Chapter 16

Shavala woke up the other women, then rolled her bedding back into a tight bundle. She’d volunteered to sleep on the floor the previous night after having gotten a look at the sorry state of the room’s straw tick mattress. Sarette and Treya had joined her, leaving the bed, such as it was, for Katrin and Ellerie.

The tiny inn they’d found in the village of Elmsford only had two rooms for guests, but it was worth it to stay indoors and get out of the biting cold. In the nine days they’d been heading south along the foothills, it was only the third time they’d found a village to stay in.

While the others were getting ready for the day, Shavala wandered down the hall to the inn’s common room, finding Corec folding a blanket near the fireplace. She cocked her head curiously.

“Boktar and Gregor voted for me to share the bed with Bobo,” he explained. “He doesn’t just snore; he steals the covers. I gave up in the middle of the night and came out here, and slept in a chair by the fire.”

Shavala laughed. “Not as fun as sharing the bed with Katrin?”

Corec looked embarrassed. “Uhh, no, not really.”

The others started coming into the room then, and Corec went to find the cook and wake him up to get started on the morning meal.

An hour later, they were eating a breakfast of sausage, biscuits, and gravy. It was simple, but warm and filling, and a good way to start a cold day.

As they ate, Sarette said, “Should we try and resupply here, or wait until Jol’s Brook?”

“Jol’s Brook is too small,” Gregor replied. “There’s a good store here, so as soon as the sun is up, I’ll head over there.”

“I’ll help you,” Boktar said.

“How far away is Jol’s Brook?” Corec asked.

“Only about fifteen miles,” the scout said. “We’ll reach it today.”

“We’ve been making a bit over twenty miles the last few days,” Sarette said. “Should we stay there tonight or just pass through?”

“That’s the last stop before we head back into the mountains, right?” Ellerie asked.

“Yes,” Gregor said, “and the route we’ll be taking doesn’t come near any of our own settlements. Jol’s Brook is the last inn we’ll see.”

Ellerie glanced at Corec, who gave her a quick nod.

“Let’s stay there, then,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind one more hot bath.”

“There are some hot springs in the ruins, but it’ll take us at least a week to get there,” Gregor said.

“What are hot springs?” Katrin asked.

“Springs with hot water,” Corec said. “You can bathe in some of them, if they’re not too hot. There are supposed to be some in the Black Crow Mountains, but I’ve never actually seen one before.”

Sarette said, “The people who lived in the city routed the springs into fountains and bathing facilities. Most of the stonework is broken now, but there are still a few spots where the water pools up.”

Gregor nodded, then asked, “What’s the weather going to be like today?”

Sarette looked up at the ceiling. “There’ll be some clouds, but we won’t get any snow. There’s a big storm coming, though. We might get snowed in for a day or two on our way to the ruins.”

Shavala blinked in surprise. “How do you know?” she asked. Her elder senses told her the weather was clear at the moment, but she couldn’t see any farther than that.

“It’s something stormrunners can do. I was always good at that part, just not the rest.”

Sarette was wearing her chainmail, and she hadn’t spoken any words to cast a spell, which meant she couldn’t be a wizard.

“Is it elder magic, like a druid?” Shavala asked.

“I don’t know what a druid is, but it’s elder magic.”

“I knew there were other elder mages, but you’re the first I’ve ever met. Could you show me how you see the weather?”

Sarette smiled at her. “I’d like that.”

Sarette shook her head as she walked. “No, I don’t feel anything like that. I can’t sense you or anyone else, just the weather.”

Shavala frowned. “I can sense people and animals and plants—even rocks, though they don’t feel like much—but I can only see the weather directly overhead. How far do you have to reach to know there’s a storm coming?”

After the noon meal, the elven woman had joined Sarette at the front of the column and the two had tried to compare their experiences with elder magic. There were some similarities, such as how the wind or a raincloud felt, but most of the things Shavala talked about didn’t sound familiar.

“It’s not really a matter of distance,” Sarette said. “I don’t know what the weather’s doing to the east or the west unless I can see it, but I do know what it’ll be like here the day after tomorrow, which is heavy snow.”

“It must be different than my elder senses,” Shavala said. “I can only see what’s happening right at the moment, even with the weather. I was able to make it rain once, though. Rain harder than it already was, at least.”

Sarette sighed. “I could never manage that. I can redirect a breeze, and charge my staff-spear, but that’s it.”

“Charge your spear?”

“I can make it hold a bit of lightning, but only for a short time. If I could call real lightning, it would work better.”

Shavala looked at her curiously. “Why would you want to hold lightning in your spear?”

“If I were to hit someone with it, it would discharge, as if they’re getting struck by lightning. Stormrunners do it when they fight snow beasts, since stabbing them isn’t always enough. It works on metal armor, too.” Or, at least, that’s what Sarette had been told. She’d practiced it, but only against empty suits of chainmail, and there hadn’t been any obvious effect other than the flash of light.

“What are snow beasts like?” the elven woman asked. “I have a book that talks about them, but I’ve never seen one before.”

“I saw some last year while my uncle was helping the High Guard fight off a group that invaded one of our ranching valleys. They’re big, maybe ten or twelve feet tall, and covered with gray fur.” Sarette shivered, remembering the howls the creatures had made while they were hunting. She hadn’t been close enough to see them well, but she still remembered the sound. It was enough to make her grateful she’d only been allowed to watch.

“Perhaps we’ll see them before we return south.”

“There haven’t been any attacks yet this year, luckily.” Sarette checked the position of the sun in the sky, then came to a stop. “Let’s take a break. We must have come close to fifteen miles by now.”

Shavala nodded, and waved to the others behind them. There were groans of relief as everyone let go of their sleds.

They’d all gotten used to pulling the loads, but Sarette would be grateful when the trip was over. If it hadn’t been for the one snowstorm in Tarvist Pass, they could have brought the horses and wagons with them. That would change soon, when they reentered the mountains, but if they’d just waited a few days for the pass to clear, they’d have saved themselves eleven days of hard labor.

Still, even with her gift, there hadn’t been any guarantee the weather would hold as long as it had, and it would have been a bad idea to risk letting the horses get stranded this far from home. Plus, with the icy conditions, the wagons wouldn’t have been any faster than the sleds, so the outsiders probably wouldn’t have wanted to lose several days of travel time waiting for the pass to clear.

Sarette shook her head, irritated at herself. She had to stop thinking of the others as outsiders if she wanted to convince Corec to bond her.

Digging into her pockets, she found the small travel notebook she’d been using to record their journey. There was no way to use pen and ink in freezing weather, but she’d brought a square graphite stick for writing. The stick was wrapped tightly in spirals of string to keep it from smudging her hand, and she unwrapped two more spirals to free up more of the tip to write with. She marked the time of day based on the sun’s position, then checked the angles to several prominent peaks. Gregor would be able to use that information to calculate how far they’d come. If they reached Jol’s Brook on time, the measurements wouldn’t be necessary, but if not, the notebook would help them find their way.

A small glinting light on the southwest slope of the nearest mountain caught her attention. She retrieved her spyglass from her sled, then peered through the lens. At this distance, the structure was too small to be visible even with the glass, but Sarette had seen enough watchtowers to recognize the signs. The flashing light wasn’t signal code—the attendants had simply left the main mirror pointing west, where it was now catching the mid-afternoon sun. Satisfied that she wasn’t missing an important message, she returned the spyglass to its leather case, then marked the tower’s position in her notes.

She checked the measurements against her compass and map, then turned to face the group. “I think we’ve stayed on the right heading since our last stop. If so, then it’s only another mile to Jol’s Brook. I’m not sure why Gregor isn’t back yet, but I think we should continue on. If we make it a mile and haven’t found the village yet, we can stop and wait for him, in case we got turned around.”

The extra precautions probably weren’t necessary. They were still near enough to the mountains to use them as guides, rather than out on the featureless prairie, but the road wasn’t visible through the snow, and it was Sarette’s responsibility to get the group to their destination safely. If the storm came in earlier than she was expecting, her notes might be the only way to find their next stop in the middle of a blizzard. She’d worried that she was overdoing things, but Gregor hadn’t shown any surprise the first time she handed him the notebook, and he’d continued to ask for it each night since. She trusted that the experienced scout would warn her if she did anything wrong.

“Continuing sounds fine to me, if it works for everyone else,” Corec said. The others seemed to agree.

“All right,” Sarette said. “Let’s head out.” She grabbed her sled’s lead ropes and got started.

They hadn’t gone far before Gregor’s familiar figure appeared ahead of them in the distance. They continued on until they reached him.

“Trouble,” he said in the stormborn language, then repeated the word in trade tongue as everyone gathered around him. “Most of the buildings in Jol’s Brook have burned down. I saw bodies laying in the streets.”