"We have a lot of walking ahead of us today," he answered without turning, still stroking the cat. "We'll cover more distance Jf you start out well rested rather than tired. We can leave as soon as you get your new sandals on."
"Then I guess we can leave," she said, not quite swallowing a yawn. "I found them where you left them, and I suppose they'll have to do. As adequate footgear, I'll grant they're better than nothing."
But not much beyond that, he finished for her in his mind as he straightened and turned. She stood just a few steps beyond the cabin's bedchamber, trying to stretch the sleep out of her body, the movement making the tunic ride up even higher on her thighs. It occurred to him to wonder if she were deliberately provoking him, and the hell of it was she very well could be. She didn't seem to understand that if he wanted to, he could carry her back into the bedchamber to the abandoned grass-filled pad she'd slept on, and then take complete satisfaction from her. To her that would be attack calling for immediate and honorable challenge, an excellent reason for starting another, more deadly fight. To everyone else it would be no more than his due under betrothal rights and her duty to provide, but he had no doubt she would not be looking at it like that.
"I'll get our provisions," he said, leaving the doorway to
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walk to the hear*. He'd wrapped the chicken in an improvised bag made from some sacking he'd found in the barn, the ends tied in a sling that went over his left shoulder. He'd doused the fire he'd built once he was through with it and had closed the window they'd opened the day before, and that left nothing to do but shut the door behind them. The girl stepped outside ahead of him, and then the last of it was done.
"At least these 'sandals' will make walking back through the woods easier," the girl grudged, raising one foot to give critical inspection to what she wore. "As long as it's only things on the ground that need to be worried about."
Kylin knew the girl meant the whole top of her foot was uncovered except for the binding thongs, but he hadn't been able to do any better than that. There had only been enough leather to make doubled pads for the bottoms of her feet, the thongs slid through slits cut in the bottom layer. The sandals would last until the slits tore themselves completely open, and after that it just might be possible to cut new slits without having to use the last of the leather now tucked into the back of his belt.
"I did the best I could," he said, glancing around at the grayish day to feel less like an absolute failure. "Next time arrange to be found by a cobbler."
"Look, 1 didn't mean to make you feel—" she began, a blurting that had gotten away from her. She cut it off before it grew into a real, live apology, and was immediately back to the attitude that reminded him so much of the fighter who had challenged him at the inn where he'd met his father. "There are some people who are always doing the best they can. Unfortunately for those around them, that's never quite good enough. I'm assuming I get to lead out again."
She started off in the direction they'd come from, and for an instant he was too startled to stop her. He'd had the suspicion that she was giving him a hard time on purpose rather than because she had the nature of a mountain witch, and her near slip had confirmed it. She seemed to feel she had to oppose him, and if he could just find out why, he might be able to do something about it.
"You're half right," he said in answer, catching up in two strides to take her by the shoulders and turn her. "You do get to go first, but that's the way you'll be going. See that track
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out there? It goes in the same direction as the road, but won't be as hard on your sandals—or as easy to watch by the people who misplaced something."
"Or as likely to come anywhere near that inn I wanted," she said, looking up at him stubbornly. "My sandals and I are willing to take our chances on the road."
"My boots and I aren't," he came back, not far from grinning. "Since we three are bigger than you three, we'll take the track."
The look she gave him would have put a basilisk to shame, and when she spat on the ground just in front of his feet he was surprised the ground didn't immediately dissolve. The gesture was one he'd seen before any number of times, and usually called for a very specific response to the insult. Rather than following protocol and drawing on her, though, he chose a gesture of his own that was, in that Instance, a good deal more satisfying. Turning her again in the proper direction, he sent her off with a smack to the backside not much more gentle than the one he'd given her the day before. He really did want to get along with her, but letting her insult him like that wasn't the way he could accept getting it done.
The girl snarled and grumbled, muttering things under her breath, but the track was what she followed. Kylin had been disgusted with himself for letting the horse get taken, but the extra time walking would give him with Sofaltis just might turn out to be the best of it. She wasn't likely to tell him what was bothering her if he came right out and asked, so he was going to have to try coaxing it out of her in bits and pieces. So far he knew she was completely against marrying him, but would do it for her father's sake just the way he'd been assured she would. What he needed to know was why she was so solidly against him, and what he could do to change her mind.
The track ran mostly in the open, around trees rather than through stands of them, and seemed to have been made by a wagon or wagons taking the same route a number of times. Kylin stayed alert for any sign of the bandits they'd had trouble with the day before, but the hours passed and there was no sign of them. There was also no sign of the sun, which couldn't seem to break through the thickening gray
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piled low in the skies. It wasn't quite as hot as it had been, but the air was heavy with a threat of rain.
They stopped at what felt like noon to eat the chicken he was carrying, but there hadn't been any way to bring water. They would either have to find a brook, or take advantage of the rain when it finally came down, but that still left them with a rather dry meal. The girl sat in the grass looking at everything but him, her long legs bent to the left, the food he'd given her accepted silently and reluctantly. She was making it plain she had nothing to say to him, and that that turn of events was entirely his fault. For his own part Kylin had never realized before how good women were at doing things like that, and discovered he was enjoying himself despite the heavy quiet.
After the meal they continued on, and the clear space around the track began to grow narrower. The woods to either side were also beginning to be more tangled, as though no one had ever forced a way deeper through them. Kylin found himself watching even more carefully for what might come out of those woods, and when a wide gap appeared to the left he discovered he wasn't the only one alert and watching. The breeze had grown strong enough to let him know what lay through the gap, and just as he said, "Water," and pointed, the girl half turned to do exactly the same.
For an instant they were smiling at each other sheepishly, amused that they'd said the same thing at the same time, but then that old curtain came down over the girl, separating her from Kylin more completely than a stone wall would have done. She turned without another word and started for the gap, and he had no choice but to follow the same way, wishing it was no more than a stone wall between them. The way he felt right then, he could have torn it down with his bare hands.
The gap in the woods was less obvious from the inside, but the faint trail was clear enough to follow and led to a swiftly running spring. Whoever had made the wagon track had probably made the gap as well, to mark out the place where water might be found. The girl glanced around before going to her knees near the water, and once she had drunk her fill Kylin knelt in the dimness to do the same. He was just rising from the clear, cold water when a sound came from the brush
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to his right. It was no more than a brief, frantic rustle that sto
pped almost as quickly as it had started, but Kylin's sword whispered from its scabbard even as the girl froze.
"Move slowly back behind me," Kylin said softly without taking his eyes from the place the sound had come, at the same time going toward it. He didn't know Sofaltis hadn't obeyed him until he moved a section of the brush aside with his blade, and heard the sound of softly indrawn breath.
"It's a fawn," she said in what was nearly a whisper, no more than a foot away on his right. "Its hind leg is caught, and it can't get loose."
Which, of course, was something he'd already been able to see for himself. The fawn had probably been drinking at the spring with its mother, and when he and the girl had startled them with their approach, the little thing, in its haste to get away, had gotten tangled.
"Don't touch it, or its mother might not take it back," Kylin said, and not until the words were out did he realize that Sofaltis had again said the same thing at the same time as he. This time they laughed straight out, softly so as not to startle the fawn, but heartily enough to cheer Kyiin considerably. Things seemed to be looking up, and since he had the small, trapped animal to thank for that, it was only fair that he return the favor.
Moving carefully closer and crouching, the big Fighter could see that it was a rope of thoms keeping the fawn where it trembled in fear. He reached forward slowly with his sword, holding the point well down against the possibility of sudden, frantic struggle, and severed the vine to the right of the small leg with a quick stroke. Logically that should have freed the leg and the fawn with it, but logic had chosen that time to spread its hands in mystified loss.
"Why isn't the stupid thing letting go?" Sofaltis asked in.a murmur of annoyance, leaning nearer over his right shoulder. "I can't see—oh, now I can. It's wrapped around itself right above the hoof, hanging on with teeth. If you cut the other side that loop will still be on the fawn, but at least the little beast will be free."
Kylin knew it was possible to handle it that way, freeing the fawn while leaving the loop of thorns around its leg, but he didn't care for the solution. If the fawn couldn't work the
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loop off before its leg began growing, the thoms would bury themselves deeper and deeper, causing constant pain, probable crippling, and eventually a death not quick enough to be kind. No, he couldn't very well do it that way, so that left only one other option.
Instead of answering the girl, Kylin rested his sword on the ground and leaned forward slowly and carefully with his left hand. The thoms on the vine were very much like the teeth Sofaltis had named them, and their short but very sharp points helped to keep the tangled vine wrapped tight. Kylin edged two fingers inside the loop where the thorns seemed smaller and tried to coax the cut end loose, but although some of the thoms disengaged and the vine slid a little, it stil! refused to come free. He tugged again, trying to move nothing but his fingers—and inadvertently tightened the loop around the slender leg it held captive.
The fawn had, until then, been standing rigidly with the uncontrolled quiver of terror all through it, but the sensation of pain was just too much for it. It exploded into the struggle of desperation, pulling with all its small amount of strength, and an instant later was free and racing off deeper into the woods. Kylin had tried jerking back at the first indication of movement and had managed to do so, and was therefore surprised at the abrupt pain in his left hand.
"Now that's more like it," Sofaltis announced in normal tones, satisfaction in her voice as she began to turn to him after watching the fawn out of sight. "Free again and able to run with the wind, not caught in a trap like— For Even's sake, what happened to your hand?"
"The thorns must have caught me when the vine whipped back," Kylin said as he resheathed his sword after straightening, his bloody left hand held out in front of him. "It's not too bad, and it isn't my sword hand, after all. . . ."
"So let's ignore it until you bleed to death," the girl finished for him in disgust, looking up from his hand into his eyes. "For your information your life is mine to take, and I won't be cheated out of it by some thorns. Get back to the spring so I can take care of it."
The order carried a kind of refusal to be ignored that surprised Kylin, but the satisfaction he felt outweighed the surprise by quite a bit. For the first time the girl seemed to be
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seeing him as an actual human being, and the loss of blood was a small price to pay for so large a step. Rather than grinning the way he wanted to, he gave a small, indifferent shrug and turned back to the brook.
The first touch of the very cold water on the thorn gouges was something Kylin was braced for, but he was still glad when the hand finally went numb. The skin of his palm had been shredded open rather than simply pierced, and if it had been his sword hand he would have had something of a problem. Sofaltis waited until the blood flow was nearly stopped, then began ripping and tearing at the tunic she wore. She had obviously noticed the extra drapes and folds of the garment, and was intent on removing the top layer of cloth. When she had two wide strips and one narrow one, she gestured to his hand.
"Bring it out of there now and let the water drip off," she directed, folding one of the wide strips into a squarish pad, the inner surface of the cloth now out. "Jt would help to have something cleaner, but this will have to do."
When the pad was all folded she used the bottom of it to lightly pat the hand dry, then turned it over and placed it against the wound. The second wide strip followed the first and was coiled around the pad and hand, and then the narrow strip was used to tie it all on. Kylin felt as though he had a major wound rather than a few simple scratches under all that bandaging, but he wasn't about to complain.
"It's a good thing for me I'm traveling with someone who knows what she's doing," he remarked, supposedly adjusting the bandage but in reality watching the girl. "Most women seem to be raised to pass out at the sight of blood. Thank you."
He looked directly at her then, catching the very end of the expression that had been on her face. Without thinking she had begun showing pleased satisfaction over what he'd said, her features becoming younger and more open than he'd yet seen them, and then she seemed to remember who she was smiling at.
"You can keep your thanks for when I have a weapon in my hand again," she said, and if her tone wasn't hostile, it was, at the very least, cool. "That's the time you'll need to
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remind me you actually have a better side to your nature. Right now we still have a trail to follow."
Her turning away marked an end to the conversation, and Kylin followed feeling more confused than ever. Why in Even's name would she appear surprised that he had a better side? She'd even seemed reluctant to admit to seeing something like that, and he couldn't understand why she would feel that way. Didn't everyone have better sides? Shouldn't a woman who was going to have to marry a man be pleased to discover he wasn't a thorough rogue? The girl was definitely unhappy rather than pleased, and Kylin was completely at a loss.
The trail continued on its way through the tangle, and although there were occasional sounds in the brush, nothing came charging out looking for a meal. Kylin kept a good portion of his attention alert against the possibility, but the rest of it was very much centered on the girl who walked in front of him. She, in turn, seemed to be preoccupied rather than simply silent, bothered by something and enmeshed in thinking about it. The big Fighter would have enjoyed knowing what was absorbing her attention, but was realistic enough to realize there wasn't much chance of that.
With both of them so wrapped up in other concerns, the beginning of the rainstorm caught the two almost completely by surprise. Neither had noticed how the gray skies had lowered and darkened, and the first raindrops were almost light enough to be ignored. The following drops, however, were not the same, and the prospect of a refreshing shower abruptly became the promise of a d
renching downpour. Kylin and Sofaltis stopped to look quickly about themselves, and then the Fighter touched the girl's arm.
"There's a small opening in the brush a short way back," Kylin said over the strengthening rain, gesturing behind him. "We've got to try to Find it."
"Why the rush?" the girl asked, suddenly deciding to pretend the drops weren't bothering her in the least. "If this is the first time you've been caught out in the rain, you have a surprise coming. Only leather does badly in it, and we aren't wearing leather."
"You mean you don't know?" Kylin responded immedi-ately, trying to widen his eyes at her despite the rain. "If we
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stay out in this too long we'll shrink. I've seen it happen to friends of mine. One minute they were my size, and the next—"
His right palm indicated a distance waist-high from the ground, and when he shook his head with a tragic sigh a laugh forced its way out of the girl. Kylin could see she hadn't wanted to laugh, but when his grin joined in she laughed again, as tickled over the nonsense as he'd hoped she'd be. They laughed together for a moment, and then the girl noticed that the strength of the rain was increasing.
"Maybe we'd better find that opening of yours after all," she said, raising her voice to be heard over the rain noise as she swept sodden hair back out of her face with a hand. "If any rain is going to end up shrinking someone, this one looks like it's it."
"And I'd really hate being that small," Kylin agreed with another grin, taking the girl's arm. "It's this way."
They hurried through the growing downpour, trying to find what he'd only half-seen, and almost went past it because of their obstructed vision. At the last instant Kylin turned his head to look back, saw the narrow opening, guided the girl to it by the arm he held, then urged her in first. She had to go down on all fours to crawl through, but once Kylin had done the same he found the resulting tunnel through the heavy brush just a little wider than he'd expected. The two couldn't comfortably crawl side by side, but they would have been able to if the need had arisen.
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