“She’s not telling us everything, that’s obvious.” He hesitated. “She’s no friend of Raskos’, though. She and I fought our way through a couple dozen Auxies.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not a trap.”
“Raskos doesn’t have the imagination for this elaborate a trap.”
Yora’s lip quirked. “Probably not.” She paused. “You know she can’t be Doomseeker.”
“She might have some … connection.” His scar itched, and his finger tapped idly on his mask. “It’s more than I’ve found in three years.”
“I don’t like it,” Yora said. “We don’t know what she’s after, who her client is …”
“But we need the money.” Gyre was careful not to sound too eager, but he knew it was a trump card. “With fifty thousand …”
“I know, plague it.” Yora shook her head. “You think we should do it.”
“I think it’ll be dangerous,” Gyre said. “But the payoff is worth it.”
“Be honest with me. Worth it for the crew and the tunnelborn? Or just to get you closer to a myth?”
Gyre was silent for a while. Finally, he shrugged uncomfortably. “Why not both?”
Yora stared at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. At last she nodded sharply.
“Then we do it,” she said.
Chapter 7
“I suppose he’d prefer to ride,” Varo said. “Everything’s easier from the back of a warbird.”
“Should I help, do you think?” Maya said.
“I doubt he’d appreciate it.”
Tanax’s talent for stumbling into every patch of brambles and hanging vine in the forest bordered on the supernatural. At the moment, he’d managed both at once, flailing at the vine that had attached itself to his pack while stumbling deeper into the pricking bushes. His swearing was clearly audible above the rustle of branches.
“If this were a comic opera,” Varo said, “about now a beehive would drop on his head.”
Maya sniggered.
“Mind you,” Varo went on, “a friend of mine died that way. Turned out he was allergic to beestings, and he swelled up like a balloon.”
“That’s terrible,” Maya said.
“Dunno. With his last words, he swore the honey was worth it.” Varo shrugged and started forward. “I’ll go and offer my services. Why don’t you check in with the rear of the column?”
Maya trudged back through the woods, cresting a low ridge. She looked around for Beq and found her standing stock-still between two trees, frozen in an awkward position.
“Um. Is something wrong?” Maya said.
“Shhhh!” Beq hissed. “Stay there!”
Maya’s hand dropped to her haken. “What’s going on?”
Sweat dripped past Beq’s spectacles, pooling in a drop at the end of her nose. She was breathing in shallow gasps.
“If I move,” she said, very quietly, “it’s going to bite me.”
“What’s going to bite you?”
“The snake!”
“What—” Maya looked Beq up and down, spotted the bit of bright green, and let out a long breath. “Beq. That’s a well snake.”
“I don’t care how good of a snake it is—”
“As in the kind you find down wells,” Maya said patiently. She crossed the distance between them in a couple of strides and plucked the thing off Beq’s shoulder. She must have knocked it off a branch. The snake was about half a meter long, and its scales were the bright green of fresh leaves. Maya held it behind the head, and it coiled its length around her arm. “We found these all the time back on the farm. They’re harmless.”
Beq, who’d flinched at Maya’s movement as though she expected imminent death, uncoiled slightly. “Really?”
“Really.” Maya put the snake on the nearest tree branch. “I guarantee it was as terrified as you were.”
“I doubt that,” Beq said. She heaved a sigh of relief, looking distrustfully at the snake as it wound rapidly away. “I thought it was going for my throat.”
Maya grinned, and after a moment Beq grinned back at her, a broad, goofy smile that did strange things to Maya’s innards. Apparently oblivious to the effect she produced, Beq stretched and adjusted her heavy pack.
“Well,” she said. “So much for my reputation as a bold hero.”
“Heroes have to start somewhere,” Maya said as they started walking toward the others.
“True.” Beq looked at her, a little shyly. “Thanks. Can you tell this is my first time out of the Forge?”
“Um. A little.” Maya patted her shoulder. “You’re doing well, considering.”
“You seem like you know your way around the woods.”
“My mentor and I spent a lot of time traveling,” Maya said. “You get used to it.”
“I hope so.” Beq shifted her pack again. “This thing is already killing me.”
Maya had to admit that she was with Beq on that one. Jaedia had typically traveled with a cart for the heavy gear. Back at the quartermasters’, Maya had eyed the list Varo had come up with and thought it was a bit scanty; now every jounce of her pack made her wonder if she really needed spare underwear.
They all had good cause to be grateful for the scout’s expertise. Maya might have more experience in the woods than Beq, but Jaedia had usually stuck to the roads, so she wasn’t much good at finding her way. Tanax was obviously no help, so they relied on Varo to lead, down the shallow-sided valley and over the occasional rocky outcrop. Like many Gates, the one they’d emerged from was in rough country, and the Order preferred not to call attention to their precise locations by constructing roads or trails. Sensible, but awkward.
They lunched by a broad pool, aching legs and backs grateful for the rest, even if the hard-traveling food Varo had requisitioned was nothing much to look forward to. The water was delicious and tooth-achingly cold, at least, utterly refreshing after the heat of the morning. Beq ducked her whole head under and came up gasping, coiling her wet braid over one shoulder.
“Had a friend who liked to do that,” Varo said. “One time there was a big river crocodile waiting for him. I swear that thing had followed us for kilometers.”
Tanax snorted derisively, sitting in the shade of a boulder some distance from the rest of them.
“He didn’t talk as much after losing his head,” Varo said, “but we all agreed it improved his temper.”
“I think we’re a little far north for crocodiles,” Maya said, trying hard to ignore how the water that soaked Beq’s shirt made it cling in exciting ways. “But we should get moving.”
They stood, with assorted curses and groans, and got back to walking. By the time the sun started to slide down toward the horizon, the land had flattened out some, the valley widening and the forest thinning out, which made for considerably easier going. Glacial boulders dotted the broadening plain, and Varo laid out their camp in the lee of one of them, constructing a fire pit from flat river stones. Maya stopped him as he started to gather twigs for kindling. She dragged a couple of larger dry branches over, laid a finger on her haken, and twisted out a fine thread of deiat until they ignited with a dull roar.