She nodded again. "It"s hard to think of doing things that wouldn"t p-please him. Don"t know if I can do them. And if he speaks to me-"
Isana swallowed. Gently, she drew Odiana"s hands down from her ears and then placed her own over them. "He shan"t," she said, quietly. "Let me."
Odiana"s face paled, but she nodded, once.
Isana reached out for Rill and sent the fury down through her touch, into Odiana"s body. Rill hesitated, once within, refusing to respond. Isana had to focus with a sharp effort of will before Isana"s senses pressed through and into the other woman.
Odiana"s emotions nearly overwhelmed her.
Tension. Terrible fear. Rage, frantic and near mindless-all of them trapped beneath a slow and steady pleasure, a languid pulse that radiated out of the collar, threatening at any moment to reverse itself into unspeakable agony. It was like standing within the heart of a storm, emotions and needs spinning past, whirling by, nothing steady, nothing to orient upon. With a slow shudder, Isana realized that Rill had let her touch only lightly upon the water witch"s emotions, on the frantic whirl and spill of them in her mind. She realized that Rill had meant to protect her from exposure to what could all too easily spill over into her own thoughts, her own heart.
Isana frantically pushed that storm of the soul away from her, struggled to focus on her purpose. Through the fury, she sought out the other woman"s ears, the sensitive eardrums. With a sharp, nearly frantic effort, she altered the pressures of Odiana"s body, within her ears. Distantly, Isana heard Odiana let out a pained gasp-and then the drums burst, another explosion of pain and wild emotions-glee and revulsion and impatience predominant.
Isana withdrew her presence from the water-crafter as quickly as she could, jerking her hands and her face away. Even after the contact had been broken, the wild spill of Odiana"s emotions remained, flooding over her, against her, making it difficult to think, to focus on the task at hand.
Odiana"s voice came to her then, very quiet, very gentle. "You can"t fight it, you know," she half-whispered. "You have to embrace it. One day, they"re all going to come in, hold-girl. You have to let it have you. To do otherwise is... is mad."
Isana looked up to see the water witch smiling, a smile that stretched her mouth in something near a pained grimace. Isana shook her head and pressed the emotions away from her, fought to clear her thinking. Tavi. Bernard. She had to get free, to get to her family. They would need her help, or at least to know that she was all right. She hugged herself and struggled, and slowly her thoughts began to clear.
"We have to get out of here," Isana said. "I don"t know how much more time we have."
Odiana frowned at her. "You"ve put out my ears, hold-girl. I can"t hear you, can I? But if you"re saying we should go, I agree."
Isana nodded toward the floor on the far side of the ring of coals. "Kord"s fury. It"s guarding the floor out there." She gestured and pointed at the ground.
Odiana shook her head, disagreeing. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and she gasped in a little breath, fingertips moving to touch the collar. "I... I"ll have all I can do just to go. I can"t help you." She bowed her head and said, "Just take my hand. I"ll come with you."
Isana shook her head, frustrated. Outside, a door banged open, and Kord"s drunken voice bawled, "It"s time, ladies!" followed by a hoa.r.s.e cheer from several throats.
Panicked, Isana rose and took Odiana"s hand. She reached out to Rill, sent the fury questing about the roof of the smokehouse, as the men grew closer, gathering up all the liquid water the fury could find. Isana felt it inside her, an instinctive awareness of what was there, of the water in the snow-filled air, the melt-water within the smokehouse and in the ground around it.
Isana felt it and gathered it together in one place and then, with a low cry, released it.
Water flooded down from the roof in a sudden wave that washed over the coals in a swirling ring. The coals spat and hissed furiously, and in seconds the air was filled with thick, broiling hot steam.
Without, there was a cry, and Kord"s feet pounded closer. The heavy bolt to the door slid back, and it flew open.
With another flick of her hand, Isana sent the steam boiling out into Kord"s face, out to the men behind him. Cries and yowls filled the yard, as men scrambled back from the door.
Isana focused on the ground before them, and at the edge of the now-guttered coals, water condensed from the steam into a shining strip of liquid as wide as a plank. She had never attempted anything like that before. Holding clear in her mind what she wanted Rill to do, Isana took a deep breath and stepped out onto the plank of liquid. There was a tension in it, wavering, but there, and it held her weight without allowing her foot to sink through to the floor.
Isana let out a low cry of triumph and stepped out onto the plank, tugging Odiana by the hand. She led her to the door of the smokehouse and leapt out onto the earth without, Odiana faltering, but staying close.
"Stop!" Kord bellowed, within the cloud of steam. "I order you to stop! Get on the ground, b.i.t.c.h! Get on the ground!"
Isana glanced at Odiana, but the woman"s face was distant, her eyes unfocused, and she stumbled along in Isana"s wake. If the collar forced a reaction to Kord"s voice upon her, she gave no sign of it.
"Rill," Isana hissed. "The nearest stream!" And with an abrupt clarity, Isana felt the lay of the land about them, the subtle tilt down and away from the mountains and toward the middle of the valley, to a tributary that fed, eventually, into one of the streams that ran down through Garrison and into the Sea of Ice.
Isana turned and ran over the cold ground, now using Rill only to help her know the way to the nearest water, to keep her blood running hot through her bare feet to help them resist freezing. She could only hope that Odiana would have the presence of mind to do the same.
Behind them, Kord bellowed to his fury, and the ground to her right erupted with writhing, vicious motion, ice and frozen earth and rocks thrown into the air. Isana swerved her course to run over deeper snow, more thickly crusted ice, and prayed that she would not slip and break her leg. It was only that coating of frozen water that gave her any sort of protection at all from the wrath of Kord"s earth fury.
"Kill you!" bellowed Kord"s voice behind them, in the dark. "Kill you! Find them, find them and kill them! Bring the hounds!"
Her heart racing with fear, her body alight with excitement and terror, Isana fled into the night from the sounds of mounting pursuit, leading her fellow captive by the hand.
Chapter 31
"What do you mean, they missed?" Fidelias snapped. He gritted his teeth and folded his arms, leaning back in the seat within the litter. The Knights Aeris at the poles supported it as it sailed through low clouds and drifting snow, and the cold seemed determined to slowly remove his ears from the sides of his head.
"You really do hate flying, don"t you?" Aldrick drawled.
"Just answer the question."
"Marcus reports that the ground team missed stopping the Cursor from reaching Count Gram. The air team saw a target of opportunity and took it, but they were detected before they could attack. The Cursor again. The two men with Marcus were killed in the attack, though he reports that Count Gram was wounded, probably fatally."
"It was a bungled a.s.sault from the beginning, not an opportunity. If they weren"t forewarned before, they are now."
Aldrick shrugged. "Maybe not. Marcus reports that the Cursor and the Stead-holder with her were subsequently arrested and hauled off in chains."
Fidelias tilted his head at Aldrick, frowning. Then, slowly, he started to smile. "Well. That makes me feel a great deal better. Gram wouldn"t have arrested one of his own Stead-holders without getting the whole story. His truthfinder must be in command now."
Aldrick nodded. "That"s what Marcus reports. And according to our sources, the truth-finder is someone with a patron but no talent. House of Pluvus. He"s young, no experience, not enough crafting to even do his job, much less to be a threat in the field."
Fidelias nodded. "Mmm."
"Lucky accident, it looks like. There was a veteran that was going to be set out with nearly two cohorts tertius tertius, originally, but the paperwork got done incorrectly and they sent out a green unit instead."
"The crows it was an accident," Fidelias murmured. "It took me nearly a week to set it up."
Aldrick stared at him for a moment. "I"m impressed."
Fidelias shrugged. "I only did it to lessen the effectiveness of the garrison. I didn"t think it would pay off this well." He wiped a snowflake from his cheek, irritably. "I must be living right."
"Don"t get your hopes up too far," the swordsman responded. "If the Marat lose their backbones, all of this will be for nothing."
"That"s why we"re going out to them," Fidelias said. "Just follow my lead." He leaned forward and called to one of the Knights Aeris, "How much longer?"
The man squinted into the distance for a moment and then called back to him, "Coming down out of the cloud cover now, sir. We should be able to see the fires... there."
The litter swept down out of the clouds, and the abrupt return of vision made Fidelias"s stomach churn uncomfortably, once he could see how far down the ground was.
And beneath them, spread out over the plains beyond the mountains that shielded the Calderon Valley, were campfires. There were campfires that spread into the night for miles.
"Hungh," Aldrick rumbled. He stared down at the fires, at the forms dimly moving around them for several moments, while they sailed over them. Then turned to Fidelias and said, "I"m not sure I can handle that many."
Fidelias felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "We"ll make that the backup plan, then."
The litter glided to earth at the base of a hill that rose up out of the rolling plains. At its top stood a ring of enormous stones, each as big as a house, and within that circle of stones stood a still pool of water, somehow free of the ice that should have covered it. Torches rested between the stones, their emerald flame giving strange, heavy smoke. It gave the place a garish light. The snow on the ground gave the whole place an odd light, and the pale, nearly naked Marat could be seen keeping out of the light of the nearest torches, watching them curiously.
Fidelias alighted from the litter and asked the same Knight he"d spoken to before, "Where is Atsurak?"
The Knight nodded up the slope. "Top of the hill. They call it a horto horto but it"s up there." but it"s up there."
Fidelias rolled his ankle, frowning at the pain in his foot. "Then why didn"t we land at the top of the hill?"
The Knight shrugged and said apologetically, "They told us not to, sir."
"Fine," Fidelias said, shortly. He glanced at Aldrick and started up the hill. The swordsman fell in on his right and a step behind him. The slope made his feet hurt abominably, and he had to stop once to rest.
Aldrick frowned, watching him. "Feet?" Aldrick frowned, watching him. "Feet?" "Yes." "Yes." "When we wrap this up tomorrow, I"ll go get Odiana. She"s good at fixing things up." "When we wrap this up tomorrow, I"ll go get Odiana. She"s good at fixing things up."
Fidelias frowned. He didn"t trust the water witch. Aldrick seemed to control her, but she was too clever for his liking. "Fine," he said, shortly. After a moment, he asked, "Why, Aldrick?"
The swordsman watched the night around them with neutral disinterest. "Why what?" The swordsman watched the night around them with neutral disinterest. "Why what?" "You"ve been a wanted man for what? Twenty years?" "You"ve been a wanted man for what? Twenty years?" "Eighteen." "Eighteen." "And you"ve been a rebel the whole time. Fallen in with one group after another, and they"ve all been subversives." "And you"ve been a rebel the whole time. Fallen in with one group after another, and they"ve all been subversives." "Freedom fighters," Aldrick said. "Freedom fighters," Aldrick said. "Whatever," Fidelias said. "The point is that you"ve been a thorn in Gaius"s side since you were barely more than a boy." "Whatever," Fidelias said. "The point is that you"ve been a thorn in Gaius"s side since you were barely more than a boy." Aldrick shrugged. Aldrick shrugged. Fidelias studied him. "Why?" Fidelias studied him. "Why?" "Why do you want to know?" "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I like knowing the motivations of the people I work with. The witch follows you. She"s besotted with you, and I have no doubt that she"d kill for you, if you asked her to."
Again, Aldrick shrugged.
"But I don"t know why you"re doing it. Why Aquitaine trusts you. So, why?"
"You haven"t worked it out? You"re supposed to be the big spy for the Crown. Haven"t you figured it out yet? a.n.a.lyzed my scars or poked into my diaries, something like that?"
Fidelias half-smiled. "You"re honest. You"re a murderer, a sellsword, a thug-but an honest one. I thought I"d ask."
Aldrick stared up the hill for a moment. Then he said, tonelessly, "I had a family. My mother and my father. My older brother and two younger sisters. Gaius s.e.xtus destroyed them." Aldrick tapped a finger on the hilt of his sword. "I"ll kill him. To do that, I have to knock him off the Throne. So I"m with Aquitaine."
"And that"s all there is to it?" Fidelias asked. "And that"s all there is to it?" Fidelias asked. "No." Aldrick didn"t elaborate. After a moment of silence, he said, "How are your feet?" "No." Aldrick didn"t elaborate. After a moment of silence, he said, "How are your feet?" "Let"s go," Fidelias said. He started back up the hill again, though the pain made him wince with every step. "Let"s go," Fidelias said. He started back up the hill again, though the pain made him wince with every step.
Perhaps ten yards short of the summit of the hill, a pair of Marat warriors, male and female, rose out of the shadows around the base of the stones at the top of the hill. They came down toward them, through the snow, the man holding an axe of Aleran manufacture, the woman, a dark dagger of chipped stone.
Fidelias stopped short of them and held up his empty hands. "Peace. I have come to speak to Atsurak."
The man stepped up close to him, his eyes narrowed. He had the dark, heavy feathers of a herd-bane braided through his pale hair. "I will not permit you to speak to Atsurak, outsider, while he is at the horto horto. You will wait until-"
Fidelias"s temper flashed, and it was with a flicker of annoyance that he reached down into the earth to borrow strength from Vamma and dealt the axe-wielding warrior a blow that lifted the Marat"s feet up off the ground and stretched him out senseless in the snow.
Without pausing, Fidelias stepped over the silent form of the fallen Marat. He limped up to the lean female warrior and said in exactly the same tone, "Peace. I have come to speak to Atsurak."
The Marat"s amber-colored eyes flicked up and down Fidelias, bright beneath heavy, pale brows. Her lips lifted from her teeth, showing canine fangs, and she said, "I will take you to Atsurak."
Fidelias followed her up the rest of the hill and to the great stones there. The smoke from the torches, heavy and dark along the ground, held a curious odor, and Fidelias found his head feeling a bit light as he stepped into it. He glanced back at Aldrick, and the swordsman nodded, nostrils flared.
Seven stones, smooth and round, their surfaces protruding above the heavy smoke, sat around a pool of water, somehow unfrozen despite the cold. The smoke seemed to sink into it and swirl beneath its surface, leaving it shining and dull, reflecting back the light of fires and the dull night glow of snow and ice.
Scattered around the pool were perhaps a hundred other Marat, their hair plaited with herd-bane feathers, or else showing the s.h.a.gginess of what Fidelias a.s.sumed to be the Wolf Clan. Male and female, they ate, or drank from brightly painted gourds, or mated in the sultry, dizzying smoke with animal abandon. In the shadows stood the tall, silent shapes of the herd-bane warbirds and crouched the low, swift shapes of wolves.
On one of the stones lounged Atsurak, his bruises all but gone already, the cuts bound in strips of hide and plaited gra.s.s. Aquitaine"s dagger rode through a strap at his waist, the blade contained within a rawhide sheath and positioned to be clearly on display. On either side of him curled a female Marat warrior, of the heavy-browed and fanged variety. Both were naked, young, lithe.
The mouths of all three were smeared with fresh, scarlet blood. And bound over the stone beside them was the shivering form of a young Aleran woman, still wearing the shreds of a farm wife"s skirts and ap.r.o.n, and still very much alive.
Aldrick"s mouth twisted with disgust. "Savages," he murmured. Aldrick"s mouth twisted with disgust. "Savages," he murmured. "Yes," Fidelias said. "We call them that because they"re savage, Aldrick." "Yes," Fidelias said. "We call them that because they"re savage, Aldrick." The swordsman growled in his throat. "They have moved too soon. There aren"t any Aleran settlements on this side of the Valley." The swordsman growled in his throat. "They have moved too soon. There aren"t any Aleran settlements on this side of the Valley."
"Obviously." Fidelias stepped forward and said, "Atsurak of Clan herd-bane. I understood that our attack was to begin two dawns from now. Was my understanding in error?"
Atsurak looked up, focusing on Fidelias, as an older woman, also showing the signs of Clan Wolf, rose from the smoke at the base of one of the stones, coated liberally in blood, and crossed to him. She folded her arms casually over his shoulders, amber eyes on Fidelias. Atsurak lifted his hand to touch the woman"s, without looking at her, and said, "We celebrate our victory, Aleran." He smiled, and his teeth were stained scarlet. "Have you come to partake?"
"You celebrate a victory you do not yet have." "You celebrate a victory you do not yet have." Atsurak waved a hand. "For many of my warriors, there will be no chance to celebrate, after." Atsurak waved a hand. "For many of my warriors, there will be no chance to celebrate, after." "So you broke our agreement?" Fidelias asked. "You struck early?" "So you broke our agreement?" Fidelias asked. "You struck early?"
The Marat lowered his brows. "A raiding party struck first, as is our custom. We know many ways in and out of the bridge valley, Aleran. Not ways for an army, but for a scouting party, a raiding party, yes." He gestured toward the bound girl. "Her people fought well against us. Died well. Now we partake of their strength."
"You"re eating eating them them alive alive?" demanded Aldrick.
"Pure," corrected Atsurak. "Untouched by fire or water or blade. As they are before The One."
As he spoke, a pair of herd-bane warriors rose to their feet and moved to the prisoner. With casual, almost disinterested efficiency, they drew her up, tore the clothes from her, and bound her back down over the stone again, belly up to the stars, arms and legs spread.
Atsurak looked over at the captive and mused through b.l.o.o.d.y lips, "We take more strength in this way. I do not expect you to understand, Aleran."
The girl looked around, frantic, her eyes red with tears, body shaking in the cold, her lips blue. "Please," she gasped, toward Fidelias. "Please, sir. Please help me."
Fidelias met her eyes. Then walked over toward the stone upon which she was bound. "Matters have changed. We must change the plans to suit them."
Atsurak followed him with his eyes, expression growing wary. "What change, Aleran?"
"Sir," the girl whispered up at him, her expression desperate, ugly with tears and terror. "Sir, please."
"Shhhh," Fidelias said. He rested his hand on her hair, and she broke down into quiet, subdued sobs. "We have to move forward now. The troops at Garrison may be warned of our coming."
"Let them know," Atsurak said, lazily leaning against one of the women at his side. "We will tear out their weak bellies regardless."
"You are wrong," Fidelias said. He raised his voice, enough that all of the Marat around the pool would hear. "You are mistaken, Atsurak. We must strike at once. At dawn."
Silence fell over the hilltop, abrupt, deep, almost as though the Marat were afraid to breathe. All eyes went from Fidelias to Atsurak.
"You call me mistaken," Atsurak said, the words low, soft. "You call me mistaken," Atsurak said, the words low, soft. "The younger of your people listen to the elder, headman of Clan herd-bane. Is that not true?" "The younger of your people listen to the elder, headman of Clan herd-bane. Is that not true?" "It is." "It is."
"Then you, young horde-master, listen to me. I was there when last the Alerans fought your people. There was no glory in it. There was no honor. There was hardly any battle. The rocks rose against them, and the very gra.s.s beneath them bound their feet. Fire was laid on the ground, and fire swept over them and destroyed them. There was no contest, no trial of blood. They died like stupid animals in a trap because they grew too confident." He twisted his lips into a sneer. "Their bellies too full."