Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess (24 page)

Jaime's head was free and she was on her feet, whirling to locate all three of them. One was down, clutching a hip, the other was rising, his hand slapping at the empty knife sheath, and the woman was—was behind her! Jaime turned just in time to see the heavy pommel of a huge knife heading for her head, too close to avoid. Then dancing dun horseflesh flashed behind the woman and strong white teeth snatched that knife-wielding shoulder, lifted the woman off the ground, and tossed her effortlessly aside.

Jaime ran to her champion and threw herself astride in a mount she wouldn't have dreamed she could make, and Lady thundered down the path, taking them far away from any feeble foot pursuit. She was still running full tilt when the path abruptly opened into a narrow swath of cleared ground that rimmed a thick log wall.

Jaime almost fell off then, clutching mane and riding air as Lady pivoted to follow the wall without cutting her speed. When they reached the thick path that was clearly a main entrance, Jaime was ready for the equally sharp turn into the gate, and rode it much better—which didn't make any difference in the long run, for to Lady's obvious surprise, the gate was closed, and although she reared up in an effort to stop in time, they both crashed hard into the stout wooden structure. A face full of flying black mane swept Jaime into oblivion, but not before her mind's eye flashed her a picture of Carey, Mark and Dayna running into three very annoyed men-at-arms.

Carey, tired and grim. Dayna with a dirty, tearstained face going pale with exhaustion—a body pushed to the limit. Stumbling. Mark, catching her, speaking to her, holding a branch out of her way. But where was Jess?

"Carey!" Jaime called. "Carey, where's Jess?"

"You're all right."

It was a calm androgynous voice, a voice that knows it has things under control. Jaime immediately felt better about everything, and then opened her eyes in alarm as she remembered just what "everything" was.

"Carey's out in the woods!" she said, even before she had completely taken in the plump, middle-aged woman sitting cross-legged on the ground beside her in a subdued blue split skirt and long tunic. The woman had a cap of thick, greying, ash brown hair and remarkably calm brown eyes; she greeted Jaime's statement with a raised eyebrow.

"I thought I just saw him," Jaime started, then faltered, confused, "but that doesn't make any sense." She was on her back, and aside from the woman, could see little but the trees that towered above her, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was still in one piece, despite the hard fall she'd taken. Carefully, she rolled to her side, testing to see that everything still worked before she sat up—but she couldn't find any of the aches and pains that should have been assaulting her after such a hard collision.

She discovered she was just outside the now-open gate, but Lady was nowhere in sight. Within the walls there were plenty of people going about their business, casting an occasional curious glance their way but leaving them alone.

"I—I'm afraid I'm confused," she confessed to the woman, looking down at her torn breeches and knowing she had not overestimated the seriousness of the fall.
And I
know
I saw Carey, Dayna and my brother in the woods.

"I'm not surprised," the woman nodded; her earrings, two flat teardrops of bright peacock blue, swung with the motion. "Healing on a head injury often leaves the patient a little befuddled. It'll pass."

"Healing on a head injury," Jaime repeated without comprehension, and decided it was more important to get to the heart of the matter. "I need to talk to Sherra right away. Can you take me to her?"

"Easily," the woman asserted and spread her arms. "Here I am, in all my glory."

Jaime blinked, but wasn't taken aback for long. "I'm here for Arlen's courier, Carey."

"Ah, then that
was
one of his duns that you rode in on."

"Lady," Jaime responded immediately. "Where is she? Is she all right?"

"She took the collision with our gate much better than you did, dear. She's with my own head courier right now and wouldn't get better care if she were a princess."

"Carey needs help," Jaime blurted, at once overcome with the complexity of the situation. "He's out in the woods with some friends of mine, and he's got Arlen's spell. They're on foot, and he's sure some of Calandre's men are after them." For a sudden instant she wondered if she'd said the right thing, if this woman might not be Calandre instead, a very clever Calandre. But there was something about those eyes that reassured her . . .

"I felt him arrive," Sherra nodded, more to herself than to Jaime; then she focused on Jaime again and smiled. "Or should I say I felt you
all
arrive. Please don't worry about him, or your friends. When I felt a spell of such magnitude, I thought it might be Carey; I alerted all my people to watch for him. Now I can tell them he'll be with friends—and that Calandre's annoying little minions will be snapping at their heels." She stood up and held out a hand for Jaime, who was still feeling dazed enough that she did not question, but reached for the warm, strong grip—and then was glad of it when the world reeled around her.

"Slowly, dear. Head injuries are nothing to fool with, not even with a superb healer such as myself attending the wound."

"That's the second time you've said that," Jaime said, resolutely willing the trees to be still, and relieved when they obeyed. "My head feels fine."

"It is fine," Sherra agreed. "Much better than it was half an hour ago."

Jaime frowned. "I don't like the sound of that." She closed her eyes and felt again the labor of her friends, saw their strained faces. "Poor Dayna," she murmured. Then she looked straight at Sherra and deliberately stopped, midway through the gate. "Please tell me what happened here."

Sherra eyed her back and said simply, "All right. You and your horse galloped straight into my closed gate. I don't imagine she was expecting that—until recently, it hasn't been closed in years. She was lucky and came away with some bad bruises. You, on the other hand, must have hit the gate headfirst. Your skull was broken and you were well on your way to dying by the time I got here."

"
What
?" Jaime couldn't help the gasp that escaped her; something too deep to question knew that Sherra spoke the truth.

"You're not going to faint? No? Good. Tell me, do they have magic on your world?"

"No," Jaime said, her mouth on automatic while she tried to assimilate near death that had passed so quickly she'd all but missed it. Somewhere along the line, perhaps upon learning that some messages still traveled by horseback in Camolen, she had classified Carey's world as less advanced than her own—but now that rather conceited assumption began to waver, as she realized she probably would not have survived this fall back in Marion.

"I'd like to hear more about it," Sherra said firmly, tugging on Jaime's hand. "But over a cup of tea, dear, not out here where we're blocking the gate."

In a daze, Jaime allowed herself to be escorted into the hold. The first story was mortared stone, but the second was a solid log structure that radiated a homey sturdiness. On a second-story balcony, Jaime and Sherra were served tea by a woman who was obviously more friend than servant. Jaime found herself staring after the woman, futilely trying to classify what she saw into some societal structure she was familiar with. Some of her thoughts must have been evident, for Sherra spoke to them.

"Everyone's different," she said casually, sipping her tea with a satisfied nod; the purple earrings dipped and danced. "Don't form your opinions of us from what
I
call home. If you were up north in Camolen City, you'd find yourself looking out at tamed lands, with roads that are spelled so they never rut out, and cities that hold more people than ought to be together in any one place. The wizards are thicker up there, too, and they tend to specialize more tightly—in tall building construction, say, or traffic guides. Down here, we like a little room to ourselves; we take life at a slower pace." A wry expression crossed her face. "Usually."

Jaime glanced around the courtyard. From the balcony where they sat to the flammable nature of the construction, the hold showed very little concession to defense—even the wall didn't seem high enough to discourage anyone with real intent. "Aren't you worried?"

"About those annoying little minions?" Sherra shook her head. "I have many quiet defenses to resort to. The gate, of course, is the least of it. That troublesome thing and its wall were constructed to keep the livestock in at night, and is closed now only as a reminder for those that live here to be watchful."

Oh, yes
—"There was somebody out there—" Jaime blurted, then stopped, suddenly wondering if they might have been, after all, some of Sherra's people.

"You were obviously running from someone," Sherra observed with equanimity.

"I don't know who they were," Jaime admitted. "But they got threatening, so I ran. If they were Calandre's . . . annoying minions, they were awful close to this place."

Sherra shook her head. "Then I doubt they were. We keep a close watch in the immediate vicinity—and there's no reason for Calandre's people to be hanging around quite this close."

"They had armbands," Jaime remembered. "But I didn't really see what was on them."

"Armbands are very popular these days. Don't worry about it, dear." She sat back in her comfortable bentwood chair, and the flaming orange earrings flared against the warm tones of her skin.
But—

"They were blue!" Jaime exclaimed, and frowned. Well, so what, the woman had mood earrings from the '70s.
Nice try
, she told herself. "The earrings, I mean," she added rather lamely. "They keep changing color. You made them magic, I guess."

"No," Sherra said. "I don't do earrings. There's a young woman in Siccawei Village who has a special touch with jewelry, and I bought them from her." She smiled and fingered one of the teardrops. "But right now, I'd rather hear a little more about you and your world. I have a feeling there won't be much time for such talk once Carey gets here—I
know
he'll have so many questions, I won't have a chance to get any of my own in."

"Carey is . . . a determined man," Jaime said.

"Determined," Sherra repeated, as if trying the word out; she smiled. "You've come to know him well, I see."

Carey pressed a hand to the stitch in his side and mulishly kept up the pace, spurred by the oppressive prickle of fear that said time was running out. He'd stopped looking back half a mile ago, too afraid of the fatigue in Dayna's face, and tired enough so he needed to place his feet carefully to avoid a stumble. They crashed along through the woods behind him, and he knew there was no point in asking them, one more time, to try to keep the noise down. They were already doing their best.

A movement in the trees ahead brought Carey to an abrupt stop; Dayna floundered into his back and fell, panting, making no attempt to get up. Mark came up beside him and leaned face first against a wide tree, relaxing his whole body against the trunk. "If I sit down, I'll never get up," he muttered, dropping Jaime's grain sack full of goodies by his feet.

Carey gave him a sharp glance to let him know this was no mere rest stop, keeping most of his attention trained ahead of them, where the movement had not yet repeated itself.

"How close are we?" Mark asked, his voice low and filled with concern as he, too, searched the woods ahead.

"Not close enough," Carey said shortly. There—he'd seen it again, and this time there was no question.
But how did they get in front of us?

Horses. He could have kicked himself for not realizing they might try this. Even though they'd probably lost his trail at the pickup, they knew well enough what his destination would be. They hadn't bothered tracking at all, but had merely ridden the established paths until they felt they were between the three fugitives and Sherra's hold, and then backtracked through the woods. Stupid, stupid.

Carey turned back to Dayna and hauled her roughly to her feet, holding her up with a cruel grip. What he really wanted to do was carry her to safety, but what he had to do was something quite different. He ignored the startled look on her face and shook her. "You made the choice," he told her harshly. "Now live with it! We're maybe two miles from Sherra's—" he turned her body to the right and kept it that way when she would have turned back to look at him, "—
this
direction. It's not you they want, and there's nothing you can do to help me, so get going and don't stop until you get there!"

"But—" she started, annoyance warring with confusion on her face as she turned back to look at him despite his efforts to keep her pointed correctly.

"But, nothing! Go!"

"Mark . . . ?"

"Go," Mark affirmed, and gave her a tiny little push to show he meant it.

"And you," Carey added.

Mark protested, "I can help!"

"Mark, they won't kill me, not outright. You, they'll kill."
Dammit,
go,
you two
. The movements in the woods had coalesced into three distinct figures, heading directly for them.

Mark gave a sly little grin and said, "Carey, old buddy, who taught you to shoot a gun?"

Carey blinked and then looked stupidly at the sack. There were four guns in that sack, minus only a few bullets among them. He hadn't given them a second thought after they'd left the riverside—he was back home, now, where they didn't have such things as guns.

"Me, too," Dayna said in a low voice. "I can't run any longer and you know it. And you know they won't just let me go, either."

Mark released the tie and dumped the sack before Carey could respond. "Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes," he said calmly.

Carey raised a skeptical eyebrow. "As soon as I find out who's side they're on," he corrected, taking the automatic Mark offered him. "Watch." It was a simple spell, one that every good—and long-lived—courier knew. He closed his eyes a moment to slide into the proper concentration, and channeled the small rush of magic into the spell that would tell him if they faced friend or foe. When he opened his eyes, those who approached were limned in orange, a quiet effect that quickly faded. "The other side," he stated, glancing at Dayna and Mark to see if they'd seen the effect.