“Yes,” I answered quickly—maybe too quickly.
His eyes narrowed. “I have your word?”
I nodded.
“Kez mika ren,” he said.
The arm that clamped me so tightly released, and I stumbled forward, not realizing my feet had barely been touching the ground. They all stared at me to see if I was true to my word. I stood motionless, trying to catch my breath.
“Lia, no,” Pauline cried.
I shook my head and put my fingers to my lips, kissing them, barely lifting them to the air. “Please, Pauline. Trust the gods. Shh. It will be all right.” Her eyes were wild with fear, but she nodded back to me.
Kaden stepped close to Pauline while Malich held her. “I’m going to take the donkeys deep in the scrub and tie them to a tree. You’re to stay there with them until the sun is sinking behind the opposite hills. If you leave one minute earlier than that, you will die. If you send anyone after us, Lia will die. Do you understand me, Pauline?”
“Kaden, you can’t—”
He leaned closer, holding her chin with his hand. “Do you understand, Pauline?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good.” He grabbed the reins of his horse, shouting instructions to a smaller rider I hadn’t paid attention to. He was only a boy. They took the saddlebag from Otto and strapped it to another horse, along with my canteen. Kaden retrieved my knife, which Finch had thrown to the ground, and stuffed it into his own bag.
“Why can’t I just kill her now?” the boy asked.
“Eben! Twaz enar boche!” the scarred burly man shouted.
There was a flurry of hot language, I presumed over when and where to kill me, but even as they spoke, they moved swiftly, leading us and the donkeys to the cover of the scrub. Finch glared at me, holding his wound and cursing in broken Morrighese that I was lucky it was only a flesh wound.
“My aim is poor,” I told him. “I aimed for your black heart, but not to worry, the poison I dipped the blade in should take effect soon and make for your very slow and painful death.”
His eyes flashed wide, and he lunged at me, but Kaden pushed him back and yelled something in Vendan, then turned to me, roughly jerking my arm and pulling me close. “Don’t bait them, Lia,” he whispered between gritted teeth. “They all want to kill you right now, and it would take little enough for them to do it.” Even though I didn’t know their language, I had gotten that message without his translation.
We walked deeper into the scrub, thick with oak and buckbrush, and when the road could no longer be seen, they tied the donkeys to the trees. Kaden repeated his instructions to Pauline.
He motioned me to the horse I was to ride.
I turned to Pauline, her lashes wet and her face smeared with dirt. “Remember, my friend, count to pass the time—as we did on our way here.” She nodded, and I kissed her cheek.
Kaden eyed me suspiciously. “Get up.”
My horse was huge, almost as big as his beast. He gave me a hand up, but held back the reins. “You’ll regret it if you break your word to me.”
I glared down at him. “A cunning liar who relies on the word of another? I suppose I should appreciate the colossal irony.” I held my hand out for the reins. “But I gave you my word, and I’ll keep it.”
For now.
He handed me the reins, and I turned to follow the others.
Pauline and I had pushed our Ravians at what seemed like breakneck speed, but these black beasts flew like winged demons chased by the devil. I dared not turn one way or another, or I would have flown from the saddle and been trampled by Kaden’s horse behind me. When the scrub receded, we rode abreast, Kaden on one side of me, the boy Eben on the other. Only savages would train a child to kill.
I tried to count, just as I had instructed Pauline to do, but soon numbers were impossible to keep in my head. I only knew we had gone miles—miles and miles, and the sun was still high in the sky. Pauline and I knew that a count to two hundred was a mile covered, at least on our Ravians. She would know when the barbarians were too far away to catch up with her again. She didn’t have to wait until the sun was setting behind the hills. In another hour, she’d be racing back to Terravin as fast as our slow donkeys would take her. Soon after that, she’d be safe and out of the barbarians’ reach and then the value of my word would expire. But not just yet. It was still too soon to take a chance, if I was even able to find one.
There were no trails here, so I tried to memorize the landscape. We rode in wilderness, along dry streambeds, across hilly scruff, through sparse forest, and across flat meadow. I noted the position of the mountains, their individual shapes, the ridges of high timber, anything that would help me find my way back again. My cheeks stung with the wind and sun, and my fingers ached. How long could we ride at this pace?
“Sende akki!” Kaden finally called, and they all pulled back, slowing their pace.