Nadine huffed in agreement as she scanned the walls of lined axes, the crudest of all martial weapons aside from wooden spears. There was no question. Ebron put the world to shame in many ways. The fact that she was a woman in the army, with a piece of technological marvel hanging at her belt, was testimony to that.
When Magnus and his clansmen returned from the forge, a glint of something close to mischief glittered in his eyes. He waved an arm upward toward the cave. “This is a day of firsts. Why stop at flying foreigners around on our mounts? Let’s make them at home while we’re at it.”
One of the Dokiri snickered a comment in his language, and at least half of them barked with laughter. Magnus smiled, but he muttered something that made them hush. Uneasiness crawled down Nadine’s spine until Magnus added, “Don’t confuse yourselves, brothers. I’m the only one with a guest worth keeping.”
Magnus walked toward Nadine, and a spark of anger and nervousness flitted through her when she thought he was going to try to take her hand. Instead, he merely gestured her forward. Relief and a hint of sheepishness swept through her. She nodded and trudged up the ravine.
The mouth of the cave yawned before them like that of a giant whale. Inside, a half-dozen fires roared within neatly laid stone rings. Benches carved from stone with intricate, runic designs reminded Nadine of the scars carved into Magnus’s body. She looked up as she stepped over the threshold, marked by a cessation of snow onto the packed dirt ground. The ceiling above coiled with obvious man-made design into a spiral pattern that ended with a hole in the center. She squinted at it, trying to define its purpose. As though sensing her curiosity, Magnus leaned toward her.
“It’s a horn.”
Nadine said nothing, only continued to scrutinize the cavernous space that seemed to go on and on. Would it look any smaller when it was filled with people? She had her doubts. She turned to survey the walls to her left. Man-sized holes started near the ground and covered the space several stories high, wrapping around the entire room as though this were a hub of a gigantic honeycomb.
The Dokiri fanned out before Nadine and the Ebronians, who stood warily behind her in a stiff group. As her second, Samar remained at her side. He didn’t move when Magnus pointedly looked at him and beckoned him forward.
“We’ve at least the night ahead of us. Come, sit, and eat. If you try to pretend like our food compares to yours, I’ll know you’re warming up to me, Ebronian.”
Nadine pursed her lips. Why had Magnus singled Samar out, inviting him instead of her? Suspicion rose until she realized that, while his clansmen were busy tearing food off the spits roasting over the fires, Magnus himself was not eating. She had a hunch that, as soon as her men were comfortable enough to start filling their bellies, Magnus would be whisking her away to do Yudvir-knew-what. Why did the thought excite her? She glanced at Samar. “At ease, Captain.”
Samar looked away from her and, with a reluctant sigh, uncrossed his arms. He jerked his head toward the Dokiri, signaling to the others that they should join their guides on the benches around the fire. They’d come this far. There was no reason for resistance now aside from wounded pride that their mistrust had been ill-placed.
Nadine followed her men and placed herself at the back of the line for food, mindful that each of them have their fill before she herself began to eat. She sensed the barbarian before she saw him.
“I brought you the ram’s heart,” Magnus said. When she turned toward him, he was staring at her with mischief. “You’d tear it straight out of any sorry beast, wouldn’t you?”
Nadine glanced at the darkened meat he offered and plucked it from his hand. With her eyes on him, she stuffed it into her mouth and chewed with far more aggression than the poor animal deserved.
Magnus raised a brow. “Better than his balls, I suppose.”
Nadine swallowed the salty meat down. “I’m impartial.”
He grinned. “I’d bet you are.”
He offered her a little more before retreating to the fire pit to wrap a rather large chunk of meat in a strip of leather and shove it into the pocket of his coat. He returned to her and muttered, “Do you think you can trust your lapdog not to piss himself while we’re gone?”
Nadine glanced at Samar where he’d assembled with the Ebronians on the side of the cave away from the Dokiri. She looked back at Magnus. “In favor of trusting my guide dog not to try to hump me?”
Magnus snorted and was already walking out of the cave when he answered. “I’ll bark the whole way just so long as you follow.” When Nadine didn’t immediately trot after him, he hesitated and glanced back at her. “What do I have to promise to cut off this time?”
Before she could stop herself, Nadine laughed. “Careful, savage. That’s a bargain you’ll not want to get in the habit of making. It’s bound to bite you in the end.”
Magnus flashed his straight, white teeth at her as she took a few steps toward him. “Oh kandiri, consider this an invitation to bite me anytime you please.”
Nadine stole one final glance over her shoulder to ensure no one was paying too close attention before slipping out of the cave and back into the snow. She followed Magnus a short way down the ravine to the side of a cliff face, then they made short work of a ladderlike staircase cut into the wall. She tried asking where they were going, but received only an excited grin in response.
When they crested the cliff, she gladly took his offered hand and hopped over the edge, landing in a squat and pushing up from her knees. The wind was loud up here. The smell hit her before she even had time to look up. Salt and carrion drifted thickly on the breeze. But then, she couldn’t feel any wind on her face. At once she realized what she was hearing wasn’t actually a breeze at all, but rather the collective hiss of a winged horde.
Shuraa ket.
The gegatu were everywhere. Magnus had taken her to their nest. They still stood, lay, or squatted perched on the giant shelf she’d climbed up to. While not all of them were staring at her, at least half of them seemed to have their attention irrevocably fixed.
The wall of the ravine created this shelf, then turned upward once more. Rocky ledges stood out from the wall, and the gegatu used them as convenient perches from which the weight of their serpentine glares bore down on her. Amethyst, emerald, and amber. Nadine was no stranger to jewels. As Ebronian royalty she’d grown up among every kind, and she saw their cold echoes blinking at her in the souls of these winged beasts.
The gegatu swept away from Nadine and Magnus. The creatures nearest seemed in no hurry to challenge either of them for their territory. Even so, warning tingled down Nadine’s spine at the sight of so many creatures with their fangs bared and red tongues slithering between those saw-line teeth.
“Magnus,” Nadine whispered.
“Easy, woman. They won’t attack you if you don’t get too close.”
She nodded slowly and, keeping her eyes on the pack, angled her head toward him. “What are we doing here?”
“What would you like to do here?” he asked, the strangest note in his voice.
Nadine broke off from the gegatu in order to assess him. His expression was sober, hopeful, almost desperate in its quality. Nadine frowned, unsure what to make of him. She shook her head. “Is there something wrong with you?”