An hour out, he called a short stop. He hated to do it. Landing turned them into a grounded, stationary target, but they needed Laith on top of the bird, not strapped in beneath, they needed to regain something like a fighting configuration, and Valyn wanted at least a few moments to look over Talal’s wound and Gwenna’s.

“I’m fine,” the leach said, grimacing as he straightened his knee. “I’m not going to die of a leg wound.”

In fact, there were plenty of ways to die of a leg wound—the Eyrie medical archives were packed with them—but Valyn wasn’t going to press the point. If the leach could stand, he could fly, and for the moment, flight was imperative.

Gwenna’s case was more troubling. Valyn refused to light a lantern, but her normally pale skin looked even paler, ashen to his night eyes, and though she winced and cried out when he searched through the tangled mess of her hair for the wound, she didn’t wake up. Blood had soaked into her curls, then frozen, and after a moment he hacked away several handfuls with his belt knife. She’d probably curse him for the decision when she woke, but waking was a prerequisite to the cursing. Her skull felt intact, though his fingers were too numb to be certain, and regardless, it was easy enough to wreck the brain without damaging the skull. In the end, all he could do was wrap her in a heavy blanket to keep off the worst of the chill, then strap her to the talon once more.

The rest of the flight was cold, long, and miserable. Laith hugged the valleys and passes, trying to keep them low enough that the ridgelines would hide them from pursuit, but not so low that they all got dead. The flier knew his business, but it was dark and they were belly-to-the-dirt. Valyn could see the cracks in the boulders, the small caches of snow secreted beneath the stones. A single mistake from Laith would leave them all smeared across the side of some granite cliff.