Karis clenched her big hands, fingers interlocked. Fascinated, Garland watched her biceps swell. “How do we make it certain?”

“Ow!” Medric had been upset from his cozy berth and dumped summarily to the floor.

The gray man, who had come in seeming so frail, was on his feet, facing Karis, saying as ferociously as she, “Send your ravens, then! Tell her that her death was a farce! Bring her back to the certainty of a world in which change is impossible!”

There was a silence. Karis unclenched her hands. “No, I think not,” she said.

Emil said, more gently, “If you didn’t fail her when you were in despair, perhaps you won’t betray her out of hope either.”

“I need to do nothing?” she said unhappily. “Even more?”

Emil took two steps to her, and clasped her big hands in his. “With all your heart,” he said earnestly.

“How much longer?” she said desperately.

“Until Long Night,” said Medric, still sprawled on the floor. He sat up then, looking as surprised as Karis did. “Long Night? I have to write a book by then!”

Emil turned to him, still clasping Karis’s hands. “Better make it a pamphlet,” he said.

Chapter Twenty

Two days into the six‑day journey to the children’s garrison, the first snow fell: heavy, wet flakes that turned the roads again into quagmires, and forced Clement and her mounted escort of seven to spend a day and a night holed up in an abandoned barn. On the seventh day, when Clement should have already reached her destination and begun the journey home, it snowed again: real snow this time. The soldiers cursed, the horses stumbled and slid; in the tiny village that was the only settlement they could find, the people sullenly vacated an entire house for the soldiers, stabled their horses with the cows and sheep, and showed up at the door with placating offerings of cooked food.

In the cozy room she had commandeered, Clement cracked open a shutter and observed the villagers below, who went watchfully about their business as the snow continued to steadily fall. At this rate, it would soon be knee deep. She had been a fool for relying upon the reprieve in weather that usually comes between autumn mud and winter snow. Now, she was stranded, with eight horses too valuable to abandon. She watched angrily, enviously, as a villager strode briskly across the snow in snow shoes, pulling a sledge laden with firewood, atop which perched a laughing young child in a red coat.

And we sneer at them for going afoot,thought Clement. How hard is it to learn the virtues of traveling light? Apparently, too hard for us.

*

That poor village was the last before the wilderness. The road petered down to a mere path, snow‑veiled, invisible except for blazes on the trees. Horses and dismounted soldiers alike went floundering through the woods. The sun appeared for a few hours and the snow began to melt, which increased the journey’s misery. After sunset the snowmelt froze to ice, and the wind picked up. Eyes burning, tears freezing, Clement hoarsely reassured her company that there wasa shelter.

But when the soldiers at the head of the line shouted back that they had found it, Clement’s relief was short‑lived. The shelter had an unmended roof, walls of rough‑sawn planks with airy gaps between them, and a circle of stones for a hearth, with a hole in the roof above, that had allowed this hearth to be filled up with snow. For the horses there was corn and hay–that was a relief–but in place of firewood there was a half‑barrel of cider. Whoever ran the supplies up and down the mountain during the warm season had apparently valued some comforts over others.

They got what warmth could be had from huddling together as the wind whistled through every knot and crack. They ate their rations cold, and Clement, to much approbation, allowed them each two cups of surprisingly potent ice‑cold cider. Later, a few sleepers snored, but most of them sat awake like her, too cold to sleep, drearily awaiting dawn.

They spent the next day in a bitter, steep climb, up a path that the wind had now blocked with snow drifts. The soldiers cursed whenever they had breath to spare; the weary horses sometimes balked and had to be dragged or beaten. The sun used the snow as a reflector to blind them.

“Is that it?” someone asked.

Watery‑eyed, Clement stared up through a haze of light. There, at the top of the mountain, at the end of the path, in splendid isolation, stood the children’s garrison.

Someone, a hazy shadow, took a noisy sniff. “Woodsmoke!”

The company uttered a ragged cheer, and even the horses blundered forward with somewhat more enthusiasm. In the shadow of the building now, Clement’s scoured eyes could see more clearly, but the building still looked very strange. What had the sun done to her eyes? She rubbed them, and looked again. “The bloody thing is round! I thought I was losing my mind!”

It really was no garrison at all. A fortress, maybe, with narrow, out‑of‑reach windows and an unfriendly, arched entrance big enough for a small wagon to pass through, but barred quite decisively by a padlocked iron gate, through which the snow had drifted.

Clement peered between the bars. The dim passageway plunged into silent darkness. “Oh, hell,” said one of the exhausted soldiers who crowded up around her to take a look. “There’s no one here.”

“Quiet as a tomb,” said another gloomily.

“Not for long,” said Clement. She reached between the bars, and took hold of the frayed bell rope.

The clangor of the bell was jarring. The horses jumped, the soldiers cursed some more. Clement jerked the rope until her arm ached, and finally there emerged quite cautiously from the gloom a boy in heavy clothing that was much too big for him, wide‑eyed and clutching a knob‑headed cane as though it were a drawn sword. “Uh … ?” he said inquiringly. Insignias sloppily tacked onto his cap identified him as a lieutenant.

“Urgent business,” said Clement briskly.

He cleared his throat nervously. “Your orders?”

“I write the bloody orders!”

His gaze traveled to the insignias on her own hat, and he belatedly and confusedly saluted. “Lieutenant… ?”

“Lieutenant‑General. Let us in, sir!”

“I haven’t got the key.”

From the darkness of the passageway grated another voice. “Gods’ sake, boy, you’re a soldier! Stop wailing like a baby and open the gate.” The boy‑lieutenant scurried to meet the approaching old man, who limped on a wooden leg with the support of a cane. He gave the boy a big, rusted key, and stood leaning on his cane as the boy fiddled it into the snow‑clogged lock.

“Lieutenant‑General,” said the old man.

“Commander Purnal?” asked Clement.

The man uttered a bitter laugh. “Been a while since anyone called me ‘commander’ to my face. Well, it’s about time Cadmar sent you here! How many people you got with you? Six?”

“Seven. And eight horses. I hope you’ve got a stable and fodder.‘

“What do you think we do with the donkeys that haul supplies for us, eh? What’s taking you so long, boy?”

The padlock opened with a sullen groan. The gate squawked open. Purnal turned away and started thumping down the passage, shouting backward over his shoulder, “Send a couple of your soldiers to the kitchen and the rest of you follow me to the infirmary. Boy, you get the stabling crew together. Some real horses for once. Good practice for them. Anyone gets kicked and I’ll hold you personally responsible. Come on!” he bellowed, his voice much magnified now by the echoing passageway. “We’ve got some sick kids here!”

“Gods of hell,” muttered Clement.

The exhausted soldiers were looking at her beseechingly.

“You two.” She selected them at random. “See the horses are cared for, find your way to the kitchen, and make yourselves useful. The rest of you come with me. Not one more complaint!”