“Where are you?”
“Right here,” I grumbled, a frown pulling at my brows. My head ached dully, and I couldn’t banish images of a room hung with pelts and thick quilts to keep out the persistent chill of the season. A neatly made bed stood against one wall, and a table with two chairs near the other. The only source of light came from a crackling fire burning in the hearth. A kettle set over the flames promised a thick bean soup flavored with chunks of onion and ham. I would do just about anything for a bowl of that soup and for the comfort and aid wafting through my senses like a promise.
From the Ghost Walk, we’d come down out of the mountains without any incident and traveled east across the Kerdann Moors for days and days, shrouded in constant fog and mist. I had begun to doubt these parts guarded any kind of civilization at all. Even Kem had disappeared completely. Our supplies were so reduced that Girl rode one of the pack horses, silent as a sack but wonderfully obedient, doing whatever Tanris required of her, wrapped in an air of quiet, hopeless misery. I wondered time and again what had possessed her to follow us on such a journey. She had no idea of our destination, nor our purpose. How could she possibly trust strangers so blithely, and what did she think she could get from us? And when she’d joined us there had been one of her attackers in our company besides. I did not understand, not at all. Maybe she’d come for revenge, though she didn’t look the sort. Had her quarry escaped before she could work up the courage to do him in? Killing did not come easily to everyone, I knew.
Tanris snapped his fingers again. “Crow!”
Speaking of airs, the one he wore was prickly with concern. I wondered, if I touched him would it sting?
“What is the matter with you?” he demanded, his face all scowly. “Are you sick?”
“I don’t think so. Why?” I squinted at him in the lowering gloom. Dusk had fallen, though I was certain it had just barely been afternoon—a cloudy, cold, gray afternoon, to be sure, but with hours to go before sunset. A more depressing landscape I had never known. Tanris’s cold hand touched my cheek, and I pulled away. “What are you doing?”
“Checking for fever. Your eyes look funny, staring off into space like you actually see something more than fog and scrub grass, and you keep talking, but not to me. Not answering me when I ask you anything, either.”
“What are you talking about?”
The cat poked its head out from beneath Tanris’s coat and gave me an inscrutable inspection.
“Is that your cat?” I asked, sluggishly disgusted.
“Yes. There’s something wrong with you, you feather-headed fool.”
I did feel lethargic and muzzy-headed, but I put it down to weeks spent traveling, a dismal variety of food, and lack of social interaction. I was just not accustomed to this sort of lifestyle. Still, I tried to humor him. “What have I been talking about?”
“Most of the time I don’t even know.” His lips pursed with patent disapproval. “You talk in some foreign language.”
Girl watched me intently with that same pinched expression she’d worn since the Ghost Walk. I’d get no help from that quarter.
“I do know a few,” I sniffed.
Tanris shook his head. “They don’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before.”
“How do you know I don’t know some obscure language?” I inquired, pulling indignation around me defensively. He crooked a brow at me and I sighed, letting go my annoyance. It took too much effort to keep it up. “Fine, I know two or three common ones. What about Girl, has she heard this chattering I’m supposedly doing? Or maybe the Ancestors followed us and they’re playing games with your mind.” As a joke, it fell pretty flat, and Tanris just gave me one of his trademark sour looks.
“She heard you, too. I asked her if she understood, but she didn’t.”
I’d had some awfully strange dreams, but they were just dreams, weren’t they? “I am tired,” I allowed. “Maybe I’m just talking in my sleep.”
“And sleeping at all hours of the day?” His dark brows furrowed with real worry. “In the saddle?”
I smiled at him brilliantly. “When I fall off, then you can worry.”
“You have. Several times. Why do you think I tied you on? You already beaned yourself twice.”
“I did what?” I looked down and regarded the rope around my waist in astonishment. Panic fluttered through me and Horse did a quick sidestep, her ears twitching backward. Tanris held her lead rope.
He let out a sigh. “You’ve hit your head twice.” He pointed to the ground which, while covered in thick winter-pale grass, showed a fairly abundant crop of rocks.
I lifted an exploratory hand and right away found a bandage on my noggin. A little judicious probing revealed a tender, swollen lump on one side and another on the back. No wonder my head hurt! “I don’t remember…” I murmured, still astonished and not a little frightened.
“I know,” he said glumly. “This has never happened to you before, has it?”
“No,” I whispered. Images from my strange dreams lingered, even now. Why? Who were these people and what did any of it mean? “What happened in the cave—it wasn’t just a dream, was it?”
Tanris said nothing, and that was answer enough. This time as we rode along it was him trying to engage me in conversation to keep me in the here and now. It horrified me that I had no idea of knowing whether it worked or not.
— 16 —
Things That Don't Bump In the Night
I am not certain how long we rode after that or if it was even the same day, but the knowledge that we were not alone slowly crept up on me, making me uneasy. Itchy. All the peering in the world could not penetrate the perpetual mists swirling about a barren landscape decorated only by scattered boulders and occasional thrusting knobs of granite.
“Time for a rest?” Tanris asked.
“No.” The idea made my skin prickle even more. “No, we should move on. Quickly.”
“Why?” Saddle leather creaked as he glanced about. Girl’s horse, several paces behind, swiftly closed the gap and she stared at me from a face pale as the moon.
I didn’t want to frighten her. If she panicked, she might run off and Tanris’s contorted version of chivalry would demand we find her, thus consuming time I couldn’t afford to fritter away. “I don’t like it here,” I prevaricated.
“Why?” He had to press, forever unsatisfied with my answers. “There’s nothing here.”
“No, there’s someone,” I spat, wanting suddenly to hit him. I didn’t need to see him to feel his skeptical examination like it was a tangible thing.
“Did you see something?” he asked at last with the air of patience reserved for the gently demented.
“No,” I admitted reluctantly. I hadn’t seen anyone in the cave when Girl appeared either, but I had known perfectly well she was there. Senses keenly honed over the years have never included prescience, and this sudden certain knowledge without any apparent facts to support it alarmed me, but not everything could be explained away as an uncanny coincidence.
Tanris’s gaze shifted again to our surroundings, dubious but unwilling to take unnecessary chances. That I knew how he felt without him telling me generated another wave of apprehension, but now wasn’t the time for personal reflection and scrutinization of my wretched affliction. Something followed us, yet I still jumped when I heard a distinct thump followed by a muffled grunt and a low growling noise.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, pulling Horse to a stop. The mists distorted everything, so I could not be certain, but I could just make out a jumbled outcropping plenty tall enough for someone or something to hide behind.
Tanris halted his mount and looked sharply in the same direction. Nothing further came to our straining ears. Finally, Tanris flipped his reins against his horse’s neck and started forward again. “Probably a rabbit or something.”
A rabbit? My sanity was being threatened by a rabbit? I didn’t believe it, but I certainly didn’t want to go investigate th
e noise just to prove Tanris wrong and suddenly find myself faced with, say, a pack of ravenous moor wolves. Did such things really exist, or were they fictions told to scare children and unwelcome travelers? Perfectly willing to remain ignorant, I urged Horse to a quicker pace. Bound by rope, Tanris’s horse came along, too.
“Crow…”
Girl passed Tanris up and fell in right behind me. She apparently didn’t want to meet any moor wolves, either.
With a thump of hooves on the sod and the jingle of tack, Tanris trotted past to take the lead again, giving me an evil look as he passed. I was used to those and would far rather suffer his glares than fall afoul of trouble in the form of wolves, bandits, rabbits, or any of the many bogs that littered the area.
We met with one of the latter anyway. It was not the first we had encountered, and Tanris had proven his efficiency in identifying them before we rode into them and then leading us safely around. Like most of the bogs, this particular morass cleverly disguised itself with grass and low bushes—the conniving, treacherous things. What looked like a puddle or two frequently revealed itself as an extensive area of soft, marshy ground, following the margins to avoid falling in frequently took us much out of our way. This time it was the pack horse that slipped and flailed itself in so deeply it required all three of the other horses to haul it free.
Needless to say, it was a wet and muddy business.
Afterwards, we walked for a while, giving the horses a rest and taking a break from riding. The exercise helped keep me focused.
“Hey.” In the sullen, boggy silence my voice made the horses shy. “I’m not dead.”
“Look at him go,” Tanris drawled. “Why, I’d bet he can walk and chew at the same time.”
Girl, walking alongside me, restrained herself to a small smile.
“I mean it, Tanris. I haven’t been taking the antidote and nothing’s happened. I’m free!”
“Free to be an idiot. I gave you the potion, Crow.”
I could only see his back, but I knew his mouth crimped in a grimace of contempt.
“Oh.” The remains of my premature victory drifted like ashes around me. After a few steps Girl gave me a jab, then flapped her hand toward Tanris. “Thank you.”
He just grunted.
The appeal of walking faded after a couple of hours. I remembered how sore I’d been the first week or so of our journey, and how hard it had been to ride or to walk after smashing my leg escaping from Raza’s men. Raza and Marketh seemed like another world, another life now. I wondered if I would ever make it back, and if I did, would things just pick up right where I’d left them? Would Raza still be hunting me? Would my rooms still belong to me? And what of Tarsha? What would Duzayan have done to her?
I was still worrying about her when we made our camp for the night in a place between two rough hills where a single bedraggled tree offered miserly protection from the weather. Tanris and I tied our tarpaulin to the outstretched branches, then anchored the other side to the ground with iron stakes made for that purpose. “How much farther do you reckon we have to go?” I asked him, pounding a stake into the ground.
“Mmm…’Bout a week, maybe less.”
“Less would be good. I’m more than ready to get this trip over with and get back home to Tarsha. You think she’s all right? She and your wife?”
“She’s fine.”
“And your wife, too.”
He grunted, but didn’t comment. With typical foresight, Tanris had set us to picking up whatever wood we found as we passed by the rare trees dotting the moors. We would have a modest fire tonight, even if it only lasted long enough to make a little soup and a mug of kaffa for each of us. While Girl went to fill our water skins from a stream trickling between the hills, Tanris squatted beneath the tarpaulin and dug out a little pit for the fire.
“You ever see her dance?” I asked. A professional dancer, I had first set eyes on Tarsha at one of the more elite theaters in Ha’jani, a city neighboring Marketh. Her beauty easily captured my attention, and I’d made a point of seeking her out to watch her perform. When I’d met her later at a festival and actually spoken to her, I’d known immediately that the most remarkable jewel I would ever steal would be her heart.
She had not made it easy for me, waving me aside as yet another besotted admirer, but I had been persistent and clever in my romantic pursuit. I could not be like all the other men taken in by her charms; I had to be something more, which required an extraordinary amount of patience. I was not put off by her first refusal to let me call on her, and after treating her to three months of apparently casual interest, it had been she who had invited me to her rooms. I did not refuse and the rest, as they say, is history.
“Yes, I’ve watched her dance, Crow. She’s a fine dancer.”
“You don’t sound very convincing.” He grunted again, and I went to take care of Horse. Tanris joined me a moment later, leaving Girl to do the cooking. Silently, he took the tack off his mount and set about brushing him.
“I have never known a woman like Tarsha,” I went on, applying a brush to my own horse’s hide. “She makes me feel… I don’t know. Complete. You know?” He didn’t answer. “Have you ever been to Pelipa?” I asked.
“No, why?”
“It’s beautiful there. In the islands, you know, but not so far away from the mainland that it’s too far to go visiting the city every now and then. You know how women love to shop in the big city markets.” I smiled, imagining a future that didn’t include rain six days out of seven, Tarsha on my arm, and the bright city to revel in. “Can’t go too far from them. I’m thinking of buying a house in Pelipa. Settling down. I think Tarsha would—”
“Forget Tarsha.”
The harshness of his voice surprised me. I stopped what I was doing to stare over Horse’s back. “Why would I want to do that? I love her and she—”
“Doesn’t love you,” he interrupted again.
“What are you talking about? You don’t even know her.”
Lips pursed, he turned his face away from me, a heavy reluctance in him. And anger. It both frightened me and made me curious.
“Yes,” he gritted out after a short, unpleasant silence, “I do.”
I shook my head, bemused. “How? You couldn’t. I was careful.” So very careful! I had enemies aplenty, but few of them knew who I was and no one knew about my connection with Tarsha. I had not survived this long by being careless in my habits.
“I followed you, you flappin’ feather head. I followed you and I bought her.” Darkness hid the expression on his face but I felt his roiling emotions and heard the way he dragged the brush roughly over the horse’s hide. The horse didn’t seem to mind. “You cannot be that blind, Crow, nor that stupid. I know you better than that.”
“What are you talking about?” I repeated, dazed. “Bought her? Tarsha?”
“Yes, Tarsha. You were set up.”
“No.” A band of pressure tightened around my skull.
“Put the pieces together. They’re all there.”
I could not stop myself from replaying the last scene in her rooms as though it had just happened—her laughter and her welcome, her lovely bright eyes, the look of expectation… And like a nightmare conjured by a demon, I saw her evasions, the look of greed that should have been desire and, worst of all, the dawning comprehension that she had not locked the door behind me. She had not screamed for help or done a single thing to aid me. Busy with the guards and the demon, I had not noticed then what she’d done: I had pushed her out of the way of danger, and she had remained out of the way, watching as they took me down and beat me. And who had been holding the stolen pearl? Who had been close enough to slip the thing into my pocket when the commotion came at the door?
I dropped Horse’s brush and turned to walk blindly into the dark.
“Crow…” Tanris called softly, ruefully behind me, but I did not answer. I felt Girl’s eyes on me and her quivering fear, but I ignored that, too, and moved sti
ffly away from the impossibility of Tanris’s words. Complete and utter disbelief robbed me of sense. It made breathing difficult. In a minute my heart would stop and the world I knew would cease to exist. Maybe I would, too.
I did not realize until that moment how I had pinned all my hopes for a bright future on the woman I’d fallen in love with. She was safety, she was promise. She was white picket fences on a sunny island. She was the end of long, lonely nights and the end of being hunted by Tanris and men like him. She was everything to me.
Abruptly, I whirled back, only to find Tanris right behind me. He jerked backwards as I waved my arms wildly, angrily. “Was it not enough for you to capture me? Do you need to carve my heart out of my chest as well? Do you? What are you waiting for? My knife? Here!” I yanked it free from its sheath at my waist and held it out to him, hilt first. When he would not take it, but backed away from me with both hands lifted and palms out, I threw it violently at his feet. It bounced on the turf, then lay still. “What, not good enough? You want me to fall on my sword? I don’t have one, but you do. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind loaning it to me.” Contempt edged my words.
Apprehension turned swiftly to anger and Tanris stepped forward and slapped me, hard. The impact spun me to the side, face smarting and eyes watering. “Stop it,” he hissed, grabbing hold of the front of my coat and jerking me up against him. “You’re acting like a spoiled little boy, not a man.” He shook me. “Who’s the thief?” he demanded. “Who’s always got a ready, cutting quip on his lips? Who always flies away free?”
I wanted to weep in anger, humiliation, and hurt, but he was right. No one stole from Crow and got away with it. It still didn’t stop me from hating him for the part he’d played—not in capturing the thief he’d chased for years, but in smashing my rosy, domestic future to rubble. My jaw edged forward and my mouth curled in a snarl that went clear through me. “You bought her.”
“She was cheap.”
My fists jabbed hard into his sides and he grunted, but he didn’t let go. “You humiliated me,” I gritted out.
As the Crow Flies: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 20