Wolf's Blood (91 page)

“Junco Torn will probably lose the use of his hand. Pishtoolam is directing the kitchens from a chair. She took an arrow in her leg and keeps boasting that being fat saved her from something worse than a limp. I’ve lost track of the bandages I’ve rolled. I can do that at least, but I can’t do anything for the wounded, and I’m not sure it matters because when that shield comes down—and it will, even with what the Meddler did we don’t have the power to keep it up—we’re all going to be dead anyhow.

“And I keep wondering and wondering … How could Tiniel betray us like that? We might have held if he hadn’t, especially with the navy unable to act. Was it something I did or something I didn’t do? I know I haven’t visited very much. It’s been so busy, and I’ve been spending time with Derian, and I’ve been so happy and now …”

She gulped and wiped at the tears with an angry swipe of her sleeve. The motion didn’t do much more than smear the tears into a smudge that lined one side of her face, but Plik didn’t comment. Given how hard she was crying, the smudge would wash away of its own accord.

“I came here to look at Tin’s stuff, to see if he wrote something, anything that would make me understand how he could do this, how he could put us all in danger. You think that’s all right?”

The last question held a pathetic note, as if for the first time Isende questioned her being there in her twin’s room, going through his private belongings.

“I think,” Plik said, “that what you’re doing is as useful as anything, but, Isende, tormenting yourself isn’t going to change anything. Maybe you should just go get some sleep.”

“I can’t. I tried. I really did. Ynamynet and Kalyndra both have made clear how essential sleep is when you’re working spells, but every time I put my head on the pillow I’d think of Tin and how before—when we still had that link—how I’d go to sleep at night and sometimes our dreams would get mixed up with each other.”

She colored and Plik had some notion of what those dreams might have entailed. He wondered how their relatives could have let a young man and a young woman go off together like that without regard for what might develop. Maybe they were so accustomed to thinking of the twins as strange that they had forgotten to consider them as people.

He was fairly certain that no actual incest had occurred, but clearly Isende had been aware of her brother’s impulses.

Plik didn’t really understand human sexuality. In his heritage the raccoon dominated. However, some of the maimalodalum had taken after their human heritage, and he had observed—and felt grateful to be spared—the torments of being in heat all the year. Doubtless, if the twins had remained in Gak, Tiniel would have fastened his desire on someone other than his sister. Their powerful emotional bond would have made some things awkward, but that could have been handled.

But alone together, bound to know what the other was feeling had put a strain on the siblings. Both had suffered, but Tiniel must have felt abandoned, first by the severance of the emotional bond to his sister. Later, when Isende turned first toward Rhul and Saeta’s family, and then to Derian, that sense of abandonment would have been intensified.

Plik didn’t think lying would help. Isende was too intelligent to be put off by a few soothing words—and matters were going to be worse for her long before they were better. If Tiniel was already dead, she was going to feel guilt and relief. If he was alive, and the Nexans recaptured him, then mere guilt would be a mercy indeed.

“Isende, Tiniel never discussed much with me. I know he was unhappy. I know he felt alienated and rather useless, but I had no suspicion that he was contemplating taking sides with the invaders. If I had, I would not have let him be given such a place of trust. As it was, I felt relief that he wanted to help.”

“Me, too,” Isende said. She had stopped crying now, and was mopping at her face, but no amount of tidying could hide her red and swollen eyes. “I thought he’d finally joined the community, realized he could be a part of something, even if our bond was gone. That bond … I was glad when we lost it, but for a while, it was everything we were. And if it had still been there. I might have felt something, might have guessed, might even have gotten an inkling from a dream.”

Plik flicked his ears back and shook his head in reprimand.

“Tiniel made his choices. It must have been heady for him, to be able to plan and plot without your being able to get any sense of what he was about. My understanding was that you couldn’t read each other’s thoughts, is that right?”

“That’s right,” Isende said. “but we spent so much time together, and so much time feeling traces of what the other felt, that it was like there were times that I knew what he was thinking, even if he couldn’t think messages at me. When he was thinking about how we should leave Gak and go to our ancestral lands. I knew something was up long before he actually told me. I bet I would have felt something this time, too.”

Plik reached out and patted her.

“Isende, you couldn’t and you didn’t. That’s that. Don’t torment yourself with might-have-beens. Instead, maybe we should see if Tiniel left any notes. They might help us understand his intentions—and give us some idea how to speak with him when we see him again.”

“If.” Isende gulped around the start of another flood of tears, but she turned back to the desk and started sorting. “Tin isn’t much of a writer, but he likes to draw. When we were planning on coming out to the stronghold, he drew all sorts of pictures about what we could expect.”

She moved the books aside, now obviously looking for something specific. She found it a moment later.

“Tin’s drawing portfolio. He stocked it up before we left Gak, saying he didn’t know how long it would be before we could get such things again. I bet …”

She was untying the laces that held the leather folder closed as she spoke, and now she opened it at random. The topmost sheet showed the gates and a young man who was clearly an idealized Tiniel standing straight and talking to a lovely, curvaceous woman wearing the attire of an aridisdu. The aridisdu was handing Tiniel a sword, the details of which had been worked with loving care, from the gems on the pommel to the arcane inscriptions on the blade.

“Oh!” Isende said. “That’s Conqueror.”

“Conqueror?” Plik repeated.

“It’s a magical sword that Tiniel sort of made up. You know, the way you tell yourself stories when you’re still young enough to play make-believe? I was always coming up with magical jewels, but Tiniel liked the idea of swords and armor. Conqueror was his favorite, a weapon that could be wielded only by one whose purpose was firm and ideals were pure.”

They leafed through the portfolio quickly now, and the pictures told a depressing story. Lost and confused, Tiniel had given himself over to fantasies. At first the pictures showed fragments of his unhappiness, and there was no doubt that Derian—looking more horsey than he did in reality—came in for a great deal of the young man’s resentment.

Later, probably after the Nexans had faced the likelihood of the impending invasion, the pictures began to depict Tiniel doing heroic acts. At first these were in defense of the Nexans. Later, almost imperceptibly, they showed his belief that he would be a greater hero if he assisted the invaders.

“It’s like he forgot everything we had learned about the Old World,” Isende said. “These pictures show them as perfect heroes and the Nexans as grubs.”

She didn’t comment on the other recurring theme, that of Tiniel coming to his sister’s rescue at some key moment. He rescued her from ravening wolves, brought a potion to her as she lay injured, chose her from a crowd of prisoners. The pictures were perfectly chaste, and Isende was drawn fairly accurately, but even so, Plik was sorry that Isende would be unable to deny that her rejection of her brother and his desire to redeem himself in her regard had led him to betrayal.

Hope always said that the truth was better than lies
, he said, looking as Isende turned away from the portfolio, once again dissolved in tears.
I wonder … I do wonder.

He was tying up the the ribbon that closed the portfolio when shouting and wolf howls from outside provided a welcome distraction.

“Is it attack?” Isende said, starting for the door at a run.

“No,” Plik said, translating the glad cries of the wolves. “It’s Firekeeper. She’s back, and she’s brought help.”

THE BOUND ARRIVED over the bridge of living water, flowing almost like the waves themselves, if waves could be furred and feathered, colored in tawny golds, silvery greys, clean whites, all shades of brown, and even, in the case of some loudly squawking jays, in brilliant blues.

There were far more of the Bound than Derian had imagined possible. Whatever else you might think of Virim, it was clear his minions had thrived in his service. Derian had expected wolves, bears, and assorted cats. He had heard how the eagles had pursued Elation, and so expected the winged folk. What he did not expect were the strange assortment of other Beasts: fox, deer, and elk, even moose and raccoon. Apparently, Virim had taken no chances with his safety, and had recruited not only the great predators, but the watchful herbivores and the adaptable omnivores as well.

Firekeeper, catching her breath after a reunion with Blind Seer that seemed inordinately passionate given the short time that she had been gone, admitted to sharing Derian’s astonishment.

“We go out and the Meddler—who they think is Virim—tell them what he wants. They come then, some then more, then many more, and more again. I think that we not be able to bring them all, but the Meddler do very well with working the spell, and the sea monsters made no complaint about letting these many feet cross the bridge.”

Derian noticed that for once the Meddler did not preen over Firekeeper’s compliment. In fact, he seemed distinctly deflated, the arrogant assurance that was more a part of him than any shape subdued. Perhaps maintaining the gate spell for that long had taken a toll, but Derian wondered if something else had happened.

If so, Firekeeper was not saying anything, and this was not the time to press her. With the arrival of the Bound, the battered Nexans had regained much of their confidence, and the more impulsive were already calling for the shield to be lowered so that they might assault the invaders before the invaders had an opportunity to similarly augment their forces.

“Those idiots don’t seem to realize that they might have done so already,” Skea growled. “We need to plan for more than rushing the gateway hillside. I, for one, would like to know just how far Virim’s ability to control the Bound extends. If they’ll only protect him, they’re not going to be much good to the rest of us.”

“Unless we deliberately put him in danger,” Verul said, leaning on his cane and gazing at the shield, eyes narrowed in thoughtful speculation. “We’d need to pick an angle.”

Derian interrupted before this tactical speculation could go too far.

“We’re going to need to speak with the Meddler and the Bound. We should probably find out from Ynamynet just how far her control of the gate goes. Urgana and Arasan have been questioning the few prisoners we took, and we may learn something from them.”

As before, they met in the open: Derian, Skea, Ynamynet, Urgana, Firekeeper, the Meddler, Plik, and Isende. Derian wondered a little about Isende’s presence. As anger had grown about Tiniel’s betrayal, she had become more and more hesitant to make herself conspicuous. Maybe her choosing to sit out in the open was her way of making clear that she was not going to hide because of her brother’s guilt.

His heart warmed to her courage, but he couldn’t single her out for anything other than a smile. There was too much to do.

The Bound were represented by an enormous moose with the ominous—or promising, depending on how you chose to view it—name Man Tosser. Firekeeper and the Meddler had assured Skea that the Bound would fight without the specific need to protect Virim.

“They think is like protecting from magic coming back,” Firekeeper explained, “and this is why they help Virim in the start of this all.”

Many of those Nexans who were not helping in the kitchens or hospital or with maintaining the shield stood within earshot.

Derian made no effort to clear them away. After all, their fate was being decided here. They were entitled to know what was being said. Still, he wished they had the sense demonstrated by the majority of the yarimaimalom. With a wild creature’s sense of priority, most of these were either eating or sleeping, well aware that this would best prepare them for when the fighting began again.

Urgana was the only one with anything new to report. Not all the prisoners had spoken the same language, but most had been fairly eager to talk.

“The invaders are from seven different nations,” she said. “Since each army had to come through its own gate, each has its own commander.” She rattled off a list of names and places that Derian’s tired brain could hardly register, then went on, “There is a central commander: Bryessidan of the Mires.”

Ynamynet asked, “Is he then trying to recapture his father’s glory?”

“That depends on who I spoke to. The one woman from the Mires—an herbalist, rather than a soldier—said that he was not, that because the Mires have been forbidden a large army since the days of Veztressidan, Bryessidan was the most logical choice for commander because his troops were mostly Once Dead and support personnel. However, the others—we had a couple from u-Chival, one from Pelland, and one from Tishiolo—seemed less certain. The one from Pelland was the least certain of all.”

“Anything else?” Skea prompted. “Size of forces? How armed? Amount of magical support?”

Urgana passed several closely written sheets of paper over to him. “That’s what I could get. We’re hampered in that all of the prisoners were essentially infantry. We didn’t get a single officer, not even a unit leader. Also, quite frankly, it is in the prisoners’ best interests to lie rather than undermine our apprehension regarding the nature of the very forces they hope will rescue them.

“The one thing I was fairly certain about is that the forces from the Mires and from Tavetch are smaller than those from the other lands. The Mires didn’t have an army, and Tavetch sent most of its troops with the navy. As we guessed, King Hurwin is in command there.”