On the horse, Mercy held tight to the saddle and screamed. The raccoon chattered, its fur up.
Miranda got back to her feet as the soldier drew his sword. He was badly hurt. Blood soaked his pant leg and he staggered toward her. She tried to get away, reaching for Mercy and the horse, but the seret was faster. His sword pierced her side somewhere near her waist. She felt it go in. The pain burned, but then she suddenly felt cold. Her knees buckled. She managed to hold fast to the saddle as the horse, frightened by the violence and Mercy’s screaming, moved away, dragging her with it.
Behind them, the soldier fell to his knees, blood bubbling from his lips.
Miranda tried to pull herself up, but her legs were useless. They hung limp and she felt the strength draining from her arms. “Take the reins, Mercy, and hang on tight.”
Down the road, Guy and the other man had caught up to Arcadius. Guy, who had stopped at the sound of the girl’s screams, lagged behind, but the other soldier tackled the old professor to the snow.
“Mercy,” Miranda said, “you need to ride. Ride over there—ride to the campfires. Beg for help. Go.”
With her last bit of strength, she struck the horse’s flank. The animal bolted forward. The saddle ripped from Miranda’s hands and she fell once more into the snow. Lying on her back, she listened to the sound of the horse as it raced away.
“Get on your—” she heard Guy shout, but it was too late. Arcadius had opened the satchel.
Even from hundreds of feet away Miranda felt the earth shake from the explosion. An instant later, a gust of wind threw stinging snow against her face as a cloud billowed into the morning sky. Arcadius, and the man who wrestled with him, died instantly. Guy was blown off his feet. The remaining horses scattered.
As the snowy cloud settled, Miranda stared up at the brightening sky, at the rising dawn. She was not cold anymore. The pain in her side was going away, growing numb along with her legs and hands. She felt a breeze cross her cheek and noticed her legs and waist were wet, her dress soaked through. She could taste iron on her tongue. Breathing became difficult—as if she were drowning.
Guy was still alive. She heard him cursing the old man and calling to the horses as if they were disobedient dogs. The crunch of snow, the rub of leather, then the sound of hooves galloping away.
She was alone in the silence of the cold winter’s dawn.
It was quiet. Peaceful.
“Dear Maribor, hear me,” she prayed aloud to the brightening sky. “Oh Father of Novron, creator of men.” She took her last breath and with it said, “Take care of your only daughter.”
Alenda Lanaklin crept out of her tent into the brisk morning air. She wore her thickest wool dress and two layers of fur, but still she shivered. The sun was just rising—a cold milky haze in the soup of a heavy winter sky. The clouds had lingered for more than a week and she wondered if she would ever see the sun’s bright face again.
Alenda stood on the packed snow, looking around at the dozens of tents pitched among the pine forest’s eaves. Campfires burned in blackened snow pits, creating gray tails of smoke that wagged with the wind. Among them wandered figures, hooded and bundled such that it should have been difficult to identify male from female. Yet there was no such dilemma—they were all women. The camp was filled with them as well as children and the elderly. People walked with bowed heads, picking their way carefully through the trampled snow.
Everything appeared so different in the light, so quiet, so still. The previous night had been a terror of fire, screams, and a flight along the Westfield road. They had paused only briefly to take a head count before pushing on. Alenda had been so exhausted that she barely recalled the camp being set.
“Good morning, my lady,” Emily greeted her from beneath a blanket, which was wrapped over her cloak. Her words lacked their normal cheerfulness. Alenda’s maid had always been bright and playful in the morning. Now she stood with somber diligence, her reddened hands quivering, her jaw shaking with the chill.
“Is it, Emmy?” Alenda cast another look around. “How can you tell?”
“Let’s find you some breakfast. Something warm will make you feel better.”
“My father and brothers are dead,” Alenda replied. “The world is ending. How can breakfast possibly help?”
“I don’t know, my lady, but we must try. It’s what your father wanted—for you to survive, I mean. It’s why he stayed behind, isn’t it?”
A loud boom, like a crack of thunder, echoed from the north. Every head turned to look out across the snowy fields. Every face terrified that the end had arrived at last.
Reaching the center of the camp, Alenda found Belinda Pickering; her daughter, Lenare; old Julian, Melengar’s lord high chamberlain; and Lord Valin, the party’s sole protector. The elderly knight had led them through the chaos the night before. Among them, they composed the last vestiges of the royal court, at least those still in Melengar. King Alric was in Aquesta lending a hand in the brief civil war and saving his sister, Arista, from execution. It was to him they now fled.
“We have no idea, but it is foolish to stay any longer,” Lord Valin was saying.
“Yes, I agree,” Belinda replied.
Lord Valin turned to a young boy. “Send word to rouse everyone. We will break camp immediately.”
“Emmy,” Alenda said, turning to her maid. “Run back and pack our things.”
“Of course, my lady.” Emily curtsied and headed toward their tent.
“What was that sound?” Alenda asked Lenare, who only shrugged, her face frightened.
Lenare Pickering was lovely, as always. Despite the horrors, the flight, and the primitive condition of the camp, she was radiant. Even disheveled in a hastily grabbed cloak, with her blonde hair spilling out of her hood, she remained stunning, just as a sleeping baby is always precious. She had gotten this blessing from her mother. Just as the Pickering men were renowned for their swordsmanship, so too were the Pickering women celebrated for their beauty. Lenare’s mother, Belinda, was famous for it.
All that was over now. What had been constants only the day before were now lost beyond a gulf too wide to clearly see across, although at times it appeared that Lenare tried. Alenda often had seen her staring north at the horizon with a look somewhere between desperation and remorse, searching for ghosts.