Free Nor Iron Bars A Cage by Kaje Harper Page B

even though my thighs strongly voted against the move. “What? You think I’m small and weak and can’t protect myself?” I strode away from the fire, forcing myself to walk fast.
    Behind me, Tobin said, “I never thought of you as weak.”
    I went to the horses. Cricket ignored me, standing head low and eyes closed, but Dark looked my way and whickered softly. I moved cautiously, because warhorses were often taught to accept only one master, but he let me come up to him and lay a hand on his strong neck. I stroked him, feeling a faint ridge here and there on his skin. I slid a hand down over his shoulder, leaning against him. There was a knot of scar tissue there right where the saddle would end. I rubbed it firmly— small, slow circles like the ones that usually felt good on my wrist— and he shifted his weight against me.
    I staggered, and then Tobin’s hand on Dark’s neck pushed the big horse off a bit. Tobin laid his fingertips beside mine on the scar. “That was the one that almost took my leg,” he said quietly. “If he hadn’t moved in time I’d have lost it. As it was we both took months healing, and fighting was over for both of us.”
    “Where was I when that happened?” I muttered, in echo of his thought. He might have needed me. He had family, though, and other friends.
    “Long dead,” Tobin said bleakly. “Or so I assumed. Did you burn Meldov’s manor?”
    “Yes. I wasn’t sure the wraith would die when his body did. But it was trapped in him until sunset, at least. All I could think of was a fire, fast and hot, to burn them both while the sun still shone.”
    “Good for you.”
    I laughed. Never thought I would laugh about that, but Tobin sounded so fierce and proud.
    “Remember when we saw those boys tormenting a kitten?” I said. “And I figured out how to get the stablemaster to catch them at it the next time and deliver a beating of their own. You said, ‘Good for you’ just like that.”
    “I meant it then, and I mean it now. Whatever you did, to escape and survive, I’m behind you in it. I’d have been cheering you on.”
    His arm on Dark’s neck was right beside my shoulder. If I moved two inches that way I could lean on it. I turned the other direction.
    “It wasn’t quite that easy.”
    “I gathered.”
    “I’m leaving stuff out.”
    “You tell me what you need to. Or don’t. Lyon, I’ve had your back since we were kids and I have it now. Believe me on this.”
    I did. Or I wanted to. But it was dark out here under the stars and there were no wards on the windows. I thought of drawing a circle of protection around us all. But the ground was rough and I had no good tools, and a broken circle was worse than useless. Who knew that better than I? “I’m going to try to get some sleep. Maybe that horse of yours has beat my ass hard enough for me to drop off.”
    “He has gaits like flowing water.”
    “With big rocks in it.” But I was too wrung out to banter. He’d set my bedroll a small distance from the fire, between the flame and the rockface of the little cliff below the crown of the hill. Even a non-combatant like me could see it was the best-defended position. I wondered idly if that was a sop to my fears, or if he really had worries of his own. Or perhaps it was just habit. Put the weak ones in the middle. I was too tired to really care.
    I found a place to piss, came back and dropped on the bed without removing my boots. After a minute he came over, and knelt at my feet.
    “You don’ have to do that.” Even my voice dragged.
    He still sounded wide awake. “You’ll thank me in the morning. And since I have to travel with you, and hear your grumbling, I’ll thank me in the morning.”
    I closed my eyes and pretended that the tug and pull of his hands was a puppy, playing with my laces and not a man, removing a piece of my clothing. That idea was far too nauseatingly appealing to think about right now. He eased my boots off one by one, and set them