Raven's Shadow (3 page)

Tier had never actually met a Traveler before. But he was well used to dealing with frightened young things—the army had been filled with young men. Even tired and wet as he was, he knew better than to address those words head on—why would she believe anything he said? But if he didn't get her under shelter, sharing his warmth, she was likely to develop lung fever. That would defeat his entire purpose in saving her.

“Good even, lady,” he said, with a fair imitation of a nobleman's bow despite the weight of the heavy saddle. “I am Tieragan of Redern—most people call me Tier.” Then he waited.

She stared at him; he felt a butterfly-flutter of magic—then her eyes widened incredulously, as if she'd heard something more than he'd said. “I am Seraph, Raven of the Clan of Isolda the Silent. I give you greetings, Bard.”

“Well met, Seraph,” he said. Doubtless her answer would
have conveyed a lot to a fellow Traveler. Maybe they'd even know why she addressed him as
bard,
doubtless some Traveler etiquette. “I am returning to Redern. If my map is accurate—and it hasn't been notably accurate so far—Redern is about two days' travel west and north of here.”

“My clan, only Ushireh and I, was traveling to the village we just left,” she returned, shivering now. “I don't know where Ushireh intended to go afterward.”

Tier had been counting on being able to deliver her back to her people. “It was just the two of you?”

She nodded her head, watching him as warily as a hen before a fox.

“Do you have relatives nearby? Someone you could go to?” he asked.

“Traveling clans avoid this area,” she said. “It is known that the people here are afraid of us.”

“So why did your brother come here?” He shifted the saddle to a more comfortable hold, resting it against his hip.

“It is given to the head of a clan to know where shadows dwell,” she replied obscurely. “My brother was following one such.”

Tier's experience with mages had led him to avoid questioning them when they talked of magic—he found that he usually knew less after they were finished than he did when he started. Whatever had led the young man here, it had left Seraph on her own.

“What happened to the rest of your clan?” he asked.

“Plague,” she said. “We welcomed a Traveling stranger to our fires one night. The next night one of the babies had a cough—by morning there were three of ours dead. The clan leader tried to isolate them, but it was too late. Only my brother and I survived.”

“How old are you?

“Sixteen.”

That was younger than he expected from her manner, though from her appearance, she could have easily been as young as thirteen. He shifted his saddle onto his shoulder to rest his arm. As he did so, he heard a thump and the saddle jerked in his hold. The arrow quivered in the thick leather of the saddle skirt, which presently covered his chest.

He threw himself forward and knocked her to the muddy ground underneath him. Holding her still despite her frantic battle to free herself of him, a hand keeping her quiet, he spoke to her in a toneless whisper.

“Quiet now, love. Someone out there is sending arrows our way; take a look at my saddle.”

When she stilled, he slid his weight off of her. The grass was high enough to hide their movements in the dark. She rolled to her belly, but made no further move away from him. He rested a hand on her back to keep her in place until he could find their attacker in the dark. Her ribs vibrated with the pounding of her heart.

“He's two dozen paces beyond your horse,” she whispered, “a little to the right.”

He didn't question how she could see their attacker in the pitch-darkness of the forested night, but sneaked forward until he crouched in front of Skew where he held still, hoping that the mud that covered him head to toe would keep him from being a target for another arrow.

He glanced back to make certain that Seraph was still hidden, and stifled a curse.

She stood upright, her gaze locked beyond Skew. He assumed she was watching their attacker. Her clothes were dark enough to blend into the forested dark, but her pale hair caught the faint moonlight.

“Seraph,” said a soft voice. It continued in a liquid tongue Tier had never heard before.

“Speak Common,” answered Seraph in cold clear tones that could have come from an empress rather than a battered, muddy, half-grown girl. “Your tongue does not favor Traveler speech. You sound like a hen trying to quack.”

Well,
thought Tier,
if our pursuer had intended to kill Seraph, he'd have done so already.
He had a pretty good idea then who it was that had tried to put an arrow in his hide. He hadn't seen that Lord Wresen carried a bow, but there might have been one in the man's luggage.

“I have killed the one who would hurt you,” continued the soft voice.

Tier supposed that it might have appeared that he'd been
killed. He'd thrown himself down half a breath after the arrow hit, and the saddle and blanket made a lump on the ground that with the cover of tall grass might look like a body from a distance.

“Come with me, little one,” Tier's would-be killer said. “I have shelter and food nearby. You can't stay out here alone. You'll be safe with me.”

Tier could hear the lie in the man's words, but he didn't think Seraph could. He waited for the man to get close enough for Tier to find him, hoping that Seraph would not believe him. After spending two silver and four copper on her, as well as missing his dinner, Tier had something of an investment in her well-being.

“A Raven is never alone,” Seraph said.

“Seraph,” chided the man. “You know better than that. Come, child, I have a safe place for you to abide. In the morning I'll take you to a clan I know of, not far from here.”

Tier could see him now, a shadow darker than the trees he slipped between. Something about the way the shadow moved, combined with his voice, gave his identity to Tier: he'd been right; it was Wresen.

“Which clan would that be?” asked Seraph.

“I—” Some instinct turned Wresen before Tier struck, and Tier's sword met metal.

Tier threw his weight against the other man, pushing Wresen away to get some striking distance between them—where Tier's superior reach would do him some good.

They fought briskly for a few minutes, mostly feeling each other out, searching for weaknesses. The older man was faster than Tier had expected, but he wasn't the only one who'd underestimated his opponent. From the grunt Wresen let out the first time he caught Tier's sword, he'd underestimated Tier's strength—something that was not uncommon. Tier was tall and, as he'd often been teased, slight as a stripling.

By the time they drew back to regroup, Tier boasted a shallow cut on his cheekbone and another on the underside of his right forearm. The other man had taken a hard blow from Tier's pommel on the wrist and Tier was pretty sure he'd drawn blood over his adversary's eye.

“What do you want with the girl?” asked Tier. This was too much effort for a mere bedmate, no matter how Wresen's tastes ran.

“Naught but her safety,” insisted Wresen. The lie echoed in Tier's ears. “Which is more than you can say.”

He made an odd gesture with his fingers, and Tier dropped his sword with a cry as it became too hot to hold.

Wizard,
thought Tier, but neither surprise nor dismay slowed him. Leaving his sword where it lay, Tier charged, catching the other man in the stomach with his shoulder and pushing both of them back into a mass of shrubs, which caught at their feet.

Wresen, unprepared, stumbled and fell. Tier struck hard, aiming for the throat, but his opponent rolled too fast. Quick as a weasel, Wresen regained his feet. Twice Tier jumped and narrowly avoided the other's blade. But he wasn't a fool; unarmed, his chances weren't good.

“Run, Seraph,” he said. “Take the horse and get out of here.”

With luck he should be capable of holding her pursuer long enough that she could lose him in the woods. If he could keep him busy enough, Wresen wouldn't have time to work magic.

“Don't be more of a fool than you can help, Bard,” she said coldly.

The other man swore, and Tier saw that Wresen's sword had begun to glow as if it were still in the blacksmith's fire. Steam rose from his sword hand as he made odd gestures toward it with his free hand. Wresen was no longer giving any heed to Tier at all—which was the last mistake he ever made.

Tier pulled his boot knife out of the man's neck and cleaned it on the other's cloak. When he was finished, he looked at Seraph.

Her pale skin and face were easy to find in the darkness. She reminded him of a hundred legends: so must Loriel have stood when she faced the Shadowed with nothing more than her song, or Terabet before throwing herself from the walls of Anarorgehn rather than betraying her people. His father had always said that his grandfather told him too many stories.

“Why choose me over him?” Tier asked her.

She said, “I heard him at the inn. He was no friend of mine.”

Tier narrowed his eyes. “You heard me at the inn as well. He only helped the innkeeper add coppers—I bought you intent on revenge.”

She lifted her chin. “I'm not stupid. I am Raven—and you are Bard. I saw what you did.”

The words were in Common, but they made no sense to him.

He frowned at her. “What do you mean? Mistress, I have been a baker and a soldier, which is to say swordsman, tracker, spy, and even tailor, blacksmith, and harness maker upon occasion—and doubtless a half dozen other professions. But I make no claim to be a bard. Even if I were, I have no idea what that has to do with you. Or what being a raven means.”

She stared at him as if he made as little sense to her as she had to him. “You are Bard,” she said again, but this time there was a wobble in her voice.

He took a good look at her. It might have been rain that wet her cheeks, but he'd bet his good knife that there would be salt in the water. She was little more than a child and she'd just lost her brother under appalling circumstances. It was the middle of the night, she was shaking with cold, and she'd held up to more than many a veteran soldier.

“I'll dispose of the body,” he said. “Neither of us will get any sleep with him out here attracting carrion-eaters. You get out of the rain and into dry clothes. We'll talk in the morning. I promise that no one will harm you until morning at least.”

When she was occupied getting her baggage out of the cart, he led Skew to the body and somehow wrestled the dead man onto the horse's wet back. He had no intention of burying the man, just moving him far enough away that whatever scavengers the body attracted wouldn't trouble them. It occurred to him that Wresen might not be alone—indeed, it would be odd if he were because noblemen traveled with servants.

But all he found was a single grey horse tied to a tree about a hundred paces back down the trail and no sign that another horse had been tied nearby.

Tier stopped beside the animal, and let the body slide off Skew's back into the mud, sword still welded to his hand. Skew, who'd borne with everything, jumped three steps sideways as the body fell and snorted unhappily. The grey pulled back and
shook her head, trying to break free—but the reins held. When nothing further happened the horse quieted and lipped nervously at a bunch of nearby leaves.

Tier rifled through the man's saddlebags, but there was nothing in them but the makings of a few meals and a pouch of silver and copper coins. This last he tucked into his own purse with a soldier's thrift. He took the food as well. There was nothing on the body either—except for a chunky silver ring with a bit of dark stone in it. He deemed the ring, like the horse and the man's sword, too identifiable to take, and left it where it was.

In the end, Tier found no hint of who Wresen was, or why he'd been so intent on getting Seraph. Surely a mage wouldn't have the same unreasoning fear of Travelers that the villagers here had.

He took his knife and cut most of the way through the grey's reins near the bit. When she got hungry enough she'd break free, but it wouldn't be for a while yet.

By the time he rode back to camp, Tier was dragging with fatigue. Seraph had taken his advice; he found her huddled under the tree.

A second oilskin tarp, bigger and even more worn that his, increased the size of their shelter so that he might even be able to keep his feet dry. His saddle was in the shelter too, the mud wiped mostly off. He rummaged in the saddlebags and changed to his second set of clothing. They weren't clean, but dry was more important just now.

Seraph had turned her face away while he changed. Knowing she'd not sleep for the cold on her own, nor agree to snuggle with a stranger—especially not in the present circumstances, he didn't bother to say anything. He wrapped an arm around her, ignored her squeak of surprised dismay, and stretched out to sleep.

She tried to wiggle away from him, but there wasn't much room. Then she was still for a long time while Tier drifted into a light doze. Some time later her quiet weeping woke him, and he shifted her closer, patting her back as if she were his little sister coming to him with a scraped knee rather than the loss of her family.

He woke to her strange pale eyes staring at him, lit by sunlight leaking through morning clouds.

“I could have used this on you,” Seraph said.

He looked at the blade she held in her dirty hands—his best knife. She must have been into his saddlebags.

“Yes,” he agreed, taking it from her unresisting hand. “But I saw your face when you looked at our dead friend last night. I was pretty certain you wouldn't want to deal with another dead body any time soon.”

“I have seen many dead,” she said, and he saw in her eyes that it was true.

“But none that you have killed,” he guessed.