Azrin went ahead to speak with the soldiers at an outpost. Roxanne saw him point to her and Effrax, and the gray-clad men nodded and moved aside, giving them space to proceed.
“What did you say to them?” Roxanne whispered when they were safely on the bridge.
“I told them you both had leprous-plague and that I was taking you to be cleansed at the temple in the Black Hills,” he explained with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
Despite their easy passage, Roxanne’s neck prickled with unease when she reached the far side of the bridge. There was a heaviness in the air that had nothing to do with the increasing heat and humidity, and a stillness in the land that she couldn’t define. In the same way a dying man grows still before he draws his last breath, so too did the earth feel rigid here.
Final
