by Deborah Hale
“Say, I guess that’d be right fine!” Rath cried.
Maura punished him with a sharp elbow in his ribs the moment the merchant’s back was turned.
A short while later, when the merchant went to fetch three leather drink-skins from his storeroom, she hissed, “What possessed you to say those things? Do you tell falsehoods for the pleasure of it?”
“No. I tell falsehoods for the same reason I do most everything—to survive. Did you never think that having the whole town know your business might not be the safest course?”
He braced for a stinging reply that they were only going to Prum to visit her old aunt. Instead her face turned pale.
Before he could ask her what was wrong, the merchant returned and he was obliged to slip back into the character of Langbard’s oafish nephew.
They made several more stops that afternoon, all lengthened by the need to introduce “Ralf”, and receive the villagers’ best wishes for their journey. As Rath watched Maura take her leave, a vague ache settled in his heart.
What must it be like to live all one’s life in the same place, having neighbors to care about your business, perhaps lend a hand in times of trouble? What must it be like to return to a place at the end of the day and feel that was where you belonged?
He had turned to crime when he’d been too young to survive any other way. It was a life for the young and hardy—lads with a taste for violence and danger. Lads with a daft certainty they would live forever, always one step ahead of the next blade or arrow.
Perhaps the time had come to consider a change. He’d already grown accustomed to the modest luxuries of a snug roof over his head, a soft bed to sleep on and hot, filling meals at regular times. Even the opportunity to do an honest day’s labor in exchange for his bed and board had given him a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment unlike any he’d known.
He wondered how long Langbard and Maura intended to stay in Prum? They’d need a dependable escort for their return journey. Perhaps if he proved himself reliable, the wizard might consider making him a permanent part of their household. In these perilous times, it wasn’t safe for an old man and a young woman to live alone on the fringe of town—even with their magical means of defense.
It would probably mean spending the years to come playing “Simple Ralf” from Tarsh for the benefit of the villagers. Though the role had already ceased to be amusing, Rath reckoned he could do worse.
After a final stop at the butcher’s shop to purchase a quantity of dried, smoked meat for their journey, Rath and Maura headed back to Langbard’s cottage leading the well-laden pony. The spring sun had already begun to set behind the distant Blood Moon Mountains, and a chill breeze whistled down from the north.
A breeze that carried the faint reek of smoke.
Years of experience made Rath tug up the hem of Langbard’s old robe and unsheathe the blade concealed beneath it.
He turned to Maura. “Stay here! Better yet, take the pony into the trees and keep out of sight until I come for you.”
She recoiled, staring at the blade in his hand with a look of revulsion. “What is it?”
“Nothing, I hope.” Rath darted ahead, then called back in an urgent whisper. “But you might want to dig out some of those bird feathers, just in case.”
Behind him, Rath heard the pony give a nervous whinny as Maura cried, “I smell smoke! Wait, I am coming with you!”
Chapter Six
FIRE! THE COTTAGE was burning!
Maura tugged on the pony’s halter rope, but it moved slower and slower until finally it refused to budge another step.
“Uncle!” Maura dropped the rope, not caring if the fool beast bolted all the way to Southmark.
As she ran toward the flaming cottage, the north wind blew smoke into her face. Every breath slashed into her lungs, while a cold blade of fear threatened to disembowel her.
What could have happened? Had a stray spark from one of the hearths landed on something flammable? Might some of the plants hanging to dry in the preparing room have caught fire from the candle over which she distilled potions? She would never have left it burning, would she?
A hundred questions roiled in her mind, together with possibilities, blame and sickening fear. Her gaze roved frantically about the property, desperate for a glimpse of Langbard. Though their cottage was the only home she had ever known, she would cheerfully watch it burn to the ground as long as he remained safe.
But she saw no sign of him. Surely if he’d escaped the burning building, he would be rushing to and fro with buckets from the well, or conjuring some powerful spell to extinguish the blaze. That could only mean...
She screamed his name, rushing toward the cottage door, through which a great cloud of smoke billowed.
“Maura, no!” Rath reared suddenly in front of her, blocking her path to the cottage.
She struggled against his powerful grip, flailing at him with fists and feet. “Let me go! I must find Langbard!”
“He is not in there, I promise you.”
“Oh, thank the Giver!” Maura went limp with relief. “Where is he, then?”
Rath did not loosen his hold on her. In the sweet elation of the moment, Maura savored the strength and warmth she discovered in his arms.
“I... found him,” Rath gasped, “out back.”
His tone set a fresh chill through her. “Found? Is he all right? I must go to him. Uncle!”
Once again, she tried to tear herself away from Rath. He fell back a little. Enough to take them out of the path of the smoke that poured through the cottage door, and the waves of intense heat that rippled in the cool spring air.
“Do not bother to call for him.” The harsh tone of Rath’s voice belied a curious gentleness in the way he held her. “He cannot hear you, now.”
“He is unconscious?” As Maura pushed her way forward, Rath retreated, slowly giving ground.
What was he doing? Did he not understand Langbard needed her? Silently, she blessed the Giver that she had her guardian’s sash. It contained enough of the ingredients she would need for healing most injuries.
Now that she and Rath were out of the worst of the smoke, she could smell the aroma of burning herbs from the preparing room. Breathing it eased the sting in her lungs and muffled her panic with a false sense of peace.
“I wish he were only unconscious,” Rath murmured. His grasp softened from one of restraint to an embrace of comfort. “There is nothing you can do for him now, unless this vitcraft of yours is powerful enough to raise the dead.”
“Dead?” He could not be. Not Langbard.
Rath heaved a great sigh. “I am sorry, lass.”
“No! You are lying!” Maura tore herself out of Rath’s arms and dashed past the well to the little garden behind the cottage.
She found Langbard lying there, solid and unblemished, as if in denial of Rath Talward’s dire pronouncement. His robe bore a few scorch marks and there was a little smudge of soot on one cheek, but no burns that Maura could see. No wounds. No blood.
“Quick!” she called to Rath. “Fetch me some water. There should be a dipper by the well.”
She pressed her hand over Langbard’s chest and thought she felt a faint, erratic beat.
“Uncle?” She struck him lightly on the cheek, trying to rouse him. “Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”
If I could open them, do you not think I would? If Langbard had parted his lips and spoken the words, Maura could not have heard them more distinctly in his familiar voice.
“That’s all right, then. Just keep them closed if you would rather.” Maura fumbled in the pockets of his sash for quickfoil, a rare herb prized for its properties as a stimulant and restorative. “I am here now. You will be fine. I am sure Sorsha and Newlyn will not mind letting us stay at Hoghill until you are well enough to travel.”
She forced a thin, shaky laugh. “What a shame the fire could not have waited another day.”
“Here is that water.” Rath k
nelt beside her, holding out the earthen dipper. “I think it will do you more good, now, than him, poor fellow. I wish there was aught we could do for him.”
Maura took the dipper and scattered a generous measure of quickfoil into the water.
Rath reached toward Langbard’s cheek. His hand hovered there, not quite touching, as if he craved some contact, but did not know how. “I only knew him a short time, but no man treated me better in all my years.”
Much as it vexed her to hear him talk as if Langbard was beyond their aid, the wistful edge in his voice and the awkward tenderness of his gesture called to her heart.
“Langbard thinks well of you, too.” Perhaps that should have been enough for her. But the big outlaw stirred up too many long-held fears and too many long-denied desires. “He will be grateful you were here to help us. Can you fetch me a hot coal?”
The flames reflected in Rath’s dark eyes as he stared at her, his thick brows bunched. “A coal? Whatever for, lass?”
“To mull the tonic, of course.” Maura held out the dipper. “The quickfoil will work faster if the water is hot. I have no time to heat it any other way.”
“Oh... yes... fine.” The expression on Rath’s face told Maura he did not understand.
But he staggered to his feet and returned a moment later with a half-charred stick, one end of which glowed an angry red. He thrust it into the dipper Maura lifted toward him. The water bubbled and a cloud of steam hissed up, redolent with the odors of burnt wood and potent herbs.
As she inhaled, Maura felt her heart beat stronger and faster. Surely this would revive Langbard.
“Can you support his shoulders?” she bid Rath. “Lift his head so I can get this into him?”
“Maura—”
“Just do it!”
Rath withdrew the steaming stick from the dipper and tossed it away. “It is no use. Can you not see?”
“I said, do it!” The shrill pitch of madness in her voice chilled Maura.
Do not be too hard on the lad. Langbard’s words, in Langbard’s voice.
“Did you hear that?”
“I heard you,” Rath growled. “Hold his head. Now you hear me. It will do no good.”
Despite his protest, he moved to do her bidding.
He is right, you know. Listen to him. He has seen far more of death than you have, my dear.
“Be quiet and drink this!” Maura snapped. Even half-dead, men took one another’s part.
“He is quiet,” said Rath in a hushed but firm voice. “And he cannot drink.”
As if to confirm his words, the quickfoil tonic dribbled out of Langbard’s mouth as fast as Maura could pour it in.
I am sorry, my dear. I wish I’d done better for you.
“But you did!” Casting the dipper aside, Maura threw her arms around Langbard’s neck and cradled his head, her cheek pressed to his. “No one could have done better!”
A bristle of whisker rasped against her skin. Langbard’s flesh felt cold... lifeless.
“Oh, Uncle!” Sob after sob shuddered through her and tears flooded her eyes—more tears than she had shed in her whole life until now. Yet they could not begin to moisten the parched wilderness of her grief.
She was scarcely aware of Rath Talward, moving away to let her mourn in private. After what seemed a very long time, she felt his hand giving her shoulder a firm shake.
“Leave us be!” she cried.
“No!” His voice sounded as urgent as his touch had felt. “I cannot. Look at this.”
She looked. Not because she cared but because, if she did as he bid, Rath Talward might leave her alone.
Between the smoke and the weeping, her eyes were almost swollen shut. A few unshed tears still lingered, blurring her vision further. In the livid light of the fire, Maura could make out a long slender shape in Rath’s hand.
“Do you know what this is?” he demanded. “Do you know what it means?”
Though she could not see it well, Maura sensed it. Something dark and oppressive beating down on her spirit with the combined weight of fear, grief, guilt, rage and bone-shattering loneliness.
She shrank from it. “I do not know what it is, nor do I care. It is evil. Take it away!”
“It is evil, though it is spent of its power.” Rath tensed. Then, with a release of coiled, violent power, he hurled the thing into the fire. “That was a bronze wand with a blood-gem imbedded in its tip. It means the Xenoth have been here. It must have been they who did this.”
The Xenoth. Maura shuddered.
This was the first she had ever heard of the Hanish death-mages venturing over the Blood Moon Mountains. But she knew of their terrible power as well as if she had lived under their shadow every day of her life. Their dark robes were the fabric of her nightmares.
“They cannot have gone far.” Rath’s large hand closed over Maura’s upper arm, ready to hoist her to her feet. “And they may return. We must get as far away as we can before they do!”
Rage burst and crackled in Maura, as hot as the blaze that had consumed her home and her past. “This is your fault! Sheltering you brought danger upon us. I should have stayed clear of trouble as Langbard always bid me. I should have left you to the Han!”
Rath Talward had long since ceased to care what anyone said to, or about, him. In his early years he’d suffered a knock or two for challenging a slur on his character or ancestry. Having made up his mind such taunts were not worth his trouble, he had cultivated a deaf ear and an impervious heart.
The bitter accusation Maura flung at him gnawed through all his carefully constructed defenses. To his surprise and dismay, it inflicted a stinging wound.
Perhaps because it confirmed his own daft sense of blame?
“You are right.” He did not flinch from Maura’s accusing glare. “You should have left me be. But there is no changing that now.”
Like grief, regret was a luxury beyond his means.
He latched on to Maura’s arm, intending to hoist her to her feet. “We cannot linger here. If the Xenoth get hold of us, we will wish the black hounds had torn us to pieces that day in the woods.”
She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “Go, then. I will be glad to see the last of you.”
If only he could. Obligations were a dangerous extravagance for a man like him. By saving his life from the Han, Maura had laid a claim on him—one he did not like or want, but which he could not ignore. Langbard’s kindness to him, and his responsibility for the old wizard’s death only intensified that claim.
Rath dropped to his haunches. “If I was certain they would follow me and do you no harm, I would strike out on my own.” He nodded back toward the burning cottage, then down at the dead wizard. “But I know better than to rely on their neglect. Come. Langbard would not want you to fall into their clutches.”
His words finally reached her. Rath could see it. Though he had hoped invoking Langbard’s wishes might sway her, he had not expected so intense a response.
Maura’s eyes widened. She seemed to struggle for breath. Finally she was able to inhale enough to fuel a high-pitched whimper. For some reason, his warning seemed to have distressed her even worse than Langbard’s death or the evidence that the Xenoth were behind it.
Rath put aside his puzzlement. He did not have time to indulge it now. Whatever the reason for Maura’s terror, he must use it to get her away from there.
“It will be all right,” he promised—a blatant lie. “I will stand by my bargain with Langbard to deliver you to your aunt. But we must go now.”
A bewildering succession of thoughts and emotions flickered in the depths of her eyes until her gaze fell back to Langbard.
Shaking her head, she spoke in a halting, sorrowful murmur. “I cannot leave him. Not like this. He must be properly buried. We must share the ritual of passing.”
“There is no time!” Rath longed to shake her out of her folly. “Who will bury us if the Xenoth catch us here? The ritual of passing is only a daft bit of super
stition. Langbard is past caring what happens to him now. If you do not want the Xenoth to have his body, let me throw it on the fire.”
Even as he made the offer, Rath knew it would be one of the most difficult tasks he had ever set himself.
“No!” Maura spread her arms over the old wizard’s body in a protective gesture that warned Rath she would fight him to the death to prevent it. “He will be decently buried if I have to dig the grave with my bare hands. And he will have the ritual of passing, for his sake and for mine. I will not suffer him to be lost.”
Lost? Rath tried to recall what he had heard about the ritual of passing. Something about shepherding the spirit of the dead into the afterworld? And was there supposed to be some passing of memories from the dead to the mourner? Such beliefs had been in decline even before the coming of the Han.
He had two choices, Rath decided. Sling Maura Woodbury over his shoulder and hope her screams of protest did not attract dangerous attention. Or leave now and let the foolish wench fend for herself.
As self-preservation warred with obligation, Rath’s mouth opened and the most outrageous question came out. “How long would you need for this passing business?”
Maura groped for one of Langbard’s hands. “How long can you give us?”
Hard as he tried to resist the plea that ached in her voice and eyes, Rath could not. “An hour. No more. I might be able to scratch out a shallow hole by then.”
“An hour.” Maura exhaled the words on a shaky breath. Then she pointed to a small shed at the bottom of the garden. “You will find a spade there.”
With a curt nod, Rath headed for the shed. If he had something to occupy his energies, perhaps he would not drive himself mad imagining a death-mage behind every tree for the next hour.
“Wait!” Maura called.
Rath glanced back.
She held out her hand to him. What did she want? A clasp for reassurance... some help with the passing ritual? He had no time for such dawdling if they were to bury the old wizard and escape with their lives.
But she looked so forlorn, kneeling there on the cold ground over the dead body of her guardian, with their home burning behind her. Whatever she wanted, Rath could not deny her.