Shadows Return

mercy, I’d be dead or in the hands of another cruel master. If not for your forbearance, I wouldn’t be sitting here now, a free man.” He looked sidelong at Alec and smiled. “Well, almost free. Do you really think we’ll get away?”
    “We always do.”
    “I’ve heard a bit of your adventures. A kinsman of Vargûl Ashnazai is a good friend with Il—with Yhakobin. Is it true that you were the one who killed him?”
    “Yes.”
    “How?”
    “I
don’t
want to talk about it.”
    “So you’re a reluctant killer, too? Did Seregil teach you that as well?”
    “We’re not assassins, just nightrunners.” Alec left unsaid the fact that before he’d taken up with Seregil, he’d never killed anyone.
    “There’s a difference?”
    “For those who know,” Alec replied, teeth chattering in spite of the cloak he had pulled over him and Sebrahn.
    Ilar shifted this way and that, then leaned closer, pressing against his side. Alec bristled at that, but there was no denying that it was warmer that way. He was too tired and too cold to argue the matter right now. His eyelids felt heavy as books.
    Ilar was still talking softly when he fell asleep.
             
    Seregil’s eyes burned from staring into the distance. He longed for the cover of night and the feel of his feet eating up the distance that separated them from freedom with every pace.
    The others were sheltered between two large boulders. As he passed, he heard the murmur of voices, and guessed that Alec was not enjoying the situation much. When he passed again later, however, he saw that he was fast asleep against Ilar’s shoulder. The other man was awake, and nodded slightly, acknowledging Seregil’s presence.
    Seregil wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. But at least Alec wasn’t going to die of a chill.
    When his own watch ended and he woke them, Alec looked surprised and none too pleased at his own position. Standing up unsteadily with the rhekaro in his arms, he glared down at Ilar for a second, then walked stiffly away.
    “You should leave Sebrahn with me,” Seregil offered. “You’re going to end up a hunchback, lugging it—him—around all the time.”
    “It doesn’t bother me,” Alec replied, preparing to nick another fingertip; they were all red and stippled with scabs now, except for his thumbs, and looked sore.
    “I wonder if he could heal those for you?”
    “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
    Seregil walked over to him. From here Ilar was hidden in the lee of the rocks. “Talí, talk to me.”
    Alec gave him a weary look. “I told you, I’m fine. I just wish we trusted Ilar enough for him to take a watch now and then. But I don’t, and now you have to go sleep with him.”
    “I won’t enjoy it, I promise.”
    “I know. Go on. You look like hell.”
    “So do you, love. Just keep thinking of the baths in Gedre. That’s what keeps me going these days.”
    That actually won him a laugh. “I believe it. Micum always says you could go through fire and ice and shit without a complaint, but deny you a hot bath at the end of it, and—”
    “Yes, yes, I know the rest.” Seregil gave him a mock scowl and went to join Ilar.
             
    That night’s march was a bit better. They began to see a few big-eared rabbits, and some other small, furry nocturnal creature that would do in a pinch. Alec went off on his own, armed with nothing but a makeshift sling and a handful of pebbles, and came back with two conies and a long snake.
    “That’s a rock adder. Is it safe to eat?” Ilar asked, disgusted.
    “So long as you chop off the first third or so, that gets rid of the poison sacs,” Alec explained, doing exactly that and tossing the head away. “Do we dare make a fire?”
    “My belly says yes,” Seregil said.
    Cobbling together a tiny fire from what brush there was, they cooked the meat and the coney livers until they were black on the outside, and mostly raw inside, but warmed through. When it was done, Seregil sliced it all up in three equal parts and doled out a few sips of water.
    “Meat!” Alec laughed, ripping a mouthful off a leg bone with his teeth. “By the Four, Yhakobin was stingy with that. How about you?”
    “My master was kinder,” Seregil said with a smirk, plucking the tiny bones from a chunk of snake meat. “I got a bit now and then.”
    Ilar took a tentative bite of underdone rabbit. He gagged on it at once and spat it out.
    “Don’t go wasting that,” Alec warned. “Those