Jes and Lehr had taken to ranging in front of them with Gura, looking for chance game or wayside robbers—leaving the women to totter along with the cripple and his old warhorse, Tier thought sourly. Journeying with Benroln’s clan, he had gotten used to riding while others walked, but it bothered him more when his only companions were a pair of women.
When they came to a fairly level stretch of road he threw one leg over Skew’s rump and dropped to the ground with a groan.
“What are you doing?” Seraph put her hands on her hips and frowned at him.
“I’m going to walk a bit,” he told her, and suited his actions to his words.
“Brewydd told you to keep off those knees.” Seraph slipped an arm through his and walked beside him.
“That was a week ago,” Tier said. “I’ll only walk where the road is level. Skew needs a rest.”
“He does not,” she said stubbornly. “Tier—” She stopped herself. Her voice soft, she said, “I worry too much, I know. But I hate it. Hate that you were hurt. Hate it worse that I didn’t get to immolate the men who did it until after they were dead.”
He slipped the fingers of his left hand through her braids and ducked down to kiss her on the lips. “You’re not responsible for everything that happens, my Raven. You can’t prevent any of us from getting hurt or even dying. That is not your place. Best you accept that now, love.”
She didn’t say anything more, but tucked herself more closely against him as they walked.
“It is, though,” she said, when they reached the end of the level path, and Tier stopped to mount.
“Is what?” he asked with a grunt of pain. Walking hadn’t been too bad, but mounting was miserable. His left knee didn’t want to bend enough for him to get a foot in the stirrup, and his right knee wasn’t happy about holding all of his weight. He managed it, and managed to haul himself into the saddle, too, but only just.
Seraph waited until he was settled before she answered his question. “It is my place to keep others safe. It’s what I was raised for and part of being Raven.”
He kept Skew still for a moment as he looked down upon his wife. She was strong, and gods knew she was powerful. He knew that, but his heart saw how easily she bruised and how mortal her flesh. His eyes saw a woman who weighed half what he or either of her sons did.
He loved everything about her. If she were not a Raven, she wouldn’t be his Seraph. If he could, he would not change that part of her, even if it meant she had to take up her duties and leave the farm, leave him. But he didn’t have to like it.
“Is it?” he asked softly. “Maybe. But those stories are so old, Seraph. Older than the Empire. Older than the Fall of the Unnamed King. Are you certain that you are right? Maybe there’s something else that the Ravens, the Owls, and all the other Ordered are supposed to do. Maybe there’s a better reason that Jes suffers under the Guardian Eagle’s talon. I hope there is. If it is only that some damn fool wizards decided they’d made a mess their children’s children’s children needed to pay for, then you are all paying too much.”
Hennea stopped and picked up a rock that caught her fancy and put it in her pocket. The air was heavy with clouds, but there was no rain yet. Perhaps she ought to go back to the trail and join up with Seraph and Tier.
When the boys were both out scouting, Hennea tried to give Seraph and Tier what privacy she could. There was some tension between them to be worked out—and walking alone was no hardship for Hennea. She liked being alone because it gave her time to think.
She’d had time enough to decide the decision she’d made to stay with Jes’s family had been the right one. The kind of man who could give up his humanity for power would not forgive the blow that Tier had dealt to his plans. Sooner or later the Shadowed would find them, and Hennea intended to be there when he did. That was the purpose of her existence after all—to keep the shadows at bay.
Her decision was the right one, but not for Jes. Not for Jes. She was going to end up hurting him.
She took the rock in her pocket and threw it as hard as she could. It hit a tree and bounced off the bark and into the branches before falling to the ground with a dull thud.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jes, startling her. Guardians were like that.
“Nothing,” Hennea said, without turning to look at him. “I was just thinking it was probably time to get back to your parents. They’re going to wonder where we are.”
“I’m not my father,” Jes said. He was close enough now that she could feel the heat of his body against her skin. “I don’t know when you are lying.”
“Always,” she told him. It was the truth, but she kept her voice light.
Slowly, so she had plenty of time to move, Jes leaned against her back and wrapped an arm around the front of her shoulders above her breasts and pulled her against him. She could feel his breath stirring her hair and closed her eyes so she could feel it better. It had been a very long time since someone had touched her this way. There was nothing sexual in the embrace—if there had been, she’d have pulled away. But she couldn’t make herself reject the comfort he offered her.
Her eyes burned with tears though she didn’t know why.
“You are tired,” Jes whispered in her ear, and tightened his arm.
“Seraph and I stayed up too late,” she said.
He shook his head. “No. Not sleepy. Tired.”
She was tired of fighting a futile battle that never seemed to end. They had managed to bring the Path down—a task that had seemed impossible to her when she’d started out for Taela with Seraph and her sons. They’d managed it somehow, but there was no triumph in a victory that left a Shadowed at large. And if they managed to destroy this Shadowed, another one would appear. Let ten years or a couple of centuries pass, and there would be another power-mad mage who wanted to live forever. Whatever she did, it would never be enough.
“Very tired,” said Jes, rocking her slightly. “Shh. Don’t cry.”
She wanted to turn and bury herself in his arms. They were strong arms, which managed to make her feel safer than she could ever remember feeling. Only Jes. She loved the smell of woods and earth that clung to his skin. She loved . . .
She didn’t want to hurt Jes.
She pulled away and turned to face him. “I’m not crying. It’s started to rain.”
He tilted his head then held out his hand to let a few sparse drops land on his palm. He gave her a gentle smile. “My father would know you are lying.”
Impatiently, Hennea wiped her face. “It’s a good thing that you are not your father then, isn’t it?”
His smile widened further as he nodded. “Especially since my mother would be upset if you felt about my father the way you felt about me while I held you.”
Empath. How could she have forgotten?
She didn’t know what showed on her face, but it made him laugh. Even as her face burned, part of her observed that Jes’s laughter warmed her cold center. It made her want to touch him.
“Look at that,” said Tier pointing at a mountaintop. “See that peak? I’d know it anywhere. We’re closer to home than I thought.”
“Skew’s been walking faster for an hour or so,” Seraph told him, just as the first drops of rain began to fall. “I think that we’re no more than an hour’s walk from home. Maybe less. I’ve only been over this road once.”
She glanced up at her husband and smiled to herself at the intent look on his face. It had been autumn when he’d seen Rinnie last, more than half a year ago.
From somewhere on the side of the trail came Jes’s too-loud boisterous laugh. Branches rustled and shook, and Hennea burst onto the path, looking uncharacteristically disturbed.
She marched up to Seraph and shook her finger at her. “You tell that boy of yours that he is too young for me. I don’t take babes fresh from their mother’s milk.”
“She likes me, Mother,” said Jes, following Hennea with a wide grin.
“I can see that,” said T
ier. “But take it from me, son. It’s time to let her settle her feathers.”
Hennea shifted her hot gaze to Tier. “You will not encourage him.”
Seraph had never heard of a Guardian stable enough to contemplate a romantic entanglement. There were any number of problems. Even simple touching was difficult—when the Guardian slept, its Order Bearer, who was always an empath, was too raw to allow anyone to touch him. When the Guardian was in control, the nameless dread that accompanied his presence was more than enough to cool the ardor of the most heated lover.
But Hennea’s training as a Raven gave her enormous control that seemed to protect Jes from her emotions so that he could enjoy her touch. And as for the Guardian, Hennea didn’t appear to be intimidated by him in the slightest.
It gave Seraph hope.
As Tier and Hennea exchanged a few words, sharp on her part and teasing on his, Seraph watched Jes, enjoying his laughter until it abruptly stopped. Amusement died in his eyes first, but quickly faded altogether, leaving a face that looked as if it had never smiled.
Before she could ask what was wrong, Lehr emerged from the forest on their left with Gura. “Papa, Mother, something—”
He was interrupted by the shrill scream of a stallion. Skew answered, half-rearing.
“Easy,” soothed Tier, and Skew, his warning given, allowed himself to be gentled. “What’s wrong?”
The storm chose that moment to turn from a gentle rain into a downpour; Seraph ducked her head involuntarily. When she looked up, there was a horse facing them in the middle of the path.
It was pale as death—a dirty off-white that darkened to yellow on the ends of his ragged tail. It looked cadaverous, with a full fingerspace between each rib and great hollows behind its sunken eyes.
“What’s wrong?” said Jes, and at first Seraph thought he was just repeating Tier.
But then the horse spoke in a voice as rough and terrible as the storm.
“Come,” it said, then dashed into the trees.
Both boys and the dog disappeared behind it. Skew took a bounce forward before Tier stopped him and looked at Seraph and Hennea.
“It’s the forest king,” said Seraph as soon as she realized it herself. “Go ahead. Hennea and I’ll catch up.”
He didn’t wait for her to say it twice.
“That’s Jes’s forest king?” asked Hennea as she scrambled beside Seraph in Tier’s wake. “Not exactly what I expected.”
“He seldom is,” agreed Seraph absently as she tried to pick a quick way through the undergrowth near the trail.
“Do we need to track them, or do you know where we’re going?”
“Can’t you feel it?” asked Seraph. “I wasn’t paying attention until it worsened—but this storm is called.”
“Rinnie?”
“Unless there’s another Cormorant in the area. Something is very wrong.”
They fell silent then, Seraph turning all her energies to climbing. The shortest path home was steep, forcing them to slow before they were halfway there.
“I’m going to the farm,” she told Hennea, between gasps for breath. “That’s where it feels like she is. I’ll be able to tell for certain once we top this rise.”
Hennea didn’t bother to try and talk.
Seraph stopped at the ridgetop. The farm lay below, but she couldn’t see it for the trees and the darkening skies. She had more than vision to call upon, though.
The first thing Seraph had done when she and Tier had moved to the farm was to walk a warding that surrounded it. The farm was too close to the old battlefield, Shadow’s Fall, to be entirely safe without protection from the kinds of creatures attracted to shadow. Several times a year for twenty years she’d added to its potency.
Her warding traced along the crest just here.
Seraph knelt in the pine needles and touched the threads of her spelling. Power swept through her in a heady rush—something shadow-touched was trying to cross it at that very moment. Like a spider at her web, she waited, letting her breathing slow, while she waited for the warding to tell her more.
It settled back down after a moment, though she could tell that whatever shadowed thing had touched it was still near. There were some weak areas in the warding, she noticed, as if it had been much longer than the six months or so when she’d last reworked it: something or a number of somethings had been trying the warding while she’d been gone.
Thunder cracked almost instantaneously with the bright flash of lightning, and it was followed by a second strike and a third before the wind picked up into a howling force.
With evidence of Rinnie’s distress, Seraph was unwilling to wait longer for more information, but she sent power surging through her warding, tightening it as a fisherman tightens his net. It wasn’t enough to completely repair the damaged areas, but it would hold until she had time to do it right.
She came to her feet and started down the slope toward home.
“What did you learn?” asked Hennea.
“Not much, something shad—” Seraph’s voice was broken by a torturous howl that rose above the wind.
“Troll,” said Hennea.
Heart in her throat, Seraph started running again.
They came out of the trees still somewhat above the farm, but it didn’t look as it had when Seraph left it. Instead of a half-plowed field and an empty house, there was a field of tents and her house was illuminated from within and without by dozens of lanterns. For courage, she thought, because it wasn’t yet dark enough to require lanterns for sight, though with the rain it wouldn’t be long before darkness had hold here.
Among the changes wrought since she’d been home last was a crowd of people that looked to be composed of the whole village, all confronting a troll that straddled the path leading to Redern.
Seraph pushed her way through the first group of people, mostly women and children, and into the clear space in front of them, where she paused to take in the enormity of her task.
It was a forest troll, moss-green and larger than its more numerous cousin, the mountain troll. By the earlobes which hung so long they brushed its stooped shoulders, it was older than any Seraph had ever seen.
That trolls had two arms and two legs had given rise to the rumor that the thing was related to humans. Anyone who thought so, in Seraph’s opinion, had never seen a troll. Small red eyes were set deep and close on a head as wide as Skew was long above a nose that was merely two slits in the bumpy textured skin. Tusks curled out of its jaw and pulled the lower lip down to reveal fist-sized, serrated teeth that could snap a cow’s skull open.
Seraph’s long-ago teacher had speculated that they were hobgoblins or some other small creature morphed by the Shadowed King. He’d told her the first mentions of trolls in books and stories came after the Fall of the Shadowed.
However they came into being, Seraph could wish this one a long way away instead of pacing back and forth at the trail-head to Redern, with its head topping the nearest trees.
As far as Seraph could tell, almost every able-bodied man of Redern had gathered along the edge of the warding that had so far kept the troll from coming closer, almost as if they could tell where it was. Born and bred in the Ragged Mountain as these folks had been, it wouldn’t surprise Seraph if they could sense her ward—though it could just be experience had taught them how far the troll could come. Some of them had bows or swords, but most of them held whatever implement had come to hand. She saw Bandor, Tier’s sister’s husband, with one of the big knives they used to cut bread.
She couldn’t see the forest king—or Jes either, but it didn’t surprise her. If either was here, he’d be in the forest, not in the midst of a crowd of people.
Tier was in the very front of the line of defenders. She could see him easily over the others because he was the only mounted man. Not many horses could be brought so close to a troll, but Skew was a warhorse born and bred.
The gelding roared the chill sound that belonged to fighting stallio
ns—and geldings, too, apparently. Foam lathered his chest and neck, and the rest of him was wet with sweat and rain. Ears back, he rose to his hind legs in a slow, controlled rear. Warhorses, Tier had once told her, had been trained to turn their fear to anger—just as Seraph herself usually did.
Tier had his sword out, not brandishing it, but at the ready.
Some chance movement in the crowd gave Seraph a quick view of Rinnie, standing just behind Skew. She was a child still, with only the faintest of signs of the woman she would be. She should have looked pitiable next to the warrior and the troll, but her whole body glowed brighter than the lanterns Seraph had just passed.
For a moment Seraph let herself be awed by the beauty of the power a Cormorant could gather.
But it was just for a moment because Rinnie didn’t have the control to hold that kind of power—nor was it doing any good against a troll. Seraph began threading her way between the men, who dropped away as soon as they saw who it was.
Lightning flashed and hit the troll. It rolled its eyes and shook its head, but other than that, the lightning did nothing. But while it was distracted an arrow found its target and the troll took several steps back with another of those agonized cries. It reached one of its arms up to bat at its face and pluck the arrow from its nose slit. It held the arrow up and shook it before throwing it aside and striding forward with a ground-shaking stride that boomed almost as loud as its scream.
Lehr, standing to Rinnie’s left, nocked another arrow and waited.
The troll hit Seraph’s warding and magic leapt up in a fine display of light and color and held it off. The creature stayed for a long count of two before falling back, covering its eyes; but it was obvious to Seraph, if to no one else, that the warding wouldn’t hold it back much longer.
“Rinnie!” shouted Seraph, as soon as she was close enough that they might hear her over the storm. She stopped as close to her daughter as she dared. “Rinnie, let the storm go. Your lightning won’t hurt it, and it prefers dark to light. Lehr, in the ear, eye, nostril, and ventral slit—if you can, get someone to make flaming arrows for you. A troll is partially immune to magic, so I can’t set it afire, but real fire sometimes works.” Sometimes.
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