Wellmer had spotted outliers stationed around the caravan, but the bulk of Thorne’s men were concentrated within the horseshoe. Kelsea squinted through the spyglass, focusing on the men around the campfire. She knew very few of them. There was a well-dressed, heavyset man, clearly a noble, whom she remembered from her first audience, though she couldn’t recall his name. Several men whom she thought might be with the Census. A good chunk of her own army, so careless that they hadn’t even bothered to wear civilian clothing. And there was the man himself, Arlen Thorne, right in the middle of the circle. Her sapphire gave a small tremor against her chest. Nothing better could be expected from Thorne, but all the same Kelsea felt betrayed, betrayed by the just world she’d understood from her childhood. All of her plans, all of the good she wanted to accomplish . . . could it really be subverted by one man?
“Elston.” She passed him the spyglass. “Right at noon around the fire.”
“Motherfucker,” Elston muttered, peering through the glass. Mace sighed, but he’d given up trying to clean up the guards’ speech on this journey. Kelsea had heard many new words in the past few days. From overheard conversations, she knew that Elston hated Arlen Thorne; it was something to do with a woman, but no one would give Kelsea the whole story.
“I want him alive, Elston,” she murmured. “Bring him to me, and I’ll let you design his dungeon.”
Several of her Guard chuckled.
“Five more minutes, Lady, and we can go,” Mace whispered. “Give Tom and Kibb time to work their way across.”
Kelsea nodded, feeling adrenaline flood her body. The guards drew their swords as quietly as they could, but Kelsea could still hear each rasp of metal against leather, and she fought down a stifling feeling. The sapphire pulsed like a drum against her chest, or maybe inside her chest, she couldn’t tell anymore.
“Lady, I ask you for the last time to stay up here with Pen and Venner. If we fail, you can still get away.”
“Lazarus.” Kelsea smiled gently at his silhouette beside her. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think, Lady. You can blame it on your damned jewel if you want, but I understand that the shadow of your mother is making you both angry and reckless. That combination is dangerous to us all.”
Kelsea seemed to have no capacity for anger at the moment; all of her energy was directed toward the campsite below. “You have your faults too, Lazarus. You’re stubborn, and your life of weapons has closed sections of your mind that would be better left open. And yet I’ve grown to trust you in spite of all that. Maybe you could trust me as well.”
There was no answer in the dark.
“Pen and Venner will stay with me at all times. Yes?”
“Lady,” they murmured.
“I’d like you to stay with me as well, Lazarus. All right?”
“Fine. But you’re not to engage, Lady. Venner says your footwork is atrocious.”
“I won’t pick up a weapon, Lazarus. You have my word.”
After several minutes, Mace gave a birdlike whistle that faded away easily under the wind. The troop spread out among the boulders, and each began to work his own quiet way down the side of the ravine.
For once, Thorne had taken Javel’s advice, and they’d established camp in the narrowest part of the Argive, leaving only two sides of the caravan to defend. Javel had meant to stay awake and see if he could give the pregnant woman some time with her sons, but exhaustion had finally won out. He decided to get at least a few hours’ sleep and then deal with the matter. He settled his bedroll and curled up in front of the enormous fire, his legs shuddering in pleasure at the heat. Gate Guards rarely had reason to ride more than a few miles, and the long journey had taxed Javel’s weak thigh muscles. He began to drop off toward sleep, dozing in longer and longer intervals, and he’d nearly reached oblivion when the first scream jerked him awake.
Javel sat up. In the dim firelight he could see nothing but the rest of the men, all of them looking around sleepily, as confused as he was.
“Archers!” someone shouted from behind the cages. “They’re—” The shout cut off as suddenly as it had begun, reduced to a shallow gurgling.
“Arm yourselves!” Thorne commanded. He was already on his feet, looking as though he hadn’t slept at all. Two men sprung up from the fire and tore off into the darkness, but before they got very far one of them went down with an arrow in his back.
Archers, Javel thought, bemused. On the hillside. He wondered if he were still asleep. He used to sleepwalk; Allie had told him so. Thoughts of Allie galvanized him, and he jumped up, drawing his sword and staring around wildly, seeing nothing beyond the circle of the firelight. Another arrow hissed through the darkness above his head.
“Put out the fire!” Dwyne shouted. “We’re sitting ducks!”
Javel hauled his bedding from the ground and threw it onto the fire pit. The fabric wasn’t heavy enough; the bedroll began to smolder, fire blooming through the layers of wool.
“We need more!” Javel waved at the befuddled men around him. “Give me your bedrolls!”
Sleepily, they began to rise and bundle up their blankets. Javel wanted to scream in frustration.
“Move!” Dwyne elbowed past him, carrying a huge pile of bedding, and threw it onto the fire. The light dimmed and then died, the air thick with the smell of scorched wool. Out in the darkness behind the cages, swords clashed and the air was suddenly rent with the high, unbearable scream of a wounded horse.
“Riders west!” someone shouted. “I hear them!”
“We’re encircled,” Dwyne muttered. “I told that damned bureaucrat it was a poor place to camp.”
Javel flushed, hoping Dwyne wouldn’t find out that Javel had suggested the pass as a stopping place. Javel had never dealt directly with any of the Caden before; they existed on a high plane, out of reach. Perhaps it was silly, but he still found himself longing for respect from the big man in the red cloak.
Thorne reached them in the darkness and grasped Javel’s shoulder, thin breath hissing unpleasantly against Javel’s ear. “Dwyne. What do we do? We need light.”
“No, we don’t. If they’re a rescue party, the archers won’t risk hitting the prisoners. We have a better chance in the dark.”
“But we can’t just wait here! When day comes, we’ll be easy prey.”
The impact of metal on metal rang from all sides now, drowning out Dwyne’s reply. A sword glinted in the anemic moonlight, some ten feet away, and Javel raised his own sword in preparation, his heart hammering. Dwyne began to laugh.
“What can possibly be funny?” asked Thorne.
“It’s the Tear army, man! Look at the uniforms!”
Javel could see nothing, but he grunted his agreement so Dwyne wouldn’t know.
“I can probably deal with all of them by myself, dark or no. Wait here.” Dwyne drew his sword and hurried away. When his footsteps had faded, Javel repressed a moment of stifling, amorphous fright. Having Thorne next to him in the dark was no comfort at all.
“He’s full of shit,” Thorne was muttering again. “We need light. Enough light to—”
He clenched Javel’s arm again, hard enough that Javel winced.
“Get a torch.”