Fires of Aggar (26 page)

“The sergeant has need of a new blade.”

Brit weighed that for a moment, then she nodded. “He can have his choice. There’s one in particular that should fit his reach well.”

“Thank you, Soroe.”

“Marshal—” Rutkins tried to protest through the hoarseness of his throat. But Gwyn silenced him with a gentle shake of her head. Their gaze met and held, then finally that scarred face winced in its half smile. Gwyn grinned right back at him.

“And where do you go now?” Brit reclaimed Gwyn’s attention softly. “To Churv? Or to find this Llinolae?”

“They’ll expect me to ride west for the capital, so I would prefer not to. And they can’t know that I’ve realized she’s not in Khirla or that she’s been caught.”

“You’ll go east then, after her?” Sparrow guessed, knowing the answer before Gwyn spoke.

“I must. From what Rutkins tells me, this Steward will be ambivalent in paying any ransom. Llinolae won’t last long in their hands, once they know there’ll be no profit from it.”

“East then,” Brit agreed. Her grey eyes squinted as she considered the possibilities. “All right, we’ll deal with the armory. Then as soon as it’s safe, we’ll follow you. There’s a half-burned village sou’east of here — Diblum. It’d be a good venture for traders, and it lies on the route we’d take for the southern continent. We can disappear from there more easily than here.”

“After that, how do we find you?” Sparrow pressed with sudden concern. “Gwyn, there’s a lot of forest to get lost in, once we’re off the road. And the Clan will be all over the place.”

“She’s right,” Rutkins interrupted. “They control most of the Great Forests to the north and east now. They might risk one wagon of tinker-trades passing, especially if you’ll do some fair tradin’ with their scouts and seem to be open enough about everything. But the North Road up to the Suiri is a long, well-watched route. Sure as the Fates’ Jest, they aren’t goin’ let a Marshal through there — or anybody with a Marshal.”

Gwyn smiled very faintly as she tipped her head and looked to Brit. “Shall n’Shea again hide us from the hunters, Soroe ?”

“The Shea Holes, you mean?”

Puzzled, Sparrow glanced at Brit, then remembered the story Gwyn had told of the n’Athena Sisters whom the Clan had once hunted — trying to keep those Sisters from leaving the Clan’s settlement and reaching Valley Bay. The healers n’Shea had come south to hide their Sisters in the Shea Holes. Well, Brit wasn’t n’Shea, but she was a healer. “Still,” Sparrow felt wary and asked, “That was a very long time ago. Is there anything left to use?”

Brit nodded. “A few places should be as sound as ever.”

“Aye,” Gwyn nodded. “Brit, the Virgin’s Nest would be accessible to the wagon. You should even be able to reach it without using the North Trade Road.”

“Fair choice. Then we’d meet in what? Two ten-day, at the most?” Sparrow watched as Brit found a smile, despite her obvious distaste for the use of the Shea Holes. “I admit it’s an excellent thought, Gwyn’l. You’re invoking that intrinsic wisdom of the Niachero, I see.”

“Doubtless,” Gwyn shook her head at the teasing and Sparrow grinned. As always, Brit could keep their sense of humor in tact.

Gwyn turned then and Brit drew her close in a strong hug. From behind her shadowmate, Sparrow extended a hand to Gwyn’s, and the Niachero took it in a warm grasp. For a long moment they stood like that, until reluctantly Gwyn drew back, facing the fact that it was time for her to leave them.

Her gaze fell to Rutkins. She tried a smile. “Tend yourself well, my friend.”

Rutkins offered a pained grin of his own in return. “Sound advice for both of us. Mother’s Wind ride with you, Marshal.”

“With us all,” Gwyn amended.

But as the Niachero left them, Sparrow felt a coldness clutch at her heart. Memories flooded her briefly; so many hadn’t come back. She moved closer to Brit, and her beloved wrapped a reassuring arm about her. Sparrow found it helped — a little.

Despite the clear scent Ril and Ty took from Llinolae’s slippers, Gwyn had feared that setting out nearly seven days behind the Dracoon’s patrol might prevent her bondmates from ever finding the route taken. But the sandwolves had not been idle in their roamings of the past few days. They had acquainted themselves with most of the human and horse scents of the easterly departures, attending most especially to those along the less traveled routes. And before the morning’s fog had even lifted, they’d identified two of the most likely patrols. Gwyn kept moving east towards the Clan’s Plateau as her packmates split to follow each one of the trails. Eventually — somewhere — the riders of those patrols would have to dismount and camp, and at those points the presence or absence of the Dracoon’s individual scent would be discernible. Early that afternoon Ril’s empathic sense of triumph summoned Ty in and together they circled back to lead Gwyn to the proper trail. At that point, their race truly began.

The next few days brought Gwyn memories of the summer they’d spent with Jes and Brit in the Changlings’ Wars. Halts were brief, rest usually half of what was needed, and intuition played as large a role as skill in the hunt. The sandwolves persistently found the traces of riders and mounts, while Gwyn studied her maps to deduce directions and plots. Then with the guidance of her packmates, Gwyn made use of the animal trails to skirt the curves and bends of the roadways to save leagues and time. Her own ability to switch between her three bays, to alternately place each of the sandwolves up on the supply pillion and so allow them to rest as they continued to travel, and the sheer stamina of her Valley Bay mares all combined to let the group move at an almost impossible pace.

Days melted into the bluish-grey veils of the Twin Moons’ nights unnoticed, their small band pressing on through the depths of the Great Forest and caring only for the distance devoured.

And then in the twilight of the fourth day, the vast spires and arches of the honeywoods sang with the eerie howl of a sandwolf’s tragedy. The air split again as that stuttering yelp stretched into the long, wailing note of a lone mourner.

Gwyn dropped the tether line over the mossy remains of a giant root and kicked Cinder about as her sword whipped from its saddle sheath. And then they were racing through the woods. A half-hidden rock schism sent Cinder jumping without warning to Gwyn, but they hit the ground beyond in balanced unison, barely breaking stride. Ducking, dodging, dropping to the saddle side and righting again, Gwyn stuck like a burr as the mare continued to lung and tear through the gaps of fallen boughs and hanging mosses. A blur joined them, and Ril matched stride to gallop as again that death keel rang.

The underbrush crackled and broke as Cinder skidded abruptly to a stiff-legged halt. Sunlight spilled into the clearing through a gaping hole in the forest’s canopy. Charred lines streaked the trees’ bark. The stream water had become a putrid, foaming gray from ashen clumps of burnt moss. Amidst the small craters of blasted earth and the churned pockmarks of horses’ hooves, Ty sat with her mighty head pointed skyward, and her sandy eyes closed against the pain as yet another wail loosed.

Ril moved forward to her bondmate, tentatively nudging Ty’s shoulder. The yelping broke into a small whine of choked sorrow, and Ty turned to bury her face in her packmate’s thick ruff. In bleak silence, Gwyn returned her sword to its sheath and stepped down from the saddle. She took in the savaged campsite about her, and tears began to gather in the corners of her own copper eyes.

The tattered remains of two shaggy horses bloodied the far edge of the scarred space; the forest’s scavengers had been busy with them. The glinting bits of sword steel were mixed in with the black of overturned soil and embedded in the wood of splintered roots — a daunting reminder of the power in the Clan’s fire weapons.

At the edges of the devastation, Gwyn saw scraps of leather and a wisp of blue fabric. It leant sparse comfort to know that at least one of the Steward’s Swords had resisted the betrayal enough to die.

Senses dulled and numb, she slowly turned until she saw the bodies of two women. Half-burned, half-buried, the cook and scribe lay in the center of what once had been a fire pit.

Images rose from that dreamspun vision and Gwyn remembered the young woman with Llinolae. There had been such innocence in her desire.

Somehow in the corral — between Llinolae’s fading consciousness and Gwyn’s own struggle to break their contact — the Niachero hadn’t quite recognized whose deaths she had been witnessing in that lifestone’s vision. But now, as she stood beside the fallen women, Gwyn began to feel the loss of those comrades — through Llinolae’s eyes… through Llinolae’s heart.

The Clan raiders hadn’t even finished the cremation properly.

“You didn’t deserve this,” Gwyn whispered, the mourning chords of grief rising within her. “None of you deserved this.”

Behind her, the two sandwolves lifted their heads in unison, and their wailing song began again. Tears came to wet her cheeks. Her voice joined in the chorus.

“I don’t care that you don’t like it!” Gwyn hissed in muted fury, and immediately Ty dropped flat in a pleading submission. The leather of cinch and strap went snap. The last of the supplies and excess equipment were now secured to Nia.

Ril’s paw lifted tentatively as she leaned forward from where she sat. Gwyn’s glance cut her short and she froze in mid-motion.

“Not a single protest! Not one more, do you hear me?” Gwyn rasped in a quiet, hushed voice. But the power of her unswerving refusal thrummed along the wordless line of their pack bond like a crack of thunder. “Strategy is my role and I say we split forces! It’s my decision! Support me or leave!”

Worriedly, the two sandwolves looked to each other, but there was no indecision between them. Ty remained prone. Ril eased herself down in clear acceptance of the terms. They’d not desert her, especially not in this reckless mood of hurt and anger. The risks of this sort of impulsiveness, they understood well; it was simply seldom they’d ever seen it in their human packmate. The last time Gwyn had been like this was after the men-cats’ attack in the upper pasture lands and her sister, Kimarie, had gone missing — but even there Gwyn’s plans had not failed them. No, taking risks because of emotional involvement was perfectly justifiable to them; it was not grounds for breaking a pack bond. They didn’t quite understand why Gwyn was so intensely wound up in this venture now, but they didn’t need to. They only needed to trust her and hope her plan — to send Ty in one direction and take Ril in another — was going to be successful, despite the risks.

“Thank you.” The black tips of their ears perked out of their thick curl coats. Their expressive brows wrinkled hopefully at her softened tone. Gwyn turned to them then, a crooked smile chiding herself as she admitted, “I couldn’t do this without you, you know.”

Ty graced her with a tongue lolling, panting grin and grunt which uncannily mimicked a human’s chuckle. Ril gave Ty a rebuking glare for that ill-mannered display, then heaved herself to her feet and offered Gwyn a gentler reassurance with a nudge of her nose.

“So—” Both sandwolves quickly grew attentive at Gwyn’s familiar down-to-business manner. “We have to try tomorrow night. With the single moon setting early, more than half the night will be in darkness. If there’s any chance of getting in and out in one piece, it’ll be then. After that it’s a matter of getting them to go in one direction, while we take another down to the Shea Hole. Which is what you and Nia will be doing, Ty. If you can get Nia far enough up the road towards Clantown to lay prints going north, there’s a good chance we can get them to believe Llinolae stole a mount and fled for the Council’s Keep instead of home.”

Gwyn paused and took a deep breath. “At least, they should think so. It took her maybe seven days to get this far north with hard riding on a single mount? And it’s nearly another day’s northeasterly travel up the plateau to Clantown from where they caught her? Yes! They should follow you and Nia. With a good horse and staying to the old Trade Road, she’d out-race them. She’d reach the Keep within five days.”

Ty cocked her to the side, weighing the idea.

“The gear Nia’s carrying now is about the weight of a single rider — that should help. Stay to the Trade Road for about a day, before you let Nia circle back through the woods. That ought to give them enough of a trail to convince them. Though if Nia can’t manage or if rain sweeps in, break off when you have to. Just stay cautious when you guide her back west! The sooner you both get down into the gorges, the better it’ll be. All right?”

Her tattered ear flicked briefly, a habit of Ty’s when she was considering something. Then her teeth snapped shut decisively, and her nose dipped quick in that sneeze-like nod.

“Good.”

Ty’s sandy eyed gaze shifted questioningly between Gwyn and Ril.

“Aye, I’ll still let Ril guide,” Gwyn promised grimly. “I won’t set foot into town until she’s scouted it thoroughly. You have my word.”

“But, when I go in,” Gwyn faced Ril and pressed, “I’ll need a legitimate distraction — preferably one which scatters the horses and makes it more likely that Llinolae could have stolen one! And you’re going to have to manage to do it with as few prints as possible.

“The last thing we want them thinking about is sandwolves and marshals!”

Ril shifted to lean a little against Gwyn’s leg reassuringly. She’d manage.

“All right then, let’s get out of here.” Gwyn bent swiftly to give them both a hug, then hesitated and went to one knee to face Ty. “You take care of yourself… and Nia.”

Ty touched her face lightly.

“Aye, in four days.”

Dawn came with a misty fog. It found Gwyn making camp in the shady cavern beneath the moss strewn roots of a particularly ancient honeywood. Cinder and Calypso only begrudgingly agreed to leave the moist over-hangings alone and accepted the grain rations instead. Gwyn endured a bland, cold meal herself; she was determined that neither torn moss nor fire smoke would betray them to any roving Clan sentries.