A Play of Shadow (7 page)

There. A glimpse of brown. Or was it black? Had he imagined it? No. Bannan trusted the wary flick of Perrkin’s ear over his eyes. Something paced them through the shadowed woods.

If it was Scourge, the great beast had graciously allowed both man and gelding that fleeting look.

If something else . . . ?

Bannan spread the fingers of his left hand where it rested on his thigh before remembering there was no Tir Half-face to catch that guard’s signal for caution. Then again, were they not a caravan of simple villagers? He turned easily in the saddle, hooking one leg over Perrkin’s neck. The seemingly careless position would allow him to swiftly dismount with the horse between him and any attacker, a horse who might not have fangs, but who’d been trained to use hooves and teeth. “Ancestors Famished and Faint, Davi,” he called to the smith. “When do we stop for lunch?” A meal they’d eaten already, at the same spot he’d camped with Tir on the journey north, giving the horses a breather and watering, and there was no plan to pause again.

The big man had been half asleep himself. To his credit, he understood at once, coming awake with a stretch and an outwardly cheerful, “Not long now. Past yon bend. There’s a stream, as I recall.” His own hand, twice the breadth of Bannan’s and callused rock-hard by years working metal, wrapped around the hammer tied to Brawl’s harness. He didn’t pull it free. Not yet.

Tadd, riding by the cart, frowned. “Lunch? But—”

“Ooooh,” Hettie groaned fervently, a hand on the swelling at her waist. “Oooh!”

Her husband looked horrified. Bannan, seeing the lie in her face, winked to acknowledge her quick wit. Though pale, she winked back.

The playacting roused Lorra, who fussily straightened her hat as she peered around. Frann, meanwhile, remained sound asleep. Devins, on the opposite side of the cart, glanced at his stepsister, made a face as if to declare his intention to stay out of any baby business, then pulled his hat down over his brows to doze again.

But didn’t. Bannan saw the young man’s hands gather the reins, ready to send his mount wherever necessary.

Lorra began to scowl. “What’s the matter?” she snapped.

“A kick surprised me, Great Aunt, that’s all.” Hettie smiled, the little gap between her teeth giving her a mischievous look that was, Bannan knew, wholly appropriate. “She’s a strong one.”

“He,” Lorra corrected—not for the first time. “Covie’s guessing. And don’t call me that. I’m not a hundred years old.”

“My mother, Lorra Treff, doesn’t guess.” With a decided snap. Tadd, anxious now for a new reason, looked over at Devins; that worthy’s shoulders were shaking suspiciously. “My mother’s the best healer in Marrowdell!”

“Which doesn’t say much, does it? I say it’s a boy.”

Bannan wondered if he should hope the bickering would distract any bandits.

Then Davi let go of his hammer to join the fray. “Now, Mother—a wee girl would be wonderful.”

“Another girl, and we’ll have to order in husbands by the handful!”

Frann woke up, blinked, and said happily, “You’ve had the baby?”

“You haven’t, have you?” Tadd demanded. “I mean, you can’t, like that. Can you?”

Devins leaned back and roared with laughter. Hettie’s face turned pink.

Perrkin’s ears went flat.

In one fluid motion, Bannan threw himself around in the saddle and dug in his heels to drive the willing horse toward the wall of trees. He put his hand to the hilt of his sword, but didn’t draw it as they charged, hearing but ignoring the shouts from behind.

Almost in the shadows, he leaned back sharply in the saddle. The gelding almost sat in its urgency to obey, then half reared as now Bannan did pull free the blade. “Hold!” he shouted, thrusting the gleaming thing high as his blood pounded in his ears and all his better sense told him he was an idiot.

The martial display wouldn’t impress Scourge in the least. Hopefully, it might deter a few faint-hearted bandits.

Unfortunately, it did nothing to slow the onrush of the huge and shaggy bear, mouth agape in a roar!

Perrkin, wiser than his rider, whirled and bolted.

While Lorra, never one to miss the essential point, shouted, “Save us! It’s after the sausage!”

Later, Bannan couldn’t be sure exactly what had happened, and was glad of it. He remembered turning the gelding back toward the caravan. The shouts and commotion as horses rightly contested being asked to stay anywhere close to the bear. The roars and snarls of what wasn’t a huge bear after all, but a miserable and maddened creature, late to its den, bent on attacking anything edible.

Then the
smack!
as Scourge hit it from the side at full charge, likely breaking its back, but that hadn’t been enough for the old kruar who’d . . .

The truthseer swallowed. According to Devins, who’d promptly lost his lunch at the side of the road, Scourge had ripped out the bear’s entrails and tossed them high in the air.

Before diving back in to pluck out and eat its heart. While purring.

Drama done, the little caravan resumed its journey. The horses were understandably unhappy, an opinion they expressed by breaking into a jog toward Endshere and its stable as often as allowed. The villagers, who thankfully remembered Scourge as his warhorse, if nothing more, accepted with good humor that the beast had followed the caravan and heroically saved its master.

From what they emphasized had been a very small bear.

Bannan was almost offended, for Scourge’s sake, if not his own; surely the beast had been large enough to bring down a horse or man, and enraged at that. Seeing the truth in their faces, he kept his peace. Perhaps the north harbored a different sort of bear.

As for the giant mass of flesh stalking alongside poor Perrkin? Bannan shook his head. “You could go home,” he suggested quietly, again.

A roll of a still-red eye.

“Do you—can you remember? Home? What you are?”

Scourge might be unable to speak beyond the edge, but that curled lip eloquently dismissed any of his, Bannan’s, concerns as trivial.

Fair enough. Scourge had brought him to Marrowdell in the first place. They’d make do. “Idiot beast.” Bannan reached over to slap the dusty hide, avoiding a glob of bear blood. His voice thickened. “Hearts of my Ancestors, I swear I’ll get you home again.”

A shudder worked under the skin, whether at his touch or the alternative.

Well enough. They were safer for the kruar’s company.

If not any mice in Endshere’s stable.

The turn came, sliding night’s deeper blue over the Bone Hills, leading shadows down the Tinkers Road to the village, spreading wide across the fallow fields. It roused efflet to whisper in their hedges, their eyes cold and pale as they watched for unwary nyphrit. They remembered, did efflet, how very many of them had died on the Spine, and took an accounting whenever they could.

Ylings, who’d also fought and died, danced and sang, catching the light of the turn in their hair, their number so great that the old trees, the neyet and their homes, seemed leafed in tiny stars. The turn passed and they hid again.

Giggling. Ylings preferred life to vengeance.

The turn reached the village and house toads tucked themselves under bed frames or stoves or burrowed beneath cushions, as house toads were wont to do, being loath to expose their true nature.

While Jenn Nalynn stood in the space between kitchen and main room, arms wide and head back, drinking in light.

She could be anywhere, and the turn would find her. Change her. Reveal her as she was. Earlier now, as winter approached. Unmistakable, always.

Jenn opened and closed her hands, marveling how they could feel the same, yet look so different. Fingers of glass, filled with opalescence. If she lifted them to her face, the glow made her squint. Which must be a memory of squinting, or its habit, since she had no eyes nor other features as turn-born. Another question for Mistress Sand, who hadn’t said anything about the mask she and other turn-born wore in place of a face. A mask, moreover, that became a face, once the turn passed.

It was all quite remarkable. What mattered, Jenn supposed, was that she could see regardless. She smiled, just to feel her lips pulling and the crinkle of both cheeks.

Her smile grew wistful as glass became skin once more and her hands, merely hands. Like the toads, she avoided being seen during the turn; a task more easily accomplished now that the sun set before supper instead of during it when she should be helping. It was more than keeping her nature secret from those who didn’t know—that some didn’t being a feat to amaze in Marrowdell—it was that the change felt intensely private.

Although Bannan’s magic let him see her as turn-born simply, as he put it, by looking deeper, he loved to watch her during the turn. She could watch herself in his eyes, see their astonished joy, hear the catch of his breath.

Her cheeks warmed. Two days. Three at most. According to Aunt Sybb, absence made a heart either fonder or forgetful. Bannan couldn’t possibly forget her, though Jenn, now dancing around the empty room, couldn’t imagine how it was possible to become more fond.

Should she, her heart, she assured that organ, pressing her hands to it, would no longer fit inside her chest.

A rumble from lower down reminded her it was, in fact, time to satisfy another hunger altogether.

The main room of the Nalynn home had changed since Jenn last lived in it. Some was the accommodation of an artist in the family, Kydd’s clever slanted desk being under a front window and his latest watercolors pinned to the walls. The paintings were of Marrowdell’s mill, with the colors of fall behind, though three were studies of Peggs’ profile as he took full advantage of living with his favorite subject. Radd’s bed remained where it had always been, with his favorite barrel chair brought in for the winter, but over the bed, where it would catch the morning’s sunlight or evening’s candleglow, he’d hung the sigil carved with his wife’s name. Peggs had told Jenn he sometimes spoke to it, and admitted she did the same.

Radd smiled at his gathered family, resting his fond gaze on his youngest daughter. “Please say the Beholding for us, Dear Heart.”

The eldest said the Beholding which, for much of the year, the best part, was Aunt Sybb. She’d never done it. Jenn glanced at Peggs, who merely smiled, then at Kydd, whose smile, if anything, was wider. It was a conspiracy, clearly. “I’d be honored, Poppa,” she gave in, taking the guest’s seat at the Nalynn table. She formed the circle over her heart with her forefingers and thumbs, silently hoping they were clean, and composed herself.

“Hearts of our Ancestors,” Jenn began. “We are Beholden for the food on this table, for Peggs is the best cook in the world—” and blushing madly, though she shouldn’t, considering the wonderful feast spread over the table, but Jenn had blushed herself at many a Beholding and considered this only fair. She continued, “It will give us the strength to improve ourselves in your eyes. We are Beholden for the opportunity to share this meal, for though we are two families now—” for some reason her voice stuck in her throat and Jenn coughed to free it “—we will always be one in your eyes and our hearts—”