Path of Fate (23 page)

Buoyed by the thought, Reisil straightened in the saddle and pinned the brooch on her collar, uncowed by Upsakes’s glowering looks or Juhrnus’s expression of disgust.
We will fledge together.
And she was still a tark.

She said good-bye to Odiltark, thanking him effusively.

“And tell Elutark I will see her again. Soon as I am able. Nor will I forget to bring you something from my travels.”

“Bright journey to you. And we will see you when we see you. Sooner rather than later, I hope.”

O
diltark’s cottage nestled on a hillside north of Priede. Ceriba’s trail went south along the river before turning deeper into Patverseme. Between lay the sprawling trading town. It had long ago been a frontier fort in Patverseme’s expansion northward. Now its gates hung open, intermittently guarded by a mix of militia-men in ragged uniforms and guardsmen too decrepit for any other work.

The group of rescuers passed through the gates with Kebonsat in the lead. Nothing the knights wore revealed their identities. All marks of heraldry had been left behind or packed away. In tall boots, leather breeches, heavy cotton shirts, oilskin cloaks, and plain scabbards, they looked like any other blank shields.

The streets threaded through a mazelike warren of disreputable shops and apartments boasting furtive doors and sly shutters. Sewage ran in trickles down the sides, dammed here and there in stinking lakes and putrid puddles. Reisil found herself gagging on the stench and pressed her hand over her mouth and nose. Saljane mantled, her head swiveling back and forth. A high, aching sound came from deep in her chest. Reisil laid a reassuring hand along her
ahalad-kaaslane
’s back.

The small group proceeded in silence through the warehousing district, an industrial area where the cartwrights, carpenters and smiths plied their trades, on down along the docks where they’d landed the night before and out through an unmanned postern gate, though the gate itself had gone missing. Reisil scanned the river for Voli’s flat-bottomed boat, but he’d already unloaded his cargo and found another. She stroked her fingers over Saljane’s smooth head. Likely she wouldn’t see Voli again.

A strange, bittersweet smile curved her lips. Her new life was a trade-off. If she hadn’t become
ahaladkaaslane,
she might never have met him, and she was glad she had. But her life would also bring too many good-byes.

She glanced down at Saljane, who returned her regard, white brow appearing arched as if asking a question.

~
How fare you?
Reisil queried.

There was a feeling of disgruntled frustration.

~
You’ll not fly for a week or more, and then not far. You were brave. Did I tell you so? I am proud of you.

Reisil found herself grinning at Saljane’s radiating pleasure, that her
ahalad-kaaslane
recognized her courage, that she took pride in her. She nipped Reisil’s fingers affectionately.

Beyond Priede was a chessboard of farm and forestland, filled with the soothing twitter of birds and crickets. Reisil found herself relaxing, despite the knotty gait of her mountain horse. She breathed deeply of the mist-dampened air, redolent with mustard and nettle and pine.

Koijots met them half a league along, stepping out of the bushes. He leaped with liquid grace onto the spare chestnut Glevs had been leading. He reported to Kebonsat in a low voice. Upsakes urged his mount forward, his face a study of concentration, but Kebonsat did nothing to include him. Koijots soon concluded and nudged his mount forward, Kebonsat falling into frowning silence.

Koijots had tracked the kidnappers’ trail from the river, and by early afternoon they arrived at the place where the captors had cached their horses. The cropped grass, horse droppings and firepit indicated they had waited for several days. The kidnapping had been planned well in advance.

Sodur helped Reisil down, steadying her. She could hardly stand. Her wounds burned and her legs wobbled. She forced herself to walk off her stiffness, eating the soft cheese and nutty flatbread from Odiltark’s oven standing up.

“The trail leads west, as expected,” Kebonsat was telling Upsakes, who had his arms crossed over his barrel chest and his blocky chin thrust out.

“Your pet wizard tells you this, eh?” he sneered.

“Koijots is no wizard. He does not have any affiliation with the guild. He is a tracker. “Kebonsat kept his voice carefully neutral, but Reisil saw the muscles of his jaws knot.

“Hmmph. Doesn’t make what he did with that logjam anything else but wizardry. Can’t trust ’em. Minions of Pahe Kurjus, he said, naming the Demonlord.”

Reisil gasped and glanced furtively over her shoulder. Others did the same. To name the Dark Lord out loud was to call him forth from his netherworld of fire and night, torment and suffering. The wizards were said to worship him, that he was the source of their magic. Reisil thought of Mysane Kosk and believed it.

Kebonsat turned first white, then red. His fingers flicked toward his sword hilt. He flexed his hand, forcing his hand away with effort.

“Koijots is my sworn man,” he said in an icy, flat voice. “If he serves the Dark One, then so do I.”

Upsakes didn’t look away from the unyielding challenge on Kebonsat’s face, his jaw working as if he’d say more. Reisil tensed. At last the square-faced
ahaladkaaslane
muttered something and looked away. Kebonsat gave a jerky nod and pivoted on his heel, striding over to check his saddle. Resil let go the breath she’d been holding. Glevs glowered at his friend’s back, gripping his own sword with a white-knuckled hand. After a moment he pulled his hand away, then spat, nearly hitting Upsakes’s foot. The
ahalad-kaaslane
glanced sharply at the Patversemese knight, then deliberately turned his back. Glevs took a step after him, but Koijots caught his arm and led him into the trees.

Reisil fed Saljane another dose of the sleeping nectar before mounting again. Kebonsat kept the pace slow, for her sake, she knew. But though his face remained expressionless, his bay gelding caught his mood and worked himself into a lather, jolting forward in eager leaps and bursting hops. Yet even with the slow pace, by evening Reisl had rubbed the inside of her knees raw on the saddle. The wounds on her face made it nearly impossible to chew her supper, and the wounds on her ribs allowed only shallow breaths.

The next morning her companions gave her all the rest they could, saddling the horses and packing the camp while she slept. She ate her cold sausage sandwich breakfast in a blurry haze, her body screaming protest at being back in the saddle.

~
Are you hungry?
she asked Saljane, inwardly scolding herself for not thinking of her needs sooner.

~
I ate.

Reisil caught an image of Sodur with a skinned rabbit, slicing off strips for an eager Saljane.

~
That was kind. It should have been me.

Reisil projected a feeling of apology and remorse. ~
You are hurt. He is not.

~
I am your
ahalad-kaaslane.

~
I hurt you.

Now Reisil felt Saljane’s emotions rush over her in thick, black waves. They tumbled over her in cresting surges A torrent of grief, guilt and self-doubt. Saljane was young, Reisil realized, trying to hold herself still in the buffeting torrent. Young and inexperienced, despite her raptor confidence and metallic resolve. She thought bitterly of those first moments together, those first wildly loving moments. If only she’d accepted Saljane then . . . She drew a breath and sighed. Water under the bridge. Regrets would not help now. Now she must look to the future. They
would
fledge together in many ways. They would teach each other and care for each other.

~
We hurt each other. We didn’t mean to. We won’t again.

~
We are
ahalad-kaaslane.

Reisil heard the tentativeness in Saljane’s mindvoice even as the bird affirmed their pairing. She winced. She knew she was at the root of this alien uncertainty. Saljane could not yet trust Reisil, could not believe she would not suddenly change her mind. Time. It would take time, and remembering to feed her when she was sick and hungry.

~
We are
ahalad-kaaslane, she repeated, resolving to stop regretting what was irretrievably lost.

Saljane burrowed down into the basket, tucking her head under her wing. Like a child, Reisil thought. Trusting in her parent to protect her in the dangerous, helpless night. She swallowed around the hard lump that rose in her throat. A gift indeed. She sent the Blessed Lady a quick and heartfelt prayer of gratitude.

The morning passed uneventfully, if slowly and painfully. The muscles of her legs knotted and twisted. The sores inside her knees broke and bled and dried, then cracked open again. Adding to her misery was Juhrnus, who had unaccountably come to ride beside or behind her as the trail permitted. He aided her dismount at the nooning, bringing her bread and cheese with yellow slices of sweet onion and tender watercress.

She leaned against the trunk of a papery-skinned white birch, eyeing him over her lunch, making no effort to disguise her suspicion. He sat stiffly, dropping heavily to a log. His sisalik hissed and gouged his claws into Jurhnus’s wrist to steady himself. Reisil smiled as Juhrnus yelped and dropped his food onto the forest mat. But the loving expression on his face as he soothed his
ahalad-kaaslane
with a low croon astounded her.

Reisil polished off her lunch, then fumbled in her pack for a disinfectant salve and cheesecloth. She eyed the ointment and bandages Odiltark had given her. She could wait to change her bandages until the evening, she decided, suppressing the voice in her mind that told her to change them immediately.

“Where do you think you’re going?” demanded Juhrnus, blocking her passage as she retreated into the privacy of the undergrowth.

“Is that your business?”

He crossed his arms smugly across his chest. “Upsakes assigned me to you. So you
are
my business, little sister.”

“Assigned you to me?”

“Since you’re so new to being
ahalad-kaaslane
and all. And he and Sodur have better things to do than shepherd you. So do I. Course, if you’d bonded with your goshawk when she first came to you . . .” His sneer made Reisil want to kick him.

“Well then, if you’re going to insist on tagging along after me like a little puppy, come on. I have saddle sores and I mean to take care of them. In fact, I can use your help, if you’ve got the stomach.”

He frowned and opened his mouth, but Reisil marched off as best she could on her sore, shaking legs. A watchdog. To keep her from making mistakes? Or to keep her from finding Ceriba?

She shook her head. Upsakes had made certain this rescue effort was well outfitted, and he’d reasoned the Dure Vadonis away from haring off after his daughter. Would a man who wanted to see an end to the treaty argue for the safety of the Dure Vadonis?

Reisil sighed. Upsakes was not at all likely to be a traitor. More likely, in fact pretty plainly, he just didn’t like her. He knew she’d refused Saljane’s first overtures, that she had not wanted to be
ahalad-kaaslane
. That alone would be enough to make him hate her. And then for her to help Koijots with that spell! No, if Upsakes didn’t like her, it wasn’t because she upset any plans to kidnap Ceriba and end the treaty between Kodu Riik and Patverseme.

She found a fallen tree and sat on it, setting her supplies beside her. Juhrnus halted a few feet away, watching her pull her trousers down. Reisil concentrated on the sores, determined not to let him bother her. She gasped as she bent and the wounds on her ribs pulsed fire.

Her trousers stuck to the sores and a whimper escaped her lips as she pulled the material free, her eyes watering.

“Those are pretty ugly. Like the ones on your face,” Juhrnus commented unhelpfully. “You’re going to scar bad, you know. Good thing you’re
ahalad-kaaslane
after all. Now you won’t be expected to get a man.”

Reisil gave him a disbelieving look. What he said was probably true. Brutally true. His lack of tact—or was it malice?—should not have surprised her, not after years of it. But somehow it did. As
ahalad-kaaslane,
shouldn’t he have been nobler? More mannerly? Not for the first time did Reisil wonder about Juhrnus’s choosing as
ahalad-kaaslane
.

Then the moment struck her and she began to giggle, and then laugh. Soon tears rolled down her cheeks and she grasped her stomach, the laughter jerking her stitched wounds.

The rest of her companions came running and now the situation seemed even more ridiculous. There was Juhrnus, looking dumbstruck, like a smug cow struck by lightning on a clear blue day. And she with her trousers around her ankles, blood seeping down her legs from her saddle sores, laughing hysterically.

Sodur rushed forward, alarm in his dark eyes. Upsakes eyed her with cold disapproval, while Kebonsat and Glevs looked askance from her to Juhrnus and then to the blood on her legs. Finally she gained control, taking deep breaths. She felt good. Oh, indeed, sometimes laughter was the best medicine!

“My apologies,” she said, hiccuping a little. “I have just been informed that my scars now make me so ugly I shall never attract a man again.” She looked at Juhrnus, who had the grace to blush and stammer something about not really meaning it. “Lucky for me, I am not particularly interested in attracting a man.” She thought of Kaval. “In fact, I’m completely and heartily not interested, so no need for anyone to feel sorry for me—if indeed you were inclined to do so.” The look she cast at Juhrnus was meaningful. “Of course, it calls into question why you might be trailing about after me. Perhaps you like ugly women?” Now she looked at Upsakes. “Or is it something else entirely?”

Ho! That made him mad. He hadn’t wanted her to know. She smiled again, a kind of joy running through her. This was almost fun.