First Of Her Kind (Book 1) (6 page)

Another shadow blocked the sun -- larger, more persistent, and smelling of warm horseflesh -- and anointed Bolin with a blast of wet air. Sandeen nudged his arm and Bolin slapped half-heartedly in the direction of the stallion's broad chest. He’d no desire to abandon his spot in the late afternoon sun where his aches had become more tolerable, and breathing didn't come with constant sharp pains. Sandeen nudged him again with more persistence, and the quiet place Bolin had carved out for himself crumbled.

"Apologies, Bolin." Findley shoved against Sandeen’s shoulder, but the stallion didn't appear to be in a cooperative mood. "He was hovering at the gate and bolted away from Purt as soon as the boy opened it. Nearly ran the poor lad down, he did."

Bolin peered through half closed eyelids. Sandeen and Findley were blurs, one barely distinguishable from the other but for Sandeen's bulk and ceaseless pacing. Bolin blinked. He should have been doing something besides sitting on his arse in the sun, dozing and-

Ciara.

"Goddess’ light!"

She would be leagues ahead of him. He needed to be on Sandeen's back, hard after her. First, however, he needed to stand, which meant fully opening his eyes, and they seemed not the least bit willing to cooperate.

"Bolin?"

Findley sounded concerned. Bolin wanted to tell him not to be, wanted to tell him to get Sandeen tacked so he could be on his way, but he couldn't get his mouth to form the words. Quite frankly, he couldn't get any part of his body to do anything other than sit where Findley had plunked him.

"Damnation!" It came out as a low growl in the same moment Bolin heaved off the bench and stumbled into Sandeen. Findley grabbed his arm, but Bolin jerked away. He forced his eyes to stay open, and leaned against Sandeen's side, clinging to the stallion's neck while he tried to catch a decent breath, and keep the world from spinning out of control.

Findley started to turn away. "I'll fetch Tyra," he said over his shoulder.

"No," Bolin said. "I’ve no time for a healer. I need to go after Ciara."

"I’ll send Purt to fetch her back. I've no intention of letting you light out after her in your condition."

"And I've no intention-" Bolin clenched a handful of Sandeen's mane as his knees gave out. This time he didn't have the strength to object when Findley slid his arm around him, and saved him from landing on his backside.

"I don't rightly care what your intentions are, Bolin. Purt!"

They'd get him up to Tyra's hut between the two of them and she’d do what a non-magical healer did, drug him to sleep because she'd have no idea what ailed him. Bolin couldn’t spare the time for Findley's well-intentioned meddling. A sharp poke to Sandeen's ribs spun the stallion, knocking Findley back, and putting the horse between them.

"My tack," Bolin hissed over Sandeen's back.

Findley set his broad face into a stubborn frown. "I'll not get it for you. Nor will Purt. If you can't tack your own horse you're not fit to ride him." He stood back, arms crossed. "Your tack is in the barn where it normally is. Get it yourself. Tack him yourself. I'll not stand in your way."

Had Bolin been able to let go of Sandeen he would have punched the horse master in the face. Instead, he elbowed Sandeen and the stallion turned to walk toward the barn with Bolin trying to keep slow but steady pace with him. They were nearly there when the earth shifted beneath him, and everything went black.

CHAPTER F
IVE

Donovan sniffed the damp, late morning air and drew his cloak tighter around his lean frame. His sleep had been abruptly shattered by the old woman’s passing. He couldn’t recall her name; she lived somewhere the other side of Guldarech. A healer, if he remembered right. A woman of substantial magic, considering it originated from the Goddess. The incident would have meant very little to him if her magic had dissipated when she died. Instead, when he traced its path, he found it had wound itself around a similar, less refined magic, and that held tightly to something totally different.

Sparks
danced upward as Donovan kicked the last log to squelch the embers of his fire. The sky held the promise of a clear day, and he now had a new direction for his hunt.

He stiffened part way to his waiting horse and turned, scenting the air like a wolf -- someone summoned a great deal of power in a very reckless manner. It tingled along his nerves, riding the air like a familiar, tantalizing scent that made his mouth water. Ancient and full of promise, with only the faintest whiff of the Goddess attached to it. It rose up through him in a sudden rush that sent his pulse racing.

Donovan drew his focus inward and followed the surge across the leagues. Nearly to its source, his face contorted into a snarl. A wall of blinding light rose up around that fledgling power and hemmed it in. Damn the ever-meddling Goddess and her hags. This did not belong to her.

Still, his blood sang at the discovery. This is what he had been searching for, and he would have it whether the Goddess obliged or not. He knew this power. More importantly, he knew how to call it. The ancient words, as much a part of him as his own bones, reached across the land as he spoke them. They beckoned to the burgeoning, childlike Andrakaos, and the Goddess' guard wavered. Donovan's lip curled upwards. Yes!

The contact shattered abruptly and he staggered back into his horse,. His scowl turned into a cold smile.

He had spent many years, and traveled many leagues in search of this, only to be disappointed at every turn. Not this time. The familiar call of this power -- raw and untrained -- could not be mistaken. Who would stand against him once he had it in his grasp? Certainly not the Goddess. She would be the first to go. And her hags? They would either turn or suffer the consequences. Their choice.

Still, he needed to exercise patience, a virtue he had spent a great deal of time cultivating. He sniffed again, testing the air. No need to waste his time and talents within the stale walls of Guldarech. He laughed, the hard sound of victory, and swung into the saddle. It would be a long day’s travel south to the Eastern Road -- provided one followed the popular trails. Donovan, however, chose never to follow any trail but his own.

His horse pulled against the reins, and danced beneath him. The beast had developed a finely tuned sense of when they were on the hunt and seemed to enjoy it. A strange characteristic for a creature normally on the back side of the hunter-prey coin. Perhaps it knew that without Donovan it stood a good chance of being something's meal.

Everything -- everyone, shared that same risk. The wisest chose the company of someone able to offer them protection, or became strong enough to not need it. Failing to do either, they perished. Even the most holy, most beloved, Mother Goddess could not escape that possibility. A fact Donovan knew did not elude her. And, though the same held true for him, Donovan lived in complete awareness of it. The Goddess could entertain the idea of making Donovan her meal, but she preferred the moral high ground.

Donovan preferred to win.

When he had the source of the awakening Andrakaos he would become something similar to the Goddess. Yet entirely different.

His pleasure at the thought rippled through him like liquid fire, and brought with it an odd mix of total satisfaction and renewed energy. His horse leapt forward at the barest touch, and Donovan gave the best its head, losing himself for a moment in the coiling and uncoiling of muscle and the horse's own sure sense of physical power. They soon left the campsite far behind.

* * *

Ciara brought Fane to a heaving halt. In her desire to put as much distance between her and Bolin as possible, she had pushed the gelding to his limit. Neither of them could go on much longer without rest.

The late afternoon sun slanted over her shoulder as she stood in the stirrups to take stock of her surroundings. She had purposely kept out from under the eaves of the quiet forest they were skirting so as to not lose her sense of direction. As long as she continued to bear to the southeast, she'd find the Eastern Road. She hoped she'd find an inn there as well, or a farm that would take her in for the night.

She patted Fane's lathered neck, and let him dip his head to graze. Her own muscles were stiff, and the parts of her that hadn’t gone numb throbbed incessantly. Thankfully, somewhere along the way her head had stopped spinning.

She looked over her shoulder and chewed at her bottom lip. The thought of facing Bolin's anger a second time in one day gave her something to worry about besides what had happened in the grove. Goddess's blood, couldn't he just ignore his blasted oath to Meriol? After what Ciara had done to him, there'd be no blame if he thought good riddance and went about his own business.

That, however, would be as likely as rain falling up.

Her brow furrowed. She had never cast for someone over more than a league or so, but that didn't mean she shouldn't try. Bolin had already proven he could track her as easily as he drew breath. If she knew his whereabouts, she'd be able to avoid him -- she hoped.

Trusting Fane to stay quiet beneath her, Ciara dropped the reins loose around his neck and took a deep, cleansing breath. Her gaze turned inward, and she reached into the well of her earth magic -- staying well away from the wilding -- focused a bit of it and sent it spreading out behind her like a fine net. The strands of her it, familiar and comforting, rose up from the core of her being and flowed across the countryside, gossamer thin but strong. They brought with them the memory of her mother’s warm embrace and her aunt’s gentle smile, and a pang of loss stabbed through her. Ciara bit her lip, concentrated on her working, and ignored the warm tear that slid down her cheek.

The casting drew strength from the trees and rocks, the earth itself. Ciara went with it, amazed she recognized the feel of Meriol’s lands when she touched its edges. She made her net wide, not wanting to risk missing Bolin, though she didn't feel so much as a whisper of him. Perhaps he had gone to Guldarech after all.

Better to think that than other thoughts.

Satisfied the casting needed no further attention from her, Ciara drew in a deep breath of sun-warmed air and exhaled. She rolled her shoulders back to relieve the tension, gathered the reins and tugged Fane's head up. The gelding objected, long strands of grass hanging from his mouth, but he moved forward at her urging. She let him go at a steady walk, smoother and more comfortable to aching muscles than his ground covering trot. The casting followed behind, an ethereal net visible only to those who knew how to look for such a thing.

They didn't go much further before the tall grass opened onto a road. Whether it proved to be the
Eastern Road or not remained to be seen. Narrower than the road to Guldarech, and not as well traveled, it offered a level, well-packed, surface. Ciara groaned as she climbed stiffly out of the saddle and stretched the aches out of protesting muscles. It would do her and Fane both some good if she walked for a bit.

The fact her casting remained undisturbed, gave Ciara surprisingly little relief. Still, knowing Bolin wouldn't happen upon her any time soon made her feel easier about answering the plaintive growl from her stomach. She perched on a rock near a narrow creek, while Fane dipped his head to drink his fill from the clear water. She dug into her pack for something to eat and frowned when she realized the contents weren't what they had been. Thanks to Fane's early morning rampage most of her food now lay strewn across the countryside. What remained wouldn't see her through the next two days. Perhaps instead of casting for Bolin she should've been casting for an inn.

Cold water dribbled down her arm as Fane nudged her, smelling apple and wanting some. Ciara pushed him away. "Go eat grass. Thanks to you, that's what I'll be eating before too long."

He snorted and wandered away to forage. Ciara should have given him the apple. It sat like a rock in the pit of her stomach, and she couldn't shake the growing sense of unease trailing across her nerves. She could think of only one reason Bolin wouldn't be following her. Goddess's light, she hadn't meant to hurt him any more than she'd meant to reach for the wilding in the first place. If she could undo it, she would. But the thought of being sequestered into the sisterhood . . . what had Meriol been thinking?

Ciara sighed and gazed back the way she had come. She hadn't met a single soul on the road, no signposts directed her to a nearby inn, and it looked more and more as though she’d be spending the night under the stars. With the sun slanting deep into the west that likelihood became much less than the romanticized thing she had made it into.

She stood, and gave Fane the last bit of her apple before she gathered up his reins and started off once more. She went on foot, to give Fane a rest. Besides, with the heavy shadows gathering around them as the road slid deeper into the forest, she didn't want to risk a repeat of his morning antics. Something scuttled into the underbrush on the heels of that thought, and Ciara jumped. Fane, on the other hand, plodded placidly along beside her, undisturbed by whatever it had been.

Ciara glowered at him. She glanced back at her casting trailing behind them, glowing faintly in the growing dusk. Leaves rustled and this time Fane tossed his head, jerking the reins from her loose grasp. Ciara snatched after them as she darted a look around. Her hand brushed the hilt of the hunting knife at her waist, reassuring in its solidity and nearness. More reassuring than Fane. The gelding’s ears flicked back and forth and he shifted uneasily, his eyes showing white as he sidled sideways and craned his neck to get a look down the road. He sidestepped into Ciara as he shied, and she jumped out of the way.

"Easy, Fane," she said, and her voice sounded like a shout in the stillness -- a stillness suddenly very noticeable and unsettling. Her breathing and the scuffing of Fane's hooves on the hard-packed earth were the only sounds. Not a bird song or a squirrel call. Even the breeze had stilled. Ciara’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the knife.

Twigs snapped behind her and she whipped around, then chided herself for startling like a frightened child.

"Probably just another fawn," she said under her breath.

The two men who stood in the road in front of her when she turned back, however, were definitely not fawns. Fane snorted and flared his nostrils, the acrid smell of sweat and manure so strong even Ciara wrinkled her nose at it. The two were dirty, head to toe, their clothes old and in need of burning, having reached a point beyond washing and mending. One of the men wore a short sword in a beat up scabbard; the other, as far as Ciara could tell, went unarmed.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" The unarmed man said in a drawling, midland accent. An old scar ran across his left cheek from the corner of his eye to just below his mouth, showing white against the dirt covering his face. "I’m thinking she’s a horse thief, Tryg. Wha’d’you think?"

Tryg, grinned, a near toothless expression. "Could be. I heard there was one about, and that’s a fine bit a horse flesh. You steal that beast, girly?"

Ciara tightened her hold on the reins. "No." Her voice sounded small to her ears.

"No?" the toothless one mimicked, his accent not nearly as thick as his companion’s. "Squeaks like a mouse, don’t she, Gart?"

The man with the scar took a step toward her. "I'll jest see how mousy she really is."

Ciara backed. Making sure she had a good grip on the reins, she elbowed Fane hard behind the girth. He spun his rear end and sent the toothless man stumbling out of the way. Scar-face grinned and Ciara grabbed for the stirrup. She managed to get her foot in and hopped one-legged alongside Fane as he continued his circle. She hoisted herself off the ground by the saddle, but before she could swing her other leg over a hard hand closed around her calf.

"Let go of me!"

Ciara kicked backwards. Her short fingernails dug into the leather of the saddle as the man let go of her leg and caught her around the waist in an attempt to pull her from Fane's back. The gelding snorted and sidled over, pushing her more firmly into her attacker's grasp. He locked his arms around her stomach and yanked, and Ciara lost her grip. She flailed her arms, and grabbed desperately at any part of horse or saddle she could reach, but Scar-face swung her away from Fane. Ciara squirmed to get loose, and he laughed in her ear.

"Keep that up, mouse," he said, his breath hot against her neck and reeking of stale ale. "I'll be good and ready by the time we get to it."

He thrust his hips against her backside as though to prove his point, and trailed his tongue up the side of her neck. Ciara shivered in revulsion.

"Yer a tasty one, ain't ya?"

Ciara slammed the heel of her boot down hard onto the center of his foot and ground into it.

"Little bitch!"