She nodded, or he thought he saw her nodding; it was hard to see much through the flames. “Living or dead, a man can burn at my hands,” she said a little grimly.
He dropped his sword point again, and she let the fire die away. “Then I don’t understand why you are so bent on acquiring poor skills like swordsmanship,” he said bluntly.
She held the hilt of her wooden blade in one hand, the tip in the other. “I want to learn every skill,” she said. “Anything that might defend me. Perhaps my enemy will be a mystic, one who can douse my fires as soon as I light them. One whose magic is so much stronger than mine that I will not be able to rely on sorcery. Then I want to be able to run him through the heart with a dagger.” She smiled, to make the words sound less vicious. But he had the sense she was entirely serious. “I want to arm myself with every weapon I can.”
Kirra had drifted over; the others, he saw from the corner of his eye, had also drawn nearer. “There cannot be many mystics with the kind of power you have,” Kirra said.
Senneth looked at her. “It would only take one.”
“And he would have to be your enemy,” Tayse added.
Now she looked at him. “And if he is?”
“You see enemies everywhere,” Justin said.
Her eyes went to him. “And a King’s Rider does not?” she said softly. “Why else are you the best-trained fighters on the continent? I am the King’s Mystic. I must be the best.”
Tayse lifted his sword to salute her. He could feel the tip against his forehead, still hot but cooling. “You are well on your way to that distinction,” he said.
They broke for lunch that Kirra, having nothing else to do, had made for them. Even with all the exercise to distract them, Tayse could tell the group was getting restless. Cammon and Donnal wrestled a bit—here was a skill Donnal was better at than all the others—while the women drew aside and giggled about something.
“We don’t have a basin, though,” Kirra was saying. “And I don’t want to use our camp bucket—”
“I thought I saw an old pitcher over there behind the—the altar, I guess it is,” Senneth said, and they went off to investigate.
Tayse glanced at Donnal, eyebrows raised in a question. “Bathing,” Donnal said. “They’ve decided to melt snow and try to get clean.”
Justin grinned. He was standing by his pack of belongings, sorting through the wooden swords to see if any of them had been nicked or splintered beyond use. “Naked women in a camp,” he drawled. “It’s a sight worth getting snowed in for.”
So quickly Tayse barely saw him move, Donnal leapt across the room and gave Justin a ferocious shove. “You touch her, you even look at her, and I will kill you,” the dark man said.
Justin’s dagger was out, half an inch from Donnal’s throat. Donnal stood unmoving, unafraid, staring him down. Behind him, Tayse could hear Kirra’s exclamation, Senneth’s soft footfalls. The raelynx yowled suddenly into the cold silence.
“Go ahead and try it,” Justin said, “if you think you can.”
Donnal’s face flickered from human to bear and back again. “If I want you dead,” Donnal said very softly, “you will be dead.”
It was that long before Tayse could gather his wits and push himself between them, knocking Justin to one side, Donnal to the other. He didn’t see Donnal shift, but he felt the bare whisper of claws along his own arm, an involuntary reaction or a hint of warning, he could not be sure. Then Senneth was there, her arm around Donnal’s neck, dragging him backward with no pretense of gentleness. Tayse turned his attention to Justin, who was still smoldering, and pushed the younger man backward another step with a hard arm to the chest.
“I didn’t start that,” Justin said, furious, his arms up as if he would fight Tayse himself, or at least defend himself against accusation.
“You’re both at fault. You’re both stupid,” Tayse said roughly. “We’re a small group, and we can’t afford to hate each other.”
“I do hate them,” Justin said intensely.
Tayse did not answer, merely kept his gaze, severe and cold, on the other man. After a moment, Justin dropped his eyes.
“All right,” Justin said. “I won’t provoke him.” He looked up. “But I won’t apologize.”
For a moment, for no reason at all, Tayse was transported back ten or twelve days ago, to the camp where Donnal had gotten injured in practice and Senneth had healed him with a touch. To the conversation where Senneth had said to him, “I feel so old.” He had laughed at her then. Now, briefly, he wanted to echo her. So much youth and bravado and undirected energy caged in one small space. He thought for a moment that there must be more important things to fight over; he was a man who had learned to conserve his strength and his hatred.
He finally said, “I don’t think Donnal will apologize either. Just refrain from antagonizing him. And keep your attention on our mission.”
“Which is never all that clear,” Justin retorted.
Tayse gave him another icy stare, and he subsided. “Which is,” Tayse said, “to serve our king.”
Justin shrugged and looked down. Tayse turned to survey the rest of the room. It had emptied out since he had last paid attention. Cammon was over by the horses, shaking out grain. Senneth was crouched by the door, practically face-to-face with the raelynx—trying to bend it to her will, he supposed, much as he had tried with Justin. Kirra and Donnal were gone.
Slowly, so as not to disturb her, Tayse approached Senneth. She rose to her feet as he got closer. The raelynx gave him one wicked look and then dropped its pointed nose to its red paws.
“I see your pet has a strong reaction to violence,” Tayse said.
A hint of a smile across her face. “He’s as sensitive to mood as Cammon is,” she said. “Though a bit more dangerous.”
“Have you calmed him?”
“I think so.”
“Where are the others?”
“I sent them out. In whatever shape they chose to take, to hunt or scout or merely play in the snow, I don’t care.”
“I think we’ll have to move on tomorrow,” he said. “Impassable roads or no.”
She nodded. “I think you’re right.”
THE others returned a couple hours later, only Kirra appearing in human form. Donnal padded through the door, a russet raelynx, and settled by the wild one as if by his only true friend. Kirra had a brace of rabbits in her hand and seemed to be in her usual sunny mood.
“Dinner,” she said lightly. “Who wants to cook?”
Justin was mostly silent during the meal and afterward, but the others made an attempt to be sociable. Late in the evening, Senneth pulled out a pack of cards and did tricks with them, dealing out aces and nines seemingly at will.
“You’ve marked them,” Kirra said in disgust.
“I haven’t,” Senneth said, shuffling with a cardsharp’s ease. “But enough hours spent on shipboard or in a barracks with nothing else to do will give you motivation to learn all sorts of skills.”
“Can you do tricks?” Kirra asked Tayse.
He shook his head. “I can play most gambling games, and win a handful of them, but I can’t reach in and pull out a card I want.”
Senneth tidied the deck and handed them over to Cammon. “Here. See what you can do with these.”
He cut them a few times, but not with any particular dexterity. “What do you mean?”
“Pull out the seven of hearts,” she suggested.
He concentrated, fanning the cards before him, but only shrugged. “I can’t tell. They all look alike.”
“I know,” Kirra said. “Give us each a card.”
So he shuffled again and spread the deck in his hands and let each of them choose what they would. Even Justin, a little intrigued or maybe just bored, pulled a card from the pack.
“Can you tell what we have?” Kirra asked him.
Cammon sat up straighter, looking faintly excited. “Well—concentrate a little bit,” he said.
&n
bsp; Kirra’s face scrunched up as she stared at the image before her. “Queen of diamonds,” Cammon said.
She laughed and turned it face outward so they could all see. Queen of diamonds, indeed.
Cammon looked at Senneth, who also focused on her card. “Six of spades,” he said. Senneth sailed the card over to him, where it landed beside his boot. Right again.
“Wonder if it will work with the nonbelievers,” Cammon said with a little grin, turning toward the Riders.
Tayse grinned. “Hey, I’m a believer,” he said, and kept his eyes narrowed on the three of spades in his hands. He was not even remotely surprised when Cammon called it.
Cammon had more trouble with Justin, but Tayse thought that was good for both of them. It pleased Justin, anyway, that Cammon guessed the king of hearts when what he held was the jack.
“Not enough practice, or Justin is too opaque for Cammon to read?” Senneth wondered. “Try it again.”
So they spent another half hour or so, alternating between trying to send Cammon mental images and trying to block them. Tayse was half convinced it was all ridiculous—and half convinced the boy had a real ability to read other’s minds. He was equally divided on whether he thought such a skill was something to encourage or something to destroy with quick ruthlessness.
But he played the games, and so did Justin.
They had all begun to tire of card tricks by the time Kirra had a new idea. “Cammon—you go sit over there,” she said. “One of us will do something to one of the others—hurt him, but just a little. You try to figure out who’s in pain.”
Cammon’s eyebrows rose. “And then I get to figure out who’s pulled out his dagger and stabbed someone in retaliation?”
Kirra giggled. “It won’t be that bad. Come on. Try it.”
So Cammon went to sit by the horses, his back to the four at the fire. Senneth held her arm out and Kirra used her fingernails to take a hard pinch of the forearm. Tayse saw Senneth mouth an exaggerated “Ow,” before she rubbed her skin.
“Senneth,” Cammon called. “And Kirra’s the one who hurt her.”
“Now that’s impressive,” Tayse murmured. “I can see some value in a skill like this, particularly if it works over distance.”
“I don’t think we can manage distance tonight,” Senneth said. She held her arm out to Tayse.
He found himself reluctant to harm her, even in a small way, but he took her index finger and bent it backward till her eyes widened.
“Senneth again,” Cammon guessed. “By Tayse this time.”
Senneth grinned at him and then, without warning, made a silent dive for Justin’s throat. Tayse could see Justin force himself not to fight back as Senneth’s fingers closed hard around his neck.
“Justin,” Cammon called. “But he’d like to kill Senneth for trying that.” They all laughed.
They had been playing this particular game for maybe ten minutes when a new contestant entered the lists. Warm breath on his cheek made Tayse whirl around, dagger in hand, to come face-to-face with the raelynx. Briefly, primeval terror held him motionless, but then he realized that this was the bigger cat, the human one in animal shape. Donnal regarded him for a moment out of dark, fathomless eyes, then pulled his mouth back in a wicked snarl.
“Who’s next?” Cammon called.
“We’re working on that,” Kirra called back. She, for one, did not seem at all alarmed by Donnal’s sudden appearance, just scooted over to sit closer to Tayse and his new companion. She appeared to be considering something—and, as soon as she had figured it out, she disappeared.
Down to the shape of a quivering white rabbit huddled beside Tayse’s thigh.
The raelynx snarled again, so fiercely that Tayse wondered if this might not be the wild creature after all, and then whipped its head down to fasten its teeth in the rabbit’s throat. Tayse had never known a rabbit could make a sound like that—any sound at all—but Kirra hopped away a few wobbly paces, and the raelynx sat back on its hind legs and let her go. Tayse could see no sign of blood on the snowy fur.
He happened to glance over at Senneth and saw her looking almost as shocked as he felt. Somehow, that made him feel better.
“That was Kirra being attacked by Donnal,” came Cammon’s voice, completely serene. “I didn’t know Donnal was playing.”
“And the game seems to have gone on long enough,” Senneth said. “Kirra, are you at all hurt?”
More slowly than seemed usual, Kirra flowed back into her habitual shape of golden beauty. “No,” she said, giving Donnal a quick look. He stayed in his cat form, watching them all. “But I think instincts might be working on all of us a little too much.”
Cammon bounded back across the room to join them, smiling broadly. “That was fun,” he said. “What can we try next?”
“We’ll try sleeping so that we’re strong enough in the morning to break through the snow and get out of here,” Senneth said.
Kirra stood up, yawning and stretching. She didn’t seem too upset by her near brush with death—which, most likely, had been no such thing. Just a display of power. Just a reminder, from the quietest member of the group, that he could be more dangerous than it appeared.
They were all dangerous, Tayse thought. Both Riders, all the mystics, in radically different ways. And their shifting internal loyalties made them not entirely safe even with each other. But he had to admit he felt a little better about the possibility of encountering foes on the road.
“What about that bath?” Kirra asked Senneth. “Too late?”
Senneth was also on her feet, smiling now. “Oh no. It might be midnight, but I’m getting clean tonight.”
Justin was checking his weapons belt, stubbornly uninterested in the conversation that had started all the hostility in the first place. Donnal rose to his feet, twitched his tufted tail, and crossed silently to the door where the other raelynx lay sleeping.
Tayse decided he would get himself ready for bed.
Cammon was filled with the exhilaration of victory, so he chatted happily to a mostly silent Justin while the two women retired to a corner close to the horses. They seemed to have worked this out sometime when no one else was paying attention, for they quickly strung up a couple of cloaks as a curtain and ducked behind it. Not that Tayse really tried to see anything, but it was clear they had chosen their spot for shadows and privacy. Their muffled laughter drifted back, along with the sound of occasional splashing. He supposed Senneth had warmed their pitcher of water to a comfortable temperature and that the whole experience was proving quite pleasant for them.
He wouldn’t have minded getting cleaned up himself, but at the moment, the effort seemed too great. He rolled himself up in his blankets, facing away from the impromptu baths, and closed his eyes. He was asleep before the others had found their own beds.
CHAPTER 15
IN the morning, they discovered that the only way out was through a carnage of snowdrifts.
Nothing had melted during their sojourn in the shrine, and wind had made some of the piles of snow almost as high as Tayse’s head.
“I could melt a way through, I suppose,” Senneth said in a doubtful tone of voice as they all stood by the open door, gazing out, “but I think we’d drown in mud.”
“Do you suppose it will be any better once we get to the road?” Justin asked.
“If we get to the road,” Kirra said pessimistically.
Tayse shrugged. “I’d think there would have been some traffic between towns by now. Maybe not. We can stay a day and hope conditions improve or—” He shrugged again.
“I’d rather get out, if it’s at all possible,” Senneth said. “We don’t seem to do well confined to small spaces.”
Donnal pushed to the forefront. During the night, something had impelled him to shift back to human state. He had been lying beside Kirra when Tayse woke up in the morning. “I can break a path through,” he said.
“Let’s saddle up and go, then,” Tayse said, and
headed toward their makeshift corral.
When he returned to the door, reins in hand, he saw that Donnal had already begun to make some headway. Or at least he assumed the monstrous milk-colored ox was Donnal, forcing himself at a slow but determined pace through the snow. For a moment Tayse stood and watched, wondering how long it would take them to go five miles this day, then he swung into the saddle.
“I’ll bring Donnal’s horse,” Kirra said.
Tayse nodded, eyes still focused on the forward view. “Justin,” he said, “stay with us. Doesn’t seem like the kind of day we should all be separated.”
Indeed, it was not much of a day at all, except a slow, weary, cold one. Once they made the arduous journey back to the main road, they found that there had indeed been some traffic in the past day, but that it hadn’t done much more than trample a single-file track down the middle of the road. Donnal resumed his accustomed form and let Tayse take the lead, and they followed each other carefully down the white landscape. Twice during the day they encountered other parties heading in the opposite direction; each time Tayse led his group to the side of the road to let the others pass. It felt safer to view others riding by than to file in front of the eyes of watchful strangers.
“Do we even know where we’re heading?” he asked as they made an abbreviated stop for a noon meal. They simply kicked through the snow at the side of the road and ate in their saddles.
Kirra and Senneth glanced at each other. “Rappen Manor?” Kirra said.
Senneth shrugged, not seeming too happy about it. “We may as well. If Ariane Rappengrass has thrown in her lot with Gisseltess—well, we won’t need to worry about an uprising. We’ll need to worry about a war.”
“How far?” Justin asked.
“Day or two,” Senneth said. “Or, well, maybe more on this kind of road.”
“Where do you want to spend the night?” Tayse asked.
“An inn,” Kirra said with heartfelt emphasis.
Senneth nodded. “It’s not going to be fun to camp out for a while. If we find a town before nightfall, I’d say we take rooms for the night. If there are any rooms,” she added. “Might be filled up with stranded travelers.”