*
We stopped that night in a small damp cave perched halfway up a rocky hill. Halis barely slept, tortured by intense cold and the pain of her wound. I did not sleep at all, but instead watched the moon make her silvery trek across the night sky. I could not see any sign of the Ulbari, but I knew they were out there, lurking at the edge of the world.
Halis tossed and turned and moaned, finding nothing but snatches of fitful sleep. Finally she crawled over to me and lay her head in my lap.
I stared down at her for a long moment, surprised at this unexpected intimacy. But she seemed beyond the pride of class restrictions in her weariness and pain.
I had been angry with her for as long as I could remember. She who made me follow her around like a trained puppy, remaining silent as she called me a donkey because of my silence, dragging me to all the places the cursed Dela-Elan frequented--the lecture halls and marketplaces and long, drunken festivals. I despised the easy duty, the long boring days. But I did not complain. Anything was better than the times before the guard.
The only thing I had truly liked about Halis was her vitality, which seemed to glow like a bright white flame from within her. That vitality made her more beautiful than her exquisite eyes or long hair or smooth skin. But here, in this white, cold place, I could feel even that slipping away, hour by hour. Moment by moment.
It had been three days since we'd escaped the Ulibari, and in that time the only thing we'd had to eat was a strip of dried meat I'd kept with my pack. At dawn I left, searching the frozen fields for game or roots to fill our shrunken bellies. I found nothing but a still, dead, silent world.
Trudging back to Halis, I ignored the aches and pains and lightheaded weariness dogging my steps.
She had dragged herself to a sunny spot outside the cave and lay with her head on our packs, looking impassively at the terrain ahead.
"Come. The sea awaits," I told her.
She looked paler today; even her lips, once red as rose petals, were bleached of color. In a curiously dead tone, she said, "I'll never reach the sea. Leave me here to die."
I sighed. "No, lady."
She stared directly into my eyes. Her own possessed flecks of gold I had never noticed before. "Listen to me. You know I don't speak idly."
"I can't leave you."
"You can," she said softly. "Your obligation to me is fulfilled. Go settle in some seaside town and raise a family."
Her words struck me like a baton in the stomach. I would be with her until my death. I was an initiate of Kuba, god of war. At thirteen years of age I had taken the mantle of the soldier across my shoulders; nothing remained of the time before that but a handful of nightmares. I had never known my father and my mother died when I was seven, leaving me to beg in the streets for crusts of bread, alone and scared, wearing rags and shivering from cold and sickness in wattle and dung huts.
Life began again when I sold myself to the mercenary troop. I was clean and fed and strong. I followed the dictates of my commander, fought when I was told to, slept when I could and got drunk in the meantime. None of the men had families, though some had concubines or whores or even each other. I preferred to be by myself. Never before had I considered giving up my life for a family, like one of the old freed slaves, smoking hashish as grandchildren played at their knees.
"I cannot," I told her.
A shadow of a smile crossed her lips. "Even donkeys have mates and offspring."
"I have duty." It was all I needed.