He grinned. “The first statement I’ll believe without condition.”
I hissed out my breath, hopping again to keep up with his long strides. “I’d forgotten how annoying you are.”
“May I return the compliment?” He sketched a mocking bow as we turned a corner, the air in this new passage smelling of horses and hay. “But this I will say, thief, life when you are around is never boring.”
I could have retorted that life around him was never restful. We dashed down to the stable, where equerries had mounts waiting. A dozen Blues mounted up along with us, and in a few heartbeats we set out at a fast pace through the gates of the palace and toward the far gates of the city. Rajanas led, and the others formed alongside us, Oflan riding before me. I was at the end, the least important, or the least threatening.
We slowed when we got past the walls with their alert sentries, and proceeded at a pace that Rajanas probably considered boringly sedate, though my entire body jounced at each trot and I felt like a corn kernel popping on a hot skillet.
I caught Oflan’s eye once. Her mouth quirked downward in a way that reminded me of my riding lessons, and I tried to grip the horse once again. That only hurt more. A glance at the others revealed them rising a little in the stirrups. Great. My feet didn’t reach the stirrups, something no one had paid attention to, as I’d curled my feet up under my rump on either side, as usual, my tail switching from side to side.
This was going to be one long, miserable ride, I thought in resignation, as we slowed again on a steep road leading up toward thick pine forest. But at least I had my thief tools. From the emptiness of Oflan’s belt and the lack of hilts sticking up from her boots, it seemed likely that they’d taken away all her weapons.
The sun finally began slanting down, and after a couple thousand years Rajanas called a halt by a cataract that spilled into a pool.
People led the animals to water, then fixed them with loose rein to lip at the grass and rest, as an equerry passed trail food from hand to hand.
My nose caught the scent of spiced dry meat of some sort, and I sighed, reminding myself that at least I’d had that excellent meal that morning—then a round golden thing spun through the air toward me from Rajanas’s hand.
I caught it without thinking and discovered a hard-crusted roll into which someone had stuffed greens and cheese. I was going to thank him, but he’d already turned away and stood near Oflan, head bent, as the interpreter asked questions in sign and she answered.
As I ate I watched the horses, all of whose ears had flicked in one direction. Some forest animal? I shut my eyes to listen to their minds—then remembered I did not dare open that mental wall.
Rajanas’s voice distracted me as he said to the interpreter, “If she can be believed. We might send her first, with an escort. I’ll ask for volunteers, as the Gray Wolves might very well take her “safety signal” as a sign to shoot—”
“Your Highness!”
Rajanas broke off, head lifted at the sound of hoof beats in a rapid rhythm.
A scout rode up, halting in a spray of kicked up mud.
“Attack! They’re—” His voice broke off when an arrow sprouted in his shoulder, and he fell from his frightened horse.
That was the signal to close the trap.
Gray Wolf archers emerged from behind trees and shrubbery on the far side of the pool at our left, and sword-wielding nasties thundered down from the steep pine-shrouded slope to our right. Though my military awareness was about as good as my riding—which was to say, terrible—even I saw at once that we had ridden straight into ambush.
Rajanas sent a nasty look Oflan’s way as I stashed my half-eaten roll hastily in my pocket.
Oflan paid no attention to him. She gazed upslope and then, in a fast motion, produced a knife from somewhere in her clothes and threw it straight into the gap between armor and vambrace in the lead attacker. The man spun, his steps faltering, and the attacker following behind cracked into him. They both fell into the shrubbery.
Rajanas’s expression changed as Oflan made violent signs in the direction of the interpreter as she calmed her horse with her knees.
“Says they’re not hers,” the interpreter called.
Rajanas pulled his saddle sword and rode next to her, but instead of attacking, he tossed the sword to her hilt first.
She caught it with the same ease I’d caught my bread roll. I could see the unspoken choice: attack Rajanas, who was ready, or . . .
She whirled the horse and plunged toward the attackers a horse length ahead of Rajanas, who raised a fist for his people to form up in a drilled line.
Leaving me sitting unsteadily atop my horse, who sidled nervously, ears flat. The mount probably wanted direction from me, but I had no idea how to give it—I tried to send calming thoughts, but that was about as successful as my skill at riding.
But! I glanced around. This time I had better luck projecting my intent to the horse through muscle movement. It cooperatively sidestepped a few paces as I got my feet under me on the saddle. I leaped up, catching a pine branch with one hand. A flick of my tail and a swing, and I was in the tree, which was full of pinecones that had not yet dropped.
I might not be any good wielding steel weapons, but I had excellent aim. I leaped and swung my way until I landed on a branch above the shooters hidden on the opposite side of the pond, and began plucking pinecones and pitching them directly into their faces.
Arrows arced satisfyingly in all directions before they figured out where the attack was coming from, then arrows zipped and hissed around me as I pressed myself flat against the bole of a tree.
I risked a glance at Rajanas and Oflan leading their line uphill into a descending attackers. Even I could see that fighting uphill was much tougher, but it was equally apparent that the enemy wasn’t well organized, or maybe they weren’t used to fighting together. There was nothing of that well-drilled rhythm of Rajanas’s Blue Guard, or what you’d expect from the Gray Wolves . . . but even so, what could a dozen or so do against forty or fifty?
They were going down fighting. Sickness roiled inside me. What could I do? Illusion? But if the illusory warriors didn’t attack, they’d know. Fog? I could pull vapor from that stream, but by the time I could build it into fog, the honor guard, Rajanas, and Oflan might be dead—
A horn blared in the distance. Heads turned. Arms tightened.
Through the trees, mud splashing high, thundered forest green clad warriors, at their head a familiar gray-haired figure who did not look like a grandmother now: Kuraf!
They hit the line of attackers from the back, scattering them like pins in a game of bowls. The ones on the other side of the pond shot a few arrows. Clack! Clack! Clack! Up went shields—and the shooters began to melt away, then came howls and cries from the trees as group of Kuraf’s warriors enclosed them.
It was all over. As Kuraf’s people rounded up prisoners and collected weapons, I swung down and made my way to where Rajanas stood talking to a gangling blond boy of about fourteen. “Nill!”
He turned my way, and grinned. “Lhind! Was that you, throwing those pinecones?”
Rajanas drawled, “I’d forgotten how inventive you can be in a fight, thief. Nice distraction. You would have bought us half a dozen more heartbeats of life if Kuraf hadn’t come along.”
“What happened?” I asked turning from him to Nill.
The boy’s smile vanished. “We were at the dividing line where our scouts and the Blue Guard scouts each do their outer perimeter rounds. We might not have found the dead scouts if one of our people hadn’t taken a back trail down through a valley to visit her family. Sent up the alarm. Gran mustered those of us in hearing.”
I remembered being told that Kuraf had been the head of the Blue Guard in the days before Rajanas got his throne back. She was supposed to be retired now, but what that really meant was, she headed a well-trained force of warriors who lived in tree platforms, their main task to watch the Ildaran Pass.
Rajanas cast me an ironic look. “We do.”
SEVEN
Kuraf sat cross-legged on the other side of the campfire, the firelight glinting among the white hairs in her coronet of braids. As she had the first time I met her, she listened to me all the way through.
I noticed that the interpreter signed everything for Oflan, which I took to mean that her status had changed, at least a little, after her skilled defense during the attack.
Everybody seemed to accept that the attackers were not Gray Wolves, any more than that red-haired fellow had been one of the Blues.
So some other group was doing its best to discredit the Blues beyond the border, and to keep them and the Gray Wolves at each other’s throats. I watched from a distance as they talked, the interpreter busy turning from Oflan to the others.
There were still armed guards around, but it wasn’t clear whether they were there to keep her from doing anything or to protect us from another attack.
Oflan sat across from Rajanas, her closed-off expression almost a twin to his: eyes narrowed as she flicked glances from face to face.
At the end of my recitation, Kuraf said, “Even if I hadn’t been able to corroborate certain details, Kee spoke well of Lhind.”
I smiled, remembering Kuraf’s granddaughter, my travel partner to Fara Bay. Kee had begun despising me for my thievish ways, but by the end of our adventures together, we’d become friends. “Where is she? Doing well, I hope?”
“She’s my courier over the mountains,” Kuraf said, leaning forward to take one of the cabbage rolls cooked in peanut oil that silent equerries offered.
I could smell meat in them and grimaced, but a short time later Nill appeared, grinning as he approached me. “Gran said to bring you this.” In the shallow dish lay a heap of fat, dark purple barkleberries, three kinds of freshly shelled nuts, and two young carrots. I took it happily.
Kuraf ate two bites, then said to Rajanas, “I suspect my last message to you might have gone astray as well. We’ll search.” Her head dropped briefly; her couriers were all trained by her, and many of them, I suspected, were from her own family.
Then she straightened and tipped her chin at Oflan. “What Lhind says corroborates some facts I made no sense of until now. I’ve little regard for Jendo Nath outside of a healthy respect for a dangerous enemy. Because that’s how I regard the Gray Wolves.”
She spoke clearly and slowly, pausing between each sentence so that the interpreter could sign to Oflan, whom she watched.
“But I will say this. For someone about to drop a war on us, he’s been mighty slow to attack, though he knows pretty well where our main lookout points are. What’s more, he hasn’t been hiding any of his people from us. We know where all the Wolves are. And yes, none of yon miscreants number among ’em.”
Twice Oflan dipped her chin slightly but otherwise sat very still, her hands on her knees.
They passed on to more local news, full of names and places I didn’t recognize. After eating I relaxed against my rock, comfortable, warm, full, and so tired that I closed my eyes. I drifted into a light sleep, waking at a stir of motion around me. A glance revealed nothing more dire than Oflan being escorted to a far tent, and so I closed my eyes again, curling up in a ball.
Maybe they thought I was asleep. Maybe they didn’t care if I heard. As soon as Oflan was gone, Kuraf said in Allendi, “Now we can talk frankly.”
Those words banished sleepiness. Out of habit I lay still, eyes closed. I’d saved myself from extra grief too many times to give up the habit of eavesdropping.
“It’s still bad up there?” Rajanas added.
“Very bad,” Kuraf said. “Even with winter coming on, I don’t see how it can get worse. It’s been winter up there. No sign of autumn. The good part is that the heavy snows have trapped that army of hirelings up there more effectively than we ever could. The bad news is that they, and the Gray Wolves, and our own watchers, might well have starved to death but for your arrangements for running supplies. I’ve never in my life seen the like. You said you’d tell me when we met why this is.”
Rajanas said in a dry voice, “It seems we have our thief to thank for that.”
I nearly bolted out of my skin. Biting back an explanation, I lay scarcely breathing.
“The magister who came to make certain the enchantment binding our border was broken explained it: that weather magic out in the ocean was the cause. The thief wielded it without knowing the consequences. Dhes-Andis gave her the means, motivation unknown.”
“Can’t be for anyone’s advantage but his.”
“That’s what the mages felt, I gather. So. I take it you did what I requested?”
“With every delivery of basic stores.” Kuraf chuckled. “And they were basic. My own people are doing well, but that army has to be very, very hungry. No one fights well when hungry. And each delivery came with messages about how they were abandoned, worthless hirelings, forgotten. The latest word is, they are a hair’s-breadth from fighting each other. So that killing border magic, it’s gone? Not returning? I lost two good runners to it, chased by a pack of bandits. Who also lost their lives, but I am still angry over the loss of Ruska and Mec.”
“Even Dhes-Andis, the mages insisted, cannot sustain that broad an enchantment without proximity, once they removed the markers the magic was bound to. There will be no repeat, they assured me, unless he or a pet mage is physically present to lay them, and they have their own warning wards laid down.”
“I don’t know if I’d call that good news or bad news.”
“Here’s my understanding. Using magic for purposes of war rarely works twice, once the spell is broken. Mages on either side of any conflict invent wards against a second use of that spell. And magic always has to be specific. That much I learned from Hlanan.”
Kuraf said, “Then we’ll call it good news.”
“The best news would be that Dhes-Andis and his mages stay put in Sveran Djur,” Rajanas retorted, from the rustling sounds rising to his feet. “Let’s get some rest. Hard riding ahead. We’ll discuss the logistics of our search in the morning.”
o0o
I finally fell asleep, and though every night, without fail, I made certain my mind was firmly locked inside my mental walls, uneasy dreams pestered me through the long hours of dark. I’d wake and scoff at myself for inventing fears, but the idea of Dhes-Andis anywhere on this side of the world frightened me the way nothing ever had so far.
Dawn arrived with a thin, bitterly cold rain, nicely matching my gritty eyelids and bitter mood. The entire camp seemed to be in a grump as cold food was passed out and the animals readied for travel. Groups of riders peeled off, apparently to search for Hlanan and his party. They were to spread out over the entire slope.
My silk was disagreeably damp, but I fluffed out my fuzz beneath the drape and flexed my hair so that it spread around me like a cloak. Droplets beaded up on the outside, which I could shed now and then by a ripple or two.
I had to make certain not to flick my hair because water would fly off much the same way as when a wet dog shakes. The first time I did it, curses and angry looks directed at me caused me to be more circumspect. I did not dare tell them that I was warm and comfortable in spite of my damp clothes. Though I was not fully Hrethan, the half I’d inherited was made for this kind of weather.
As the animals began plodding up a trail under soughing pines, I wondered how high we might go. Maybe I could fly again!
It was the thought of flight that caused me to look skyward now and then. The rain began to let up, but the clouds sailed on, thick as ever, and as the air became colder, the thin rain turned to light snow. About midday my attention was caught by a swift-moving white dot sifting through the lacework of gentle snow, discernible against the blue-gray clouds.
White? The only white bird I knew of that size was Hlanan’s aidlar
friend, Tir. But Tir had been left in the royal city before this mess had begun.
Also, Tir had exasperated me by homing on my thoughts. Oh. Wait. The bird would not be able to do that since I’d learned to shut out others’ minds.
The idea of opening that mental door caused my fuzz to ruffle up in fear, my palms dampening. I threw back my head, found the bird again, braced—opened the door. Tir?
Lhind!
I shut the door fast. “Tir!” I shouted.
Ahead in the column, Rajanas reined up. “Where?”
I raised my hand uselessly as an eagle-sized white bird crashed through the high branches of a tree, sending down a shower of powder. Tir lit on a tree stump nearby, turning one great ruby eye this way then that. It flapped long white wings and squawked, “Lhind! Come!”
“That’s Hlanan’s aidlar,” Rajanas said. “We will follow it.”
And so that’s what we did.
Tir lit off in almost the opposite direction we’d been traveling in. We turned the horses and plunged into a valley, crossed a half-frozen stream, then up and down another slope. When Tir floated high above a wooded area, circling around, Rajanas signaled with his gloved hand, and his guards began to spread out. Kuraf’s group flanked us as we descended through the grove of barren silvery-brown trees.
By the time Rajanas rode out onto a promontory overlooking what in a warmer season would be a long, sloping meadow, where we saw the long tracks of Hlanan, Prince Geric, and their collection of Gray Wolves riding head-drooping horses.
In well-trained fashion, as Rajanas watched from above, the rest of his Imbradi Blues rode out of the surrounding brush and woods to surround Hlanan’s party.
Who halted, looking up. My heart filled with happiness the moment I spied Hlanan in their midst, though he looked cold and tired, his nose dull red. Prince Geric, riding next to him, somehow managing to retain his elegance—red highlighting his fine cheekbones—as he threw back his head at an arrogant angle.
When he spied Oflan, he flushed, but otherwise gave no sign that he now understood how outside his orders she had gone.
Lhind the Spy Page 9