Mystic and Rider (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  A break in the action gave him a chance to look wildly around, but he still could not spot Senneth anywhere in the woods or near the water. At least eight bodies lay on the ground, all dressed in black and silver, all covered with copious amounts of blood. Justin was still battling with one of Coralinda’s soldiers, but it was clear who was going to win that fight, and quickly. Donnal and Kirra were circling another soldier, who had apparently been knocked from the saddle but managed to scramble to his feet. He crouched before them, waving his knife and looking desperately afraid. Another contest that was already effectively decided. Tayse wrenched his eyes away.

  His attention was caught by motion through the trees, maybe twenty yards distant: a soldier bent over the saddle, racing back up the road toward the convent. “Kirra!” he shouted, and her golden head snapped around—but there was no need for her to go hunting this particular prey. Even as Tayse watched, there was a sublimely beautiful explosion of red as the raelynx leapt through the air and tore the soldier from the horse. Man and beast somersaulted in a tangled curl onto the road and disappeared from view.

  Tayse did not wonder who would survive that encounter, either.

  His eyes darted around the small plot of trees, looking for more attackers, bracing himself for the next round of trouble. But there appeared to be none immediately lurking. Justin was pulling his blade from the breast of the last soldier he’d faced; Donnal was glancing up from the mangled throat of his own final victim. Kirra stood there in human form, wiping the blood from her mouth with the sleeve of her filthy shirt.

  “Where’s Senneth?” Tayse demanded. “Do you see her?”

  Kirra shook her head, and her eyes were as wide and as frightened as Tayse thought his own must be. “No—I think—she might have turned herself invisible as soon as the arrow hit home. It had to be an arrow—a crossbow—they couldn’t possibly have gotten near enough to harm her with swords.”

  Tayse slid from his horse’s back, a terrible fear rising up in his chest, pressing against his constricted ribs, making his muscles loose and unhelpful. “Then she—somewhere here on the ground—if I have to crawl on my hands and knees and cover every square inch—”

  Kirra shook her head. “Donnal,” she said and he trotted over. “Where’s Senneth? Can you find her?”

  But when Donnal’s head swung over to sniff the breeze, it was clear his tracking skills would not be needed. They all followed his yellow gaze down to the side of the stream, where Cammon knelt beside a patch of winter grass and appeared to be trying to resuscitate formless air.

  “He can see her,” Kirra whispered, her hand to her throat.

  “We will all need to be able to see her,” Tayse said, striding forward, “if we are to save her.”

  The other three hurried after him, though Donnal made it to Cammon’s side the quickest. Kirra pushed the wolf away and knelt beside Cammon, her hands shaping themselves over an unseen body. Tayse could hear Cammon’s voice, low and anxious.

  “The arrow went straight through. I’ve done what I can to stanch the bleeding, but I’m not sure she’s conscious. Can you help her?”

  “Cammon—I can’t see her,” Kirra said, her voice strained. “Can you—what can you do? Can you reach into her mind? Make her respond to you? I have to bind her wounds, but I can’t see her—”

  Justin and Tayse hovered one step back, staring down at nothing, at Kirra’s hands patting the invisible, unconscious figure. Tayse had never felt so cold in his life, and he didn’t think it was just fear. He suspected he had grown so used to the waves of heat pouring from Senneth’s body that when that heat was shut down, he felt the loss all the way through to his bones.

  Cammon leaned forward and appeared to be whispering to a rock on the ground. Justin crowded closer to Tayse. “Do you think we can move her?” the younger Rider asked.

  Kirra looked up, her face exceptionally grim. “No,” she said. “I think we have to build the camp around her body.”

  Tayse nodded. “What can we do?”

  “At the moment, nothing. Except fetch my packs and build a fire. The biggest fire you can keep going through the night.”

  Justin glanced around. The stream was at the bottom of a small hill, the woods to one side of it, open land in three directions. It was clear what he was thinking: This was not an ideal site to set up camp. Then there were all the bodies nearby, sure to attract predators, sure to begin giving off an unpleasant odor within a very short period of time.

  “We’re not very protected here,” Tayse said. “In case more of them come.”

  “We’ll just have to set up better guards,” Kirra said.

  Tayse was gazing down at Cammon, still appearing to murmur to the earth. “We’ve grown too accustomed to relying on heightened senses,” he said. “We’ve grown careless.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t know those soldiers were coming,” Justin said. None of them asked Cammon, not wanting to distract him from the more critical task at hand. “He’s picked up riders from much farther away than that.”

  Kirra glanced up swiftly. “They were wearing moonstone clips on their hats,” she said. “At least, the ones I killed were. Probably something to do with the moonstones so close to their heads—Cammon couldn’t sense what they were thinking.” She looked back down at where Senneth should be. “I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”

  Tayse spared an instant to marvel at how flatly she referred to the men she had killed. Not the sort of cold unsentimentality you would expect from a serramerra of the Twelve Houses. But she had not flinched. If a fresh hazard pounded up from around the bend right now, she would take animal shape and fight again. He was fairly certain Kirra was sophisticated enough to realize that a death she caused while in lion shape was still a death at her hands. He was fairly certain she felt not the slightest remorse.

  “Ah,” Kirra gasped just a second before Tayse saw Senneth’s shape waver into being. For a moment she seemed faint, insubstantial, as if she would wink back out of sight, but Cammon whispered something else in her ear, and she grew more solid.

  Though seeing her was suddenly no comfort at all. She looked near death, her face so white that even her hair seemed densely colorful by contrast. She was unnaturally still; if she breathed, the movement was so faint it was undetectable. Kirra caught her own breath on a small sob.

  Tayse leaned over, trying to trace the source of the wound that had left her entire shirt bloody. “Where did the arrow strike?”

  “Her lung,” Kirra whispered. She sat motionless for a moment, then jerked her head up, the expression on her face angry. “Don’t just stand there! Get water! Get wood! Build a fire! Help me—”

  They all leapt to their tasks, but the next hour passed in such emotional agony that Tayse, at least, was almost unaware of the physical exertions of his body. He and Justin combed the area to find fallen branches to drag back and break into smaller pieces; they eventually had enough to last for two days of straight burning. Donnal, who had resumed his human form, built the fire and set water on to boil, fetching whatever supplies Kirra asked for. Cammon knelt beside Senneth, across from Kirra, and put his hands where Kirra directed him, and seemed to engage from time to time in some silent communication with the unconscious woman.

  The raelynx came and sat just outside the circle of the fire and watched them all with a fixed and sober attention. Its tufted ears were tilted forward, and its restless tail was wrapped unmoving around its body. Tayse found it in him to wonder what kept it so near them this day—Senneth’s plight, Cammon’s will, or the potential to make a few easy kills as these frail humans grew lax with worry and exhaustion.

  But he was willing to believe it was the first possibility—that the raelynx, like the rest of them, had come to love this strange and powerful woman and did not want to stir more than a few steps from the place where she lay in such fearful danger.

  “How is she?” he couldn’t keep himself from asking every time the completion of his chores brought
him back within a few feet.

  Each time, Kirra compressed her lips and shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s so cold. But she’s still alive.”

  Justin was dropping another branch on their pile of logs during one of these exchanges. “I thought you were supposed to be such a fabulous healer,” the younger Rider said in a hard voice. “I thought you had such magic in your hands—”

  Donnal scrambled up and punched Justin in the shoulder. Justin made a fist and swung back, and suddenly the two of them were scuffling, inches away from the prone body. Cammon strangled a shout and jumped to his feet, shoving himself between them. Tayse reached them seconds later, wrapping his arms around Justin’s waist and hauling him away from the fire. He hesitated to try such tactics with Donnal, who might turn into a beast and maul him.

  “Stop it! Both of you!” he commanded in a rough voice. “We’re all afraid. Stop it.”

  Justin shook himself free and stalked off into the woods. Donnal said nothing, just dropped back down in a crouch beside Kirra. Tayse knelt beside Cammon.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, hearing the urgency in his voice even as he tried to keep it gentle. “Hold her? If there’s another body next to hers to give her some warmth—”

  Kirra nodded. “Yes—maybe—a little later. First I want to stop the bleeding. It’s as if she—as if all the heat in her body has already run out, and there’s this cold river of power just leaking from her fingertips—”

  “Her hands are never cold,” Tayse said, and could not stop himself from reaching out and taking her left hand in his. Just to see, just to prove to himself that there was some heat remaining in her body.

  The bloody sleeve fell back from her arm and showed the moonstone bracelet glowing white against her skin.

  With an oath, Tayse ripped the circlet off her hand, flinging it into the river. The fire beside him leapt six inches and crackled with a sudden heat. A wash of fever burned through the fingers wrapped in Tayse’s hand.

  Kirra caught her breath on a sob. “The bracelet,” she whispered. “The bracelet—”

  Tayse found himself crushing those frail fingers in his hand as if he could force some of his own heat into her flesh—or as if he would reassure himself that there was a fugitive warmth in her own skin. Carefully he eased the pressure and laid her arm next to her body. He stood. “Does that make a difference?” he asked, his voice constricted. “Can you tell?”

  Kirra was nodding, her hands fluttering over Senneth’s ribs, her forehead, her wrists. “Yes—I think I can—yes, already she is more responsive—” She drew in a long, ragged breath. “Bright Mother of the morning skies, help me now—”

  Tayse waited a moment, but there was no more conversation, just Kirra’s intent face and healing hands. He pivoted and went off in search of Justin, whom he could hear tramping through the stand of trees. When he found the other Rider, he was tying one of the convent horses to a sapling. He looked up when Tayse appeared.

  “Sorry,” he said, and sounded sorry, though it didn’t appear he was willing to dredge up any more words.

  Tayse nodded. “What are we going to do about their horses?” he asked. Justin, he saw, had already secured most of them; two more had drifted outside of the shelter of the woods and were cropping at unsatisfying brown grass.

  Justin shook his head. “I don’t know. Too many for us to bring with us, though we could probably use a spare mount or two. That dapple gray looks big enough to carry you, and the bay is the finest of the lot. But we don’t need eleven or twelve more horses. That would raise all kinds of suspicion on the road.”

  “I suppose we strip them and set them loose, once we’re ready to leave,” Tayse said. “I’d guess most of them will make it back to the convent—but not for a few days. We’d be safe in Lochau by then.”

  Justin gave him a swift look, almost humorous. “We don’t seem to be safe anywhere.”

  “True,” Tayse agreed. He came close enough to stroke the dapple gray on the nose. It was deep-chested and sturdily built, calm even in the presence of so much carnage. An excellent battle horse. Tayse would no doubt need another one of those. “I suppose if we release them, there’s enough grass and bark that they can forage on to survive the trip back to the convent.”

  Justin shrugged. “Or some other travelers using the road will round them up and add them to their own caravans. Not asking too many questions about where they came from.”

  Tayse glanced around at the scattered corpses, already starting to rime with frost. If the weather stayed cold enough, they might not start to smell so quickly. “I don’t think I have the strength to bury them all,” he said.

  “Gather and burn them,” Justin suggested.

  “Or let the Lestra’s other men find them when they come out to see why their fellows didn’t ride back.”

  “Should we search the bodies?” Justin asked.

  Tayse shook his head. “No reason. We know who they are. I suppose if you see a knife you particularly want, you can take it, but half of them probably have moonstone hilts. And I want to carry no part of the Pale Mother with me when we ride out from here.”

  Justin nodded, looked down at the ground, looked back up at Tayse. “Is she going to die?”

  Tayse felt the pain in his chest clench tighter. “No,” he said.

  Justin nodded again. “I’ll start stripping the horses.”

  Tayse stepped out of the woods again and surveyed the scene around him. Impossible that it could still be only early afternoon—it seemed like hours had passed, if not whole days. But the sun was still at a comfortable level in the sky, pouring down golden light. It wouldn’t be night again for another few hours.

  He had no idea how they could possibly defend this camp if more soldiers came riding down the trail looking for them.

  Stepping carefully through debris, undergrowth, and the occasional body, he made his way back to the place where Senneth lay. Cammon was still kneeling beside Kirra; Donnal hovered nearby, waiting to be pressed into service. Tayse gestured to Cammon. The young man rose, and Donnal took his place. Cammon followed Tayse a few yards away from the fire.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cammon said. He looked almost as pale as Senneth, but terror and guilt kept his features tense, whereas hers were loose and empty. “It’s my fault—I didn’t feel them coming. I don’t know why—Kirra mentioned the moonstone pins in their hats—maybe. I don’t know—but I should have, I should have known something was—”

  Tayse laid his heavy hands on the boy’s shoulders, and Cammon fell silent. “You are not wholly responsible for our safety,” he said. “All six of us have been trained to take care of ourselves. Senneth is the last person who would tell you that you had to protect her.”

  “But I should have,” Cammon whispered. His eyes appeared wet, as if with any encouragement at all he would weep.

  Tayse tightened his hold for a moment. “And perhaps next time you will be able to,” he said. “For I expect the Lestra will send more guards after us if these fail to return. We must determine how they were able to escape your notice and what you can do in the future to detect them. What was it that first caught your attention this time?”

  “Senneth’s pain. I felt it when the arrow hit her.”

  Tayse shook his head. “No. Before the arrow struck, you could sense something—you looked as if you were listening to noises none of the rest of us could hear. What were those noises?”

  Cammon frowned, trying to concentrate. The effort of reconstructing memory had at least had the effect of drying his tears. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said at last. “I could tell horses were coming. A lot of them.” He focused on Tayse’s face. “I guess I didn’t think—but of course a party of horses would be carrying men.”

  Tayse gave Cammon’s shoulders a friendly squeeze, then dropped his arms. “Yes. Good. Then that’s something you’re going to have to teach yourself to look for—listen for—whatever. I don’t know if there’s any way for y
ou to practice that, but—”

  Cammon still seemed to be thinking hard. “I don’t pay much attention to the wild animals we pass in the forest. But now and then I can sense that they’re nearby. I suppose I could—I could start listening for them, trying to distinguish a rabbit from a squirrel, for instance. A hawk from a crow.” He lifted his eyes to Tayse’s. “Would that work?”

  Bright Mother, now he was training mystics to hone their craft. “I think it would,” he said gravely. “Maybe Senneth will have some ideas when she—after she—”

  Cammon nodded. “When she’s better,” he said. “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 29

  THEY returned to the small patch of ground that held all their hopes, all their terrors, to find very little changed. Tayse crouched down across from Kirra and put his hand briefly against Senneth’s cheek. Cool, too cool, but not bone cold. Some flicker of life still beneath the skin.

  “How is she?” he could not stop himself from asking.

  “I don’t know,” Kirra mumbled. She looked even worse than Cammon, though where Cammon was pale, she was disheveled and flushed. She had tied her long hair back with a dirty strip of leather, but there were smears of blood and mud across her face and down the front of her shirt. Tayse wondered if she had acquired the bloodstains from tending Senneth or—

  “Is any of that blood yours?” he asked.

  Donnal answered. “No. I already asked.”

  Of course; that Tayse should have known already. Kirra, Cammon, Tayse, Justin—all of them were poised to do anything possible to save Senneth. Donnal was prepared to care for Kirra. It gave Tayse an odd sense of relief; he need not feel guilty, then, for thinking of no one but Senneth. Some of the others had their own protectors.

  “What can I do?” Tayse asked.

  Kirra shook her head. “Nothing, now, I think. She seems to be stable, finally—the bleeding has stopped, anyway. But I’m worried about what happens when the sun goes down.”