Kane gritted his teeth and steadied himself. He shook his head, glanced around once more to make sure his friend wasn’t simply sitting in the shadows, out of sight. The cave was empty.
“Tal?” he said, feeling foolish.
But it was gone. That sense of connection was gone, as was the voice, the voice he could not possibly have heard, but had.
It did not matter. He knew, as he suspected he’d known for days, that he could not go on like this. Jenna haunted him as nothing else ever had, not even the horror of his sister’s death. He had been but a child, he could not have stopped that. But Jenna . . . if she were to die when he could have saved her . . .
He could not go on like this. He could not just leave it like this, knowing she would die. She would die, because she would never, ever give up. It wasn’t in her.
He had thought he would regain his peace when she had gone. He knew now he could not buy that peace at the cost of her life, even if the alternative was to lose his own.
It was not that he thought she would truly come back here. She would never leave her people; he knew that well. He had the fleeting thought that the old Kane would have made that the price for his help, that she stay here with him forever. And if she believed that the only way to save her clan, he believed she would agree; she loved them that much.
But the woman who stayed would not be the woman he had known. She would be but a hollow shell, for her heart would stay in Hawk Glade.
He had never fought without expecting some gain for himself, in either spoils or the regard for his warlord. Kane the Warrior knew no other way. But Kane the man knew the moment he rose to his feet that his decision was made. And that it was irrevocable. He was going to go to Hawk Glade. He was going to go back on his vow never to leave these mountains, and if Tal’s warning came true, so be it. He might die, but if he did not act, he most surely would, because he could not bear another day of this. He either went to help her, or he went to the cliff Jenna had climbed and walked off the edge. Either choice was more bearable than living like this.
He began to gather his things. He packed by rote, an old habit long unpracticed but never forgotten, the collecting of the tools of war by a man long used to their use.
He hesitated only once, when he went to the back of the cave and knelt to dig with his small dagger. He reached a long, narrow bundle wrapped in deerhide. He lifted it out. For a long moment he simply looked at it. Then he undid the wrapping and tossed it aside. His hands moved instinctively, one grasping, one pulling in a swift, smooth motion. Even in the dim light of the back of the cave, the silver blade flashed.
The sword of Kane the Warrior was as deadly as it had ever been. He only hoped the man who held it had remained as sharp.
“YOU’RE CERTAIN OF THIS?”
Cara’s young brother nodded nervously. “Yes, I a-am,” he said, flushing as his voice broke. “They have not moved.”
A sad thing it was, Jenna thought, when this child has to forgo what should have been a time of games and learning to instead risk his too-short life to become a spy for them. Yet there were so few adults left, and they were all exhausted.
“Well done, Lucas. I thank you.”
The boy’s blush deepened. “Thank you, Hawk,” he said, making a short bow as he backed away.
Jenna smiled a rueful, inward smile; she doubted she would ever grow accustomed to the bowing obeisance that came with her rank. No more than she would ever be comfortable in this long dress that had been her mother’s, worn when she was faced with some complex decision. Jenna had donned it in the hopes some of her mother’s simple wisdom might be imparted by the dress she’d worn as the Hawk. It was simple by some standards yet ornate by her own; trimmed with elegant stitchwork, it draped gracefully over her slender frame, the long sleeves coming to a point over her wrists. The only thing she truly liked about it was the color; a deep, rich blue given a faint sheen by the soft nap of the fabric.
“You have held them in place,” the storyteller observed.
“Evelin has,” Jenna corrected, giving the healer a grateful look. “Thanks to her potions, those who are still on their feet at all are too weak to move.”
“ ’Twas your idea,” Evelin said, satisfaction in her expression despite her refusal of credit.
“Not mine. Kane’s.”
She thought she’d said it steadily enough, betraying nothing. Yet the storyteller turned his gaze on her, studying her as if she had screamed her heartache to the night sky.
She was a fool to dwell so much on a man who had been only too glad to see her go. His reluctance to see her leave had only been that he’d been certain she would die. She supposed he had seen enough of death, enough so that he did not welcome more, no matter who it was. The coolness with which he had let her go in the end proved there was nothing more to it than that. And proved that she was worse than a fool to think that Kane the Warrior, the mercenary fighter who had struck terror into the hearts and minds of countless of his victims, had any kind of soft spot for the desperate woman who had come to him begging help. She had eased his male needs for a space, that was all. She was no more to him than that.
“Yet you have carried it out,” the storyteller said. “Since your return, Druas has gained little ground, where before he had gained by the league.”
A chorus of cheers for the new Hawk broke out, and Jenna tried to hush them, embarrassed at the outcry. She felt she was doing so little, yet they looked upon her as if she were a miracle worker. The storyteller had told her it was only natural, that in their desperate straits they would look upon any small hope as salvation, but still, the burden weighed upon her.
She glanced at him now, wishing the old man would give her that look of reassurance she had come to depend on these past few days, that bolstering of spirit that had often been the only thing that had kept her going. But he was not looking at her; he was peering off into the forest. She could not really see his face, but she had the oddest feeling he was very pleased about something.
“ ’Tis true,” Cara said when the last of the cheers died away, hope renewed in her voice. “Since Jenna’s return, they have been lodged on the edge of the forest, unable to move. There are already rumblings among them that the forest is hexed, or haunted by spirits who do not welcome them. And many have withdrawn from the forest to hide in the stronghold.”
Jenna looked at her friend, who was beginning to look more like her old self, although grief for her lost family still shadowed her eyes.
“And how would you know this?” she asked.
Cara flushed. “I . . . overheard them talking.”
A murmuring rippled through the gathering. “You took a foolish risk, getting so close,” Jenna said sternly. “You know as well as I what happens to Druas’s prisoners. Especially women.”
“I was safe,” Cara protested.
“You know we do not know exactly where the protection of Hawk Glade ends. You could have been seen. Captured. We cannot afford—”
“—to hold any one life too dear.”
The clan cried out, and as one whirled toward the voice that had come ringing out of the night; Jenna was beyond speech, frozen. The others reacted to the shock of the unknown, harsh voice; Jenna was reeling because she knew that voice all too well.
He strode out of the trees, came out of the darkness looking like the shadows themselves had spawned him. Clad in black from head to booted toe, he looked like the legend come to life, larger than any mortal man, tall, powerful, his expression cold, merciless. Even his armor was black, not the polished metal they had come to know and fear. With a long black cloak swirling around him, he looked like the blackest of demons, the stuff of myth, the man used to frighten children into behaving, and men into laying down their arms without a fight, for who could hope to fight such a devil?
Had she not known
, Jenna would barely have recognized him. This was not the man she had known on the mountain, the man who wore simple leather leggings and tunic, the man who, for all his size, power, and experience had achieved a wry peace with the world. This was Kane the Warrior, and she realized only now that as fierce as he had seemed to her before, it was nothing compared to the reality of what he had been.
And her first reaction was pain that she had brought him to this. That because of her he had donned the implements of war once more. That because of her he had turned his back on his hard-won peace. That because of her he had left his sanctuary—
I . . . cannot leave here. If I do, I will die.
His words, Tal’s prophecy, rang in her head.
She stared at him, stunned anew.
“Kane,” she whispered, her heart twisting inside her.
She did not know what else to say to a man who had just offered up his life for them.
Chapter 16
SHE HEARD THE awed gasps as she spoke his name, heard the murmurings, the rustling of movement as people turned to gape, then quickly averted their eyes, as if fearful of being caught staring at him. Except for the storyteller, whom no one had ever thought to question, no one unknown to them had ever found this glade. And although she did not know how Kane had discovered them, she could see that it only added to the sense of awe among the clan that he already had inspired.
They parted for him as if he were brandishing the sword that was sheathed at his side. He walked toward Jenna. She looked at him, eyes searching his face. She saw nothing but the cold, ruthless gaze of the legend. Not even recognition warmed his icy gray eyes. Nor did he speak to her when he came to a halt before the still-dazed gathering.
“If you wish to succeed,” he said, his voice booming out over them all, his tone one Jenna had never heard from him before, even when he had been shouting his sharpest orders at her, “you must think of yourselves all as already dead. You await only the vultures to confirm it. If you can do this, some remnant of your clan may survive. ’Tis unlikely, but possible.”
The murmurs came again. Kane cut across them like the sharpest of blades, effectively silencing them.
“No one life is worth anything, if you wish to save the whole. If you cannot accept this, your only choice is how you will die. You can continue and die, or surrender and die anyway. Either way, your enemy will have this place.”
Jenna could not find her voice; she could only stare at him. Of all the others, Evelin was the first to recover enough to speak.
“You leave out the choice of escape,” she said.
He turned on the older woman. Jenna saw the fear in Evelin’s eyes as she faced the legendary Kane, but the woman stood her ground, and Jenna felt a surge of pride. And when Kane spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle.
“You have left that too late. It is no longer a choice. I have seen how close they are. All exits will be cut off. All roads guarded, in all directions. And anyone captured will be tortured for what information they can give, and then killed.”
“You sound very certain.”
It was the storyteller, and Jenna watched Kane as he turned to look at the old man, wondering if he would see what she had seen, or if the resemblance to Tal was just some odd fancy of hers.
For the first time she saw a flicker of a change in his expression, saw his brows lower just a fraction, and she knew he had seen the likeness. But when he spoke, it was as if he had seen nothing.
“I am.”
“How?” Evelin dared to ask.
Kane turned to look at her again. “Because it is what I would do.”
It silenced them all, this dark, grim knowledge of who and what he was. Jenna saw him take in the reaction, saw the expression she thought already ice grow even colder.
“So you are saying,” the storyteller said, his voice oddly casual, as if beginning one of his philosophical speculations, “that you and Druas are cut from the same cloth?”
Kane’s head jerked around toward the old man. The others drew in audible breaths and shrank back. Even Jenna gave a little start; she had never seen Kane move that way, violently, as if involuntarily.
The storyteller never moved, despite Kane’s towering, threatening stance.
“Druas?” Kane spoke the name lowly, harshly. “It is Druas you fight?”
“It is,” the storyteller answered, his voice steady even in the face of Kane’s fierce, sudden intensity. Jenna was proud of him, too, not in the same way she had been proud of Evelin but, oddly, in a somehow more personal way.
And then Kane turned toward her, and she wondered if she would be the one to quail before him.
“You did not tell me it was Druas.”
Jenna gathered her wits and her will to answer him levelly. “I did not think it mattered. One vicious warlord is much the same as another.”
Something dark twisted in the depths of his eyes, something that made her want to take a step back, and only sheer determination enabled her to stay where she was.
“You underestimate him,” Kane snarled.
“And who would know better than you?” the storyteller said softly.
Again Kane’s head came around sharply. This time he studied the storyteller at length, until Jenna wondered that the old man did not wither under the scrutiny. At last he turned back to Jenna.
“I would speak with you,” he said, his voice abrupt and ringing with command. He glanced at the storyteller. “And you. And whoever else you have of leadership left.”
Jenna silently gestured at Evelin and Arlen to follow them, then led them all into her small cottage, leaving the rest of the clan outside to whisper among themselves in tones of shock and awe.
Inside, Evelin took the most comfortable chair when Jenna insisted; she did so smothering a pang at the sight of Latham’s careful work. At her nod of permission Arlen sat as well. Jenna knew the man was weary; he’d done much of her bidding in these days just past, and she’d quickly come to trust him in these duties that were far removed from the making of snares he’d done before.
The storyteller moved to a darker corner of the room, lifting himself to sit upon the edge of the table there with an ease that belied his age, as if he had rid himself of the stiffness she’d noticed since her return. She herself kept to her feet, as did Kane.
She watched him for a moment as he stood beside the hearth, an even darker, more ominous figure as the flickering light of the fire danced over his somber attire. The blackness was relieved only slightly by the dull sheen of his light armor, and the much brighter sheen of his dark hair. A tingling spread over her as she remembered that thick mane of hair brushing over her naked body as he taught her things she’d never dreamed of, as she remembered her fingers tangling in it as she cried out at the explosion of pleasure he gave her.
He looked past her, as if he did not know her at all.
She thought of all she wished she could say to him, ask of him, and knew she could speak none of it. Not only because of the frigidity of his manner, but because she had no time to even make a fool of herself with words she should not say and he would not want to hear. Nothing mattered more than what they must deal with now.
And here, in the familiar surroundings, in the cottage that belonged to the Hawk, Jenna felt it was time to begin. She smoothed the soft fabric of her mother’s dress. She was the Hawk now; she could wait no longer. But there was something she had to know first.
She took a deep breath to steady herself, then turned to Kane. “What did that mean, that no one would know better than you of Druas?”
He turned to look at her, saying nothing. She met his gaze levelly, even though the flat coldness she saw there chilled her. Still he said nothing, but merely looked at her with that merciless unemotional expression. She sensed this was some sort of test of her will, and she
knew she dare not look away. It took all of her nerve, but she held his gaze unflinchingly. Finally, in the instant before he spoke she thought she saw the tiniest flicker of salute in the gray eyes.
“It means,” he said, his voice neutral, “that Druas is the warlord I fought for.”
The sharp exclamation Jenna knew came from Arlen, the gasp from Evelin. The storyteller said nothing, and she turned to look at him.
“You knew this,” she said slowly, with certainty, “when you sent me to him.”
“I did.”
“You dared send Jenna to the man who was the head butcher for the very warlord who seeks to destroy us?” Evelin cried out, rising to her feet and forsaking Jenna’s proper title in her anger.
“I did.” The storyteller’s voice was calm, unruffled.
“Why?” Arlen exclaimed. “Surely you knew he would most likely kill her!”
Jenna held up her hand for silence. She got it; one of the benefits of being the Hawk that she appreciated.
“But he did not kill me,” she said, not looking at Kane but at the storyteller as she walked over to stand before him.
“No,” he agreed unnecessarily.
She studied him for a moment, the weathered, lined face and the silver hair, the dark brows and the bland expression. But most of all the eyes, those intense, changeable eyes that could reveal the wisdom of the world or conceal it.
“You sent me to him not just because he was Kane the Warrior, but precisely because he had been Druas’s right hand, didn’t you?”
The storyteller smiled, as a teacher smiles at a particularly bright pupil. “How better to learn to defeat him?”
“Clever.” The sharp comment drew all eyes in the room to Kane. He walked over to stand beside Jenna. “I presume you are her precious storyteller?”
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