The Wind-Witch (39 page)

“Did we lose any Riders?” Druyan asked hoarsely. She wanted to ask after Kellis, but dared not, not of Robart. All those iron-shod hooves. All those cold iron blades. . .

“Some wounded, none like to die,” Robart answered. “I can’t say as much for the horses. Some may never carry weight after this day’s work. If they get through the night without foundering or colicking, I’ll be pleased. And amazed.”

There were horses everywhere one looked, most unmounted. Some were probably wounded or otherwise hurt. Most were upset and exhausted. Druyan had seen a sad number lying dead, the great roan stallion prominent among those. He had been surrounded by bodies, and Valadan had commented on his valor as they passed.

“We should try,” Druyan said, “to send someone along the coast, to see where those ships dropped anchor. They won’t be able to get far, not as they are now. They’re still here. Somewhere?

“But not on the coast,” croaked a familiar voice at her left stirrup. Druyan looked down, her heart leaping with relief. Kellis was swaying there, barely on his feet. He was clad in a shapeless garment starred with thistles and muddy hoofprints, which possibly had been part of a merchant’s tent that morning. There was dried blood all over his face, but nothing red and fresh and
his
.

“I remembered,” he mumbled. “What I wanted to tell you before, Lady.” Druyan leaned down, barely able to hear him. Valadan looked back curiously. Kellis took hold of his mane. “The raids came too thick, I knew it had to be the same ships striking again and again, not always fresh fleets from over the sea. That meant they had a base here, an anchorage no one knew about.” He faltered, put a hand to his head, and clung to Valadan’s mane for dear life. Druyan reached for him, but he got his eyes open and shook his head at her. “That’s how it was I set myself to learn birds, so I could scout your coasts the way a boat can’t. That crash, though, going out of form when I wasn’t ready—” He smiled ruefully. “It put most of it right out of my head.”

What’s he babbling about?” Roban demanded harshly. Druyan waved him off and leaned closer.

“Kellis? What did you remember?”

He lifted his face to hers and gave her a clear sight of those innocent dog’s eyes and a lopsided grin. “Where the base is,” Kellis said, just before his knees buckled.

“An island,” Robart said dourly, while Kellis sucked thirstily at cider Yvain had liberated from some unfortunate merchant’s wrecked caravan. “Can’t be. Someone would see them. No place in Esdragon is
that
deserted.”

“Perhaps not,” Yvain answered thoughtfully. He nodded at Kellis. “He said the anchorage faces the sea. You’d need a boat to spot it, and if I was fishing off the Promontory, I’d be steering well clear of all such islands—the water’s nothing but shoals, and the surf is murderous. I’d want to get safely by, not gawk at the sights.

“Yet the raiders stumbled on it?” Robart argued scornfully.

“Probably they were seeking such a bolt-hole purposely, Captain. No one’s said they were stupid, besides having magpie morals.”

Robart growled something indistinguishable, and Yvain laughed.

“You’re both missing the point,” Druyan said stemly, intolerant of the squabbling. “Most of us in Darlith have been clinging to the hope that the raids would end when winter came—living for that, truly. Now we know they won’t stop.

“No reason they should,” Kellis agreed cheerfully, waving the hand holding the cider.

Druyan took the just-emptied bottle away from him, frowning. Too late she suspected he’d been parched enough to get himself silly-drunk in the space of two minutes, and she angrily wished that Yvain had found them water to quench Kellis’ thirst instead of hard cider—she didn’t doubt he could have managed it. Kellis looked aggrieved, as if he’d guessed her thought and resented her judgment of him.

“Today should convince Brioc that he needs cavalry more than ships,” Robart said, with satisfaction.

“Brioc’s guards found Dimas’ body on the river shore,” Yvain reported reluctantly. He fiddled with his dagger hilt. “We may not be able to count on much from our duke.

He’s got two other sons!” Robart protested, sparing no sympathy.

“Dimas was his heir,” Yvain stressed softly. “And his favorite. You’ve been about Keverne enough to know
that
, Captain. And I am only saying that this might be a very poor time to call Brioc’s attention to anything. Especially his post riders, whose lapses as regards their official duties can be called to account. We’re easy prey.”

Robart pounded a fist against his thigh. “We’re heroes today and examples the day after?” He shook his head. “I’m not disputing the pattern, Yvain. I know my uncle quite as well as you do! So we lay low, lick our wounds, stay out of Brioc’s sight, and the raiders do . . . what?”

“Hit us all winter long,” Druyan supplied dismally. “No end to it.”

“We can’t
make
an end, Druyan!” Robart snapped, irritated.

Next to her, Kellis gave a little warning growl. Robart’s eyes went wide, then relaxed. He schooled his voice to a more reasonable tone. “Look. Even if we could depend on Brioc’s always chancy gratitude, we’ve nothing to do with. We rode the legs off our mounts to save Brioc’s guests today—we have nothing left for tomorrow, or the day after. Siarl himself couldn’t wangle us fresh horses out of this mess, without the duke knowing. Afoot, there aren’t enough of us to hold off a town watch.” He began to slide his dagger in and out of its sheath.

The moon was lifting over the horizon, washing the moor with silver. Kellis saw, tipped his head back, and softly howled a welcome to it. The sound was different coming from a human throat, but unmistakably wolf. It echoed weirdly, and horses snorted.

Druyan grabbed Kellis and muffled his lips hastily with her left palm, while Robart glared accusingly at Yvain.

“You had to get him drunk? A shape-shifting sorcerer wasn’t trouble enough?”

Yvain spread his long-fingered hands in innocence, but his eyes smiled.

“Our own grandfather saluted every moonrise, they say,” Druyan offered, taking her fingers away again. She frowned—they were sticky with cider. “Though not in quite that way.”

“Sorry,” Kellis mumbled faintly, ducking his head and rubbing at the bridge of his crooked nose, wishing his head would clear. He had been a fool, he thought, to make himself helpless when he was hardly certain of being among friends. Every Rider still had an iron sword, and he had just called himself to their collective attention. Foolish. “But it’s so
big
.” It was, he thought, a moon for hunting.

“It is close—almost near enough to lay hands on,” Druyan agreed, staring skyward at the shining disc. “And not even full till tomorrow night. The tide’s already as high as it normally gets, folk will be making ready all along the coast, the way they do when the moon’s full and close, and the tide rises, too . . .” An utterly natural peril, expected, predictable. Nothing at all like a raid in the night, swords and fire and murder. . .

“Too much to hope, that any islands off the Promontory would be awash in a high springing tide,” Robart said, begirming to dig idly in the dirt with his dagger.

“Probably so,” Yvain agreed reluctantly. “Perhaps the winter storms will do for them.”

“Or they’ll carve themselves a stronger foothold before then,” Robart groused. “Maybe ashore. As you say, no one’s said they’re fools.”

Druyan had gone silent, her eyes full of moon-silver. Behind them, her thoughts swirled like a wayward breeze, then steadied. High tide . . . A full moon increased the tidal rise. A
close
full moon brought the water up a touch more, but coastal folk were used to that predictable event. Only when an ill-timed storm pushed the water still higher was there truly danger. Every estuary was vulnerable to disastrous floods of saltwater, if a storm wind got behind a springing tide.

A
storm
. . .

A breath of wind feathered across her right cheek, to slide beneath her collar and down her back like a chill finger. Druyan shivered and could not cease trembling.

There were always storms offshore on the Great Sea, far out from land, waiting restlessly to rush at the land. One such would come, if she called it. Druyan knew that in her bones, in her lost fingers. She had no need of hopes, or guesses. For whatever reason, a taint in her blood or her character, she had that power, unquestioned.

She could call a storm—if she dared. Call, and be answered, but scarcely control and certainly not quell. She could save her people with her forbidden, smothered gift—and she could drown quite a lot of them along the way to that salvation.

The trembling grew to a shuddering. Countering it, of a sudden Druyan felt the comforting steadiness of an arm about her shoulders. All at once she saw, in her mind, a tiny silver image, two miniature wolves running as one, shoulder to shoulder, bold and unafraid of what they were. As she stared the image grew, the wolves came closer and closer yet, until with a bound they sprang right through her, through her heart. She saw moonlight, but felt a splash of rain.

Do what you must
, the great silver wolf whispered into her head.
Never fear what lies in your heart, for that alone can save you . . . This I learned from you. Now I give it back.

Druyan opened her eyes, but for a moment all she saw was storm, wind and rain, darkness and howling destruction. Slowly the disasters faded, as the night’s dark ebbed back from the risen moon. Druyan took a breath. Her sight cleared. She was looking into Kellis’ very sober gray eyes. He raised that crow-black eyebrow at her.

Had she chosen?

She had.

“Could you shift again and get back to Splaine Garth? she asked him. It wasn’t fair to ask, really, she knew he was exhausted, that he had run all night and fought most of the day. His eyes were blood-hatched, shadowed beneath. But what needed doing superceded pity.

Kellis nodded, not the least reluctant except about leaving her. He was well enough, he said offhandedly, and tired was only tired.

“Good. The marsh may hold the tide, but the wind’s another matter. Someone has to warn Enna and the girls, and I’d rather it was you. Tell them a storm; they’ll know what to do when they hear that. Help them do it.” Kellis nodded again, and Druyan turned to Robart, raising her chin.

“The Riders have one last task ahead of them. And I’ll wager you can find horses enough, if you look for them now, before this mess gets sorted out. Or Valadan could call them.”

“What do you mean?” Robart stared at her, not even ready to dispute what the stallion could do. “
What
task?”

“
Raising the coast—the towns, the farms. Telling them there’s going to be a storm surge atop a springing tide. Telling them to make ready, to protect themselves
.”

“A storm?” Robart tipped his head back. The moon was unveiled overhead. Stars glittered, all across the arch of the sky. There
were
clouds—small, few as fleas on a welltended dog, and scattered as a lost flock.

“It’s a long way out,” Druyan agreed. “But it will hear me.”

The Riders departed at first light, on sound horses gathered by Valadan’s surrmions, veterans of battle every one, fleet and willing. Kellis went then, also, a wolf careful not to limp while he was under her eye, Druyan suspected. At least he had slept awhile—she had seen him curled up under a wagon, nose tucked under his tail. As the day brightened, she jogged Valadan to the top of the headland opposite her uncle’s mighty castle of Keverne, on the far side of the river and town. What she needed to do, she might have done from the relative safety of Keverne’s battlements—but Druyan chose not to shelter behind walls. She wanted no barriers between her and the wind, not even crenelated stone.

The wind’s cold fingers poked teasingly through her cloak in a dozen places as she dismounted. When she faced the sea straight on, all her hair was scooped back from her face to stream behind her like Valadan’s tail. Druyan vgalked slowly through the heather, soaking her boots with the wind-flung spray that clung to the tough plants. Seapink grew in soft mounds to the cliff edge and tumbled right over—she stopped walking when she reached them, and stood at the end of the world.

There were certainly rocks in the wild waters below, near the foot of the cliff, maybe even islets, but she would not see those unless she leaned out over, and she had no need to do that. From Druyan’s vantage, all was sea before her, no land in sight at all. Oh, indeed there was land on the other side of the sea—always she had heard of it, and Kellis had been born upon one of those distant shores—but it was so far off as not to truly exist. There was only the endless sea, a thousand shades of blue and green and amethyst, and the wide sky above her, full of wind.

The breeze close about her was playful as a young cat, and smelled of the coastal waters—fish and weed and salt, nothing more ancient, foreign. It was not the wind she sought. Druyan pursed her lips, breathed deep through her nostrils, feeling that she drank as deep of the wind as ever Valadan did, running.

When she held all of it that she could, she sent the air whistling out again, in a plaintive call. The summons had a long way to go—she drew a breath only normally deep, and rested a moment. For good or ill, it was begun. She might step back from the cliff now, but not from what she had done.

Valadan neighed a challenge, and Druyan turned in a windswirl of woolen cloak. There was a horseman fifty paces off—as she stared, the wind threw his hood back, and his chestnut hair caught the wind and the light as he halted and swung out of his saddle.

Yvain was visibly pleased with himself, over the matter of eluding his fellow Riders. They had departed one and all, and not a man of them—for example, Robart—was on hand to say him nay.

Plainly, he did not expect Druyan would do so, either. There was no diffidence, no hesitation in Yvain’s step as he drew near, though he paused once to ease saddle cramps out of his legs. The captain made Druyan an elegant bow as he reached her, took her hand as he straightened once more and pressed his lips to it. “Lady,” he said, smiling in the manner of a ginger cat well fed on stolen cream.