Lexa has never crossed the Azgeda lake before.
She has been to it, of course, even ridden along the bank back when she first forced Nia into the alliance. It was too much of a risk for her to attempt to cross the ice at that time. Any Azgeda fool with salt, a saw, and a grudge could have made the whole thing into a trap. Nia herself might have even attempted it if she could be sure her actions were untraceable. Since then she has only seen it on maps – a jagged, stretched shape, slicing through Azgeda territory as if trying to behead it.
She never imagined crossing the lake like this.
Linkon is heavy and the makeshift stretcher is unwieldy. There would be no point leaving him to increase their speed, though – Raven is just as slow with her leg wound, and there is no chance of Clarke leaving both of them behind. If Lexa chose to pragmatically focus on her own survival, then it would be at the expense of all three of them. There are worse things than dying. She will not abandon her niron and friends, though Assan's expression when she glances back at him suggests he wishes she would do exactly that.
"What's the plan?" Clarke says in an undertone, shuffling so that she's next to her. Raven angles her head to listen but does not say anything.
"I do not know," Lexa says flatly, shifting slightly to distribute the stretcher's weight. "Perhaps we should contact Wells, call for aid."
"The radio's wrecked," Raven informs her. "It broke when Lincoln tackled me."
"I see," Lexa says, after a pause. "The trigger?"
"Looks fine. So does the last bomb and the grenades."
They keep walking, slowly and grimly, slipping occasionally on the ice but righting themselves, no sound except their soft breathing and the light patter of snow. Lexa darts a glance at the shoreline. No one is there yet. They will be, though, and soon. Armies wait for their scout reports, but this army cannot afford to wait long, not with their orders.
"That woman," Raven says, abruptly changing the subject. "You knew her, didn't you?" Clarke raises her head and gives Lexa a look filled with compassion, and Lexa knows that Clarke recognised her silent communication with Keyza as well. Being Clarke, she probably understood more of Lexa's attempted message than Keyza did.
Lexa considers asking which woman, but does not feel she should evade the question. "Sha. I did. She worked for me."
Raven swallows hard. "Right. Right, that's why she tried to... she was..."
Their party needs to pause for nearly a minute as Raven throws up everything her stomach holds, unheeded tears streaming down her face, her vomiting interspersed with hoarse coughing fits. Then Clarke pulls her upright again and they stagger on. The snowfall is still light. They will be seen as soon as the gonakru reaches the lake's edge.
"It was not your fault," Lexa tells Raven gently. "She was trying to keep us safe, just as you were, but neither of you could manage it alone. If you had not acted Linkon and Assan would have been killed – perhaps the rest of us as well. You did the best you could. You saved us. She would not blame you." The words are meaningless, she knows, so soon after a death. Perhaps this is the first time Raven has been truly close to the effects of her devices, for all her joking comments about enjoying the destruction. It is one thing to watch a flare of fire, another to witness a person burn; one thing to enjoy the power of a grenade, another to see someone's skin shredded and sliced. And the knowledge you have killed an ally, however unwittingly... it can eat at you.
She shifts again, the stretcher's weight uncomfortable . Despite the cold, sweat from the exertion is dripping down her forehead and stinging her eyes. Linkon lets out a low moan from behind her. Perhaps he is waking up – but when she looks back, he still seems to be unconscious, so while he may be waking up he is certainly not awake.
"How did they find us?" Clarke wonders out loud. "Do you think maybe I accidentally snagged an actual hair and led them to us?"
"Your hair is covered, Clarke," Lexa says firmly. "And we would have noticed if one was on your shoulder or back. No, it is simply poor luck."
"Do we ever have any other kind?" Raven asks, sotto voce.
Lexa is pleased to note Raven seems to be recovering from her shock and nausea, but ignores her anyway and continues, "Perhaps one knew of the existence of the cave and decided to check. Or perhaps they somehow failed to notice Gustus and Zion and so headed west."
"Perhaps it is the snow," Assan suggests, apparently catching their words. "From what I could see of the ground before we headed this way, it may have picked up for a short time while we were inside the cave before slowing again. Thicker snow would make it harder to spot them."
Lexa frowns. She knows enough about snow to track people through it, and to make herself hard to track, but she cannot read the history of snowfall in the depth of it as an Azgeda can. She can tell how much it has snowed but not whether it has been snowing at a consistent rate or varying between heavy and light. If Assan is correct, though, it still does not explain why Gustus and Zion would not react to that change and come closer to shore and be spotted there. Both would be willing to sacrifice themselves rather than risk their Heda, and Zion is an Azgeda and should know whether they would be visible through the snow.
"Should we go east?" Raven says, slipping and struggling upright again. "Find the others?"
"It will take too much time," Lexa replies. "If they see us and angle their way across the lake so our paths intersect, that will be useful. But we need to get across as quickly as possible or we will have to break the ice with us still on it."
"How will we survive that?" Raven objects, looking over at Lexa like she's crazy and leaning more heavily on Clarke's arm. It is hard to tell if her colour has returned to normal under all the layers she is wearing, but she sounds much more lively than before.
"We wouldn't," Clarke says shortly. She reaches out her free hand and touches Lexa's arm for a brief moment, imparting the small amount of comfort they can give while maintaining their respective burdens.
"Oh. Right," Raven says, looking wrongfooted. "Okay. We get across as fast as possible. Then what?"
"I don't know," Clarke admits. "We can't go south, and we can't survive in the north the way Zion and Gustus might be able to – they're used to the cold. We're not. Our clothes have holes from the shrapnel, we're nearly all injured, and we gave most of our supplies to Gustus and Zion because we thought they'd need them more. In fact, even if we catch up with them, we'll run through the supplies so much faster we'll run out in less than a week."
Raven hesitates, paling, then rallies, though Lexa can see she lets Clarke take even more of her weight for that brief moment as if she can't hold herself up. "Okay, so we'll get our hands on another radio. Get the others to come north and get us."
"It takes at least two weeks for an Azgeda army to move from south to north," Lexa informs her. "It would take longer for an army of the other clans, just as it took longer for us. Most would not survive the journey north without assistance. Even those who could live long enough to reach the lake would probably perish here – if the ice was stable enough to cross by then, they would be easily shot by Azgeda archers who are far more used to this environment, or bottled up in the pass to be slaughtered. If we manage to make it across this lake and destroy the gonakru following, there is another behind it which we can do nothing about, one that will trap us in the pass as well. There will be no surviving this." The long speech makes her breathless and she stops talking, concentrating on continuing at the same pace. Her arms ache with helping to carry Linkon, even though she thinks Assan is probably taking more of the weight.
"So you're saying there's nothing we can do?" Raven says incredulously. "You're really just gonna roll over and let them kill us? Why the fuck are we even walking across this stupid lake if -"
Lexa interrupts softly. "We cannot survive, Raven, that is what I am saying." She pauses and takes a deep breath. "That does not mean there's nothing we can do."
Clarke blinks, but then continues for her when Lexa stops speaking. "Yeah. We can do our damnedest to take out this army. And once we've done that, we go for Nia. We take her out and we might have a chance. She's the real threat."
Raven laughs, hoarsely and sceptically, a tinge of hysteria to it. "Do you even hear yourselves? We have one bomb, two grenades, one gas grenade, a bow, and a bunch of swords. You said yourself we're nearly all injured, we have two armies after us, and we're pretty much guaranteed to die. And you want to attack the most well-guarded person north of Polis? That's what you're saying here?"
"Sha," Lexa says simply, and smiles at Clarke. Clarke grins back at her, fiercely determined. In her eyes Lexa sees acknowledgement that if death must come, then they will meet it with their heads raised, backs straight, and blades out. And more than that, gladness that if their spirits must pass on, they will do so together. They will not be separated again. Their fates may be written, but they wrote it themselves, they chose their paths, and they walk together.
There's a very, very long silence, lasting minutes. Then Raven pulls down the scarf like Clarke has, exposing her face to the cold so that Lexa can see it properly, can see the slow smile spreading across her lips. "Okay then. Just so long as I know. Let's do this." She shoots them a quick glare. "But I call bullshit on the idea of it maybe being a suicide mission. We'll figure out a way. We always do."
How many years has Lexa dreamed of killing Nia? How many times has she thought she would gladly sacrifice herself for the chance to kill Nia, if she could guarantee it would not hurt the alliance? Well, now it will not. Now she gets her wish. It is, perhaps, a touch hollow, now that she has Clarke, such an excellent reason to live. But she can think of no better way she could die than getting justice for someone she loves – except protecting someone she loves, and with Clarke here, she will do that as well. It will be a good end.
"Okay," Clarke says, suddenly business-like. "I know where Nia is. I'm sure once we get across we can make a more detailed plan. I've got some ideas. I know you'll have some more. Hopefully Lincoln will be in good enough shape to help. We have a bomb and some grenades and we're smarter than them. We might not be fast right now, but we don't have to be."
"I am not sure that is correct," Assan says gruffly. He's been quiet for so long Lexa would have forgotten he was there if she wasn't matching his pace to carry the stretcher. She looks back and sees what he does, sees his face pale slightly as he stares behind them.
The shore of the lake is thick with dark figures, gona, so many the mass of them can be seen even with the distance they've managed. Now that she listens Lexa can hear the hubbub of conversation and argument, the volume gradually increasing, the sound drifting across the clear lake. If there are more to the east, closer to where the false trail lay, she cannot see them – but there are so many perhaps they are massed so thickly all along the southern edge of the lake. A war cry bounces across the ice and Lexa thinks she can feel the frozen lake vibrate with the force of footsteps as Azgeda start moving quickly, spilling across the lake like ink spreading through water.
Assan is right. They will have to be very fast indeed.