Her chest was painfully tight as she watched him stalk away. So they would continue north, toward the vengeance Maddek preferred.
A vengeance where she was unneeded, except as bait for her father.
With a heavy grunt, Kelir got to his feet and signaled to Danoh. “We will follow him and take first watch.”
Snorting, Ardyl rolled out her furs. “While you are behind him, try to pluck the thorn from his ass.”
Kelir nodded, his gaze flicking to Yvenne. She knew not what he saw upon her face that prompted him to say, “You might think him in a foul and angry mood, but it is only that his youngest warrior is fevered and his bride is in danger.”
No. Maddek had been in this foul mood since the whiptail, when she had saved them from danger. Yet there was nothing to do but nod. Perhaps it truly was worry for Toric.
But it certainly was not care for her.
CHAPTER 22
MADDEK
A bright egg moon shone down upon green marshes teeming with herds. Armorbacks snorted and squatted over dirt-mounded nests. Shaggy bison calves kicked their heels and danced between the columnlike legs of dappled trumpeters. At the deep, resounding call from one of those great beasts, hundreds more raised long elegant necks, their plumed heads turning as one.
Atop the remains of a giant marble foot, Maddek looked in the same direction. If any more revenants lived, they would soon catch up to the warriors. But it was not a revenant that alarmed the trumpeters. Instead a sabenar slinked toward the herds. Though reptilian-skinned and several times larger than a long-toothed cat, in movement it more resembled that animal than other reptiles—and its saberlike fangs resembled the cat’s, as well.
“The bison calf,” Kelir predicted from beside him.
This was a game they’d often played as boys—watching the predators of the Burning Plains and making wagers over which animal would be targeted. But this night Kelir only played it to keep himself awake.
Though weighed by fatigue, Maddek doubted sleep would come for him. But it was not the dangers outside the camp that occupied his mind. His gaze turned toward Yvenne again. Hanan’s mountainous head was buried almost to the eyes, and they had made camp in the corner of cheek and nose. The foot where he and Kelir kept watch was a longer distance away, but it offered the best vantage in all directions. They did not want to notice a revenant coming when it was already almost upon them. Ardyl, Fassad, and Banek slept now but would awaken at any noise, and Danoh and Kelir had both eyes on their surroundings and could keep watch over the sleeping warriors . . . and over Yvenne and Toric. One stricken by fever, and the other who had cared for him through first watch.
A small fire still burned. By its soft light, he watched his bride bathe Toric’s face with cool water. The warrior moved restlessly under her ministrations, muttering in a feverish delirium.
It was she whom Maddek wanted to keep in sight now, for when she was not, it seemed as if a revenant’s poison filled his own chest. As it had ever since he’d yanked his sword from a revenant’s gut and turned to see her coming toward him with Kelir’s bow and arrow instead of fleeing the magic-fouled whiptail.
She had promised to make his life a misery. He still believed she would. But in that moment, he’d realized his life would also be a greater misery if Yvenne wasn’t in it.
A misery with her or without her. Of the two miseries, he would choose what she offered. Yet that choice had almost been taken from him today.
It was not the first time she’d been in danger. Yet when the blood wraiths had surrounded her, Maddek’s fear then had been nothing compared to today’s. He meant to make her a warrior-queen, but only so she could protect herself if necessary. Not so that she could race toward battle.
His next lesson to her would be that sometimes a warrior’s best option was to run away.
With a grunt, Kelir made wordless comment on Maddek’s distraction and how much of this night he’d spent looking toward the camp instead of watching for threats coming from outside it.
Then his friend said gruffly, “Do not look at your bride tending to Toric and think a fool’s thoughts.”
No need to ask what thoughts those would be—suspicion and jealousy. Maddek did not suspect either Toric or Yvenne, yet he could not truthfully deny shameful jealousy. Because Yvenne tended to the young warrior with warmth and without walls. She did not so easily touch Maddek.
But he could only agree. “Such thoughts would be a fool’s.”
“So do not think them. He has taken sweet liking to her, but it will pass as soon as another pretty woman shows him interest. And her eyes are only for you.”
That was truth. At no one else did she ever look at with her gaze full of heat and hunger, except for Maddek—and a millipede’s leg.
Kelir eyed him speculatively. “Were they also a fool’s words? There must be a reason she slept with the wolves and then refused to share your furs last eve.”
Maddek wished the words he’d said had been mere jealousy. Instead he’d almost torn out her tongue. He’d told her not to look to him for affection, though it was Maddek who’d needed that reminder. Not she.
But he could not undo what was done. “The next time she allows me to share her bed, I will put my tongue to better use than saying what is best left unsaid.”
Both pity and laughter filled the other warrior’s reply. “It is but five days until the full moon.”
When Maddek would have her again. And between now and then, she would build stronger walls between them.
Suddenly frowning, Kelir leaned forward. “What’s got them up?”
At the camp, Fassad and Banek were no longer sleeping but had risen from their beds. As Maddek watched, Banek nudged Ardyl with his foot, but she only rolled over and burrowed deeper into her furs.
No threat, then. Maddek glanced at the moon. Still high, so it was too early to change watch.
Banek started in their direction. The older warrior gave a signal that all was well, yet Maddek did not wait for him to reach them. He scaled his way down Hanan’s marble foot with Kelir close behind.
“Has Toric worsened?” Maddek asked as they met.
“He is no better or worse than he was,” Banek said. “But his restless mutterings mean there is no sleep found in the camp—and if I am to be awake, better I make use of myself on watch. Fassad has decided the same.”
Kelir nodded and said, “Better mutterings than silence.”
So it was. In the campaign against Stranik’s Fang, they had seen warriors as strong and as young as Toric succumb to the fever, and always it was preceded by burning stillness. Toric was in danger, but not terrible danger. Most strong warriors who died from the fever were not bitten on a limb as he’d been, but nearer their heart or head.