Raven's Shadow (Raven Duology #1) - Page 11

Early the next morning, Alinath came to call. Seraph had already sent the boys and Rinnie out to the barn to sort through the tools and harness for things that they would need on their travel. Hennea was still asleep in the loft.

"I didn't know how soon you were going," said Alinath, in a sideways apology for the hour of her call. "I brought this." She set down a large basket of journey bread on the table. "We made it yesterday so it should last you a month or more if you need it." She hadn't met Seraph's eyes since she came in.

"How is Bandor?" asked Seraph.

"Almost himself again, though he doesn't remember much," said Alinath, at last looking up. "Thank you for giving him back to me."

"I'm glad you came," Seraph said after they'd both taken a seat on the kitchen bench, which was pulled away from its customary place at the table. "Otherwise I would have come to you. The trip to Taela is a long one, and getting Tier back might be dangerous. I hate to take Rinnie on a journey like that. Would you watch her for me?"

"Of course," Alinath said after a moment of shock. "Of course I will. There's plenty of space – she can have Tier's old room."

"Thank you," smiled Seraph. "I told her that Bandor would not be feeling well for a while and you needed her help. Give her something to do so she doesn't think I'm a liar."

"I'll do that," said Alinath. "Karadoc wanted me to tell you that the other Elders were happy with his story. All except Willon, who saw Bandor carrying Rinnie up to the temple. But Willon agreed to keep the real story quiet."

Alinath reached into a large pouch she carried and brought out several pieces of folded parchment. "Willon sent these. Maps, he said. And Seraph" – Alinath set a bag of coins on the table – "these are from the bakery's accounts. Use them as you need to – I'd like to have Tier back also."

Seraph took the coins. "Thank you. I won't deny that these will make the journey easier."

"I'll come tomorrow morning about this time," said Alinath, getting up briskly. "To get Rinnie, and to see you safely on your way."

"Thank you, Alinath," said Seraph.

Alinath stopped at the doorway and turned back. "No, Seraph. Thank you. I appreciate your trust, especially after…"

"He had no choice," said Seraph. "Remember that. Even shadowed, Bandor believed he was saving Rinnie."

The next morning was cold and the sun a pale line against the mountain as they adjusted the packs on Skew. Gura whined at Seraph from his self-appointed guard post by the packs still to be loaded.

"Fool dog," Seraph said, not unkindly. "You're coming, too."

"But not me," said Rinnie from the porch.

"I need you to take care of your aunt and uncle for me," said Seraph. "Aunt Alinath would like nothing better than to drop everything and come with us, but she needs to take care of Bandor and the bakery." She took a deep breath, "And I need you safe. Please."

Rinnie stared at her hard. "All right," she said. "I'll stay."

Seraph, Hennea, Jes, and Lehr set out for Taela before the sun was full up while Alinath and Rinnie watched from the porch.

A few miles to the south, the path from the farm joined to the main road. Though Willon's maps were useful, finding a road to Taela was no more difficult than finding a stream that would lead to the ocean.

"It's hard leaving Rinnie behind." Lehr patted Skew's neck. "I miss her already."

"I miss everything," said Jes happily.

Lehr lost his grim air and thumped Jes on his pack where it rested between his shoulders, "I see that you do."

"Do you know where your clan is?" Seraph ask Hennea, who walked beside her at the back of the small caravan.

"No," said Hennea. "But I can find them when I want to. I'll be of more use to you than I'll be to them."

"Hennea," said Seraph softly.

"Yes?"

"If you ever lie to me for your own ends again – as you did when I killed the priest for you – there will be a reckoning."

"I will bear that in mind," Hennea said.

"See that you do."

Seraph deliberately cut the first day's travel short. Hennea was looking pale and drawn; though her arm was healing nicely, it was still painful. The tent that they'd brought was the old one Seraph had used when she'd traveled with her brother. Seraph expected it would take a few days of practice before they could put it up in the dark.

After supper, she left the boys to clean up and took out Isolda the Silent's mermora.

"So you are the last survivor of your clan," said Hennea.

Seraph loosened the top of her bag so Hennea could see the assorted mermori she carried. "The last of any number of clans," she said.

"How many?" Hennea asked in a horrified whisper.

"Two hundred and twenty-four," replied Seraph.

Hennea frowned. "Why did they all come to you?"

"You mean as opposed to a clan leader who actually had a clan?" Seraph shrugged. "I don't know. I've given it a lot of thought over the years. The last eighty-three I found in one cache, presumably taken from one leader. That could mean that the mermori are being drawn by the other mermori. The more mermori someone has, the more likely it is that a lost clan's mermori will come to them. Or perhaps Shadow's Fall might have some influence on it."

"It's more than that," said Hennea slowly. "How did you find a solsenti who was Ordered? Why did the two of you have three Ordered children? It isn't like breeding horses; the Orders go where they will – though I really did think that the Order bearer had to at the least be of Traveler blood. I don't know many clans who can claim five Ordered people, nor have I heard of a family where every single person in the family was born to an Order."

"It frightens me," admitted Seraph, glancing at the boys, who were packing away the last of the dinnerware. "My father's favorite saying was, 'When you find a coin on the road and pick it up, it's certain that you'll need twice that ere you walk another mile.' He used to say that the Orders went where they were most necessary. I don't want to be in the middle of an event that needs a Raven, Owl, Eagle, Falcon, and Cormorant."

Hennea smiled a little. "Neither do I. Maybe I should go my own way."

She was joking, but Seraph nodded solemnly. "I would keep that in mind. Having you help us find Tier would be very helpful – but certainly dangerous. There is no need for you to risk your life for someone you've never even met."

Hennea laughed and shook her head. "That's the Raven's calling, you know that. Go out and risk your life for someone who'd just as soon that you burned as lived."

"Perverse," grinned Seraph. "It did always seem that the ones who most needed help were the ones who wanted it least. Anyway, I got the mermora out to call Isolda's house and see if someone in her time had managed something like the Ordered stones."

"They didn't have the Orders when Isolda's library was collected," said Hennea.

"No," agreed Seraph. "But they did a lot of evil in the search for knowledge. They might have come up with something that will help us. I don't want to destroy those stones without understanding what that will do to the Order trapped there."

Jes and Lehr, finished with their tasks, came to see what Seraph was doing. She pushed the mermora into the dirt and called Isolda's house into being.

"Come in," she said, "come and be welcome to the house of Isolda the Silent."

They settled into the patterns of journeying that Seraph remembered. Hennea and Jes in front, Seraph and Lehr bringing up the rear with Skew. Gura scouted about, taking anxious trips back to make certain they were all still walking as he'd left them. After a week's travel, Seraph felt as if she were slowly sloughing off the skin of the Redern farmer's wife she had been.

Every evening she took out Isolda's mermora and searched through her library to find out what to do with the Ordered stones.

"Why don't you use them?" asked Lehr, one evening. He was seated on the other side of the little table from Seraph, playing with the game pieces to a game no one knew how to play. "We almost lost all to Volis – and there will be more wizards with Papa. Wouldn't the extra power be useful?"

"Travelers don't like to deal with the dead," said Jes. He was curled up on the floor with as much of Gura on his lap as he could get, grooming the dog with a silver comb that Isolda had kept by her bed.

"It's not that exactly," said Hennea, looking up from a book. "But we understand that it can be dangerous to play with dark magics."

"Especially when doing so leaves you vulnerable to the Stalker," agreed Seraph. "Since we have seen that he is already concerned in these matters, we'd be foolish to allow him an invitation to one of us."

"I like walking," said Jes contentedly.

Hennea looked over at him. His eyes were half-shut and his face raised toward the sun. Seraph and Lehr had dropped behind them a while back; Jes's usual pace was faster than Skew liked. Seraph didn't want to push the old horse, so Hennea and Jes would walk ahead and then sit and wait for the others to catch up.

"What do you like about it?" she asked him.

"The Guardian is happy, because we're going to get Papa," he said. "And Rinnie is safe with Aunt Alinath. I don't like Aunt Alinath, but I know that Rinnie does. I know that Aunt Alinath will keep her safe. Mother and Lehr are safe, too, because they are with me and with Skew and Gura. I am outside and the sun is shining and making my face warm."

"I like walking, too," Hennea admitted.

"Why?" He bounced once on his heels and then turned his head to look at her with a bright smile that lit his eyes and summoned the deep dimple in his cheek.

She smiled back; she'd found that it was impossible not to respond to Jes when he was happy. "For the same reasons you have. Walking means that right this moment, nothing bad is happening. There are interesting things to look at. My feet like to feel the road under them."

"Yes," he said contentedly. "It's just like that."

After a minute he said, "Lehr is not happy."

"He doesn't like walking?" she asked.

He frowned, "I don't think that's it. I think he worries too much. He is like the Guardian, you know. He thinks that he needs to take care of everyone. He doesn't know about walking. He finds things that are bad and tries to solve them before they happen."

Hennea said, "You know your brother pretty well, don't you?"

Jes nodded. "He is my brother and I love him. He is not afraid of the Guardian; he loves the Guardian, too. I like that. Rinnie loves us, too. But she doesn't want to be a Guardian anymore because she can play with the wind."

"I like your family, Jes," Hennea said softly.

He smiled again. "I do too."

A week's travel from Korhadan, the first of the large cities that lay between them and Taela, they stopped to eat lunch a little distance from another, larger party that they'd been trailing for a few days.

"We could eat on the road, Mother," said Lehr to Seraph as she sat down beside him. "We could make another mile in the time it takes for Jes to finish eating."

She shook her head. "And lose more miles in a few days when Skew is too tired to go on. It's all right to push hard if your journey's end is in a day or two, but we have to strike a speed that we can hold on to for a month or more. How is that blister you had?"

"Fine."

"Traveler whore!"

Seraph was on her feet before the young man's bellow had finished; her eyes found Hennea standing by the side of the swift-running creek, her drinking cup loose in her hand while a chunk of wet mud slid from her cheek. Shock made her look young and vulnerable, but that wouldn't last.

Before Seraph could take more than a step or two, Jes, with Gura at his side, stood between Hennea and the small group of young men.

"Apologize," whispered Jes.

Seraph increased her speed.

The men backed away, most of them mumbling apologies. If they stared at the huge growling dog, or Jes, rather than looking at Hennea, it was understandable.

"Go," Jes said. "Leave us alone and we'll do the same."

"Hey, what goes on here! Are you vagabonds threatening my sons!"

"Jes, I'll deal with this," said Seraph in a low voice, moving until she was between Jes and the young men. When the older man, presumably their father, was close enough to hear her, she said, more calmly than she felt, "There were no problems until your sons made them."

The man strode past his sons and stopped not two paces from Seraph, clearly intending to intimidate her with his size. "My sons, Traveler?"

Anger was going to make her do something stupid, she knew it – and Jes would be no help at all. Where was Tier when a diplomatic word was needed? She could have left it to Hennea, but the younger woman had already been seen as weak: if she had to prove herself there would be blood shed here.

"One of your boys decided it was a good game to throw mud at a woman who was doing him no harm," said Seraph. She should have stopped there, but she couldn't abide bullies. "Obviously he was poorly raised; he has no manners."

"Poorly raised, Traveler bitch?" he snarled. "Who are you to say so?"

Jes, Seraph noticed gratefully, had taken her at her word and dampened the fear he generated. Fear fed anger, and might make the man do something more stupid than he otherwise would. Of course, she herself would have to control her tongue or risk pushing the man too far anyway. She knew, even before she spoke, what choice she had made, throwing away years of iron-willed control and prudence.

"Indeed." Seraph kept her tones polite, even though she knew that would inflame the man more than if she yelled. "It seems that they were not the only ones who were ill-taught." She paused for effect and then borrowed Jes's whispering technique. "Didn't your mother teach you that bad things happen to people who annoy Travelers?"

She didn't know if she wanted to scare him away, or force him to attack her. She'd assumed she'd long ago buried all this anger at the solsenti who hated and needed the Travelers. But all it took was a bit of mud to prove her wrong. The anger that flooded her felt good, even cleansing.

Whatever she'd wanted to gain by her threat, the people from his group who'd begun to gather around forced him to act rather than run. Perhaps if she had been a man he could have backed down and not lost face.

Perhaps if she didn't have a full bag of mermori to remind her how dangerous it was when solsenti began to lose their respect for Travelers she would have given him a graceful way out.

"Have a care, Seraph," said Hennea in Traveler.

The man took another step closer. He was a big man, but Seraph was used to looking up at people and a few inches more didn't make much difference to her. "Your man should have taught you respect for your betters, whore," he said on the tails of Hennea's words.

Seraph held her tongue. A raised eyebrow and a speaking look at him did the job nicely: You? My better? I don't think so.

He raised a hand. Gura sank a bit, ready to defend her and she could hear the sheath of Tier's sword rattle as Lehr readied himself to draw it. She still might have let him hit her but for Jes breathing heavily beside her.

With a word and a breath of power, she froze his arm in place.

When she smiled at the crowd of solsenti, several of them backed up hastily. She had the feeling that her victim would have backed up, too, but he couldn't move his arm from where it was stuck.

"What's going on here?" said an authoritative voice – and a young man pushed his way through the crowd.

Ash-pale hair in a waist-length braid announced his Traveler bloodlines as well as a written sign. Soon he had a wide circle around him.

"Look by the road, Mother," whispered Jes.

Seraph looked, and sure enough, there was an entire Traveling clan waiting on alert.

Silence had fallen, mostly because the solsenti group hadn't yet noticed the Travelers beside the road and didn't know what to make of a man whose arm hung unmoving in the air.

"Well," he said again, "What goes on here?"

"I am Seraph," she said. "Raven of the Clan of Isolda the Silent. This one's half-grown sons offered insult to my young friend. We were discussing the issue."

The stranger tilted his head at the man's arm. "Interesting discussion?"

"No," said Seraph. "I was almost finished. If you'll excuse me a moment." She turned to the man. "I have no more patience with you. I curse you and your sons that if you ever hit a woman or child, you'll lose the use of that which men value most. Now go."

She released his arm and met the eyes of the few solsenti inclined to linger.

The stranger waited until they were gone before he started laughing. "I'm no Raven, but even so I could tell there was no magic to power that curse."

She smiled. "It doesn't need magic, does it?" If any of them ever hit a woman or child they'd remember her words and worry about it. Worry could achieve the effect she wanted more easily than magic.

"Who are you?" asked Jes, breaking into the shared moment.

"Ah, my apologies, sir. I am Benroln, Cormorant and Leader of the Clan of Rongier the Librarian." He bowed shallowly. "If we may join you in your eating we might exchange stories."

"Come and be welcome," agreed Seraph.

There was a fair bit of confusion as the Clan of Rongier organized a meal stop and the solsenti group packed hastily and left, most eating the remains of their meals in one hand while they started out.

The fear on their faces didn't bother Seraph nearly as much as the catcalls that came from the Librarian's clan. Her father would never have stood for such a thing, but Benroln was young, and perhaps he felt much the same as the young people who teased the solsenti. Still there were older heads about, and Seraph thought that someone should have said something.

A glance at the clan's wagons and clothing told her that having a young leader hadn't hurt the clan materially, even if their manners had suffered. Their clothing was without holes or mending and their wagons were all freshly painted.

Seraph's small family stayed close to her as the strange clansmen laid out food and attended to the chores of meal preparation. Doubtless the boys were intimidated by the foreign tongue and sheer volume of noise so many people set to a single task could make. Seraph finished the last of her meal as Benroln approached her with three other men.

"Seraph, this is my uncle, Isfain," he said, indicating the eldest of the men. "My cousin, Calahar" was a young man with unusual raven-black hair. "Kors" had reached middle age and middle height with slightly stooped shoulders.

"This," continued Benroln, "is Seraph, Raven of Isolda the Silent, and her family. This young man here is Eagle."

The older man Benroln had introduced as Isfain smiled. "Well blessed in the Order your family is. Will you introduce them?"

There was nothing in the words they spoke to raise Seraph's suspicions, but there was just a little extra stress in Benroln's voice when he named the Orders. That stress had been answered with a thread of smugness in Isfain's voice.

Seraph bowed her head. "This is my son, Jes, Eagle. My son Lehr, and my friend Hennea." No one had ever accused Seraph of being a trusting soul. She couldn't hide the Orders Benroln had noted, but there was no need to share information unnecessarily. Time enough to clear the matter up if necessary once Seraph knew more about the Clan of Rongier.

"May I inquire how it is that there are so few of you?" asked Kors diffidently. "I had heard that the Clan of Isolda the Silent fell to the sickness years ago."

Seraph nodded graciously. "Only my brother and I survived. When my brother died we were left without kin." Two decades of living with solsenti had not lowered her awareness of the disgrace of what she had done – so she lifted her chin, daring any of them to comment. "I married a solsenti man and we lived with him and his family until he died this spring. His relatives turned us out – but they did not know that he had investments in Taela. We are headed there to recover his monies."

The men considered what she told them. For a Traveler to marry or even lie with solsenti was expressly forbidden. It happened, but a very strict clan leader could punish the offender with banishment or death.

Only Kors looked taken aback, and Benroln tapped him on the shoulder before he could say anything.

Isfain merely said, in tones of apparent delight, "Ah, we take the same road. Our clan has business that lies along the road to Taela, and we have friends in the city who are willing to aid us. We'd be more than pleased to lend you escort until our roads part."

There was no way out of Isfain's generous offer without offense, so Seraph nodded. "Your escort would be most welcome."

Calahar glanced over at Skew and then moved toward him. "Nice horse," he said.

"My husband's warhorse," replied Seraph. "Careful. He's old now. But he was trained not to let strangers approach too closely."

"I've only seen a few horses with his coloration," he said. "Your husband get him as a war prize?"

"Yes."

"Too bad he's a gelding."

"Yes," replied Seraph. "But he serves us well as it is. Lehr, would you check to make sure we've gotten everything packed?"

Hennea waited until they were walking again and the fuss of adding new members had died down before approaching Seraph.

"You were less than forthcoming," Hennea said quietly. "And Skew's never objected to me."

"But they don't need to know that. I'd rather not have people ruffling through our packs. There's something off about this clan," Seraph replied. "Though it's been a long time since I walked with Travelers, so perhaps I'm misreading something."

"Perhaps you are right to be suspicious," agreed Hennea thoughtfully. "They certainly aren't going to be looking for Lehr and I to be Ordered, not when they know that two of us are Order-Bearers. Although if they have a Raven who looks at us, they'll know what you are up to."

"I've been looking," said Seraph. "The only Order-Bearer I've seen is Benroln himself."

"I suppose there will be no harm done," said Hennea.

"No harm to whom?" asked Benroln.

Seraph carefully maintained her smile. "To us. It's a relief to find a clan to journey with – but it bothers me that we might need your protection. This is a main road, there should be no danger for Travelers here – but I worry all the same."

"It's not just those hotheaded men either," said Benroln in grim tones. "There hasn't been a Gathering in a long time. The last one was disrupted by solsenti soldiers, and the clans felt that another Gathering might just be setting ourselves up for a solsenti sword. The illness that swept through our clans twenty years ago took out more than just your clan. If the solsenti have their way, in another twenty there will be no Travelers at all."

The clipped note in his voice when he said "solsenti" reminded her forcibly of the way some of the more frightened Rederni said "magic."

"Then it is their doom," said Hennea indifferently. "Travelers exist to keep the solsenti from paying the price of a failure that was not theirs."

"What failure?" said Benroln explosively, but Seraph saw calculation in his eyes. He was playing to his audience. "A story nattered at by the elderly? It is only a story – and it was old before the Shadow's Fall. It's a myth, and no more accurate than the twaddle the solsenti spout about the gods. There are no gods and there was no lost city. There is no evil Stalker. We have paid and paid for a crime committed in an Owl's tale. If we don't wise up we'll be nothing more than a solsenti minstrel's tale ourselves, something told to frighten small children."

"Wise up and do what?" asked Seraph.

"Survive," he said. "We need to keep food in our mouths and clothes on our backs. We need to teach the solsenti to leave us alone – as you did to that solsenti bastard who tried to injure Hennea." He paused, then said softly, "You taught that man and his sons to leave us be. If you had allowed your Eagle to teach them, the rest of the solsenti in that group would have taken the story to his village and they all would have trembled in fear."

"Maybe someone did," said Seraph coolly. "Maybe that's why, instead of welcoming us and looking to us to help them when my brother took us into the village years ago, the villagers feared us so much that they burned my brother."

"The solsenti already fear us, that is the problem," said Hennea. "Fear leads to violence. The villagers who killed Seraph's brother were very afraid and too ignorant to know that they had nothing to fear from a Traveler. Perhaps because, in the last few generations, we have taught them that they should fear us."

"Rot," said Benroln curtly before turning his attention back to Seraph. "You have lived among them for what?" He glanced at Jes and Lehr and came up with an accurate guess, "Twenty years or more? You are beginning to sound like one of them – or worse, one of the old ones who sit around the fire and say, 'We are supposed to protect them.' " The anger in his voice was honest now. "Let them protect themselves. They have wizards."

"Who are helpless against the evil we fight," said Seraph.

Benroln's lip curled. "When solsenti soldiers caught my father and our Hunter and Raven out alone, there was nothing we could do but bury them. Had my father not believed the old folktales, he could have taught that village what harming a Traveler might mean. When those villagers killed your brother – you could have saved him. Could have made them so afraid that the thought of harming one of us would never occur to them again. How many of us died because you didn't teach them what you taught that man today? How many more will die because you didn't loose the talons of your Eagle upon them instead of tricking them into thinking you'd set a spell on them?"

Part of Seraph agreed. Part of her had wanted to burn the village to the ground. She had spent most of that first night at Tier's side wondering how long it would take her to get back to the village and avenge her brother.

She could have killed them all.

"Your father was killed?" said Hennea softly, taking Benroln's arm in sympathy and distracting him from Seraph.

He nodded, his anger dissipating under Hennea's attention. "Our Clan Guide took us to the Sept of Arvill's keep. My father said that they'd never admit a whole clan, so he, who was Raven, took our other Raven – my cousin Kiris who was only fifteen – and our Hunter to see what was amiss. They didn't even make it to the gate of the keep before they were shot from ambush."

"Terrible," agreed Seraph. "When I think about that village where my brother was killed, I think of how helpless they would have been against my power. I think of the children who lived there, and the mothers and fathers. More death never solves a crime, no matter how regrettable." She tried to keep her tones conciliatory, but she could not agree with him.

Benroln met her gaze for a moment, then dropped his head in the respectful bow of a vanquished opponent. "And so I learn from your wisdom."

Lehr, who'd come upon them as Seraph had been giving her last speech, snorted and then grinned at Benroln. "She knows better than that. That's what she always said to Papa when she didn't want to agree with him but he was winning the argument."

Seraph smiled gently. "We can agree to disagree."

The Travelers were a highly organized people – just like a well-trained army, and for the same reasons. Every person had an assigned role.

Seraph hadn't realized, not really, how independent the life that they'd led in Redern had been. As long as the Sept's tithes made it to him, they were left largely alone to do as they wanted. If she'd been married to another Rederni man, that might have meant that she would have been at his mercy. But Tier was Tier. He'd sought her advice, and she'd worked shoulder to shoulder with him both in the fields and in the kitchen. She'd grown used to the freedom of making her own decisions.

When Isfain had pointed to a place and told her to make camp there, she'd nearly told him where to take his orders. If she hadn't caught Lehr watching her expectantly, Seraph would have done just that. Instead she'd just nodded and gotten to work.

At least they accorded Seraph some leeway for being Raven, and clan leader, if only just of her family plus Hennea. Lehr they treated like a green boy – Tier had never treated him so. She just hoped he was enough his father's son to hold his peace until she'd had time to learn more about this clan: they might be a great help in retrieving Tier.

Seraph pitched in to help prepare the evening meal. Some of the men tended horses and goats, some set out to fish, and a smaller group set out into the forest to see what game they could find. Jes and Lehr joined the latter group. She'd had time to talk with Lehr, and Seraph knew he wouldn't give himself away. He didn't care for Benroln much either.

"My Kors told me that you married a solsenti,&q