I emerged from the crevice squinting against even the grey light of the overcast spring afternoon. My side ached from all but dragging Munter and the string of horses through what felt like hundreds of metres of thigh-deep water, but he eagerly pulled ahead as the crushing walls and darkness gave way to the open sky.

“Heavens be praised,” I murmured as I stumbled out of the burbling stream onto its rocky banks. I couldn’t feel my feet and they were fairly sloshing about in my boots besides, but the glorious view of something besides more blasted mountains made it all worth it. I’d never been so happy to see a thousand kilometres of scruffy steppe in my life.

The prince echoed my sigh of relief from his position atop Munter’s saddle. After the number of times he’d been frozen half to death, I had outright vetoed his intention to wade with us. Riding was only little better and I’d spent half the trip terrified the gelding would lose his footing and pitch the Prince badly, but I trusted the horse. Which is a little strange, I conceded to myself, But not unwarranted.

“Szekerya, Schreiner,” His Highness said. “We’ve made it at last.”

I lent a hand to the magus as he scrambled from the water. “The journey’s not over yet, sir. There’s still a ways to go. But it’s almost done,” I allowed. Then I grimaced. “I think the next step is to decant the water from our boots.”

“I can’t say I envy you your position,” he said with a guilty look at his own dry feet in the stirrups.

“All part of the job, your Highness.” I paused. “Usually I’d call that a dry comment, sir, but in the circumstances—” I ducked as Kaczmarek hurled a wet sock at me. “—the river puts a bit of a damper on things.”

“I’m not damp, gefreiter, I’m bleeding soaked to the bone,” the sockless woman groaned. “Pass me back my sock, would you?”

“I should receive a medal for bravery for so much as touching it,” I said, pouring what seemed a litre of water from one of my own boots. I lifted the sock between finger and thumb with a shudder, tossing it back in the jäger’s direction. “Do you know how far we are from the pass? I haven’t the faintest idea how far we truly travelled in that forsaken place.”

To my dismay, she only shrugged. “I don’t know these mountains much. We could be pretty much anywhere. Within a day or two’s walk, I mean. I hope.”

“There are stories of people going into the World Unmade and, eh, coming out far away,” Alemayehu said absently. He was trying with little success to wring the water from the heavy fabric of his riding trousers.

The rest of us sat in silence for a moment while we digested that particular piece of new information. Kaczmarek coughed uncomfortably. “Anyway! We should be within a day or two’s walk. It’s not really hard to see our way to one of the villages from up here. We can get our bearings there.”

“And a hot meal and a warm bed, I hope,” His Highness said, staring out at the endless vista. “The blessing of our little… excursion into the World Unmade is that I should think the Torrean army will find pursuit rather difficult. Am I correct, Magus?”

“Eh, yes, your Highness. Without a, a, anchor, I am not sure what would happen. The people who try it, eh, do not usually come back for us to learn from them.”

“Well, that’s lovely.” Kazmarek pulled a face as she stood up and her boots squelched unpleasantly, despite having been drained. “Whatever the case, I think we should get going, sirs. The bleeding Torries might not be on our a— tails, any more, but the sun is still going to set like usual, and I know I’ve had quite enough of wandering around in the dark.”

No-one disagreed with that. Soon we were tracking water over the banks of the river and then into the grasses as Kaczmarek led us on a rough zig-zagging path, trying to ease the strain of the descent on the horses, and on us. The footing here at least was far surer than it had been in the ravines. Where they had been dominated by so much dirt and gravel I feared I’d be finding it in crevices for weeks, here whatever quirk of geography gave the steppes their seas of grass wasn’t shy of the slopes. Rocks and scrub still made their presence known, but rather than bare dirt, nearly everything was bound by grasses of one kind or another.

Even the air was drier. Clouds still clung to the mountains, but less thickly. From up here, I could even see where the sun was shining over Szekerya proper. It was the first time I’d seen the sun in days, I realised with a start. I’d missed it.

***

In only a time of around an hour, the ground levelled out enough that we could all ride. The rocking gait tweaked at my side and my wet breeches chafed, but it was different to the way they pulled and chafed on foot, so I would take what I could get.

In another hour, we even reached direct sunlight for what felt like the first time in aeons. Calling the weather warm would still be overgenerous, but my clothes were slowly drying and the tentative spring sun warmed my face as I turned it upwards. Wisps of steam curled off our coats and cloaks as the pervasive dampness was slowly driven out.

Untamed grassy slopes gave way to fields, harrowed and ploughed for the spring. I wasn’t enough of a farmer to know whether they’d been sown yet. I certainly hoped the last deep frost of the year had passed, but that was no guarantee. We turned to follow the border of the field, short-cropped grass around a mostly-symbolic fence staking out the farmer’s plot, and finally came out onto a road. It was no Satern road, unpaved and wheel-rutted as it was, but it was broad and flat and gloriously tamed compared to our fare of the last weeks. I could have leapt down to pat it.

“Happy to be back on terra cognita, Schreiner?” His Highness asked, voice teasing.

“Immeasurably so, your Highness,” I said. “Being able to put one foot in front of the other without looking is a blessing I’ll not soon take for granted, sir.”

“Hah. I do wish it were the Empire, but… it’s good to see signs of human life again.” The boy wore a faint smile as he looked around. He seemed to me more at ease than he had been since we left Nachberg.

I could only hope Torrean influence hadn’t reached Szekerya. If it had, that comfort was ill-placed; but I was sure there were limitations on how much the Torrean sorcerers could achieve, no matter what dark power they were wielding. And the Torrean court would have little success finding allies of anything more than the briefest opportunity among the Heavens-fearing, least of all among the former Imperial states. When the knife could be at your own throat next, you hesitated to aid the wielder. Or so I hoped. Greed had prevailed over reason more times than I could count.

My morose thoughts occupied me like my own personal circle of grey weather for a while, until I spotted a boy hacking at something in the field with a hoe.

“Ho, boy!” I called out to him when we were in hailing distance.

“Oya!” He replied.

“Does your village have a place we could stay the night?”

He stared blankly at me for a long few seconds, before shouting something back. Then it was my turn to stare blankly. It sounded like Ostdialekt, but… it certainly wasn’t. I thought I caught some words, but not enough for whatever he’d said to make sense.

“Oh, Immer,” Kaczmarek muttered. “We’re in the deep South. Boy’s accent is thicker than the mud on his boots.” Raising her voice, she shouted something in what was probably the same dialect. I couldn’t follow.

Whatever it was, the boy clearly understood and made some long reply, punctuated with a lot of gestures and pointing this way and that. It all went over my head, except the last short sentence—even a Jaren could recognise the cheeky tone. Kaczmarek coughed a laugh, and mimed throwing something.

“He says there’s no proper inn where he lives, but there’s one down the road towards Wrislat,” she said while the lad ran off whooping. “Also, we’re two or three days’ ride south of Talben. And obviously it’s got to be pretty safe around here, or the kid wouldn’t be out alone. Torries are probably only in Immerland. Unless they’ve cut back on the whole demon-summoning habit while they’re here, anyway.”

I took a moment to digest that.

“Did he say how far to Wrislat?” The prince piped up.

“Nope.” Kaczmarek shook her head. “But it’d have been a few days from the Talben pass, so it’ll just be an extra day or two from here, I’d guess, sir. You know any Szekeryan maps, magus?” She popped the last at the Afamacian suddenly, catching him flat-footed. He shook his head.

“Not properly, not in a, a way that would be, eh, helpful. Sorry.”

The jäger just shrugged. “Well, there you are, your Highness. Maybe a week? I dunno.”

“A week on proper roads, though, with journeyhouses, right?” I asked.

She shrugged again, to my mild annoyance. “Should be. Might not be a civilised country, but they’re not a bunch of savages either.”

I pushed my hair back with my good hand, opting not to comment on that. “I assume the boy gave you some directions as well.”

“Yup,” the irrepressible half-civilised hunter confirmed cheerfully. “If not, my nose hasn’t gone wrong yet.”

“I’d rather get there by following a map than a scent trail,” the prince muttered under his breath, and I suppressed a laugh.

***

Thankfully, neither the farmboy not Kaczmarek had been tragically mistaken, and by the time the sun was halfway past the horizon we had reached a waystation, a majestic edifice of stone foundations and timber framing only slightly ravaged by poor maintenance and the passing of time.

With no stablehands in sight, I took it upon myself to stable and groom our horses. With a suppressed grimace, I handed my purse over to His Highness. “As much as it pains me to say, we’ll be in the jäger’s hands for now, sir. Best we keep on keeping your identity hidden as well, sir. Yourself and the magus could pass as travellers or refugees with the jäger as a guide. I don’t doubt they’ve seen plenty of movement away from the border lately. If she starts a fight, just shout at her as loud as you can, sir, and I’ll be there in two shakes of a duck’s tail,” I explained. The prince nodded seriously, tucking the pouch away inside his own coat.

“Don’t attack anyone,” he instructed Kaczmarek wryly.

“Sir, yes, sir!” She responded, saluting crisply. I ran my hand through my hair again. Why does she only perform perfectly when she’s being mocking?

“Luck of the Heavens, sirs,” I settled for wishing the prince and the magus. “Kaczmarek, if you start anything I will beat you from here to Zdorland and feed you to the hungriest bear I can find.”

With that dire threat, we parted ways—them to find us rooms for the night, myself to try to clean up six horses of a week’s worth of mud and poor grooming, with one hand. Sighing, I lost myself in the routine of currying, brushing, picking hooves, cleaning tack… it was almost like being at home. I just missed Wagner in another stall, murmuring stories to the horses as he worked.

After all the time in desperate flight or combat, it was a bittersweet evening.