POV: Caelen
The grove came up at us through a gap in the rock that no horse could take.
We tied the horses at the last clear ground. Kael had the case under his coat and the small kit of instruments at his hip. The two remaining guards had their bows at their backs and their swords at their belts. The rearguard had stayed back at the last fork to hold the road open for our return.
Kael went through the work with me at the rock, low voice, no waste of breath.
"The root grows at a depth I will have to read by the soil color. I will not know the exact depth until I have started the cut. The instruments are in this order on the cloth — small blade first, then the long blade for the second pass, then the silver at the third. The seal is at the bottom. I do not lift the seal until the root is wrapped. Four collections is the maximum. After four, the soil collapses. If I miss the depth on the first three, I will not have a fourth to recover with."
"How long?"
"Longer than the revised estimate. I will not lie to you. Set the perimeter for an unknown stretch of time. Tell the guards I am not to be rushed. If you have to break my concentration, you will lose the cut."
"Understood."
I looked at him for a beat. His face was the face of a man who had been working at this since the saddle, with his shame at the back of his eyes still, and was carrying the work the way a man carries a debt he is paying down by hand. He had not slept properly in a stretch of nights I did not have an exact count for. His hands were steady. That was the thing that mattered.
"Go in. I will hold the path."
He went.
I spaced the two guards at the entry — one at the high ground on the left of the gap, one at the low rock at the right. I took the inner position myself, where the gap narrowed into the grove. From the inner position I had line of sight on Kael at the cut and line of sight on the path that came in.
I did not have line of sight on the high ground above the rock formations. The high ground was a problem. It had been a problem since we had ridden up to it. I had read it at the approach and known I had no answer for it.
Kael went down on one knee at the soil. He did not speak.
I held the inner position.
The grove was quiet in the way old places are quiet — the kind of quiet where the small sounds become large. My horse, even at the distance, breathing the way a horse breathes when it has been ridden too far in too few days.
I let my breathing settle to the breathing the work asked of me. I have been at perimeter for the count of the years a man can be at perimeter and live, and there is a place a body goes when it is at perimeter that the body knows on its own.
The mind narrows. The eyes track. The shoulders go down. The heat at the top of the head goes cool. The wanting — the specific wanting of a particular face at a particular table — gets put in a small drawer at the inside of the chest and the drawer is closed.
I closed the drawer. I did not lock it.
That was the thing about being at perimeter when the woman you loved was a stretch of country away. The wanting stayed inside the chest and the work stayed at the eyes.
I held the path. Kael worked.
The first cut. I knew it by the shift in the small sounds. The rasp of the small blade at soil that had been undisturbed for a long stretch of years. The pause for Kael to lift the cut to the light at the gap and read it. The quiet.
He started the second cut. I did not hear him swear. He did not swear when he worked. He had not sworn the first night I had ridden out with him. He had not sworn at the saddle when he had read the dispatch. The not-swearing was Kael at his work.
The second cut was longer than the first. The third was longer than the second. I held the inner position through all three. I did not move. I did not call the guards. The guards did not call.
The fourth cut.
I held my breath inside the muscle at the back of the throat, the small breath-hold a man does at perimeter when he wants the next sound to come and is not going to hurry it. The fourth cut took longer than I had wanted it to take.
Kael lifted the wrapped extraction. I heard the small click of the seal at the case under his coat. He had it. He had the cut. He had taken the time and he had not pushed past four and he had it.
He stood up. He came across the soft ground at the inside of the grove. He came to me without rushing because rushing here was the way to break the seal at the case. His face was tired. His face was finished.
"It is done. We move."
I gave the high ground one more pass with my eyes. I gave the path one more pass.
We moved to the exit.
I came out of the gap first. I came out the way I always came out of a narrow space — sword at the rest, weight on the balls of the feet, eyes already counting before the head turned.
I counted to two. I should have counted to two and seen two men.
I counted to two and saw none.
The high ground was empty. The low rock was empty. The grass at the entry where the guard at the high ground had stood was bent the wrong way. There was no body. There was no blood. There was no sign of a struggle. There was no sound. There were no horses missing because the horses were tied at the far ground.
There was the bird at the far edge, still calling. There was the wind at the second rock. There was Kael at my shoulder, not moving, his hand at the case under his coat.
The two guards were gone.