Page 98 of Stardust Child

Sinking into the steaming water, Ophele lined up her soaps and cosmetics on the shelf beside the tub, pleased with the simple familiarity. By the time she was clean and had picked over her supper, she felt well enough to peep out the doors and say good night to Leonin and Davi, who would shortly be replaced by Yvain and Dol for the night watch.

“Call us if you need anything at all, my lady,” said Davi. “We’re up in the cabins now too, second row back, so we’ll be here at a whistle.”

“One of us will bring breakfast up tomorrow,” Leonin added, inclining his head. “Sleep well, my lady.”

It was when she went to bed that she found the last surprise.

Tired though she was, Ophele lay awake a long time, lonely in the big bed. The headboard was so big, she had to flop backward with her head at the foot of the bed to see all of it, a carved panorama of the Andelin Valley that swept from the Berlawe Mountains to the east to the long grasses of the Talfel Plateau, trailing down to the bleak salt moors.

But that wasn’t all.

A smile curved her lips as she spotted a little hedgehog trundling beneath a bush, pointed nose lifted inquisitively. Prairie chickens pecked in the long grass, a long-tailed courser cat bounded in the distance, and there in the forest was the feathery little head of an owl, peeping out between the leaves. A love-note from Remin, carved into the oak of their bed, to last the rest of their lives.

Ophele’s breath hitched and her eyes filled. Oh, how she missed him.

And maybe he had expected that, too. For glaring down from the carved mountains on the right side of the headboard was the last andmightiest of the beasts: an Andelin silvertip bear, hump-shouldered and massive, gazing fearless over his domain.

Watching over her, as she slept.

* * *

“’Ware ahead!” shouted someone from the front of the train.

“On the left!” shouted someone further back, and the call rolled down the line of men, wagons, and horses, as everyone lifted shields and spears at once, turning them out toward the threat.

They did not stop their march. They would never get anywhere if they halted at every noise. But something large was coming, crashing through the underbrush, and the sun was westering behind them, the shadows lengthening beneath the trees.

“Bear! Bear!” A dozen throats called it at once as the animal burst out of a stand of holly trees. A glossy black engine of destruction, so big it made even Lancer snort and sidle. They said there were bigger bears in the north, beyond the Bite of Navatsvi, but an Andelin silvertip bear weighed over a thousand pounds and could have wreaked a decent amount of carnage if he had turned on Remin’s company.

But the bear wasn’t interested in them. It ran on, breathing in chuffing, barking pants as it raced past them, vanishing in the trees.

“That makes three this week,” Remin observed, his eyes narrowed. The Andelin devils were fortunately indifferent to the Andelin wildlife—they would have scoured the valley bare in the first year otherwise—but the beasts were not so sanguine. Remin had seen stags on the run and wolf packs facing down ghouls in defense of their territory, but this was the first time he had ever seenbearsfleeing.

“Makes you wonder what it’s running from,” said Auber, who was marching alongside Remin with his spear in hand. Through a variety of circumstances, the common-born Auber had undergone the usual training of a knight, but he still preferred to fight on his feet.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want to tangle with it,” said Tounot, frowning in the direction the bear had come from.

“Nice coat, though,” said Jinmin, and made Remin laugh, because he’d been thinking the same thing. Andelin bears had the thickest, glossiest fur this side of the Sea of Eskai, with faint silvery stripes whenthe light caught it just right.

But this was no time to be hunting and butchering bears.

Remin felt the prickle of warning as they rode on, a sense of danger that was purely instinctive. It was a dangerous balance, racing ahead of the mountain snows and behind the autumn leaves, and the devils they encountered were vicious, maddened by the warring imperatives to flee and to slay. Every morning there were fresh tracks clawed into root and earth and stone, and a few smoking carcasses of devils that had been too slow to avoid the sun.

And every evening, they appeared a little earlier.

Maybe that was the reason for his unease. It was hard to judge the quality of light beneath the trees, but the sky was clouding up behind them and the trees were closing in overhead. Beneath him, Lancer tossed his head and blew, his hooves jabbing sharply at the ground.

Remin started watching for a campsite.

“Halt!” The prickling in his back had become an itch, and the cluster of ancient trees off to the left looked like as good a place to stop as any. “That’s far enough for today, lads! Break for camp, no one walks alone!”

“Did you see something?” Tounot asked in an undertone as they moved off the road.

“No. Just a feeling,” Remin replied, sliding off Lancer with a scrape and rattle of armor. Both he and the horse wore light riding armor by day, but he went immediately to retrieve the rest now, muscling the horse into his peytral and croupier, then the scaled and segmented armor that would protect his vulnerable underbelly. Huber and his scouts had developed specialized armor for horses that even included hard leather greaves for their vulnerable legs and spiked caps to make their hooves more lethal.

As soon as the caps were in place, the stallion tossed his head again, stomping powerful hind legs as if to check the fit. His nostrils flared.

“Circle up!” Auber called, as all the wagons and horses squeezed through the underbrush, flattening it with iron-shod wheels and heavy bodies. Once they’d made space, they turned to face outward, backing up so the wagons were all on the inside of the ring.

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