Elvenbane (46 page)

She had a terrible thought.
And am I supposed to be Shadow’s reward
?

Then, after the shame, anger again, but this time cold and calculating. She stared at the brook sparkling cheerfully in the sunlight, a complete contrast to the darkness inside her.

She could tell him to go take a long hike, she thought. She could tell him that she and Keman were going one way, and he and Shadow could take any other route they chose so long as it wasn’t the same one. She ought to do just that. It would serve him right—

But he was right about one thing; the plight of the halfbloods and the humans with wizard-powers. If she went along with this, it would give
her
the power to start doing something about the situation. After all, ties did work both ways. If this handfasting tied her to Shadow, it also tied Shadow to
her
. And by his own admission, tied her to Valyn. She would be constantly in his company, one way or another. He might come to regret having tied her to his cousin, in fact…

And he did have power she doubted he even guessed, power to make a very real difference in the way humans in general were treated, even before any revolt could take place. Valyn was Lord Dyran’s son and heir. Valyn could, if he chose, have the ear of many more lords, and as important, their heirs.

The younger elves were far more flexible than their elders, and there were some who had not yet lost their ideals. There were far more who simply disagreed with their elders
because
they were older and the ones in power.

It was possible that the sons could be induced to take up the cause, even threaten to revolt over this issue…

From what Keman had said, that was one of many possibilities. Some of the younger sons—and possibly daughters, from what
she’d seen
—were perfectly ready to take up almost any cause, so long as it meant their own particular grievance might also be addressed.

With Valyn to act as their spokesman, it was quite likely that they would be able to attract quite a few of these disaffected youngsters… And those that didn’t bring their own agenda, might be induced to join from sheer boredom.

The turn of her thoughts astonished her, so much so that for a moment she even forgot her anger at Valyn. Since she’d been in the Citadel, she’d learned politics, she thought wryly. That was certainly something she’d never understood before. An awful lot of what the dragons did back at the Lair had begun to make sense. Their politics never got half as complicated as the machinations in the Citadel. And from everything Keman told her,
that
didn’t begin to compare to politics among the elves.

So Valyn wanted to play with politics, did he?

All right. If he could get Shadow to agree to go along with this, she would, too. But this “handfasting” was going to be in name only, no matter what Valyn thought. And before too long, Valyn was going to be sorry he wasn’t in Shadow’s place.

She turned back to him, clenching her teeth into the semblance of a smile, and gave Valyn her answer.

ONLY THE HINT of red where there should have been nothing that color warned Shana that there was something wrong in the valley below and behind them.

And suddenly she had an uneasy feeling, a feeling that it might be better
not
to try a mage-sight scan of the valley. Kalamadea had something to say about that, too.

If the elven lords know that someone might be “watching” for them with inner eyes, they invariably lay spell-traps for those with mage-sight. Such traps lie completely dormant until the touch of a probe activates them
—
then a spell of coercion seizes the watcher in bounds few have been able to break, holding him entranced and unconscious until the elven lord can retrieve his prize at his leisure. Of all our number, only a handful can successfully spring these traps or break the coercion-spell in time to save the victim
—
or themselves. And that was only accomplished with much study and practice. I hope that I never need to put my knowledge of these things to the test
.

:Keman
?: she said urgently.
:What was that flash of red down in the valley? Can you use heat-sight to see if it was just animals or birds
?:

The young dragon was perched on the rockface above her, shape-changed just enough to look like rock. With the elven lords following them, Shana had deemed it a good idea to check their backtrail from time to time.
:Is that what I think it is
?: she asked, hoping he would say “no.”

:-It’s elves, Shana
,: Keman replied.
:At least, I think it’s elves. They have horses, and most humans aren’t allowed to ride
.:

She closed her eyes and tried to remember if she’d muddied the trail down there in the valley enough to confuse their pursuers for a while. Was there a stream down there?

Yes, she decided. There had been. And since they were all already soaking wet, she’d elected to have all of them walk upstream for a good long way to break the trail. So they had a little time.

But not much. And not enough for the bit of a rest she craved…

:I think we should get out of here
,: Keman offered.
.-Fast
.:

:I think you’re right
,: she said grimly.

Valyn reported another hunting party close behind them—but not the one Shana and Keman had spotted. This one had an elven mage with them, it seemed… one who was using his limited powers to “read” their trail. Valyn had only detected him by “feeling” the magic behind them, and going personally to see what it was.

A foolhardy move, or so he knew
now
. At the time, it had seemed sensible.

“Are you sure they didn’t see you?” Keman asked, while Shana tightened her lips and looked annoyed at him. He knew what she was thinking. If he’d been spotted…

But he hadn’t been, he thought with annoyance of his own. He was a better mage than the underling on their trail. In fact, now that he thought about it, she should have been
glad
he took the initiative like that.

“I wasn’t seen, and I wasn’t close enough to
be
seen,” he replied crossly. “I’m not an infant. I’ve hunted before—”

“But
you’ve
never been the quarry,” the girl interrupted. “How far behind us are they?”

“Not by much,” he muttered uneasily. “But I covered our trail. He’ll never read it through what I laid down.”

“But he’ll read the fact that someone muddled it with magic,” she retorted. “I just hope he won’t find it again for a while.” She looked up at the leaden sky, and rain dripped down her face from the continual drizzle. “And I hope this stuff takes care of any other kind of trail we leave.” Then, without another word, she shoved a dripping branch aside and turned down a game trail that was heading mostly north. Valyn hesitated a moment, then followed her, Shadow right on his heels, Keman bringing up the rear, his feet shape-shifted into deer hooves to confuse their tracks. And hopefully, their trackers.

He had wanted to protest that they needed to rest—but that was two sets of hunters they’d eluded now, and he wasn’t sure how many more might be out here. Neither, evidently, was Shana.

This was not just for hunting children. Cheynar would never have committed more than one party for that. This was for
wizard
hunting—Cheynar knew, or guessed, that the children hadn’t escaped on their own. And if he assumed there were wizards in their full powers out here—

Valyn’s blood ran cold. There would be no quarter, and no escape, if Cheynar could help it.

Cheynar already disliked humans; where wizards were concerned, “hatred” was not an adequate term for what the elven lord felt. And as for what he’d do when he caught them—

Valyn tried to move a little faster.

Shana closed her eyes and thought of the harsh, scorching heat of the desert sun, of the soothing warmth of her bed at the Citadel, trying to conjure up a little of that to ease her wretchedness now. She failed completely.

They huddled together in soggy misery under the meager shelter provided by a fallen tree and a lean-to of pine boughs. All of them except Keman, that is; he had shape-shifted to something very like a small dragon, while Valyn had watched in fascination. Shana was used to seeing him shift; Valyn and Shadow had only seen it once—and at the time, they had been too overcome by shock to think about the mechanics of shape-changing. Neither of them had realized that Keman’s “clothing” was part of him until he reabsorbed it this second time, just before the shift itself. They had gawked while she had gathered material for a shelter, and for a little bit her resentment at being the only one working had been enough to keep her warm.

Now Keman lay along the top of the log, watching for predators, keeping a mental eye out for their pursuers, perfectly comfortable, with his metabolism adjusted for the cold, and the rain sliding off his scales. And the three of them huddled together on the ground beneath him.

Wistfully, Shana wished for the same power. As the last into the shelter, she had gotten her clothing completely soaked; she shivered despite the nearness of the other two. In fact, she was too miserable to appreciate Valyn’s proximity. She rubbed a nose that felt numb, and coughed, an ominous tickle in the back of her throat heralding more misery to come.

Mero sneezed, and rubbed
his
nose with the back of his hand.

“Are you all right?” Valyn asked his cousin anxiously. Shana suppressed another cough and a glower. But her annoyance rapidly melted beneath her general misery, and she had to fight back tears of self-pity. She didn’t want to give way
now
. She had spent a great deal of time and effort on appearing tough and capable. There was no point in destroying all that work by resorting to weakness and leaking tears—

Even though she really wanted to break down and cry right at the moment; she was freezing and wretched and she had the feeling she was about to come down with something awful—and Valyn was worried because his stupid cousin had sneezed once.

“I think I’m getting another cold,” Mero replied in a gluey voice; and under other circumstances Shana might have felt some sympathy for him, for he sounded as if he felt just as awful as she did.

“Shana—” Valyn said without turning (mostly because he couldn’t; they were wedged in so tightly that none of them could move). “Shana, can’t we do better than this? We can’t afford for Mero to get sick, not now, not with Cheynar practically on top of us.”

That again. As if she wasn’t fully aware of it every waking moment and most sleeping, with a feeling of claws and fangs closing in and ready to rend her in pieces if she once closed her eyes. Fear was such a constant presence at her shoulder that she tasted the metallic flavor of it in her food, and her heart raced every time she heard a noise she couldn’t readily identify. The equal fear in Valyn’s voice was not enough to mollify her—he wasn’t thinking of anyone but Mere, he wasn’t even paying any attention to the fact that
she
was sick, too.

“No,” she said shortly, her temper finally shattering and falling to bits. “No, we can’t. This is the best I could do. Everything I’ve learned has had to do with attack and defense. I’m sorry, but nobody ever taught me how to conjure up shelter out of nothing.”

She would have said more, but a coughing fit interrupted her, and Valyn craned his head around to look over his shoulder at her, his expression of annoyance turning to concern.

“Are
you
all right?” he asked. She shook her head, and shivered even harder as a trickle of cold water ran through the pine boughs and down the back of her neck. Despite her determination to show no weakness, to her complete mortification, she
did
start leaking tears out of the corners of her eyes.

Maybe they’ll look like rain
, she thought hopelessly. “I’m probably coming down with the same thing,” she said around the lump in her throat. “And I don’t think the weather is going to break for a while.” Now she couldn’t keep resentment out of her voice. “You elves are to blame for that—every time you muck around with the weather patterns somewhere, it throws something else off. This place has no business turning into a rain forest, but that’s what’s going on, and we’re stuck in the middle of it.” Valyn looked startled at her sudden outburst; she recollected herself, and softened her voice, putting an effort into sounding a little less accusatory. “At least Cheynar’s not going to get around very fast in this mess.”

She managed a tremulous smile, and got the tears stopped. Valyn frowned as she coughed again, her chest tightening painfully.

“We can’t afford to have
you
sick either,” he pointed out, gently. “Cheynar’s not that far behind us. If you’re sick, who’s going to hunt, find the camps, and guide us through this place?”

“I don’t think anybody’s going to have a choice,” she retorted. “And if I could magic up a big house with warm beds and hot drinks, don’t you think I would?”

The thought started another tear down her cheek—its path was the only part of her that felt warm.

Valyn’s jaw clenched, and he stared at her closely. “You look awful,” he said. “And my guess is that Shadow’s fevered. You’re
both
going to be ill before nightfall.”

And just what am I supposed to do about it
? She retorted in thought.
And what difference is it going to make
?

Apparently it made some difference to Valyn. “That’s it,” he said decisively. “We don’t have a choice, we need to get out of here and back to someplace civilized.”

“Right,” she replied, with an edge of sarcasm to her voice. The rain increased marginally; just enough to send another cold spill down through the branches onto the back of her neck. “I’ll just stroll up to Lord Dyran’s door and ask him if he’ll please take us all in. After all, he should be overjoyed to see us; his renegade son, two halfblood wizards and a dragon.”

To her surprise, Valyn half smiled. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he said, his sweetly reasonable tone setting her teeth on edge. “But it is close. There’s an old saying about the best place to hide being in the enemy’s territory. So—let’s try it.”

“You mean—double back on Cheynar and try to hide with the slaves on his estate or something?” she asked, aghast. “We’d never get away with it!”

He shook his head. “That’s a little
too
much of enemy territory—and besides, Cheynar has too many experts in detecting wizards. I think we ought to drop in on a friend of mine. The estate is within flying distance for Keman. If we went by night, he could ferry us one at a time without being seen. She’s just the kind that’s likely to take us in and hide us, just for the sheer thrill of harboring fugitives.”

“A friend?” Shana replied, her voice rising until it caught on a cough. She wondered if Keman was listening to all this, and if he thought it as suicidal as she did. “What kind of friend would take
us
in? Or are you not going to tell her what we are? I’ll warn you, after talking to Shadow I don’t think Keman and I are going to pass close inspection as either humans
or
elves. You’ll never pass us halfbloods as elves if we’re sick, because you elves don’t
get
sick that often, and if we’re fevered you can bid farewell to any deceptions that we’re human. We won’t be able to hold the illusions—and
your
magic can be dispelled, and will leave telltales.”

“Well—she’s not precisely a friend.” He flushed, and Shana got an odd feeling that there was more about this “friend” than he would ever tell anyone. “But—well—I can almost promise Triana won’t turn us in to the rest. She’s not what I’d call a conformist, and she doesn’t treat her humans the way most everyone else does. She’s not exactly in good graces with any of the elders—the only reason they don’t come and confiscate the estate is because she never meddles in politics.”

She wasn’t a conformist? Which probably meant she did things she shouldn’t.
Ah
! That might explain the flush. Shana’s mouth twitched involuntarily, and she fought down a surge of jealousy.

Valyn paused, as if searching for the right words. “Let me see if I can make this clear to you. The elders opposed her becoming the head of the Clan so much that she’s never forgiven them, and she hates the Council as much as they are contemptuous of her.” He paused again to think. “I don’t know exactly how she’s going to react to seeing halfbloods, but I do know this much; she socializes with her humans, everyone in her personal household is young, and I’ve never seen her mistreat or condition a slave. Yet most of them are fanatically devoted to her, at least the ones I’ve seen.”

“She sounds too good to be true,” Shana said dryly.
The ones you’ve seen
—
one wonders about the ones you haven’t seen
.

Valyn coughed and flushed again. “I have to admit that I’ve also never seen her really bestir herself for anyone or anything except her own pleasure. The truth is that she spends most of her time thinking up pastimes. And her parties are—ah—notorious. I’ve—been to a few. The reputation doesn’t even begin to cover the reality.”