Winter Be My Shield (21 page)

‘We break camp early in the morning, then,' Mira said. ‘Isidro, we can clear a sled for you so you can rest while we travel.'

Isidro raised his bowl to her in a mock salute. He had no intention of riding on a sled like an invalid but tomorrow, when Sierra's touch wore off, he would probably change his mind.

‘Cam,' said Mira, ‘there is something we need to discuss. The clan has agreed to shelter you and Isidro for as long as you need it but there are a few problems to be dealt with. Isidro is going to be difficult to hide — his wounds are distinctive and easy to recognise —'

Isidro handed his bowl back to the servant and heaved himself out of the chair. ‘If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go back to the tent.'

Cam frowned, and Mira said, ‘I'd have thought you'd want to have your say in the solution.'

‘What's the point?' Isidro said. ‘You've got us over a barrel — we need your clan's help and we're in no position to negotiate. Cam's still fit and strong — no doubt you've got some plan in mind for him — and I'm to be hidden away in some temple until Valeria gives up looking for me. I know you, Mira, and I'm sure you've got it all worked out.'

Isidro turned towards the door and swayed on his feet. Cam stepped forward and took hold of his shoulder to steady him. ‘You made me a promise, brother,' Cam said softly.

‘I did, and I intend to keep it,' Isidro said. ‘But right now I'm too weary to pretend to be grateful for whatever hole Mira's found to stuff me into. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be more willing to dance to your drum. Mira, Ardamon.' Isidro bobbed his head in a sketch of a bow. ‘I'll see you in the morning.'

As he ducked out through the tent flap, Isidro heard Cam speak softly behind him. ‘I'll do whatever you ask if you keep him safe.' Isidro walked away before he could hear any more.

Night had come upon them and it was now full dark outside. Isidro felt utterly heartsick and the thought of Sierra walking alone through the chill night made his stomach twist and his throat close over, so that for a moment he couldn't breathe. He'd never fallen so hard for a woman before … but he couldn't be certain how much of what he felt was for her and how much of it was fear of what would happen when the pain in his arm returned. He wanted it to be her but the memory of the agony, the awful grating of splintered bone, the helplessness and despair of it, filled him with such overwhelming dread that he felt awash with shame. He wanted nothing more than to go after her, to beg her to stay. After the long week he'd spent as Kell and Rasten's plaything, subject to every torment and humiliation they could contrive, why did his courage fail him now?

A fire had been lit in the centre of the camp and a few men were gathered beside the blaze, drinking and talking in low voices that were drowned out by the crackling flames. Isidro had intended to head straight back to his tent, but suddenly decided he didn't want to be alone with his hopelessness and heartache, and started towards the fire.

As Isidro came up to them they fell silent, but welcomed him with friendly nods. One of the men had a little ceramic jar, its lid sealed
with wax, which he was examining in the firelight. As Isidro neared he unhurriedly tucked it away into the satchel slung across his shoulder.

‘Evening,' Isidro said and held his good hand out to the warmth. All three men had satchels, as well as bows and quivers slung across their shoulders. ‘Off on a hunt?' he said, thinking only of making some conversation, but once the words were out he realised the scene was odd. It was rare for hunters to go out in the evening when they were weary from the day. It was more common to take a few hours' sleep and head out in the early morning.

‘Aye,' said one of the men. ‘Folks hereabouts have a leopard stalking their goats. They're worried it'll take a child watching the herds next.'

Isidro nodded. That made more sense  — the big cats preferred to hunt at night and the men could well have been resting through the afternoon in order to be fresh for the evening's hunt. ‘Well, good luck to you,' he said as the last man drained his bowl and tucked it into his satchel.

‘Thank ye, sir,' the hunter said, and without another word the three of them turned away from the light and melted off into the darkness. Isidro felt a prickle of regret as he watched them go — just as he had when he was a boy, watching his clan's retainers heading out for a hunt deemed too dangerous for the heir to accompany them.

The image of the wax-sealed jar rose in his mind again and Isidro felt himself go very still. He'd seen jars like that before, but rarely in a hunter's hand. Rhia had a few containing medicines too dangerous to allow any chance of them contaminating other preparations in her kit. Once, just once, he'd seen such a jar as a boy in his clan's lodge, a white glazed jar sealed up with soot-stained wax. He'd crept into his father's private chamber to retrieve a confiscated toy when Drosavec had come in with one of his huntsmen. Isidro had heard them coming and hid. That was when he'd first learned that some of the clan's huntsmen performed other, secret services for their patrons. His father had given the hunter a sealed pot just like the one he'd seen here, taking it from a locked chest to which his father possessed the only key. Once the hunter was gone, Drosavec had found him and, to Isidro's surprise, had explained what was happening. The son of a Mesentreian merchant had raped a girl and his father was protecting him from trial. Once it became clear that there was no way to bring the boy to justice, Drosavec dispatched his assassin
with a stiletto and a jar of poison with which to anoint the blade. A fatal wound was too dangerous — the boy's father would want revenge — but a little knick with the poisoned blade would be enough to kill him with no real proof of the cause.

Those men were the Wolf Clan's assassins, with a pot of poison to anoint their arrows. There was no wounded leopard stalking in the night. They were after Sierra.

I should warn her
, he thought.
I should go after them …

And then do what, exactly?
Those men were professionals and loyal to the Wolf Clan. There was nothing he could do to sway them from carrying out their orders. But if one of the hunters was injured in some way, Sierra might just feel them coming — otherwise it was unlikely that she'd ever see the men who killed her. If it were Isidro following along behind her, though …

There was no pain in his arm now — Sierra had seen to that before she left, but it would be a simple thing to change. It wouldn't even have to be his arm, a small cut would do if he were close enough. Then Sierra would know that
someone
was behind her and it would put her on her guard. It wouldn't be easy for him to match the pace Mira's hunters set — if he wanted to be close enough to do any good, he had no time to spare.

 

Cam left Mira's tent with defeat weighing heavy on his shoulders. Mira had invited him to stay the night with her, but he couldn't face it, not now. For the last week he had been a little jealous of Isidro's good fortune in finding a female companion, but now that his chance arose he found he had no heart for it. Cam left with the excuse that he didn't want to leave Isidro alone when despair was creeping up on him again.

It was the truth, but not the whole of it. Cam had spent the greater portion of his life as a political pawn, one piece among many in the game between Valeria and Leandra, his mother and his aunt. As a boy, he'd hated it from the moment he'd been aware of what was going on. When the chance came to loose his bonds he'd bolted for it like a wild horse and never once regretted anything he'd left behind. Ten years of freedom he and Isidro had had and, as he looked back on it now, Cam felt as though they'd been playing at warriors, at bandits, at spies. That was over now. For Isidro's sake, Cam would allow himself to be dragged back into the filthy games of politics and power. Mira was
scheming twenty years into the future and, once again, Cam was a pawn in someone else's plan. Of course, he'd agreed to it — he had to, but still it tasted of bitterness and defeat.

The tent he shared with Isidro was silent. No light spilled out when he lifted the flap to duck inside. Well, it had been a long day, and Isidro was both physically exhausted and weary in spirit with the loss of a friend. Cam entered quietly, so as not to wake him.

Once inside, though, he knew something was wrong. The stove had died down and the air had the desolate chill of an uninhabited space. There were no soft sounds of breathing. The tent was too dark for him to see anything at all. Cam felt his way forward cautiously to find the stove, and then opened the door to light a candle from the coals.

Isidro's furs were empty. They hadn't been disturbed since Cam laid them out for him hours ago. His stomach lurched so violently that Cam felt as though he'd been punched in the gut.
No, he couldn't have.
Isidro had
promised
. If he'd left, then it was Cam's fault for letting him go off alone when he was so clearly overwhelmed with hopelessness and despair.

There was a note-tablet lying open on Isidro's furs: two flat plaques of wood joined together with a leather hinge. Cam held it up to the meagre candle-light with trembling hands. Scrawled with Isidro's left hand, the letters were child-like and shaky as they spelled out a message written in a code their father had taught them years before.

Cam, I didn't break my promise. Mira sent hunters after Sierra. I'm going after them. I.

Cam was familiar with the sort of hunters sent out on a human trail. ‘Oh by the Black Sun, Issey,' Cam whispered. ‘What were you thinking?' There was no telling what Mira's assassins would do if they discovered Isidro trailing them.
For the love of light, brother, don't do anything stupid.

At the foot of a hill Sierra stopped to rest, letting the sled-poles drop as she reached inside her coat for her water-skin. There was only a few swallows of leathery-tasting water left and she allowed herself a scant mouthful before pushing the stopper back into the horn spout. Soon she would either have to stop and light a fire to refill it, or else resort to eating snow to quench her thirst. That was a bad idea — it would bring hypothermia on faster, just as it had before Cam found her. This time, she would most likely wake to find Rasten gazing down at her.
Better not to wake at all
, Sierra thought.
Cam should have left me where he found me.

People rarely travelled alone in a Ricalani winter. It was something done only in desperation when there was no other refuge available. Alone there was no one to keep watch for leopards and tigers while she slept, no one to help her stay alert for the confusion and disorientation that were the warning signs of hypothermia. If she fell through the ice, there was no one to pull her out, to put up the tent and light a fire to help dry her clothes and warm her again. If she was injured, or fell ill, no one would cut firewood for her, fetch water or find food once her supplies ran out. No one survived alone for long in the Ricalani winter. If she grew too cold, too tired, or if she got frostbite, or snow blindness again, she would die — unless Rasten found her first.

Somewhere nearby, perhaps just a few hillsides over, a wolf raised its voice in a howl and after a moment another cried out in answer. Sierra froze for a moment before working the stopper back into the spout of the water-skin. Wolves were no threat to her at the moment. She could see off a whole pack of them if she had to, but once her power ran down it would be a different matter. She couldn't feed from animals the way she could from humans and she had no other weapon in her pack. That was another thing she would have to see to when she next met up with people.

Tucking the water-skin away again, Sierra took a moment to stretch her aching back. It was growing late and, wolves or no, she ought to pitch her tent and rest before she became too cold and weary to watch for danger.
But not yet
, she thought. Maybe after another hour or so, but now the thought of crawling into her cold furs alone was enough to make her stoop and pick up the poles again. It had been unwise to let herself get used to companionship. Loneliness had settled across her shoulders like a leaden yoke but as long as she kept moving, the ache in her back and her legs was enough to distract her. In time, she would get used to the solitude, just as she had before, but for now she wanted to be utterly exhausted when she finally crawled beneath her furs. Anything less and she wasn't sure she would be able to keep from weeping from the emptiness.

With a sigh, Sierra leaned into the harness buckled across her chest again. The poles were there to help her steer and check the sled's speed on a downward slope, but it was the harness that took the strain of hauling it. By tomorrow the points where the straps crossed her shoulders and rubbed on her collarbone would be tender and sore, even with the layers of clothing to pad the spots. In a few days' time when she found a house or a temple from which to buy food she might be able to afford a rest day to recover and let the blisters heal. Before then she would have to come up with a convincing reason as to why she was travelling alone and why she could not accept shelter in a temple or from the ruling clan. No matter what she came up with, any folk she met would probably assume she was a fugitive of some sort, a pariah and a law-breaker. Even the outcasts who roamed between the Mesentreian settlements and the Ricalani lands offered her no safety — once they realised who she was they wouldn't hesitate to sell her back to Kell.

An owl swooped across her path on silent wings and Sierra stopped in her tracks with a small gasp of surprise. She turned to follow its flight but the pale shape vanished as swiftly as it appeared, lost in the darkness between the trees. The woods were utterly silent and still and the only sound Sierra could hear was the faint, whispering roar as the steam in her breath froze in the air, forming a hazy cloud around her.

She should light a fire and make a hot drink to revive herself. She ought to pitch her tent and stop for the night. Pressing on like this when she was already exhausted was suicide.

Behind her the owl called, a low, mournful sound that drifted through the still air. Sierra turned and a movement caught her eye, a shifting blur of white-on-white.

Without thinking she threw up a shield, a glowing disc of flickering blue light that wiped out her night vision and blocked the woods beyond it from her view. For an instant Sierra thought she must have overreacted, her tired eyes playing tricks on her. The movement she had seen could have been just a clump of snow slipping from a laden branch.

The thought lasted for a bare instant, but no more, as an arrow struck the centre of her shield. Her quiescent power, stung into life by the impact, struck at it wildly and tore the shaft into myriad blazing splinters. The metal point turned molten and fell, the glowing gob of metal rousing an angry hiss of steam as it seared through the snow.

For a moment Sierra stood stunned  — then she tore at the strap buckled across her chest. Her mittened hands could get no purchase and in a flash of rage she took hold of the buckle and cut through the leather with a flick of power. Shrugging free of the loops, she abandoned the sled and ran in the direction the arrow had come from with her power flickering and coursing around her. The light from her shield had as good as blinded her but the one who had loosed the arrow would be no better off.

At the base of a tree she found his tracks, the wide, scuffed marks of snowshoes and the slight haze in the air from his breath as he had settled himself and taken aim. He had dropped his bow there and stumbled away; blinded by the flash of light, his steps were weaving and uncertain. Sierra went to follow them when she heard a rustle of leather behind her and turned to find him lunging at her with a broad-headed spear.

She slashed at the shaft with a lash of power and sheared it off a foot behind the head. Then her power took over and with a will of its own it writhed up the shaft with a dozen rippling strands that swarmed over his hands and up his arms.

At the first brush of power against his flesh, the man began to scream. Wherever it touched, those strands of light cut like knives, slicing through leather, cloth and flesh and leaving gaping wounds behind. He screamed again, a deep and tearing sound that died in a gurgle as lightning crawled like worms out of his mouth. A gush of blood broke over his lip, flooding down his chin, and then he collapsed, falling face-
first into the snow. His coat and clothing hung off him in strips, as though they had been shredded by a set of giant claws, and his back looked like a side of raw meat attacked by scavengers. It reminded her sharply of the final ritual, the one Kell used when his subjects were nearing the last of their strength. How many men and women had she seen in this state, a flayed and bloody mass of raw meat and yellow bone? Isidro would have ended up like that — still could, if Rasten found him again.

Breathing hard, Sierra steeled herself to hook a foot under the man's shoulder and turned him over to see his face. Her stomach churned, threatening revolt, and she swallowed hard, forcing it down again. She felt physically ill and not just from the sight and smell of the gore scattered around. This was
her
work;
her
power had wrought this horror — she couldn't blame it on Kell or Rasten, it was hers and hers alone. But who was he and why had he attacked her? She would be dying by now if the owl's call hadn't made her look around.

While she was still struggling to control her nausea, she heard a noise that had no place in this silent, frozen forest — the crackling of flames. Turning, she saw yellow light streaming between the trees from where she had left her sled. Feeling suddenly numb, she headed back, but she already had a fair idea of what she would see.

The sled was ablaze, flickering with yellow flames along its length and pouring off black and greasy smoke. Someone had cut the cord that bound the waterproof wrapper and doused the gear beneath with oil before setting it alight, while the wrapper protected the flames from the melting snow beneath. As she neared it, Sierra could make out her tent and her kitbag charring and twisting within the blaze. All the things she would need to survive on her own were being reduced to ash and char.

She drew a quick breath of air that stank of burning fur and held her hands out over the sled, pouring her energy over the flames to smother them. Before Kell locked the rubies around her wrists there had been a time when the spill of her power would light small fires a dozen times a day. Rasten had been run ragged trying to find them and put them out, but Sierra only stirred herself to extinguish them if the flames threatened something of hers — or if they came too close to the poor souls Kell kept for the rituals, who suffered enough without her adding to their pain. It was only once Kell locked the punishment bands in place that she'd had any incentive to keep her powers under control.

Even as the smoke cleared Sierra could see she'd come too late. Her tent, her spare clothes and her supplies were all ruined, either soaked with oil or charred beyond repair. Whoever lit this fire must have moved in the moment she left the sled behind.

Inside her, curling like a strangle-vine around her spine, her power pulsed and writhed. Provoked by the darker and more primitive of her emotions, it craved destruction and revenge. Slowly Sierra circled the blackened sled and found a set of tracks leading away. She'd been foolish to leave it unprotected — she should have known that anyone sent to kill her wouldn't have come alone.

Light still blazed around her: questing strands of power that crawled over the snow at her feet. As she set out to follow the trail Sierra called them in with an iron will, shoving them back inside her until no light showed. She didn't stop to think what she would do once she found the ones who had done this, or what she could hope to achieve now that all her gear was ruined. There was no thought, just a raw and furious thirst for revenge. All she had wanted was to be left in peace, and they couldn't even allow her that!

A figure loomed ahead of her, a vague pale shape in the darkness, moving with a hurried stride as though his only thought was to get away. He must have heard her behind him — it took more patience than she could currently muster to move silently over snow. The man glanced back and stumbled, tripping over his snowshoes and floundering in the soft and airy drifts. He threw his hands up in supplication, hiding his face in the shadows they cast. ‘P-p-please don't hurt me! It was Nars who set fire to your gear, not me! Have mercy, I beg you!'

Her power pulsed within her, straining at the bonds she'd placed on it, but Sierra forced it back down. ‘Who sent you?' she demanded. ‘Why are you doing this?'

‘Never meant no harm, I swear! Oh mistress, please, have mercy!'

His grovelling made her turn away, disgusted at the thought of what she would have done if he'd turned and fought, or waited in ambush as the archer had. Then Sierra heard the distinct sound of a twig snap behind her and without thinking she turned her back on the man floundering waist-deep in the snow to seek the source of the noise. She realised at once she had made a mistake, but by then it was too late. From the corner of her eye she saw him lunge at her with a dagger in his hand.

He stabbed low, aiming for her inner thigh and the enormous blood vessel there beneath the muscle. Sierra stepped back to dodge and tripped over the long tail of her snowshoe. She twisted as she fell and instead of her inner thigh, the tip of the dagger slipped beneath the thick leather and fur of her coat and dragged across her leg, slicing cleanly through leather and fabric and skin. If it stung for a moment, Sierra didn't notice — she was already swinging her hand at the man's knife-arm. It wasn't much of a blow. From any other person it would have been little more than a slap, but as she moved Sierra loosed the bonds that held her power in check. It roared like a dragon up her arm and burst from her palm in a brilliant spear of light. It struck his forearm with an audible crack, splintering the bones like dry twigs. The hunter screamed as his knife-hand went limp, dropping the dagger into the snow where it vanished in the powder. The man screamed again and kept screaming as tendrils of light crawled over his arm, his sleeve rapidly soaked in blood that dripped in a gentle patter onto the snow.

Sierra stopped the threads from reaching any further, but it took a moment longer for her to haul her power back. He lay sprawled across her legs, shaking; she shoved him off and stood carefully, wary of the knife that lay somewhere beneath her. Her leg stung where the dagger had sliced her — it was little more than a scratch, but it was bleeding freely, and her thigh felt wet with blood. Where it seeped into the cloth, dry snow clung to the moisture and froze it in a crust that looked black in the meagre starlight.

‘Stay where you are!' a man's voice called out, and Sierra cautiously turned, wary of tripping over her snowshoes again. She saw him making a careful way through the trees, sighting at her down the bolt of a crossbow. She glanced down at the other warrior, but he was still lying in the snow and groaning as he clutched at his shattered arm. It was only then that Sierra realised she'd inflicted almost the same injury on him as Rasten had on Isidro.

The man on the ground seemed to be of little threat, but all the same Sierra moved to keep them both in sight. Backing up in snowshoes was a precarious manoeuvre but still safer than turning her back on the man with the crossbow.

‘I said, stay where you are or I'll shoot!'

‘Oh, come now,' Sierra said. ‘Why would you do a thing like that? You've already seen me stop one arrow.' Once she could keep them both
in view without shifting her gaze she stopped and relaxed all the bonds on her power, letting it spill around her in the form of a dozen writhing tendrils of light that stretched out into a sphere with her at the centre. With power flowing in from the man on the ground it was easier to let it have its head than keep it so closely contained.