The innkeeper, who probably had not seen one road-chit in her life, much less four, blushed modestly. “Eh, now, was I s’pposed to turn ye inter the road again? ’Twas good of ye t’ put up wit’ sleepin’ on me floor an’ all.”
Pol just smiled, reached down again, and squeezed her hand. Then he and Satiran turned and began pushing through the snow, back on the road, with Tuck and Lan following.
By midafternoon, they came to the point where the new snow tapered off, and there was nothing much to contend with but a dusting that covered the older, granulated stuff. Then they were able to pick up their pace again, pushing harder than they had the first day. But Pol stopped more often, too; once in midmorning to let them eat their packets of food, once at noon, for luncheon, and once again for another snack when they broke out of the snowfield. Each time, Elenor shifted positions on the pillion, and that seemed to help her.
The next three days were identical, and as Elenor grew more accustomed to day-long riding and the uncertain conditions of inns on the road, Lan gave up the idea that she was going to quit. At least for now, anyway. Maybe when she got to the fighting, and saw what it was like, she might change her mind.
The fourth day was special, and the reason why Pol was in such a hurry to make up the time lost. Healer Ilea, Elenor’s mother and Pol’s’ wife, was waiting for them at the inn where they would make their nightly stop.
Pol’s back was a study in tension; Satiran stretched his legs just a trifle more in each step, and his urgency communicated itself to the other two Companions. Even Elenor forgot her aches in anticipation of seeing her mother. For once, the reason for going south in the first place got pushed to the back of everyone’s thoughts.
The inn that they arrived at—well after darkness fell—could not have been more unlike their first stop. This was a huge place, three two-storied wings joined in the shape of a horseshoe, with its own courtyard in the center. The stables formed the back side, and travelers entered the center court through a passage made in the center of the front wing. There were torches on either side of the passage, and lanterns in the courtyard; even at this late hour, people were coming and going. From the faint sound of music, and the babble of voices, the inn was popular with the locals as well as travelers.
Stable hands came to take the Companions, asking their names and treating them just as they would be at the Collegium—which was to say, like people, and not like horses. Pol just gave Satiran a congratulatory pat and sent him on his way, following his stable hand without the latter even attempting to lead him with the reins.
:Satiran’s told me about this place. We’re going to be spoiled outrageously,: Kalira told Lan, with just a touch of greed. He laughed, relieved, and dismounted. She followed her sire, her attendant following her, with her ears up and a very light step on the cobblestones of the courtyard.
With a thatched roof, stone walls, and shuttered windows, this inn looked as comfortable as a farmhouse, but built on a massive scale. A myriad of chimney pots poking up through the thatch promised warm and comfortable rooms. They were definitely expected. A servant met them before they even reached the door.
“Herald Pol,” the young man said, a statement rather than a question. “If you will all come with me, please?”
The servant led them past the common room, filled with people eating and drinking, a Bard entertaining at the far end beside a fireplace large enough to roast an entire ox. There wasn’t an ox on the spit at the moment, only a boar, or rather, what was left of the boar. Most of him was either on plates or already inside patrons, and the mouth-watering aroma nearly drove Lan crazy.
They had a bit of a distance to go; down a long corridor, then up a flight of stairs, and around a corner. But the long walk was worth it; the servant ushered them into a warm and welcoming private parlor with more doors opening off of it. There was already a fire burning in the fireplace, a pitcher of drink and some food laid ready, and a woman in Healer’s Greens rising from her seat by the fire so quickly she might have been stung.
She flung herself into Pol’s arms, and Elenor joined the embrace. Lan and Tuck exchanged an embarrassed glance, and with one accord, turned their attention to the fruit and bread on the table, turning their backs on the reunited family to give them at least the illusion of privacy.
So far as Lan was concerned, a welcome interruption came before they finished picking over the light refreshments, in the form of the arrival of dinner. Three servants arrived with trays; the remains of the snacks were whisked away. The family embrace broke up, and the table beside the fire quickly set up for a meal. Juicy slices of pork steamed on a heated platter, garnished with roasted onions and apples. A bowl of mashed turnips topped with butter and brown sugar, a loaf of hot bread, steaming peas, and a whole apple pie completed the repast, and Lan and Tuck had no hesitation in sitting right down and helping themselves.
“So,” Ilea said, taking a seat between Pol and Elenor, and meeting the eyes of each boy with a frank gaze. “This is Lavan, and this is Tuck. I’m pleased to finally meet you boys.”
Lan put his hand to his breast and gave her a little formal bow, which seemed to amuse her. Ilea was a stunning woman, although her effect was due as much to force of personality as to her looks. Her eyes were huge, dominating her face; masses of dark brown hair surrounded it. She had thin lips, but Lan had the sense that when she wasn’t worried, she smiled often and enthusiastically, as she was smiling now. A nose too long, perhaps, for beauty still suited her face and lent it strength.
“Never mind us, m’lady,” Tuck said, after swallowing a huge mouthful of food. “You just catch up with your family and pretend we aren’t here. Right now I’d druther have food than talking.”
That amused her as well, but she took him up on his advice, and turned to her husband and daughter, exchanging tales of what had been going on with them while Lan and Tuck ate.
Lan couldn’t help noticing that, while Pol and Elenor (though mostly Pol; Elenor did more listening that talking) were full of gossip and stories about mutual acquaintances and friends, Ilea’s tales concentrated on what life was like for a Healer on the battlefield. Though she often couched her stories in such a way as to get a rueful chuckle at the end, the point of each was clear. Day-to-day life was full of hardship, Healers witnessed terrible things with virtually every passing candlemark, and the consequences of being captured were far worse than merely being hurt or killed by a stray arrow.
So her mother doesn’t want Elenor to go to the front either, Lan thought, his interest piqued. Well, good!
He didn’t much like what he heard, though, even given that Ilea might be exaggerating a trifle. Pol was right; the Karsites must have been planning this for the past couple of years. Valdemaran forces were only just keeping the enemy advance to a crawl, but they were already into Valdemaran territory, and showed no signs of stopping. Their fighters were well trained, not unskilled or half-trained conscripts. And their officers were fanatics.
That put a distinct chill up Lan’s back. He had thought that he would be able to frighten the Karsites with a display of fire; would he really have to actually hurt people? Or even kill them?
No. I can’t, he told himself firmly, as a sick feeling rose in him. I can’t do that. I’ll find a way around it, or Pol will, or whoever is commanding the army. I can’t hurt anyone.
I’ve done too much of that already.
TWENTY-ONE
ILEA closed the door to the bedchamber behind her and put her back to it, giving Pol one of those looks he had come to recognize over the years as significant and serious. Her hair had fallen charmingly over one eye, with a suggestion of flirtation, but the expression in her eyes was not in the least amatory.
“Are you aware that Elenor is in love with that boy?” she asked peremptorily.
Pol sighed. He would have so much preferred not to deal with this until after he’d had Ilea to himself for a while. He took the candles out of their sconces around the room, lit them
at the fire, and replaced them to give himself time to think. “I would have said infatuated rather than ‘in love,’ but yes,” he replied with resignation. He knew as well as Ilea that Lan was “that boy” and not Tuck, nor any other boy of their acquaintance; there was no point in prevaricating with questions of which boy she meant.
He sat on the edge of the canopied bed, the only furniture in the room, and waited for her reply. “At her age, they’re the same,” Ilea responded, giving vent to her agitation in pacing back and forth in the confines of the little room, but never taking her eyes off her husband. “Well?”
“Well what?” he asked, reasonably, he thought, but she rolled her eyes upward, as if asking the heavens for help with his denseness.
“Well, what are you doing about it?”
“Nothing. She’s not likely to confide in any mere male, and especially not her father,” he pointed out. “And it wasn’t my idea to bring her along, it was the King’s, and Jedin’s; they only know that she’s Lan’s friend and they want friends around him to keep him sane. The fact that she’s a Mind-Healer was just that much more reason to send her. I’m hoping now that in constant contact with Lavan, she’s going to wear out her passion against his indifference. Or failing that, she’ll take one look at the battlefield and beg you to take her back home.”
Ilea relaxed a little, as if he’d put at least one of her fears to rest, and stopped pacing. “You’re sure he’s indifferent?” she asked—begged, rather.
Pol sighed again, shook his head, and patted the top of the bed beside him. She accepted the silent invitation and sat beside him, pulling her legs up onto the quilted coverlet and curling up against his shoulder. “Lan couldn’t be anything but indifferent to Elenor—or any girl, for that matter. He’s already lifebonded. To his Companion,” he added, to cut through any more questions.
Ilea squirmed around and looked into his face, her own features a mask of incredulity. “You aren’t joking!” she exclaimed, stunned, and even a little shocked. “Oh, no! Poor Elenor!”
“And poor Lan, and poor Kalira—that’s his Companion—” he replied. “Herald-bond and lifebond? They’re never out of each other’s heads, and if anything happens to Kalira, Lan just goes—crazy—” He shook his head. “When she was hurt, he couldn’t think of anything else, and it was no use attempting to get him to try. No one his age should have to cope with a full lifebond. It’s not healthy. He doesn’t even know who he is, yet, but now he’s inextricably bound up with someone who isn’t his age, his sex, or even human.”
“But apparently in his case, it’s necessary,” she brooded, putting her head back on his shoulder with a sigh of her own. “If what I’ve heard is true. She’s the controlling force on his Gift?”
“Exactly, and I’m not sure she could do that if they weren’t lifebonded. But he’s never going to be himself, whole and entire, and he’s never going to be independent. Is he?” he asked her doubtfully, leaning back against the pillows and making them both more comfortable.
“Ask Elenor. I’m not the Mind-Healer. Or, rather,” she corrected hastily, “don’t ask Elenor. I’d rather she didn’t take him on as a Cause; there’s nothing more certain of cementing misplaced infatuation into permanency than being Needed.”
Pol heard the inflection that turned the word into an icon, and he agreed with her. “I talked with her back when I first saw this happening,” he said, hastening to let her know that he hadn’t shirked his parental duties. “I tried—I really tried to make her understand that she—she couldn’t hope to compete—I tried—”
Ilea wrapped her arms around him, and he relaxed into her embrace. Gods, it’s so good to be with her again—
“I know you did, and I know you didn’t try anything as stupid as flatly opposing her,” she said into his ear. “Nothing feeds romance like opposition, and you know it.”
Thank you for that, my love, and for your confidence in my good sense.
“She’ll talk to me about it, sooner rather than later, I think,” Ilea continued, as her hair tickled his nose and he tucked it under his chin. “I don’t know what else I can do, but at least I can keep track of how she’s feeling.”
“Satiran reminds me fairly often that parents can’t cushion the blows our children set themselves up for,” he murmured into her ear, breathing in the warm scent of herbs that always clung to her.
“I’m not going to think any more about it until tomorrow,” she said firmly.
He was perfectly willing to go along with her on that score.
MIDMORNING, and they were less than half a day from the Southern Border and the war, and yet there was no sign of the conflict here other than the wear on the roads. They were no longer on the main roads; this was the way that Ilea had passed coming up here, and they were all returning to report to the main quarters of the Lord Marshal. This was a pine forest, a very old one; the scent was fantastic in here, but the boughs all overhung the road, completely blocking the sun and leaving them in half-light no brighter than twilight.
Pol led the way, unburdened for once. Ilea was up behind Lan, and Elenor behind Tuck. Ilea was a perfect passenger, actually; she was friendly and made intelligent conversation; Lan much preferred her to Elenor.
“We moved the Headquarters to White Foal Pass just before I left,” Ilea told him. “That’s why this little road hasn’t been trampled to bare dirt yet. It looked to the Lord Marshal as if the Karsites were going to make a big push there. It would be the logical place to go with as large a force as they have. White Foal is the only pass where they get big numbers of men through quickly.”
“Not to mention the value of pushing us back at White Foal Pass,” Lan replied grimly. “There’s an awful lot of symbolic significance there if even I can see that. . . .”
Ilea nodded. He felt her hair move against his shoulder. Then, before he could continue his thought——something dropped down out of the tree head of them.
Frozen between shock and total terror, Lan jerked on the reins, and Kalira shied sideways.
It—no, he—landed on the pillion behind Pol, knocking Satiran sideways with the unexpected weight. Hooves skidding on the icy road, Satiran shrieked as his hind feet slid out from underneath him, but the black-hooded man grabbed Pol around the chest and shoulders and pulled him sideways. They tumbled to the ground together, Pol fighting to get his arms free and shouting, Satiran scrambling to get his feet under him again.
Elenor screamed, and kept screaming, a high, thin, terror-filled wail; Ilea didn’t make a sound, but her hands clutched Lan’s upper arms so tightly it hurt. Lan’s stomach flipped, but it was the only part of him that could move. He couldn’t even breathe—
The man had a knife, a black-bladed knife that didn’t reflect light at all; it drew Lan’s eyes and filled his gaze as the man brandished it.
He’d wrapped his legs around Pol’s body, trapping Pol’s arms so the Herald couldn’t get to his weapons. He shouted something as he and Pol struggled on the ground—it was Karsite, something about demons—
:Lan!: Kalira shouted at him, but he couldn’t shake off his paralysis—
The attacker grabbed Pol’s hair, pulling his head back. Satiran, still shrieking a battle cry, whirled. His hooves pounded the ground a hair away from Pol, but he couldn’t trample the man and not get Pol, too.
Tuck fought with Elenor to keep her from leaping into the fray. Ilea frozen and rigid, only whimpered.
The dragon within Lan flamed into life with a roar, ready to kill.
Taste of metal, of blood—the taste of anger—
The dragon uncoiled in a rush, craving death, fire, destruction. It lunged at the restraints that held it, raged against the bindings, filling Lan’s mind and soul with a dreadful lust.
No! He couldn’t. That was a man, not a bundle of straw!
:Lan!: Kalira shouted at him. :Now!:
This was all happening too fast, he couldn’t think!
Flames washing through him, straining his cont
rol—
Only fire would save his friend. He had to let the dragon kill!
No! Pol was—Pol was a fighter! He could—surely he would free himself—Lan couldn’t kill a man—
As the man struck at Pol’s throat, Pol wrenched his head down and to the side and his hands grabbed the man’s feet, twisting in a move Lan had seen Odo demonstrate a dozen times. Lan’s heart pounded, his head felt full to bursting—
Blood fountained, as the man slashed his knife across Pol’s eyes instead of his throat, blood gushing everywhere, staining the snow, dyeing the Whites a terrible crimson.
And something inside Lan parted with a snap.
Yesyesyesyesyes!
Pol screamed. Ilea and Tuck screamed. Elenor was still screaming.
Lan’s throat closed, his hands clenched on the reins, and his vision tunneled—but the Karsite exploded into flame.
Firedeathragehate—
Ilea scrambled down from the pillion running for Pol. Lan barely noticed. He was bathed in fire, tiny flamelets dancing from the tips of his fingers, floating in the air around him. This was what he had been born for—
The dragon within him exulted in its freedom, and ravaged the Karsite within and without. Bound to the dragon, one with the dragon, he was the dragon now, and the dragon was rage and flame and hunger. The Karsite died instantly, but death was not enough, not nearly enough! He spun in a circle of fire and danced a volta of revenge as the Karsite burned and burned and burned.
THE knife fell, as Pol tried to squirm out of the way, and the blackened steel sliced across his face. Gods!
A streak of agony, darkness, the hot gush of his own blood over his cheeks.
He screamed, the sound tearing from his throat, but kept fighting. The next stroke could be the final one—
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