Fires of Aggar (27 page)

When she finally did settle to rest, her sleep wasn’t much more comforting than the jumier jerky had been. Though the milkdeer had carved quite a nice trail up the Clan’s Plateau, Gwyn was uneasy about the fact that she had made such good time along it, especially given the evidence of others’ use. By the prints, more than the wild milkdeer and braygoats frequented the path, and Gwyn suspected Ril had led her in by way of the Clan’s own ‘back door.’ Which meant scouts might be trekking past her hidden little campsite at any moment. It understandably boded ill for sound sleeping.

The risks of surprise only increased with Ril’s absence. But it was imperative to know where Llinolae was being held, before Gwyn made that midnight sleuth into Clantown, and Ril was better equipped to track down the Dracoon’s whereabouts than Gwyn was. So, the Niachero attempted to nap in the coolness of that damp, shady hollow and tried not to worry too much about Ril’s absence nor her own vulnerability.

The morning’s dampness gradually gave way to an afternoon of heated humidity. The mares snuffled about, hopeful of discovering a missed handful of feed. Yellow crickets peered in through the hanging haymoss, then hopped back to the upper boughs, cheerfully undisturbed. Nested birds chattered angrily at the wild prippers who scuttled too near, until slowly the Great Forest eased into the sluggish peace of its mid-summer day slumber.

A sudden ‘thwack’ broke Gwyn’s doze. Her head reeled with a splitting pain and harsh voices crowded her senses. In her sleep — still safe beneath the arching canopy of the honeywood’s roots — Gwyn’s figure trembled and curled tight into a protective knot about her sword.

Boots tripped — kicked, striking fast. She folded over, falling from her knees as swift, hard leathers swept in again and again. More scouts joined the fray. Scrambling, snatching at clothes and even her braid to bind her as she still fought. She twisted, rolling, and nearly broke away! Suddenly a broad fist punched down. Laughter taunted as she crumpled, and all was lost then as images blurred with pain. Vomit and blood mixed, spewing out in choking gasps. The laughing ridicule of the Clan scouts turned cruel with the mess. Callused anger had them stripping her naked, and their flashing silver blades sawed the dirtied hair short. Injuries protested the lifting, then suddenly the icy water of the trough was nearly drowning her. She came up sputtering. The pain shrieked through her until….

Gwyn jerked awake, scrambling back on all fours.

Eyes wide she met Ril’s challenging glare. She inched further away as the sandwolf growled menacingly. She saw then, half of the sword’s crossbar was clutched in those shining jaws and the sandwolf’s body was crouched low over the blade’s length. The whites of Ril’s eyes rolled, and the beast defied Gwyn to object.

Abruptly, understanding flooded into her awareness. It made Gwyn gasp. A hand went to her head as she felt the dizziness lingering. It had been an abrupt withdrawal from Llinolae, and the vividness — the strength of that forced mingling — had been more overwhelming than ever before.

Goddess, dear Llinolae, what are you doing?

“Running,” came the immediate awareness.

The answer was so clear that Gwyn was startled again. For a moment, she almost thought the bond had somehow reforged itself. Yet there was no sense of losing her own consciousness this time, and after a moment Gwyn realized this knowledge had come with the original image. She — Llinolae — had been running away, trying to escape, and then had been caught. The blow to Llinolae’s head had stunned Gwyn’s own perceptions of the scene, but as the shock wore off the pieces were ushering themselves together as naturally as if Gwyn had been the one held captive.

Ril rumbled a little, in a tentative, questioning tone that called Gwyn out of her thoughts. She smiled at her bondmate gratefully and extended a hand in peace. The sandwolf dropped the sword and crawled across the last few feet with a plaintive whine; Gwyn had seldom tolerated anyone handling her steel weapons.

“No — no, you did well,” Gwyn murmured and folded the furry beast close into her arms. “I hold no grudge… no grudge at all.”

She took a long, deep breath, echoing Ril’s own sigh as the last of the tremors left her body. Ril nuzzled her chin in concern, and Gwyn finally admitted, “It does frighten me, Dumauz. The intensity of this touching — I haven’t felt anything of this kind since Selena and I….

“Llinolae’s Blue Sight is powerful. I understand that. Perhaps even more than M’Sormee, and I shouldn’t expect her to temper that strength as our Valley-trained Sisters do. I know I shouldn’t but, Ril, there is more. It’s in her intensity. Maybe it’s shock… I don’t know! I do know that neither Kimarie nor M’Sormee — not even Selena! — ever engulfed my consciousness with a touch so… so commanding!”

She sighed, despairing of finding words that could make any sense out of the reality of this — this experiencing. “I think I’m scared by it, Ril — scared by her. I simply have no reference for this.”

Sandy eyes looked on her with compassionate pity, and Gwyn slumped against her packmate, pressing her face into the curly warmth of Ril’s coat. Gently the sandwolf’s reassurance rose to embrace Gwyn, a subtle sense of wellness flowing along their pack bond to calm her. It brought a sad smile to Gwyn’s lips, and she rubbed her cheek against Ril’s coarse ruff. She couldn’t tell if her bondmate was merely being sympathetic to this confusion — or if Ril’s empathic sense was recognizing something Gwyn was missing.

“I don’t want to know, if you are,” Gwyn mumbled. Ril seemed to smile at her kindly, and it made Gwyn chuckle a bit. “Let me pretend there’s wisdom in ignorance. Just for a night or two more?”

Ril challenged her with a playful snap of those gleaming jaws. Then abruptly she pushed Gwyn over onto her back. The Niachero began sputtering in protest, but her words dissolved into helpless laughter as Ril’s lapping tongue found that ticklish place under Gwyn’s chin, and the coaxing assault banished the doubts to a better day.

The thick bed of decaying leaves cushioned Gwyn’s movements along the edge of the Clantown clearing. The forest behind her was dark, foreboding in its dense blackness. Ahead of her, the brush had been studiously cut back again and again by the Clans, in order to limit the encroachment of the woods and wild things. Now all that was left was hard-packed dirt, sparsely covered with scraggly weeds. But tonight, the openness was a Goddess-sent blessing to Gwyn and Ril. Tonight the lack of small bush and thorns left them an unhindered view of the village, and it would lend no noise of warning to the passing sentries when Gwyn chose to leave the sanctuary of the trees. She hoped to be neither seen nor heard.

She’d changed into a ruddy brown shirt to match her trousers and had donned not only her protective leg sheaths, but her upper arm leathers too. Her hair had been rebraided to stay tight, a head band securing the bits and pieces that usually flew about her face. She was armed not only with her sword, a steel hunting knife, and the vambraces from Jes, but with a few other shorter blades tucked into her boots and arm sheaths. Her preference was to get in and out with as little bloodshed as possible, especially on the way in. If she could create the illusion that Llinolae’s escape had been accomplished solely with the Dracoon’s skills, then the Court traitors might not assume a Marshal was involved — and the Clan pursuers might not anticipate the need to face a Marshal with sandwolves.

At least that was her hope. She knew the chances of accomplishing it were poor.

The sky above still reflected an expanse of bright, silverish light created by the early moon. Gwyn and Ril bided their time, watching the town. Darkness would come soon enough; the midnight moon faced away tonight. Ril rumbled deep in her throat with complaint, and Gwyn’s skin began to take on the dark sheen of bitter tea. The tension seemed to prolong their waiting interminably.

Gwyn found the village she watched to be made of an odd style. A single, long lane ran through the middle of the clustered buildings. There was little variety in the structures, save for differences in heights. Even though she was accustomed to the white-washed stones of Valley Bay, the plaster and wood designs used for these places felt distinctly alien. She supposed that was good. Something more familiar might have invited carelessness. Still — in such a rainy climate, she couldn’t help but wonder at the practicality of having flat-roofed structures.

Another pair of sentries wandered past. One of them cradled a fire weapon with seemingly negligent care, and Gwyn sank low into the safety of the shadows. Ril’s contempt for these Clan folk came to Gwyn through their pack bond. She put out a quick, silencing hand, warning against distraction rather than sound. Besides, this was the Clan’s home town; it would not do to underestimate the advantage it gave them. And if the idea of anyone even attempting to enter the Clantown seemed so audacious to the Clan folk that it lulled the peripheral guards into complacency, then that was something to use to their own advantage and not to scoff at.

Ril’s ears flicked flat as the moon’s light began to dim overhead. Gwyn nodded, and the sandwolf slunk off into the shadows.

In the west, the single moon slipped below a forested horizon, and the last of the silver glow whispered away. Total darkness fell swiftly, and even the forest noises behind Gwyn hushed. Only the music from the Clantown’s tavern paid no heed and continued. The yellow haze on the town lane came from lanterns which hung along the porches, although only two buildings were still lit. One was the tavern where the music played. The other lay at the south end of town — this side of the road and catty-corner to the stables where Ril was stalking. It was the southern-most building where Ril had scented Llinolae.

Unfortunately, the sandwolf had found that nearly every scout in Clantown also frequented the place.

Gwyn watched as the sentries rounded the corner beyond that building, and after several minutes she made out their figures on the street beyond. They were pausing to exchange words with their change of watch, and neither pair seemed to be in a hurry to move on. She breathed a faint sigh of relief at the assurance; they were obviously not intent on starting some generator to counter the night’s blackness. She’d been afraid that they might have a more sophisticated system of artificial lighting, when according to Brit the energy core from just one of their fire weapons could power an electrical generator for nearly a generation. Just because they didn’t have the thermal power of the Firecaps available, shouldn’t have meant they needed to rely on smoky oil lanterns.

It merely underlined how little she understood the Clan — another reminder that she shouldn’t assume anything.

She sighed and rose. It was time.

Beneath the moonless sky, she moved almost invisibly across the open clearing. A hand on her sword kept it from swinging as she walked. It also prevented the straight length of the silhouette from suggesting she didn’t carry a Clan’s curving saber. It was important that anyone catching a glimpse of her from the tavern’s rear windows should see nothing suspicious about her. With her unhurried pace and tall form, she hoped they’d mistake her for any of the intermittent scouts who seemed to be reporting in late. It could seem odd that she was choosing the route across the cleared lands, but then it was a shorter distance than the way around by the lighted street.

She reached the back corner of the building as the new pair of sentries began their rounds. Ducking between a log pile and water barrel, she disappeared neatly.

The pair walked by within arm’s length of her, then halted abruptly with an exclamation of some sort. One twisted ’round fast and trotted back to the porch on the building’s far side. The other spat a short curse but remained behind to wait.

Gwyn held her breath, a mere pebble’s pitch from the sentry. The Clan woman began to pace in a bit of a circle, and Gwyn was suddenly very, very thankful she’d thought not to wear the Marshal’s usual light toned tunic. It would have been noticed.

The man returned just as suddenly as he’d sprinted off. With a quick laugh, he held out something to show his partner and they continued on their rounds.

Gwyn sent a silent prayer to the Goddess. Cautiously, she straightened and moved around the corner to the west side of the place, giving her attention again to that three-storied box of a building.

The windows nearest her were shuttered and dark, but a closer inspection showed the slanted wood slats were meant to be permanent. They acted more as shades than closures. The back room within was as dark as the northern rooms seemed, but further along towards the porch she heard mumbled voices and saw light.

She edged closer to the sill to get a good look in, then pulled back quickly as inside someone came near. But the figure kept walking and then there was a scrape of furniture. She crept near again and saw a male pulling his chair up to the center table, his back to her now.

It was a large, front room that extended the length of the structure. About a half-dozen scouts, female and male, were scattered around the place; they seemed to be passing out hot drinks from a pot on a tiled stove. Along the furthest wall, a rack shinning of metal caught Gwyn’s eye — fire weapons. Just as a long sword was often more dangerous than a pairing knife, Gwyn knew the longer the style of a fire weapon, the more powerful; these slender pieces were frightening — easily an arm’s length each. Another unsettling thing she noted was the sheer number of fire weapons hung on each rack — and there were a lot of racks. She couldn’t decide if that meant there were scores of other scouts barracked in the building, or if this was some sort of central depot and stock pile. Fates’ Jest, it was probably both.

The heavy clump of booted feet alerted her, and suddenly a pale design of lights descended from above. Gwyn froze as stripes of white hit the dirt a few feet further out from where she stood. The hollow stomp resumed, coming from within and yet above her. She drew away slightly as a bulky fellow in trousers and a nightshirt, his hair in sleepy disarray, passed by the window. Then she retreated to get a better glimpse at the new light above.