Renegade's Magic
He glanced once up the hillside toward Lisana’s tree. I knew how badly he longed to climb the steep snowy slope, so that for even a moment he could rest his brow against her tree and let her know that he loved and missed her still. But I daunted him with a reminder of how cold and arduous such a climb would be, and finished it with the idea that if he hadn’t slept in like a lazy pig, perhaps there would have been enough time for him to attempt it. But now it was out of the question. He’d barely have enough time to ready his half-trained troops for their suicide mission.
I knew the instant I pushed him too hard. He recognized my influence and suddenly I was at arm’s length from him. I found out something else then. He did not banish me as he had before because he did not want to expend that much strength and attention on me. I could not contain my joy to find that it had cost him to hold me in that limbo, cost him more than he dared spend on me now.
Never had an evening stretched so long. When the time to venture toward the town finally came, Soldier’s Boy ordered that Clove be brought to him. The lack of a mounting block made climbing up on the patient horse’s back an undignified and lengthy process. Dasie did little better with her horse. Clove at least was accustomed to bearing a heavy rider. Once I was up, he shuddered his coat as if settling himself and then stood quiet. Dasie’s cart horse mount disliked the fuss and noise of the warriors who helped their Great One up on her horse’s back. Once Dasie was up, the mare sidled and then, as Dasie gathered her reins too tightly, backed up nearly into one of the groups huddling around a fire. Soldier’s Boy had to ride to her aid, and then waste precious moments in giving her a lesson in basic horsemanship. Although he had not planned it that way, he decided that he would ride at the front of his warriors, with her just behind him and flanked by two of the warriors who were more experienced with horses.
The word was passed back, and like a feeble caterpillar, the two columns began to move unevenly. He led them on, to the very edge of the forest, and there he paused briefly. The clearing and beyond it the road were coated with smooth snow. There was a bit of light from a quarter moon and the myriad stars in the black winter night. The white ribbon of road seemed to gather the light to itself and then offer it up to the sky again. There was, as Jodoli had predicted, little sign of the effects of my desperate magic. Most of it had been repaired already. But that was actually all right. They’d cleared the road before the snows fell. It made Soldier’s Boy’s path plain. He would lead his men down the very road that had threatened to destroy them, and when they reached Gettys, they would turn that death and destruction back on those who had brought it.