The Minder's Bond (Farthane Stories) (3 page)

My shoulder throbbed. The broken rib-ends ground with each breath I took until I couldn't tell if the pain was keeping me from passing out or pushing me toward it.

The first trickle of power was so faint I thought I dreamt it. I tipped Raimurri's face toward the moon. Were her lips less blue?

The trickle became a flood. My vision flashed white, blinding me. The rush of raw power sucked me down stronger than the river we'd left. I could feel
Raimurri's panic, her soul fraying even as her body healed. I reached into the swirling maelstrom of power to hold fast to the center that was Raimurri.

She warmed in my arms. It was like holding fire, like laying on sun-
warmed stone. The searing heat of her seeped into my skin and spread through my shivering limbs. The warmth intensified when it reached the arrow wound, when it found my broken ribs and the host of smaller injuries.

We slept.

* * * *

I woke with a start. A fine, grey mist blocked out the sun. I could see it was day, but I had no idea how long we'd been asleep.

I cast out my senses, searching for the Shaiuun assassin. I could feel him out there, creeping like the fog that surrounded us, a dread that was nearer each time I looked.

Raimurri
still slept. The amount of power she'd drawn would have exhausted ten of her kind, so I put my blanket over her and let her sleep.

In the
Judicar stores, I found barrel bread, blocks of dried meat and fruit, and a kettle for cooking or hauling water. The water cask itself, however, stood depressingly empty. Ironic, I thought, to have nearly drowned in the stuff yesterday only to want for it today.

I shaved slivers off the meat and fruit and seated myself in the mouth of the cave to examine the
Shaiuun arrow while I chewed. Shiny black feathers jutted from one end of the shaft to form the fletching. A sinuous line of painted runes snaked around the shaft, whispering of blood and death. Several of the teeth had broken away from the stone head, leaving a ragged edge that reminded me of a gap-toothed dog.

Raimurri
stirred. She pushed herself up on her elbows. Her brow pinched in confusion, and she blinked when she saw me.

"Good morning," I said. "I've had a word with the
innkeep about the state of our accommodations. We'll give this place a miss next time, hmmm?"

She stared at me. I sighed, waiting for anger and resentment to paint themselves across her face. Her lips twitched. She bit her lower lip and covered her mouth with her hand. Then she laughed. For the first time on this mission, I found myself grinning at her.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"It's a
Judicar safehold. We're safe here, for now."

"Are we still being followed?"

"Yes, but he can't find us as long as we stay inside." I gestured to the cave with a sweep of my hand. "Judicar magic. Very old. It's like a back-door to the world, this place. If we were Judicars, the stone would part before us and we'd be to Djefre in an hour."

I trailed my fingers over the rough stone walls, daydreaming of riding the shadowy paths in the in-between of the world. I looked back to
Raimurri with a wry smile. "But since we're us, all we can do is sit on the doorstep."

"So we're trapped?"

"More or less."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Anything else I should know?"

"We've no water."

She peered into the mist outside. "So what do we do now?"

"We wait for nightfall," I said. "Then I kill him."

My right hand still held the arrow I'd been studying. I tapped it against my knee as I pondered how to tell her the next bit.

"There's something else. I'm going to need your hair. All of it."

"What?"

I held up the arrow. "He's Shaiuun. They track their prey with a charm. It only works if there's something of you in it, like fingernails or clothing you've worn. Or hair."

Her round eyes met mine, and I knew we were thinking of the same thing
—tangles of Raimurri's long, dark hair pulled from her brush each day and sent floating on the wind.

Raimurri
closed her eyes. Her chest rose and fell in a single breath. When she opened them again, she reached to my waist and drew my knife from its sheath.

It lay like a dark stain across her open palms. Furrows etched themselves between her brows. I could see a muscle in her jaw stiffen. She glanced up at me, and the look in her eyes was like rain falling into deep water. Then she bowed her head and tilted her palms toward me to offer me the knife.

The haft felt stiff and evil in my hand. I lifted the first section of hair and held it taut. It sounded like tearing cloth, like the rasp of a sickle through fine grass.

Raimurri
shuddered once, then held the blanket between us to catch the falling strands.

I worked carefully rather than quickly, hating what I did. I wanted to leave a little around her face, but every bit I left would help him track her if I failed. I cut as close to the skin as I dared. Her skin was paler under her hair, the color of almond-wood.

She carried a Mender's needle in her waist pouch, made for stitching skin, not cloth, and used for injuries beyond her skill to Mend. We spent the rest of the meager daylight tying the hair into tiny bundles which she stitched to her shawl.

It was dusk before we spoke again.

"Earlier," she said, "you did something when I channeled. What was it?"

I tilted my head. "What do you mean?"

"At home, I can barely Mend a cut finger. When I reach for power, it comes so fast I can't hold on. It's like…" She groped for words. "It's like the river. It tumbles me until I can't breathe, until I don't know who I am."

"
Ahh, that. That's what a Minder does. We hold onto you, and we don't let go. Not ever. When you work with a Minder, you can submerge yourself in the flow of power and always know there will be someone to bring you home."

She looked at me for a moment, then broke the gaze and stared at the ceiling. "This is why my father sent me to
Djefre? To train with a Minder?"

I nodded. "Part of it. There's more. Working in a team with other Menders. Learning to pace yourself, that sort of thing. It's harder for someone with your strength." She didn't look at me, and we finished the stitching in the last of the light.

"Finn?" Her voice was soft, hesitant. "What if you don't kill him? What if you don't come back?"

I wished she hadn't asked, but I'd known she would. I kept my voice low. It wasn't a taunt; I needed her to be ready, to be strong.

"Then you'll have your chance to prove you never needed me."

* * * *

We waited until full dark. Raimurri helped me tie the shawl around my head and shoulders. Her hair hung down my back. It pressed against my spine and made my shoulders twitch.

She looked the part of the rakish adventurer with my leather trousers tucked into her boots. As for me in her shawl and skirts, well, if the ruse worked, I didn't care how I looked.

With a trail of my blood through the brush, we gambled that the assassin might think me dead. His charm, keyed to Raimurri's hair, would trigger when I left the protective magic of the cave.

I wrapped one of the blankets around my shoulders. Carrying the kettle and shrouded in the black fog of night, I'd pass for
Raimurri sneaking to the river for water. I wanted to leave her the knife, but it was our only weapon.

I reminded her to take the arrow.
Marrec would want to see it. Perhaps he'd be able to wring some secret from it that I'd missed.

I crept out of the cave holding the iron kettle in my left hand. My right hand knotted itself in the blanket over my chest, concealing my knife. I made it to the bottom of the rock face, then a few steps into the open forest before his presence washed over me like the stink of a slaughterhouse. I clenched the knife tighter and followed the path toward the river.

He dropped from a tree above me. His sudden weight on my back drove me to the ground. He smelled of sweat and rancid oil. He grabbed a fistful of Raimurri's hair and tried to yank my head back for the death blow. The wig tore free in his hand.

I twisted under him. I swung the kettle and heard a hollow clang when it connected with his head. His stab at my heart went wide, his blade singing down my ribs as he rolled from the blow of the kettle. I leapt on him, grappling for my life.

This kind of killing, it isn't a pretty battle in a fireside tale with sunlight flashing off swords. It's a savage, rolling scramble of rocks, dirt and blood — your life or his.

In the end, it was his. The hilt of my dagger jutted from the side of his throat, a bloody froth on his lips as he choked on the steel. I braced my hand against his chest and jerked the hilt sideways, opening his throat like a pig. I sat on his chest, watching him bleed out until I was sure he was dead.

I crawled to the edge of the river and retched bile and sorrow into its swift, dark waters. I don't know how long I knelt there, pebbles biting into my knees. I thought back to the public house in Remidia, to the scent of herbs and flowers in the air.

The river swirled the blood off my hands, and with each shuddering breath I felt the sense of dread lift from our path. I ordered my thoughts.
Raimurri and I needed fresh clothing, hot food and passage to Djefre.

Raimurri
. I cast my senses back to the cave. She sat awake on one of the crates, waiting for my return. I'd go to her soon, but first I needed information from my fallen enemy.

I left the edge of the river and walked to the assassin's body. Tattoos marked his chest and face, swirling patterns that spoke of an eagle among the clouds. A twist of red cloth was bound around his forehead, and a small leather bag dangled from a thong around his neck.

Both of these I took, the first to clean my dagger after I pulled it from his throat, and the second to search for his charm. His waist pouch held dried meat, firestones, and a few small coins that I also took, for more pragmatic reasons.

I didn't have time or tools to burn or bury him, so I folded his hands over his chest and consigned him to his gods.

I gathered extra wood and tied it into a bundle with the dead man's head scarf. Then I returned to the river to soak the blood from my clothes and fill the kettle with clean water.

Back at the cave,
Raimurri met me with silent, tear-stained eyes. She relieved me of my burdens, and reached to trace quick, Mender fingers over the cuts and bruises that marked my skin.

I warned her away. She must have seen the darkness in my eyes, and she left me alone.

I kindled a fire and set the water to boil while Raimurri rifled the Judicar stores. I opened the small leather bag and drew out the Shaiuun charm. It was an evil thing of sticks and feathers held together with pitch and wound with strands of Raimurri's hair. I dismembered it bit by bit and fed the pieces to the fire. The innermost stick was carved with tiny markings, runes and sigils cut into the bark of the twig. They glowed in the fire as the last twig burned.

When the charm was gone, I laid out
Raimurri's blue shawl. Her long, dark locks, still stitched to the fabric, were matted with mud and blood. I lifted a section, letting the severed tresses sift through my fingers. The firelight caught on one of the gold beads, and I mourned the memory of a laughing girl in her father's inn with firelight shining in her hair.

I'd left almost nothing when I took her hair for the ruse. The uneven stubble stood up in places, giving her the look of a forest spirit. She looked younger. Exposed. Vulnerable.

The shawl looked salvageable until we could get better clothes. I'd wash it for her so she could wind it about her head where the bright blue color would distract the casual eye from her missing locks.

I knew how it felt to be stared at, to be mocked and ridiculed on account of your hair. It would be worse for
Raimurri than it was for me.

I could spare her much of that. My red hair was spectacle enough in
Djefre, but it was nothing compared to the fish-belly white of my skin underneath. When we walked into Djefre, my bald head would be the one drawing stares and snickers, not hers.

Kneeling before the fire, I grabbed a shock of my own hair and raised my knife. I felt the tearing pull, heard the rasp of the blade as it sliced. I worked methodically, throwing handful after handful into the fire.

Raimurri knelt beside me, tipping her head from side to side as she surveyed my handiwork. One corner of her mouth twitched up in a small smile. She held out an upturned palm, asking for the knife. The touch of her fingertips on my jaw turned my head this way, and that. She was quick and gentle, evening out ragged patches I'd missed while trying to cut by feel.

When she finished, she looked into my eyes. "How did it go? What you did with your hand before we left
Remidia?" She raised her right hand, the fingers uncurling as if she might place them against my chest—but she didn't reach for me. Her hand hovered there in the space between us, shyly inviting an answer.