‘Sól henazhi, Bai penvarzhavoy. We are ready when you are.’

Lute dumped his pack at Bai’s feet and crouched to wait. The tension that had existed between them all night had continued into the morning, and Bai didn’t know how to dispel it. What could he say to Lute that would convince him he’d get them all safe through the hills?

He grunted and lifted his shaving knife to his jaw, liberally oiled and glistening. One of the crofter’s daughters was watching, having brought him hot water, a rough linen cloth, and oil. She’d said he’d look good with a beard, that she liked the stubble. He’d recoiled in horror, and explained why Tethiri men did not grow beards.

‘A beard hides a man’s face, and we do not go hidden before our gods or enemies,’ he snapped, scrubbing the heel of his hand along his jaw. Rough, coarse, unkempt. He couldn’t scrape it off fast enough. ‘Fetch me hot water and oil. I’ll shave.’

She glanced at her father now, leaning in the doorway and watching over his daughter with a father’s natural mistrust of any man who wasn’t him.

He finished scraping his face clear and cleaned his knife, wrapping it back in its soft kid-leather wrap and stuffing it into his pack. He stood up.

‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he said to the crofter. ‘And for trusting us with your daughters and livestock.’

The crofter spluttered. ‘Is that traditional?’

‘No,’ said Bai with a wry smile. ‘But, necessary, perhaps. But for your trust, I will offer you Wards, if you want them.’

Beside him, Lute shifted impatiently. Bai flicked his fingers at him. The Wards would be two-fold: they’d protect the croft from danger, but they’d also keep the family from giving away their whereabouts. The Beyli’s men would probably not know not to go through the hills. If they did, it would probably not be long before they were engulfed by the bile of the Ulthvár, who couldn’t stand trespassers, but Bai preferred the certainty of them not being there at all to the probability of not being found.

The crofter shook his head. ‘We are Warded, and we will not give you away to any foreign mercenary scum who come looking for you. Tethiri or not, you’re still our countrymen. Who is it who hunts you?’

‘Foreign soldiers, for the dark girl. She faces a life of violence if they find her.’

‘Then they shan’t hear of so much as your existence from us.’ The crofter glanced at his daughters and scowled.

Bai bowed, understanding. ‘Thank you. Then we won’t stay longer to trouble you. Sól henazhi.’

‘Sól fehru azhtán Au,’ said the crofter, to Bai’s surprise.

………………..

It had dawned a bright day, with a little Southern warmth in the wind. They rode without cloaks, their breath misting the air, enjoying the sun and wind. An hour’s ride took them to the foothills, and the stone arch that marked the start of the hill-road. Carvings in the ancient Tethiri script proclaimed the name of the place: Brynmilygaith.

‘Hill of the Thousand Eyes,’ said the Lyr Blaed woman, eyeing Lute, her eye glittering with malicious interest. She was chewing on a length of blackroot; she swallowed the grey juices and grinned, her teeth black. ‘Apt?’

‘Apt,’ said Bai, before Lute could retaliate. ‘But we have eyes also. So, we’ll use them. Remember also who we do this for?’

Chastened, she inclined her head, and patted Lute gently on the arm. He shot her a sour look and dismounted.

‘There are other markings here,’ he said. He ran his fingers over worn carvings in the stone, faded and pocked with years of harsh weather. ‘Can you read them?’

She joined him. ‘They are Lyr Blaed, but I cannot make them out, not fully. They’re too old. But this one here is a warning: to those who would escape destiny. Odd.’

‘Why?’

‘Why would they feel the need to warn people not to try to escape their destiny here?’

‘Maybe they don’t,’ Lute shrugged. ‘Your people are as strange as mine, and possessed of an odd sense of humour.’

‘Do neither of you know your Hanscánid?’ Bai heeled Lezhnaiáth forward. ‘Rakshin-corth tried to outrun justice here, and hid in the hills. Not even the hills could hide him.’

He rode underneath the arch and halted, listening, watching. A path broad enough to allow two men to ride side-by-side stretched before them before disappearing around a sheer face of snow-capped rock. The land here rose rapidly and almost without warning, the road carving through a deep gorge, a narrow river following alongside. Two miles further in, the gorge petered outto hills once more. The terrain wouldn’t become truly mountainous for another two days’ from now. The air smelled of winter, despite the unseasonal warmth in the wind.

Sanna sneezed and buried her nose in her fur collar.

Lute folded his arms and stood his ground against his war-rider, though it was plain to anyone watching that it pained him. ‘I don’t like it. You know how I feel about hills. Why are you asking me to do it?’

Bai drew his knives. He held them hilt-outward, a sign that he was still prepared to listen to reason but the blades would be quick to point outward instead, or cross over his face, if he didn’t like what he heard.

‘I am your war-rider,’ he said. He let his voice take on the timbre of cold iron instead of the weariness he felt. ‘Are you defying me?’

Lute looked even more unhappy. ‘Bai…’

‘I said: are you defying me!’

‘No! I would never defy you!’ Lute did not draw his knives, but brought a Rune to his palm. ‘Please don’t…’

‘You’re going to use magic on me?’

One blade turned outward. Bai gripped the hilt hard. He had half a mind to teach the whelp a lesson he wouldn’t ever forget, but his affection for the boy prevented it. He couldn’t dish out a dagger-whipping to someone he loved.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t let such defiance go unchallenged. He conceded that he might have gone too far and asked Lute to do something he was too afraid to do – but then again, the lad was his shield-bearer. That meant he would be expected to step up as war-rider if anything happened to Bai. This was preparation, Bai told himself. He was doing Lute a favour by sending him through the hills ahead of them, as a scout. If he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t be war-rider. He couldn’t even be the war-rider’s shield-bearer and would have to return to his mother in disgrace. It was as simple as that.

‘I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t, or haven’t,’ he said. ‘I am not asking you to do anything I don’t think you can do. I am not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t expect my shield-bearer to do!’

He tossed one blade onto the grass and called up a Rune, letting it pulse with light as it perched on the end of his finger. He knew Lute wouldn’t challenge him on that. The lad had no knowledge of magic, even if he had mage-talent. ‘Consider this, Lute. I wouldn’t send you if I didn’t think you could do it. You know I wouldn’t. I have every faith in you. Who is it who rides his saddle next to mine, at the head of our rhón?’

‘I do.’ Lute raised his chin proudly.

Hope glimmered in Bai’s heart. ‘Then you must go. For me, not for anyone else. I’m only asking you to do this for me.’

‘I won’t return.’

‘You seem so sure! Yet I think I know your capabilities.’

Lute shook his head. ‘I’m telling you, Bai carázhi, I will not return. I can carve you a trail clear of any threat but I will not return! Not if you send me through the hills! This will be the last time you order me to do anything.’

Bai tried to ignore the incredulous looks Sanna and the Lyr Blaed woman gave him at Lute’s endearment and defiance, and raised his eyes to the sky and petitioned the gods for strength. Why was Lute so afraid? They all knew what the hills hid from decent civilisation: Ulthvár, and shades. Wights that hunted near the old burial mounds and standing stones. There were several such along the route.

Nothing that Lute couldn’t deal with. He had war-training. Enough to deal with any of those things.

But not mage-training. You refused to teach him the Runes.

Then he said, ‘I am still asking you to go. Do you think I would, if I thought your death was likely? I think you are more than a match for anything you may find in the hills. And you can get past old stones and burial grounds easily enough without disturbing them.’

‘It isn’t the things I will find in the hills that mither me!’ Lute snapped, frustration furrowing his brow. ‘It’s the hills themselves! I am afraid my magic will be suffocated by rock and shadow! Do you know nothing about me? Have you observed nothing at all about my magic?’

‘I didn’t even know you had magic until less than a moon ago!’

That was a mistake. Bai was unprepared for the Rune that came flying into his face. He staggered back, his eyes stinging from the blow, and swore, lashing out at Lute with his knife.

Sanna grabbed his arm and held him fast. ‘Bai penvarzhavoy, he is just a boy!’

‘Well, he is being bloody-minded, for a child - I don’t send children to their deaths! Under any circumstances!’

The Lyr Blaed woman whistled at that, and Bai realised his mistake. He turned to Lute. ‘Lute…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean that.’

‘Is that what you think of me? A child, still?’ Lute was furious, his cheeks as red as his sword tassels. Tears glistened in his eyes. He blinked them away angrily. He stabbed a finger under Bai’s nose.

‘My lord the war-rider thinks I am a child but he gives me a man’s task! My war-rider is a man of such towering hubris he has given the status of skáldbárn to a child because he thinks he needs none!’

‘Lute, sweetheart…’Sanna began, tugging on his arm once more.

Lute swore and flung her off. ‘He thinks I am unworthy of respect because I am a child, but he wants me to prove I am a man and carve him a trail so that he can pass safely through the hills after me! He…’

‘Enough!’ Bai’s voice cracked through the air. ‘One more word,’ he snarled. His fist clenched at his side. He struggled to hold onto his temper, desperate to lose it and let fly at Lute. ‘Just one more word! Just one more…!’

‘Go yourself, and prove your worth to me as my war-rider!’ Lute ground out in return. ‘Prove you’re worthy to have me as your shield-bearer!’

Silence dropped like a rock between them.

‘I would be within my rights to kill you for that,’ said Bai quietly. He crossed his knives over his face, blocking Lute.

The Lyr Blaed woman grabbed Sanna’s arm and pulled her away from the pair. ‘Let them be…’

Lute sobbed and flung his blades at Bai’s feet. ‘I won’t draw iron on you. I love you!’

Bai’s knuckles went white around his knife-hilts.

‘Lute, heed your war-rider,’ said the Lyr Blaed woman, stepping forward and heading off the brewing storm. She looked at Lute, sympathy writ full on her scarred face. She gripped his arm and gave him a little shake. ‘You can do this. He has faith in you; so do we.’

A tear slid down Lute’s flushed cheek.

‘Go, then,’ said Bai, harsher than he wanted to be, unwilling to unbend for Lute’s sake. The lad had to learn. Their intimacy didn’t give him the right to bring a challenge in front of others, nor should he rebel like this. He was half-inclined to give him the due whipping now, but then Lute would need a day or two before he could ride again, and they didn’t have time.

Sanna unpacked a few bundles of herbs and bandages and tucked them into Lute’s pockets, her face grave. ‘Keep yourself out of trouble. I know how silently you can go when you want to.’

‘We won’t be far behind,’ added the Lyr Blaed woman. She flickered a bored glance at Bai. ‘Of course, if his belief in your abilities is misplaced...’

‘Be quiet, woman, or we leave you here and go and re-join our rhón and obligations be damned!’

Lute gave one last, miserable, lingering look at Bai, and mounted. He didn’t say anything else, not even when Bai came and gripped his knee in farewell and tried to tell him, with his eyes, how sorry he was.

‘We’ll be an hour or two behind you,’ he said. ‘Don’t go too far ahead. Leave a trail we can follow, and warnings if you need to.’

Lute looked at him then, still wounded, and nodded. Bai wanted to kiss him. His hand came away from Lute’s knee in a soft caress.

‘Only stay two hours ahead,’ he said. ‘No more. Make sure we can follow your trail.’

‘I will try.’

‘He’ll be fine,’ said the Lyr Blaed woman. She jangled Lute’s harness impatiently, then stood back. ‘Go, boy. Make us a trail, and make your mother proud!’

Bai watched, worried, despite his professed faith in Lute’s skills. Love is a stupid idea, he reprimanded himself. I don’t love him. I admire him, and I think he’s a fine companion, but I don’t love him.

But despite the words that became almost a mantra as he repeated them over and over in his mind, he felt as if he was cheating himself.