Dragon's Treasure (25 page)

But luck, that inexplicable influence which had accompanied him all his life, had brought him precisely to where he needed to be. Both Mellia and Hern Amdur—so his informant had averred—had been present when Karadur Atani cut off Treion Unamira's arm. They would know what else had happened to him, whether he was dead, or exiled, or locked in a hole somewhere. One of them would tell him about it.

It was one of his gifts, that men and women trusted him, even as the animals did, and confided in him, just as did the animals. They, of course, did not use words.

He pulled his notebook from his pouch, and laid out ink and quill. The patchwork cat that had come to greet him when he arrived looked up from her nest in the straw.

"Merow?" she inquired. She was a friendly little thing.

"Go to sleep, little one. This doesn't concern you," Nino told her.

She blinked, and put her head down again. Laboriously he wrote, in his own personal code, what had happened that day. If he were ever searched, and the little book discovered, no one would be able to read what he had written. But he had never, in twenty years of gathering intelligence for whoever would pay him, been searched, or even questioned. Nino believed that it was because he bore no ill will to those he talked to. He did not try to trap or cozen them. He was an entertainer. He did tricks, and taught dogs to dance on their hind legs, and monkeys to submit to wearing hats.

And if, in the course of his travels, people told him, without realizing it, bits of information that they ordinarily would never reveal, and which might someday do them harm, it was not because he meant to hurt them.

It was simply because he asked, and they trusted him....

13

Terrill chernico woke to the sound of horns blowing.

She lifted herself onto her good elbow. She had not slept well. She had dreamed, restless, painful dreams. One had transported her to a desolate landscape, a labyrinth of rock, where fell voices howled at her. Someone she cared about was lost in that place, and she could not find him. She lifted a hand to her cheek. It was wet with tears.

Pushing the nightmare from her mind, she thrust her head out the window. The sky was clear and cloudless. On the west side of the yard, a clot of half-grown boys were wrestling.

The mismatched trumpets trilled again. From the angle of the sun along the stones of the wall, she knew she had missed breakfast. She dressed, and walked to the kitchen. Ruth, her elbows powdered with flour, nodded companion- ably to her and passed her half a cinnamon loaf. She took it into the ward to eat.

As she passed the armory steps, she stopped. There was a child lying on the steps. He appeared to be sleeping. It was Shem. He was curled like a newborn, knees to chest.

"Shem," she said, "wake up, sleepyhead." He did not move. "Shem Wolfson!" She laid her hands on him, afraid—was he wounded, unconscious, bleeding?—and realized as soon as she touched him that he was none of these things. He was linked.

She sank on the step beside him. His eyes were open, smoky, and blind. He whimpered. She lifted him, and held him. "Thea's son, Thea's son," she sang, rocking him, "it's well, it's well, be still...." Sweet Mother, he was too young for this. His mind was chaos; his thoughts moved, like ribbons strung with jewels, dancing in the sun. She looked for one that did not move. She found it, and slid her own thought along it, seeking the mind that had entrapped his....

Suddenly, he jerked in her arms. Swiftly she withdrew.

"Hawk?" he said tentatively. He gazed at her, and then wriggled from her arms, frowning.

"He's lost," he said.

"Who's lost, cub?"

"The man. He doesn't know where he is, and he's afraid." His eyes were his again. She stroked his head, wondering how the linkage could have happened. By accident, surely; dear gods, he was but a baby!

"Do you know where he is, cub?"

He waved his arm in a vague easterly direction. "That way."

She reached out with thought.
I am here,
she sent.
Cleave to me, I will help you.
But there were too many people about. Their thoughts chattered and yammered wildly.... She pulled back, defeated.

"Hawk?"

"Yes, Shem."

"We have to help him."

"How can we do that, cub?"

"I can find him. I have to find him." His steady, measuring stare, so like his father's, traveled from her booted feet to her cropped hair.

She said, "We shall find him, cub, I promise. I must speak to Dragon. Go put your boots on and bring your cloak. Meet me at the stable. Tell the boys to saddle Lily."

Karadur was in the donjon, meeting with the elders from Castria and Sleeth. They were talking about road repair. Torik went in with her message. In a moment, the dragon-lord came out. "Hunter, what is it?"

She told him quickly what had happened, and what she wished to do about it.

"Is Shem hurt?" he asked.

"No, my lord."

"Can he do this thing?"

She said, "I think he must."

He frowned. "Go, then. Take Finle with you. And Olav. He needs something to do." The big northerner had been moping about the Keep for days, ever since his best friend, Irok, had left to visit his family in Hornlund.

She found Finle in the barracks. He was delighted to join the expedition. "I'll get Olav," he offered. "When do we leave?"

"Now," she said.

* * *

She stopped at the kitchen, and then at her chamber for her bow, the small one, and her arrows, and her heavy riding cloak. Shem was in the stable yard, playing tug-of-war in the dust with Turtle. As she walked into the yard, he came to his feet.

"Enough, Turtle," he told the excited dog. "Behave now.

Be still. You can't come with us." He was wearing his boots. His riding cloak lay folded against the stable wall. His bow and a quiver of arrows stood beside it. She had made the bow for him, out of a length of yew from Liam Dubhain's store. The arrows were fledged with eagle feathers.

"I told them to saddle Lily," he said.

She told Gelf to ready Finle's bay, and Brick, who had a mild temper, and would not jibe at a stranger, and the dun, Guardian, that Olav usually rode.

* * *

They took the horses out through the little gate. "Where are we going?" Olav asked.

"I'm not sure," Hawk said. "Shem?"

He pointed in the direction of Castria. "That way. I feel him that way."

The road was largely empty, save for the occasional oxcart. There were men in the fields, repairing fences. The sound of axes came irregularly—tock, tock—across the rise of the hills. Shem sat before her on the saddle. He hummed, a wordless warble.

He said confidingly, "I had a dream last night."

"So did I."

"I had a good dream! Was yours a bad dream? I know a charm for those.
Light the fire, nightmare run; To my dream no shade will come; sunlight quickens, shadows die; Day will rise, and so will I!
" His voice rose triumphantly.

"Where did you learn that, cub?"

"Kiala taught me."

The bright March day was cold but fair. To the north, the guardian mountains—Dragon's Eye, Brambletor, Whitethorn—towered, tall peaks glinting white. Squirrels, looking for the nuts they had stored that winter, bustled from ground to tree and back again. Two black-winged kites soared overhead. Hawk reached to them.
Cousins, how goes the hunting...?
Engrossed in an ecstasy of wind, they did not respond.

At midday they halted to rest and eat. After the meal, Hawk left the others, and walked alone to a clearing. She reached into the distance. She touched the mind of a sleeping grey fox, and a badger in its den, and a woodpecker hunting insects up the bole of a tree. But she encountered nothing human. Past the gates of Castria they left the road for the forest. Shem begged to hold Lily's reins. He steered the horse through the trees. They came into the open again. The hillside was dusted with snow. Jagged stumps of trees lifted through the white.

Lily tossed her head. Shem said, "She's thirsty." He thrust an arm out. "The river's that way."

"How do you know, cub?" Hawk asked.

"I smell it."

So did she. But she was changeling grown. She tried to remember how old she had been when her powers had wakened in her blood. She had been at least nine, surely? Shem was four. Perhaps wolf-changeling developed differently from hawk-changeling. She did not know. Wolf would have known. Lily, snorting, pulled against the bit. She wanted the water. "Go on, you lazy beast," Hawk told her. "Find it. You can find it." The mare ambled purposefully along the ridgetop.

Suddenly the land dropped away into a sloping bowl. Beyond the bowl the river gleamed. Tall sedge grew along the water's edge. Saplings, limber as flames, quivered in the sun. At the foot of the slope stood a small stone cottage.

Shem said, "I know that place." The cottage door opened. A tall, brown-haired woman stepped out on the path. She wore a pale blue shirt, and trousers like a man's. A black dog moved at her side. Shem said excitedly, "Hawk, I know her! She was in my dream."

Hawk said, "What dream was that, cub?"

Shem did not answer. Shading her eyes, the woman gazed up the slope at the riders. Then she turned, and reentered the house.

They took the horses to the water. The river ran low between stony banks. Twenty yards downstream, the bank flattened. The horses drank, lipping cautiously at the icy stream. Suddenly Shem whooped, bouncing in the saddle. "I feel him! He's there!" He pointed east. Hawk sent her thought questing across the snow-covered hills. Abruptly she felt the stranger. His thought was dazed and weak; he was cold, frightened, nearly starving....

"Finle, go left. Olav, right. I'll take the center. Look for a man, or a man's tracks. He won't call to you; he's not fully conscious."

They found him at last, a gangly form crumpled into a snowbank. A pack and the leavings of a fire lay nearby. Finle held his palm to the blackened wood. "It's cold," he said. Hawk ran her hands over the stranger's chest and legs and arms. He was shivering spasmodically, but appeared to have taken no other hurt.

"So is he," she said. "Let's get him out of here."

They brought him down the hill and laid him in the sunlight. As the light fell full upon his face, he muttered, and rolled his head. Olav pushed the youth's straggly hair back from his face. "This is no man," he said. "This is a boy."

At the sound of Olav's voice, the youth opened his eyes. Then, with surprising strength, he tore himself from Olav's grip. Rolling to a crouch, he drew his knife, and faced them.

"I will not go back," he said hoarsely. "I will not."

Finle said, "By the Hunter, it's Juni Talvela!" The boy's gaze turned toward him. "Juni! It's Finle Haraldsen; remember me? We competed against each other in Ujo. Do you remember me?"

"Finle," Juni repeated. The knife tip wavered.

"You are safe. Whatever you are running from, it is not here. This is Dragon's country, and this big, yellow-haired brute on my left is Olav the axman, who wears Dragon Keep's badge, and this is Hawk the archer, who was also in Ujo, and this is Shem Wolfson."

"Finle." He looked at them wonderingly. "Hawk. I remember you." The knife sank. He sagged, and staggered. Olav caught him under the arms and lowered him gently to the earth. Finle pulled a blanket from his pack. He wrapped it around Juni's shoulders.

Hawk, kneeling, held her flask to Juni's lips. "Drink," she said. "Not too much." She had to help him. He coughed as the wine went down. "When did you last eat?"

"Don't know."

"Finle, have you flint on you?" He nodded, and worked his tinderbox from its pouch. "Olav, get some meat from the pack. Shem, see if you can find some dry twigs." Shem trotted off. "Can you feel your toes?" she asked Juni. Shivering, he nodded. "How about your fingers?"

"I can feel them," he said, in a voice like a ghost.

Finle had the fire going. Shem came back with an armload of wood, most of it dry. They sat about the fire, shoving bits of wood into it. Olav passed Juni a strip of dried meat.

"Slowly!" Hawk said. "You'll choke if you eat too fast." His hands trembled. But he did as he was told. His jaws worked on the tough smoked meat.

His eyes stared into the fire. There were stories told in Issho, and in Ippa, too, that the Talvelai were wolf-changelings. They had been known to say it themselves. If Juni Talvela had wolf blood in him, it might explain how it was that Shem had felt his presence across so many miles.

He drank more wine, and then some water, and then wine again. His shivering stopped. After a while, he said, "I think I can move now." He came to his feet.

The sky was grey with cloud. The day had worn close to dusk. She sniffed the air. The wind had shifted. It was blowing from the east.

"It'll be snowing before we reach the Keep," Finle said. He cocked an eye at Hawk. "What do you want to do?"