Raven's Strike (Raven Duology #2) - Page 4

Not letting herself look back, Seraph walked briskly through the storm-tattered camp that covered their fields, ignoring the people who scuttled out of her way. She stared at the ground to spare them her gaze until she made it into the woods that bordered the farm.

What had she been going to do?

She stood where she was for a long moment.

She had to protect… by Lark and Raven, she was power-sick. Couldn't think clearly.

The warding. She should reset the warding. Slowly she made her way to the place where the warding had been and knelt in the dirt.

There are two ways to set wardings. The voice of her old teacher was as clear as if he'd been standing over her shoulder. For a night a warding can be a simple thing, a rope that surrounds the tents and wagons and keeps them safe. But for any longer, or where dangers are greater, a warding is best worked as a chain with interconnecting links, each subtly different from the one before so that if one link fell, the others will still be effective guards.

She pressed her hands into the soil and began, ignoring the ugly whispering voice that tried to coax her to keep the power she held. If she could kill a troll with a whisper, how great was the good that she could accomplish with what she now held?

Her hands tingled as she carefully drew a curved line. She'd never held such power.

Only as the terrible rush of the troll's death died away did she really understand how old it had been. She felt his age in the burn of magic that was not lessened even when she set wards that should keep out the shadowed for generations.

She feared that just relaying the wards would not be enough to absorb so much so she began to feed it into the forest. Too much, and she'd harm as much as she helped, but a slow trickle of magic should not cause a problem.

Gradually the discipline of redrawing the wards absorbed her. Mathematical and artistic at the same time, they required enough of her attention that the part of her that desired the rush of power was reduced to murmurs she could ignore.

She became aware of him gradually, a pale form grazing quietly beside her. The pattering of the light rain was accompanied by the grinding of teeth and grass. The familiar, peaceful sound helped somehow, and she became aware of a deep inner contentment.

She was home.

She finished the link she was working and sat back, fisting her hands against her lower back as she stretched.

"You don't look well," she said.

"One of the tainted creatures attacked the priest," replied the pale horse who was Jes's forest king. His voice was velvety and very deep. "I saved him, but it was a near-run thing. Karadoc's not young by Rederni standards, and he's ill even yet. Without a priest, fighting the shadow-tainted has been draining, even with the help of your daughter."

She absorbed what he said and sorted through questions. The slowness of her thoughts told her that she was far from free of power-sickness yet.

"The troll wasn't the first of the shadow-tainted creatures to come here?" she asked. She didn't need Lehr or Jes to tell her that the troll had been tainted. Unlike the mistwight, trolls were shadow-born, creatures whose only purpose was to destroy and kill.

"No, there were other things, too, things I haven't seen since the Fall, though none as dangerous as the troll. They come to destroy and feed the Shadowed."

Seraph stilled. "I had hoped that we were wrong. You are sure there is another Shadowed? That Volis couldn't have set up a summoning spell?"

The horse snorted. "Creatures like that troll would only come to the call of a Shadowed." He rubbed his nose on his knee.

"You mean the Shadowed is here?" asked Seraph, then shook with the rebellion of her magic as her control of her emotions wavered. She took in deep, even breaths until everything settled down.

The forest king waited until she was through before he said, "Not now, I don't think. But he has been here. He left behind a rune in the old temple that was triggered a few weeks ago." He lifted his head to scent the air, then shook his mane and turned his attention back to her. "I don't pay enough attention to the town. If Karadoc hadn't called me when the first of the creatures appeared, it might have taken me too long to find the rune on my own. As it was, other than destroying the rune, I could do little for them in the stone of the town, so I called them here, where your wards could do some of the work while I took care of the tainted things. I wasn't expecting the troll, so I used myself up healing the priest and driving away the little things. A troll…" He sighed. "A normal troll would not have been too difficult, but that one… Your wards kept him mostly away from the villagers until today."

"There was a rune in the temple," Seraph said.

"To awaken and draw those things that bear the collar of the Shadowed," the forest king explained. "The priest took me to the temple, and we destroyed the rune. Not soon enough."

Runes were solsenti wizardry mostly. Seraph was only marginally familiar with the theory behind them – though there were a few useful ones that she used sometimes. She did know that they could be drawn and set to wait until something triggered them. The temple had only been built this past winter, though, so the Shadowed had been in Redern sometime since then.

A number of the Path's wizards had come with Volis, the wizard-priest she'd killed in the new temple in the village. The other wizards kidnaped Tier, then left for Taela. The Shadowed could have been among them.

Perhaps the mistwight that killed the smith's daughter had been drawn from whatever place it had been hidden and was traveling toward Redern. After the forest king stopped the call it settled in the smith's well. Unhappily, she wondered how many other creatures were even now preying upon defenseless villages – maybe that was what Benroln had been called to fight.

The burn of power slowed Seraph's thoughts, and she returned to her wardings. The forest king followed her when she moved, grazing while she worked.

Darkness fell under the trees, though she could see patches of light where the trees were thin. The birds quieted as they settled in for sleep, but there was music coming from the farm. She smiled; let more than two Rederni get together, and there would be music.

She examined the progress of her magicweaving critically and was satisfied. Her thoughts were a little clearer than they'd been, and the wards were strong and tightly woven.

"Tier told me once that he thought Jes's forest king shared a number of traits with Ellevanal," she told the horse casually.

Ellevanal was the god worshiped by the mountain peoples, including the Rederni. Though today was only the second time Seraph had seen him, Jes had spent his summers exploring the woods with a creature he'd called the forest king since he was old enough to run.

"Bards see things that others do not," agreed the forest king, taking another bite of grass.

"What would the Rederni say if they saw their god of forests eating grass?" asked Seraph.

"They are not Travelers," replied the god after he'd finished chewing. "They would not see what you do."

She laughed despite herself. "Now that's a properly mystical answer."

"I thought so," he said. "But it is true for all of that."

"Gods do not look haggard and sick to their worshipers?"

"You don't believe in the gods," Ellevanal said. "How would you know what they do or don't do?" The teasing note fell from his voice. "They say that the Travelers don't believe in the gods because they killed theirs and ate them."

"I've never heard that."

"Of course not," said Ellevanal. "You are a Traveler who doesn't believe in gods."

"How long have you been here, guarding the forest?"

The horse raised its head and tested the wind, his rib cage rising and falling as if he'd been racing rather than quietly grazing at her side an hour or more. There was mud on his legs and belly.

"A long time," he said. "Before the Shadowed King came and laid waste to the world. Before the Remnants of the Glorious Army of Man arrived here after the Fall and found safe harbor here, naming me god in their gratitude." Then he cast her a roguish glance. "Before the unthinkable happened, and Tieragan Baker was born Ordered and upset the Travelers' world."

"He hasn't upset the Travelers' world," she said.

"Hasn't he?" The horse snorted and tossed his head. "Wait and see what an Ordered Rederni may do. Already word of you is windborne, and some will come seeking you to destroy what you may become."

Seraph raised an eyebrow at him.

He dropped his head slyly. "A god may speak in riddles if He will."

She shook her head at him and went back to work because the power had begun singing to her again. The forest king went back to eating.

When she came to a place where she could see the farm she was reassured to note that the camp was orderly and relaxed.

A group of men were restringing tent lines and hanging the muddy fabrics over them. Another group was setting up fires for cooking – so many people could not be fed out of her kitchen. She didn't see any of her family, but there was a cheerful energy to the way the villagers moved that told her that no one had been seriously injured: and there was music.

"If you are a god," Seraph said, "shouldn't you have been able to take care of a troll far better than we did?"

"But I am only a small god," said the horse, sounding amused. "I could not destroy the troll – not that troll, which was a minion of the Shadowed and escaped the Fall to live centuries more than a troll ought, and still keep my priest alive. Death doesn't relinquish its rightful prey lightly, and healing is not my province."

"Why didn't you let him die?" she asked, though she had no desire for Karadoc's death. "No one has ever said that the priests of Ellevanal are immortal."

He laughed in soft huffs at her tart tone. "He is an excellent skiri player, which priests seldom are. Most of them are more given to things of the spirit rather than cleverness of the mind." The picture of a priest playing a board game with his god struck Seraph as extremely odd, but before she could ask him about it, the forest king's voice became serious. "There are no others to take his place. His apprentice will be fine in a few years, but I needed my priest now."

The rain had stopped, and rising warmth turned the moisture in the grasses to fog where the last light of the sun peeked through to light the small clearing where the god stood. Steam rose from the white horse's flanks and ribs, ribs that were a good deal less prominent than they had been when he'd first joined her.

"You've been feeding," she said.

The horse set his nose in a knee-high clump of grass and ripped some from the ground. He raised his head and chewed pointedly.

Seraph shook her head at him. "No grass pads ribs so quickly."

"Where do you think the power that you've been feeding into the forest goes?" He laughed, again. "Before the first of Rederni's Bards was born here, I was little more than a very old stag who wandered about. But a Bard is a very powerful thing, if subtle. There may be more than one reason that the Travelers never stay long in one place."

Seraph stared at him. Of course Tier wasn't the only Bard born to the Rederni, not with the way music flowed through them like blood.

"You feed off magic?" she said, setting aside the question of more Ordered solsenti.

"Did I say that?" asked the horse. "I would never lie to you, Raven. I feed off the land only." His eyes lit with wicked laughter at her huff of frustration. "Careful, Raven. Anger and magic are a volatile combination. I don't understand it completely myself."

"What do you understand?" she asked.

"Travelers have not come here in a long time," he said. "Not since the Fall and seldom before that. Only when you came to live here with Tier did I notice there is something about the Orders that makes the land… more alive. It is not magic, not that I can tell. There." He tossed his head. "I have told you as much as I know. The forest is my realm, and its secrets belong to me. Travelers belong to no gods and, I think, they have more secrets than most."

He stayed with her until she completed the circle, then wandered away, swishing his tail in mild irritation at an impious bug.

Seraph staggered almost drunkenly to her feet, sympathizing with Tier, as her knees throbbed, and her back ached. She'd worn a hole in her pants, but that didn't matter. Now that they were home she'd have to go back to wearing Rederni skirts.

As Seraph picked her way tiredly down the slope toward home, Jes ran up. She heard him before she saw him because he was chanting softly, "I found her," as he ran.

He was laughing when he stopped just in front of her. "I found you," he said. "I found you before Lehr."

She touched his shoulder lightly. "You did at that. Is everyone all right?"

He nodded and fell into step with her. "Hennea sent us out. She said it should be safe to find you now. She said if someone didn't, Papa was going to undo all the good she managed to do for his knees by coming out here himself."

Seraph remembered the troll's fist closing around Tier's legs. "Is he all right?"

Jes nodded. "He grumbled about his knees, so they must be fine."

Seraph smiled. "So they must." If he'd been really hurt, not a word would have crossed his lips. "And Rinnie?"

"She's asleep next to Papa, who's singing with Ciro. She has a bump on her head and a bruise on her shoulder about this big – " Jes held his hands apart to show how big, and Seraph hoped he was exaggerating, though that wasn't one of Jes's faults.

"Lehr was jealous of her," he said. "He said he'd never had a bruise that big. I have though. Remember the time I fell off the barn? That was a bigger bruise than Rinnie's."

"I hope none of us ever gets a bruise that big again."

Jes nodded. "Me, too. Here comes Lehr. I found her first, Lehr. I'll see you at home." Jes slipped off in the darkness, leaving Seraph alone with Lehr.

"Once I quit trying to track you and began to follow the sound of Jes's voice you weren't hard to find. Jes is happy to be home," said Lehr. "You look tired, Mother. Are you all right?"

Seraph nodded. "Fine. Just a little worn, I'm not used to handling so much magic. Jes said your father and Rinnie aren't hurt much?"

"They're fine – just a bit bruised and battered," agreed Lehr, and something inside of Seraph relaxed. "Ciro made Papa tell everyone the story of what happened while we were gone."

Ciro, the tanner's father, had been a close friend of Tier's grandfather, and had helped Tier learn to love music. Not that Tier had needed much encouragement.

"Ciro said he was going to make Papa's story into a song. Then they got in a contest to see who'd come up with the funniest verses." He turned his attention to the rough ground they were walking on for a moment, then said, "They've been having trouble here for the past few weeks. The troll was the worst of it, but there've been goblins and other things."

"The forest king found me while I was trying to get rid of the troll's death magic," said Seraph. "He told me the wizard-priest, Volis, had done something to call the servants of the shadow. Hennea and I must have missed that while we were going through the temple. Karadoc stopped the summoning, but he was hurt." She glanced at her son.

Lehr nodded. "He's staying in the house right now." He cleared his throat. "He's been staying in your room. Papa said to leave him there tonight. He looks pretty bad, pale and bruised, but they carried him out for the music, so he can't be as bad as he looks."

Seraph was tired, her clothes were wet, and she'd been looking forward to sleeping in her own bed. "Karadoc's not a young man anymore. If he's hurt, he'd better stay in our bed until they move back to town – which shouldn't be too long. The forest king told me Karadoc helped destroy the rune that summoned the tainted beasts here. The troll should be the end of it. I'd imagine tomorrow or the next day they'll all be back in Redern." She hoped.

"Jes will be glad to hear that," said Lehr. "He took one look at Aunt Alinath and hid behind Hennea."

"She took care of Rinnie for us," said Seraph, and stumbled over a branch she hadn't seen.

Lehr took her arm. "I know. But she's never known how to treat Jes."

"She wouldn't have been so bad if Jes hadn't gone out of his way to be at his worst with her."

Lehr snorted. "Papa says the same of Aunt Alinath and you."

There was a small gathering of people in front of the house, where someone had lit a small bonfire despite the damp. Tier, one knee tightly bound and stretched out in front of him, was playing the lute he'd brought back from Taela. Rinnie was wrapped up in a blanket and had fallen asleep with her head on Tier's unbound knee.

Ciro had a small drum out, and he and Tier were singing together. The old man's voice was as true as it had ever been, and Tier… Seraph had always thought that he had the most adaptable voice she'd ever heard. He could sing love songs in a tone of warm butter and sugar, then switch to harsh war songs in a voice that could cut stone. Right now he gave the old singer the melody and took a descant, softening his tone to flatter Ciro's – which hardly needed enhancing.

Just outside of the firelight, Seraph stopped. "Have you checked for a taint of shadow among the Rederni?" The Shadowed could be someone they knew.

Lehr nodded. "Hennea had both Jes and me do it. But not even Uncle Bandor shows any signs. Hennea said that like as not, if anyone had been tainted, they wouldn't have been able to cross your wardings – and all of the village is here."

"Good." She hadn't really been worried someone would have been tainted, though she probably should have been. And the Shadowed had been able to hide what he was from Lehr and Jes until the very last moments of their chase. It might be that he could hide himself from her sons.

It was, she thought, unlikely that the Shadowed was someone she knew from the village. She put thoughts of the Shadowed aside for another time, when she was less tired.

Tier's voice wavered when he saw her, and he fell silent, stopping the strings of the lute with his hand. After a few beats Ciro stopped, too.

"Is something wrong?" Ciro asked.

Tier shook his head, but kept his eyes on Seraph. "I'm just tired tonight. I'll leave the music to you for now."

"If Karadoc has our bed, we'll need to look for somewhere else to sleep," murmured Seraph, so she wouldn't interfere with Ciro's music. She bent down to touch Rinnie's face, then looked up into Tier's. Even in the dark, he looked pale and drawn – his knees must be hurting him.

"Somewhere private," agreed Tier. "But the house is full."

Seraph took a good look at the sky, but the storm had passed by. "I might be able to come up with something. Lehr, can you find our bedrolls and my pack? And make certain you, Hennea, Jes, and Rinnie have someplace to sleep."

He nodded. "I'll be right back."

He was as good as his word and handed Seraph both bedrolls before Ciro had finished his second solo piece.

"Rinnie still has her bed in the house, I'll carry her in," Lehr kept his voice soft, though Ciro was between songs. "The rest of us now have claim to space in the barn. Do you need more help, Papa?"

Tier levered himself to his feet and shook his head. "As long as we're not going too far, I'll be fine."

Seraph nodded to Lehr and bent to kiss the top of Rinnie's head. "I'll see you in the morning," she told her son.

She led Tier behind the house where the land rose to a narrow flat shelf of meadow that was surrounded by short trees and bushes. Tier was limping badly, Seraph winced inwardly with him at every step.

She set the bedrolls on top of a rock where they shouldn't get too wet, but stopped him when he bent to unroll his. "No. Wait a moment, and I'll have something better for us."

She set down her pack and took out the bag that held her mermori. Sorting quickly, she found Isolde's mermora and sank the sharp end into the ground. She stepped back and murmured the words that would call the ancient house of Isolde the Silent.

There was a pause, as the magic organized itself. She could feel the familiar weave of Hinnum's spells unfolding as they remembered the pattern of Isolde's dwelling, rebuilding rooms long since rotted by time. She felt as much as saw the house re-form in the shelter of the woods behind her house.

Isolde's had not been among the larger dwellings belonging to the Colossae wizards, though it was bigger than the house Tier had built Seraph. The front of Isolde's house was designed to please the eye, covered with decorative brickwork. The sides were flat and plain – so flat that Seraph was certain it had shared walls with neighboring houses rather than standing free. The contrast between gracious facade and flat sides made it look a little odd, especially standing alone in the woods instead of on a busy city street.

"We can sleep here tonight," she said.

"I thought you didn't do that," said Tier, though he followed her up the front stairs and through the ebony door.

"It can be dangerous," she said, though most of her attention was on her husband's slow progress. "This is an illusion – a very good illusion – but if the weather is unpleasant, you can freeze to death without ever knowing it. But the rain has stopped, and we'll use our own blankets for warmth."

"So why didn't we use it to sleep in while we were on the trail home?" Tier asked.

"Magic, any magic, tends to attract the attention of a variety of nasty creatures that I'd rather not wake up to," Seraph answered, moving a chair that Tier might have had to step around. "And the illusion is good enough you can't hear if anything comes prowling. Tonight – well, there was enough magic here to call anything looking for it, so Isolde's house isn't going to make any difference. With my wardings fresh, I don't think there's much that'll get through. We'll be safe and private here."

The house was lit with small lanterns. Tier limped behind her through the sitting room and into the smallest of the bedrooms. There was less personality here than in the other bedrooms. Seraph had always assumed it was a guest room, and felt more comfortable in it, less an interloper and more a guest.

"It seems wrong to put these dirty blankets on that bed," Tier said.

She could see his point, the bedding was pristine white. "It's all right. The dirt won't be there next time the mermora is called."

Tier shook his head, but he loosened the tie on his blankets and unrolled them on the bed. Seraph could see that more than his knees were bothering him tonight.

"You're hurting," she said. "Strip down and let me see."

It was a mark of how tired he really was that he followed her brisk commands without a word of teasing. She turned up the light on the bedside table so she could see better.

He moved slowly and she saw, in addition to the new damage to his healing knees, his left shoulder was hurt. When he was finished she walked around him once to assess the damage with an eye educated by three children who climbed trees and barns and other things more suited to birds than humans.

"Nothing a few days' rest and a good hot bath won't fix," she said at last with relief. No matter what Lehr had said, Tier's obvious soreness had worried her. "Lie down, and I'll see what I can do," she said.

He sat on the bed with a grunt of relief, and she helped him swing his legs up.

"Now," she told him, after she'd stripped off her wet outer clothing. "I'm going to see if I can't make you more comfortable. If you tell Brewydd about this, I'll never hear the end of it. Pain is your body's way of telling you that you need to rest, or you'll do permanent harm. Nothing I can do will make you heal faster, but I can take away the pain for the night."

She touched the arches of his feet, then the ankles, working slowly up with just a breath of magic. When she touched his knees, his whole body relaxed.

"That feels wonderful," he breathed.

"It'll feel better before I'm done," she said, kissing him softly on the mouth. "But you'll curse me in the morning when I release the magic." She slid her hands up the outside of his thighs and over his hips.

"Have I told you I love you today?" he asked, eyes closed in bliss.

"You're just afraid of what I'll do to you if you don't," she said absently, her attention on the magic that she threaded carefully over his hurts.

He opened his eyes and put a hand under her chin. "I'm not afraid of you," he said, tugging her down for another kiss, this one carnal and knowing. "I love you," he said, when she lifted her head.

She found her lips curving upward on their own before she turned back to her work. "The forest king told me the shadow-tainted creatures were called by a rune in the temple. He said the only one who could have created the rune was a Shadowed."

"Ah," said Tier. "I know you were hoping against this."

She paused in her spell casting, blowing a stray hair that had escaped its braid out of her eye. "A Shadowed brings sorrow behind him in a blanket of death."

"Is the Shadowed a return of the Unnamed King?" asked Tier.

"No," she said. "He's a man who enslaves himself to the Stalker and takes power and immortality as his pay."

"There have been others?"

She nodded, tracing a faint scar on Tier's chest that he'd gotten fighting the Fahlarn before she'd met him. It came from a near-mortal wound that Tier seldom talked about. "A few."

"The Stalker is the thing that the wizards of Colossae imprisoned by destroying their city."

Seraph flattened her hand, warming it on his skin. "They didn't destroy the city, Tier. They sacrificed it."

He shifted restlessly under her hand. "You've told me that before. You mean they killed everyone who lived there except the wizards who cast the spell."

"Yes and no." It was an old story, but it wasn't one Travelers talked about much. "Every morning, Alinath gets up and the fires are lit in the bake ovens, just as your family has done since the bakery was built centuries ago. The whole village has tasks that have been performed every day – rituals of living. There is power in that, Tier, just as there is power in the spark of life that is the heart of the difference between your body and a clay pot. The wizards extracted the power of everyday rituals, of generations of living, as well as the deaths of their families and friends who had trusted them. The mages killed the people whom they loved, and there was power in that, too, more than death by itself would have brought. They used all that power and knew it wasn't enough to destroy their creation, only keep him in check."

"What does the Stalker want?" asked Tier, ever the storyteller. "What did it do to frighten the wizards into killing their families?"

"The Traveler word that translates into Common as Stalker also means the death of the prey that is stalked – not for food, but for the sheer love of destruction." She shrugged unhappily. "That's all anyone knows of it – just that the Colossae wizards named it the Stalker, then destroyed their lives in order to contain it."

"The Unnamed King nearly destroyed humankind."

Seraph nodded. "Mistwights live on small prey. They don't play with their food like a cat might. The tainted one we found was deliberately terrorizing the smith because it enjoyed it. So perhaps the Stalker drives those who serve it to terrible deeds. Certainly death follows the Shadowed and those who are tainted."

"You said Benroln was shadowed," said Tier.

She nodded. "It's unusual. Most of the shadow taint we Travelers see is still damage done by the Unnamed King."

"How did it happen?"

"I thought at first it was Volis who did it," she told him. "He was certainly tainted himself – as were all the Masters of the Path. But my old teacher, Arvage, told me once that he thought the Stalker was constrained from forcing his will upon others, a constraint not faced by the Shadowed for some reason. If that is true, then it was the Shadowed who was responsible for the taint that stained the Path wizards and Benroln."

"What is the difference between a man who is shadow-tainted and one who is the Shadowed?"

"A taint is imposed upon you," Seraph said. "It takes little sins – buried resentments and angers – and builds upon those until they are pulled to the forefront. Bandor hit your sister – peace, Tier, it wasn't his fault. I was just using that as an example of how much tainting can change a personality. If you fight the taint, it will eat away at you until you are little more than a beast and can no longer hide the madness. The Masters lived with it for years as far as I can tell."

"And the Shadowed?"

"We don't know how they are made. If we did, we might be able to stop it from happening again. All of the Shadowed have been wizards. I think they have to contact the Stalker in some fashion, perhaps there is a spell written in a solsenti book of magic somewhere. Or perhaps the Stalker is able to call a wizard who is suitable for his purposes. In any case the Shadowed willingly sacrifices the lives of people around him in order to gain power and immortality. I don't know what the Stalker gains,