Star of the Morning (47 page)

There was no one else there.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to continue to breathe evenly. Anything could have happened to her. She could have been lying where he couldn't see her, senseless, or dead, or carried off beyond his reach. There were any number of mages infesting not only the keep but the woods surrounding the keep, mages who would have taken her and . . .

He let out his breath slowly. He couldn't rescue her if he were dead, so the most sensible thing to do would be make certain he remained alive.

Sensible sounded so much more reasonable than frankly terrified at the thought of what could have befallen her, which he was.

He quickly assessed his situation. His knives were both still down his boots and two others were still strapped to his back—not that he could have reached either set. The only bright spots in the gloom were that he still had all his magic, safely buried as it was inside himself in an impenetrable well capped with illusion and distraction and that the lads in front of him weren't paying him any heed.

He kept those lads in his sights as he focused on his hands, working the rope against the bark of the tree and finding the knots less secure than he would have dared hope. The hiring of his guards had been poorly done. If he had been in the market for the like, he would have invited his potential guardsmen to tie a knot or two and examined their work before entrusting them with anything more complicated than securing a bed-roll to a saddle—

The rope gave way without warning. He froze, partly because he didn't want to reveal what he'd just managed to accomplish and partly because the pain of blood rushing back into his hands was so intense, it rendered him immobile. He closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing evenly until his hands stopped throbbing enough that he could think again. And once he could, he turned his mind quickly to how best to escape.

Fortunately, luck was with him. The lads were so involved in their conversation, they still weren't paying him any heed. Then again, they hadn't paid heed to the mage standing just outside the circle of their torchlight either.

Damn it anyway.

It was Amitan of Ceangail who stood there, watching silently. Ruith held out no hope that his bastard brother hadn't seen him. He was only surprised Amitan hadn't already plunged a knife into his chest.

Then again, that might have been because it would have been deflected by the spell of protection Ruith suddenly realized he was covered by. It was, he had to admit, a rather elegant thing—and fashioned from Olc, if such grace were possible from that vile, unwholesome magic. Given that he certainly hadn't provided the like for himself, he had to wonder who
had
. Obviously someone wanted him alive and unharmed.

But who?

He supposed he could at least eliminate from the list his half brother who swore at him before he strode out into the light cast by the fire. The men spun around, their hands on their swords.

“Oy, what do ye want?” the largest of the three demanded, with an admirable amount of fierceness.

“Tidings,” Amitan said shortly, jerking his head in Ruith's direction. “Who captured that one?”

“Can't say,” the first said stubbornly.

“Can't, or won't?” Amitan asked in a low, dangerous tone.

The second stepped up to stand shoulder to shoulder with the first. “I don't see as that matters, friend, do you?”

“It matters,
friend
, because I demand the answer. And if you have two wits to rub together, you'll give it to me before I reward you for your refusal, a reward you will find very unpleasant indeed.”

The lads stood firm, but Ruith imagined they were beginning to regret having taken on such a task to begin with. He couldn't blame them. He had his own very vivid memories of countless encounters with his elder half brothers. They were, to a man, unpleasant and without mercy. He supposed he could concede that they were justified in their hatred of him and his siblings—given that he was certain they had looked upon them as usurpers—but he'd suffered enough as a child thanks to their abuse not to feel compelled to extend any undue understanding their way now.

“There was a woman with him earlier,” Amitan pressed on relentlessly. “Where is she?”

The third elbowed his way to the front of the group. “Sold her to traders, did His Lordsh—”

Ruith watched as his companions jerked him backward and shouted him into silence. He wasn't sure if it was because Sarah's fate had been revealed or if the man had been on the verge of unwittingly revealing who had them.

He would have given much to have known both, truth be told.

He continued to keep his hands behind his back as he listened closely to Amitan and the men carrying on their discussion in increasingly belligerent tones. He quickly looked around him for a convenient escape route, then noticed something he hadn't before.

The spell he was covered with was sporting a great rent in itself, as if someone sliced through it.

Yet he was still breathing.

He would have considered that a bit longer, but he was distracted by Amitan beginning to lose his patience.

“I don't care about the traders from Malairt!” he shouted. “I want to know who hired
you
and why he wanted you to guard that
thing
over there.”

The third of the group, the mouthiest by far, told Amitan in the most detailed of terms just what he could do with his questions.

That man crumpled to the ground quite suddenly, either dead or senseless. That seemed to bring the other two to a spirit of cooperation they hadn't enjoyed before.

“I don't know who the mage was,” the second blurted out. “In truth. He just gave us orders to keep watch until he returned. Said that man there was a lord's brat who needed tending.”

“What did this beneficent lord look like?” Amitan demanded.

“I couldn't look at him,” the first answered promptly. “He was all darkness.”

“But that could have been anyone!” Amitan thundered. Ruith had to agree. Given the nature of every bloody soul

inhabiting the keep up the way and the surrounding environs, the description could have applied to anyone within a thirty-league radius.

But why would darkness have wanted to keep him whole?

He considered that quickly as he watched the escalation of hostilities in front of him. Amitan was demanding that the guardsmen bring Ruith to him; the remaining two were refusing just as adamantly. It said something, perhaps, about the man who had hired them, that they were terrified enough of him to choose facing down an angry mage over facing his wrath later.

Amitan cursed them, then turned and flung a spell at Ruith.

Ruith rolled away from the mysterious rent in the spell of protection, more than willing to use something not of his own making to save his own sweet neck. Amitan's spell was absorbed easily, then it gathered itself into something quite different and hurtled back toward Amitan. It slammed into him with the force of a score of fists, then encompassed him from head to toe.

Amitan began to scream.

Ruith wasted no time in making his escape. He shoved apart the spell, dove through it, then rolled up to his feet, drawing his knives as he did so. The pain of that almost sent him to his knees. He looked at his palms in surprise only to find them covered with blisters.

He would have given that more thought, but he was too distracted by watching the spectacle of Amitan clawing at his face, trying to remove what had attached itself to him. Ruith winced as Amitan staggered about the glade, making altogether inhuman sounds of agony before he dropped to his knees. There was something about that spell, something he thought he likely should have a closer look at—

He shook off the thought. He had no time for anything but finding out where Sarah had been taken. He took a firmer grip on his knives, ignoring the pain of his ruined skin, then turned a fierce frown on the remaining guardsmen who were gaping at him as if he'd been the cause of Amitan's suffering.

“Where did the traders go with the woman?” he asked shortly.

They lifted their hands, then, as one, slowly pointed to the south.

“Fair enough,” Ruith said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. “If I were you, I would hurry away and hide somewhere you think you won't be found. Because that,” he tilted his head toward Amitan, “will be the least of what's coming.”

The men looked at each other, then turned and bolted.

Ruith would have followed them in like manner, but it occurred to him that there might be answers to be had that would make his journey quicker. He resheathed his knives, then turned to his bastard brother who was now lying on the ground, panting.

“Who survived the fall of the keep?” he asked.

“I wouldn't tell you . . . if my life . . . depended on it,” Amitan gasped.

Ruith was unsurprised. Though he would have much preferred to have had a tally of what had now been loosed into the world, he didn't have the time to wait until Amitan was in enough distress to unburden himself.

“Help . . . me,” Amitan wheezed.

Ruith actually considered it, even though the little stinging things Amitan had tossed at him whilst he'd been captive in Ceangail's great hall were still quite fresh in his mind. Unfortunately, he possessed nothing—or, rather, nothing he would use—that would counter what had taken his half brother in its painful embrace.

“I think you'll need a mage for what ails you.”

Amitan looked at him with naked hatred on his face. “I'll find you . . . and kill you.”

“I imagine you'll try,” Ruith agreed.

Amitan struggled against the spell that seemed to be wrapping itself ever more tightly around him. Ruith wasn't above seeing a black mage come to his own bad end, but he wasn't one to enjoy overmuch the watching that journey there. He started to walk away, then paused.

“There appears to be one end of the spell near your left boot, brother,” he conceded. “I think if you could reach it, you might be able to unravel the whole thing.”

Amitan wasted a goodly amount of energy condemning Ruith to a score of different deaths, each more painful than the last, before he apparently decided he would be better off saving his breath. Ruith left him to it.

He left the camp in a southerly direction, following the tracks of a handful of horses. He hadn't gone twenty paces before what had struck him as odd before presented itself as slightly more than odd.

Someone had made a rent in that spell of protection. He was willing to bet his knives that maker of the spell and the maker of the rent were not the same mage. But if that was the case, who had slit through that spell, and why?

He leaned down absently to adjust one of the knives stuck down the side of his boots only to find the answer.

The spells, pages from his father's book of spells, that he had rolled up and stuck down his boots were gone.

He turned immediately and strode back to the camp. It cost him precious time, but he forced himself to look methodically through everything. He ignored the continuing shrieks of his bastard brother as he rifled through the packs the guardsmen had left behind and searched all about the tree where he'd been bound.

The spells were gone.

He started to curse, then felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Someone was watching him from the shadows.

He straightened his knives, furiously weighing his alternatives. Sarah was captured and carried off to who knew where, he was being stalked by something he might be able to name with enough time, and his magic was buried, which left him unable to address either problem easily. But if he released his magic and someone took it, he would be unquestionably powerless, which would leave Sarah alone, unprotected, unable to fight what he was quite sure would be hunting her.

Then again, perhaps the fact that he was still breathing said something about who was following him. Apparently he was worth more to that mage alive than dead, which led him to wonder if perhaps his unexpected benefactor intended to follow him and take his magic at a later time.

That left him with only one choice. He would find Sarah, then remain as attractive a prize as possible until he could get them both somewhere safe—hopefully before the mage in question tired of his sport.

He left Amitan trying to bring his foot up toward his face where he could presumably take hold of the end of the spell with his teeth, then walked off toward the south, looking for tracks. There were two sets: one made by horsemen and the other made by a single man.

That single set of tracks would eventually lead him all the way back to his own house where he could shut his door on things he didn't care to look at anymore. It was the road he had taken as a lad of ten winters when he'd had been seeking only refuge from the storm.

But he was no longer a lad of ten winters and he had taken on a quest willingly, knowing that it would lead him into a darkness he knew all too well. Only now that quest included a woman who had relied on him for protection and been repaid with harm.

He turned away from a path he wouldn't have seriously considered and started quickly down the other because the truth was, the quest was no longer just about finding Sarah's ridiculous brother and stopping him from trying to make magic far beyond his capabilities. He had himself loosed things in Ceangail's keep that would need to be contained, he had lost spells that could wreak untold damage on the world, and he had failed to hold on to a woman whose only error in judgment had been desiring to do good.

And to trust him.

He would give her no reason to regret that trust in the future. Once she was found, he would seek out the closest safe haven for them both where they could hide until she was rested and he had unraveled a mystery or two. Perhaps by then he would have had the time to consider just who might have protected him with magic whose main purpose was to destroy.