Fires of Aggar (32 page)

“I want to thank the two of you.” Gwyn started at the sound of Llinolae’s voice. “I feel safe. Regardless of how premature that feeling may be… well, it seems a very long time since I could last say that. Thank you.”

With a silent toast of her tea, Gwyn acknowledged the gratitude. But it was the quiet richness in Llinolae’s tone that brought Gwyn’s smile out. “You’re sounding less hoarse, looking less bruised. The rest and fire has done you good already.”

A rueful brow arched high as those icy blue eyes lifted from the sandwolf. “Can I withhold judgment on the bruises until morning?”

“That bad?”

“Yes and no.” Llinolae shifted a bit against the hard rock behind her. The thin blanket wasn’t much of a cushion for her back or tail bone. “I’m just getting stiff again.”

“Still certain nothing’s broken?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Llinolae answered with a little amused reassurance.

“Would a back rub help?”

Ril’s head came up, ears perked forward — as surprised as her Amazon was by that abrupt offer. And judging by the Dracoon’s sudden stillness, it seemed that the usual implications were not lost on Llinolae either. But it had undeniably been Gwyn’s voice that had done the asking; she supposed she should at least try to act like it was a rational idea. Though, it didn’t feel like one. She saw her hand was fairly steady in holding the tea mug and noticed gratefully that her embarrassment hadn’t flushed her skin much darker than its usual golden tan. The silence stretched, and she chanced a glance at the Dracoon, trying to remember that this was the Dracoon of Khirlan and that she was the Royal Marshal here on official errand — which didn’t seem terribly relevant at the moment. With a faint strain, she cleared the dryness in her throat and elaborated, “It might help. Th-there’s some creamed mint in my saddlebag. I admit I usually use it as a salve for the horses when they pull a tendon or such, but it’s pretty useful on people as well.”

“Ah-ha!” Llinolae’s soft smile reappeared. “There’s the drawback. Just how bad does this stuff smell, Marshal?”

Gwyn caught the teasing sparkle in the other’s eye, and a grin started to tug on the corners of her own mouth. “Not bad at all. Do you want to try it?”

“If you’re still offering — please!” And at Gwyn’s nod, Llinolae began slowly — stiffly — to unwrap herself from both sandwolf and blanket.

As Gwyn rummaged through her pack for the salve, however, she thought she heard the woman mutter something to Ril about ‘having accepted less eloquent propositions’, and her sense of humor rose. Given how sore her companion was, anything but a massage was truly a deranged fantasy. The tension in Gwyn’s stomach unknotted with her faint chuckle, and she returned to the fireside waving a tiny jar triumphantly.

It appeared that Llinolae too had shed her own trepidations — much more easily than her shirt, given her stiffness. With an almost naive eagerness, she prompted, “Where do you want me?”

“Face down on the bedding would probably be best.” Gwyn fed another pair of rolled logs to the fire. “Are you going to be warm enough?”

Llinolae paused in bundling the tunic into a pillow, frowning faintly at the damp chill in the air. Her skin had already darkened enough to obscure the tan lines at her throat and wrists. Despite the fire’s heat, there was a persistent updraft atop this rocky plateau.

“Here! Try this while I…,” Gwyn tossed the discarded blanket at Llinolae as she was hurrying back to her packs.

A broad grin split her face as Gwyn spun about with a pair of woolly, leather-soled stockings held high in hand.

“My slippers?” Llinolae exclaimed in astonishment. “Why would you… no, of course. Your sandwolves needed my scent from something.”

“Hope you don’t mind much? I had to paw through your things a bit to get them.”

“No,” Llinolae laughed, delighted. “I don’t mind at all!”

It was better when the short trousers, her bare shins and bare feet were finally covered. The fire seemed toasty and nearer as well. Together everything allowed a bruised, tired body to lie down and be about as comfortable as possible on a haymoss mattress. Gwyn settled gingerly on her knees, straddling Llinolae’s hips yet worried about those sorer muscles. “Tell me if I get too heavy for you.”

“You’re fine,” Llinolae asserted, although the words came out muffled against the tunic linen and were almost swallowed again by a sudden yawn.

Laughing gently, Gwyn opened the creamed mint. “You’re not allowed to fall asleep yet — I haven’t even started.”

Llinolae made some inconsequential little sound of reply which promptly dissolved into a long moan of sheer relief as Gwyn’s hands began.

“So now you can tell me,” Gwyn murmured, “how’s the cream smell?”

A purring, wordless assurance answered her, and pleased, Gwyn started to relax as her own body fell into the slow rhythm of stretch and pull. Her hands tingled cool and then grew warm as the salve was absorbed. Llinolae purred again, the cream’s cool-hot touch beginning to ease even the worst of her stiffness.

And Gwyn continued. Her palms slid, slick and strong along the length of Llinolae’s back. Her long fingered knuckles patiently ground through the tension, only to open again as her touch gentled and soothed the cool cream into the purpled bruises. She concentrated, the smoothness and softness of the woman beneath her luring Gwyn’s focus into the single-minded purpose of healing. She found the tenseness of an ache beneath the soft, satiny skin. Her fingers pressed and played, coaxing tightness into unfolding like the slender kiss of the sun’s ray opening a flower. Then she moved on to find the next tangled knot, then the next.

Slowly, the shining cream and caramel of skin blended beneath Gwyn’s hands. Llinolae’s skin tones grew deeper, richer… darker like a stained wood grows to shimmer when caressed with oil.

A sigh escaped her companion and Gwyn smiled fondly. Her hands went on in their steady, patient dance.

“You truly will put me to sleep soon,” Llinolae mumbled, her words nearly slurred by her body’s trance.

Gwyn leaned low, her hand kneading upwards to a little kink between Llinolae’s shoulder and neck. She paused to brush a dark cluster of curls away from Llinolae’s check, then kept working. Her own smile grew at the peacefulness she saw in Llinolae’s face. Quietly she challenged, “Would that be bad?”

“Hmm, Gwyn… would what be bad?”

A single hand kept playing its rhythms while the other sought the ground to brace Gwyn as she bent even nearer. Tenderness crept into her tone as she asked again. “Is it so bad for you to fall asleep?”

A smile tried to curl in answer, but the lethargic, caring magic had taken its toll. In truth, Llinolae was already sleeping.

Gwyn brushed a feather-light kiss across Llinolae’s cheek and carefully moved away. She drew the blanket up to cover the bared skin and found herself lingering a moment or two. Feeling foolish all of a sudden, she remembered her packmate and glanced at Ril who was stretched out by the fire. The sandwolf arched her head back questioningly at Gwyn’s sudden attention to her.

With an unembarrassed shrug, Gwyn admitted she didn’t quite know how to explain that impulsive action. But then she was suddenly smiling, because she did know, and Ril’s warm compassion was there, thrumming softly along their packbond. “Just because she called me Gwyn for the first time… for the very first time.”

And it had sounded so sweet.

What’s wrong with it?” Llinolae asked, perplexed as Gwyn once again abandoned a quite adequate-looking trail which descended over the gorge edge. Ril hadn’t even bothered to scout down the path. In fact, the sandwolf hadn’t been doing much scouting of any kind in this slow, morning trek of theirs. But the Marshal was concentrating with a distracted scowl, searching the ground with its jutting rocks and straggly tree roots and didn’t seem to hear any of the Dracoon’s questions. So, Llinolae sighed and resigned herself to the presence of some mysterious trail markings and nudged Calypso onwards.

The gorge edge was actually more akin to a cliff face, and from a topographical standpoint, it would have been more apt to call this Great Forest a forest of steps. The floor of the gorge below them was very nearly at sea level, and in fact, it extended with a few gentle rolls east all the way to the Ramains’ Plains which did border the western seas. The forested cliffs here began a jagged ascent which was intermittently leveled by plateaus until the very broad wastelands of the Clans’ lands were reached. West beyond that were only rough, mountainous peaks which eventually plunged into the depths of the southern Qu’entar, forming a very formidable and uninhabitable eastern seacoast.

Gwyn stiffened suddenly. Llinolae reined in Calypso, watching mutely as Ril went racing forward. A wild pripper clamored upwards, chattering and scolding in a fluster of panic at Ril’s quick pounce over a slender tree root. The sandwolf buried her nose in a patch of fern and froze.

Llinolae glanced curiously at Gwyn, acutely aware of some soundless communication that these two used. But the Amazon was as unmoving as her packmate. Abruptly, Ril bounded off along the gorge edge ahead, and Gwyn broke into a cheerful grin.

“Ty’s been here.”

As if that answers everything, Llinolae thought with amusement. But as she obediently sent Calypso trotting after Cinder she remembered the third member of Gwyn’s bondpack was Ty.

“There it is!” Gwyn pointed ahead.

Llinolae peered, still puzzled, and finally had to ask, “There what is?”

“The tree that marks descent to the Shea Hole.”

The information didn’t clarify much. Although the honeywoods here weren’t anywhere as massive as the ones set further back from the cliff edges, the pillars of red bark and haymoss were still sturdy sizes. Sturdy and anonymous sentries. They offered Llinolae some vague sense of stoic strength, but there was scarcely anything more identifying about each as individuals.

“See… where Ril stands? The two limbs were knotted and then grew upwards again.”

Not such a surprising thing, given the spring winds these honeywoods were subjected to so close to the gorge edge. But as Gwyn pointed again, Llinolae did make out the gnarled signature. The limbs in question were thigh width, each of them… meaning they’d either been very convenient trail markers or this place of refuge the Amazon was taking her to had been in existence for more than a hundred tenmoons!

“Whenever you see this sort of knotted limb in the Great Forest, my Sisters have left a trail to safety,” Gwyn explained quietly. She halted Cinder beside Ril, dismounting and giving the sandwolf an absent pat as she studied the ground of unearthed stone that made up the gorge edge. She circled back and around to the far side of the honeywood, calling finally, “Aye, here it is. We’d best take it by foot.”

Llinolae swung off Calypso, relishing the cool feel of leaves and dirt beneath her bare toes. Gwyn had offered her an extra pair of socks, but until the rain stopped threatening, Llinolae wasn’t willing to risk drenched, woolen footwear; bare feet were infinitely preferable to that. Especially for her, since it left her unimpeded contact with the soil and so kept her bound within that encouraging strength of the life cycles surrounding her.

“Ril, you go first — horses second. We’ll bring up the tail.”

An odd arrangement, Llinolae thought fleetingly. But Gwyn was no longer distracted with trail markings and noticed her misgivings immediately.

“The footing may be a little washed out by the rains below. The mares need all they can get. You and me… well,” Gwyn grinned with a shrug, “we can scramble across much less if we have to. And Ril will make sure there’s at least enough for Cinder and Calypso without wearing much of it away herself.”

Llinolae smiled wryly. “You’re the guide. And I did promise to follow — even through Fates’ Cellars.”

Gwyn laughed. “You just never thought I’d lead off a cliff.”

“Well…,” Llinolae took a closer look at that dubiously narrow, steep path as it lay half-hidden by the tree beside them. “I suppose I should be more careful of my promises in the future.”

“Don’t fret. It’s only the first dozen steps that are the worst.”

“Which if I don’t make, I won’t have to worry about the rest. Right?”

“My point precisely.”

Llinolae glanced at Gwyn, catching the dance of mischief in those copper-bright eyes. An absolutely contagious mischief, she found, and she couldn’t help the lift to her own lips. “Lead on, Marshal.”

It took Gwyn only a couple of minutes to redistribute the small packs more evenly between Calypso and Cinder, making certain the bulk of the gear’s weight was secured forward over the mares’ withers. The stirrups were removed and strapped flat as well, to keep them from snagging on rocks or roots. Then Ril was padding off quickly, followed quite unquestioningly by the burly mares.

Llinolae watched the bulk and lurch of ruddy horseflesh disappear with an impossible twist. The illusion was very strong — that the animals had simply stepped over the cumbersome tree roots and off the cliff edge without so much as a whinny of protest. As she followed Gwyn, however, she saw the quick cutback into a rocky niche that literally widened to a wagon width beneath the overhang of the gorge edge.

“Who’d have ever thought this was here?” Llinolae marveled, running a hand over the smoothed bedrock beside them. The stone was damp from the recent rains, but above it was solidly dry, and she had no doubt that this passage could indeed have been in existence for more than a hundred seasons. She shivered, shaking herself abruptly in annoyance at that slight protest from her Sight — having spent most of her life in the stone fortress of Khirla, she had no patience for the Sight’s silly sensitivity to rock.

“It’ll be better in a few more steps.” Gwyn offered a gentle smile, then was busy concentrating on her own footing again. “Most of this path is as overgrown as any other in the Forest, but this top portion was hand-wedged from the rock.”

Llinolae nodded, seeing the ancient lines of chip and chisel now that she knew to look for them. As Gwyn spared her another brief, encouraging smile Llinolae’s stomach clenched tight, and she forgot the stonework completely. The disquieting feeling of… of wrongness was pressing again.