“If it is another spell-creature, you will track it down and deal with it,” Gabriel said, so matter-of-fact that she had no choice but to believe him.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t understood, not entirely. Maleh mishpat, the boss had said, and even if she hadn’t understood them, she had felt the words in her own bones, in the marrow and blood like a thunderclap. She would become the cold eye and quick knife, the final decision-maker in the isolated expanses of the Territory when the devil himself could not be.
Gabriel’s responsibility was merely to keep her safe, to teach her what she needed to know to survive. This . . . whatever waited in the hills above them was her responsibility, not his.
“Back in the saddle,” Gabriel said before she could marshal an argument to that point, checking to make sure Steady’s saddle was still cinched tight, and then swinging himself onto the gelding’s back. His look told her clearly that they were in this together and she was to stop being foolish about it, and she wondered if she should worry that he could read her that well. “If the quakes are worse as we ride to the north, then that’s where the source is, most likely. Into the hotlands. Another day’s ride at least, assuming the ground stays still for us.”
A day’s ride without the guidance or safety of the Road, into hills that refused to let her see them, where the ground underfoot could hide boiling pools, to find a creature, possibly spell-born, that was in such pain and rage that it wanted to do nothing but destroy. It was nothing to laugh about—none of this was anything to laugh about—but as Isobel remounted, she felt a bubble of that laughter lingering nonetheless.
She’d been so proud of herself before. She had traveled with a magician, conversed with a dream-walker, outwitted Spaniards, defeated a creature of power, and she had thought that she’d conquered a mountain—only to discover that she was standing on the plateau of foothills, the larger range still to come.
Isobel was thinking something. He could tell from the way her shoulders flexed every so often, as though shaking off one idea only to have another settle. He watched but did not interrupt, keeping alert to their surroundings and letting her work her way through.
The ground beneath them remained stable, but there was a sense of tension in the air that Gabriel did not like, reminding him far too much of the queasy stillness before a demon-wind blew through. He studied the ground to either side, constantly looking for potential shelter, and when they paused at another stream to refill their canteens, he looked for the glimmer of fish in the shallows but saw nothing but stones and mud.
Still, that proved nothing. The fish might have been spooked by the quake, taking to deeper levels or shadowed alcoves. That would explain why they’d seen no deer grazing, no rabbits in the grass. He thought of the supplies they’d taken on, and mentally recalculated how long they would last, if they could not find any fresh meat at all, and the gentle warmth of the day, the clear blue skies and soft air suddenly felt more ominous than any gathering clouds. Even the mule seemed to feel something, not straying to investigate anything that looked tasty but staying close by, until Isobel lifted her head to sniff at the air, then took a deeper sniff and let out an exclamation of disgust. “What’s that smell?”
He tested the air and recoiled as he caught what she had.
“It’s worse than the buffalo,” she said. “Like . . .”
“Like it was ill when it died and the carrion-birds won’t touch it.” He looked up and noted that there were, in fact, several carrion-birds circling overhead. He squinted and wished for a spyglass: one of those birds seemed too large to be a buzzard.
A Reaper hawk here would not be unusual—in fact, this was the sort of ground they preferred: high cliffs for their nests and scattered meadows where prey could be flushed and caught. But buzzards normally cleared the sky when a Reaper appeared, since they could become prey as easily as anything on the ground.
He scanned the ground again for whatever was causing the smell but saw nothing. The smell was faint enough that it might have been hidden in the tree line, though he hadn’t thought the breeze strong enough to carry corpse-stink that far.
Or maybe, he thought, whatever it was wasn’t dead yet.
Isobel moved her mare closer, the two animals matching steps near perfectly, the mule close behind. “Something’s watching us.” She took the pocket square he’d given her earlier and held it over her mouth and nose, attempting to keep the smell away. Her voice was muffled behind the cloth. “Again.”
“Another demon?” They’d attracted the attention of one before, when trailing the Spaniards. But that demon had been sent packing, and they’d heard or seen nothing since then. And demon didn’t smell like this, didn’t smell at all that he’d noticed; it would be easier to find?—and avoid?—them if they did.