Veyra Flintstep's Arc

Chapter 14 of 14

Veyra left Nendo at the pens with the raptor and the sled and walked to the great hall alone. She wanted to speak to the chief before the boy came in. Praise landed differently when the subject was not in the room. The hall was warm. Barren Meadow sat by the low fire with a bowl of broth balanced on his knee. He looked up when she came in and did not stand. He rarely did anymore, though he still could. "You took him out," he said. "One night. Lower eastern pass." "And?" Veyra pulled off her mitts and held her hands to the fire. "He read the markers without help. Shortened his stride on the steep before I told him to. Set the fire torches at the mouth of the hollow so the wind wouldn't kill the flame. I hadn't shown him that." Barren Meadow set the bowl down. "He knew I was watching," she said. "He didn't perform. He fed the fire on the schedule I would have kept myself. He braked the sled clean on the last ice pitch without being asked." The old man's jaw worked once. He said nothing. "You should be proud of him," Veyra said. "He's already a guard. He just hasn't walked the western ridge yet." Barren Meadow looked into the fire. "His father won't hear this from you." "His father isn't why I came." "No." He nodded, slow. "Take him in spring. All of it." "That was the promise." She turned to the door and called Nendo in. He came through carrying his axe on his hip and stopped a pace inside, waiting. His eyes went to his great-grandfather first, then to her. Veyra unslung the pack from her shoulder and drew out the second map. It was the copy she and Giloa had spent the night making at this same table, ink dark on cured hide, every pole and cache and hazard on the road marked in her own hand. She held it out to Nendo. "This is the second one," she said. "Giloa has the first. I keep the original. If I go into a crevasse in spring, this is what keeps the road alive." Nendo took it with both hands. He did not unroll it in the hall. He folded it against his chest, under the robe, against skin. "I'll learn it before thaw," he said. "You'll learn it with me on the ground. The map is so you don't forget after." "After what," he said. "After me." Barren Meadow watched them both. He did not speak. Nendo held the map tight under his robe and looked at her. "Then I need to know who else has seen it." Veyra stopped. She had not thought of that yet. Three people now knew the road. One of them was a boy whose own father watched him from across the village.