Bloodsongs (28 page)

“Yes, I did that,” she confessed, answering his unvoiced question. “I commanded the lightning. All the storms of late have been my doing, though I didn't realize it until tonight. They were reflections of my moods, unconsciously conjured by a power I didn't know I had.”

“You're a sorceress, then,” he accused, “just like your son.”

“I'm a witch,” she corrected, “and there's quite a difference, as Kel will learn. I'm nothing like him.”

“Witch, sorcerer, wizard,” he spat. “What's the difference?”

She regarded him coldly, wondering how she could have befriended such a stupid man. “My power is my own,” she snapped. “It comes from within me; it's part of what I am, as natural to me as my arms and legs. I don't have to leech it from something else. That's what a sorcerer does. He finds an object—a talisman or an amulet—or he finds a word or symbol that contains magic. Then he channels that power for his own purposes. There are wizards, too. They're served by demons or granted power directly from the gods—“

“You're a witch,” Telric broke in rudely. “Is that how you managed to kill my brothers?”

An icy anger overwhelmed her. She closed the distance between them in two quick strides and dealt the Rholarothan a stinging slap. “You heartless bastard! Your brothers were pigs who tried to gut a harmless old man. I stopped them with steel. Do you understand? I didn't have any witchcraft then, nothing but a blade and my skill, and that got me by for more than twenty years. Don't try to flatter your brothers—I didn't need magic to butcher those pork-faces.”

Telric glared. Then, slowly, his anger began to ebb. He looked down at his hands and rubbed them together. “Were you really coming to avenge me?” he said, subdued. “Against your own son?”

She relented a bit and nodded. How could she explain to him the atrocities Kel had committed? “You and too many others,” she answered. “I haven't told you; there hasn't been time. But Kel murdered his father.” It was her turn to look at her hands, but then she raised her head and their gazes locked. “For that act alone I would hunt him down even if I had to follow him through all the nine hells. Add to that crime his part in Kirigi's death, and you begin to see what a monster I've spawned.”

Telric regarded her strangely. “Can you kill your own son?”

She swallowed hard. It was a blunt question, and her answer was equally blunt. “Yes.”

His shoulders sagged. He came to her and laid a hand consolately on her arm. “Your gods have dealt you evil cards, woman. I guess you have no choice but to play them, and I'll be with you until the final draw.”

He put on a weak smile. More than anything he could have said, that reassured her. She didn't want Telric to fear her witchcraft. He had said he loved her, and in this moment when she had decided on a fateful course, that suddenly meant a lot to her.

She caught both his hands and squeezed them. She would never love the man as he wanted her to love him, but she could feel a swiftly growing bond. “If our friendship had been a long one,” she said gently, “someday you would have made that charge. It's best to have gotten it out of the way.” She gave his hands an extra squeeze, released him, and bent to pick up the saddle she had set aside. She straightened with her burden. “I'm sorry about your brothers, Telric, but they gave me no choice.”

“You were right,” he said, taking the saddle from her. “My brothers
were
pigs. I spoke in anger. Will you forgive me?”

She pursed her lips and nodded.

They stood quietly and the world seemed to pass around them in the short space of a heartbeat. Then Telric turned and went to Ashur. “Careful of his back,” Frost warned as he adjusted a small quilted pad on the unicorn and lifted the saddle into place. She moved to his side and stroked Ashur's nose, and the beast stood patiently still while the cinch was strapped tight.

Telric went back for the sack of supplies. “Do you know,” he said, facing her over the saddle, jerking a thumb back at the ruined tower, “when you did that, you glowed all over with a weird light.” He paused, but his gaze never left hers. “Like an angel,” he added.

“A dark angel,” she mused aloud, thinking of all the twisted meanings of that phrase. “I was born in the year of the Spider, in the month and the day of the Spider as the Esgarian calendar is reckoned,” she told him. “That tiny creature is sacred to Gath, the god my people call chaos-bringer. Well, my life has been full of chaos.” She glanced away toward the ruins, and the blackened, broken stones seemed to mock her. “My peaceful years with Kimon were no more than a brief intermission.” She bit her lip sadly. “And now the tragedy resumes.”

She mounted Ashur carefully, mindful of his injuries, wishing she had power to heal. But it was easier to destroy with magic than to mend or create. She could bring a tower down upon its foundations with far less effort than it would take to repair the unicorn's flesh. It troubled her, and she considered bitterly that perhaps it was the natural impulse in man to spoil and destroy and that the act of creation, any kind of creation, might be as unnatural as magic itself.

She took the supply sack from Telric and lashed it to the saddle. Then she extended her hand to pull him up behind. He hesitated, eyeing the unicorn's wounds, but finally he swung a leg up, balanced himself, and locked his arms about her waist.

She patted Ashur along the withers and silently apologized for making him carry both their weights. There was no choice, however. Even if they could find another horse for Telric, it wouldn't be able to keep up. She had to ride hard for Kyr. She apologized for that, too.

The clouds broke as they rode. The sun shone down upon them, and the late afternoon sky turned a cheerier blue. It did not last long, though, before the purple hand of night began to stretch over the land.

In the northern distance loomed the peaks of the
Shai-Zastari.
They had made good time, yet she knew they had to make better. The ground turned rocky as the first bright stars appeared in the heavens. She brought Ashur to a stop and called for a brief rest.

The unicorn's wounds were crusty and oozing. She winced to see them and uncinched the saddle to free him of its weight. She pulled it off. Then, taking the waterskin from the supply sack, she set about cleansing the worst of the injuries.

“I'll only use my share,” she told Telric when she noticed him watching. “You won't go thirsty.”

“I'm not worried,” he answered gently. “Use it all if you need it.” Then he quipped, “Your storms have made the ground so wet we could suck the stones.”

She used it sparingly, anyway. When she was done she slung the saddle over her shoulder and took the reins in one hand. “We'll walk awhile,” she said.

But Telric blocked her path. “Not until you eat something.” He held the sack out to her and pointed to the saddle. “And not unless that is on my shoulder.”

She sighed, too weary to argue, and dropped the saddle on the ground. She rolled up the quilted pad and sat on it while her companion rummaged in the supplies, finally handing her a chunk of pale cheese and a piece of bread.

“Too much,” she said, breaking the cheese and returning half of it to him. “A full stomach would slow me down; let's just settle for easing the rumbles.”

She wolfed her portion, then got to her feet. Impatiently, she waited for Telric to finish. He ate at a deliberately casual pace, eyeing her all the while, smiling between every bite.

She knew he did it only to prolong her rest. But she had no time to waste. There was yet a long way to go. Feigning a reluctant submission, she let her shoulders droop, drew a breath, and sank down beside him. When next he lifted the cheese to his lips, she leaned quickly over and slapped the back of his hand, shoving the entire morsel into his mouth.

Telric's eyes widened in surprise, and his cheeks puffed out. His jaws worked frantically. He swallowed hard twice. Then, wiping away the crumbs that had stuck to his stubbly chin, he licked his lips and rubbed his throat.

Frost rose and took the reins once more and started for the
Shai-Zastari.
They were only shadows in the deepening darkness, but she knew the direction. Behind her, she heard Telric's scramblings as he hastily retied the supply sack, hefted the saddle, and hurried after her. She grinned secretly to herself. The expression on his face when she'd shoved in the cheese . . . !

They traveled through the night. The morning sun found them on the far side of the hills. Telric's head bobbed on her shoulder, and his arms clung loosely around her waist. She ached all over from too much time in the saddle, but she was grateful for their progress.

Ashur's wounds had scabbed over, and the bleeding had stopped. He had carried them without rest through the hills, picking his own way when there was no path to follow. As a result, the worst terrain was behind them. Only the flatland steppes lay ahead. If she rode a straight course to Kyr, she could bypass Dakariar and the ruins of Soushane. She had no desire to see those places ever again.

“Wake up, sleepy.” She nudged Telric in the ribs with her elbow. “You want to fall off?”

He jerked upright as if awakened by his direst foe. “Whaaaa? . . .”

His arms tightened about her reflexively as the unicorn bolted forward. His head snapped back, and his chin came down hard again on her spine. He muttered a low, grumbling curse in her ear. She only smiled and tickled Ashur's flanks with her heels, urging him faster.

“You'll run him into the ground at this pace, woman!” Telric called over the rush of the wind when they had gone some distance. He spit the strands of her hair out of his mouth and pressed his cheek harder against her shoulder.

She realized the Rholarothan didn't know what Ashur was, and how could he? Like most men, Telric thought he rode a common horse. She had power to show him, though, and she used the smallest effort to widen his perceptions.

Telric let out a howl and stiffened against her. His arms nearly squeezed the breath from her, and his heels rose to lock over her knees. His cry rang in her ears, and she laughed wantonly.

She leaned forward in the saddle until the unicorn's thick mane lashed her face, until she could feel the glittering tongues of cold flame that gushed from his eyes. That great black horn rose and fell, lunging with the motion of the gallop, ashimmer with the light of the sun.

The heat of the day kissed her neck, and the warmth of Telric's body wrapped around her like a sweaty new skin. Between her thighs, Ashur's smoothly pounding muscles built another kind of heat. She tingled all over, and her senses filled with a vibrancy.

Convulsive laughter rushed from her, and Telric's howling echoed on the wind.

* * *

That day passed and the next.

At twilight of the third day, the walls of Kyr made a shadowy stain on the far horizon. Frost stood in the stirrups to gaze at it. Telric slid to the ground, but the feeling had gone out of his legs, and he stumbled awkwardly, falling, too weary even to curse. He sat up slowly and began to massage sensation back into his limbs.

She paid him no attention. It had been at dusk when Kel had worked his evil at Soushane and dusk again at Dakariar.
Three days
, he had boasted in his tower.
In three days he would claim the Third Aspect and his spell gift to the sorceress, Oroladian, would be complete.

“The Book of Shakari,” she mumbled aloud.

Telric looked up from the ground and waited for her to say more. When she didn't he shrugged and returned to rubbing his legs.

Even now, as the sun sank behind the distant trees and the evening gloom gathered in the east, she imagined her son reaching out with a hand of fire to claim his bloody prize. The Book of Shakari was said to contain all the secret knowledge of that ancient god. It was a book of enchantments and divine philosophies that man could understand but very little. Why, she wondered, did Kel require such a book?

To give life to the dead, her son had told her. But whom did he intend to resurrect? Not Kimon, surely, and not Kirigi. Who? Perhaps it was someone Oroladian wished revived.

So many questions and so few answers.

So little time
, her every instinct screamed.

Night in its hunger had swallowed half the sky. If Kel had not already gained the book, he would have it soon. She felt for the map inside her tunic. It was warm against her flesh, damp with her perspiration. Where, she wondered, was Kel at that very moment?

“What if he's not there?”

Frost blinked, then realized Telric hadn't meant her son. She eased out of the saddle and stood over him. “Riothamus will be there. Kyr is the only major city in these parts, and by now news of Dakariar will have reached him. He'll be too angry to leave this area if he thinks there's a chance of capturing Kel.”

“But we haven't seen any patrols,” he reminded her.

“Dakariar is to the southeast. Soushane is nearly in a line between that town and Kyr. Riothamus's men will be searching in that direction.”

“So you think he'll still be here?”

She nodded. “He's a king. I very much doubt if fieldwork suits his tastes. Kyr has few luxuries, but its entertainments are vast and sparkling compared to a hard day in the saddle or a night spent on the ground.”

He rubbed his backside and grimaced. “Perhaps he's a wiser man than you give him credit for, then.” He rose stiffly to his feet and went to Ashur's side. As he had before during their brief rests, he passed his hands near those flickering eye-flames, amazed that they did not burn. He scratched the unicorn's nose and smoothed the tangled mane. It amused her how Ashur nickered softly and allowed the attentions.

Telric took the waterskin from the sack. It was nearly empty, but he sipped from it, then poured a dollop into his cupped hand. The unicorn made short work of it. The Rholarothan didn't even flinch as that mighty horn moved so close to his body. He poured a second, more generous quantity and held it for the creature to drink.