I darted a look up and down the line of soldiers, keeping my voice low. "Gods, I'm glad to see you. The healer made it sound like you were on the edge of death."
Gunny shrugged. "I wasn't doing so well for a while there, but I'm fine now." She kept her hand pressed over her side though, and her smile was more of a grimace. Not very convincing.
"You know you're crazy, right?" I pointed an accusing finger at her. "At least tell me you've got kevlar under the chainmail like everyone else."
Gunny stuck her chin out. "Of course I do, I'm not completely insane." When she fixed her eyes on mine I was shocked at how feverish they were, glittering and glassy. For a second I thought about telling her to turn her horse around. But her mouth was set in a straight line, and she gripped the reigns tightly.
"I'm coming because Ake is dead, and the bastard who did it is still out there. That traitor is running with his tail between his legs. Back to the humans."
So that was it. That was what had driven her out of the sick bed, so angry and determined that she was willing to ride for days with an open wound in her side. Not insane then, just bent on revenge.
Gunny gave me another fierce smile and pressed her fingers to her lips, then she melted back into the crowd. It was hard not to keep looking back over my shoulder, trying to spot her in the long line of soldiers. Now here was another thing to constantly worry about, if I would look back and see Gunny topple off her horse.
She'd been trying to play it cool, but I'd seen the way her face had looked, how pale she was. How her hands shook. I ran my fingers over the smooth pommel of the saddle, worrying at the leather, thoughts frantic. Should I tell someone? No, Gunny would hate me for it. But was that worse than having her collapse in the middle of the journey? Or worse, get herself killed by Bolthur? She wasn't in any shape to fight him, even if she couldn't tell, I could.
We rode for two days, made slow by the long line of soldiers. On the first night we camped in a small clearing at the halfway point, and I lay on the cool furs of a makeshift bed and couldn't sleep. I wanted to. Every muscle in my body was aching, and I was so exhausted my eyelids kept swooping shut and then flickering open. But my brain was still working overtime. Tomorrow we would be at the safehouse, we'd get Eli, who was hopefully doing okay. I hadn't thought of Eli for a few hours and it made me feel guilty. He was just another I'd abandoned in my mad quest to get to the palace. It had been unavoidable, since there was little chance he would get through the pass. But still, it made me feel terrible.
After that, we'd ride into battle. A battle against humans with guns. How many jotun would fall this week? I shut my eyes firmly and forbade myself to think of it. There was no point dwelling on something that hadn't happened yet, that's what mother would say.
Mother. That was yet another thing to keep me awake. Her tearful goodbye. She'd looked like someone was tearing her apart on the inside as I was leaving. She'd just got me back, she'd said, and it was true. And I'd promised I would come back, but...who knew what might happen.
The next morning we put in another three hours of riding before someone at the front of the line made a happy whooping sound. I jerked my head up. I'd been nodding and dipping in the saddle like a sapling in the breeze all morning, so wretchedly tired that I was terrified I was going to fall asleep and topple out of the saddle.
But now, now I could see smoke rising above the fir trees in the distance, wisps of white-grey that curled up and faded into the blue sky. The safehouse was just over the hill. Relief made me slump in the saddle. We would stock up on food there, and trade our horses in for cars. And it would be enough time for me to get a quick nap in.
I glanced over my shoulder, trying to pick out Gunny among the soldiers. She would need a nap too, and probably someone should look at her wounds. The problem was, she wasn't going to be willing to show anyone who she was. They would insist she stay at the safehouse if she did.
It was pointless trying to spot her in the sea of white and silver, so I turned back,fixing my eyes on the chimney smoke. The cold had leached through my layers of fur, all the way down to my bones. For the last couple hours I'd been riding in frozen, silent misery. Silently cursing the fact that I could feel the cold. But I couldn't let on, so I kept my shoulders straight and my hands where they were, though I badly wanted to tuck them into my armpits and let my teeth chatter.
But the other jotun were already giving me long looks when they thought I wouldn't notice. My breath came in silver puffs when no one else's did, and I could feel my cheeks burning whenever the icy wind blew over me. There were differences I couldn't hide. I hated that. It felt like weakness.
The procession came over the last hill, and the safehouse came into view. It was the best sight in the world right now. We were still far away here at the back of the line, but I could see two jotun standing in front of the stables, hands in their pockets as they waited. I couldn't make out their faces, but one was much taller and bulkier than the other, and waved enthusiastically as soon as we'd crested the hill.
I grinned in spite of the cold. Bifky. I'd almost forgotten about him. It would be nice to have someone so cheerful around after all of this. My smile faded when I realized someone would have to tell him about Bolthur. Somehow I doubted Bifky would take it well. The good-natured guard had put up with Bolthur digging at him, but it seemed like they'd had an kind of camaraderie in spite of it. I didn't want to be the one to give him the bad news.
I was one of the last groups to reach the stable, and by then I was so stiff from the freezing weather and all the riding, that it took a few seconds longer than normal for me to climb down. Bifky gave me a huge grin as he took the reigns.
"You're back! How did you audience go?" His eyes left my face, flicking back and forth over the long line of soldiers. "I mean, obviously they believed you."
"Yeah," I muttered. "But it came at a cost."
Bifky's face fell. "Gunny and Ake?" And then his head kept swiveling as he searched the crowd. "Bolthur?"
It looked like it would be up to me to break the news after all. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. "Gunny is fine. She's—" I couldn't tell him where she really was, she'd probably kill me for giving her away. "She's back at the palace resting up. She was wounded."
Bifky's eyes widened, and he pressed his lips together, waiting for me to continue.
I took a deep breath. "It was Bolthur. None of us saw it coming. He was working for them...the humans I mean."
The big guard looked shocked. "What? Bolthur was? And he..."
"He wounded Gunny. And Ake..." I stumbled over my words, and ended up shaking my head helplessly.
Bifky's face went white. "He's...dead?"
I didn't answer, I couldn't. Bifky turned abruptly, leading the horse away, vanishing into the warm darkness of the stables. Letting out a heavy breath I turned back for the safehouse, trudging through the snow with the other soldiers. Bifky could grieve how he wanted. If it was in the stables with the horses, then I would leave him to it.
The soldiers all crowded together on the safehouse deck before going inside, stamping the snow off their boots. The jingle of chain mail surrounded me as we unloaded our gear outside, leaving some of the bulkier weapons and snow-covered armor at the door.
Two of the safehouse guards who'd been stationed at the doorstep looked on with interest. They probably hadn't seen an army this size for centuries. There'd been no need for the entire second half of Queen Megan's reign. And now this.
Speaking of the queen, Megan herself was just now emerging from the stables. Her cheeks were flushed slightly, and though her breath didn't come in a full silver cloud like mine did, a faint vapor did hang in the air around her. That eased the knot in my chest a little. It was easy to forget that our queen was half human sometimes. She had pure-blood traits for the most part, inherited from the late Princess Amora. But she was still human.
So perhaps it wasn't so bad to show the effects of the cold. Maybe I didn't have to feel that it was a weakness. I shared a similarity with the queen, after all.
Queen Megan took the stairs two at a time, and I straightened up when she approached. She was already shedding her heavy cloak, and one of the guards grabbed it from her hastily as she passed him. "All right. Let's get freshened up. Get some food in us, and if anyone needs rest, get it now. You have about four hours and then we're heading out again. We want to make it there before nightfall."
When we entered the king was already inside. Loki was sitting at the kitchen table, still fully dressed in chainmail, wolfing down what looked like a bowl of surgery cereal.
Over the noise of the soldiers trooping in, Megan could be heard scolding him. "You need sustenance for the coming battle."
"Frootloops is substance. Why do you think I insist they stock the cupboards with it?"
"It's pure sugar. Cook is making a full roast turkey over the fire. Eat that."
"This here is battle food."
Someone brushed by me, interrupting my eavesdropping session, and I glanced up to find Gunny's eyes peering at me from under the hood of a black cloak. As if that wasn't going to be obvious.
"Gods," I snatched at her sleeve. "All right, come on. Let's get you to one of the rooms." We slipped away through the crowded kitchen before anyone could notice she wasn't taking her hood off.
"Up the stairs," I said. "You can hide in one of the bedrooms. Don't ask me how you're going to stay hidden. Just face the wall and pretend to be asleep I guess."
We climbed the stairs, with me following her. The black cloak trailed out behind her, and Gunny grabbed both handrails on either side as she went up. She was moving more slowly than she should be. I clenched my teeth together, looking back over my shoulder once. There were already soldiers moving into the living room, laughing and talking. The clatter of plates and cutlery had started in the kitchen.
"You need food." As much as the king and queen's little argument had been amusing, Queen Megan was right. Particularly if Gunny was going to last more than an hour in battle. Her body was healing itself and she needed fuel.
Gunny reached the top of the stairs and paused, and I pushed past her as gently as I could, turning to grasp the hood of her cloak. She flinched slightly as I pulled it back. Her face was far too white to be healthy.
I cursed under my breath. "Gunny, for the love of the gods, you can't fight like this."
She shook her head. "Look, just help me to the bedroom, I'll be fine after a few hours of sleep."
We stared at one another for a few seconds, and Gunny pressed her lips together firmly and glared at me. She was going to be completely stubborn about this.
"Fine." I whirled around, stomping down the hallway to the bedroom on the left. " Lie down, I'm going to find food and water for you and then you're going to sleep."
"I'm not hungry." Gunny pushed the door open, stepping into the cramped little room. She shed her cloak and climbed into bed.
"You're eating anyways, I won't hear it." I turned and shut the door on her protests. And then for a few seconds I just stood there, unsure of what to do. Gunny's sheer stubbornness was going to get her killed. It was obvious she wasn't doing well.
She needed a healer, not roast turkey. We'd brought healers, actually. So maybe I could slip in and grab one of those. Of course, they might just insist that she wasn't ready to go into battle and keep her here, in which case, she'd never speak to me again. And even if they didn't, traditional healing took weeks, not days.
Okay, so a healer wasn't the best decision.
I took the stairs slowly, one step at a time. In the living room I could hear people laughing, and someone said loudly, "Charlotte, don't drag your sleeve in my food."
Charlotte. She wasn't a healer. She was a witch. An idea was blooming gradually. Maybe a healer couldn't help Gunny right away, but Charlotte might be able to.