“We are resolved, then,” said Loren. “Now go to bed, both of you, and ready yourselves. Let us all hope that I am wrong.”
twelve
ANNIS WORKED WITH REMARKABLE SPEED. Well before the next day’s midday meal, she approached Loren and Chet with Gem in tow. She led them unerringly through Ammon’s halls to the barracks where Kal’s household guard slept. When she pointed out the door, Loren led them all off down the hallway and around the first corner.
“Wait here,” she told Chet. “Annis, you go down to the next corner. If someone approaches, cough as loudly as you can, louder than someone struck with plague. We will slip out of the room as quickly as we may.”
Gem puffed out his chest. “Mayhap I should stand guard. I may have the loudest cough in all the nine kingdoms.”
“Who could doubt it?” said Loren, letting no trace of a smile touch her lips. “But you are also the wiliest and sneakiest thief Cabrus ever produced.”
The boy nodded thoughtfully. “I cannot argue with that. Very well.”
As Annis ran down the hall to the next corner, Loren and Gem slipped into the room. His bed is the first on the left, Annis had told them. They found it at once. He had a small cupboard near the head of his bed, and the normal chest at the foot. The chest had no lock, and Loren was grateful at first, for she had no proper tool to open one. But then she realized that Hewal would not keep anything in an unlocked chest that might reveal himself as a Shade, and her heart sank.
Still, they had come this far, and it would be foolish not to look while they could. Within the chest they found some folded letters that looked to be from his family. But Loren had never learned to read or write, so she handed the letters to Gem.
But they contained nothing nefarious, and besides that, the chest held only several changes of clothes and a second pair of boots. The cupboard at the other end of the bed was no better, and had only a few tunics. Loren probed them with her fingers to see if something was folded within, but they were only cloth.
They left the room as quickly as they had entered, and with Chet and Annis, they left the hall. Loren scowled as they walked, slamming a fist into her palm.
“Nothing,” said Loren. “Not that there was any great hope. But I thought I might find some sign of them—a pendant with the Shades’ mark, mayhap.”
“I mean you no offense,” said Gem, “but if this Hewal were careless enough to keep such a thing in his possession, I think he would have been discovered long before we arrived.”
“If he is even a Shade in the first place,” said Annis. “And since you will not tell us why you think he might be, I cannot offer any other ideas of how we might learn the truth.”
“Mayhap it is nothing,” said Loren. “This was likely a foolish idea in the first place. Forgive me for bringing you into it.”
Chet stopped short, forcing the rest of them to do the same. “You did not summon us on some lark, Loren,” he said quietly. “I think you should tell them. Then they may understand why this is so important—and why we should not stop our search here.”
Loren looked about them. The hall was empty, but still she felt out of place, as though there might be spies eavesdropping around either corner. “Now? Here?”
“When better, and where?”
She grimaced. “I … I saw him in a dream. While we were still on the Seat. You remember, Gem, how I awoke in terror one night.” Gem nodded, frowning. “I saw many things, but among them, I saw your mother, Annis. And behind her stood Hewal—but he wore the blue and grey of a Shade, and not the red cloak of a Mystic.”
“You saw him?” said Annis. “That is, you saw him?”
“I think she means to ask,” said Gem carefully, “you did not only see some man who looked like Hewal?”
“No,” said Loren. “This was no likeness. It was Hewal. He looked into my eyes, and he smiled. He had the same scar, and … it was him.”
“That is odd indeed,” said Annis. “I have never heard of anything like it. I would say it is some sort of spell, except that no wizard can see into the future.”
“There is more,” said Loren. “When we fled Rogan and the Shades across Dorsea, there was a night that … I was on watch, but I fell asleep despite myself. When I woke, a party of Elves stood in our camp.”
The hall went silent, as though a chill breeze had blown through it and frozen them all solid. Gem seized Annis’ sleeve in fear, and Chet’s hands balled to fists at his sides. But then the moment passed, and Loren let loose a quiet sigh of relief.
“Elves?” squeaked Gem. “They came upon us? How did you make them leave?”
“She did not,” said Annis, her voice shaking. “You could no more force them to leave us than you could send away a winter gale by scolding it. What did they want, Loren? What did they do?”
“Nothing,” said Loren, speaking carefully. She had no intention of telling Annis about the magestones that she held, even now, in a pocket of her cloak. “But one of them touched my skin, and when it did, I could see everything, inside and out, and the threads that bound it all together. It almost drove me mad—mayhap, for a moment, it did. But this dream … it came after the Elves, and in the dream, I felt the way I did when I saw them.”
Gem snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “When the Lord Prince met us upon the Seat, he said—he said you were Elf-touched. That is why.”
“Yes,” said Loren.
“And he is right,” said Annis quietly. “I did not see it so clearly before we parted, but I see it now—whether because I am searching for it, or because it has grown more pronounced in the weeks that have passed. But there is a light in your eyes that was not there before, Loren, and a … a sort of sharpness to you. Are you certain the Elves did nothing else?”
Nothing but the magestones, thought Loren. But she already knew from Xain that that had nothing to do with it, or with her dreams. “Nothing,” she said. “It must have been their touch.”
“But who knows what it means?” said Gem. “None can know the thoughts or intentions of Elves. They may not have even meant to do … whatever it is that they did to you.”
“This does paint everything in a different light, however,” said Annis. “Mayhap this man Hewal is a Shade—or mayhap it is only a message, telling you how to find them. He could be the link that leads you to the Shades, without being one himself.”
Loren had not thought of that. “It is possible. But how can we know?”
“We cannot,” said Chet. “But we know he is a messenger. That seems the only thing we know about him for certain. Thus, when next he delivers a message, we should watch him—even follow him, if we can.”
“Will you know when he leaves, Annis?” said Loren.
“I can find out,” said Annis. “And I will tell you at once.”
“Very well,” said Loren. “Let us hope I am not wrong about this, and that it is not all some useless flight of fancy.”
thirteen
BEGINNING THE NEXT DAY, ANNIS kept a careful watch on all messengers coming to and from Ammon. But Hewal was not one of them, and soon days began to pass while they waited impatiently. The longer it went on, the greater grew Loren’s frustration. Before a week had passed, she had begun to fidget incessantly with her hands, and often caught herself picking at her fingernails with a knife, though they were already immaculately clean.
Chet tried to be patient with her, but after she snapped at him once, he loosed his own irritation. “If this bothers you so, why do you not bring the matter before Kal? You are the Nightblade. Word of your suspicion should be enough for him to take at least some action—or, at the very least, he might tell you when he next plans to send Hewal out on some errand.”
“And what, exactly, should I say? ‘I saw your messenger, Hewal, who you have known since he was a boy, in a dream, and he was dressed as a Shade.’ Kal seems the trusting sort—he will likely clap Hewal in irons straightaway.”
They did not speak the rest of that day, though she b
rought herself to apologize the next morning. But the situation only grew worse, and not least because Kal himself did not seem to need Loren for anything at all. When she tired of lurking around the stronghold, hoping to catch Hewal in some wrongdoing, she would often make for his council chambers. But every time she entered after a timid knock, Kal would send her away, saying that he knew no more than the last time he had seen her, and that she must be patient. He kept Annis close, however, and so at meal times Loren would try to pry her for information—yet Annis knew precious little, for she and Kal still spoke only of logistics and supply lines, and these bored Loren almost to tears.
After a time she accepted her fate, and she began to spend most of her days in the stronghold’s training grounds. There, wrapped in her black cloak against the persistent rain, she practiced her archery. Albern had had precious little time to teach her, but she remembered his lessons clearly, and over and over again she went through the forms he had shown her. By now she had advanced to the point that she could draw and arrow and fire it in the space of a heartbeat, but her aim often suffered, and if she wanted accuracy, she had to revert to the way she had learned to shoot growing up: placing the arrow on the left of the bow, and holding it steady with her forefinger.
Sometimes Chet came to join her. At first she tried to pass on what Albern had taught her, but he gave it up after only one afternoon. “I prefer shooting the way I have learned,” he said. “My father taught me to shoot that way, and it was how I put game on the table for many years. Why should I need to learn another way?” Loren wondered if he would say the same thing if he had ever seen Albern shoot. The Calentin man had been able to empty a quiver in the time it took her to fire only two arrows, and every shot found its mark, and could puncture chain mail besides.
Chet did not spend nearly so much time in training as she did, however, for he spent most of his days within the stronghold. He and Weath had become somewhat fast friends on their journey north to Ammon, and now she had taken it upon herself to teach him to read. He told Loren that it came to him slowly, but that he was getting the hang of it.
“That is well,” said Loren. “I have little time for such learning, and so you can read my letters for me.” He gave her a mock scowl, and she kissed his cheek.
Many of the Mystics in the fortress spent their days in the training yard as well—and Niya was among them. Though Loren often bundled up against the weather, Niya took no such measures, and she still wore her high-necked leather shirts with no sleeves. Loren soon lost count of the number of times she found herself standing there, staring at the Mystic’s thick and muscular arms. She saw that they bore no scars—either Niya wore armor into battle, or she was a far better fighter than anyone she had met in battle. The Mystic often caught Loren staring at her, and Loren would blush as she hurriedly returned to her archery.
Once, Niya approached her while she was shooting. Loren paused and looked at her expectantly, one arrow halfway to nocking. But Niya only shook her head and waved her hand, prompting Loren to continue. Loren nocked and fired, drew, nocked and fired, twice more. But she tried too hard to make the motions look smooth and fluid, and her aim was even worse than usual. One arrow missed the target entirely, and snapped in two against the stone wall behind.
“Who tried to teach you the Calentin style?” said Niya, once Loren had emptied her quiver.
“You recognize it,” said Loren. “I thought you were from Wavemount.”
“I am, and yet I have fought beside soldiers from all the nine kingdoms. And I have seen enough Calentin archers to know that whoever instructed you was a poor teacher—or, mayhap, they did not have as much time for your lessons as they should have.”
Loren thought of Albern with a stab of heartbreak—and of guilt. “It was the latter,” she said quietly. “My instructor was … well, he is lost now.”
Niya let a silent moment pass. “He taught you the forms all right—but only from the waist up.” She came over and, before Loren knew what was happening, Niya was right behind her, with one hand on her waist and the other on her left shoulder. “You lean the way you should, and you have your left shoulder lower than your right, the way you ought to. But your legs are the problem.”
“What about my legs?” said Loren, finding it suddenly hard to speak around the quickening in her breath.
Niya did not seem to notice as she knelt, and took Loren’s right knee in her hands. She pushed it, gently, so that it bent slightly. “You learned the more ordinary type of shooting, and so you lock your knees when you fire. But your back leg should be coiled, like a serpent ready to strike, and you must use it when you fire.” Her hands slid over, and then down Loren’s left leg to her ankle. She pushed it forward, almost causing Loren to lose her balance as it slid on the ground. “This should be extended forwards, so that your body can move over it when you shoot, like a hinge.”
“I … I do not entirely understand,” said Loren. One hand rose to draw her hood a bit farther around her face, to hide how red she had become.
With a chuckle, Niya rose to stand behind her once more. She put her left hand on Loren’s waist, and her right on Loren’s torso, just under the pit of her arm. “You use your whole body to fire, not just your arms. Like the hinge of a door. Like this.” She pushed her hands together, so that Loren leaned forwards. “That sort of motion, every time you shoot. It adds only a little more power to each arrow, but that little bit of power can be the difference between a killing shot and only a deep wound—and in the meanwhile, it adds a motion to your body that gives you better control over the arrow.”
Loren could feel the woman’s breath on her cheek. She had to force herself to speak. “You did not learn all of this only watching Calentin archers.”
“I did not say I only watched them. Try it. Loose an arrow.”
Her fingers fumbling, Loren drew as Albern had taught her, and loosed towards the target. But the motion of her legs was unfamiliar, and the arrow clattered off the cobblestones before skittering past the base of the target.
“Your training has gone amiss. That was my worst shot yet.”
“My advice is sound, but you are too well-practiced at doing it the wrong way. Keep at it, and mayhap one day you will shoot like a true Calentin.”
She stepped back, and Loren loosed a long, low breath—but then Niya slapped her rump, and she leapt a foot in the air, barely restraining a scream. Whirling, she readied herself to give Niya a tongue lashing—but the Mystic was already striding away, and soon vanished into a door leading into the stronghold.
Loren tried to still her racing pulse as she drew her cloak around her again. She surveyed the training yard to see if anyone else had been watching—and felt sick to her stomach as she saw Chet standing there. Under an awning he stood, one hand still on the door through which he had emerged, and for half a moment Loren hoped he had only just come out—but the look on his face told her that he had been there long enough, at least, to see the moment when Niya left. Loren forced a smile and waved to him, and slowly he made his way over to her.
“Who could have known that Mystic training was quite so involved?” said Loren lightly. She knew at once it was a foolish thing to say, but she had to say something against the smoldering anger in his eyes. That anger was not unfamiliar to her; she had seen it often enough in the Birchwood, but then it had been directed at her father, every time he would lay his hands upon Loren.
Chet did not seem to hear what she had said, or else he ignored it. “I do not like that Mystic woman.”
“You are being ridiculous.”
His nostrils flared. “Do not do that. Do not dismiss what I say, as though it has no foundation—as though we both did not witness what just occurred.”
Loren sighed. She stepped up to him, and placed a hand upon his cheek. “You should not worry over such trivial things. We have been sent here to Ammon for a purpose. Whatever game Niya plays at is as nothing compared to that.”
He glowered in the direct
ion Niya had gone. “We were sent here for a purpose, yes. What was she sent here for?”
Now Loren was beginning to go frustrated. “Are you angry at her, or at me?”
“I … why should I be angry with you?” He blinked twice, clearly flustered. “She is the one who behaves poorly.”
“Let her. Why should we care? I am my own person. Do you not trust me?”
Chet looked at her for a long moment. She studied his chestnut eyes, never flinching. “Very well,” he said at last, and quietly. “You are right, of course. Of course I trust you.”
Loren smiled at him. But in the back of her mind, she could not quite quell her own doubts. She still felt a flutter in her chest when she thought of Niya’s hand on her waist, and she could still smell the woman’s warm breath on the edge of her cowl.
Without warning she snatched Chet’s hand and dragged him towards the door that led in to the stronghold. “Come with me.”
He nearly stumbled as he trotted after her. “Where are we going?”
“To our bedchamber. I mean to prove my loyalty still further.”
fourteen
TRISKEN STOOD UPON THE STONE bridge, menacing in his armor. One massive fist clutched his spiked warhammer near its head, and its butt rested upon the stones near his feet. The feathers of one of Albern’s arrows protruded from his eye socket, but through the blood that streamed down his face, white teeth gleamed from his grin.
“You brought me the Yerrin girl, an abomination, and a Mystic to kill,” he said. Sick laughter poured from his throat, dragging rotten fingernails of terror up Loren’s back. “I could have asked for no finer gifts.”
“I brought you nothing!” she screamed, for the storms had started, and she could hardly hear herself over the thunder. “We killed you!”
“How can you kill that which will not die?” he said, throwing his head back and cackling. “How can you kill that which is already dead?”
Weremage: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 5) Page 8