(eng) Moira Katson - Light and Shadow 04 by Shadow's Reach

Author:Shadow's Reach [Reach, Shadow's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Jeram

Nightfall came slowly, the summer sky clinging to the last rays of the sun as Jeram’s men lay in wait. The golds and reds had faded to deepest blue and the stars had begun to glimmer by the time Jeram heard the call of a snowy owl. He waited for the second call, motionless, and his men waited with him. One beat if captured, two if they were to retreat, and three if they were to proceed; three long breaths passed before the second call came, and Jeram felt his mouth curve into a smile.

This was insanity, he knew that very well. Each night he had the thought that he should be at home, in his own village, exercising the same care and patience he had honed all his life. He had been close to capture for years, why on earth should he have gone out of his way to gain the ire of a second army?

But every night he found himself here with his men, ghosts in the night, vengeful spirits, and every day as they rode, keeping pace with the army, he and his men were planning another foray. They had started with the smallest tricks: holes in the bottoms of the grain wagons, soured wine, untied tent posts. Then the men from the Norstrung Provinces had grown bolder. They set mice into the camps, howled like wolves from the stands of trees. Soldiers baking bread on the firestones would find it gone in the mornings. On a night that the army camped close to the river and the mist rolled through their camp, one of Jeram’s men produced a flute and played a low, haunting tune.

At first the Ismiri had thought themselves cursed. Jeram knew the look of a man who thought that the Gods had singled him out. The horsemen rode with their shoulders hunched, and the foot soldiers drew protective circles outside their tents.

Jeram had let them be for a few nights, and then—when the extra watchmen had been let to sleep—the men crept into the camp and drew on the tents and the ground with charcoal. Piter Beck, in particular, had a flair for evil-looking sigils. The men had crouched in the reeds on the far side of the river the next morning, biting their hands to keep from laughing aloud as chaos erupted in the camp.

Jeram had had not expected any of this—not his dedication, or that of the men, or their wickedly inventive ideas for wreaking havoc. He had ridden through the first leg of the journey in a frenzy of worry. He refused to look at the girl who rode near him, the beauty with the unsettling eyes and the silver tongue, and he refused to look, as well, at the one she said was her brother—the one he was beginning to think might be a girl. He did not like either of them, and he did not trust either of them—how could he trust anyone with so many secrets as those two carried?

More than that, he made a point of trusting no one other than Allena.

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