Wolf Justice
Page 7
Tellan worked in silence a moment, much more subtle magic this time. Rethia set a tray on the end of the bed with a number of fine curved needles, already threaded and waiting, and began washing down the girl’s legs with a stinging herbal solutiond. Tellan, his voice a little faint, opened his eyes and said, “All right. I’ve got her. She’s very weak, Kacey.”
“I know,” Kacey said. “We... we’ll do what we can.” She looked up at Reandn and asked, “Are you all right?” but didn’t hesitate before returning to work.
Reandn said, “I will be,” and shifted beneath the girl. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t even know. Tellan has her now; you don’t have to stay.”
“Sophi,” Rethia said.
“I’ll stay.” But Reandn straightened his legs, easing the girl into a more stable position. He stroked her hair; she couldn’t be more than eight years old, and it seemed to him that someone should be here just to tell her she wasn’t alone. There were a lot of things he remembered from his time under Kacey’s sweet syrup, after all. “I’ll stay with you, Sophi.”
Tellan, remote with concentration as he monitored her wakefulness, offered Reandn a pair of bent shears and said tentatively, “Maybe you can get her shirt off?”
Maybe. Reandn took the shears, and when he was done with that, Rethia handed him a cloth and warm water and he washed her off, speaking to her all the while and doing his best to ignore what Kacey was up to with thread and needle and the lingering odor of burnt flesh.
Eventually, it was over. Reandn climbed off the bed and Rethia took the brazier away; Tellan lurched over to check the other patients.
“We need to get a separate room for this kind of thing,” Kacey sighed, looking at the others. “Thank Ardrith it doesn’t happen very often.” And she went out to talk to the family members, who were by this time crowding around the window again.
Reandn pulled off his borrowed shirt, and went to hunt up his own and head out for chores — a welcome mindlessness of hauling water and sifting straw. When he was done and standing at the paddock fence — equally mindless — Kacey came out of the sickroom with a tired slump to her shoulders. She was well bundled in her characteristic layers of jackets, but she wrapped arms wrapped around herself as though chilled despite them, and despite the sun that shone strongly on her. “Must be spring,” she said, kicking at the mud under the lowest fence rail. “Looks like this might actually dry up someday.”
Reandn didn’t respond. He rested his elbows on the upper rail and turned his face to the sun, closing his eyes in its brightness.
Kacey sighed, and stood in silence for a while — and when she spoke, she surprised him. “I’m always surprised to find you so good with children.”
He frowned at her.
She frowned, too. “That... didn’t come out very well. I mean to say... that is... well, graces!”
“Just say it, Kacey,” Reandn told her. “You’re generally pretty good at that.”
He’d gotten her ire with that one. “I just meant, well, life went on after you lost Adela. It’ll go on if you lose the Wolves, too. We can use your help here, Reandn. Since Rethia brought the magic back, so many more people know we’re here, and we’re always shorthanded.”
“I’m not meant for work in a sickroom,” Reandn said sharply, trying to remember that Kacey had no idea what he’d been through the night before. Life had gone on without Adela, but it hadn’t been easy — and until now, he hadn’t realized just how hard he’d been hanging on to those infrequent visits of hers. He heard her again, her gentleness as she told him, Things change.
“I didn’t mean that, I meant — well, we may yet lose Sophi, but she’d surely be dead already without your help. There are so many reasons we’d like to have you here —” her words ran together, a sure sign that she was upset and trying to hide it. “Tellan can learn to protect you from his magic, I’m sure he can —” She cut herself off as if suddenly hearing how she sounded, and risked a glance at him, tears welling in her eyes.
Reandn looked away from them.
“It’s just,” she said, and he could hear those tears now, “it’s just I’m worried about you. This sounds so dangerous, sending you out with no authority, among magic and politics and some spoiled Highborn woman who won’t even let herself be properly protected. It’d be so much safer here —”
He took it all wrong, too full of anger at things change and his helplessness to do anything about most of it to make the effort truly to understand her. “Do you really think Saxe would ask this of me if he didn’t think I was good enough to handle it?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Kacey stammered.
No, what she meant was that she cared for him too much, that she wanted him to stay so he wouldn’t leave her — for the Wolves, or for the consequences of the risks he was about to take.
They knew each other well after two years, no matter the sporadic nature of his visits. Another time, perhaps, he would have put his arm around her shoulder — not offering her exactly what she wanted, but sorry to see her upset.
But not now. He’d had too much thrown at him, too many decisions about him in which he’d had no part, too many events he’d been powerless to affect. The only thing he knew was to fight back.
Suddenly things didn’t seem so confusing anymore. All the feelings he’d wrestled during the night now solidified into the same sort of determination that had once gotten him out of the Keep kitchen and into the Pack, the same determination that saw him through the ravages of magic.
He was a Wolf. And he was going to make sure it stayed that way.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 4
Drip. Drip. Teya covered her ears with her hands. The wizard schools had been so poorly maintained, for so many years... . Drip.
There was so much more to magic than people supposed, more than just memorizing gestures for different spell elements. Most people never felt those individual elements at all, but only the generalized hum they made when thrown together.
The students learned to isolate the elements, and then to associate gestures with each — over and over again, until invoking will and crooking a finger just so immediately drew forth a tendril of precisely defined power.
Only then, after endless hours of drills and repetition, did they start recombining the elements into spells.
Some people felt the elements as touch, or tasted them, or even saw them as indescribable colors. Teya heard them in subliminal notes, and usually had no trouble blocking out the noise of the world — drip! — to concentrate.
Teya pushed her notes away and left the austere little study desk to do stretches in the middle of her top floor dorm room, following the orders of the school’s healers. At this rate, she’d never get back out on patrol. She wondered how Reandn was doing with his substitute wizard, and her mouth quirked into a wry little smile. She could imagine well enough — she’d been there.
She wondered how long it would take the substitute to realize Reandn heard a lot more than it seemed he ought to, and always knew where everyone was. She’d had her own hard lessons on that account. But now, as she’d healed, she discovered that she wanted that position back. Reandn understood her strengths, and didn’t blame her for her weaknesses; he worked around them.
Drip.
Since her return here, she’d had several assignments on which to concentrate, but at her own request, she’d spent the bulk of her effort schooling her reaction times. She’d thought she was getting faster, that the spells were coming to mind more easily all the time... but the day before, her tutor had added another layer to his exercises; now she had to come back with the name of a spell and finger-twist out the mnemonics just as quickly. Within moments she was stuttering with both words and fingers.
Maybe she needed a break. A day or two when she didn’t think about it, but spent her time stretching and reading and exploring Solace.
Thunder rumbled at her, almost overriding the knock on her door. Kn
eading her aching shoulder, she opened it.
The woman standing there wasn’t anyone she knew. A tall and slender woman, dressed simply in a plain blue kirtle over a soft white shirt — and were those old, faded bloodstains on the sleeve? Her hair was thick and blonder than anyone’s ought to be, hanging damply below her shoulders with the crimped look of recently released braids.
Only when she met the woman’s eyes did she realized who this was. Someone she’d heard much about and never seen, for she’d always come to Solace when Reandn went to Little Wisdom. “Rethia,” she said — no, admit it, she blurted the name more than anything.
Rethia turned her eyes away, hiding them beneath thick lashes. “I found the right door, then... Teya?”
“Yes,” Teya said, stunned by the encounter and only belatedly opening the door wide. “Please, come in. These are only temporary student’s quarters, but I did do a little warming spell a while ago.”
Rethia smiled, and Teya thought it looked relieved — which didn’t relieve Teya at all. What could worry the woman who had brought back magic?
Rethia fumbled at the side of her kirtle until she found the seam pocket, and withdrew a note. “From Reandn,” she said. “Though I wrote it for him, so it might not sound just like him.”
Teya took the note, absently remembering her surprise at the discovery that Reandn didn’t read, and didn’t write beyond scrawling his name. Most Wolves came from good solid trade families at the least, and entered pack training with both their numbers and letters learned. But even without the knowledge of his scholarly shortcomings, she’d have known this hand wasn’t Reandn’s — not this precise and delicate script.
But then she read the words, and forgot about the scribing altogether. Reandn, discharged? The patrol, disbanded? Then where was Dakina? How would she ever discover the fate of her injured friends? She gaped at the letter a moment, and then gathered herself to send Rethia a sharp look. “What do you know of this?”
“All of it,” Rethia said, seeming to understand perfectly well that Teya was asking about the unspoken details behind the brief note. “But he isn’t supposed to have told you any of it. Please don’t ask anyone about it.”
“I won’t,” Teya assured her. “That is, unless I don’t get any more answers from you.”
She expected irritation, or hesitation, or even stubborn refusal. But Rethia simply stood damply in the middle of the room with the plink of water into the chamberpot behind her, and said, “I told him.”
Teya waited for something further — something that would make sense — but it didn’t come. Rethia was striking, and once you were used to her eyes and hair, perhaps even beautiful, but... she was also quite strange.
“What happened?” Teya said. “Why did they kick him out of the Wolves?”
“Arval’s nose,” Rethia told her.
“Arval’s — but he was only defending me!”
Rethia asked, “Does Danny make you angry?”
Danny?
Of course — Rethia meant Reandn. It had never occurred to Teya that anyone would dare to name him with such familiarity. And even then, she had no idea what Rethia was getting at. In the end, she simply answered the question. “Yes, sometimes he makes me angry. Or, I suppose... often.”
Rethia said, “Ignoring the oughts? Not listening to your shoulds? Stepping all over your let’s do it this ways?”
“He makes his own rules when he wants to,” Teya said, feeling the heat in her face for the implied — no, outright — disrespect in those words.
Rethia looked... Teya wasn’t sure. Elsewhere, perhaps. “A few days ago,” Rethia said, “we had a little girl come in. She was so frightened, and in so much pain... we couldn’t even begin to treat her. Danny was the one who held her, and talked to her, and calmed her enough so we could save her life. We hadn’t even thought to what he did. I guess he broke our rules, too, in a way.”
Teya waited a moment, and then frowned. Rethia had spoken as if the matter actually had something to do with this conversation. “Rethia...” she started, and then stopped short, horrified at the patronizing tone in her own voice.
Rethia’s little smile said she’d heard it too; she suddenly sounded more practical, as if some part of her had closed itself off to Teya. Quite succinctly, she said, “The Prime dismissed him for hitting Minor Arval. Ethne wanted things to settle down before you were told. But now they’ve offered him a chance to get the Remote back if he handles a special assignment. He left this morning.”
“For where?”
Rethia shrugged. “Nowhere near here.”
Teya suppressed a flash of annoyance, sensing that where Rethia had spoken of other things readily enough, she would not be swayed when it came to this one. “But nowhere near here means he won’t be able to come to you. And I won’t be around to shield him from magic. I may have a lot to learn, but I haven’t met anyone in my generation of wizards who can shield Reandn as well as I can.”
“He trusts you,” Rethia said in agreement, words that hit Teya with a little shock. “I’m worried, too. I don’t usually...” She stopped, and looked straight at Teya with a little self-deprecating smile. “Maybe you can tell. You and Reandn, you see something important... you fight for it. I see those things and I... well, I don’t. Fight, I mean. There are usually other ways. But they haven’t seen how sick magic can make Danny. You haven’t, either. So I made... a fuss.”
Teya found that hard to imagine. Soft-spoken. Reserved. Even withdrawn. Those were the words she’d have used to describe this woman. “What happened?”
Rethia reached beneath the gently scooped neckline of the kirtle and pulled out a small, asymmetrical disk. An amulet. “Danny has one just like mine. Farren made them for us yesterday. If Danny’s in trouble, all he has to do is break it; it’ll resonate here. I’ll go out on the Wizard’s Road to help him.”
“Great swamp muck, woman, that’s no guarantee at all! What if you can’t find him in time?” Teya knew they’d send Rethia not straight to Reandn, but only to the nearest location familiar to the sending wizard. “Besides, if he’s in trouble with magic, chances are too damned good that there’s a whole lot else going on. You’re either going to walk straight into it, or you won’t be able to get close to him!”
“You’re right,” Rethia said, looking more sad than upset by Teya’s ire. “But it’s Danny’s choice to go. This is just all I can do to make sure the magic doesn’t kill him while he’s at it.”
For a long moment, Teya only stared at her. Then she gathered herself and offered Rethia a Wolf’s salute. “Goddess grace, Rethia. And my gratitude for telling me what you could.”
“You’re welcome,” Rethia murmured. “I wish... it were more.” And she ducked her head to give Teya one more look from beneath her bangs and lashes before she departed, leaving Teya with the notion that there were unspoken words ringing loudly around her.
Drip.
Teya snarled an oath at the chamberpot and snatched up her cloak. Bloody damned if she wasn’t going on that walk anyway.
~~~~~
The amulet felt strange and cool against Reandn’s skin, as though it were magic that hadn’t quite happened yet but wasn’t far away. He left the thing hanging outside his shirt. Plenty of people wore amulets these days, even if most of them were useless.
His clothes felt as unfamiliar as the amulet. They’d seen plenty of use by the time Saxe handed them over, but they were sturdy and not disreputable, which was as Reandn had asked. The tunic was long, modestly embellished with embroidery, and belted over baggy pants. The boots were his own, as were the half chaps — plain ones, and battered, but perfectly serviceable.
And he still had Sky.
The weather was finally fairing up for spring, still raining plenty but not quite as cold. Add the luxury of inns and their stables, and Reandn didn’t have much to complain about as he traveled to Norposten, the small town just north of King’s Keep. Sky didn’t even contrive to throw a shoe.
Definitely not.
When he returned, he’d be a Wolf again. Everything else would pass.
In Norposten, Reandn found the livery that held his remounts — and while he was looking them over, one of the Hounds found him. The man was obvious enough in the browns of his boots and trousers, topped by the rank-laced vest over a deep green shirt no doubt chosen to offset his violently red hair. “You’re either Dan,” the man said, coming to rest beside Reandn at the livery corral, “or you’re a twin to the description I was given.”
Dan. Just a tad too familiar for Reandn, who drew such lines deeply around him. But even the Hounds who had never met him had likely heard his name as Wolf First of the Remote Patrol. So he merely nodded at the man. “That would be me.”
“Ethne said you’ve worked with the Keep forces before.”
“I’ve done some training for your Wolf mounts,” he said, which was perfectly true.
“I’m Damen,” the man said. “My partner — that’s Nican — is around here somewhere. And Elstan is at the inn.”
“The wizard?” Reandn guessed.
Damen shrugged. Relaxed and confident, he struck Reandn as a man comfortable with himself. “The wizard, yes. Officially he’s our guide — I’m sure someone told you that.” His eyes slid to the horses, and then back to Reandn, quietly gauging Reandn’s response to the conversation. “As it happens, I’m the one with the map. Of course, this whole thing would have been a lot simpler if Resiore pride had let the Keep send a Wolf patrol to escort them. Wolves are better at slinking around the countryside.”