He gave her an irritated look. “Do not play the fool, my lady. There are a thousand perils out here. We must remain vigilant at all times.” He alone wore his godsteel armour, removing not a bit of it. It reminded Saska of those days on the Steel Sister, when Captain Rikki Bowen and his crew would go about barefoot and dressed in breezy linens, while the Wall stayed in his full plate armour, and his heavy hooded cloak, watching over her night and day. He shook his head angrily. “You should not have taken off your plate. A creature could come upon us at any moment, and you’d be entirely unprotected.”
“I’m still wearing my breastplate,” she said to that. “The rest I can put on quickly if I…”
“You will die quickly if a dragon descends upon us. Do you think you can dress in your armour more quickly than it can wreath you in flame?”
She frowned. “Is that a trick question?”
He snorted at her like a broadback. “It takes one moment, Saska. Just one. You should at least be wearing your helm.”
“My helm?” If there was one piece of her shiny new suit of armour that she could quickly put on, it was her helm.
“Your helm, yes. To protect your head. As your breastplate does your heart.”
“It’s too hot. The helm is the worst. If I put it back on my head will melt. I don’t think we should be doing the dragons’ work for them, Rolly.”
Sir Ralston gave no response to that, sensing a losing battle, and like any great warrior, he did not enjoy defeat. Saska was glad for it. The bickering she could do without. It was petty, at times even undignified, and especially so when done in front of the likes of Sunrider Alym Tantario, whom she respected greatly. That feeling had been with her ever since meeting the man, and had only grown since she had chosen to come this way.
He might have complained of my decision, she reflected, but he didn’t. She had told him that they would remain on the Capital Road, to avoid this heat, only to change her mind later that day after taking counsel from her captains, Sir Ralston in particular. But when she had told him they would take the Matian Way, he had only nodded and said, “As you command, my lady,” and had not said a word against it since.
He is a good man, and uncomplaining. The same could not be said for some of his men, though, who groused almost as much as Leshie did. Any time Tantario heard one of them moaning of the route, he would reprimand them fiercely, and remind them of their duties and their oaths. That tended to settle things down, but only for so long. Let them complain, Saska would think, if ever she heard a man muttering of the heat or the lack of water or the constant threat of monsters belched up by the Ever-War. I’ve dragged them out here when they could be with their wives and children, back in the comfort of their homes. I’ve stolen from them time they will not get back, and time is short and running out. Every one of them has the right to moan.
The sound of hooves could be heard ahead, an echoing clatter that rang out down the canyon long before the rider appeared. A returning scout, Saska knew. Tantario sent out men often to survey the way ahead, and sometimes one or two of the sellswords would go as well. On this occasion, it was a youthful spearman of House Hasham, wearing a white feathered cloak and riding a swift courser, brown with spots of grey and white.
He pulled to a stop before them.
“Your report,” Tantario said.
The young man gestured down the canyon. “The road opens five miles ahead,” he panted. “Just as you said, my lord.”
Tantario had indeed made that claim. “And the river? Does it rush?” There were fears that it might have dried up in this fearsome, unnatural heat, but it seemed that was not so.
“It has shrunk,” the scout said, “but there is enough flowing water to bathe in, and plenty to drink.” He had a full waterskin at his hip, a promising sight.
“Were there any others there?” Sir Ralston asked him.
“Yes, my lord. Local goat herders and peasants from the nearby villages. Some of them were armed, to protect themselves. I saw no sign of brigands or Patriots in the area.”
Alym Tantario nodded. “Well and good. We will speak to these locals when we arrive, should they still be there.” He turned to Saska. “The river is a little over a mile beyond the canyon. We should be there by the turn of the hour.”
The news was welcome, and spread briskly down the lines, the scout riding to the back to share it. The sense of relief was so thick Saska could almost taste it. They rode on, their pace speeding, the end of the canyon in sight. No one in the company had bathed since they had left Aram, their skin so coated in filth and grime that they all felt as though they were wearing another layer of armour. No wonder no beasts have come sniffing after us, Saska thought. Even they cannot abide the smell.
The final leg through this close, suffocating canyon passed without incident. It was decided that they would spend the night near the river, after the men had bathed, so their clothes might have a chance to dry. According to Sunrider Tantario, the lands were very open there, and it would be easy to keep watch for threats upon the plains.
There was no lie to what he said. Before long, the canyon walls began to shrink like blocks of ice beneath the summer sun, and beyond, the promised plains spread forth, sun-scorched and endless, peppered with tufts of dying grass and outcroppings of rugged rock that rose from the earth in strange twisted shapes. Saska saw one that looked like a howling wolf’s head, and another reminded her of a starcat’s tail, swirling from the ground as though a giant cat had burrowed beneath the dirt, leaving only its tail above the surface. There were fingers too, all poking up in one area, like a titan’s grasping hand. And grandest of all, some distance to the north, she sighted what appeared to be an enormous, colossal eagle, much bigger even than the sculpture at the Perch, rising from the ground with beak turned skyward and wings pulled back, as though yearning to soar into the skies, but forever bound to the earth.
“It looks so real,” Saska said. “Like a giant, turned to stone.”
“Only from this distance,” Sunrider Tantario told her. “When you get closer, you see that it is only a natural feature of the world. The effect is best seen from afar, Sereneness.”
“We saw it when we travelled from the Port of Matia,” the Wall told her. “With the smuggler and the mute boy.”
Mellio and Pig, Saska thought. Both of them had died in the Red Pits, right before Rolly was brought out to share their fate. That was the intention of Elio Krator, anyway, though the Whaleheart had had other ideas. “I never saw it.”
“You were sleeping, at the time. I did not see a reason to wake you.”
Tantario looked confused. “I was not aware you had passed this way before. You made it seem like you had not travelled the Matian Way.”
“We didn’t take the main roads,” Sir Ralston told him. “We went west from Matia through the hills, taking backroads and farm tracks. When we saw the stone eagle, we looked at it from the north. It was only faint, then. It was a dusty day, I recall.”
And hot, Saska thought. Those days in the back of the wagon had been sweltering, but nothing so bad as this.
The stone eagle was still within sight when they saw the river ahead, a jagged scar wending west to east through the plains, glinting silver beneath the dying sun. There were some cheers from the men at the sight of it, and raised fists too, and a few of them even gave out a shrill, eagle-like whistle that rang out across the tundra.
Eagles everywhere, Saska reflected. She had been bombarded by the sight of them in Aram - eagles made from stone and iron and silk, eagles chiselled and stitched and sewn, eagle helms and eagle cloaks and eagle masks, and a great deal more - and that had not much changed out here. Only these ones are real, she thought. Alive. She had seen them often since they’d left the city, circling high above her or perched somewhere nearby, in a desiccated tree or atop a spire of rock, and they always seemed to be watching the host as they passed.
There was an eagle at the river as well, she saw as they neared, clinging to the high branches of an old dead tree that stood alone across the far bank. The bird had a regal look to it, with that fine glossy plumage and great curved beak, the piercing gaze that always seemed to draw her eye. She went over to Kaa Sokari, as the men dismounted and hobbled their horses and camels. Sunrider Tantario was already setting a watch and rotation so that the men could bathe in peace, and had sent men out to speak with the locals too, a few of whom were still here, washing their clothes or bathing in the flowing waters a little downriver from the host.
“My lady,” the master bowmen said, as she approached him. “You have a question.”
“I do.” She pointed. “That eagle. What sort is it?”
“What sort?”
“What species, I mean.” It paid to be precise with Kaa Sokari, who was precise in all he did.
He looked up at it. “That is an Aramatian golden eagle. There are several sub-species of the golden eagle in other parts of the south, and north, but these are most common here. The colour of their plumage gives them away.”
Gold, bronze, even some silver, she saw. The colours of the duchy. The eyes were amber, the beak sun-yellow with a black tip. “It’s beautiful,” Saska said.
