No Quarter
Page 21
“Remember that Vree has two kigh. Neither Charm nor Command will hold her long.”
When it came right down to it, Karlene would’ve welcomed Vree’s company, but she wanted Gyhard stopped. He’d had his hands around Kars’ throat once before and Kars had gotten away. Now, Jazep was dead. She didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust the bond between the two men. She’d deal with this herself.
There was no reason for her to go to Bartek Springs. It was far more important that she catch up with Kars; the sooner she got to him, the sooner people would stop dying.
The reaction of the kigh told her Kars was east, up in the mountains. She heaved her pack up onto her shoulders and started off cross-country, the kigh choosing her path.
* * * *
“A woman trained to kill, who’s immune to Command and Charm because she has two kigh.” Marija sighed deeply and ate another butter cookie. “Why me?”
Celestin smiled. “Think of what a great song this will make.”
“Yeah, wonderful.” The priest had proved to be a valuable ally when the Bartek Springs town council had decided, much as Her Highness had, that this was a bardic problem. Imperial assassins were not for them to deal with. Marija brushed crumbs off her shirtfront. “I knew I should’ve walked north this quarter, but, oh, no, I wanted to be in the mountains when the high berries ripened. Are you sure that shed will hold her?”
“It held the bear.”
“I get the distinct impression that this Vireyda Magaly is more dangerous than a bear.”
* * * *
“Are you all right?”
Slumped in the saddle, a breeze pushing her curls first over one eye and then the other, Magda forced a close approximation of a smile. “I’m fine. Why?”
Vree swept a critical gaze over the younger woman. “You look like you’ve been riding under the horse, not on it.”
“So I’m a little tired.” She tried to straighten, then sighed and sagged again. “They keep saying that healing energies have to come from somewhere.”
“You told us that the sugar-water you drank would take care of it.”
“I lied.”
*We should’ve left her in the village.* Gyhard’s tone had a distinct I told you flavor.
*Granted.* Vree guided her mount around a low branch—Magda merely sagged lower, the yellowing leaves that announced the coming Third Quarter brushing her head. *But since we didn’t, what do we do now?*
*Go on without her.*
*And just leave her like this?*
*Vree, she’s slowing us down. We already lost a day in the village while she dealt with the accident. Pursuit can’t be far behind. If they catch us before we get to Kars …*
*I won’t let that happen.*
*How are you going to stop it? Suppose His Majesty sent a whole troop of guards? It’s not unlikely, considering that Magda’s not only his niece but a valuable healer and he doesn’t trust us. Even you can’t kill that many people!* He felt her wince. *Vree, I’m sorry but …*
*No. You’re right. I can’t.* She twisted around and looked back the way they’d come. Unfortunately, although some of the leaves had turned brilliant shades of orange and yellow, very few had actually fallen. She couldn’t see a thing even though their path had been rising all morning. Similar geography back in the Sixth Province would’ve left everything below them exposed. *This country has too many trees.*
*Homesick?*
Closing her eyes, she saw the village spread out around the garrison wall; pots of flowers bloomed on red slate roofs, olive groves lifted silver-green leaves to a brilliant blue sky and, in the distance, the heat shimmered over plateaus of orange stone. Behind her, she could hear the soldiers of the Sixth Army; the metal on metal of a practice bout, a corporal calling cadence, dice rattling in a cup, men and women laughing, lying, belonging. Breathing in, she could smell the omnipresent odor of cooking onions. And at her back …
*Vree?*
She opened her eyes and stared at the trees. *I have no home.*
“See anything?” Magda asked.
“No.” Turning to face forward once again, she left the past lying where it had fallen. *I can’t gallop off and leave her behind.*
*Why not? I guarantee that whoever is after us poses no danger to her.*
*I’ve never left a wounded comrade behind, and I’m slaughtering well not going to start now.*
*She’s not wounded.*
*She’s not well!* End of argument. “Magda, can you canter?”
“No, but I’ve been told I have an attractive trot.” When Vree’s eyes narrowed, Magda raised a hand and cut off the response. “Joke.” She sighed deeply and, her voice wistful, added, “I thought we were sparing the horses?”
Although they were still riding courier horses, they were no longer galloping wildly down the Coast Road. They’d left the line of stables—extending from Elbasan to Somesford where the Duc of Somes had her principal residence—when they’d turned toward Bartek Springs.
“No, not now. We wouldn’t ask except …”
“That you think we’re going to be stopped. That whoever His Majesty, my uncle, has sent after us is breathing right down our necks because of me.” Magda’s chin rose. “Was I supposed to just let those people die?”
Vree stared at her in some confusion. “We never …”
“I told you right at the beginning I wouldn’t slow you down. I can do anything I have to do!” She slammed her heels into her horse’s ribs and, clutching the saddlehorn with both hands, pounded away up the track.
*Where did that come from?* Gyhard wondered.
*Exhaustion. We’d better catch up before she bounces off and breaks her neck.*
*Which would certainly not be what we were hoping for when we wanted her to find us a body.*
As they raced after the young healer, Vree realized it had been days since she’d thought of Gyhard in a body of his own.
* * * *
“Yer less than a day behind. See, that’s the problem. They come pounding in just after dawn this mornin’. My boy gets me up and I checked the healer’s mark against the list—she’s an apprentice on the list, but that don’t mean squat—and I mount them, see?”
It took an effort, but Gerek managed to keep his expression pleasant. “So what you’re saying is that the only horses you have are the two my sister and her companion rode in on this morning?”
The stablemaster beamed at him. “That’s it Yer Grace. That’s it exactly. And you see, the problem is, the horses, they don’t go out again unless they got a full day’s rest.” She shrugged apologetically. “I ain’t never had four riders in so close together before, being at the end of the line as it were ’cepting for the Duc’s stable at Somesford.”
“Is she refusing to mount us?” Bannon asked quietly from his place behind Gerek’s left shoulder.
“Essentially. The horses require a day’s rest and they haven’t had it.”
Bannon turned and stared into the corral where a bay and a black were standing nose to tail in a patch of late afternoon sun, lazily swatting at the last, hardy flies of the season. “They don’t look tired.”
“She says Vree and Maggie rode in just after dawn.”
“Dawn? Then they rode all night? I don’t think so, there was no slaughtering moon.”
Gerek nodded. “You’re right.” They’d spent dark till dawn on opposite sides of a haymow for that very reason. “Do you know how far they’d come?” he asked the stablemaster, who’d been staring at Bannon in rapt fascination.
She shifted her slightly protruding gaze back onto Gerek. “Oh, yeah, they just come from Three Rock Cove, see? Just up the coast a fish, skip, and a jump. Terrible accident there day ’fore yesterday. Healer saved three lives. Southern girl—This one’s sister is she? Thought as much. Look right alike. —She rescued young Celja right off the side of the cliff. Plucked her out as handy as a kid stealing eggs from a gull. My Gerri, he was there doin’ what he could, he says everyone was some impre
ssed.” She nodded sagely. “Did it with no clothes on, too.”
“What’s she babbling about now?” Bannon muttered.
The stablemaster sighed happily. “I do love to hear him talk Southern. Sounds so pretty.”
Gerek just barely managed to stop himself from saying something very rude. He sighed and squared his shoulders, his voice dropping into an almost bardic cadence. “Stablemaster, these horses have been ridden a very short distance by two very light riders. At most, we have only a couple of hours until dark. The track to Bartek Springs is not one you can go galloping down even in full daylight without risking your neck. We have no desire to risk either our necks or the horses’. I give you my word that if you mount us now, we will treat these animals as if they were my own.”
“Yer own?”
As assorted breezes lifted ebony curls, he spread his hands and turned the full force of his smile on her, teeth gleaming in the dark depths of his beard. “As if they were my father’s.”
She blinked and flushed. “Yeah, that’s more like it. You gots a tongue like a bard, Yer Grace. And if I gots yer word, you gots the horses.”
“What the slaughter was that all about?” Bannon demanded as she led the animals from the corral.
“We have a saying in Ohrid: you can get more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”
“We’ve got one like it,” Bannon admitted suspiciously.
I just bet you do, Gerek thought, remembering how charming the southerner could become when he wanted something. He gestured at the stablemaster saddling the bay. “I got us a pair of flies.”
“So we’ll catch them tonight?”
“No. Probably not until tomorrow. But the less time they have to be held in Bartek Springs before we arrive, the better the odds are they’ll still be there. I don’t imagine Vree’s going to like being held.”
“You can’t imagine.” Bannon’s chin lifted. “You know nothing about my sister.”
“I know enough not to refer to her like she was some kind of possession. You say ‘my sister’ like you say, ‘my knives’ or ‘my boots’.”
“I don’t …”
“You do.” Gerek turned away, took a single step, then turned back. “And I’ll tell you something else,” he added, catching the shorter man’s gaze and holding it, “if anyone talked about my sister the way you talk about Vree, I’d beat the living shit out of him.”
Bannon’s right hand curled into a fist, but his left touched his nose, still slightly swollen.
* * * *
Splintered finger ends clattered together as Kars lifted the necklace of bone over his head and hung it carefully on a broken spur of branch. While he hated to leave the mementos of his old family behind, they had, in the past, made it difficult for him to acquire a new family and this time he was taking no chances.
“I will return for you,” he murmured, lightly stroking the memories of those who’d been his companions over the years, “when things are settled down below.”
He checked that the green glass flask—now full of cloudy liquid—was safely tucked into a corner of his worn, leather pouch then settled the broad strap on his shoulder. As he looked down into the valley, he had the feeling that this was what he’d been searching for all along.
“Come, Kait. Let’s go home.”
* * * *
Standing in the open gate of the stockade, Kiril a’Edko i’Amalia shielded his eyes against the late afternoon sun and squinted in the direction his youngest son was pointing. “You’ve got eyes like a hawk, boy, if you can tell that’s an old man from this distance.”
“A very old man, Papa.” His stance identical to his father’s, Edko narrowed his eyes a little more. “Older even than Granduncle was before he died.”
“Older than Grandmother?”
The boy snorted. “No one’s older than Grandmother.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Kiril laughed. “Not when she says it herself.” Folding his arms over a barrel chest, he leaned against the huge peeled log that anchored the gate. “Wonder what he’s doing way out here.”
“Wandering?”
“From where to where, that’s the question. And why?”
Edko shrugged. “Why does he have to have a reason?”
“Everyone has a reason, lad, even if they don’t know it themselves.”
“There’s something kind of funny around his head.”
“Funny?”
“Yeah like, uh …” He cocked his own head, but it didn’t help. “I dunno; funny.”
Kiril straightened and stared searchingly at his son. Of late there’d been indications he’d be a bard once his voice changed. “Kigh?”
“No, Papa, not kigh.” His voice held all the weary disdain of a twelve-year-old who was tired of hearing adults plan his future.
“Probably just the light being behind him, then.”
“Yeah, I guess.” But he didn’t sound convinced. “Are we gonna take him in?”
“Well, we’re not going to leave him standing at the gate. Frankly, I’m amazed he hasn’t been eaten by something before now.”
“Maybe he’s too old and tough?”
“Show some respect for your elders, boy.” He swung a three-fingered hand in the general direction of his son. Grinning broadly, the boy danced back. “Day after tomorrow being Third Quarter Festival and all, I’d just as soon we stayed on the good side of the gods. No point in moving farther from the Center of the Circle than you have to. I’d better go tell your Aunt Ales there’ll be company for supper.”
Edko wrinkled his nose. “Better tell someone to heat up the bathwater, too.”
Kiril took another long look and nodded. “Good idea.”
As his father turned and ambled inside, Edko trotted toward the fenced pasture and the waiting cattle. He sang as he ran, his pure soprano wrapped incongruously around a disgusting ditty involving cow patties in the spring. Because he was moving, he didn’t realize that, for the first time in his life, no breeze answered his song.
* * * *
“Bartek Springs?”
“Uh-huh.” Magda pulled a damp curl from the corner of her mouth. “Kind of pretty, isn’t it? Pity we’re not going in.”
Vree turned her gaze from the town—they’d arrived at dusk, just as lamps were being lit in the windows of half-timbered houses—and looked at the healer. “We’re not?”
“If they’re going to stop us anywhere, they’re going to stop us here. You know that as well as I do. If you planned on going in, you planned on getting caught and then leaving without me.”
*I thought she didn’t read minds,* Gyhard grumbled.
Magda smiled sweetly at them. “I have an older brother. I’m harder to ditch than that.”
“And you’re exhausted,” Vree told her bluntly, not bothering to deny the accusation. “You need to rest.”
“Have I slowed you down?”
Vree sighed. “No.”
“Then I think it should be my choice, whether I go on or not. Don’t you?” She rested her elbow on the saddle horn and her chin on her cupped hand. “Well?”
“Yes. It should be your choice …”
*Vree.*
“… but I think you should stay here.”
“No. Everything I said back at the Citadel still stands. You’re my patient and I won’t abandon you. Kars needs healing, and I won’t abandon him either.”
*Vree!*
*You’re the one who said she has an answer for everything. You want her to stay here so badly, you come up with a good reason.* “So where do the good people of Bartek Springs put their dead?” she continued aloud when Gyhard remained silent.
Looking worried, Magda straightened. “Their dead?”
“Tombs or graves or something. If Kars is making the dead walk, he needs fresh bodies.”
The younger woman winced at the matter-of-fact reference. “According to the bardic maps I studied back in Elbasan, there’s a cemetery on the far side of town.”
“But it’ll be dark by the time we get there,” Magda protested.
“So we’ll get an early start tomorrow morning.”
“We’re spending the night in the cemetery?”
“It’s okay. The bards said that Jazep took care of what Kars did here.”
Magda urged her horse after Vree’s. “Yeah, but …”
“Unless you’d rather go into town?” When Magda muttered something Vree couldn’t quite catch, the ex-assassin almost smiled.
*You’re mean.*
*She’s a healer, Gyhard. She’s going to have to learn to deal with dead bodies.*
*Try to see it from her side. A dead body means she failed. For you, dead bodies meant success.*
*And for you?*
She felt herself sigh; knew it was his reaction. *Only that I was still alive,* he said softly.
* * * *
Wishing that there was a little more light, Vree dismounted and stretched. She could just barely make out the dark on dark slabs of gravestones on the other side of the low stone wall and she wondered just what it was the Shkodens did for their dead. In the Empire, army dead were most frequently buried in mass graves with the rites performed once for the lot and their only memorial in the memories of their surviving comrades. The rich stacked their dead in stone tombs along the Great Roads. She didn’t know what the poor did.
“It’s spooky,” Magda whispered, pressed tightly against the comforting bulk of her horse.
“Without the kigh, there’s nothing left but meat.”
“I know.”
“Meat can’t hurt you.”
“I know.”
*You have such a comforting way with a metaphor,* Gyhard noted as Vree unbuckled the saddle girth.
Hobbling the horses—fortunately, they’d been able to water them on the way around town—the two women ate quickly and settled down for the night, wrapped together in their blankets to conserve warmth.
“You know, this close to Third Quarter this far up in the mountains, we could easily have a touch of light frost before morning.”