Raven's Strike (Raven Duology #2) - Page 21

Lehr grunted as he picked up the dog. It must have weighed 140 or 150 pounds, thought Phoran. He couldn't carry the dog all the way back to camp. No more was Kissel in any shape to walk far.

Phoran glanced at the hawk watching them. Probably carrying the dog was going to be the least of their problems.

"Phoran. Where are you going?" asked the hawk. "Run, Phoran, run. It will do you no – " Something that Phoran couldn't see hit the bird and knocked it from its perch.

A magpie flew from somewhere behind Phoran and landed on the ground before becoming Hinnum.

"Run, boys," he said without taking his eyes off the great bird that floundered on the ground in front of them. "I can't hold him for long."

"Go," said Phoran, voice cracking with relief.

"This way," said Lehr, and led off with Gura in his arms.

The journey was nightmarish. They walked because that was the best Kissel and an overburdened Lehr could do. Phoran took the rearguard position, walking backward so he could watch behind them.

The skies, so bright and blue that morning, had turned dark and threatening. Since Rinnie was muttering softly to herself and had a tendency to stumble over nothing, Phoran was sure she had something to do with the growing storm. He remembered Lehr's tale of the lightning that had struck the troll threatening them, and decided that Ielian had been proved wrong: Cormorants had more to offer than good weather for a farmer. Give Rinnie a little time to work, and she was a formidable opponent.

There were sounds and flashes of light from the vicinity of where they'd left Hinnum facing the Shadowed. A few of the noises were accompanied by vibrations that shook the ground beneath their feet.

When they reached the base of the ramp, Phoran said, "Lehr, give me the dog, then take my sword. Keep an eye on Kissel. You might have to help brace him from the other side."

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He took the dog and began the long climb. What had seemed an engineering marvel to Phoran the first day they'd come into the dead city was now torturous.

Kissel tried his best, but he'd lost a lot of blood, and their progress was abysmally slow. Lehr slid his shoulder under the one Toarsen wasn't supporting before they were more than a dozen yards from the bottom.

"Give me the sword," said Jes, startling everyone badly.

Phoran hadn't seen him, and neither, he thought from the look on Lehr's face, had anyone else.

"Don't do that," said Lehr irritably as he held out the sword to his brother who had, in broad daylight, suddenly appeared from nowhere.

"Keep going," said Phoran.

"Mother, Papa, and Hennea are on their way," said Jes. "Hinnum felt the Shadowed's magic and went ahead to help if he could."

"We saw him," said Phoran, breathing in huffs as the steep climb made the dog feel heavier and heavier. "He attacked Willon so we could escape. They've been making a lot of noise."

"I heard it," agreed Jes shortly. Phoran was always surprised at how different this Jes was from the slow, soft-spoken boy he usually was.

"I haven't heard anything since we started up the ramp," said Lehr. "I hope it's not bad news."

As he spoke a bedraggled magpie flew up and landed on Rinnie's shoulder. "Go," it croaked, swaying unsteadily. "Go."

Kissel staggered, and brought Lehr and Toarsen to their knees.

"Jes, take the dog," said Phoran, pushing the limp animal into Jes's arms before the other man had a chance to protest. Then he bent down and put his shoulder into Kissel's belly and hoisted him up.

"Toarsen, draw your sword. Lehr, take mine back from Jes before he drops it or the dog. Rinnie, steady that bird before he falls off altogether."

Kissel outweighed Phoran, but not as much as he outweighed Toarsen and Lehr. His calves already hurt from climbing up the cliff and the guard tower, and his ribs were sore from his fall, but Jes had said Tier was coming.

"Let me take him, Phoran," said Toarsen, as the ramp ended at last. "You're about done in."

Phoran shook his head. Toarsen was all wiry muscle, but he wasn't big enough to carry Kissel for long.

"How's his bleeding?" Phoran's breath was coming in heaving gasps that made it hard to talk.

"Not good," Toarsen said. "He's unconscious. I – "

"Hush," said Jes, setting the dog on the ground and looking back down the ramp. "He's coming."

Then he shifted into the shape of a black mountain cat as large as any Phoran had ever seen.

"No," said the magpie. "No. They will need all six Orders, Guardian. I'll stop him."

He launched off Rinnie's shoulder with an uncertain flap of wings that steadied on the second stroke.

"Toarsen, take Gura," said Phoran. "Let's go."

He wasn't sure how far they'd come. Phoran's world was rapidly reducing itself to putting one foot in front of the other. When he heard the sound of galloping hooves, Phoran knelt and very carefully set Kissel on the cobbles.

"You'll be all right now," he told him. "Tier's here."

Skew slithered on the slippery cobbles, and Tier was off the horse and bending over Kissel before Skew had quite stopped.

A pulse, too rapid and too faint, beat against his fingers and Tier looked up, taking in the rest of the party.

"Rufort and Ielian?" he asked.

Toarsen set Gura down gently beside Kissel. "Rufort's dead," he said. "Kissel and I both picked Ielian out of the Passerines as a loyal man. We failed in our responsibility. He killed Rufort."

Phoran, pale and drenched in sweat, held up a hand. "I knew that there was something wrong. He told Rufort that the Path was paying him – I found out last night and didn't confront him. I bear equal responsibility."

"Ielian was the Shadowed's man, Papa," said Rinnie.

When he opened his arms, she ran to him. Her little face was bruised, a black and swollen knot on her chin. Her bottom lip was split and puffy. Tier looked from her to Phoran.

"Ielian again," he said. "Willon is responsible for the split lip, though."

"Tell us," said Seraph. She began a gentle examination of Gura, though Tier saw that her eyes blazed with rage. "Sit down, Phoran. If you keep swaying half-up, half-down, you'll fall. What happened, Lehr?"

"Ielian lured us out of our way – I suppose he and Willon had arranged something of the sort. Before any of us knew something was wrong, Willon froze us where we stood."

He took a deep breath. "Papa, Willon told us why he ran from Jes and me that night in Taela. He wanted us to succeed. He sacrificed his people so Mother would get all the Ordered gems. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with them, but he thought Mother, Hennea, and Brewydd might. He knew that Volis had the maps. When Mother and Hennea couldn't fix the gems, he wanted them to come here. He attacked you to force us to come here. Hinnum knew how to make the gems work right, but he wouldn't talk to Willon. Willon sent Mother to talk to Hinnum."

"What good did that do?" asked Hennea. "We won't talk to him either."

"Mother has people she cares about," replied Lehr. "Willon promised not to harm any of us if Mother fixed the gems so that they worked for him. He took Rinnie hostage and left us to break free of his spell and tell you what had happened."

"He took Rinnie?" asked Hennea, crouching beside Kissel. "Then why is she here? Did Hinnum rescue her?"

"No," Rinnie said. "That was Phoran. He broke free of the Shadowed's spell and came up to rescue me."

"Phoran rescued you from the Shadowed?" Hennea sounded incredulous.

"Not exactly," said Phoran wryly.

Tier tightened his hand on Rinnie's shoulder; he'd come so close to losing her. "What happened?"

"He broke free of the Shadowed's spell and told us how to do it, too," said Toarsen, with a respectful nod in Phoran's direction.

"It was an illusion," Phoran explained, giving Tier a sheepish grin. "Some parts of me aren't very nice, sir. The idea that a peasant, trumped-up parlor illusionist with delusions of godhood would try and command me, the Emperor, just seemed wrong. I couldn't believe it would work – so it didn't. The others had broken free by the time Rinnie and I got back. I don't know how."

Toarsen laughed, though there were tears in his eyes. He'd sat on the road next to Kissel, and now he touched him lightly. "Kissel, broke free before any of the rest of us. He said anything you could break free of couldn't hold him. He talked the rest of us free."

Phoran nodded soberly. "I chased after Rinnie. There's a stair carved into the cliff, just below that guard tower over there." He pointed to the second tower to the south. "I met Ielian, who was coming down the cliff as I came up. I tossed him off the cliff – "

"Too bad," murmured Seraph.

"He's dead," Phoran told her.

"Thank you," she said. "But I could have made it more painful."

Phoran half bowed. "The next one I will save for you. I couldn't be bothered with him because I knew Willon had Rinnie." He shrugged. "Not that I was much help. We exchanged a half dozen words, then he tossed me off the tower."

Tier turned to look at the tower in question again. "Down the cliff, too? You look good for a man who just fell several hundred feet."

"Thank you," said Phoran. "I feel good, too – relatively speaking." The Emperor tilted his head and looked at Rinnie with a smile. "I think it was Rinnie who saved me: we've been too busy trying to run to stop and exchange stories to make certain. But instead of being splatted unpleasantly on the ground, I was lying at the base of the cliffs trying to catch my breath, and Rinnie was there."

"The Memory threw me off the guard tower after you," Rinnie said.

"What?" Phoran's eyes flashed, and his hand went to his sword hilt. "It did what?"

Tier was feeling pretty murderous himself.

Rinnie grinned, first at Tier and then at the Emperor, looking more herself. "It grabbed me where I was cowering on the stairway and threw me off and said, 'Cormorant, fly.' I think if it hadn't said that, I'd have fallen and squished right on top of you. As it was, I wasn't sure I had been soon enough for you. You weren't breathing and I was sure you were dead. Then you sat up, and your eyes were bulging and watering – I thought you could have been the walking dead, like the ones last night. But no, you started breathing and grabbed me without so much as a thank-you."

All in one breath, thought Tier. Amusement won over the horror of hearing that something had thrown his daughter from a tower. It helped that Rinnie had survived.

Phoran bowed. "Thank you, my lady. I was remiss when I forgot to thank you earlier – though I believe the fear for your life took precedence at the time."

Rinnie looked pleased, and said smugly, "I can't wait until I get home and I can tell people that I saved the Emperor's life."

Lehr smiled at her. "No one will believe you, pest."

"Where is Hinnum?" asked Hennea.

"The Shadowed was coming," said Jes, who had exchanged his wolf form for the mountain cat. "Hinnum was already hurt, but he wouldn't let me go."

"Speaking of which," said Phoran. "Should we continue going?"

"No," said Hennea. "What we do, we can do here as well as anywhere. Seraph, this is as good a time as any to see if that ring will work for you. Phoran, where are the names from the Owl's temple?"

"Willon burned them," said Toarsen. "He said he was sealing the temple so no one else could get them again."

"I remember one of them," said Phoran.

Hennea frowned at him. "You know how to read the language of Colossae?"

He smiled. "I'm not just a drunken sot, my lady. I am an educated drunken sot. I couldn't read the maps or the gates, but the alphabet is the same as Old Oslandic, which I do know. If Toarsen has that piece of char still, I can write it on the stones."

Toarsen fumbled in his belt pouch and handed Phoran the charred stick. Phoran wrote some odd lines on the ground that might have been letters.

"Do you know to which one the name belongs?" asked Tier.

Hennea shook her head. "I don't remember."

"Ah, well," said Tier. "Either would work I suppose. So what exactly do we do?"

"The six of us, you, Jes, Seraph, Lehr, Rinnie, and I hold hands. Then you speak the name of the god – I'll tell you how to pronounce it." Hennea sighed unhappily. "The rest of it we'll have to improvise, I don't know what will happen. The Orders are not the gods of Colossae."

"We should wait until Willon comes near?" asked Tier.

Hennea nodded.

"Is there something I can do?" asked Toarsen. "He's not going to make it." He'd lifted Kissel's head onto his lap and he touched his forehead lightly. "Lost too much blood. I need to have a hand in the destruction of the man who killed him."

Tier hunkered down beside the big lad and put a hand on his too-cold cheek. He looked at Seraph, who nodded.

"Don't give up on him, yet," Tier told Toarsen. "Kissel's survived worse than this – and we'll have a Lark to help him, eh, Seraph?"

"I don't intend for the Shadowed to kill any more of ours," said Seraph.

"So there," said Phoran. "Seraph has said so – Kissel won't dare to fail her."

A faint smile appeared on Kissel's face.

"See," said Tier. "All men must bow to my wife's whims. You'll do, lad." He looked up at Toarsen. "I think this battle will be beyond steel, but I've no objection if you keep your sword handy and use it if you see a moment to do so."

Toarsen nodded solemnly.

"Seraph," Tier said. "If you're ready, Kissel has been doing his best to hold on, but he could really use some help."

Seraph fingered the tigereye ring and closed her eyes, trying to feel what was different, but she felt the same as she ever had. Just the same as she had when she'd tried to work some healing upon Gura a few minutes ago.

She looked down for a moment upon the young man who'd fought by her side against the Path that night in Taela. When she settled next to Kissel, Toarsen looked up at her with all the welcome of a bitch guarding her pups from a stranger.

"I'm not going to hurt him," she told him, though she wasn't at all sure of that.

"There's not much that will hurt me at this point," murmured Kissel unexpectedly, with the subtle humor that he liked to employ. He always seemed best pleased when his audience wasn't quite certain he was trying to be funny.

"I'm glad to hear it," she told him, though she wasn't at all sure he was still conscious.

She tried to remember what Brewydd had done when she had been repairing Tier's injuries – but she'd been distracted and hadn't paid much attention to the Healer.

"Lehr?"

He sat on his heels beside her. "What do you need, Mother?"

"Did you ever watch Brewydd heal?"

"She's a Lark, Mother," said Lehr. "Can Ravens heal, too?"

Seraph held up her hand so he could see the ring she wore. "I'm a Lark today, too. But I need your help."

"The Lark rings don't work," said Jes. "You and Hennea need to clean it first."

Seraph turned to look at him. "Willon killed Mehalla to steal her Order, Jes. All those years ago. Something in this ring knows me, and I believe it means that this was once Mehalla's." She paused. "We need me to be a Lark today, but even if the gem contained nothing but the Order, I could not use it to become a Lark – any more than Volis was a Raven when he wore a Raven's gem. I need to see if the person, Mehalla or not, who haunts this ring will help me be a Lark, just for today."

"Try putting your hand on his wound," Lehr suggested. "We're going to have to take off the bandage."

"Wait, let me do it," said Tier. "I've a little experience at field dressings."

He sat beside Seraph and cut through the cloth that held the pad over the wound. Then he tugged gently on the padding.

"The pad is stuck down, but not badly – because he's still losing blood. That would be bad if we didn't have a Healer." He smiled at Seraph. "As it is, it makes it easier to get the pad off – but you need to get your hands over that wound. Lark or no Lark, the boy's got to have some blood in him if he's to live. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

He took the pad off and, as he'd indicated, the wound began to ooze blood. She put her hand over the wound and sealed it with the palm of her hand.

Everyone waited, even Seraph, but nothing happened.

"Try visualizing the healing," Hennea suggested. "Think of Kissel well and whole."

She tried and felt her magic stir, but magic could not heal. She could have used it to bandage the wound though, and would if she could not heal him – but he was so pale, and there had been so much blood. If it came down to making do with magic rather than healing, she suspected that he would die.

"Hennea has part of it right," Lehr said. "But this isn't magic. I think, from watching you and Hennea, that being a Raven must involve a lot of thought. But Hunting is almost instinctive for me. I look, then I see the trail. I don't have to think much about it. Jes gets upset, and the temperature anywhere near him drops to freezing. Papa starts singing, and people stop whatever they are doing to listen. Just let your body do the work."

Seraph closed her eyes and tried to relax, but the more she tried not to think, the more she thought.

Tier got up, but she didn't look to see what he was doing. He was back in a moment and began playing his lute. He picked one of her favorite songs, an evening song that had lulled their children to sleep when they were teething or sick. The husky, soft tones slid over her and soothed the tension from her neck and shoulders. She let his voice coax her away from the blood and danger and back into their home and evenings when, with the work of the day done, she and Tier would sit on the back porch. Gura's wire coat tickled Seraph's bare feet as the setting sun colored the mountains red.

As she relaxed something stirred at the tips of her fingers, a whisper at first. She coaxed it with a breath of interest just like she'd have puffed at a reluctant spark when she was trying to light a fire the solsenti way.

"He's stopped breathing."

Toarsen's voice, thick with grief.

But when she would have paid attention to him, Tier's song brought her back to her little spark of… healing. See, she coaxed, directing it to the flesh under her fingers. I have something for you to do.

Fire shot up her shoulders so unexpectedly that she jerked and gasped, but someone's hands locked on her wrists and held her hands against Kissel. She opened her eyes and knew the damage Ielian's knife had done, though it was buried under her hands and beneath Kissel's skin.

The power of the Lark eased through Seraph's hands and into Kissel's body, repairing the gross damage to the tissues first, then moving on to smaller things. His heart had stopped, but her power hit it and it could not resist her and began beating.

There isn't enough blood, Mother. He won't live without more blood.

"Who said that?" asked Jes.

"Said what?" Lehr whispered. "Keep your voice down, Jes, you'll distract her."

Mehalla? Seraph asked, uncertain whether that soft voice had been real or imaginary. There was no answer.

Whoever it had been, she had been right. Kissel needed blood the Lark could not supply him with.

But Seraph wasn't a Lark, or at least, not only a Lark. Leaving her right hand, the hand with the Lark's ring to cover the closed hole in Kissel's chest, she brought her left hand, covered with Kissel's blood, to her lips and touched it with her tongue.

She called her magic to hand. Find this, she told it, showing it Kissel's blood. Her magic took the dried blood from the bandages, from her hands, from Kissel's bloody clothes. She touched her tongue again. Make it like this. The dried, dead blood became clean and alive again. Put it here. The part of her that was Lark found the collapsing blood vessels and showed the magic where it needed to be.

Seraph took a shuddering breath. "Let go," she told Lehr, who held her wrists in a bruising grip. "He doesn't need me anymore."

Lehr released her, and she pulled her hands away. Kissel's chest looked as though the wound was weeks old. She was a little disappointed that there was a mark at all, but remembering Brewydd's insistence that Tier's knees heal the last bit on their own, she thought that perhaps it was just as well.

Kissel opened his eyes. "I don't think I'll be up and fighting today," Kissel told Seraph. "But maybe tomorrow." He tried to sit up, but didn't quite make it. Toarsen caught his head before it hit the ground. "Then again," Kissel said weakly, "maybe next week or the week after that."

"You'll do," said Tier, breaking off his singing.

"Thank you," whispered Toarsen, and there were tears in his eyes.

"I told you I wouldn't lose anyone else to that bastard," she said coolly.

"Where'd all the blood go?" asked Rinnie.

Seraph patted Kissel's bare shoulder. "Back where it belongs," she said. "Let's try Gura."

Gura was at once both easier to heal and more difficult: easier because she knew how to call upon the ring now, more difficult because she was tiring, and there was more damage. Ielian had broken Gura's ribs and completely severed a muscle in his shoulder.

She was deep into the final connections that the Lark knew would allow the dog to control his leg as well as he had before it was injured when someone spoke to her.

"Seraph?"

It took her a moment to pull far enough out of the healing to know that it was Tier.

"Seraph, Hinnum has come back." Tier's voice was soft but urgent. "Can you help him?"

Seraph looked up and saw Hennea on her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks, holding a limp black and white bird in her hands. "Seraph?" she said.

Seraph stumbled to her feet and Tier put his arm around her until she steadied. She knelt beside Hennea and put her hands on the magpie.

She felt the Lark's power wash over the bird, but like oil repels water, the healing washed over him without touching him. She tried again.

This time she noticed the differences between him and Kissel. Age and magic entwined his body and kept her from healing him. She saw that it would be difficult to heal a solsenti mage because of the alteration that magic, without the filter of the Raven's Order, worked on a mage's body. She understood how it was that a strong solsenti mage would live for many years beyond a normal life span as magic reinforced aging flesh, ligaments, and bone.

"He is too old, and magic too deep in him to allow for healing," Seraph said, stricken. "I can do nothing."

Hennea smoothed his feathers and crooned to him. Bright eyes dulled, and Seraph could feel the exact moment his heart ceased beating.

Darkness approached, and Seraph looked up in alarm, but it was only her son. The Guardian crouched behind Hennea and wrapped his arms around her as she wept.

"Jes couldn't be here," he told her. "But I can."

The magpie's shape fell away and in Hennea's lap was a child who looked to be no more than four years old.

"Ah my poor Hinnum," Hennea whispered. "How cruel was this? Such a price you paid for magic, my friend." She looked at Seraph. "When he was three centuries old he stopped aging and began to get younger. It was good, until he began getting too young. When I last saw him he looked as though he was Rinnie's age – he found it humiliating." She looked at the toddler in her arms. "He would have hated this."

"He was a great wizard and the world is lessened by his death," said Seraph.

"He was the greatest mage who ever lived," Hennea's voice was thick with grief. "I was the Raven, and I never dreamed what power an illusionist could wield. He could work other magics, but illusion was the heart of him. He took the point for the spell to sacrifice Colossae because I no longer had the power to do so. Fifty Ravens would not equal his power."

"When this is over," said Tier, "you'll tell me his story, and I'll sing it so that his fame will never die. He died protecting my children, he died trying to defeat the Shadowed. Such a man deserves to be remembered."

"I remember him," Hennea murmured. "I remember him."

"He'll be coming soon," said Lehr.

"If he did this to Hinnum," said Hennea, "then we have no chance."

"He could kill us without our ever seeing him," said Phoran. "He stopped the breath in my body. If Rinnie hadn't startled him, I'd be dead."

"He hasn't gotten what he wants yet," said Tier.

"The gems?" Seraph shook her head. "Without Hinnum to guard the library, all he needs is to read through the books. He'll discover what he needs."

"You're Ravens." Tier got to his feet. "You don't need the kind of study that a wizard does who is learning new magic. The Willon I know is meticulous. He'd never just jump in and try something new. He's a merchant, a successful one. He'll think of negotiating for what he wants before he'll try it himself. He still has the advantage. It would have simplified things to have Rinnie with him. But he doesn't need to do it that way."

He walked over to the horses and unsaddled Skew. Taking the blanket, he unfolded it, shook it out carefully, and brought it to Hennea.

"This is covered in the sweat and hair of a humble and faithful servant. It is not the silk Hinnum deserves, but I think it is not entirely unsuitable."

Who but Tier could make an old horse blanket seem a fitting shroud for Hinnum of Colossae? Seraph blinked back her own tears. She hadn't known Hinnum long – but she'd known of him all of her life. Wetness struck her face, and she looked up to see the skies dark with heavy rain clouds, as if they, too, were mourning the death of the old mage.

Tier laid the blanket on the cobbles and took Hinnum's body from Hennea's unwilling arms. He set the small form in the middle of the brightly colored blanket and wrapped him in it. Picking him up, he carried the small bundle to the side of the road. There was a house with a small yard with a bush. Tier hid the body behind it.

"We'll keep him out of sight," he said. "Let Willon wonder if he will be coming back to help again. Hennea, I think Lehr is right. Willon will rest up a little, but it won't be long before he comes. You need to teach me how to pronounce the name of the Elder god."

"We have to hurry." Seraph stood up. "Hennea, Hinnum gave his life to give us this chance."

She waited until Hennea was coaching Tier, one syllable at a time so as not to attract the god's attention prematurely, before going to Phoran. He sat, with Toarsen and Kissel, leaning against one of the buildings that fronted the small winding street. Rinnie was sitting next to him, as she usually was. They all looked half-asleep.

Lehr crouched next to Phoran on the balls of his feet, talking quietly with Phoran. He broke off as soon as he heard her approach.

"You can be used against us, too," she told Phoran. "And you are defenseless against a Shadowed. I want you to stay where you are. Don't draw attention to yourselves if you can help it. I don't know if we can protect you – and I'd rather never have to find out."

Phoran shook his head. "Willon doesn't know you."

She'd expected arguments – in her experience men didn't like to be told they were helpless. Phoran's remark didn't seem to have much bearing on what she'd said.

"Of course he does," she answered. "For twenty years we have lived in the same town."

Phoran smiled, the sweet smile that doubtless had seen him through more trouble than any ten children. "Yes, but he doesn't know you. He knows a quiet, cold woman, commanding and strong, who cares for nothing except for Tier and her family."

"And?"

"The woman he thinks he knows would never put her family in danger. Not for an emperor, and certainly not for his guards." The smile widened, and his tired eyes lit up. "And he'd be right – except that you don't see us as an emperor and his guards. I saw your face when we told you Rufort was dead – but Willon didn't. He won't know you care about us at all because he cares for no one. He won't try and use us as hostages."

Then he did something utterly unexpected. He stood up, brushed off his pant legs, and took two steps forward, bowed low, until his mouth was level with her face, and kissed both of her cheeks. "He thinks Tier is soft, and you are hard – and he's wrong on both counts."

She could feel the flush that rose under her skin.

"We know you," he said. "But he doesn't."

"Well," she said, flustered, and was almost grateful for Jes's low, rumbling warning.

"He's coming," said Lehr, standing up. "I feel it, too, Jes. He's not trying to hide from us."

"Just keep low," she told them. She held out her hand for Rinnie. "We need you with us," she told her. "Come, Lehr."

At Hennea's direction, they stood in a rough semicircle with Tier in the center. As Willon strolled into view, Seraph tightened her hands on Rinnie and Lehr. She saw Jes take Hennea's hand, and, finally, Hennea and Tier he