Greendaughter (Book 6) (8 page)

Chyrie cut a strip of blue-dyed leather from the hem of her tunic and twisted it with the green cord she had worn before, and tied the two around her arm.

“This should suffice,” she said. “If the Blue-eyes have at least heard your messages, they know that we but pass through their lands briefly, and no matter how unfavorably they might look upon the humans, they would not molest an elven woman with child.”

“I pray you are correct,” Rowan said somberly. “I am half minded to send some of my people with you, but that might be seen as a greater affront, if they still hold hostility against my people. So far as I know, they could have no quarrel with Wilding, and they know the blessing of the Mother Forest you bear, Chyrie. You should be safe enough.” She hesitated.

“What troubles you?” Valann asked.

“I would ask something more of you,” Rowan said slowly. “Wilding did not answer my messages. I would ask that you add your word to mine, and send a message to your people asking your Eldest at least to hear my words and consider them. I cannot order you to do so, but I ask it.”

Valann and Chyrie looked soberly at each other.

“I will send the message,” Chyrie said at last, “for you have treated us with kindness beyond all expectation. But I must tell you that if our Eldest heard your words, still he will not agree to join with you. Of that I am certain. But I will ask him as you say.”

By this time they had reached the central clearing of the village, where the horses were indeed waiting. Chyrie had to chuckle; each animal had been festooned with garlands of leaves and flowers, designs painted on each horse with colored clay, and brightly colored leather strips woven into manes and tails. The leather tack had been polished to a shiny gloss, and every scratch or tear in the leather skillfully mended. The saddlebags on each horse brimmed with goods, and additional leather sacks and wineskins had been added to the load of the one riderless horse. The humans had already mounted their horses, although Sharl was looking from one decorated animal to the other with a thoroughly disgusted expression.

Elves crowded around Valann and Chyrie, pressing last gifts of flowers, scented herb bags, and small packets of snacks and sweets. Dusk appeared as if by magic; a handsome black-and-gold brighthawk, so named because the large predator often hunted fish in the Brightwater River itself, perched on his wrist.

“I wish you could have stayed longer,” he told Chyrie. “Had I not been so busy last night—” He grinned slyly and shrugged. “There will be another time.”

He reached out and took her hand, clasped it around his extended wrist. The brighthawk cocked its head inquiringly, fixed its obsidian eyes on Chyrie, then hopped from Dusk’s wrist to hers. She had no leather wrist shield like Dusk’s, and the brighthawk’s talons dug painfully into her skin, but the discomfort was drowned by the feel of the brighthawk’s mind—fierce and powerful, but at the same time welcoming and almost soothing, like the soft, comfortable feel of an old, well-worn tunic.

“I raised him from the egg,” Dusk said quietly. “He is well accustomed to a beast-speaker’s touch and his range is considerable. He will be your companion now. It is my hope that our thoughts may touch through him.”

Chyrie gave the hawk a nudge with her mind and it hopped to her shoulder, where the thicker leather provided more protection.

“His mind has the feel of you,” Chyrie murmured. She smiled at Dusk. “I am honored, kinsman.”

Dusk turned to Valann.

“There is also a gift for you,” he said. “Chyrie mentioned that we had found some new colors you did not have. We do
not know how you mix your dyes, but we have placed the raw colors in pots in your packs. You will honor us if we one day see our colors in your work.”

Valann’s eyes widened with eagerness, and he could not suppress an involuntary glance at his saddlebags.

“You could give me no greater a gift,” he said quietly. “When next I visit, I will find the time to give some of your folk designs of their own, if they wish it.”

“Enough, enough,” Sharl growled. “While you spend the day taking leave of your friends, we lose daylight.”

Chyrie scowled and Valann sighed heavily, but they led their horse to a convenient stump and mounted, Valann scrambling up first to pull Chyrie in front of him.

“Fare well, kinsfolk,” Rowan said, reaching to touch Valann’s fingertips, then Chyrie’s. “May the road that leads you back to us be a short one. I will not ask that the Mother Forest bless you with rich soil and ripe seed, for it seems She has already done so.” She smiled. “Much of our hopes rest with you, my friends. Keep safe and happy.”

“And you, Grandmother,” Valann said. He clasped her hand. “Happiness and prosperity to you and your people.”

Then they had to quickly urge their horse forward, for Sharl, disinclined to wait, was already leading the others back toward the road, consulting a map that Rowan had given him.

“Four days,” Sharl grumbled as he urged them as quickly as he could down the narrow trail leading back to the common road. “As fast as we can go on this pitiful trail, it’s going to be four days at least.” He apparently trusted Rivkah’s magic, for now that he had left the village he was speaking the human tongue, apparently as eager to be free of the elven language as he was of the elves themselves. Rivkah, however, continued to use the elven tongue, explaining that if they were to live in a city bordering on an elven forest and hope to foster good relations, she had to perfect her own speech.

“It took you more days to reach the center of the forest,” Val said practically. “Why should it take fewer to leave it?”

“On open ground I can make fifteen leagues on a good day,” Sharl said disgustedly. “In the forest I’m doing well to travel a third of that, and this trail is by no means straight, either. And nothing is slowing that army, that’s sure.”

“Nor speeding it,” Val said, brushing at the brighthawk’s tail feathers as they tickled his nose. “Love, can he not find another perch while we ride?”

“Well for my shoulder if he does.” Chyrie chuckled. She prodded the hawk with a thought and he launched himself skyward. “Best he find shelter anyway, for the coming storm may be hard.”

“Storm?” Rivkah looked up into the thick canopy of leaves. “How can you tell?”

“Anyone can smell it in the air,” Val said. “Even the horses can tell.” The animals were, indeed, restless and twitchy.

“I thought they were just ashamed of their ridiculous appearance,” Sharl said sourly. “Can you smell how soon we might expect this torrent?”

A loud crack of thunder made the horses dance.

“Very soon,” Chyrie said blithely.

“Wonderful,” Sharl sighed. “One more thing to slow us down. Rivkah, can you do anything about it?”

Rivkah closed her eyes briefly, then shook her head.

“It’s a whole line of storms, coming fast,” she said. “It would take ten mages to stop it now.”

“Your kind can halt a storm?” Chyrie asked amazedly. “How is such a thing possible?”

“It isn’t difficult magic,” Rivkah said. “We can cause rain, too, when conditions are right. But conditions are wrong, now, for stopping one. It will likely rain all day and all night.”

“Likely,” Val said cheerfully. “Late spring is a wet season here. As well it rains now, for we have been over half a moon dry, and the young plants need water.

“I can keep the rain off us,” Rivkah offered. “For a few hours, anyway. Maybe long enough to get us to camp for the night.”

“That will do,” Sharl said distractedly. He spurred his horse
to a faster pace, and Chyrie, who had been dispatching a squirrel to the Wildings as Rowan had requested, cried out.

“Enough of that,” Val said sharply. “You are paining my mate.”

“What’s the matter?” Rivkah said, concerned. “I thought Chyrie was healed.”

“Kicking your beasts with those metal prongs,” Val said. “She is a beast-speaker, and their pains hurt her. Cease that now.”

Sharl scowled darkly, but the geas forced him to stop. The horse immediately slowed to a walk.

“You didn’t complain before we ran into those Moon Lakes,” the lord demanded.

“We used her ability to send messages,” Val told him. “She had to keep it secret, lest your mage cast some additional magic to prevent our one hope of rescue.”

“These horses,” Sharl said between gritted teeth, “are accustomed to spurs. How do you propose I get any speed out of them without it? You see yourself that they slowed the minute I stopped.”

“Do you treat your people thus, beating and ordering them without giving reason?” Chyrie said exasperatedly. “Well, it is known that a stag will come to you more eagerly for an apple than an arrow. That is why beast-speakers were given to their clans by the Mother Forest.”

She touched one horse after the other, enjoying the unfamiliar feel of their minds; it took her a moment to understand them, but they, like flocking birds, were accustomed to receiving direction from a leader, and immediately responded to her urging to quicken their pace. Sharl yelped in startlement as his mount leaped forward, setting a pace as quick as the quality of the trail and the horse’s endurance could reasonably maintain.

“That’s a remarkable gift,” Rivkah said to Chyrie, dropping back to ride as nearly beside them as the narrow trail would allow. “So that’s what Rowan and Dusk meant when they were talking about beast-speakers, and when he gave you the hawk. They do what you say, is that it?”

“They do as I tell them if they are so minded.” Chyrie shrugged. “It is much as if you approached a stranger and asked a boon of him—you must give good reason, and perhaps offer something in return.”

“But if you feel their pain,” Rivkah said slowly, “how do you hunt? And aren’t there animals dying all around you every minute in a forest like this?”

“She does not hunt, nor do any hunt in her presence,” Val said, folding his arms protectively around Chyrie. “That is the price of her gift. The many small pains and deaths around her, those are like the sound of crickets at night—from hearing them so often, one learns to ignore them.”

“That is a part of it,” Chyrie said. “The greater pains I learn to close out in reflex, as you would close your eyes if I thrust my fingers at them. But it is no more pleasant for me to keep my mind closed tight than for you to keep your eyes so closed always. I am accustomed to receiving signs, warnings, tidings from the small lives around me.”

Thunder crashed again, and a few early spatters of rain trickled down through the leaves. The bird songs changed as the small life of the forest found shelter where it could. Rivkah raised her hand and started to chant, but then stopped, glancing ruefully at Val and Chyrie.

“Not us,” Val said sternly. “We will have no more of your magic.”

Rivkah nodded and resumed her chant, riding a little forward so that her gesture included the humans and the packhorse but not Val and Chyrie. As the rainfall increased, Chyrie could see the effect of the woman’s magic—the bright clay decorating their horse dripped and ran off, but the humans and their horses remained dry, although the horses slowed as the trail quickly grew muddy. Chyrie wondered at them; it was convenient to keep the supplies dry, but Chyrie welcomed the freshness of the warm rain running down her hot face.

Then she chuckled, recognizing in herself one of the mild fevers that often accompanied elven pregnancy; probably the others found the cooling rain much less pleasant than she did.

The brighthawk screamed above her, and suddenly Chyrie felt herself sharing its eyes, annoyed by the irritating drip of rain on their feathers, their sharp eyes seeking through the brush for small animals fleeing the rain back to their dens, powerful wings beating the air as they gained height, hot blood running fierce as they sighted a rabbit below. Together they dove—

Chyrie broke free just before the hawk reached its prey, quickly shutting herself off from the rabbit’s death. Sometimes she could follow through, burying herself in the fierce hunger and joy of the hunter, but today, with new life in her womb, she did not want to feel anything die.

As if in answer, there was a slight stirring in her belly, the faintest flutter of movement under Val’s hand where he held her. Val froze for a moment, then his incredulous joy filled her mind as the hawk’s hunger had.

The trees, the animals, the thirsty soil, all welcomed the rain like a lover, and suddenly Chyrie felt a part of it all—the new seeds, brimming with life, awaiting only the caress of the rain to make them push up toward the sun; the animals, many of them swelling with life even as she did, or only now calling their mates to couple with them in dens, or nests, or under the warm spring rain; life pulsing warmly up from the earth through the trees until they could not contain their joy and blossoms burst forth at the end of their branches, shouting the glory of the Mother Forest.

Chyrie slid out of Val’s grasp and, a little clumsily, dropped to the ground, wanting to feel all that life pulsing under her feet. She trotted alongside the horses for a while until the wild blood surged up through her and would not be contained, and then she ran ahead recklessly, leaping over the roots that crossed the path, her toes squelching through the rich mud, slipping and sliding in the wetter spots.

Her clothing grew sodden and she ripped it off, flinging it carelessly into the brush at the side of the trail. She ran until the breath wheezed loudly through her lungs and pain stitched up her side, trying to keep pace with the fierce throb of her heart, until her body could no longer keep up with the pull of the wild blood to run faster, faster, until she took flight herself. Frustrated, she dropped to her knees on the trail and howled, a free, joyous sound, and the wind howled back at her as a bolt of lightning flashed so brightly that each leaf shone.

Thunder drowned out the sound of the hoofbeats behind her until the riders nearly overran her. The horses slid wildly in the mud or veered into the brush beside the trail, and Val slid from his horse, laughing.

“What in the world?” Sharl demanded, his face crimson with rage and embarrassment.

“Has my vixen exhausted her wild blood for a time?” He chuckled. He threw her sodden clothing over the packhorse’s load and pulled a thick fur from the pack.