Mindbond (7 page)

“Perhaps the wolf is somewhere about,” I said, scanning the mountainside, more wistful than believing.

“I hope it has eaten horseflesh, then. Pigheaded animals. Can you track them, Dan?”

I tried. The terrain was rocky, the going rough. After an hour in which my mood soured to match Kor's, we sighted Sora's yellow hide near a slide of scree. She was pawing for vipers and rockchucks. But we could not see Talu with her, and the trail seemed to lead the other way. Kor went to get Sora, picking his way over boulders, and I followed Talu's traces around a shoulder of the mountain.

I went silently—it is the custom of the Red Hart to go silently always. Even bisonhide boots need not make noise. So when I heard the clatter of pebble on rock, heavy footfalls on a ledge above me where no horse could have climbed, I froze in the shadow of the crags, sure I had not been heard, and watched as a file of Cragsmen trudged down past me. Two, three, twice three, the hulking, bare stone-colored backs and shoulders loomed over me and passed on, heads stooped and riding those shoulders like mossy rounds of stone. They carried, as always, their massive clubs, and they were taking a twisting way downmountain, a way that might take them to the Blackstone Path, to—

Kor!

Standing exposed as he was near a slope of talus, waiting for me, and they would see him at once if they came anywhere near him. In no way could I reach him in time to warn him—I knew that even as I ran. And certainly I could not shout, for the Cragsmen might not yet be aware of either of us. But I was terrified for his sake, as frightened as a stripling once was with his mother gone, no one knew how or where, and his father good as gone, and I too old to weep, or so I thought.… I was shouting in my mind.
Kor!
There was nothing in me but panic and his name.
Kor! Kor! Danger!

Dan!
he answered me.

I heard it as plainly as if he had called aloud. So taken aback was I that I staggered and nearly fell, nearly went sliding down a snow gully into the arms of air.

Dan! What is it? Are you all right?

Too stunned to answer him in like wise, to tell him anything of peril or Cragsmen, I made no reply. But I could tell direction and distance by his soundless speaking, just as I could have by a shout. He was not where I had left him, but out of danger, off to one side and beyond a spine of rock. I turned toward him. In a few moments we met. Leading both our horses, he stood staring at me—by the looks of him, confounded. His mouth was moving without words, his eyes wide.

“You hailed me,” he managed to say. “Inside my mind.”

I nodded. I did not want to speak of what had happened—it harrowed me, thinking back on it, as much as the Cragsmen had. Kor was brave. He had my fear to bear as well as his own. Knowing that, I swallowed the terror that blocked my throat.

“You answered me,” I said hoarsely.

“For a certainty! How could I help it? You took hold of me like a flood tide.” A wry smile. “Why not? You always have.”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Don't be! Try it again.”

Violently I shook my head. I could not venture it ever again, or so I thought. It had been a happening too eerie, too—inward. Kor felt my fear and did not press me.

“What prompted you?” he asked instead.

“Cragsmen.” I gestured vaguely, not yet capable of explaining much further. “I thought certainly they would see you on that scree.”

“Talu was hunting in the spruces beyond Sora. After I had caught the worthless pair of them I went after you.”

We led our wayward mares back to the faint track that traversed the pass, found our campsite, and loaded the gear. It was quarterday before we mounted and set off westward again.

Downward through twisted spruce and blue pine, winding around crags and rocky ribs, all in silence, for we had much on our minds. But when we came to a point that overlooked the spires of the trees, Kor stopped to gaze, his eyes sparkling. “We are coming near my country,” he said.

In fact we had much farther to go, but the land had changed so that he felt near to home. Truly he was on his own side of the mountains again: cascades, cataracts, torrents everywhere, rushing like wind and singing and chiming like voices and clay bells, the many mountain waters, some of them mighty, some as fine as spiderweb, rippling down in shining strands from the high icefields, down over rocks and through forest to feed the Otter River far below and flow with the river to the sea. No arid plains in the distance here, no yellow pines and grassy parks. Instead there stood below us great forests of fir, dense, dripping with moss—the cataracts turned even the gray rock green with fern and moss. Farther down, near the rocky headland where Kor had his Holding, salt mists did the same. I saw him lift his head as he gazed, and his nostrils flared as if to scent the sea air, many days journey away—

Cragsmen struck at us from behind.

We should have been watching for them, listening for them, but there had been too much to think of, the day had thrown us off balance. And I, for one, thought we had outdistanced them, we with our horses. I had forgotten how long of leg Cragsmen can be, and tireless.… Only a scrape of stone, very close, warned me, and I swung around just in time to duck the blackwood club. And Alar was out of her scabbard as if of her own will, up and meeting the downcrushing arm before I had time even to shout.

“Kor!” Greenish blood splattered down on me. Club and giant hand fell with a thud by Talu's hooves.

Korridun was already embattled, wielding his sword faster than I could follow.

“By Sedna's bones, Dan, it is Ytan!”

With the Cragsmen, a yellow-braided, bare-chested Red Hart warrior, taller than most men, yet looking small amidst the giants. Still quite powerful enough to strike fear: Ytan, my brother demon-possessed. Blue eyes met mine, and he grinned, a warmthless grimace like that of a skull. He raised his bow, the bolt already nocked to the string.

“Aaa!”
I shouted, a wordless cry. I knew Ytan's skill. In a moment I would be wearing his arrow—

From somewhere close at hand a snarling sounded, a roar that rose above the roar of cataracts, and I saw a graysheen flash. The wolf flung itself down from the yet higher rocks, landing like a cat on Ytan's back and shoulders, tearing at his neck with deadly jaws. Ytan's arrow and bow dropped from his hands as he reached up to fend off teeth and claws.

“Get to him, Kor, and slit him open! I—can't.…”

Ytan was yet my brother, for all that a devourer held him in thrall. I could not kill him. Kor would have to do it.

“There is a—large lout—in my way, Dan.”

He was panting. I risked a glance and saw the enormous granite-gray foe who faced him. The hulks kept coming at us in spite of sword wounds and lopped hands, and there were a number of them, more than the six I had seen, all the stone colors. I faced one of dull red. He was old, his hair like so much frost on his boulder of a head, and he was a wily fighter. There was no thought in me, any longer, of Ytan. It was all I could do, even with the sword, to keep the Cragsmen from forcing me back. Our enemies had the advantage of height, their own great height plus a stance on the rocks. And behind us lay nothing but a sheer drop onto fir spires.

I saw Kor take a whistling blow that glanced off the side of his face. “Alar!” I cried crazily. “Zaneb!”

The swords were already doing all they could. But like an echo of my words there came an uncouth sound, a blast as of a bison horn strongly blown, and a great stag leaped over the rocks and rammed his antlers into a slate-blue chest. At his heels came two more nearly as mighty. The Cragsmen saw them and shrank from them, unnerved by the strangeness of it, I think, for Cragsmen are no cowards when it comes to blows. But that the deer of the forest should take battle against them, and in company with a wolf …

Ytan had torn the wolf off his shoulders at last, hurled it onto the rocks. Clubs struck—but it was quick, a shining flash, they had not yet hit it—

“Forward!” I bellowed, and Talu took me straight up the rocks with a surge. She could not wait to sink her fangs into the nearest Cragsman's throat. The fellow toppled before her like a downed tree. I made for another, sword upraised and the green-tinged blood dripping off it and rattling on the stones.

“Dan, you hotheaded fool!” I heard Kor cursing behind me. Then he was beside me, Sora bearing down on every foe before her, their blood streaking her yellow hide before it fell away in shards. Zaneb darted, a deadly raptor to meet—Ytan, the one who stood before him was Ytan.…

Battle fire burning in me, I shouted, “Take him, Kor!”

But the sword hovered by Kor's head. A moment of hesitation, and Ytan scrambled away, slipped into forest and vanished, leaving his bow behind him. The Cragsmen were unmanned, and fled in like wise. Three they left behind them, dead or groaning. Stags bounded after them, harrying their backs. Battle clamor echoed away into silence.

I sat, my sword dangling from my lowered hand, staring at Kor.

“You could have had him,” I said, for I sensed even then that killing Ytan would have saved a stoup's worth of trouble and peril later on. “Why did you let him go?”

“I could no more strike him than strike you, Dan.”

Battle fire cooling, it was as if haze drifted from my eyes. I saw my bond brother clearly, scarcely comprehending what he had said, knowing only that the side of his face was bruised black and streaked with blood, his brow cut open, one eye swollen shut. A thick red smear ran down from his nose and mouth. He was trying to stanch it with his fingers.

“Blood of Mahela,” I said numbly, vaulting down from Talu.

“No,” Kor retorted, “my own.”

With more haste than grace I went to him, slipping on mossy rocks, the mare trailing after me.

“He looks so much like you,” Kor said, veering back to the matter of Ytan. I no longer cared about Ytan. A pox on Ytan.

“Get down,” I told Kor, “and let me see to those cuts.”

I took him over by the nearest small torrent, laved the side of his face with the cold, clear water, eased it on with my hands until the bleeding had stopped and the swelling had come down somewhat. Kor sat and leaned against stone. I crouched beside him. The wolf came and stared at us for a moment, then trotted away with a liquid gait that flowed more gracefully than the cascades.

“But for the mien, you and Ytan might be twins,” Kor said.

That troubled me strangely. My hands faltered as I washed his wounds.

“Let them be, Dan.” He gently pushed me away, got up. “They're scarcely more than scratches.”

“Lucky to be alive, you are,” I grumbled at him.

“I! Who was it that blundered up here? Mahela take your cock, Dan, what a leap! You must be mad.”

It was a touchy business, getting the horses down to the trail again. Boulders give poor purchase for hooves. After we had accomplished it, with some swearing, I went back and found Ytan's bow, broke it, took his arrows for my own. The dead Cragsmen wore nothing worth looting. Kor and I rode on, shaken, alert for danger.

“Look,” I whispered once. Off to one side I had seen a flash of swift, bright gray. The wolf journeyed with us.

In my vision of Sakeema, months past, I had seen him ride a great stag into battle while the wolves followed at his heels. Now wolf and harts had fought side by side to aid us. It was of all things most wonderful, most unaccountable. There had been too many unaccountable happenings in the day.… A prickling feeling took hold of me, and I looked at Kor, his bruised face, his changing, sea-colored eyes. Sakeema, I thought, nearly shivering.

“Stop that,” Kor snapped.

I believe my heart held still, and I stared at him.

“You're the one who summoned up yon wolf! And I daresay Birc sent the deer.”

“And you're the one who has taken to hearing thoughts,” I said, my voice shaking.

He drew Sora to a halt and looked at me, his irritation gone. “Dan, you are so much a part of me …” His voice trailed away helplessly. “It frightens you,” he muttered at last. “Well, this ‘Sakeema' nonsense frightens me.”

I kept silence. We went on in silence.

“It began only today, the mindspeak,” Kor said after a while. “It fills me with wonder. Does it trouble you so much?”

The thought of Sakeema filled me with wonder. I had to smile. “We seem fated to be always at odds over something,” I said.

“Yes.” His voice, low, told me he was thinking of Tassida, as was I.

“And it has served only to make us stronger. I daresay I shall get used to it, Kor.”

We camped that night in an island of fir trees amid cascades. The place smelled of green, even in autumn, but the ferns made a yellow blanket under the trees, and the night was freezing cold—we built a fire. We spoke of keeping watch by turns, against Ytan, and decided against it, for every night has its dangers, perils of enemies, perils of wild beasts, perils of devourers. There would be no proper sleeping for anyone who thought always of the dangers. Moreover, we had journeyed far enough so that we judged he could not have followed us. We both lay down, and I slept soundly, under furs.

Sometime after the fire had burned down to embers I was awakened out of dreamless slumber with a jolt. Something was crushing down on me and encasing me, taking me into a smothering embrace before I could so much as shout an alarm. The night was all darkness, cold paplike swellings against my face and the feel of slime. A devourer had me in its clutch. Once again my arms were pinned, though this time less shamefully, against my chest. And the skins under which I slept protected me from its teeth, at least for a time. If only I could wriggle my fists up toward my face, even just a little, to make a space near my mouth—

The thing tightened on me when it felt my struggles. I truly could not breathe.

Kor!
I shouted within my mind. Surely one of the monsters lay on him as well, so I expected nothing of him—it was my terror that spoke. I called upon him as one might call upon the god, Sakeema, when in trouble. But at once I heard his drowsy reply.