“The only name I know,” she corrected pointedly, “storyteller.”
He fell back against her knees, and as moonlight shifted over his face she saw that what she had thought merely the effect of the stark light were indeed dark shadows circling his eyes. He looked beyond tired; he looked exhausted unto collapse. Which is apparently what he’d done.
He lifted one hand, grabbed a lock of his own hair, and pulled it before his eyes.
“Drat,” he muttered.
Jenna remembered that day on the mountain with Tal, when the shadowy light had given an oddly silver cast to all of his hair, not just the streaks of gray at his temples, and had made his eyes look the same misty green as the storyteller’s when he was deep in concentration, that day when the resemblance to the storyteller had been so pronounced. And he had said it was merely the light.
And now she knew it was much more. He had been grayer, that day. Because he hadn’t quite made the change back from the storyteller’s silver to his own mixed locks.
“Forget something?” she asked mildly.
Tal glared at the dark strand of hair. “I was . . . busy.”
“Too busy to remember who you were pretending to be?”
He eyed her warily. “You’re going to make me pay heartily for my little deception, aren’t you?”
“I think,” she said, “ ’tis Kane who will exact a hefty price.”
Tal’s mouth twisted wryly. Then, abruptly, all trace of any emotion except fear vanished from his face. Before she could stop him he sat up, his eyes wide, his breathing labored.
“Kane,” he said, and the sound of his voice struck terror into Jenna’s heart.
“What is it?”
Tal tried to stand, but could not. Jenna scrambled up barely in time to catch him as he fell to his knees.
“Damn,” he swore, shaking his head. “That vision, holding it for so long, it was too much. I can’t even move.”
“What about Kane?” she urged, grabbing Tal’s shoulders. She was worried about the wizard, and the awful fatigue in his face, but she loved Kane. And she did not even hesitate to admit it now, although she’d been avoiding the knowledge for a long time.
“You have to find him,” Tal gasped out. “He’s . . . hurt. Bleeding.” He closed his eyes, his breath coming in gulps. “I can’t . . . the battle . . . took all I had . . . I . . . had to leave the head of the snake . . . to you.”
Jenna moaned, barely managing not to shake him. She knew he was trying; she could feel it in the shudders that swept through him beneath her fingers.
“Where is he, Tal?”
“I can’t . . .” His brows lowered as he closed his eyes tighter, straining. “Someplace . . . dark. Enclosed. Stone.”
“Inside? He’s still inside the stronghold?”
Tal shuddered violently. “Heaven . . . help him, he’s dying and I can’t . . . reach him. I can’t help him.”
“No!” Spurred by the despair in the wizard’s voice Jenna shook him, hating herself for it; he looked like death himself, but only he could help her save Kane. “Where, Tal? Where is he?”
She felt yet another shudder ripple through him. And then he lifted his head. She saw in his eyes a fierce golden glow, like that of a fire in the last moments before burning out.
“I’m sorry, Tal,” she whispered. “I know you’re tired, but I cannot spare you this. Kane’s life—”
“Maud,” he said.
She blinked, and then drew back as the raven cried an answer. Tal looked at the bird, who stared back at him. He gave a low, odd-sounding whistle. The bird cried out again, sounding for all the world like a protest. Tal whistled again, sharper this time. This time the bird took flight, beginning to circle slowly overhead.
Tal looked back at Jenna. The glow was extinguished in his eyes, and Jenna wondered just what she had cost him.
“She will . . . help you search. Hurry,” he said. “There is . . . little time.”
“Tal—”
“Go. And be . . . careful. I cannot protect you.”
He said it as an order, no less commanding for being whispered as if with the last of his strength, and she obeyed; something about this man made it impossible to do otherwise.
The moment she got to her feet, Maud voiced a cry and flew toward the stronghold. She left the wizard there, wondering if she was leaving him to die, alone. But he had given her no choice, if indeed there had ever been one.
In the tradition of a people who had once done the same, she followed a bird’s flight. And she supposed she could be forgiven if, in the eerie light of the moon, this bird looked more hawk than raven.
Chapter 24
MAUD LED HER TO the south wall, where she had exited under cover of darkness and the distraction of the battle. There the bird circled tightly, like a hawk who had spotted her prey. It occurred to Jenna then that Kane would no doubt go to guard the armory there, to be sure that Druas’s men did not raid it in an effort to wipe out the small clan that had defeated them as they departed.
She saw no one as she went and wondered if indeed Druas’s men had all fled before Kane’s ominous promise of retribution if they did not. She would not be surprised; few would dare gainsay a legend. Especially Kane, as he stood towering above them all, handing down his ultimatum with all the authority of a legend come to life.
But she knew all too well that the legend was a man, a man who could bleed and die as any other man. With Tal’s words haunting her, she ran through the darkened corridors.
She found him, on the floor beside the barred iron door of the armory. She ran to him, dreading what she would find. She dropped to her knees, terrified she would touch him and find him cold and lifeless beneath her fingers.
He was pale, and cold, but not unto death; she found a faint, fluttering beat at his throat. She bit back a cry of relief. Hastily she took out the remaining candle and despite her shaking hands managed to light it. The warm glow did little to brighten the grim sight before her; Kane looked worse than Tal had, his eyes deeply shadowed, his skin with a distinct gray tinge, his breathing barely perceptible.
She began to search him for signs of a wound. She found cuts, far too many of them, but nothing that seemed capable of having brought him down. It was not until she unfastened the heavy black armor that she found it. The left side of the tunic he wore beneath the armor was saturated with blood, and his leggings all the way down his left leg to his knee. It flashed through her mind, that blow he had taken to the ribs from his father’s sword. She had thought, when he had surged back into the fight, that the armor had taken the blow, that it had been a feint, that going to his knees; it did not seem possible that he could have gone on with a wound as severe as this one.
But that’s what legends do, isn’t it? she thought bitterly to herself as she peeled away the cloth from the ugly wound. It was long and deep, and she knew it was beyond her limited medicinal skills.
“Jen . . . Jenna?”
His voice was faint, wondering, and her gaze snapped up to his face.
“Kane,” she whispered urgently, as if her worry could somehow give him strength. When she reached out to touch his cheek, his brows rose slightly, as if he were startled at the contact.
“You are . . . all right?”
“I’m fine. Not even a scratch.”
He looked puzzled. “Then I . . . I’m alive?”
She realized he hadn’t been certain until he’d felt her hand on his face. “And you’re going to stay in that condition,” she said fiercely as she began to fold the scarf that had held the candles into a pad.
“I thought . . . it would be over . . . by now.”
He looked a little bemused, and she knew he didn’t mean the battle. “Over?”
“The . . . prophecy. I didn’t realize .
. . would take so long.”
Every ounce of spirit Jenna still held within her rebelled. “You are not going to die! I don’t care what Tal said.”
That she’d seen undeniable proof of Tal’s powers tonight did nothing to lessen her ferocity. There had to be an answer, Tal would not have been so anxious to find Kane if he were only to die anyway. She could not believe that.
“I don’t . . . mind,” he said softly. “As long as you . . . are all right.”
“Stop it—”
‘‘. . . meant to be, Jenna. You know . . . that.” He let out a labored breath. “I am . . . at peace. At last.” He closed his eyes.
“No!”
The dark lashes lifted, and Jenna winced at the weariness in his eyes. “Tal . . . was right,” he murmured. “Let it be.”
“Don’t speak like that,” she ordered. It made her shake, his composed acceptance of the death he thought certain. He had expected this, she realized. He had expected to die, just as the prophecy had predicted. He had believed it, every step of the way, and he had come anyway. He had not just risked his life for her and her clan, he had given it away, knowing he was doing so, from the moment he left his mountain.
Fighting her trembling, she pressed the folded scarf against his side; the bleeding was only a slow seeping now, but Jenna feared that was only because there was so little left. A sound of pain escaped him before he could stop it, and she apologized for hurting him. He gave the barest shake of his head.
“Arlen, and the others?”
“All are well,” she said, watching the pad slowly turn red with frightened eyes.
“Druas’s men?”
“In retreat, running from Kane the Warrior like frightened children.”
“It is done, then,” he said, and his eyes closed.
Fearing he meant more than the fight, Jenna spoke sharply. “Oh no, it is not. We have much to talk about, Kane. And I will never forgive you if you deny me that.”
She thought, just for an instant, he smiled. But then his head lolled to one side, and her heart leapt to her throat. Only when she had reassured herself that his own still beat did she leave him and go for help.
JENNA SHIFTED HER position to ease the ache in her back, but she did not move. She had not left Kane’s side since they had brought him here, to her cottage in Hawk Glade, where he lay in her bed, racked with fever and barely breathing.
For three days now she had kept vigil beside him, taking heart at Evelin’s promise that every day he lived brought more hope, and losing it every time she fancied a change for the worse in his already pale face, every time she dozed and awoke with a start, and it took a moment for her to be sure he still lived.
Arlen had reported the stronghold deserted now, Druas’s body lying unclaimed before the breached wall. Coldly she had ordered it buried. “I don’t want it poisoning the animals,” she said, never taking her eyes off the man that brutal, amoral savage had somehow fathered.
When Arlen came back to report it done, she had sent him to search for Tal; a fruitless effort, she was certain, and she’d been unsurprised when the hunt yielded no results.
The others came one at a time, to pay tribute to the man who had saved them, and to the leader who was clinging to the hope that they would not have to mourn him.
On this fourth night, Kane lay so quietly Jenna was afraid to look away from him. Before he had seemed to fight the fever, sometimes thrashing so much Evelin feared he would bleed again. But now he just lay there as it grew worse, as if too weak to even fight, until even Evelin looked grim as her herbs and medicines failed one after the other.
When he suddenly spoke, hope seized her. But she soon realized it was the ravings of fever, broken sentences that either made no sense—or too much. He spoke of battles fought, of blood and carnage seen, until Jenna felt her stomach roil. He spoke of the dark evil shadow that dogged his life, the father he had turned his back on in sickened loathing.
And in the end, he spoke of the woman who had come to him on the mountain. The woman who had made him wish he was not already damned. Who had made him wish he knew how to love. And then he said her name, in a tone unlike any she’d ever heard from him, a loving, sorrowful tone that brought tears to her eyes she’d thought long cried out.
Please, she pled. Please, he’s been through so much. He has done cruel, hard things, but surely he has earned a chance at redemption? He walked away, he left the brutality behind, and he has spent years living quietly in peace, hurting no one.
She did not know who she was begging. She did not care, and directed her pleas to all the gods her people had once worshipped, and a few she had only vaguely heard of. Or one who was above them all, if there was such a thing.
It was not his fault, what he was, she moaned inwardly. His father made him that way. He has tried so hard, he has changed so much, don’t let it all be for naught.
Kane grew still again, and his breathing even shallower. She could almost feel him slipping away, and when she reached out to grasp his hands they were so cold she cried out her fear.
“No, Kane, hold on!” Tears began to streak down her cheeks, and she turned her eyes heavenward as she choked back her sobs. “Please! I do not ask for myself, although I love him. If the only way he can live is to go back to his mountain, I will take him there. I will leave him there if I must, live without him if I must, but please, he must not die.”
She heard an awful, rattling sound from Kane’s throat. Terror gripped her. She tightened her grasp of his hands, knowing she was losing him.
“Damn you, Tal, this is your doing, he’d fight if he wasn’t so convinced you were right.”
She regretted the words the moment she’d said them. Tal had done much to save her people, and at great cost to himself, nearly his own life. It was not his fault that Kane had decided to ignore his warning. For her. It was not his fault if his powers, whatever they were, could not save him.
She moaned, aloud this time, unable to stop it. “Why can you not save him, Tal? If you can make such a promise to me, that my blood will never die, why not him? Why not the man you call your only friend?”
Brokenly she begged the man she was not sure she would ever see again.
“I wish you would take your promise back! I care not if my line ends with me, but Kane . . . Take your promise back, and give it to him. Give it to Kane.”
Her tears overcame her, and she lowered her head to rest on her hands, still wrapped tightly around Kane’s.
She felt the gentle touch on her shoulder, and an odd sort of strength flowed through her. Only once before had she felt such a thing, the day she had become the Hawk. When the storyteller had sent her that look of support so strong it was almost tangible. She jerked upright.
Tal was sitting cross-legged beside her. He looked almost recovered, although shadows still darkened his eyes, eyes that were that misty forest green tonight. His hair was caught somewhere between his own dark locks and the storyteller’s silver, giving him the look of both. And he moved as they both did, in that graceful, tightly knit way that seemed so natural to Tal and so amazing in the storyteller. But now that she knew, she wondered that she had not realized they were, not related, but the same man.
“You sensed it, Jenna, all along.”
“And you,” she snapped, “can quit reading my thoughts and do something to help him!”
His mouth quirked. “You are doing that, Jenna. Just do not let go of him.”
Kane was breathing quietly again, but still far too shallowly. But he was breathing. She looked at Tal.
“Who are you?”
“You know my name. You even pronounce it tolerably well.”
“I am in no mood for your evasions, wizard. You helped my people, and for that I am grateful. I am even grateful to see you alive. But if he dies—”
“Jenna—”
“Why did you not help him?”
Tal sighed. “I could not do both. I had not the strength. So I chose what I thought Kane would have wanted.” He gave her a sideways look. “There are limits to what I can do, you know.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t even know who—or what—you are, you hide it so in vague words and hints.”
“Wizard will do,” he said with a shrug.
“Not storyteller?” she asked, her voice biting in spite of her efforts to control it; she was more than grateful to Tal for his help, but terrified that Kane was dying, and that put an edge in her voice she could not stop.
“ ’Twas necessary, Jenna. Your people were at war. They would naturally be suspicious of any stranger.”
“Except a doddering old man who was no threat?”
He nodded. She eyed his dark hair, again seeing how it had taken on more of the old man’s silver.
“You need to practice your disguises,” she said.
His mouth twisted wryly. “It’s this place, I swear it. The magic here plays havoc with anything I try to do. All the time I was here, I could do only the simplest of things. It took all my concentration simply to keep up the guise of the old man. Maud won’t even fly into this place.”
“I wondered where she was.” Jenna looked thoughtful for a moment, almost thankful for the distraction, although a large part of her attention was always fixed on Kane, watchful for any sign of a change. “When you sent her after me, she stopped at the edge of the forest.”
Tal nodded. “She is wary of spellbound places.”
“Yet she stays with you?”
“That’s different. She is under the same spell as I.”
Jenna blinked. “What?”
Tal sighed. “It is a long, unpleasant story, and one I’m sure you do not wish to hear right now. Suffice it to say I once long ago made someone very angry, and Maud and I have been paying for it since.”
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