The Wind-Witch (42 page)

His left boot was leaking—he was standing in a puddle that had formed in a wheel rut. Kellis stepped back, staring down at the shining water. After a moment he went down on one knee, heedless of the damp, and scooped up a double handful of rainwater. He sang the summoning over it easily, without the least apprehension. It wasn’t lives at stake now, except maybe his own, and he felt no anxiety over that, at least not sufficient to overwhelm a summer’s hard practice in his an. The water’s surface shivered, began to throw back colors other than the sky’s.

Other than the clear blue sky’s. There was a gray boil of clouds, and Kellis knew for once without doubt what he saw—the past day, the storm-sky Druyan had summoned with her whistling. Towers of lightning-bladed destruction, sweeping across the sea toward the high cliffs near Keverne. . .

And atop that cliff, two people, locked in one another’s embrace. One had hair the color of a red deer’s summer pelt. The other’s, which the wind spotted with, shifted between red and gold like sunset light on water. Kellis could not have named the color, but he knew the scent of that hair, knew the feel of it, cool silk against his fingers. He had slept once with it tangled all about him. . .

The last of the water leaked away through his cupped fingers, and the image vanished with it. Kellis lifted wet hands to his face.

At last
, he thought bitterly, scrubbing at his eyes, which bumed with sleep-lack.
A scrying that actually makes it simple to choose an action! All it took was practice, after all.

It didn’t matter whether Kovelir existed, or would take him in. His destination was of no importance, only his departure. What he might not have dared for himself, he owed to her.

You have no place here
, Kellis reminded himself.
She took you in like a stray dog, nothing more than that. You dont need Yvain telling you to your face, to know.

The breeze had dried his face, leaving the skin feeling tight as a mask. Kellis got stiffly to his sore feet. He would need to pack fresh wool into his boots, he. thought, to make walking bearable. He must remember to see to it.

There was nothing that could make his leaving likewise bearable, save that he did it for her sake. He must hold tight to that.

Druyan awoke on a narrow cot in a curtained-off corner of the post riders’ hall, with wind-snarled hair and windchapped skin, but otherwise undamaged by her wild night. She limped groaning to the window and saw by the sunfall light that she had slept the whole of the day away.

By the untidiness of the rest of the dormitory, at least some of the Riders had returned, but none was in the hall at that moment. Someone had left bread and cheese and sweet cider and dry clothing for her. Druyan’s eyes misted as she unfolded the garments—doubtless they could have found a woman’s gown for her, but instead the Riders had gifted her with a set of sea blue and gray, their own colors for one of their own. She dressed and ate the food, still alone in the quiet room, and then set off in search of her uncle.

Once she left the Riders’ territory, there were folk aplenty about. Druyan could not fail to hear the whispers and note the pointed Fingers, but she was not minded to duck her head and avoid them as if words and looks had been blows. Nor did she hide her hands in her clothing, as she had used to do when at Keverne. She had forgotten to draw on her glove, but it no longer mattered—she had been too long learning a new grip for every action. Now her eight fingers did as she asked of them, and she should hardly be shamed by that, whatever the size or number of the fingers. She continued serenely on her quest.

Duke Brioc was in his chapel, keeping watch beside the bloodless body of his eldest son. Druyan had gone prepared to beg her uncle for some sense in the matter of Esdragon’s defense, now that he had seen with his own eyes what even a small mounted force might do—but at the sight of his ravaged face her tongue clove to her mouth. The only speech she could shape, she had to couch in words of comfort, which she was not certain Brioc even heard. Dimas was dead, his dream of a fleet probably dead with him. If the storm had swept the raiders away, the Eral had swept a part of Esdragon away first, Druyan thought sadly. The next morning, and the next, would see changes undreamed of a bare month past.

She tarried awhile after she had paid her respects to her uncle, with distant silent members of her family all about her—then the chamber began to seem airless, and when she had to fight down a desire to whistle herself a cool breeze, Druyan knew ’twas time she took her leave.

In the stables she found Valadan most honorably housed in a loose box deep bedded with golden straw. He had topaz lights in his eyes, as well, as he nickered a greeting to her. Druyan pressed her face into his still-snarled mane, felt the little wind of his breath riffle her hair behind her left ear.

A greater wind and a jangle of harness announced two men and two horses entering the stable through the tall outer door. Druyan raised her head, and the pair of weary post riders whooped with delight at discovering their lady safe before them.

Druyan asked urgently for tidings of the coast, and heard a high-hearted account of storm ravages tempered by Rider-carried warnings, so that for all the damage wrought there had been but slight loss of human or livestock life. The Riders conducted Druyan—they would not hear of her leaving—back to their hall, where their fellows were now assembled, eating a hearty supper and wondering where their luck charm had got herself to, after sleeping all the day away.

Druyan thanked them for their courtesies and their tender care of her, and found she had no recourse but to let her comrades feast her and drink toasts to her and to the Warhorse Valadan with their strong cider and foamy ale, while the Battle of the Horse Fair was fought all over again with words and boasts and witty embellishments. One after another, men came forward for a personal word, a confidence or reminiscence for her ears.

As the night wore on, Druyan spared a thought—as perchance no Rider did—for Esdragon’s duke, mourning his favorite son in his cold stone chapel. The man she had left there had not been a leader. Whether he could become one again was difficult to judge. Even with the Eral threat diminished, there would be hard times ahead for Esdragon—for all of them. The room exploded with laughter, and Druyan smiled sadly. None of them was thinking about that now. She wished they might never need to.

She found herself as uneasy among the Riders as she had been among her relations in the chapel. The Riders were warm where her family was cold, but home was still where she longed to be. She should go there, as soon as she could without giving offense. Druyan slipped outside during a heated debate as to the respective merits of two stallions’ bloodlines, fairly sure her opinion would not be sought, since neither horse was Valadan. The torchlit dark was a surprise—sleeping by day rather than by night had disoriented her. She expected to see blue sky, and was confronted and confounded by a firmament black as Valadan’s hide, spangled with stars.

The door released a burst of merriment as if opened and closed. “They all look to you,” Robart said.

Druyan turned to face her brother, something in his tone making her uncomfortable.

“They would ride through the Gates of the Dead, if you went before them,” Robart went on bitterly, gesturing to indicate the garb the Riders had gifted her with. All she lacked was the captain’s badge.

Still she said nothing, though her heart was fluttering uneasily in her breast. He was so angry, more than he showed. She could see him holding it in, like a savage horse. She had always quivered before disapproval—his, her father’s—it was hard not to do that again. It was hard not to feel guilty, even though she’d done no wrong. Her hand began to ache, as if it was a deserved punishment.

“Druyan, it isn’t
right
. I’m their captain, but it’s you they follow.”

The unfair—yet true—accusation stung like a whiplash. “It’s not as if I set out to take them from you, Robart! We were all of us only doing what we had to.”

“All the same, every man of them’s yours, if you only say the word,” he snapped. “Waggle one tinger.”

“The Riders have more value than simple messengers now, Robatt,” Druyan told him. “Their swords and their horses and their courage saved Esdragon from the raiders. Even Brioc will have to recognize their worth, and we’ll never be left so helpless again. You can make that happen. You, not me.”

“I can if my command’s truly
mine
.” He had the grace to pause. “I’m asking you to give it back to me, sister. I don’t say you haven’t earned it, but you don’t need it—you’ve got Yvain, that ought to be enough for any woman.”

Druyan gazed into the dark sky. Soon, beyond the thick walls, it would be lightening with dawn, but she couldn’t see it yet. She remembered, with a pang all the years between could not mute, the day Robart had demanded that she give up Valadan, the horse a mere girl had no right to.
How unfair!
she thought, seeing her life come full circle, with nothing gained at all. She felt a tiny flutter, low in her chest, as if something there longed to leap free.

How dared he ask it of her? If he wanted his command, let him take it—if he could! Robart was their Chief-captain, true, but the Riders were what
she
had made of them, in a long summer of blood and smoke and hard riding.
They
all knew it, had pledged it with every mug drained in their hall that night. Must she give them up, solely because Robart asked, because he expected her to do what a proper woman would do? Fine to lift a sword when there was no one else to do it, but once the tight was done, go obediently home and become a helpless dependent once more? Could she do that now? She had other choices. Beneath her heart, something seemed to stir. It felt familiar, yet strange. How long had she been feeling it, without noticing?

She had Yvain. She supposed she still did. He would probably learn to forget his fear of her, if she never showed him that pan of herself again, if she wore a careful mask all the rest of her days. It would not be so hard to do, Druyan decided. Life with Yvain would hardly be unpleasant. He was a better catch than she could ever have hoped to make, wealthy and titled and only as vain of his looks as any proud stallion. The attitude was not unbecoming in a horse . . . she could doubtless bear it in a man. Arrogance wasn’t cruelty, or anything else to make her rightly wary of the man. She could have Yvain.

Only . . . she had worked so long to be no man’s possession, to be free. Every farm chore came back to her, all those endless fields of barley. And Yvain feared her as much as he loved her. There would always be that between them, a secret dagger in her heart. Could she bear that?

“It will take Yvain time to square things, of course.” Robart intuited whom her thoughts rested upon. “Faster if you helped him, Druyan. Admit Travic’s dead, and let Yvain ask Brioc for you.”

Again that tiny fluttering under her heart, a secret even Druyan hardly dared to guess at. Wannth flooded into her face, but Robart could not see. Faint and far off in her own memory, two wolves ran together beneath the moon. In the real world, the sunward sky was paling to dove gray, even above Keverne’s walls. It was nearly dawn.

“Yvain’s too late, Robart,” Druyan said. “It has been a year and a day, and all the crop tithes were paid, every last one of them.” She looked steadfastly at the dawn. “As of now, Splaine Garth belongs to me. And I am going home.”

Valadan’s swift hooves carried her to her own gate while the dew still lay upon the grass. All the jewels Yvain might have lavished upon his wife could not have looked half so fair, Druyan thought, as her own fields clothed in sun and water. The dazzle almost masked the storm damage. The flattened grass had already rebounded to hide the fallen branches.

“I wonder if the kitchen roof held?”

Valadan flicked an ear back at her question.

They reached the gate, and Druyan was just about to dismount when it was opened before her. Valadan paced sedately through, with a snort of greeting for Kellis.

“You can go into the orchard,” Druyan said, sliding to the ground and giving the stallion’s shoulder a pat as she pulled the saddle from his back and slipped the copper bit gently out of his mouth. “There are windfalls?” She looked at Kellis for confirmation, got a nod. “Silly question. Don’t eat yourself into a bellyache.” Valadan snorted again, trotted two strides, and sprang over the orchard fence between two tilted posts. Druyan spun back to Kellis with a bright smile stretching her face, uncaring for the moment of wobbly posts poorly set. “Splaine Garth is mine! A year—”

The smile slipped from her lips as she caught sight of the bundle at Kellis’ feet, the closed-down expression on his crooked-nosed face. She knew what it meant, by the chill about her heart.

“A year and a day, Lady,” he completed the phrase for her, formally. “My debt to you is paid, as we agreed.” He didn’t add that he was leaving—that was self-evident.

“I promised you a horse,” Druyan said dully, in that shocked moment. It was all she could think of to say. She had never expected this . . . it was just the same as the moment when she knew her hand was cut half away—she knew that it had happened, and she knew that it hurt, but she could not
feel
it. Not till much later . . . “There’s not a decent saddle horse left at Splaine Garth.”

Kellis shrugged. “I’m no horseman, you’d be doing me no favor with such a gift. If I grow weary of my own two legs, a wolf can travel as swiftly as any horse.”

As a wolf undeniably had, from one end of Esdragon to the other, keeping pace with the fleetest steeds in the duchy. “You’re going
now
?” Druyan asked him, aghast. She flailed about for something, anything, to stop him. “What about the barley harvest?”

He had the grace to flush with the shame of deserting her, but Kellis stood his ground. “Ask me first if there’ll
be
a harvest, Lady. Did you notice the fields as you rode by?”

“Yes,” she said faintly, hardly able to keep her thoughts on grainfields. She remembered sun-gems, and that she had scarcely looked past their pretty dazzle. She had wanted, single-heartedly, only to reach home. To find Kellis. She’d never dreamed she’d ride into this, more dismaying than any storm damage. She’d never thought he’d be leaving. . .