Firewalk (39 page)

“Brother Santee has the crystal,” Kairi apologized. “As he represents the Orders here, he must contact them periodically. Tomorrow I will borrow it back for you.”

True to his word, Randon had taken his clothes and left the tent to Kayli and her sister. Kayli gladly exchanged her finery for her riding clothes while Kairi unbraided her hair, combed it out, and braided it again comfortably for riding. Sensing Kayli’s worry, and perhaps sharing it, Kairi kindly turned their conversation to more ordinary matters. She was eager to hear whatever Kayli would tell her of Agrond, and when Kayli recounted her swim in Randon’s forest pond, Kairi laughed and hugged her sister.

“Yes, I have submerged myself in the water many times,” she said. “And now it holds no fear for me. But to you it must be as terrifying as to me if I threw myself into the forge. You were very brave to do such a thing.” She sighed. “I dream of submerging myself in this great southern sea, surrendering myself to its might, to feel the purest power of water in this world.”

Kayli sobered, clutching her sister’s hand.

“Perhaps too much surrender to the powers we serve is not a good thing,” she said slowly.

Kairi sighed again.

“As you have learned. Well, you and I must content ourselves with dabbling our feet in the surf, so to speak.” She shook her head. “Sister, your anxiety is as contagious as late-winter sneezes. Come, let us find your horse and your husband before they both give up and leave without you.”

Randon was indeed waiting with the horses, his jaffs tied
properly,
and Maja and Carada were saddled, her bow and Randon’s crossbow already strapped to the saddles.

When Kayli and Randon met Elaasar, Nerina, and Danine and saw that only four of the Bregondish guards were going to accompany them on the hunt, Randon sent back all but four of his own guards, and the thirteen of them rode out onto the plains together. For some time they sighted no large game, although Danine sighted and shot a good-sized
chakene;
the bird went into the young girl’s game bag, and from time to time she reached back as she rode and patted the lump in the sack proudly.

Kayli was beginning to wonder disappointedly whether they would have to return to camp with nothing but Danine’s bird when her father held up his hand, halting the group, and gestured at a large clump of brambles ahead. Randon nodded immediately, but Kayli had to look long and hard before she spotted the telltale white flash of a tusk boar’s stubby tail among the thorns.

Nerina signaled to Danine to retire, and the disappointed girl rode back a short distance. Nerina, Elaasar, Kayli, and Randon moved their horses downwind, carefully positioned so they would not shoot across each other’s path. The other guards fell back with Danine, except for three who rode around to the back to flush out the boar.

Kayli knocked her arrow, breathing deeply; she smelled the distinctive musk of the male tusk boar on the wind, and that struck a note of warning in her mind. If she could smell the boar from this distance, he was in rut and easily angered. She glanced over at Randon, but he was intent on the thicket.

Apparently her father signaled the guards while Kayli was not looking, for their charge from the back of the thicket was marked by shouts and the thunder of hoofbeats, followed by an outraged thrashing from the brambles. To Kayli’s horror, not one, but
two
tusk boars, one male and one female, flushed from the thicket, squealing in anger.

Hunting strategy forgotten, Kayli loosed her arrow; to her dismay, it buried itself in the female’s thick neck instead of the vulnerable spot under the ear. At the same time Randon’s crossbow shaft struck solidly near Kayli’s arrow, and Kayli was certain that surely one had penetrated the great neck vein, but the enraged sow never paused, only turning on its most recent tormentor, Randon, who was now reloading his crossbow.

Without  thinking,  Kayli  urged Maja forward into the sow’s path. The mare responded as perfectly as Kayli could have hoped, drawing the sow’s attention, then dancing nimbly sideways while Kayli snatched another arrow from her quiver. Dimly she heard the shouts of the guards behind her, the sound of hoofbeats, the squealing of the boar, but her concentration had narrowed to the sow and the tip of her arrow. She fired, but Maja’s dancing caused her arrow to barely skim the sow’s hide and thunk into the ground instead. A scream from behind her—Kayli recognized her mother’s voice, and true fear leaped up in her heart. This time, despite her tension, she let the sow change direction and charge, and when she loosed her third arrow, the point buried itself solidly in the sow’s right eye, even as Randon’s crossbow bolt hit the spot under the ear. Momentum carried the sow forward to the ground where she lay, twitching slightly.

Randon’s horse flashed past, and Maja responded to Kayli’s slight shift in seat, turning so swiftly that the arrow Kayli was drawing nearly fell from her hand. As her horse turned, Kayli saw what prompted Randon’s haste—not  Nerina, but her father was on the ground scrambling for his dropped bow, his horse belly-gored and dying as the boar set itself for another charge.

This time Captain Beran interposed his horse, trying to distract the boar’s charge, but the boar found the man on the ground an easier target. Nerina loosed an arrow which would have pierced the heart but for the thick muscle of the boar’s chest, and this time the beast turned, charging her instead.

Randon struggled only a moment longer to reload his cross-bow, then flung it down with a curse and devoted himself to his riding. Carada dashed between the boar and Nerina’s horse, and the boar turned again; then Kayli’s heart stopped as Carada stumbled and nearly went down. In an amazing feat of horsemanship, Randon kept his saddle, but now the boar was at Carada’s very heels.

Two guards’ arrows thunked into the boar’s flank and shoulder, but now the boar had spied Elaasar again, and this time it ignored the horse that darted across its path—

Danine!

When Kayli saw the horse turn too sharply and the slight figure tumble from the saddle, all rational thought fled her mind. She knocked her arrow and fired it, simultaneously focusing her power upon it, and the flaming arrow struck the ground directly in front of the enraged boar’s nose, less than a dozen paces from her father.

Horses and arrows the boar might ignore, but fire, never. Now there was panic in the boar’s squeal as it turned, presenting its face and side openly to the guards. Half a dozen arrows slammed into the animal, and one struck a vital spot, for the boar slowed, shivered slightly, and fell at last.

Finished. Kayli took a gasping breath and realized that she was shaking, her bow dropped from numb hands. She slid from the saddle, bolting for Danine, who was already standing, brushing dirt from her trousers.

“Are you hurt?” Kayli asked anxiously, running her hands down Danine’s arms and legs to feel for broken bones.

Danine shook her head.

“No,” she said, embarrassed. “But Father—”

“Your father is quite well,” High Lord Elaasar said, joining them, “and quite angry.”

He seized Danine by the shoulders.

“Never dare disobey me like that again,” he thundered. “I would have had to defend you as well as myself, and the boar could have turned either way at the last moment. When I tell you to stay out of the way, you
stay,
do you understand me?”

Danine’s eyes filled with tears, but she whispered, “Yes, Father.”

“All right, then.” Elaasar’s voice shook slightly, and he pulled his daughter to him, holding her tightly. “You were brave,” he muttered. “Foolish and disobedient, but brave.”

He glanced past Kayli and nodded with satisfaction.

“I see you dealt with the sow,” he said. “Good. We’ll eat well tonight, though it’s a poor trade for a fine horse.” He shook his head, glanced back toward his dying mare, and waved the approaching guard away. “I’ll see to her.”

Kayli turned away, not wanting to watch as her father drove his long dagger into his mare’s brain, ending her pain instantly. Randon slid from his saddle and put his arm around Kayli’s shoulders, kissing her forehead.

“That was a good idea you had, that fire arrow,” he said quietly. “Even if one of us had hit the boar with a killing blow, the sheer strength of his charge might’ve carried him on forward into your father.”

“Aye, it was a masterful shot.” Nerina threw one arm around Danine and one around Kayli. “Both my daughters are brave and resourceful—and headstrong.” She laughed. “But look at these swine. They look like spinefurs instead of tusk boars. Who can claim the kills? The sow?”

“Randon,” Kayli said at the same time that Randon said, “Kayli.”

“Well, I lost my crossbow before I ever got a shot at the boar,” Randon said good-naturedly. “Although it almost had a shot at
me.”

“And I never so much as touched it,” Kayli admitted.

“Well, your arrow most likely kept my vitals in my belly, instead of hanging down around my boots,” her father said wryly, wiping the blood from his hands on the grass. “And your husband tried hard to get himself killed in my place, so I’ll cede the tusks to the two of you with my thanks. But how will we ever get our banquet home? We brought only the one sling carrier.”

“I’ll send two guards back for a wagon, High Lord,” Captain Beran said. “We can’t lose such a prize as the sow, and—begging pardon, High Lord, but we’d do as well to dress the two here, as your mare will draw scavengers anyway, and better here than at the camp.”

“And my
chakene,”
Danine put in. “Don’t forget that.”

“Aye, lady,” Captain Beran said solemnly. “Best we don’t forget it, as it was the cleanest kill made today.”

While Kayli liked to hunt, she had never enjoyed cleaning her game, and she watched with Danine as her mother and the men gutted the carcasses, wrapping the tastiest organs in sacks and piling the offal beside the dead mare.

By the time the carcasses were cleaned, the wagon arrived with more guards and there were plenty of men to help shoulder the boar and the sow into the wagon bed. Danine’s
chakene
was given a place of honor on the wagon seat, and Danine insisted on riding with it, Elaasar riding her gelding back to camp.

Apparently the guards who had ridden ahead for the wagon had sent word to Randon’s cook, for the fìrepit had been widened and lengthened to accommodate both pigs, and a good bed of coal was lit. When the wagon arrived, it took nearly a dozen men to cut the meat into pieces, work the massive spits through the hunks of meat, and hoist them over the coals, but soon the appetizing smell of roasting boar filled the entire camp.

Lord Kereg walked up as Randon and Kayli were watching, joining them beside the firepit.

“Congratulations on the hunt, High Lord,” he said, nodding at the meat roasting on the spits. “It seems successful beyond your expectations.”

“Yes, well, I was nearly killed beyond my expectations,” Randon said wryly. “Too much time sitting in a chair instead of a saddle.” He grinned at Kayli. “We must do something about that when we return home. I’d forgotten the pleasure of eating my own kill.”

“And I had forgotten how dangerous it could be,” Kayli admitted. “And how much I enjoy that risk.”

“Look here.” Randon picked up a small bundle of cloth and unwrapped it, showing Kayli the cleaned tusks of the boar, so long and curved that they overlapped in a circle. “One for you, and one for me, so we don’t forget again.”

Elaasar, Nerina, and their daughters and advisers arrived shortly, and Randon ordered a cask of his best wine tapped for the occasion. This supper proved more jovial than dinner had been, no hostility or awkwardness left, and both sets of rulers amusedly ignored their advisers marveling over the fine Bregondish furs, the excellent
ikada-milk
cheese, Lord Disian’s wagon wheels, or the plumpness of Agrondish turnips.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Randon murmured to Kayli after Lord Kereg had invited him to smell a Bregondish perfume for the fifth time. “I thought you’d be happy, this is going so well.”

“Oh, I am happy,” Kayli said with a sigh. “It is only hard, I suppose, to come back from our hunt and sit here with my family and talk of crops and pots and
ikada
hair.”

Randon chuckled and reached under the edge of the table, squeezing Kayli’s knee through her trousers.

“I could propose something a little more to your liking,” he whispered warmly.

An answering heat welled up in Kayli’s loins, and she laid her hand over Randon’s.

“Do you want another adventure?” she whispered in his ear.

“Hmmm.” Randon’s hand slid higher on her leg. “What were you thinking?”

“Remember how clearly the stars shine over the plains,” Kayli murmured. “Would you dare slip away tonight and risk all the dangers of the Bregondish plains—and a Bregondish lady?”

“Now, that’s a challenge I could never resist,” Randon said huskily. “But, I swear to the Bright Ones, if you say another word about it here at the table, I’ll drug the wine so we can slip away all the sooner.”

Kayli chuckled and returned her attention to the table, only to see Kairi glancing at her, a wicked amusement in her eyes. Kairi raised her eyebrows inquiringly and tilted her head slightly toward Kayli’s tent; Kayli shook her head just as slightly and glanced out at the plains, then back at Kairi. Kairi’s eyebrows jumped, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth; she coughed slightly, and Kayli knew that her well-disciplined sister was fighting down howls of laughter.

At the first opportunity, Kayli took Endra aside and told the midwife her plans. Endra delightedly entered into the conspiracy, only cautioning Kayli to stay near the camp.

It seemed an eternity before the two groups separated for the night, and even longer before most of the guards went to bed, leaving only the guards on night patrol. Kayli thought that Endra had forgotten her promise to help; at last the midwife emerged from her tent and walked up to the guard nearest Kayli’s tent. Kayli could not make out what Endra was saying, but a moment later the guard followed the midwife out of sight.