by Tom Deitz
“Without the harp he came for, I'm afraid,” Kylin sighed.
“No time soon,” Div agreed wearily. “But I'm thinking I won't be going back with the things I came for, either.”
“Not after you've heard what I found out.”
“You've been spying, too?”
Kylin grinned in spite of himself. “Let's say I've been in a position that allowed spying. But maybe I should tell you from the beginning …”
Div listened without comment to the tale he relayed, speaking only to clarify a few points, most having to do with how he'd found his way around the hold. “I was trying to determine what quarters the invaders were using,” she admitted finally. “If we're going back in there, that'll have to be our goal.”
“Going back!” Kylin all but shrieked. “I can't! Not that I'm afraid, but you have to know how urgent this is. We have to tell Avall the real story: that there's a good chance they'll destroy the hold anyway, so he'll be blamed for it.”
“Now repeat what was said again,” Div urged.
Kylin did, word for word, for the art of complete and accurate recall was one of the skills a musician mastered early on, though it was properly the province of Stagecraft.
“We'll have to hurry if we're going to be of any aid,” Div conceded finally. “And the only way we'll be of much aid is if we get to Avall before these folks deliver their ultimatum. After that, it'll be a hard call. Avall may take the battle to them; he may not. He may try to call their bluff; he may not.”
“But he's got the Lightning Sword,” Kylin protested. “They'd be mad to stand against that.”
“They might not have to, or they might have weapons just as deadly by then. We're in a double race, Kylin. We have to reach Tir-Eron before the ultimatum, and Avall has to deliver a quick and decisive reply before the invaders can find gems of their own. That's his key advantage right now. They want him to think they have gems and are willing to use them. We know that, as of a day ago, they don't. We also know that they'll do anything to access the mines. It'll take at least three eights to get word to Tir-Eron and bring an army back here. They can do a lot of digging in three eights.”
“You're forgetting that Avall can space-jump. He could be here two breaths after he gets word.”
“He can jump with the master gem,” Div corrected. “But he can't use the master gem—or won't. The others—I understand he's tried but failed. They're not all alike, but we don't— yet—know how they differ.”
“But Merryn …”
“Merryn, very recklessly, used Strynn's gem and the Lightning Sword once under extreme duress and jumped, with Strynn, to where Eddyn was—and half destroyed one of Barrax's camps in the process. It scared her to death and almost drove her mad—madder than she's ever told her brother. So no, I don't think she'd act unilaterally, even assuming she could get hold of the Sword, which she can't. In any case,” she finished, rising, “those are decisions for Avall's council to make, not us. And if we're going to have any input on that council, we need to ride.”
“I hope you've got sturdier clothes than I've been wearing,” Kylin muttered wearily.
“You're close to my size,” Div gave back, “and I wear men's garb when I can. I've probably got something that'll fit you.”
“Right now,” Kylin replied through a nervous chuckle, “I'd wear a dress all the way if it was dry.”
“I've got one on my horse,” Div retorted, matter-of-factly. “You can decide when you get there.”
A quarter hand later, and once more clad in rain-soaked clothes, they were walking again. Three hands after that, marginally dryer and better fed, they were galloping for all they were worth toward Tir-Eron.
CHAPTER XI:
STRANGE DIPLOMACY
(NORTHWESTERN ERON—HIGH SUMMER:
DAY XLVIII—LATE AFTERNOON)
Kylin sniffed miserably and shifted in his saddle, trying to free enough cloak from the wad behind him to pull his hood farther forward. He succeeded too well, for the wet fabric could not support itself and flopped down in his face, which would've blinded him had he not been blind already. As it was, it was merely another minor discomfort in a file of days that had been full of them. Not once since they'd left Gem-Hold-Winter had they been completely dry. Indeed, it was as though the storm was following them from the mountains toward the coast, though logic told Kylin that most summer weather came out of the mountains anyway, just as winter weather came off the sea.
“It's times like this I believe in The Eight,” he grumbled through another sniff.
“The Eight are supposed to be on the side of the King, which is the same side you're on,” Div chided. “Anything They do to inconvenience you is incidental to some larger purpose.”
“So Priest-Clan would say.”
“Not everything they say is wrong, Kylin. I—Look out!” she warned abruptly. “Branch, to the right.”
Kylin leaned left reflexively, but even so caught the impact of twigs and needles as the branch Div had thoughtlessly pushed aside threatened to unseat him—and did unseat his hood, which he had to adjust again. Still, it was the only way to travel: her in the lead on White Star, with him behind on Etti, a pack animal that was proving to be a doughty companion indeed. As for the route—he had to trust her. There were ways through the Wild that had nothing to do with established roads. Whether Priest-Clan's minions also knew those ways, he had no idea. Still, they were four days out now, and had found no sign of either scouts or the messengers that should long since be en route to Tir-Eron. By the road, not this— presumably—faster way.
He hoped their haste was worth it, because it had been among the most miserable four days of Kylin's life—so much so that at times only the knowledge that comfort waited at the end made it tolerable. Even their last trek from Gem-Hold to Tir-Eron had been more pleasant, fading winter though it had been; for at least then there'd been less sense of urgency.
And less pain. Though he was already scraped and abraded, this ride was adding new calluses to his sensitive harper fingers, never mind the raw patches inside his thighs where ill-fitting breeches against a make-do saddle waged a war of attrition against hair and skin alike. Nor that his handicap had always exempted him from the hardest labor (though he'd taken a tour on the trods in the mines like everyone else), which meant that his suddenly overstressed muscles were at least as sore as his much-abused skin. And that wasn't even counting the bruises he'd suffered in his fall and subsequent tumble in the river. More than once he'd wished Avall were here, or at least Avall's master gem, with its healing powers. Strynn's could heal, too, of course—enough to quell the sickness and pain of pregnancy, at any rate—but wishing Strynn there was not wise, for any number of reasons. As for the other gems—he wasn't certain, though the ones in the regalia Rrath had stolen had definitely saved that troublesome Priest from literal death, if only to precipitate a figurative one.
“A weather-witch would be good to have right now,” Kylin opined finally, to distract himself from pondering his aches and pains—and maybe, possibly, make this miserable journey seem to pass faster.
“They could only tell us how long we'd have to endure,” Div retorted. “Not turn the weather itself.”
“Some of them can change the weather,” Kylin shot back. “Strynn said that Merryn said that Avall said that Eddyn said that Rrath said—”
“A string of ‘saids’ long enough to hang a man,” Div snorted, slapping White Star on the neck—which sound carried clearly, even above the patter of rain. “What I'm worried about isn't our comfort so much as the horses'. We've been pushing them extremely hard with no letup save when we rest or walk them. They can't continue like that indefinitely.”
“Your point being?”
“That I know a place nearby where we could shelter for the night, but it wouldn't be a good place for our mounts.”
“Why not?”
An exasperated sigh. “Because it's a birkit den, Kylin. And we both know what birkits like to eat b
etter than anything.”
“Horse,” Kylin sighed back. “I suppose this is the same den where you, Avall, and Rann sheltered last winter? I could understand you being hesitant. I know I … am.”
Div nodded so vigorously Kylin could hear her hood move. “And that's allowing for the fact that I know the birkits there—if one can say one ‘knows’ what I'm still half-convinced are wild animals.”
“But they saved you, and they mind-spoke to you, Rann, and Avall, and they showed Rann how to get to Gem-Hold, and one came around your hold—so you said.”
“Sometimes I talk too much. In any case, that was while the gem-glamour was still upon us. They swore not to hunt us, but I'm not sure who that included or how widely it was to be applied. We can't just march into a birkit cave and claim kinright, much less expect that right to include our mounts. We were on skis last time, remember? This time—we'd be expecting a lot of self-control. I don't have that much faith.”
Kylin frowned. “They only exempt us because we're hunters, correct?”
“Something like that. It's more complicated, but you have to have linked with one to understand that, and I never did— not really. That is, they tried, and I kind of wanted to, but it scared me, so I never did it fully. I've never even mind-talked to them, really. And for us to den with them, I'd need to negotiate some kind of pact, and I might not be able to.”
“Still,” Kylin persisted, “you wouldn't risk much by trying—”
“—only my life—”
“—and I sure would like to have a real fire tonight, and a hot bath—you did say there was a hot spring in that cave?”
“You're asking more than you know,” Div growled. “And that's assuming we even find any of the wretched beasts. The Eight know we didn't see any last spring!”
“Raising their cubs, you said. Occupied with their own affairs.”
“Never where you need them,” Div grumbled. “Not when I hunted them, and not now.”
“Uh, I don't think that's going to be a problem,” Kylin muttered, as a shift of wind flung rain in his face. “Something's following us. I just heard footfalls behind and to the left. Soft, but something big.”
“Watch your reins,” Div hissed back, suddenly all business. “I'm going to slow but not stop. It's getting dark, and there's no way we can outrun birkits in this terrain, besides which— oh, Eight, there's one in front of us!”
“Well,” Kylin replied calmly, though chills trembled up his spine, “let's hope their memories are better than the memories of our kind.”
“That's like expecting a child to speak fluent Ixtian,” Div grumbled. Then: “Whoa!” to White Star.
Etti stopped, too, of her own will, leaving Kylin no choice but to stay where he was and wait. Div however—he'd just heard the liquid rasp of her boots slipping out of the stirrups and her voice, very tentatively, calling out, “Hail to you, oh Hunter.”
It was her own voice, yet Div scarcely recognized it, the words sounded so strange—stiff and stilted, as though this were no real situation but a part in some play she was enacting. Nor did she know where the beasts had come from; they had simply … appeared.
Not that the image before her seemed real in any case: darkening woods, with trees looming heavy to either side, many draped with long tendrils of summer moss, with the rain still coming down, but lessening even as she spoke, and backlit by an actual, visible sun that turned the drops to lines of silver.
While straight ahead, a steel-gray shape as big as she and Kylin together sat catlike on haunches that would've done most bears proud, gazing at her with calm green eyes, while a tongue that could rasp flesh from bone licked a pointy muzzle, revealing fangs whose effectiveness it was not wise to contemplate. A birkit. Somewhere between a cat and a bear, but more deadly than either. And now, she knew, at least somewhat intelligent. If she could but contact that intelligence.
Something buzzed in her brain, a sensation like the clogging and popping of ears when one reached a certain altitude, or having one's sinuses plugged by a cold. Except that this clogged her thoughts, as though other thoughts sought to insinuate their way among them—and failed, save that it made her feel drunk and muddled.
“Hail, Hunter,” she repeated from reflex, trying to think what to say next, while praying this creature could read her thoughts, for all she could not read … his—for by its size, the beast before her was definitely male.
“Div …” Kylin gritted behind her, sounding nervous. “Div, what's … ?”
“A birkit,” she whispered back. “It's sitting in the trail directly in front of us, blocking the way, but not threatening. I don't think it'll attack, but I don't know what it does want, except that it's prowling around in my head or something, so it might figure out my intentions from that.”
“Which are good, are they not? A desire to seek shelter for the night? Safety for our mounts?” He sounded alarmed, but in control. So far.
“That's what I hope I've been thinking. What I hope they haven't found is my distrust of them—for all they've been good to me—as company, if nothing else. There was one that came to my hold every day for eights last winter. But then one day it left. Damn, but I wish we'd met some on our last trek. If we'd only known—”
“But there has to be some way. Maybe I—” He broke off, cocking his head. “There're more, Div. One behind me, stalking. One to our right, two to the left.”
“Their den is to the right,” Div muttered through her teeth, wondering why she bothered, if the beasts could read her mind.
“Maybe they're—”
“Cutting off our escape to the left? That's what I was thinking.”
“And there's no way you can talk to them? No way to establish communication?”
“Maybe—if I had one of the gems.”
“But the gem residue might still be in your blood.”
“We don't even know there is residue.”
“But if there is …”
“What're you getting at, Kylin?” she snapped, awash with sudden anger. “We're in a dangerous situation, in case you haven't noticed. I don't think the big lad ahead of us is going to let us pass, and the others seem to have agendas of their own as well. I'm helpless to do anything about it.” A pause. “Unless you—”
“I'm not a hunter. But I'm thinking about what Lykkon read me from that book of his—the one where he's put down everything anyone's said, thought, or speculated about the gems—and the only thing that makes sense to me is that they must leave some kind of residue in a person.”
“And if they do?”
“Didn't you say that Avall first managed to mind-speak with one when one came into contact with his blood?”
“Yes, but—” She broke off, feeling a terrible clutching in her stomach. She knew what was coming next, yet it still chilled her when he said it.
“Blood,” he repeated. “You need to let them sample your blood. Maybe that way whatever's in you that lets them mindspeak with you will become stronger.”
Her only reply was to continue looking at the beast before her. Indeed, her gaze had never left it, though she'd avoided making direct eye contact for fear that would be construed as a challenge. Yet as she stared, the clogging in her head changed character in a way that suggested—though it was only the vaguest of suspicions—a kind of approval.
Even so, the notion frightened her—more than it should, she admitted. She'd be risking pain, though far less than she'd risk if the beasts attacked. But to draw blood, she'd have to expose a knife—and that might also be construed as a threat. “I don't like this,” she muttered again. “If we die here, we'll not only have failed ourselves, we'll have failed the Kingdom.”
“From what you said,” Kylin shot back, “the only alternative is to provoke confrontation. Besides which, in case you haven't noticed, the horses are getting very nervous. I think mine's ready to bolt.”
“And if they do, we'll be delayed even longer.”
“True.”
“I'll do it,” Div announced abruptly. “And The Eight have mercy on my soul.”
With that—without thinking, because thinking lead to fear and fear to irrationality—she gave White Star an encouraging pat and, very slowly, slid out of the saddle, keeping one hand on the reins. To his credit, the horse stomped and fidgeted but held his place. She wondered if the birkits had some kind of hold on them. Probably not, else they'd be able to trap prey that way. Which meant the horses' calm was due to training, and these were well trained, there was no mistaking that. Royal steeds were the best that could be found.
In any case, she was on her feet now, and dropped the reins. To her dismay, White Star did bolt then: jolting away to the left, crashing through the laurel there, and continuing on. She waited for the birkits to give chase but none did. She only hoped she could retrieve the horse eventually. In the meantime, Etti was getting even more fractious. “Kylin! Get off now!” she rasped. And heard him obey.
Heard, because she was still trying, very hard, not to take her eyes off the beast she was about to approach. Slowly, oh so slowly, she squatted, which put their heads nearly on a level, and with clumsy caution, began to ease forward on all fours. The birkit had been roughly two spans away when she'd begun. She covered one of those and stopped, then rocked back on her haunches and extended a hand, palm upward, wondering even as she did whether there wasn't some better way to access her blood.
None came to mind, so she tried, very hard, to think the word and image “knife,” while at the same time keeping her brain empty of any desire for violence.
And as she did, she reached for the blade at her belt—a gift from Merryn and Strynn upon her departure. If she was lucky, it would accomplish the task assigned. If not, it would be an interesting curio for someone to find. Eventually. Or not, for this way was rarely traveled.