The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing

by Tara Maya

  “But that won’t stop you,” she whispered, for he was close to her, towering over her. “No one will disturb us here.”

  She was right. It would have been easy.

  “And afterward, you will kill me.” A tear glittered on her cheek. “Once again I beg you. Don’t wear his face.”

  “I told you, I don’t control how you see me.”

  He untied the gut-string of her cape. It billowed onto the snow.

  “You must bathe.” He pointed to the pools. “I must cleanse myself, as must you. Though you have not killed someone yourself, you’ve been close to the dead, and been touched by blooded hands. You will bear the stain of murder until you purify yourself.”

  She just stared at him. “How can that possibly matter now?”

  “It matters.”

  “I don’t know the right dance.”

  “You cannot purify yourself in any case. Someone must do it for you.”

  “You?” she said in horror. “Can you even…?”

  “I have magic,” he said, though he suspected that was not what she meant. “But, no. Not me. Summon the fae. They will know what to do.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do I need to take off the rest of your clothes, or can you do it yourself?”

  She blushed like a little cranberry.

  “I will leave the glen to spare your modesty,” he said with a sardonic twist to his lips. “But, remember, you still wear my leash. I will be nearby. Also keep in mind the enemy may still be about in this wood. Call to me if anything goes wrong.” From his pack he took out the set of clothes he had taken from the pelf, and left the pile by the fire. “Oh, and don’t put those dirty rags back on. I’ve brought you something else to wear.”

  Umbral withdrew. As he had promised, he did not go far, just beyond the thicket. He let his eyes stray through the tangle of saplings and thorn bushes. When he caught a glimpse of rounded buttocks as Dindi undressed, he quickly looked away, but not soon enough to prevent a shot of arousal from rushing through him.

  “What are you doing?” hissed a voice by Umbral’s side. “Why do you have a girl? Why haven’t you killed her? Are you planning to keep a pet?”

  Ash. He sighed.

  Umbral trusted Ash with his life, as far as that went, but he also knew that she was a spy appointed by Obsidian Mountain to keep an eye on him. As a child, enemy warriors had attacked her clan. They had raped her. They then had taken the more valuable women, those older, and more likely to survive, with them, and had left her with the corpses of her brothers and uncles while they set fire to her clanhold. When a friendly clan had found her, still alive, but hideously burned, they had sent her to Obsidian Mountain to complete her dying. There, instead of death, she had found new life with the Deathsworn. To this day, much of her face, indeed, of her body, warped into shiny crusts of red and white skin, the inerasable memory of burns.

  She had once confessed to Umbral that unlike the rest of the Deathsworn, she remembered everything about her first life.

  “I told you, I have a use for her,” Umbral said.

  Ash snorted.

  “Then use her, and get it over with!”

  “No, I must let her rest first. She’s exhausted from the War Dance and the battle and…” And the Vision she’d caused before, fighting him when he tried to kill her. “I will wait.”

  From the dell, gentle blue light gleamed. Umbral glanced that way reflexively, and caught a glimpse of Dindi standing naked behind the silvery veil of a melted waterfall, while Blue water and air fae danced all around her in a whirlpool of purifying energy. He looked away again quickly, but the image was incised on his memory. Nor was he subtle enough that Ash hadn’t caught the direction of his attention.

  “I don’t see how much rest she requires to lie on her back and spread her legs for you.” Ash snickered unpleasantly. “But, fine, have your fun with her. Obsidian Mountain will overlook it. But let me warn you, Umbral, they will not forgive you if you let your games interfere with your duty. Don’t spend so much time toying with her that you let the White Lady get away. And if you take a woman against her will, you’d better kill her after, or else she might decide to make you pay for what you took.”

  Ash grinned. She would know.

  “I’ll do what must be done.” He let a note of bitterness creep in. “I know the Elders of Obsidian Mountain still don’t fully trust me, but I thought that you, at least, did.”

  That stung her.

  “I trust you with my last thread of light, Umbral. I just don’t trust you with yours. That girl can hurt you.”

  In more ways than one, he thought. But Ash still did not suspect who the girl was.

  Ash placed her burned hand against his cheek, so that he could feel her scars and ridges of melted flesh.

  “We aren’t part of their world anymore,” she said softly. “We belong to Death now. They can mean nothing to us. You helped me to understand that. Now I’m trying to help you. If you try to hold onto a life that is dead to you, you will never stop dying.”

  “Shadow Sister,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “You are precious to me. But you worry too much. I know what I am doing.”

  “You’ll kill her?”

  “I’ll do what needs to be done,” he replied with deliberate ambiguity that was not lost on Ash.

  “Fa!” she snorted. “Well. Your pretty little kitten is finishing up her bath now—and don’t pretend you weren’t peeking and don’t know it—so I will go. But Umbral, if you cannot do it, remember. I can. And I will.”

  Dindi

  Though the fae had warmed the water for her, Dindi still shivered as she dressed. Orange pixies twined themselves in her hair, blowing it dry.

  Umbral had left her a beautifully tooled outfit. A simple tunic and legwals of soft white wool hugged her form, so she could wear them under heavier garments. The outer legwals were made from strips of waterproof reindeer intestine and salmon skin. The downy breasts of seventy-eight skinned birds, waterfowl with slick feathers, had been sewn together in squares, to create a dense and warm feather parka with full sleeves. The cuffs at the neck and wrists were made from beaver fur. Umbral had even left a hood and matching boots, also white, reindeer fawn edged with winter foxtails.

  The pixies stirred and squawked in alarm.

  “Flee, flee!” they squealed. “Danger!”

  All of them flew away. Even the ice wisps dispersed, though they were normally loath to leave their icicles.

  The man in black returned to the clearing. Umbral had bathed and changed. He wore black tanned bearskin legwals, the full-body pelt of a black wolf formed into hood and shoulder pads over a dark waterproof gutskin parka, and a fur-lined raven-feather cape. His black horse-which-was-no-horse trotted after him. He did not tie it up, but the unhorse did not stray. It did not nibble at shrubs or grass poking up from the snow, as a real horse would have.

  “Why do the fae avoid you?” she mustered the courage to ask him.

  He took his time finding a response for her.

  “One might say that I have a permanent dispel geis around me,” he answered finally.

  One might say. What did that mean? That one might say it, but it wouldn't be the full explanation?

  “You still plan to kill me.”

  “True.”

  “But not yet.” Or else why give me such warm and sturdy clothes?

  “True.”

  “Why?”

  He gazed at her steadily without answering. He still wore Kavio’s face, and now he adopted Kavio’s pensive stance as well, as if he were studying one of this piles of thinking stones. It unnerved her.

  “Have you a name?” she asked after a moment. “I am Dindi of the Lost Swan Clan, of the Rainbow Labyrinth Tribe.”

  “You know my name. I know yours.”

  “Besides Umbral. I mean your clan and tribe.”

  “The dead have no clan, no tribe.”

  “But…once…before… you must have…”

 
Anger flashed in him, the same deadly rage she had seen before, straining at a leash. “Enough, girl! Never ask, never speak of it!”

  He looked like he might fly at her and slap her, but he only stood very still and simmered. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. She refused to cringe.

  “My name is Dindi. You may be dead, but I am not.”

  She thought she might trigger his fury again, but he was back to cool and brusk.

  “We best gather more wood for the fire before it gets dark,” he said. “We will camp here. You are tired. Tomorrow will be a hard ride.”

  “Will you tell me what it is you want from me?”

  “Not tonight,” he said. “Once we are away from hostile territory, I will bargain with you for your life. If you accept my terms, maybe I can spare you. If you refuse…. You already know.”

  “I thought you believed you were fated to kill me, and my fate could not be changed.” I don’t trust you to keep any bargain, you lying murderer.

  “Sleep will keep even a bear from his fate, if he is tired enough, and after a whole day of slitting throats, I am sick of murder and bone-tired.”

  Tired enough that she could let him fall asleep, then try to pull free of the leash?

  He shook his head, smiling faintly. “But not yet that tired. Truce, girl? Until you hear out my offer?”

  She nodded unhappily, then helped him start to gather sticks and branches.

  After they had the fire secured, he laid his raven cloak on the ground for her. The underside was soft black mink.

  “Sleep here, girl.”

  “My name is Dindi.”

  “Dindi.” The way he said her name made her shiver, and she wished she had not corrected him.

  “What about you?” she asked, lying down on the black cloak, nervous from his nearness.

  “I’ll be fine.” He tucked the black cloak around her like a blanket. It was the finest, softest fur Dindi had ever felt. Umbral himself settled down on grimy leather bedroll on the opposite side of the fire.

  She didn’t think she would be able to sleep with Umbral so close. The leash chaffed her neck. The dark energy pulsing through the collar unsettled her stomach. But the fur was so soft. She was sick of fear; she was bone-tired. Within moments she was asleep.

  Umbral

  Umbral speared and cooked a fish before the girl stirred awake at dawn. She accepted her portion of the meal gravely, watching him as an antelope would while deciding if it should stay stock-still or spring away.

  “You said you would offer your bargain today.”

  “Let’s eat in peace first.”

  “Being your captive brings no peace to me.”

  Indeed.

  He reached out for her aura with his own, to reflect her own light back to her in order to lull her fears, but she recoiled in horror when his shadow started toward her. He withdrew his Penumbra, annoyed. He had forgotten his powers of deception were wasted on her. Because last night she had been tired, she had been easy to bully. As she grew more and more restless, however, sooner or later it would occur to her to use her magic to escape him. Although he could prevent that, it would be unpleasant—especially for her. Umbral wanted her to stay of her own volition. It would be inconvenient if he had to drag her by the leash the whole journey.

  “Have you forgotten you owe me a lifedebt?” he asked. “I did save your life on the battlefield.”

  “And then erased that debt by trying to kill me.”

  “But I spared you.”

  “I owe you nothing.” She said it flatly. “You have no right to me. I am not yours to spare. And even if you had saved my life and not tried to kill me, you killed Kavio. Not even saving my life could have balanced ending his. His life was worth far more than mine.”

  “How could you think that?”

  “Because I am nothing to anyone, but he was much to many.”

  Had any other young and lovely girl said such a thing, Umbral would have suspected her of being coy. But not this girl, Dindi. It was possible that she did not realize how beautiful she was, how desirable, especially to him. Now that he had penetrated her secret, he could see her as she truly was, as none of those bumpkins in the local clans would be able to perceive her. He could see her radiant with a kaleidoscope of light that made her skin glow, her hair glint, her eyes shine, her whole face light up like a captive sun.

  He remembered how her body had felt squirming next to his on horseback, and he imagined her squirming again, but underneath him on his raven cape, naked, her face suffused with ecstasy. That fantasy was followed by another, darker image. Instead of welcoming him, she recoiled from him, in horror and disgust, knowing, as she did, what he was.

  Noticing that Dindi was staring at him with wide eyes, Umbral broke off his perverse reverie. Could she see his thoughts in his aura? No. That was absurd. He could not read her thoughts in her aura; she could not read his. But perhaps it wasn't hard for her to guess what he'd been thinking. He met her fawn-like eyes, making her blush and lower her lashes.

  He cleared his thoughts and his throat.

  “You wanted to know what you could trade for your life, or at least a delay in your execution. The time has come for me to tell you.”

  Finnadro

  At dawn everyone gathered in the field outside the tribehold for the Chase. The prisoners were brought out together, to the jeering of the crowd. Scampering boys hocked mud. Fights broke out when the guards refused to let the men and women with skull-painted faces, relatives of the dead, do worse. The Rainbow Labyrinth tribesfolk wanted to use their horses during the Chase, and some Green Woods tribesfolk—jealous, probably, because they had none—argued that it was cowardly. More bickering, more barely-avoided brawls. Finnadro knew from experience, it would take a while before the churning mob settled down enough for the Chase to begin.

  “I won’t be coming back after the Chase,” he told War Chief Nann.

  The war had worn her down. Her jowls sagged lower, and more white hairs specked her hair, while her once white fox headdress was smudged with so much soot, the fur had grayed.

  “I want you on the raid,” protested Nann.

  “My duty to rescue the White Lady must come first. With every delay the trail grows colder.”

  “What about your duty to me? I am your War Chief, not the Green Lady.”

  “Don’t make me choose, Chief.”

  Nann snorted. “Because it wouldn’t go well for me, would it? But Finnadro, there is one thing I must tell you. We can call this a victory if we want—we sent them back with their tails between their legs, at the last, and that’s not spit. But you and I both know that though the pups yap for revenge, Green Woods tribe cannot take on Orange Canyon. They have three times our numbers, even if most of them are worthless sheep keepers. If they came back in full force, it would be like the war against the Bone Whistler all over again. We would be driven to the deep forests of the north. We may burn for revenge, but our fire could hurt us more than them.”

  He put his hand on her arm. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  Gradually, some order appeared from the chaos. The predators and their prey formed two long rows, war prisoners kneeling in front, hunters standing guard behind them. There were several hunters for each prisoner.

  War Chief Nann worried her lower lip between her teeth. One other thing bothered her, but it took her a while to cough it out. “Many wildlings were killed in the forest fire.”

  “The losses were brutal.”

  “Do you know…?”

  “I’m sure she’s alive, Nann. She’s a clever one.”

  War Chief Nann nodded curtly. “The sooner we start this Chase, the sooner we can end it and go from burning to re-planting. Except you, of course.”

  Finnadro acknowledged that with a tight-lipped smile.

  War Chief Nann swaggered in front of the crowd to address them all. She brandished a spear with black raven feathers tied to the shaft.

  “Here are the rules,
” she said, without preamble. “Each of the captives here has the blood of our kin on his hands. Each of the hunters has a Raven Arrow hungry for a bleeding heart. We’ll pay as many Ravens with these war prisoners as we can, but we won’t kill them in cold blood. That wouldn’t be sporting, now, would it?”

  The crowd roared something ambiguous—approval, mockery or simple blood lust.

  “So we will release the captives,” she continued. She thrust a spear, sharpened end first, deep into the earth beside her. “Give them a running start. When the shadow of the spear reaches this mark”—she scratched a spot with her boot—“then the hunters will start the Chase. The Ottermark River is a day’s jog from here, and beyond that is no man’s land. Any prisoner who can make it across the river to the other side is safe. No hunter will chase a prisoner beyond the river, or he will be himself cut down by the Wolf Hunter.”

  She pointed at Finnadro, who inclined his head. He suspected he would be already across the river long before sunset, but he did not expect trouble from this bunch. It was the wildlings who worried him.

  He strolled over to the one prisoner who had no huddle of hunters salivating behind him. Hawk was alone. Like the others, he was on his knees and his hands were still tied behind his back, but he looked up sharply as Finnadro approached.

  “I’ll be hunting you,” Finnadro said. He pulled out his flint knife.

  “Alone?”

  “I won’t need help.”

  Hawk cocked his head. “So.”

  “So.”

  Tavaedies beat the drums. Green Woods warriors released the prisoners. Finnadro sawed the cords from Hawk’s wrists.

  “I’m guessing you still can’t fly, with that shoulder,” said Finnadro. “So you better run.”

  The cords hit the mud.

  Hawk ran.

  Hadi

  With fifteen deathdebts to pay, Hadi had no choice but to join the hunters in the line up for the Chase. He had to compete against four Green Tribesmen for the honor of looming over one miserable lad in a ragged fleece vest and sheepskin legwals. The boy was about Hadi’s age, with a raspberry graze along one side of his head as if he had already started to scalp himself for their convenience. Possibly the blow to his head had addled his wits. His eyes popped out of his head and his tongue lolled out like a frog.