by Remi Black
Fool that she was, Orielle had claimed help wasn’t needed. Frost Clime was days upon days north. The enemy sorcerers and wyre fought the wizards and Fae allies. They wouldn’t venture south.
But not all sorcerers and wyre fought at Iscleft. And Grim had hinted the Haven would be dangerous for wizards.
He stopped and fronted the river. She came to his left side. He hadn’t drawn his sword. He didn’t take a fighting stance. But his fingers flexed then curled into a fist.
“What do you know of fighting wyre?”
“Not much. If nothing else, I can push them with Wind.”
His scowl vanished. He tossed her a grin, and she tumbled past appreciation of a good-looking man straight into attraction. His “clever lass” only deepened toward temptation.
“Clever city lass,” she reminded, fighting that strange lure.
He stared at the darkness within the laurel tangle. “The wyre don’t attack together. They split up. While I fight one, the other will come for you.”
“So, they’re clever, too.”
“Don’t be too—.”
“Don’t be too what?”
But he refused to finish it. Had he meant flippant? Or stupid?
She didn’t want him to think she was totally useless. “Should I stay at your back?”
“Aye.”
“And may I know your name? I think, with two wyre before us, that I should know your name. In my mind I’ve been calling you Grim.”
He didn’t just look at her; he turned. “Grim?”
“I do apologize. You’re not really such a grim person. But you started off by snapping at me—.”
He interrupted with “Grim will do.” Then he turned back to face the river.
“But it’s not your name.”
“Stay behind me, Orielle. Be ready.”
Be ready. She supposed that meant keep looking around, especially behind her, and prepare to use Air with her spells.
She wished she could remember spells. She was no good at remembering the convoluted ones that the tutors claimed reached into the deepness of magic and strengthened the spell. Her tutors hadn’t understood her fumbling, but then they hadn’t understood the reason she had to read something over and over to retain it but could recall what was said to her in passing with perfect ease. If Grim ever expected her to draw a magic circle and begin chanting, he would be disappointed. Her two contracts, neither lasting longer than a fortnight, had seemed disappointed that the only formal magic she wielded was ward spells. Those she had no difficulty remembering.
She pressed her shoulder to Grim’s back and looked behind them. Nothing but the rocky river and the tree-covered steep slopes and a slaty sky that deepened toward purple. When had clouds moved in?
On the river’s other side, birds burst from the waxy green laurel. They arrowed across the water and rushed past, the woosh of their wings loud over the rush of the river. Then two men emerged from the tangle. They stepped onto the boulder fall that pushed the river away from the mountain. The shirtless one looked like the wyre who had set the trap at the rocky escarp. He stood taller than the other, his golden mane bright in the cloud-covered light. But he lacked the blue, blue eyes that had rimmed with amber-gold before the wyre vanished.
The second wyre had dark hair swept back from a high forehead. They shared the same toothy grin. He also looked familiar although he shared only the long claws of his comrade. His hair looked burnished in the subdued sunlight. His eyes glistened like the sparkling water, a curious lightness when he was partially shifted. She’d heard their eyes were amber-gold, and the golden wyre’s eyes had been, but these shifters’ eyes looked silver, tinged with—something she couldn’t discern. The shirt of the second wyre hung loose on his torso, the material cut for a bigger man. Both stood barefoot on the boulder, toes curling over the cleft edge.
They jumped. Even fearing them, Orielle admired their grace. They splashed into the water, knees bending to land lightly. Then they began wading across.
Grim thrust out both hands. Air burst out, a visible wave of energy that surged across the water. The wind-backed wave hit the two wyre. The shirted one staggered and fell into the water. The other braced into the wind. It gusted past him, flowed up the boulder and into the laurel, grabbing at the waxy leaves and stripping many away. It continued upslope, to the evergreens, tearing through the heavy branches before dissipating.
The dunked wyre sputtered in the water before losing his footing and slipping into the current.
Orielle remembered the deer. She hadn’t thought the water that deep. But the doe had crossed far from the boulder fall. Perhaps it was deeper where the water spilled over the granite.
The first wyre came on. The water crested at his hips. “That your best?” he taunted.
Grim drew his sword. Even untrained, Orielle knew the blade was shorter than other swords. The chasing, though, looked like Fae steel, like the Crygy knight’s blade. “Come taste my best,” the Rho offered.
The wyre grinned. He ran forward. The water churned at his knees, slicking his hide pants to thin legs. His speed increased at the waterline.
And Grim surged forward, steel clanging against claws.
Orielle backed away. The shorter sword kept the Rho close to the wyre, parrying the swipe of sharp claws. The wyre tried to get past the steel guard, but Grim defended faster. Claws screeched across the keen edge.
With a snick and a slip, the wyre leaped around, testing for a weakness. He landed an arm’s length from Orielle. She cried out and staggered back. He swiped at her. She flung up an arm in defense. His claws snagged her cloak. He jerked. Cloth ripped. She fell away as Grim attacked the wyre with a tossed elemental spell that pushed the shifter away. He followed with a flurry of steel.
Orielle scrambled to her feet.
Movement caught her eye. She whirled to see the dark-haired wyre charging toward her. Sandy grit flew in clods from his feet.
She jerked magic and flung the spell at him. He flung up a hand as the energy flew toward him. It struck, gilded as it flashed, then evaporated into glistening wisps of silver. He didn’t slow down.
Thrusting out her hands, she drew power that limned her fingers—then remembered Saithe. They came over the wall onto us. His power was useless against wyre. The wyre slashed his throat open.
Her power would be useless.
Unless she kept to the element.
Air.
The wyre sprang.
She crouched and dug her fingers into the sand and grit and pebbles. A wave of water-smoothed pebbles roared up and surged toward him, pelting him.
He landed a foot from her. She added the gritty sand, aiming it at his face.
He fell back, sputtering, wiping his eyes.
Behind him, a fallen branch lifted from the ground and speared toward him.
He saw her eyes focused past him and whirled then ducked with a speed she regretted when the branch flew past him. The sharp end buried in the sand.
With a growl, he leaped toward her. She yanked more pebbles into a shield then whorled them around him in a tightening vortex. He yelped as the pebbles struck as one.
Orielle reached for larger rocks. When she swept her arm toward him, the river stones followed, a wave that felled him like a great tree.
He jumped up. With a snarl, he tried again to reach her, but she lifted a vortex of wet sand. He growled then whirled and ran.
And her vortex fell apart instead of following him along the shoreline.
She jerked the branch out of the sand and hurled it after him. It landed far short. He looked over his shoulder then dove into the water. And she regretted that she didn’t wield easily Water, for she could have created an eddy that would drown him.
He dragged onto the far bank. She shook the laurel limbs, but the Air had lost its strength. The wyre ducked into the tangle. In a few seconds she saw him climbing into the evergreens.
“Orielle?”
She turned.
Sword painted red, Grim stood over the fallen wyre. A Grim of battle and hate, storm-dark eyes roiling with the energy to destroy. His hands remained locked on the sword hilt. The runes glistened silver through the runnels of red.
“I am not hurt,” she managed. “Are you?”
He shifted his shoulders. His dread lifted a fraction, his body eased. And he lowered the bloody sword. “I saw him leap for you. I couldn’t get to you.”
“I found a few rocks to throw at him. And a stick.”
At her light words, the darkness released its grip. He became Grim again, not a weapon looking for a use. The storm-grey seeped from his eyes. “Clever city lass,” he praised. “You didn’t hesitate.”
She shrugged, refusing to tell him her near-mistake with magic. “Rock throwing is quite fun. I just—have to convince my hands.” She held them out. They shook uncontrollably.
He seized one of her hands. He held the bloody sword behind him, hiding it. But the running blood wasn’t causing her shakes. “Adrenaline. It will pass.”
~ 8 ~
The wyre had lost his claws and fangs. In death, he looked an innocent man, not a shifter who wielded an inner beast as his weapon.
Grim sheathed his river-cleaned sword. “We need to move. We’ve another hour of light. Dusk won’t last long, here between the high mountains.”
Still a little shaky, Orielle fell into step beside him. Unspoken was her hope that he had plans for supper. “Will the other wyre follow?”
“Maybe. I don’t think he’ll attack the both of us.” He sniffed. “Spruce again. Good choice.”
“If he’s with a pack? That’s not the one we encountered yesterday.”
“Don’t know where that one’s off to, but the whole pack would have attacked us, not just these two.”
She nodded at that sense. Surreptitiously, she fingered the rents in her cloak, torn by the wyre’s claws. “The wyre that I fought, I think I’ve seen him before.”
Grim slowed then resumed the steady pace that covered ground. She was proud that she could match it after only a day in his company. But her feet in the riding boots did hurt.
“Where have you seen him?”
“A Lowlands tavern. I think. I’m not certain.”
“He tracked you.” He nodded, accepting her indefinite words as truth.
“If it’s the man I remember. Those light eyes—.”
“How would he know to track you?”
She gathered her cloak around her, pretending to shiver in the wind gusting down from the snow-capped heights. Never breaking stride, he looked around, constantly scanning for more trouble. And Orielle regretted bringing this up—it only revealed more of her foolishness. Yet if the wyre had tracked her, Grim needed to know.
Maybe in a week of traveling with the Rho, most of the Enclave foolishness would be knocked out of her.
“He could have heard my conversation with the host when I asked for directions to Iscleft Haven. I know,” she added, before he could make her feel worse, “I should have kept my wizardry and my mission secret. I thought I needn’t worry about danger. The Lowlands between Mont Nouris and Iscleft are under the Nourian king’s rule. Gramina Aurus doesn’t contest the king for it.”
“A nominal control, not a real one. There’s danger in a prairie that’s tough to plow and towns that are only waystations for occasional merchant caravans. Haven’t you heard of raiders? I thought you said you held contracts outside the Enclave.”
“In Gramina. In towns. I know I’m foolish,” she quickly added when he snorted, “but I’m learning.”
“One good grace. A second is your cleverness, using rocks and the sands as weapons.”
She waited for him to continue, but that brief statement was his only praise. He turned off the shore and climbed the gentle flank of the mountain, offering her a hand over fallen trees and outcroppings of granite that looked more like colossal statues carved in antiquity. They had tumbled so long ago that the forest had grown around them.
At the head of one of the statue-like blocks, he leaned on a weathered rim that looked like a figured crown. Lichen obliterated the face. Nestled in the crook of the neck, a small tree tried to grow on the shoulder. Its roots dropped over the squared joint and trailed to the leaf-littered ground.
“If this wyre was in the Lowlands, if he heard you and decided to follow you, he may have conveyed your mission to a sorcerer. That would explain—.”
“What?” she prompted when he paused so long she feared he wouldn’t finish.
“You saw his eyes?”
“They were silvered, not yellow-gold like the first one.”
“Silvered. Under the influence of sorcery. Were his eyes that color when he attacked you?”
“I was staring at fangs and claws.”
“Sorcery would explain their partial shift outside a moon phase. I think the one yesterday was the prime.”
A sorcerer helping wyre shift whenever they wanted. She shivered then proffered the fear building inside her while they headed down the mountain. “Will we have three wyre attack us next time or four?”
Those grey eyes sharpened on her. “Good question. You wield Air. Anything else?”
“My family wield Air and Water. No Earth, not like the rest of the Galfrons clan.”
“You can shape Water, too?”
“Only in drips and drops,” which earned a chuckle from him. “You’re also Air. Does the whole of Iscleft Haven wield Air?”
“We’re all mixed. A little Air, a little Fire, a lot of Earth. A couple of drops of Water.”
His use of her words pleased her more than it should have. “Fun. You practiced turning Fire into a flaming storm or smothering it with Earth.”
His chin went up in an odd agreement. “Something like that.”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
After sunset, while Grim fished with dangling line and Air-tickled water, Orielle worked downstream until she found a feeder stream. She followed it up to a spill-over which poured out of a tiny pool at the base of rocks. There, she splashed the water. No mud or silt stirred up.
She shed her cloak and boots, rolled down her frivolous blue stockings and washed them out before hanging them to dry in a steady little breeze. Then she kited up her skirts and waded in. She suppressed a squeak at the cold water. Soap was tucked in her saddlebags, off on an adventure with Ghost. She washed as much as she dared. When she finished, her sleeves were soaked to the elbows, but she felt clean. And a bit of breeze would quickly dry her clothes.
Her tutors would be furious at a wasteful use of power.
The swift water had cleansed her of the dregs of trouble along with the grime of the wyre attack. Feet numbed, she climbed onto a rock and chafed her toes to warm them. Chill bumps asked if she was certain the quick bath was worth it. She gave a decided nod and increased the breeze to finish drying her cloak. Then she untangled her stockings and garters from an obliging bush, felt the toes and decided they were dry enough. The walking had worn a hole in the heel of one and the toe of the other. She rolled one up her leg then pulled up the ribbon garter decorated with white lace, the wrong choice for this adventure. A winkle of magic removed dingy dirt.
As she tied the first garter, she heard a snort, unmistakably a horse. Ghost? With her soap!
Under the tall oaks the twilight had deepened. Far upslope she saw the granite paler than the upright trunks. Spruces grew closer over the stream pouring down the slope.
Light flashed, like a bird’s wing catching the last sunlight, but she saw no bird and heard no trill of alarm. Far distant, an owl hooted, seeking company for its nightly hunt. She didn’t hear an answer.
Then the horse’s snort came again and a jingle of bridle bits. This time the sounds came strongly enough that she could track them.
Across the stream horses walked, horizontal movement among vertical trees. She lost them in the evergreens. Snatching up her second stocking, she quickly rolled it on and tugged the open toe over to the side. The faint
tinkle of metal proved the horses continued their descent. On the verge of calling for Grim, she saw a bone-white steed picking its way out of the spruces. Behind it was a russet hide, then came a dappled grey moving without the stately grace of the first horse.
The horses worked down the trail to the pool. A Crygy knight held the reins of the following horses. The bone-white steed emerged from the trees as she jerkily tied the second garter. Tossing down her skirt and petticoat, she scrambled up, looking for her boots. They stood at the rock’s base. Toes curling in their blue stockings, Orielle flung her hair back and faced the Crygy rider.
Ghost tried to crowd past Grim’s chestnut, but the bigger horse shifted over, blocking his advance. She could see their packs and blanket rolls attached to the still-saddled horses. The chestnut had an unstrung bow tucked along the saddle.
The bone-white horse paced steadily forward, stopping a couple of feet from the rock.
Twilight deepening, Orielle wavered on the rock. A tinny sound whined in her ears. The bird songs had vanished. She felt a strange hollowness, like an emptiness had opened within her.
The sword knight stared, black eyes unblinking in his stony face. Had Lady Bone sent him? Were the horses included as a great temptation? She might break down and bargain for horses.
She curtsied. “Sir Knight.”
He inclined his head. “Lady Wizard.”
That was a nicer greeting than Not-Wizard.
He shifted forward then stood in the stirrups. The tall white horse remained motionless. “Do you now travel alone, Lady?”
“The Rhoghieri is fishing for our supper.”
Like a bird, his head turned a little. He listened while she eyed his horse, the nose a bare yard from her face. Unlike other white horses, the Crygy steed had no darker coloration around the muzzle or the ears. A perfectly white hide, a long mane of a silver whiter than the moon, and long ears with no relieving pink flesh. And black eyes, as black as the man’s, as black as Lady Bone’s. Those black eyes reflected her miniature form until the long silvery lashes swept down. When lifted, her image had vanished. Nothing appeared in the blackness until the horse blinked again. And there she was.