Chapter 9 Sage #2
“Yes. So then…” In a whirl of movement, Nura pins Sage’s wrist to her chest, her grip strong enough to grind the bones if she were trying.
“Really trap the arm so they can’t slice you elsewhere, then drop an elbow to the groin, the gut, anywhere you can reach, so long as you keep the blade pinned.
” Nura mimics driving a boot into Sage’s good knee, then pivots Sage in slow motion to slip beneath her knife arm.
“Turn your body toward theirs as soon as you can, then strike them with your own knife if you can manage. In the hip, the leg, wherever. Keep facing them, keep control.”
“And then?” Araphi asks.
“Run away so one of us can get a clear shot,” Sage reminds her. “These lessons are to get you out of trouble, not to make more of it.”
“True,” Nura agrees, while the bard pouts.
“All right, now let me watch your form. Phi, you hold the dagger—a real one this time, but be careful, please. You’ll play the baddie.
Come at Sage from behind, as though you’ve gotten the jump on her, and feel how she moves against you as she frees herself.
I’ll talk you through it.” Nura settles on the ground beside Tea and reaches into her pocket, from which she pulls a thick slice of cottage bread Bramble had baked for the trip, which miraculously survived the barbed wolf’s stampede.
Their healer hadn’t listed baking skills on their résumé, but then, their résumé had been a wine-stained scroll with the name of their salmon god inked onto it, so this competency is a happy surprise.
Sage holds obediently still while Araphi tucks her body against Sage from behind, uncertain in her movements.
Her bodice presses flush to Sage’s back, fuller hips sculpting against Sage’s narrow ones.
It’s all pretend (a game, it’s just a game) but still, Sage sucks in a sharp breath as Araphi slips an arm around her, the blade prickling her throat.
Araphi’s own unsteady breath ghosts across the back of her bare neck, and Sage shivers despite its warmth.
“Really grab her,” Nura prompts around a mouthful of spongy bread. “Make note of the moment Sage takes control.”
Sage doesn’t feel in control, or anything close to it.
She knows her role, and is no stranger to slipping out of knife range.
But as she tilts her chin up to accommodate the press of the blade, she swallows hard against it, and Araphi makes a sound low in her own throat behind her.
Sage feels it rumble down her spine to settle between her legs.
If she grabbed Araphi’s hand right now, she knows where she’d be tempted to guide it, so she doesn’t even try.
Instead, they stand in place, melting farther into each other instead of grappling for power—
“Gods, I’m embarrassed for you two,” Nura says, breaking the moment.
Tea mumbles her agreement from her perch.
The moment ends, and they move apart.
“I just…I should’ve eaten more for breakfast,” Sage claims, scrambling for an excuse. “Got a little lightheaded. Late night.” It’s wrong of her to invoke the barbed wolf when she knows Araphi and Tea still carry unnecessary guilt for it.
But it works. Nura dusts her palms against her pants and stands, holding out the half-eaten slice of cottage bread. “Take this,” she insists. “It’s the last of it, and I’ve already had enough.”
Sage shakes her head, feeling even worse now.
“I’m off to get some water and see if Bramble and Remy need help breaking things down.
But you two keep training.” Having given the order mostly to reassure them all that she’s in charge, Sage stomps through the trees toward camp, a thick carpet of leaves that died and dropped seemingly overnight crackling beneath her boots.
Sage doesn’t blame Nura. She’s embarrassed for herself as well.
When she breaks through into the clearing, their remaining bedding has already been packed away along with the cooking utensils, all evidence of this morning’s campfire dispersed.
Bramble pokes around the edge of the tree line, stooping to sniff at a clump of weeds with tall stalks and tiny yellow flowers.
Gathering medicinal supplies, she supposes.
Meanwhile, Remy stands near the extinguished campfire, fiddling with his compass.
He adjusts his bearing, staring off into the trees ahead to the north.
“You’re pointed the wrong way,” Sage calls to him as she approaches.
“Ashaway is southeast, and Kingfisher is southwest. Both two days’ journey from here on horseback, but it’ll be twice as long on foot.
If we head back to port to resupply, we’ll lose that and another two days traveling back.
We’ll lose less time by heading for the capital, and we might make it up by sticking to the Queens’ Road north, but there goes our secrecy.
I’d risk it to avoid the week’s delay, though. ”
“I wouldn’t risk either,” says Remy.
“Well, we’ll waste even more time if we make for Briarwall on foot, and even if I hunt and forage along the way, they won’t sell us horses at the wall. Those belong to the queens’ army. If not Kingfisher or Ashaway, have you got a better idea?”
“No, not a better one.” He claps his compass shut. “But one that will keep us headed in the right direction and cost us as little time as possible. There’s a village due north of here called Hexham. We can reach it by evening if we pack out within the hour.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Likely you wouldn’t have. It’s barely a speck of a place, small and far enough from Ashaway to keep to itself, save for yearly tax collections.
Little more than a few fields, a water mill on a piss-stream of a river, and a collection of homes and communal places.
But they have food there, and horses they won’t be needing over the winter.
Figure they’ll sell them to us for a more-than-fair price, which will seem a windfall to them.
We’ll still make it to Briarwall on time, and then to the Swallow to retrieve the Client’s prize. ”
“And what exactly is the Client’s prize?
” Sage asks, in the mood to be difficult.
“I didn’t press when we feared for spies in Kingfisher, and if you’re worried the rest of the party won’t keep a rein on their tongues, that’s well and good.
But I’m the leader. I’m your leader,” she reminds him—and more important, reminds herself.
“And right now, I could be leading us toward a priceless cache of pearls or a pouch of marbles, for all I know. So tell me, Remy: What is this treasure that’s worth risking a deadly river in the heart of the Northlands when winter is already at our backs? ”
After a moment’s hesitation, Remy sighs, his apprehension stamped in the weathered creases of his brow.
“It is your party, but it’s my neck on the line with the Client, don’t forget.
I’ve worked with them awhile now, keeping my ear to the ground for something that might suit their needs, and I’d risk the Swallow before their displeasure.
You’ll keep this from the rest, even the bard? ”
“Stop talking to me about the damned bard,” Sage hisses, and across the clearing, Bramble straightens to frown at them, having sensed their tension if not overheard their words.
Sage lowers her voice to vow, “I would rather wander naked into the Northlands than think of tying my future, professional or otherwise, to any party member.”
The words are harsh, but they seem to soothe Remy.
“We’re alike, you and I,” he murmurs. “We place our fate in nobody’s keeping but our own.
Very well.” With a hand at her elbow, he leads her farther away from Bramble.
Then he pulls a pocket-sized, leather-bound book tied with a rawhide cord from the satchel that never leaves his hip.
Unwinding the cord, he opens the book, the cracked spine and thumbprints of smudged ink suggesting he’s done so countless times.
The page he holds out for Sage’s inspection is taken up entirely by one illustration.
Sage squints down at the drawing. “A tooth?”
“Not just a tooth,” Remy scoffs, “but the tooth of a god. The last suspected remnants of a dragon left in this realm. They were gods of the land much as leviathan were gods of the seas, you know.”
“So there really is something at the gravesite. And what does our Client want with the tooth of a dragon?”
“Perhaps collecting the rarest artifacts is how they prefer to spend their wealth, which I’m sure is fairly earned.”
Sage sniffs in agreement with the jibe, her gaze tracing the ink strokes that form the broad yet sharp tooth crowned by black gums; it even seems to gleam on the page, though it’s only paper. The remaining bits and bones of the gods in Harrow are as priceless as they are powerful.
Suddenly, the stakes of the adventure that already loomed over her grow impossibly higher.
“Shall we get moving, then?” Remy asks. “On your orders, of course.” He shuts the book, tucking it away again before she can properly sift through her thoughts.
Well, it’s really no business of hers what their Client wants with the artifact. Whether she’s risking her life for a tooth, a scale, a toenail…does it really matter, so long as her first mission as a leader is a success?
Sage nods once, then turns for the clearing to summon the others.