The Dragon's Path

she should, or that some fine point of negotiating turns was beyond her. It was only when the larger mule had coughed—a wet, phlegmy sound—that she realized he was ill. Magister Imaniel had kept a religioushousehold, but Cithrin prayed that the animal would recover on his own.
    He hadn’t.
    The caravanserai—a ruin barely maintained by those who passed through it—was on the side of a wide, sloping hill, the first foothill of the high, snow-peaked mountain range that marked the end of the Free Cities and the beginning of Birancour. Even now, distance-blued peaks rose from the horizon. The pass through them marked the shortest path between Vanai and Carse.
    Carse. The word itself had taken on almost religious significance for her. Carse, the great city of Northcoast overlooking the peaceful sea. The home of white towers above chalk cliffs, of the Council of Eventide, of the Grave of Dragons. The seat of the Medean bank, and the end of her career as a smuggler and refugee. She had never been there, but her longing for it was like wanting to go home.
    She could go alone. She’d have to. Only she didn’t know the way. Or how to nurse a sick mule back to health. Or what she’d do if another bandit crew stepped out of the forest. The mule heaved in a huge breath and then coughed: deep, wet, and rasping. Cithrin stepped forward and rubbed his wide, soft ears.
    “We can find a way,” she said as much to herself as the animal. “It’ll be all right.”
    “Probably, it will,” a man’s voice said.
    The cunning man, Master Kit, stood at the stable door, the woman called Opal at his side. Cithrin moved half a step in toward her mule, her arm around its sloping neck as if to protect it. Or be protected by it. An anxious thrill quickened her breath.
    “This is the poor thing, then?” Opal said, pushing past the cunning man. “Tired-looking, ain’t he?”
    Cithrin nodded, looking down to avoid their eyes. Opal slipped into the stall, walked around the mule once, pausing to press her ear to the beast’s side. Then, singing a low song in words Cithrin didn’t recognize, she knelt before its head and gently pried open its lips.
    “Opal takes care of our team, when we have one,” Master Kit said. “I’ve come to put my trust in her when it comes to things with hooves.”
    Cithrin nodded, torn between a rush of gratitude and discomfort at being so close to the guardsmen. Opal rose and sniffed carefully at the mule’s ears.
    “Tag, is it?” she said, and Cithrin nodded. “Well, Tag, can you tell me if the old boy was listing to one side? Did you have to correct him?”
    Cithrin tried to remember, then shook her head no.
    “That’s something,” Opal said, and then over her shoulder to Master Kit, “I don’t think it’s in his ears, so that’s for the best. He’s wheezing, but he doesn’t have water in his lungs. At a guess, keep him warm a couple of days, he’ll stand true as sticks. Needs more blankets, though.”
    “Two days,” Master Kit said. “I would be surprised if Captain Wester were comfortable with that.”
    The mule’s labored breath and the murmur of the morning breeze through the boughs roughened the silence. Cithrin felt the knot in her belly tightening into something like nausea.
    “One fewer guard won’t make any damn difference,” Opal said. “I’ll stay with Tag, and when the old boy’s well enough, we’ll catch you up. Won’t be more than a day or two, and one cart with a good team moves faster than a full ’van.”
    The cunning man crossed his arms, considering. Cithrin felt a rush of hope.
    “Can you do that?” Master Kit asked her. His eyes were gentle, his voice as soft as old flannel.
    “I can, sir,” Cithrin said, keeping her voice low and masculine. The cunning man nodded.
    “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in suggesting it,” he said. “But perhaps you would allow
me
to approach them, Tag?”
    She nodded, and the old man smiled. He turned and walked back toward the quarters, leaving Cithrin, Opal, and the animals to themselves.
    The relief took the edge off her fear. And perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing, in its way. With Opal dressing in her leathers and Cithrin disguised as a man, they weren’t likely to arouse suspicion. It would be a few days away from the greater company, so she would only have to avoid discovery by Opal. And their supposedly different sexes would give a plausible excuse for privacy.
    And yet the fear didn’t entirely