of their systems and they trot back towards our group at a far more sedate pace, and I once again prepare the most disapproving stare I can. "Do you mind? You almost had blood on your hands doing that."

"Sorry." Kesla sighs as she pulls Trampler, who seems more aptly named by the day, up beside me. The remorse she shows is clearly a sham. "She tricked me."

"Wasn't that hard, was it?" Shay chuckles as she wheels Elder around behind my mare and then takes up position on my other side. "I thought your wits were supposed to be sharper than that."

Kesla's glare is as unconvincing as her remorse was, she just can't resist the smile fighting to reach her lips. She doesn't rise to the bait, though. "Anyway, how do we get in? I don't see an actual gate here."

She's right, of course. The Citadel was intentionally built to straddle the Icespine as it races over the falls into the lowlands below, so the river runs right into a great yawning arched tunnel cutting into the otherwise smooth stone of the circling wall. The gatehouse itself is built over the top of this, and at first glance there genuinely doesn't seem to be an entrance on either side of the river.

"I don't get it." Shay's frowning now as she looks into the tunnel as I lead the whole party along this final stretch of the hard-packed dirt road to the gatehouse. "Is that really the only way in? How are we supposed to do this? Surely they don't expect us to ride right into the river." She cranes past me to look down into the river itself now, her brows already rising at the thought.

Here the Icespine is fierce and fast-flowing, and still dangerously cold even here in these warmer climes, but now as it races to the falls it becomes truly perilous. The barges that transport their cargoes from Hocknar or further north must be piloted with caution and skill on their final stretch of the journey here, but there are means within the tunnel to keep them from rushing over the edge before they can be unloaded. If one of us were to fall in there's a reasonable chance we could be rescued before we plunged to a terrifying death hundreds of feet below.

Giving Shay a sly little sidelong glance, I simply smile at her as I say: "You'll see."

She simple frowns again, looking me over for a moment or two before craning past me again to look at Kesla. "I thought you'd already been here before, anyway. Why don't you know? Didn't you have pass through to get down into the city?"

"Gods, no. I've never been inside the Citadel. There's other ways down into Bavat that are a lot easier for road traffic, that's how I've done it in the past."

Turning to look back, she must be looking to Art, and I don't need to follow her gaze as he simply replies: "Hey, I'm curious as you are. This is kind of a treat for me, too."

"I don't know about all that." Shay mutters, mostly to herself as she turns back to the road, I think. She looks sidelong my way again. "So how big a deal is this place anyway? I mean, really?"

Cutting short the first reply before I make it, I look her over for a moment, thinking about exactly how I should word this. Shay's really bright, in the three weeks we've known her it's become abundantly clear that she's one of the cleverest people I think I might ever have met, actually. Even so, there have been times when I got the impression that she's actually quite naïve, or at least has grown up as sheltered as I did, albeit in some fundamentally different ways. There's no foolishness in her question, but I still don't want to speak to her in such a way that I might sound like I'm condescending to her.