Into the Broken Lands by Tanya Huff

Author:Tanya Huff [Huff, Tanya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2022-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

ARIANNA.THEN

Arianna glanced over to where Malcolm held a waterskin up to Petre’s mouth, all but forcing him to drink. “He’s doing surprisingly well, all things considered. If he gets enough liquid into him and we don’t get attacked by anything particularly horrible until he’s got some strength back, there’s no reason he won’t be able to ride home with you.”

Garrett dropped to sit beside her, nodding toward the two boys. “Isn’t that one of the skins with the beer in it?”

She shrugged. “Beer’s essentially liquid bread. Petre needs to regain his strength and the alcohol will help dull the pain.” Nostrils that flared with each short, hard breath told of a greater pain than he’d admit to. “All things considered, we should be thankful it was a clean bite.”

“All things considered,” Garrett growled, “I’m not going to be thankful the creature’s teeth were sharp.”

“Fair enough.”

Leaning back against a moss-covered rock, Arianna tucked her feet under her skirts for warmth. They’d come out of the passage in back of the cave a lot higher in the mountains and the air was both drier and colder. The trees surrounding them had dropped their leaves, leaving every branch bare. Strangely, the moss that made up the only undergrowth remained a vibrant green. It covered the ground, went halfway up the trunks of the trees, and extended out over the stairs in a resilient carpet. Only Uvili’s footprints were visible on the long length of shallow, stone stairs they’d already climbed, her weight crushing the moss beyond recovery.

Garrett winced as he stretched out his left leg, the knee cracking. “I didn’t want to get caught on these stairs in the dark.”

With two or three hours of light left, no one had wanted to camp in the clearing outside the cave, not with the great black hole in the rock looming over them absorbing any light that fell into it. They’d climbed without stopping, but the sun was setting and they hadn’t reached the top. Petre’s injury hadn’t slowed them—he’d made the climb in Uvili’s arms—there were just so many stairs. Arianna’s knees and hips ached from climbing, her shoulders and back ached from the weight of the pack, and if Uvili was right and they had as many more stairs still to climb, she was fairly certain she’d agree with Garrett about the mages being evil incarnate by the time they were done.

“Could be worse,” she said. “This landing’s big enough to spend the night on as long as we’re willing to sleep close. You should have come in the summer,” she added when Garrett scowled. “The evenings go on forever.”

“So do these stairs,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “Norik! We’re making camp, gather wood for a fire.”

“No.” Uvili shifted until she became a barrier Norik had to conquer.

Arianna saw Garrett stiffen, knew he was about to order her out of Norik’s way, and called, “Why not?”

“Fire bad.”

“Fire warm,” Garrett snapped. “And there’s plenty of dead wood around.”

She shifted again as Norik attempted to go around her.

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