Northlight (19 page)

“That doesn't count. Nothing counts, not even regret, nothing except that I was too late to stop him.”

Something in her voice stung him, bleak and pungent like an echo of some long-buried sorrow.

“There wasn't anything you could have done,” he said.

He half-expected her to curse him, tell him he didn't know anything about it, but she said nothing. She sat motionless, her eyes clouding over as if focused on something far away. Then her face hardened again.

“If I had any sense, I'd say I was too damned jumpy for my own good, seeing connections where there aren't any,” she said. “But the man on the black horse — he was sitting there in the common room. Right where he could watch who came through the door.”

“Black horse, the one who passed us earlier? You think he could be following us?”

Following us? Or following
me
?
Who could possibly care where he was?

Esme?
Terricel's stomach clenched at the thought. She knew where he'd gone. Would she really send someone to keep an eye on him, like a glorified nursemaid? Or was she watching to see
who else
took an interest in his activities?

Montborne?
Had he found out about Kardith's attempt to go around his orders? Was it Kardith who was being followed, and not him at all?

Someone else, for some entirely different reason?

“H-how can you be sure?” he stammered.

“I can't. Maybe there's not another inn he can reach tonight.” Kardith curled her fingers around the hilt and got to her feet. “If he's innocent, it doesn't matter. I have no quarrel with him until he sticks his nose over that doorsill.”

Kardith slipped the long-knife back into its sheath on her thigh and Terricel thought crossing her might well be the last thing the poor fellow did, whatever his intentions.

“Enough.” She jerked her chin toward the tub beyond the inner door. “Go get your bath.”

The pump drawing the hot water from the underground springs creaked and wheezed as it filled the porcelain-lined iron tub. The tub was too short to do more than sit in but deep enough to fill to shoulder level.

Terricel undressed slowly, leaving his clothing in an untidy heap. He was glad there was no one to witness the gyrations needed to extract his legs from his pants. Slowly, one foot and then the other, he eased into the steaming water. There was a faint metallic odor, probably from naturally-occurring mineral salts. The warmth sent waves of relaxation through his aching muscles. He flexed his ankles and then his knees, working the stiffness out. Angry red weals marked the insides of his thighs where the saddle leather had rubbed. His sitting bones were twin lumps of excruciating sensitivity. He tried not to think about mounting up the next morning.

He startled awake from a drowse when Kardith poked her head in and said, “Get out before you fall asleep and drown.” He floundered in the tub, grabbing for a towel to cover himself, but she'd already slammed the door shut.

Later he sat on the cot, dressed in his clean change of clothing and finishing what Kardith had left of the savory meat pie.

Kardith emerged from her own bath, wearing the voluminous, ankle-length robe supplied by the inn. She'd wrapped her hair in a towel. Her cheeks were soft and flushed from the warmth, her bare toes pink like a child's. She rummaged in her saddlebags, took out a comb and a small leather bottle, and tossed the bottle on Terricel's cot.

“Use that on your saddle sores.” She sat cross-legged on the narrow bed, her back to him, and began rubbing her hair dry.

Terricel put the tray on the floor and unscrewed the cap of the bottle. The contents gave off a pleasantly astringent smell. With a glance back at her, he eased his pants down to his calves and began applying it along the swollen reddish areas. On first contact, the thin brownish liquid felt cool, building to a fiery warmth that just as quickly faded, leaving a slight numbness. He clenched his teeth and kept smearing.

“You did okay,” Kardith said over her shoulder. “Considering.”

“You were testing me.”

“The harder it is now, the more chance you'll have later.”

Terricel pulled up his pants and turned around. Kardith was yanking at her tangled curls, her back still to him. “You don't say no to a bed and a decent meal,” he said.

“There'll be times enough to go without.”

Terricel nibbled a leftover bit of pastry crust. He thought of Aviyya on the Ridge all these years, fighting northers, “going without.” What did he know about that life? What did he know about her, for that matter? She was no longer the child who'd played adventures with him in the big lonely house or the teenager screaming rebellion at Esmelda.

Perhaps it was no more than a spark of his imagination, seeing her face streaked with blood and dirt, hearing her pulse hammering through his own chest. Seeing her turn toward him for the briefest instant, as if sensing his presence.

He blinked, all traces of the image gone. Kardith was staring at him, the hand holding the comb paused above her head. He made an apologetic gesture. “I was thinking of Avi, wondering what she's like now. I was only nine when she left. I remember her the way a child remembers, but it's my real sister — the woman she's become now — that I'm going after.”

“I misjudged you, then.” Kardith put down her comb. “I thought you just wanted to get out from under your bitch mother.”

Terricel flinched as if she'd struck him. “As if I didn't care what happened to Avi! As if...as if...”

He couldn't go on. The truth was, he thought savagely, she was right. For all his fine words, Aviyya was no more than a boyhood memory and a vision he could just as well have invented, like the stories about his father. The truth was, all his life he'd been looking for something that was his, truly his, and wherever he'd looked he'd found Esmelda's shadow. Now, when he could stand it no longer, when Gaylinn was gone and Laureal City a crucible, his academic career, whatever there was of it in the first place, finished, now he'd finally found something Esmelda wouldn't do, a place she couldn't go. It could be Avi or anyone, alive or dead. What difference did it make if it got him out of her clutches?

It makes a difference. Avi is alive, and there is a bond between us....

“If I
am
running away,” he said slowly, “or if I don't know what the hell it is I want, isn't it better I'm trying to find Avi, rather than getting into drunken fights at The Elk Pass every night? Whatever's happened to her, whatever she's become, she's still my sister. There are ways we understand each other, things we've been through together. Don't you see? No one else can know what it was like, growing up with Esme. Or why Avi had to leave, why I — why I have to leave.”

“That's something Avi would've said.” Kardith's amber eyes had gone dark and opaque. “If you didn't love her, too, I would hate you for being so like her.”

Terricel sat bolt upright, gasping and shivering. His dreams, uneasy visions of figures mounted on black horses and Esmelda facing Montborne across a table on which sat a silver bowl, vanished instantly. Kardith stood over him, holding the bedcovers that she'd just yanked off.

“Don't wear your clean shirt,” she said, and left him to wash, change back into his traveling clothes, and repack in the dark.

He swung his legs over the side of the cot and tried to stand. White lightning shot through his knees. His hip joints seemed locked in a vise. But he'd be corroded from here to hell before he'd let Kardith find him sitting in his underwear, hunched over like a helpless old man. His breath caught in his throat, but he managed to get to his feet and straighten up. Then, gritting his teeth and grunting with effort, he pulled on his pants.

He found her at the entrance to the kitchen, her saddlebags slung across her shoulder. She was sipping coffee and discussing weather conditions with the innkeep. From the brightly lit kitchen came the clatter of pans and the aroma of baking bread. He thought of Annelys's new loaves, warm and fragrant, and his stomach rumbled hopefully.

“Pay the woman,” Kardith said.

Terricel dug in his money belt for the modest sum the innkeep requested.

“What about breakfast?” Terricel asked.

“I've eaten, thank you.” She turned and strode through the empty common room and out the front door.

Terricel followed, feeling as if his wits as well as his tongue were wrapped in cotton batting. It was barely light enough in the yard to see his breath as a whitish plume. The stableboy, clear-eyed and smiling, led out the saddled horses.

Terricel's stomach went clammy at the prospect of sitting on anything, let alone a horse. He knew that if he said anything, she'd use it as an excuse to go on without him. He fumbled with the straps to secure his travel pack behind the saddle.
And it would be my own damned fault.

Terricel's muscles twinged and ached as he settled himself on the horse's back and adjusted his feet in the stirrups.

The sorrel gelding arched his neck and pranced. Disgustingly Cheerful, that's what I should call you.

As they proceeded along the dirt road, the sky grew lighter. Twitterbats and morning crickets whirred and chirped. Ground squirrels chattered from the underbrush. The gelding settled into a reaching walk, head swinging from side to side as if marking musical time. The gentle movement loosened Terricel's legs and back. He couldn't decide if his buttocks had gone numb or Kardith's liniment had worked some magic, and he didn't care. Things were not as bad as they could have been.
For the moment.

Terricel's spirits lifted and he looked around with new interest at the grassy valley that rose gently into another set of hills. As far as he could see, they were alone on the road.

Kardith reached into her saddlebags, drew out a packet wrapped in oiled cloth and handed it to him. Inside he found two buns, steaming hot and stuffed with cheese and spicy real-meat sausage, a large green apple, and a glass bottle of coffee. Numbly, he stared at the food and then back at Kardith.

“Did you think I'd make you go all morning without breakfast?” She laughed out loud. “Ay Mother, you
did!
”

Smiling despite himself, Terricel tore into the first bun. The tangy melted cheese swirled over his tongue. The second bun he ate more slowly, along with the coffee, followed by the apple, which he chewed right down to the seeds. He threw them along the trail, hoping one of them might germinate. It would be nice to ride by here some day and see a tree he'd planted. He took a deep breath and arched his back, hearing the joints of his spine crackle. The air was crisp and scented with dew-wet grass.

“I may have been half-asleep when I came down,” he said, “but I didn't see any sign of the man on the black horse.”

“Neither did I,” Kardith said. “And anyway, he couldn't go on pretending to be an innocent traveler once we reach Kratera Ridge.”

“Why? Aren't there people who travel through there?”

She shook her head. “And nobody lives there, either. We Rangers mostly keep the northers from breaking through, but even they aren't crazy enough to lay claim to the Ridge.”

“I wonder why not. They're always after new territory. At least, that's what we were always told in Laureal City. Is the Ridge barren, then?”

“Barren? No. It's not farming country, true. There could be hunting and woods-farming, except there's something... Not hostile, just not... I don't know. I never cared — it was enough to be a Ranger and alive after the Brassa mess. I had better things to do than worry about seeing things out of the back of my eyes.”

“Seeing what sort of things?”

Kardith tightened in her saddle, sending the gray mare into a nervous jig-trot. “Places that aren't quite...” She laid one hand on the mare's neck and quieted her down. “Never mind about the Ridge. It's just the sunlight playing tricks, that's all.”

Terricel did not think that was all, but he looked down at the braided leather reins in his hands and kept quiet.

“You think I'm bats, don't you?” Kardith said with sudden heat. “Bats-crazy Ranger, off on a fool's chase, spookier than a barnfowl in a kennel? And now I'm seein' things in the woods? That's what you think, isn't it?”

“I think you love Avi enough to make a fool of yourself if it'll save her.”

Kardith glared at him with eyes gone white and lips compressed into a tight, unreadable line. She pulled the mare to a halt and swung down. “Now we run.”

“Run?” Terricel stared at her, half-disbelieving.

She gave him a withering look, took hold of the mare's hackamore, and started jogging, the mare trotting beside her.

Terricel hesitated for an instant. Then he kicked his feet free from the stirrups, jumped down, and scrambled after her.
Scrambled
because the road, which had seemed so smooth from horseback, was strewn with stones, twigs, and erosion runnels. He tripped, stumbled, kicked himself, swore and tripped again, but somehow he kept up.

The gelding ignored his antics and bobbed along contentedly behind the gray mare. Terricel's initial burst of energy faded and his breakfast sat like a lump in his stomach. Sweating and panting, he noticed Kardith holding on to the mare's stirrup. He grabbed on to his own and found that it steadied him. It did nothing, however, for the fiery pain that crept into his lungs and leg muscles. He tried to relax as he ran but every pounding step sent new spasms through his diaphragm. He grabbed the stirrup with both hands and leaned his weight on it. The catch in his side eased, but he couldn't stay long in that position without tripping over his own feet.

How long were they going to run? Ahead of him, Kardith kept the same relentless pace with no sign of flagging. Was she made of iron? He clenched his teeth, his breath hissing between them, and swore he'd fall over dead before he asked her to slow down for him.