CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
C HAPTER T WENTY- F OUR
“If you’ve cured them, why do they drop like stones round each bend?” Alvira snarls.
The iskra witch stands before her, nervously eyeing the mare that Alvira holds by the reigns. The horses don’t seem to be taking well to the dark. Either that or they’ve sensed something most sinister in this god-forsaken pit. It spooks them. If left a moment unleashed, they sprint down the Chasm. They have already lost two of them.
As for the Ledge runaways, they’ve lost plenty more. Fifteen, by her count. “I thought you’d found a way to drive out that madness,” Alvira snaps when Yennes doesn’t respond. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn the witch was mad herself. It was likely what made her so pliable.
“I have. But magic is finite,” her eyes turn distant as she says it. “I cannot not spare enough to cure them all and fold you back to Terrsaw.”
Alvira groans. Already this trip grows tiresome, and they’ve barely travelled a day. “How many still have the… infection? ”
“I do not know,” Yennes admits. “But it is not only the sickness that fells them. They are weak. They have gone without food–”
“Daft fucking lunatic,” Alvira mutters. “What use would it have been, walking these people to death?”
Yennes merely remains silent. Smart of her.
“The food stores will see them to Terrsaw,” Alvira says firmly. “They will live if they don’t kill themselves along the way.”
“They will die if the voices are not driven out,” Yennes says. “And if I must fold with you, then I cannot expend it on curing them. Already, my power is depleted.”
Alvira makes a sound of frustration and turns her head to those who litter the Chasm floor. Dirty little creatures. All of them. Covered head to toe in badly stitched hide and fur, faces blackened with filth. And the smell…
Alvira sighs. She would rather cut off her nose than stay in this corner of hell a moment longer. But should this party return to Terrsaw without the numbers she needs, Alvira feels certain the new Glacian King will cut off far more.
“Cure them,” she commands, ever the leader, the first to sacrifice. “We need them alive.”
Yennes nods and Alvira detects relief in the way the witch’s chest sags.
“But if you warn them,” Alvira says, “if you utter a singular treasonous word against me, I’ll consider our arrangement voided. Do you understand?”
Again, the witch nods but says nothing. She disappears quickly into the mess of humans.
Alvira, however, turns back to her mare. She mounts it after several moments of gritting her teeth and willing her strength not to fail. Her backside falls into the saddle and a lancing pain shoots up her back. She is too old to be riding. Too old to be forging through Chasms. Alvira pushes herself upright. “Ruby,” she calls in no particular direction. “Someone bring her to me. Now.”
She hears the voices of the guards volleying the message and moments later, Ruby arrives on foot.
Alvira suppresses a sneer. She is loath to see the woman back in Terrsaw armour. But the stripes of her authority as captain are at the very least missing.
“Your Majesty,” Ruby greets.
The captain stripes may have vanished, but noticeably still present is the bold glint in her eye. A shame the dungeons had not snuffed it.
“I am to travel on ahead with an assemblage of guards,” Alvira says. “The iskra witch will not fold me away after all.”
Ruby frowns, then nods obediently.
“You will ensure the rest of these… people are brought to Terrsaw alive. Force the iskra witch to heal and cure at knife point if you must. They are no good to us dead.”
“How many guards will leave with you?” Ruby asks.
“Six.” Alvira stares intently at the former captain, daring her to argue, wanting to see if that streak of rebellion still resides. Call me selfish for taking so many, she thinks. But Ruby only nods once more. Alvira continues, “I will take the provisions we need, though without the encumbrance of the slow walkers, I suspect we will end our journey in another day.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Do not tarry,” the Queen warns her. “Our friends in Glacia will be waiting for word.”
“We will put the slowest of them on horses or in carts,” Ruby says, ever-pragmatic. “We will rotate them out and walk through the nights.”
“Good,” Alvira says. “Do not fail.”
Ruby bows her head a moment, then turns on her heel, approaching the first guard in sight to relay the Queen’s orders.
“Fenrick,” Alvira calls now, ushering another guard to her side, though this one has not left the saddle of his horse. A fair boy, no older than sixteen by her estimation, though the armour always tricks the eye to see a grown man. Fenrick lowers his head briefly.
“I trust that you’ll watch the former captain with a steely eye,” she says quietly. She does not allow the boy’s gaze to drop from hers. “The witch as well.”
Lifting his chin, the boy nods. Young men’s egos are so easily stroked.
“Should she appear to divert from the course, you will kill her.”
Again, the boy nods. He puts his fist to his chest. “I will, Your Majesty.”
Queen Alvira leans to pat the boy on the shoulder and then trots on, trusting that the bodies filling her path will scatter as her horse nears.
Soon, she will be rid of this fucking Chasm and back in the arms of her wife. Back in the safety of her palace.