Hm.
“Let’s get them all back to the manor,” Pen said. Which would give him a bit of time to think. “And then to the Fellowship.” Which would give more. This conundrum was going to need it. Because, having coaxed the trust of both fox and demon, betraying same, in any of the many ways it might be required by his Temple duty, was growing… unappetizing.
At Pen’s beckoning, Inglis and Nath left their vantage and approached curiously. Pen explained the new plan, and the whole party rearranged itself for the trek. Lunet took the lead, the vixen at her heels. The cubs followed with about the orderliness one might expect of any other six toddlers, which was to say, none. Inglis and Penric secured the flanks, shooing their little charges back into line, and Nath brought up the rear. For all that he smiled at them, the cubs, after a first wary glance back at him, seemed intimidated by his bearish aura. At least they didn’t fall behind.
Hostages, Pen thought unwillingly, eyeing the barging balls of fluff. It seemed he’d taken hostages. It didn’t make him feel as clever as it should have.
You’re feeling guilty about lying to a fox? Des asked, amused. Only you, Pen.
Or, perhaps, to a demon. Or both. It would depend on how events played out.
Ah. Yes. Periodically, I am reminded why I like you. A hint of smug possessiveness.
He had nothing to say to that, though he was vaguely warmed.
The floundering cubs were starting to whine their displeasure at the trek, and Pen’s lips twitched as he imagined them nagging, Aren’t we there yet, Mother? The peculiar procession scrambled out at last to more level ground, heading for the main path. Less than a mile to go to the manor.
The arrow came out of nowhere, too fast for Pen to respond, almost too fast for Des. She was barely able to flip it so that it hit the side of the fox flat-on instead of point-first. The animal yelped and spun. By the time the next arrow was in flight, Des, unasked, had speeded Pen’s perceptions to match her own. He splintered the second shaft and sent the iron point tumbling, even as he whirled just like the fox, seeking the source.
From his point of view, when Des deployed this defense, the world around him slowed. Lunet was turning, Inglis raising his hand, Nath lifting his head, all with the languor of a bead dropping through honey. The cubs, at their mother’s cry, were either crouching or scattering. Pen’s gaze sought frantically through the woods for the bowman—there, in the cover of those upended tree roots. Pen had just the presence of mind to snap the bowstring before he started running toward the assassin, so that the third shaft was not aimed at him, but flew wide as the broken ends whipped into the bowman’s face, drawing blood.
He jumped over a fallen log, feeling the strain of too much power forced through his legs too fast. Behind him, Inglis yelled, “Look after the foxes!” and pelted in his wake.
And then he was upon his target. Dizzied—he felt as if he’d left his wits blown back along his track. He grabbed the man by his leather jerkin, hoisted him to his feet, and slammed him against the nearest upright tree trunk. The bow clattered to the ground.
It was Treuch, he realized at last, as Des let the world fall back to normal speed and his lungs labored for breath—this unnatural bodily debt did have to be repaid, oh aye, and no extensions. Treuch did not cooperate with his sudden arrest; he punched his clenched hands up through Penric’s grip and broke the hold, shoving Pen back. Pen stumbled and came around again.
I could snap his tendons as easily as his bowstring, Des offered. Not quite the theologically forbidden act of murder by magic, but too close for Pen’s comfort, too irreversible. The reminder abruptly cooled Pen’s heated head just as Inglis, thankfully, arrived.
“You two!” wheezed Treuch. He reached for the hunting knife at his belt and whipped it out before him.
Pen turned the blade to rust, bursting off in a spray of orange flecks as Treuch slashed. Inglis bellowed, “Stop!” and the hilt, passing a bare inch from Pen’s belly, dropped from nerveless fingers. The forester’s mouth fell open in astonishment, and then, as his eyes rose to meet Pen’s, fear. “What—!”
The three men fell into a stiff triangle, fists clenched, chests heaving. Pen seized the teetering moment to try to shift the encounter from ill-considered actions to words. Where he, at least, would be on safer ground. Because shooting at a fox, as Thala might remark, was not normally a capital crime.
Oh, I’d see you safe regardless of your ground, Des purred. But she settled in disappointment as the chance for more chaos died away.
Pen yanked his triple-looped braids from his inner vest pocket and brandished them at the forester. “I am Learned Penric of Martensbridge, Temple sorcerer,” he declared, then drew a breath he wasn’t quite sure what next to do with.
If he’d thrust a live adder in the man’s face, Treuch couldn’t have recoiled more sharply.
“I am detaining you…” In the name of what? Legally, Pen only held higher authority over the demon in this jurisdiction, and that bestowed by Hamo. He skipped over that conundrum and went on, “in suspicion of complicity in a murder.”
Treuch pushed away, hovering between fighting and running, although Pen thought the fates of his bow and knife should have taught him better than to try the first again. Inglis growled, “Surrender.”
The man did not so much surrender as seize up, caught between the conflicting demands of terror and shamanic compulsion. “I didn’t shoot her!” he all but squealed.
Pen blinked, going still. “I didn’t say who was murdered. Or how.”
Treuch froze in a different sort of horror, gaping fish-fashion.
“Oswyl will want this,” said Inglis.
“I want this,” said Pen, his stare at Treuch intensifying. Inglis regarded Pen warily.
They were interrupted by the low growl of a fox. The vixen stalked up to them stiff-legged, the ridge of fur standing up on her spine, ears flattened backward. Her copper eyes were bent on Treuch. For all her vicious air she had not the size to be a lethal-seeming threat, as predators went, but no, it wasn’t the fox that was the true danger here.
“It seems you are accused,” said Inglis dryly. Treuch’s terror slumped in a rush sheer bewilderment.
The panic transferred to Pen. He stepped hastily in front of the fox, between her and the forester, and cried, “No, you cannot!”
The animal—no, the demon—crouched away from Des’s roiling density, the bolt of damaging chaos gathering to pitch at the man dying away again. Bastard be praised. Pen wasn’t sure if such a blast of unformed magic could have killed Treuch outright, but he was very sure of the unwanted consequences if it did.
“I don’t know yet if I can save you, but I do know I can’t if you do this!”
Did either demon or fox understand him? Even if more-than-vulpine comprehension flashed in those copper eyes, that didn’t make it human.
A bow-shot away, the frightened yips of the cubs being forcibly gathered up distracted the vixen part of this unintended creature. She turned once, turned back, halfway to frenzy from all the conflicting demands.
“We have to get these two separated,” gasped Pen to Inglis, gesturing blindly at Treuch who now seemed the least of his troubles. He raised his voice. “Nath! Get over here!”
Nath lumbered across the deadfall, his arms full of protesting fox cubs, and said, “Yes, Learned?”
“You and Inglis take Treuch ahead of us to the manor,” Pen said. “Lunet and I will bring the foxes.” And the demon, he did not say aloud. Did Treuch have the least notion of how much danger he’d just skirted?
If he’d had his way, that first knife-slash would have disemboweled you, Pen, Des noted dryly. And then nothing would have saved him.
And Pen didn’t think she meant from the fox-demon. He chose to ignore both this and the belated trembling in his belly. His sweating hand still clenched his Temple braids, he discovered, and he shoved them back into his vest pocket. It was a continuing wonder to him how much less, rather than more, freedom t
hat acquiring a responsible authority gave to one. Not at all how he’d pictured his elders, so seeming-powerful, as a child. As Nath bent to release the cubs, who ran to their distrait mother, Pen also decided it must be a more universal condition than he’d ever imagined.
“You”—Pen turned again to Treuch—“your baron has commanded your immediate attendance, and is awaiting you at the manor.” Yes, better not to mention the Grayjays quite yet. If the man did break away from his captors, he’d likely be as hard to find in his woods as a fox.
Treuch jerked, taken aback. “What?” Then, “Oh. Young Master Spectacles.”
Pen nodded. “He brought us up for the fox hunt.” He met Treuch’s surly glare. Indeed, Treuch knew what he’d really been hunting, however poorly the sundered fool understood the ramifications. Pen would be taking this up with him as soon as possible, even if he had to get in line behind Oswyl. He gestured at Inglis and Nath. “Go, quickly!”
The pair of shamans, thankfully, didn’t question or argue, but each took one of the forester’s arms and marched him off between them. Between Nath’s hulking size and both their powers, Pen fancied the arrest would hold till they could deliver Treuch to the Grayjays. Treuch glanced in fear over his shoulder at Penric, clearly unaware that this sorcerer-divine might have just saved his life. Twice. So, was that Pen’s good deed for the day, or a regret in prospect?
Pen waved at Lunet, and they both turned to the task, again, of calming the vixen and collecting her offspring. Six languages at his fingertips, and this was the hardest communication task he’d ever undertaken. They were making their way onto the beaten path when Lunet muttered something annoyed under her breath, put down her trio of cubs, whipped a handkerchief from her trouser pocket, and clapped it to her nose. Pen was startled to see it soaking with red.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded, moving the cloth off her messy lip to say, “The price of shamanic magic is blood. Did you not know?”
“Mm, yes, but I’m still not clear on the how of it.”
She shrugged. “Small magics, small price. Larger magics, larger price. But always the same coin.”
Pen thought of the array of gruesome scars on Inglis’s forearms, which was why, Pen presumed, he wore long sleeves even in hot weather, and never rolled them up unless among his most intimate friends.
Lunet stopped mopping, frowned at her handkerchief, and folded and pocketed it. She bent and chirped to coax her cubs back; they came readily to her arms, and they started off through the woods once more. She allowed them to reach up and lick her face, which seemed to amuse her vastly. Pen swallowed his urk, almost.
“There are less convenient ways to spontaneously bleed, trust me,” she tossed aside to him, grinning.
Pen wondered what. Or how many different—
Des, with an air of taking pity on innocence, apprised him: She’s talking about monthlies. I imagine that could make for some confusion, for a shamaness.
Pen kept his eyes up. He trusted his flush from the heat masked his blush. He was relieved when the nose-drip died away, and Lunet stopped using the cubs for a substitute handkerchief.
I have to learn more about this.
Of course you do, Des echoed Inglis’s words of—was it only two days ago? At least her tone was more fond.
* * *
As they made their way more quickly along the beaten path, Pen’s three cubs were fuzzy weights in his arms, warm and charming, but kept sharply nipping at him. Lunet managed to stay unperforated, which seemed backward, given their respective magics. The vixen still seemed to trust Lunet, and her demon was deeply wary of Des, so by whatever internal truce the two had, the animal’s body followed along. Pen calculated how to house them all once they arrived at the manor. Probably a stable stall, again. With the bottom door closed to contain the cubs, and the top open to give the vixen the illusion of freedom. Toss in a couple of rabbits, place a basin of water, and it would with luck hold them till it was time to decamp for Easthome. Would Oswyl arrest Treuch?
I didn’t shoot her, Treuch had cried. So who had?
Des, did you sense he was speaking the truth?
A pause. Not sure. He was distressed, and I was busy.
Well, it was plain Treuch knew something—far too much—about Magal’s death. Pen imagined Oswyl had proven ways of getting such things out of men.
Bet we could find ways break him open if Oswyl can’t, Des suggested slyly.
Pen bet they could, too, but Oswyl needed more than just knowledge—he needed a case. Father’s Order business, that. “Best wait till we’re asked,” he replied aloud, which made Lunet cast him a puzzled glance.
The path opened out into the meadow on the back side of the manor house. Everyone appeared to have gone within, or elsewhere. They circled to the stables, and Lunet sang the foxes into a suitable stall. Pen breathed relief when he was finally able to swing the lower door shut on them.
“I think you’d better stay with them till I find out where Treuch was taken,” he told her, shaking out his tooth-pricked arms. Would they count as shamanic coin? “To keep them calm. And, if necessary, protect them.” Pen stared a bit doubtfully at Lunet’s slender form, but… powerful shamaness, he reminded himself. If others underestimated her, so much the better. Or so he had found it in his own case. “And, ah—maybe protect everyone else from the vixen. Keep people away from her, certainly.”
Lunet nodded understanding, and Pen made his way around the stable block, heading for the manor house. A movement at the edge of the meadow caught his eye—oh, it was just Wegae. Continuing his diligent inspection of his property, presumably. He followed along behind his elderly gardener-caretaker, Losno, who gestured him in his wake and pointed to, yes, that was Treuch’s hut in the distant shaded verge.
They were too far away for Pen to hear what they were saying, but Losno turned back and Wegae went on in. Wait, Treuch couldn’t be back home already, could he? Surely he must have been delivered to Oswyl just a short time ago.
Someone’s in there, said Des. Not Treuch, no. Someone new. Someone… angry.
Pen thought the Grayjays had taken inventory of all the manor’s servants already. He hesitated, torn between the two curiosities of Oswyl’s interrogation of Treuch and this fresh mystery. He took one step each way.
Something’s very wrong in that hut, said Des suddenly, and Pen angled toward it, planning to intercept the gardener and ask what was going on. Losno glanced his way and shuffled faster, looking oddly frightened.
Pen. Run!
He didn’t think to ask why till he was already in motion. She didn’t volunteer his trick of uncanny speed, so maybe the emergency wasn’t lethal?
Yet, she said grimly.
Pen sped up on his own, the meadow grass slapping around his legs like thin green fingers trying to delay him.
Thumps echoed from the hut. He bounded up the porch and yanked open the door on murky dimness. Shapes moved within it. Des, light! His vision brightened and he saw a small table toppled over, Wegae lying on the plank floor, his hands flung up across his bleeding face. His spectacles spun aside, just out of his reach. A heavyset older man with a staff in his hand heaved forward, stamping down a booted foot; the glass crunched horribly, and Wegae cried out as though he himself had been struck.
“Eh?” The bearded face of the stranger jerked up at the light from the door and Pen’s awkward entry.
Was this the not-Treuch that Nath had encountered in the woods a few hours ago? It seemed they wouldn’t have to hunt him down after all. Lucky chance? Pen had barely opened his mouth to demand explanations, or say he knew-not-what, when the man lunged toward him and the staff whipped around at his head. Ah. Bastard’s luck.
Pen’s duck this time was with demonic haste, or he’d have won a fractured skull. But the miss did not impede the attack; the man shifted his thick hands and the staff’s other end followed up near-instantly. If Des had managed to burst it into splinters just before, and not just after
, it smacked into Pen’s forearm, that would have been quite helpful. As it was, he yowled and jolted back, arm throbbing and just short of broken.
Singlestick fighter. Trained and dangerous. And possibly berserk, because shattering half of his weapon didn’t even slow him down. He just reversed it, the sharp, jagged end Pen had inadvertently supplied now turned into a short spear; it jabbed savagely. Battlefield reflexes? Pen squawked and burst the whole thing into blazing sawdust in the man’s hands.
That finally got through to him, or at least his eyes widened in astonishment. It still didn’t give him pause: he kept on coming, hands widening out through the cloud of smoke and flames, seizing Pen’s neck. Which was what Pen was due, he supposed, for so rudely interrupting a murder in progress. Wegae yelped and scrambled to his feet, blindly feeling around for some sort of weapon or shield. Pen hoped he’d find something. Meanwhile, he was on his own.
Not quite, said Des. And reached out to snap the bones inside their assailant’s hands. The muffled sound, so close to Pen’s ears, was sickening. Fair payment for the spectacles?
The strangling grip weakened; a last attempt to wrench his neck fell away in what Pen hoped was excruciating pain. For someone besides himself. Choking, he fell back, trying desperately to open some distance between himself and this murderous madman. Because even a sorcerer needed a moment to plan his attack, or defense.
Not this fellow, apparently. Every movement he’d made since Pen had broken in upon him had felt mindless. Practiced? Because in the middle of a such a fight, there was hardly time to think. Maybe Pen should have trained like that. But, sunder it, a divine entrusted with a demon was obligated to think before he acted. He was sure that was in his Temple oaths somewhere, by implication at least.
“It’s Uncle Halber!” Wegae shrieked from the side.
“Figured that out!” Pen wheezed back.
“Quit fighting, you fool!” Wegae shouted. Oh—not at Pen, for he followed up with, “He’s a sorcerer!”