“ ’Twas necessity,” he said shortly. “The sooner you are healed, the sooner you can leave.”
Jenna sighed.
“If you had thought because I tended your wounds I was . . . amenable, you were wrong. I wish you gone from here. You have invaded my domain and disrupted my peace.”
She flushed slightly, as if chagrined at how easily he seemed to have read her. When she spoke, it was with an edge in her voice, “True peace comes from within, not simply from ignoring chaos.”
Kane laughed coldly. “And what would you know of it? You’re barely more than a child.”
He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince of that; he certainly knew it wasn’t true. As did his body, which responded to the memory of her nudity before he was even aware the image had crept into his mind yet again.
At his words Jenna drew herself up. “I am a woman grown, old enough to hold the sacred Hawk. And I know that you will never find the healing you seek like this.”
Kane’s eyes darkened. “You know nothing of what I seek. An innocent like you could never know.”
“I may be innocent,” Jenna said, “but I am not a fool. Do not mistake the one for the other.”
No, she was not a fool. Despite the foolishness of her errand, he would never have accused her of that. He stared down at his boots; they’d not been new for a long time, but they looked even worse now, after his breakneck race down the mountain last night.
His jaw tightened. He hated that he couldn’t remember what he’d done, that he remembered nothing except the horror that had threatened to suffocate him until the moment he’d come back to himself, sitting in icy water, Tal’s hands on his shoulders. He didn’t know what would have happened if Tal hadn’t been there. Or rather, he knew what would have happened. And he wasn’t sure if he should be glad it hadn’t.
“You will not fight.”
It wasn’t a question, and Kane looked up at Jenna, wondering if at last she had realized he meant what he said.
“I will not fight,” he confirmed.
She took a deep breath, steadied herself. “Then you must teach me how.”
Kane blinked. “What?”
“You must teach me how to fight. And how to teach my people to fight. It is our only hope.”
“Teach you?”
“Yes,” she said her tone brisk, as if that alone would convince him. “You will not fight for us, so I must learn, so I can in turn show my people. And there is no one else to teach me.”
“Teach you,” he repeated, still a little stunned at the turn this had taken.
“You must,” she repeated.
“That is impossible.”
“It is essential,” she insisted. “Of our people, only the storyteller knows anything of war—”
“Then let him teach you.”
“He cannot. He can but tell tales of battles.” A trace of a smile flickered over her lips and was gone. “Very good tales, yes, but only tales. He knows of weapons, and warfare, but only as a watcher. Besides, even though he moves like a youth, he is an old man, his hair as silvered as moonlight. ’Twould be asking too much, even had he firsthand knowledge.”
“It is too much to ask of me, as well,” he said sourly.
“But I am not asking you to fight. Merely to teach.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or to shake her. He doubted the latter would stir any sense in her, so he settled for the former.
“Certainly,” he said grandly. “My sword is merely half your weight, you should be able to wield it with little trouble. And my armor should only drag on the ground, if it does not crush you first.”
“I am not a fool,” she snapped. “Do you think I do not know that? Besides, there is no time for my people to become expert in swordplay. But I find it hard to believe Kane the Warrior cut such a wide swath with only a sword. Was your training so poor then, that you learned only one weapon?”
Kane’s brows rose. She was glaring at him, her vivid blue eyes flashing as if infused with the fire of her hair. He’d told Tal she was not lacking in courage, and she was proving that anew, facing him down as few men would dare. She had wit, too, and it was seemingly sparked easily by anger. No, she was not a fool. The innocent she’d admitted to being, perhaps, but never a fool.
And beautiful. He could no longer deny that; now that she was recovering and no longer an invalid, he could no longer deny she was, as Tal had said, quite striking in appearance. Not a quiet, meek woman as he generally preferred, but a woman any man would have to beware of taking for granted.
“What . . . weapons did you have in mind?”
“Whatever there is that can be learned quickly and made easily. Bows. I’ve heard of men who can shoot arrows a great distance. And of bows of a different kind, that fire bolts instead of arrows, but with much more force. And are there not hammers, that can be thrown with great power—”
“For a peaceful clan, you have an unexpected knowledge of the weapons of war.”
“The storyteller,” she said. “He knows of many things. ’Tis he who sent me here.”
Kane’s brow furrowed; this seemed impossible. “Your storyteller sent you to me?”
“He told me you were not simply a myth, and that you were real, that you were a warrior worthy of the name, and the only one who could help us.”
“So you set off on this journey on the basis of that? An old man’s tales? Does your clan run to such craziness as your storyteller?”
“He is not crazy! He simply . . . sees patterns that others miss.”
Something about her words distracted him for an instant, but he was too intent on something else to let it divert him completely. He wanted an answer to this; he’d let it slide while she was in a weakened state, but she was clearly well enough now. Well enough to stand up to him.
“How,” he said quietly, “did you find me?”
She blinked. “I told you. The storyteller sent me.”
“That is the why. I want the how.”
She looked puzzled. “They are one and the same.”
Kane went still. “This storyteller of yours told you where to find me?”
“Of course. How else would I have known? As it was, I nearly took many wrong turnings. As you said, ’tis not an easy place to find.”
“No,” Kane muttered, “it is not.”
And no one knew where it was. Some had stumbled upon it by accident, but no one seeking him had ever found it by intent. In the beginning there had been some near moments, when he’d thought he would surely be discovered, but he’d managed to avoid any contact with those from below. And after a few years, his reputation had made the turn into legend, then into myth, until most were convinced he’d been an invention all along. The only ones who searched for him now had blood on their minds. And their hands.
And yet this slip of a woman had found him.
And this storyteller of hers had apparently told her how.
“So, when do we begin?”
He ignored her question, still focused on his own. “Tell me of this storyteller.”
She shrugged, then obliged. “He came to us shortly after the attacks started. In fact, he was the first to warn us that the warlord had set his eyes on our forest, as the easiest route to the north, where he planned to expand his territory.”
Again something tugged at his mind, but he had to have the answer to this first.
“He came to you from where?”
“He came out of the forest, but where before that no one knows for certain, except that he passed through lands already bloodied and conquered.”
“His name?”
She looked almost sheepish for a moment. “I . . . we do not know. He is simply the storyteller.”
Kane stared at her. “You
are under siege but you have taken him among you, and you do not even know his name?”
“It sounds strange, I know. But there is something about him that makes it seem . . . unnecessary. When you are with him, it does not even occur to you.” Jenna shrugged. “Besides, names are what you make of them.”
Kane felt a shiver arc through him.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “They are.”
“So, when do we begin?” she asked again.
“We do not.”
“But we must. This will not cost you, Kane. You must only teach. Then I shall leave, and you can go back to living as you did before.”
“I can do that much sooner if you leave now.”
“I cannot. I will not.”
He believed her. It was there, the determination, in her refusal to avoid his eyes, in every quivering line of her body as she faced him. She would not leave. She would not give up. She would badger him until he gave in.
“Then perhaps I shall have to simply kill you,” he said.
She held his gaze, never flinching. “Then it will be done,” she said simply. “But I do not think you will. Not if you meant what you said, that you will never fight again.”
“You would not give me much of a fight,” he said wryly, but it was without heat; she was right, he would not kill her. The old Kane might have; he could not.
He could, he supposed, cart her down the mountain himself. Except that she would no doubt find her way back. He could blindfold her and abandon her someplace else on the mountain, he thought. And his reaction to his own idea startled him; the thought of her certain death should he do so bothered him a great deal. She was brave and far more noble than he had ever been, and deserved better than such a fate.
If there was only some way he could confuse her, disorient her somehow, so she would not be able to find her way back. If he could do that, then he could leave her on the road back to her home, and she would have no choice but to take it.
His mouth twisted. Perhaps he should ask Tal for help with that. Kane knew he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the man could do it, could cloud her mind somehow. That he had just thought of asking his only friend to cast a spell for him didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should have. What had happened to his certainty that such things as magic and sorcery did not exist? Had it vanished as his nightmare had vanished under Tal’s hands?
He shook his head sharply. Even if it worked, and she went home, what then?
He turned away from the thoughts of what would happen then, of the certainty that if her people died, Jenna would die with them. She would have it no other way.
They deserved no better, he told himself. If they were foolish enough to believe that peace was a gift given instead of a right fought for, they deserved to lose it.
And Jenna? Did she deserve to die for it?
“I will not leave,” she repeated, and he wondered how often she’d said it before he heard it this time, so lost in his contemplation had he been.
“I will not teach you,” he retorted.
“You must. You are the only hope for my people. We are innocent of the ways of war, of killing. But we can learn. We must learn.”
Innocent. That word again. It kept recurring.
I may be innocent . . .
. . . to wreak havoc on some unsuspecting innocent.
Tal’s words came back to him. Although he’d been speaking again of that uncanny bird of his, the phrase sparked a half-formed idea in Kane’s mind.
. . . she had to go. And he would do whatever it took to see that she did.
His own remembered thoughts put the seal to it. Although she was clearly, as she had said, a woman grown—most delectably grown—she was an innocent. And she was proud. Rightfully so, he would grant her; he’d already admitted it would take an amazing woman to make the journey she’d made.
And there was one sure way he could send a proud innocent running.
He looked at her, his eyes narrowing intently. He let his gaze move slowly over her, from tiny bare feet upward to the glorious waves of red gold hair. The tunic she wore over slim, travel-worn leggings was loose, shapeless, but his mind too well remembered the shape of the body beneath; that image of her as he’d stripped her naked, before he’d covered the tempting vision with his own shirt, had never left him. ’Twould not be hard to feign the mood he needed to take on now.
’Twould be harder to convince himself he was only feigning.
“Such lessons do not come cheaply,” he said, beginning slowly.
“I did not expect them to. We had intended to pay you for your help. Not in money, we need and have little, but in the riches of the forest.”
“I have the same here.”
“Then whatever we have that you wish is yours.”
“You cannot afford my lessons, Jenna,” he warned.
“You are our last hope. I will pay what I must.” She took a deep breath. “Even the greatest of prices.”
Kane drew back, surprised she had brought it up before he had. Had he betrayed something in those moments just now when he had looked over her body? Or had he somehow betrayed himself when those memories of her naked body had intruded upon him? Was his plan about to miscarry?
“Even that?” he asked softly.
She shivered slightly, grimaced in apparent self-disgust, then lifted her chin as if in denial of her own weakness. He understood her repulsion—his scarred face was hardly the kind of countenance women swooned over—at the same time he admired her courage. Even this, it seemed, she would do for her people.
“The golden Hawk is worth a great deal, no matter where you might take it. ’Twill more than compensate you for what time you will spend.”
Kane drew back again, staring. “The golden Hawk?”
She bit her lip. “ ’Tis literally that. Gold.” She held out her hands to measure an astonishing size for what she spoke of. “ ’Tis that large. And it is also the heart of my people.” Her chin came up, jutting out with renewed determination. “But better to lose it than to see them all dead, to see the end of a people who have managed to live in peace for generations.”
“The golden Hawk,” he said again, this time stifling a chuckle; his plan was intact, and he would soon be alone again. As he wished to be. “You are an innocent, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I have no wish nor need for your precious golden Hawk. I do not covet such things, and the wealth it might bring would be meaningless here.”
Jenna stared at him. “But I . . . we thought all outside our village treasured such things.”
“Not all. Most, but not all.”
Distress darkened the blue of her eyes. “But then what will you take? All we have is the glade, and what is the difference between giving it up to you and losing it to the warlord?”
“I do not want your land, either.”
He said it evenly enough, although there was a time when the accumulation of land had been his only goal, when fulfilling the wishes of one who coveted land above all else had been his sole aim in life.
“But then . . . what can we offer?”
“I care for nothing from your precious people, Jenna of the clan Hawk.” He rose then, and went to her. He crooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head. “But you . . . you can offer me something I want.”
“I?” She looked utterly bewildered.
Innocent . . .
He smothered the qualm and went on; despite his body’s urges to the contrary, he had no intention of despoiling this innocent, only of finally and forever frightening her away. And he would ignore the sudden burst of heat that had shot through him at the thought of teaching this particular innocent much more than the ways of war.
“Exactly.”
“I’ve been a long time without a woman,” Kane said, his voice suddenly husky in a way he couldn’t seem to control. “So long that, although I’d prefer one with experience in pleasing a man, I will settle for one who knows nothing.”
Jenna’s eyes widened as his meaning reached her.
“Me?”
“You, Jenna.”
“You want me . . . as a man wants a woman?”
A flick of irritation nudged him; were the men of her blessed Hawk Glade eunuchs, that this was so astonishing to her? She was looking at him as if he were the first man ever to look at her with desire. He could not believe that was true.
He did not want to believe his own reaction was true. And he tried hastily to tamp it down, bury it beneath cruel words.
“What other use could I possibly have for you?”
Chapter 6
“I . . .”
She lowered her eyes. Two spots of high color stained her cheeks. He had her now, Kane thought. A few more good thrusts and she’d be out of his way.
He could wish, he thought wryly as heat jammed through him again in a rush, that he’d used a different word. Still, he pressed on.
“ ’Twill be annoying, virgins are far more trouble than they’re worth. In fact,” he said thoughtfully, “perhaps I’d best be sure you are worth it first. If you’d remove your clothing, so I may inspect you?”
He said it in the polite tone of an order masked as a request. Her head came up, and he knew she’d heard the steel in the words. He had expected her to be cowed, as armed and armored men had been by that voice of command, but he quickly saw he was mistaken.
“You had more than enough chance to inspect me when I was lying senseless in your bed.”
It was all he could do not to laugh with pleasure at her spirited retort. Had it not been for the vivid image her words called up, he might have done it. But he found himself instead having to concentrate on controlling his body’s fierce response to the remembered shape and feel and look of her.
Fire Hawk Page 7