“Is this true?”
“It is the first time I've heard we are so close, but I am but a lowly soldier, I hold no rank, so I wouldn't have been told.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at his cheeks. “Is it the sky and the grass, meeting on the mountains?”
His mouth dropped open. The silence stretched out.
“What are you saying?”
For the first time, Ava heard a dangerous note in the general's tone.
“Can you wait a day?” she asked the warrior.
“Yes. If the chance is to meet with the Commander of the Rising Wave, it would be foolish to do otherwise.” But the look he sent her was suspicious.
Ava turned to the general. “He agrees it's worth his while to accompany us.”
The general looked between them and then nodded. “Tell him to make himself welcome. Make sure he knows where to get a meal. Be his guide here.”
Ava thought it funny. She'd only been part of the column for three weeks, but she inclined her head and moved away, gesturing to the warrior to follow her.
“How do you come to speak Skäddar?” the warrior asked her, and she suddenly grew tired of not having a name for him.
“My name is Avasu.” She touched her forehead and bowed in greeting. “I'm from the border with Skäddar.”
“Huh.” He inclined his head. “My name is Kikir.” He watched her with interest. “No rude comment about me and mine stealing your goats?”
“No.” She smiled serenely at him. They had reached Deni and Sybyl, and she waved a hand at the senior guards, introducing them.
“We should have the two of you fight each other in training, Avasu.” Sybyl gave a slow, evil grin. “See if those Skäddar moves of yours are effective against a Skäddar warrior.”
Ava smiled back. “I don't think fighting Kikir is what the general had in mind when she asked me to make him welcome.”
Her weapons master, Carila, had taught her everything he knew—it was part of his agreement with her parents—and she'd assumed he'd passed on his Venyatux fighting skills.
But everyone's surprise at how good she was, and some of the more adventurous moves she used in her fighting style, had told her she'd made a mistake in not underplaying her skill.
She'd thought she'd need to prove her worth as a soldier, and instead found herself under scrutiny for being too good.
Too late to backtrack, she'd begun teasing the Venyatux relentlessly about how the border mountain folk were simply better at the fight than their cousins from the steppes—that the thin air and the long nights had given the highlanders the lung capacity and the time to be better than their fellow lowland tribesmen and women.
It had become a goodnatured rivalry, with Ava, the only self-confessed mountain girl, continually having to spar with whoever wished to prove her wrong.
If it had kept her skills nice and sharp, that was just a bonus to being accepted. The unit she'd been assigned to had chosen to treat her as a bright younger sibling, boasting about her to the other units and trying to put her in her place amongst themselves.
She had a feeling that Kikir might not be quite so willing to believe her lies. Especially if the fighting style Carila had taught her had no connection to the Skäddar.
“What is she saying?” Kikir asked.
Ava hesitated, then shrugged. She'd made a promise to herself that she was lying enough just by pretending to be Venyatux. She would not lie any more than she had to. “Sybyl wants me to spar with you. I was taught a fighting style that incorporates Skäddar elements. And I have been beating most of the lowlanders because of it. They want to see me fight a Skäddar warrior. And they are hoping you will win.”
Kikir tipped back his head and laughed. “I agree.”
“None of you get too excited.” Ava couldn't help the humor that bubbled up in her voice. “We're riding hard today, to catch up with the Rising Wave.”
“Now, now. We have to take a break sometime,” Deni said, grinning. “We'll make time.”
Ava translated for Kikir, and the wiry Skäddar clapped Deni on the back in enthusiastic agreement.
“You don't look too put out by this.” Sybyl was watching her, her face tilted to the side. She seemed bemused.
Ava couldn't tell her years of being locked away, with no one for company, meant that she didn't mind having to fight if that's how she was accepted into the group.
The teasing, the jokes, they were like the sweetest sustenance to her after years of famine and drought.
“I'm not.” She smiled at Sybyl, and she knew the senior officer would take it as a challenge.
“You're over-confident. It'll land you on your arse.” But Sybyl was chuckling as she turned away.
“Who is that one?” Kikir asked, his eyes on Sybyl's tight, lithe frame as she trotted away from them.
“Sybyl is a senior officer, but you'll have no luck there. She has a partner.” And while Iris would most likely laugh at the idea of someone trying to steal her lover, it didn't hurt to warn the Skäddar that he didn't have anything close to a clear field.
“The good ones always do.” Kikir made a gesture of regret. Then he looked at her with a small spark of interest. “And you?”
She laughed. “I am a lowly soldier. And my heart is also in another's hands.”
Kikir lifted his hands in a move that said, can't blame someone for trying.
“What do you want to do with the rest of the day?” Ava could see the column was traveling a little faster, now they had a goal. It was early afternoon, and they had at least four hours before the complex task of setting up for the night began.
“I don't need a babysitter. I'll come find you when it's time for a meal or for us to spar.” Kikir's gaze followed down the column. “I'm interested in observing how the Venyatux do things.”
He'd take the opportunity to have a good look at their weapons and organization, he meant. But the general had invited him to stay, and she didn't have the authority or the motivation to stop him.
“Fine. Just answer me one thing. Was I right about your patterns? And how do you apply them?”
“This again?” Kikir turned from his perusal of the long line of soldiers. “The markings are drawn in a special ink that takes a month to fade. I suppose your being from the border with Skäddar explains how you guessed the pattern symbolizes the meeting of sky and earth, at the very top of the mountains, but it also means pinnacle. I am the best warrior in Skäddar. I have reached the top of the peak. That is why I was chosen to make this journey.”
Ava leaned closer to him, her gaze cataloging the way the pattern was constructed.
“It worries me, how interested you are in this pattern.”
“Sorry.” Ava lifted both hands and straightened. “I embroider. I like to learn new techniques.”
“This would be too difficult to embroider.” Kikir's lips quirked in amusement, as much, she guessed, at the thought of a soldier picking up a needle for fun, as for the idea of capturing his design in thread. “I will see you later.”
He turned his horse and cantered to the very back of the column.
Ava lifted her face to the sun. It was something she did so often, the other Venyatux teased her that there must be a lot of cloud cover up high in the mountains.