Now she angled her way somewhat to the west. She knew that Elation and Bold had both made periodic checks along the road as they hunted. They would have seen the others if they were along it. Bold would check again now.
The sky gained not so much color as the underglow of approaching light as Firekeeper slogged on. Long ago, she"d learned how to ignore pain, but she was all too aware of the inconvenience offered by her shortened step, her many bruises. She began to regret refusing the hot sweet tea.
That was a human act, not a wolf one, she sneered at herself. Since when has a wolf refused to eat?
What are you becoming, Little Two-legs, neither human nor wolf but the worst of both worlds?
The lightening sky took on the pale hue of the moonstone, taunting her with the possibilities she had refused. She raised her head once again to howl her desperate cry.
At first, when the answer came, she could hardly believe it Then, forgetting the pain in her hip, Firekeeper began to run, howling again and again as if somehow Blind Seer might lose her.Grateful Peace did not so much come conscious as come aware, and even that awareness was marred by a certain sense of unreality. He was upright and moving-apparently without his own volition, and with a strange jolting motion.
His legs were splayed and warmer than most of him, which was very cold. His back was less cold than his front and leaned against something that vibrated at a different tempo than the jolting motion of his forward progress.
Almost as soon as he was aware of these things, he was aware of considerable pain in his upper body in the vicinity of his right collarbone. His right arm hung very limp, so very limp that he found himself wondering if it had been immobilized. Trying to move it, though, set his head to racing and his heart to pounding with such ferocity that he nearly blacked out.
When the red and purple pounding in his head relented, Peace decided-a deliberate decision of which he felt rather proud-to open his eyes. He was met with a wash of pale colors: white, grey, a touch of blue.
Early-morning light, he thought. I am out-of-doors. Someone has taken my gla.s.ses.
A moment later, he registered a bit more.
I am on a horse.
He realized then that two rode the horse: himself and someone he was leaning against. That other one balanced Peace against himself, a thing that seemed to take all his energy. The shaking Peace had felt was nothing so simple as the other"s breathing. It was the bone-deep trembling of pure exhaustion, exhaustion so deep that it demands sleep and keeps it at bay only by absolute will.
Sir Jared, Peace thought, holds me on this horse though he himself is almost too tired to sit straight .
He listened. The motion of the horse was accompanied by a rhythmic crunching, not perfectly matched, however. Years of building from sound the pictures his eyes could not see offered him a tentative explanation.
The women walk at the horse"s head, breaking the snow and guiding it. The wolf may be with them, but if it is, I wonder that the horse is not more restive.
"Where..." he croaked, and discovered then that his mouth was so dry that he could hardly shape a sound.
From behind him, he heard Sir Jared"s voice, flat with exhaustion, call: "He"s coming around."
The horse was permitted to stop then. It didn"t seem much to mind. A brisk crunching in the snow, and Lady Elise"s bright young voice asked: "How are you?"
Peace moved his mouth but no sound came.
"Wait." Then, "Open up."
Snow was put gently into his open mouth. It melted so rapidly, Peace suspected he was feverish. Like ababy bird, he opened his mouth in mute entreaty.
More snow came until his mouth was no longer dry.
"Thank you," Peace croaked. "What happened?"
"We"re out of the guardhouse," Elise replied in a brisk tone that told him she was not saying everything.
"Don"t worry, we didn"t kill them, though that Tymia"s going to hate wolves forever. We locked them in their own cells. Someone should come along and let them out eventually, I guess."
She was speaking too fast, too brightly, leaving something out. Peace hadn"t been a watcher for this long without learning to hear the unspoken behind the words. He didn"t press.
"We stole a horse-they only had one, probably for delivering messages-put you two aboard. We"re staying off the road, but I"d guess we"re almost to the sheepfold."
Her tone said quite clearly that Lady Elise didn"t have any idea where they were or how far they had come.
"Blind Seer," Wendee Jay added, her voice coming from somewhere near the horse"s head, "went to find the others so they won"t worry."
Remembering the st.i.tched-together hulk of half-blind wolf, Grateful Peace didn"t think that the hope in Wendee"s voice was merited in the least. Probably the brute would go find a cave or fluffy s...o...b..nk and sleep off his injuries. Still, dogs were known to be very loyal. Maybe wolves were, too.
"My gla.s.ses?" he asked.
"Broken," Lady Elise replied apologetically, "when you fell. We kept the pieces, but there hasn"t been time to try to mend them."
"Of course," Peace murmured. He was drifting off again. Fighting sleep didn"t seem worth the effort.
When the horse started moving again, he struggled with an idea, but all he could manage was a vague notion that fear held the shape of pigeon wings.
The wolf proved himself worthy of the others" belief in him. Sometime later-Peace wasn"t sure how long-Peace became aware of Lady Blysse"s husky voice.
"... to him?"
There was horror and pity in her tones. Then he learned of whom and of what she spoke, and the horror and pity became his own.
"We were ambushed in the guardhouse at the end of the sewer," Lady Elise said. The horse had not stopped its forward motion. "Or something like that. We tried to sneak in and found they had an alarm rigged up. We fought them."
Peace could hear the pride in her voice.
"We wouldn"t have done too well if three of them hadn"t been half-dressed and fresh from bed and the fourth hadn"t been dozing. It was dark and just when we needed light the most, Peace came up with a candelabrum."Wendee took up the tale.
"Doc and I had been trying to get near this one fellow, but, well, Doc was pretty beat and I was... well, scared because I knew the man had a crossbow."
"Good to be scared, then," Firekeeper said seriously, and Peace had the eerie feeling that she was looking at him.
"The bowman," Wendee continued, "turned when he saw the light. I don"t know if he fired on purpose or whether his bow just went off."
"On purpose," Elise said definitely. "Doc said so."
"But he fired. His aim wasn"t great, but..."
Her voice trailed off.
"I see," came Firekeeper"s voice.
"Grateful Peace dropped the candles then," Wendee went on, adding with a true sense of drama, "and only pure luck kept them from dropping in the lantern oil."
"That was across the room," Elise corrected.
"Anyhow," Wendee said with a faint note of reproof in her voice, "Doc and I jumped the last guard. I grabbed him and Doc kicked his feet out from under him. The guard went down hard..."
There was a nervous giggle.
"With me still on top of him. That knocked him out cold."
"I"d gone over to Peace," Elise said, taking up the thread, "and I saw right away that things were both better and worse than we"d thought. He was out cold, not dead as we"d thought, but the reason he was out was that the arrow had caught him right where it opened up the artery into his arm. When he"d fallen, he"d shattered so many bones..."
Peace listened horrified, heard her swallow, and add almost apologetically.
"He really isn"t very young. Bones break more easily when you"re older. Doc felt if we tried to save the arm, we"d lose the man for sure. As it was, Doc nearly killed himself saving Grateful Peace. He was already so weak."
Peripherally, Peace heard the narrative continue, describing how Wendee-with Blind Seer as enforcer-had imprisoned the guards and found a horse, but he couldn"t keep his attention on what was being said.
His arm? But he could feel it! It was a little stiff, it ached, but they couldn"t have taken it off! He could feel it!
Even as he tried to convince himself otherwise, Grateful Peace knew the truth. His right arm-his drawing arm-the arm that had been his way to prosperity and prominence...
His arm was gone.
And then, as if things could not be worse, Peace remembered why fear had the shape of pigeon wings.Warned by Bold-or at least by Bold"s reappearance, and Derian was becoming very good at guessing what frantic hopping up and down combined with hoa.r.s.e cawing might mean-Derian and Edlin had the mules reloaded and the horses tacked up by the time Firekeeper returned with the remainder of their company.
Pale morning light showed them for what they were-injured, exhausted, and completely unsuited for a further press, but press they must. Even had any been inclined to stop, the words Grateful Peace forced out between fever-swollen lips would have enlivened the most exhausted blood.
"Pigeons," he murmured. "In a few hours at most."
Derian frowned, but Edlin caught on at once.
"Carrier birds, I say! He"s right, you know. As soon as they figure out that we"re not anywhere in the city, they"ll send out messenger pigeons to all the guard posts."
Firekeeper smiled cruelly from where she had perched on a laden mule.
"I send Elation," she said, "for pigeons."
"Not a bad idea," Derian agreed, swinging into Roanne"s saddle, "but Elation can"t hope to catch every pigeon."
"It"s a shame," Elise said, her tartness excusable given how Doc looked, "that your Royal Beasts didn"t send you out with a bit more support."
Firekeeper looked as if she agreed.
If the Beasts hadn"t sent out much help, nature conspired to offer some unlooked-for-and almost unappreciated-aid in form of ugly weather that swirled down from the mountains later that morning.
Light flurries turned into a steady fall of big white flakes. These, as the day warmed, became sleet and freezing rain.
Footing for the horses and mules was-especially on the steeper parts of the road-uncertain enough that Derian frequently called out for the healthy to dismount and lead their animals.
At these times, Derian tossed Roanne"s reins to Elise, who rode either beside or behind him, depending on the going, and slogged back to take control of the mules. Firekeeper aided him at these times. Her particular form of encouragement-apparently threats that any mule that so much as thought of acting up would find itself dinner for herself and Blind Seer-might not have been kind, but it was effective.
When she was not hara.s.sing the mules, Firekeeper would trot ahead, finding some sheltered point where she could kindle a fire. She had the gift for encouraging a blaze, even in the damp-no doubt why the wolves had called her Firekeeper.
The promise of hot, sweet tea was almost as much of a stimulant as the tea itself, and permitted the group to push on despite lack of sleep. These rest stops, welcome as they were, seriously depleted the supplies Derian had laid in, but he refused to worry. One day-today-was all he needed to worry about. Quite likely the New Kelvinese would make certain he didn"t have many more days to worry about if he worried so much about tomorrow that he neglected today.
During that day"s long haul Lord Edlin, trained in the harsher weather of the North Woods, earnedDerian"s undying grat.i.tude. On his own volition, Edlin positioned himself close to Doc-who, though somewhat recovered from his expenditure of talent, was still weak-and to Grateful Peace. When either man showed signs of fading, there was Edlin taking control.
Derian began to wonder if the young lord had some talent of his own, but during a break for a sticky mouthful of honey and nuts, chased by a mug of hot tea, Edlin refused any such honor.
"Too stupid to stay in out of the snow," he said cheerfully. "That"s me, what? Good thing, this time, though that I"ve the experience. Helps, what?"
The same weather that froze their faces inside their hooded cloaks, that sapped their strength along with their heat, also helped preserve them from discovery.
The few travelers they pa.s.sed were interested only in getting to their own destinations. Whereas in fairer weather they might have paused to pa.s.s the time of day and thus noted the foreign character of their fellow travelers, now they only slogged past, encased in their own private misery and layers of ice.
Pigeons, too, would not fly in this weather. Even the homing imperative was nothing against the instinct to survive. Derian suspected that Elation, who had circled back to Dragon"s Breath, and the Beast Lore cotes from which a feverish Peace had told them any message was sure to be sent, was likely to be having a thin time of it.
Although in no great shape himself, Blind Seer forged ahead. His eerie howls-transmitting information to his pack mate-became such a familiar sound that even high-strung Roanne ceased to start. For himself, Derian found them a comfort.
When nightfall drew near, Firekeeper asked Blind Seer to find somewhere they might pa.s.s the night. As much as they needed to put distance between themselves and Dragon"s Breath, they needed even more to eat and sleep, and to give the animals a chance to recover.
The wolf-woman came to Derian as dusk was thickening, making their nightmare progress almost impossible.
"Ahead is a barn, empty. There is hay there and wood."
"How far?" Derian asked.
"Not too," she rea.s.sured him.
Despite this rea.s.surance, it was almost too far, especially for those among them who did not, like Firekeeper and Edlin, prefer the out-of-doors. Over and over again, Derian found himself oddly grateful for the very real threat to their lives and freedom. Without this, he suspected that one or more would simply have given up.
The barn was drafty. The roof was missing several boards on the south side, but there was ample room for everyone on the dry northern side. They set up tents in the open areas, providing not only privacy, but something to hold personal warmth.
The horses and mules provided additional heat as they crowded round, munching on slightly musty hay.
Derian made certain that the horses got the better feed. The last thing they needed was a case of colic.
Perhaps the greatest indication of the universal relief at being in out of the weather was that not one of the equines so much as flattened an ear when Blind Seer padded by and took a place alongside one of the two fires Firekeeper had kindled.Bad weather should have driven the game into cover, so Derian decided not to question just where Firekeeper had found the brace of fat ducks and three plump rabbits she supplied for their dinner.
The wolf-woman was still limping, but she refused to be pampered. Indeed, Derian noticed that she seemed more than a bit unhappy with herself, eager to make amends for sins that no one else had even charged her with.
Doc insisted that everyone eat something before being permitted to sleep. After that, there was a general crawling toward tents, and soon exhausted snoring joined the sounds of the livestock.
Derian was as tired as the rest, but as often happened when he had overexerted himself he could not get his mind to relax. He settled for placing himself on watch.
Doc was also wakeful. Grateful Peace was coming to some sort of crisis, and with a physician"s patient watchfulness, Doc had set himself to see the other man through. They were joined by Firekeeper.
"Blind Seer," she said to Doc, glancing with open affection at the sleeping wolf, "say you nearly kill yourself to save him. Thank you."
Doc nodded. "He nearly was killed protecting us and trying to stop Lady Melina. It"s all one and the same."
"His eye?" Firekeeper asked, tilting her head to one side inquisitively.