by Sharon Shinn
“I hope he’s not dead,” Senneth said, kneeling down beside him and checking for a pulse.
“Deserves to be,” Kirra said, “but I hope so, too.”
But there it was, a steady, unruffled heartbeat. They might not have bought themselves very much time. Senneth stood.
“Time for us to be packing up and heading out looking for bandits,” she said.
Kirra said, “We should—”
And then the door swung open and another man stepped into the room. Senneth and Kirra whirled to face him, but it was Tayse, blades in both hands and stealth on his face. He saw the body on the floor and sheathed his dagger. The sword he kept ready.
“I see I’m late,” he said, glancing around. “What happened here?”
Kirra turned immediately to her packing, leaving Senneth to explain. She was more conscious now than she had been during Coren’s visit of the thin cotton shift she had worn to sleep in. “I met the gentleman at the wedding. He seemed to want to continue our acquaintance tonight,” she said. “Donnal heard him at the door and roused us. We had a little skirmish, and then Kirra smoothed everything over. I thought we would be out of it with no trouble—”
“I was stupid,” Kirra said, standing at the bed and stuffing clothes into her bags. “After I’d been so careful all night.”
Tayse looked unenlightened. “Moonstone,” Senneth said. “On his finger. Kirra shook his hand—and it hurt her—and she cried out—” She waggled her fingers over her head. “And then her hair did this strange rainbow change—”
Tayse finally sheathed his sword. “I take it he doesn’t care for mystics.”
“He thought he had better kill us,” Senneth said.
Tayse crouched down, like Senneth had, to make sure the man was still alive. “I don’t think he’ll be out for long,” he said. “We’d better tie him up before we go.”
“Since obviously we have to leave right now,” Kirra said.
He nodded and stood. Senneth regarded him quizzically. “And you?” she said. “Just checking on us as you make your nightly rounds?”
He gave her a small smile. “No, in fact, Cammon woke me. Said you were having some trouble.”
Senneth turned to see the arrested expression on Kirra’s face, matching her own. “Cammon,” Senneth repeated. “He seems to be developing his skills quite nicely.”
“So are Justin and Cammon ready to move out?” Kirra asked, buckling the straps of her bag.
Tayse nodded. “Or ready for whatever comes next.”
Senneth smiled. “As we all should be,” she said.
THEY crept out of the inn, Kirra leaving a note and a pile of gold coins on the front desk, while Senneth murmured a spell over the money to keep it safe till the proper person came along.
“Will that work?” Kirra demanded.
Senneth laughed. “I don’t know. I’m not especially good at spells and curses when it comes to things.”
Kirra sighed. “I can change things, but I can’t get them to do what I want.”
Senneth caught the look on Tayse’s face, closed and suspicious. He may as well have said the words out loud, she thought: This is why ordinary men fear and despise mystics. For just such tricks as this. She didn’t know how to reassure him, and she was not about to deny her powers. She just shrugged and made no other comment. She looked around to make sure Donnal was still with them, and found him back in human shape, though moving as soundlessly in his boots as he did on his paws.
“You’re a hound with good ears, or a good nose,” she said to him. “That little scene could have been much nastier.”
He nodded. “I’ve thought about taking wolf or dog shape as we ride, or even just at night when we camp,” he said. “I feel more alert then, and I’ll catch things no man would ever sense.”
She raised her eyebrows. “A good idea, maybe, but only if it’s comfortable for you. We don’t want to waste your strength.”
A smile broke through his dark beard. “I’m as comfortable in the one shape as the other,” he said. “It’s all the same to me. Just different advantages.”
Once inside the stables, they found Cammon and Justin dressed and ready. They hadn’t prepared the horses yet, just in case the crisis didn’t call for flight. As soon as he saw the women, Justin went straight for the saddles. Cammon hurried up to them. “Are you all right? What happened?” he demanded in a low voice. Around them, other soldiers and servants were sleeping in the straw.
Kirra kissed him on the cheek, and he blushed bright red. “That’s to thank you for saving us,” she said.
“They’d saved themselves, this time, but it was still good work,” Tayse said, leading his horse out of the stable.
Senneth accepted her own reins from Justin’s hands and followed Tayse. “We’ll tell you the story as we ride,” she said.
It was full dark as they took to the road; Senneth judged it wouldn’t be dawn for another three hours yet. She yawned through her recital of the tale, not happy to have lost this night’s sleep. She had the sense that Tayse could ride for days, snatching only a few minutes’ rest here and there, or in the saddle, but she required to lay her bones down and close her eyes for several hours.
Kirra ranged beside her. “We haven’t spared time to think about the repercussions of this night,” she said.
“I have,” Senneth replied a bit grimly. “As soon as someone finds Coren Bauler, news will be out of a party of mystics traveling through the southern regions—spying on the gentry. That will make it harder for us to try such charades as we did last night.”
Tayse spoke over his shoulder. He was in the lead, the two of them right behind him; for this night journey, he had not pulled far ahead as he usually did. “Worse than that,” he said. “Depending on how far and how fast the word spreads, there will be civil guards looking for parties such as ours. Small, mobile, and including two women.”
Senneth pressed her lips together; he was right. “We may stay ahead of the news for a while yet,” she said. “At any rate, we still have ground to cover in Rappengrass and Gisseltess. And from everything we’ve been hearing, Gisseltess is the place where most of the discontent is brewing.”
Tayse shrugged. “I’m just telling you the stakes have been raised,” he said and spurred his horse forward so that he had outdistanced them by several yards.
“Then we’ll just have to be more careful,” Senneth said, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.
They didn’t travel far that day; they were all tired, and since they had determined they would need to keep a watch, they knew none of them would sleep well that night. So they made camp long before sunset and took turns falling instantly to sleep.
The next day was uneventful, but they rode slowly. Cammon’s horse was about to throw a shoe and they didn’t pass through any settlements large enough to boast a smith. They were drifting due east, heading for the northernmost boundaries of Rappengrass territory, and most of what they saw were small farms so desolate in winter they seemed almost abandoned. So they moved slowly, and took long breaks, and looked over their weaponry to see what else might need attention as long as they were going to stop at a smithy anyway.
Night came early and cold, and Senneth at least was as glad to stop as if they’d been riding hard all day. Justin went off to get water and came back with a dead rabbit in hand. He just grinned when Kirra asked him politely if he’d stabbed it with his sword. None of the mystics had ever seen him hunt before. Senneth had assumed he could, since all Riders could live off the land on long campaigns, but she was still impressed.
“I’ll let you know before I leave camp if I ever plan to take the shape of game of any sort,” Donnal said in mock seriousness. The men all laughed. By the look on Kirra’s face, she didn’t think it was funny. Senneth hid a grin and stirred up the fire.
She had the first watch that night and just sat beside the flames, brooding, until it was time to wake up Justin. Donnal had indeed taken wolf shape, but he
lay motionless beside Kirra, sleeping as deeply as a man. It was clear he was no wild animal, Senneth thought as she wrapped herself back in her blankets, for he harbored no fear of fire. She willed her circling thoughts to settle and forced herself into sleep.
And woke, not an hour later, when her senses screamed a warning. She rolled to her feet, knife in hand before she’d even assessed the danger. Cammon was sitting straight up on his bedroll, looking around him as if trying to see through the dark. His eyes were wide with fright and determination. Either he or Justin had woken Tayse, because the big man was also on his feet, edging around the perimeter of the camp. Justin stalked the other side. Kirra was still sleeping. Donnal was nowhere in sight.
Tayse saw her awake and jerked a head at the fire. Senneth passed her hand over the sparkling flames, and they were instantly extinguished. Too late, though, probably; it seemed someone had already marked their location. She placed a hand gently on Kirra’s arm and squeezed hard. Silent as the others, Kirra woke and sat up.
“What?” Kirra breathed in Senneth’s ear.
“I don’t know. Looks like something woke Cammon, though, and Donnal appears to have slunk off to investigate.”
“Friends from Forten City?” Kirra asked.
“Could be. We dawdled on the road, and anyone determined to catch up would have had no trouble.”
“Gets more interesting every day,” Kirra said and pulled herself to her feet.
Senneth went to crouch by Cammon. “What can you tell me?” she whispered. “How many? Where?”
It was nearly impossible to see his face in the full dark, but she thought he nodded and attempted to concentrate even more closely. “I think—I think there are five of them,” he said slowly. “And they’re—they’re coming in two directions. From there—” He pointed. “And there. They’re pretty close.”
Tayse had circled close enough to hear. “Looking for us? Can you tell? Looking for mystics?”
A breath of laughter from Cammon. “No idea. But they’re full of violence.”
“So are we,” Tayse said. “Put a blade in your hand, but keep out of our way—I don’t think the fight will be so desperate that you will be called upon to offer your skills. You and Kirra should stand—” He paused. “Where’s Kirra?”
Senneth glanced at the shadows grouped around the remains of the fire. She could not help grinning in the dark. “Out gathering information, I would guess.”
Tayse swore under his breath. “How can I protect any of you if I can’t even keep track of you?”
“How about this?” Senneth shot back. “You only have to protect us when we’re in direct and deadly danger. Most of the time, we can take care of ourselves.”
She could hear the irritation in his voice. “Then why are Justin and I along on this excursion to begin with?”
Now she laughed soundlessly. “To give us consequence.”
Cammon hissed and jerked his head to the left. Tayse whirled and flung up his blade. Three men ran out of the complete blackness of the night and were suddenly upon him, hacking savagely at his shape. He was a blur of fury and motion, and it sounded like ten men were striking blade to blade, or twenty. Senneth leapt to stand beside him, her short sword out, and engaged one of the attackers in a spirited duel.
Behind her she was aware of the rush of more bodies, the sound of Justin launched in combat. She didn’t have time to turn and try to watch. Her own assailant was stronger than she was, and fiercely determined. She caught two hard blows on her sword arm, feeling the impact straight down to the bone, and she barely parried a swift thrust aimed directly at her heart.
“Bright Mother blind me,” she cursed in a low voice. Her pride made her want to take him out with swordsmanship alone, but she was even more interested in ending the encounter more or less whole. She spoke a few more words, and the man before her suddenly yelped and dropped his sword. He stared at her a moment in the dark, then turned and ran back in the direction from which he’d come.
She pivoted swiftly to gauge what success the others were having. No point now in hiding the fire, so she brought it back up just enough to let them all see a little more clearly. Almost immediately, she was able to witness Tayse dispatching his second victim and go spinning around to see how the situation lay. Justin had vanquished one of his attackers and was even now pulling a sword from the man’s belly. A second man lay on the ground beside him, Donnal standing over him in wolf shape with his paws on the man’s shoulder. Both of them, Senneth guessed, were dead.
“Mine ran,” she said to Tayse, panting a little. “Should we send Donnal after him?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, but just then, a blood-freezing cry split the night, coming from the direction that the man had fled.
“Kirra,” Senneth said with a slight smile. “He appears to be taken care of.”
Tayse nodded at the ground before him, where her assailant had dropped his sword. “What did you do to make him let go of his weapon?”
“Turned the hilt hot in his hand.”
He gave her an unreadable look. “You didn’t think I needed such aid?”
She smiled. “I was afraid you would be angry with me for not letting you prove your skill. But if it had looked like the fight was not going your way, I would have intervened and let you rail at me all you liked later.”
“Good to know,” was all he said, then he stepped to the other side of camp to confer with Justin.
Senneth brought the fire up even higher to give them more light. Donnal lifted his white wolf ’s face and seemed to grin at her over his fallen attacker. She saluted him with the tip of her bloody blade, then knelt down beside one of Tayse’s victims.
In a moment, Tayse was beside her, kneeling on the man’s other side. They did a quick check for anything that might identify him—livery, jewelry, clothing, money—but they turned up very little. He wore no insignia and carried no cash. His weapons were plain but extremely well-maintained. He had a thin silver chain around his neck, but no pendant hung from it with a housemark stamped into the metal. He didn’t even wear any jewels that were affiliated with one of the Twelve Houses.
“Not much here,” Tayse commented and turned to the other corpse.
Before they were finished, Justin came to crouch beside them. “Nothing,” he said. “What did you find?”
“Nothing,” Tayse replied.
“I wonder if—” Senneth began, but her attention was caught by a figure moving toward them from the undergrowth. Tayse and Justin were both ahead of her, on their feet with weapons in hand, but it was only Kirra. Whatever shape she had taken to hunt down tonight’s prey, she had resumed her familiar body now. Donnal came up to nuzzle her hand, and she petted him absently while she glanced at the others.
“I caught one escaping,” she said. “What’s the story here?”
“The rest are dead,” Tayse said briefly. “We’ve been trying to find any clues as to who they might be.”
“The one I killed was wearing plain clothing and no jewelry,” Kirra said.
Senneth looked at her. The one I killed . . . As if it was an easy thing to have done. As if she had done it every day of her life since she turned eighteen and took up a life of combat. Senneth could not be positive unless she asked, but she was almost certain this was the first life Kirra had ever taken.
She shivered a little. She was so sure this was just the beginning of blood spilled, lives lost, the most desperate gambles taken. She was sure there was much worse to come.
“So what do you think?” Justin was asking. “Were they just mercenaries? Spotted us on the road and came after us by night?”
“Coren Bauler said something about bandits,” Kirra said. “I thought he was just making it up, but maybe—”
“They’re not bandits. They’re not mercenaries,” Tayse said. “They’re witch hunters. They were looking for us. For you, actually.”
They all stared at him. “Why do you think that?” Senneth asked.
“Quality of their clothes. Good leather boots. Condition of their muscles and their skin. Every mercenary I’ve ever met possessed fine weaponry, so you can’t judge by that, but these aren’t men who’ve been camping out in near starvation, waiting for the next victim to pass. These men are funded. And as far as I can tell, what’s being funded in the southern regions right now are patrols that can bring down mystics.”
Kirra gave a little kick to the dead man lying closest to her. “So maybe these are some of the same ones who killed that family we saw a few days ago.”
“Maybe,” Tayse said. “Or maybe there are a lot of patrols like this out roaming the countryside.”
“Not the same,” Senneth said in a muffled voice. “The others were wearing Gisseltess colors.”
Tayse glanced at her, seeming to read some of the chaos in her thoughts. “But I’m ready to wager their hands were not clean,” he said softly. “Anyone who approaches a night camp by stealth, in such numbers and bearing such arms, has not come to parley. They were intending a slaughter.”
“They got one,” Justin said.
Kirra looked around. “So what do we do with the bodies? Can we leave them here? I have to say, it’ll make it hard to sleep tonight, guarded by corpses.”
“We ought to hide them,” Tayse said. “Strip anything we might want from the bodies and then bury them.”
Kirra was looking at Senneth. “Or burn them.”
Now they all turned to gaze at her. “The less evidence left behind, the better,” Tayse said, his voice unwontedly gentle. Odd that he, and not Kirra, seemed to be so aware of her distress. “A grave could be found by anyone who’s looking.”