The closest we came to anything worrying was when Horacio asked a man who he happened to be acquainted with, who had just come from Royersford, if there was any news from the city. He asked in the vaguest way possible, and even though he kept that driver talking for longer than I assumed the man wanted to stop, the driver didn’t mention a single thing about escaped student healers or trouble at the college.
“That’s as good a sign as we can hope for,” I said as we sat by the stream, eating our evening meal as the sun went down.
“I really don’t think anyone is coming after us,” Appius said, smiling this time.
We traveled through the night, and once again, we made good time. I dozed again, not because I was more comfortable with our situation, but because it had become the new ordinary. I still didn’t have as much of an idea of how far we’d come and how far we still had to go, but even in the darkness, I could tell we were entering hillier country.
I was a little surprised the next morning when I awoke to see a faint haze of purple on the western horizon. It was the first sight of the mountains, the first feeling that I was closer to home and Dushka than I’d been for months. And I was not ashamed to admit that the thought made me emotional.
We still had to travel through the entire day, resting the oxen for the afternoon once more. There were far fewer wagons as close to the mountains as we were—which I took to be a good thing. The thing that worried me, though, was that the mountains were capped with more white than I’d anticipated.
“We should have waited another month before trying this,” I said, mostly to myself.
Lucius laughed bitterly. “Next time I speak to King Julius, I’ll tell him it was horribly inconvenient of him to turn tyrant during the winter.”
I sent Lucius a flat look, then turned to Mara. “You actually like him?” I asked, using my thumb to point to him.
“He has his charms,” Mara said, the corner of her mouth twitching to a grin.
“His cock isn’t that big,” Leander put in loudly. “I know, I’ve seen it.”
“I’ve had it up my ass,” Darius added, then shrugged. “Not that big.”
Horacio glanced to us from where he’d been tending to the oxen during our stop. He blinked, then he burst into laughter. “I swear,” he said, “to the end of my days, I will never grow tired of telling stories of you wicked lot.”
We all smiled and laughed at Horacio’s good humor and his acceptance of us. Well, except Lucius. I would have to find a way to pay him back for all his help. We never could have escaped without it.
We traveled on once the sun set and the oxen were rested, fed, and watered. I had no idea how fast we were moving or how close to Aktau we would be by morning. The chill in the air worried me, but it was too late to turn back now. I slept as much as I could, running through everything I’d read about mountain climbing as the wagon jostled on.
And then, at last, the sun rose, proving that we’d come a great deal farther than I thought we had during the night. The mountains were right there, right in front of us, as the dawn light spread across the countryside. Aktau was right there.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that a tall, sturdy palisade had been built over the winter to block the entrance to the mountain pass entirely.
ChapterFourteen
“That wasn’t here last time I was home,” Appius said, rising to stand in the back of the wagon beside me where we could balance against the driver’s seat.
“Ah, yes, the palisade,” Horacio said, pulling his oxen to a stop. We were still about a mile from the buildings along the edge of Aktau, but well into the farmland that ringed the city. It was early, but already there were a few farmers leading their plow teams out to the fields.
“You knew about the barrier?” I asked, trying not to be upset with Horacio for failing to mention it.
“I’ve heard about it,” Horacio answered, a bit snippy after driving all night. “This is the first I’m seeing it.”
My other friends sensed something was wrong and got up to join me and Appius in staring at the new hitch in our plans.
“It doesn’t look that high,” Leander said with a cocky shrug. “We should be able to climb over it.”
“Palisades aren’t like walls,” I said, thinking back to the old palisades around Gravlock, before the new wall had been built. “They’re constructed from pointed logs. They’re dangerous and annoying.”
“Do we have to go over it?” Lucius asked, wedging his way between me and Appius. “Could we figure out a way to go around?”
“Oh, definitely,” Appius said, as though he were an expert. “The path is the easiest and most convenient way to get up into the mountains, but there isn’t anything blocking the forest and the foothills. It’ll take longer, but I’m sure we could go that way.”
I glanced to Mara. Of all of my friends, she felt like the most practical. “What do you think?” I asked.
Mara frowned and shoved a hand through her short, dirty hair. “Who knows what’s waiting for us in the forest?” she speculated. “I don’t see any armies, but it might just be that they’re not awake yet.”