Chapter 9: Roads Without Gods
He savored the line. "I never know if the next horror will come from the mountains or the sea," he replied, and found that, for the first time in a while, he was not lying.
Othra ducked under the table and came up with a brittle sheath of parchment, the corners curled and the surface stippled with scars from a dozen hands before his.
She smoothed it flat with both palms and pointed to the cluster of ink-dark shapes along the edge.
"If you’re going anywhere, you’ll want to know the world you’re walking into." Her finger traced the rough bounds.
"We’re here, north of the split river, in the woods of Outer Groth. Most of the land east is marsh, then hardens to scrub. There’s the old keep on the ridge, but it’s been empty since the last cull."
Apollo leaned over the map, watching as her callused finger hopped from border to border.
The shapes were less cartography than conjecture, every town marked with a symbol that looked like a scab or a wound. "Who rules here?" he asked.
"No one you’d care to meet," Othra replied.
"The coast belongs to the Sable Duke, though his grip doesn’t reach this far inland. The river’s held by the Temple Guard, fanatics, mostly. West is the old empire, what’s left of it. They say the city of Glassmar is still standing, but I wouldn’t trust the news. South, it’s the republics, each smaller and meaner than the last. If you keep going, you’ll hit the salt cities, though by then, you’ll be dead or rich, maybe both."
He took it in, following the jagged lines as if they were the score of a forgotten song. "And the mountains?"
She grunted. "The Cloudspines. Beyond that, nothing but stories." She eyed him, and for a moment he could see the shape of the person she might have been without the long siege of grief and necessity. "You’re not planning to stay off the roads, are you?"