Kushiel's Dart (63 page)

I closed my eyes and lifted Trygve's buckler.

The impact jarred my arm to the bone, knocking me off my feet. Opening my eyes, I saw him above me, blotting out the winter sky atop his horse. Still strapped to my arm, the shield was useless, cracked beneath the force of the blow, the lethal, leaf-shaped tip of the spear gone clean through to the inside.

If he had had a second spear, I would have died then. I know this. But what spears he'd had, he had already cast. He dismounted and drew his sword.

"No!" Joscelin's shout split the air, and the Skaldi turned, hesitating at the now-mounted Cassiline's approach. I struggled to free myself from the useless shield, scrambling backward through the snow. Face grim, Joscelin lashed his borrowed horse forward, nigh on us.

Too hard, too fast. The horse stumbled, slid, losing its footing; it went down hard, head low, the mighty body crashing to the snow-covered earth. Sword in hand, Joscelin was flung free and fell no less hard, some distance from the thrashing horse.

The Skaldi looked back at me and grinned, the fierce, savage grin of a warrior with nothing left to lose. "You first," he said, and raised his sword high above his head, preparing to bring it down two-handed upon me.

"Elua," I whispered, and prepared to die.

The blade never fell.

It slipped, instead, falling away from his nerveless fingers to fall with a soft thump into the snow. The Skaldi stared down at himself, where the bloody tip and a handspan of Joscelin's sword protruded. No one, I think,

fails to be surprised at the death-blow when it comes in battle. He turned about slowly, his hands going to the blade's tip. I saw the hilt and the rest of the blade standing out from between his shoulders. Joscelm was still down, propped on one arm; he'd thrown it from where he'd fallen. The Skaldi stared at him in disbelief, sinking slowly to his knees. Still clutching the tip of the sword lodged in him, he died.

It was quiet then, but for the wind and snow. Joscelin got painfully to his feet and came toward me, staggering. I saw when he drew near that he had a cut on one cheekbone, already frozen, and runnels of blood in his hair. He turned the last Skaldi on his stomach and tugged his sword free, bracing one foot on the body to get it loose. I stood wearily, and we held each other upright.

"Do you know what the odds of making that throw were?" Joscelin murmured, wavering on his feet. "We don't even train for it. It's not done."

"No." I swallowed, and nodded at Harald, motionless by the promontory, a dusting of snow already covering him. "Do you know he gave me his cloak? He never even asked for it back."

"I know." With an effort, Joscelin released me and stood on his own, passing one hand to his side. "We have to keep moving. Take . . . take anything we can use. Food, water, fodder . . . we could use more blankets. We'll take a pack-horse, use whichever mounts are freshest. We need to gain some distance before we rest."

FIFTY-THREE

Stripping the dead of spoil is a grim business. I have heard that Skaldi women sing as they do it. I tried to imagine kind-hearted Hedwig doing it, and could not; then I remembered how the women of Selig's steading hated me, and I could. We did not sing, Joscelin and I, working together in numb horror. We did not even speak, but only did what was needful.

One of the Skaldi horses, the one that had fallen, had broken a leg and had to be put down. Joscelin did it with his daggers, cutting the large vein on the neck. I could not watch. We took two of their horses, and left the others to fend for themselves, hoping they would find their way to a steading before the wolves found them; they were nigh as tired as our own mounts. I kept my pony, though, unable to bear leaving him for the wolves. And in truth, he was hardier than the horses, quicker to regain strength. I learned, later, that the breed was native to the Skaldic lands; they'd bred for the larger mounts with strains of Caerdicci and Aragonian horses, better for battle, but not for enduring the cold.

So it was that we set out once more.

It had been my intention, when we reached it, to follow the Danrau River, keeping it in sight until we reached the Camaelines. It was Joscelin's idea to follow the riverbed for a time, rendering our trail invisible, then cut to the south and throw off any other pursuers. We had no way of knowing whether there were others, or how many or how far behind they might be, but I suspected Selig would send more than one party.

We followed his plan, our horses picking their way cautiously through the cold, fast-flowing water, and he did as he had before, backtracking to erase our trail where it emerged from the river. How he did it, I do not know, for by then the cold and exhaustion were so deep in my bones that I could barely think. It wasn't until he returned, hollow-eyed, that I re alized he was worse off than I. It is a strange thing, human endurance. After the river, I would have said I was done in, but when I saw his condition, I found a bleak pocket of strength that kept me going, taking the lead to forge a trail through the gathering dusk. The wind had picked up again and there was no shelter to be found, only barren rock and thin trees. I knew, by then, how to look for a campsite. There was no place to be found, so I kept going.

I don't know what all I thought of, trudging through the endless winter, leading my horse while Joscelin followed, hunched in his saddle, the heavily laden pony trailing. A thousand memories of home, of fetes I had attended, of patrons, of Delaunay and Alcuin. I thought of the mar-quist's shop, of the healing springs of Naamah's sanctuary, of Delaunay's library, which I had once thought the safest place in the world. I thought of Hyacinthe and the Cockerel, and the offering we had made at Blessed Elua's temple.

At what point I began to pray, I don't know, for it was a prayer without words, a remembrance of grace, of Elua's temple, scarlet anemones in my hands, the earth warm and moist beneath my bare feet, cool marble beneath my lips, and the priest's kind voice. Love as thou wilt, he had said, and Elua will guide your steps, no matter how long the journey. I clung blindly to the moment, along my endless journey, until I could go no farther and stopped to look about me, realizing in the gloaming and snow that I had walked straight into a wall of stone.

This is the end, I thought, putting out my hands and feeling the stone before me. I can go no further. I dared not look behind me.

My left hand, sliding sideways, met no resistance. Darkness opened in the rock before me. Groping, I felt my way forward, trusting that my mount was too exhausted to run.

It was a cave.

I went into it as far as I dared, sniffing the air for scent of wolf or bear. The sound and force of the wind died inside the stone walls, leaving a strange black stillness. There was no sense of any living thing. I emerged, fighting my way through the snow to Joscelin's side. He looked blearily at me through frost-rimed lashes.

"There's a cave," I shouted, cupping my mouth against the wind, then pointing. "Give me one of the torches, and I'll look."

Moving as though it hurt to do so, he dismounted, and we led the horses into the overhang. With a faint, dim light still filtering through the opening, we unpacked the tinderbox and the branches swathed in pitch soaked rags we'd taken from the fallen Skaldi. I struck a spark and a torch flared into light.

Holding it aloft, I ventured deeper into the cavern.

It went farther than I'd guessed, and was vaster. Alone in a dark arena, I turned about, letting torchlight illuminate the walls. I'd been right, it was empty; but there, in the center, were the remains of an ancient campfire. Glancing up, I saw high above a small rift in the stone ceiling, a hole for smoke to escape.

It would do. It would more than do.

I wedged the torch in a crevice, and went back for Joscelin. This time, it was I who did the lion's share of the work, tending to the horses, who huddled gratefully out of the gale, gathering scrub branches and laying a fire on the site of ancient ashes. I even found a massive deadfall and devised a crude hitch for the pony, dragging the better part of a small tree into the cavern itself. The wood was dry and burned without much smoke, until the space was suffused with welcome warmth and light.

No pine-bough bed for us tonight, but we'd no need of it for once, the stone floor of the cave warmer than snow. Joscelin had laid out our things, and we'd furs and blankets to spare, with what we'd taken from the Skaldi. We sat together without shivering, and dined on pottage and strips of dried venison, which we also had in plenty now, courtesy of Selig's stores.

When we had eaten, I cleaned the cook-pot and set it full of snow to melt, stoking up the fire once more. I hauled the one meadskin Joscelin hadn't emptied over then, and a container of salve one of the Skaldi had carried. With a careful touch, I cleaned the cut on his cheek and the deeper gash on his skull with hot water and a bit of cloth, then washed them with mead.

"I wondered why you kept this," I said, smiling at his grimace. "That was clever."

"It wasn't that." He winced again as I dabbed at the cut on his cheek. "I thought you might need it. The Skaldi drink it against the cold."

"Do they?" I tried it, squirting a stream into my mouth. It tasted of fermented honey, and burned pleasantly in my belly. Warming indeed, so that it grew almost hot within the cavern. "It's not bad." I sat back on my heels and gazed at him. "So how bad are the wounds you're hiding?"

He smiled then, wry in the firelight. "Is it that obvious?"

"Yes. Don't be an idiot." I softened my voice. "Let me see."

Without speaking, he stripped off his upper garments. I caught my breath. His torso was a mass of bruises, and his jerkin beneath the furs was stiff with dried blood from a gash in his left side, a handspan above his hip. Even now, it was still seeping dark blood. "Joscelin," I said, biting my lip. "That should be sewn."

"Give me that meadskin." Tilting it back, he squeezed a long draught into his mouth and swallowed. "I took a kit from one of Selig's men. It's in the pack."

I am neither chirurgeon nor seamstress, and by the time I was done, a good bit of mead had found its way down Joscelin's throat. When it was over, my black stitch-marks straggled across the flesh of his side, but the wound was closed.

"Here," he said, handing me the meadskin as I stretched out alongside him, exhausted beyond words. "You did a good job," he said softly. "Through all of it. Phedre . . ."

"Shh." Propping myself on one arm, I laid my fingers across his lips. "Joscelin, don't. I don't want to talk about it." Silent behind my hand, he blinked his blue eyes at me. I took my hand away then, and kissed him instead.

I don't know what I expected. I hadn't thought about it. My hair fell loose about us, curtaining our faces. His lips parted under mine, and our tongues touched, only the tips, soft and tentative. I felt his arms slide around me in an embrace, and kissed him harder.

The fire burned untended and the horses murmured and whickered in the forefront of the cavern, their drowsy stirrings and the occasional stamp of a hoof the only backdrop to our lovemaking. I would have thought he would be uncertain—a Cassiline, and celibate—but he came to it with wonder, taking all that I offered with a kind of reverent awe. His hands slid over my skin and I wept at his touch, that had such love in it, tasting the salt of my own tears as I kissed him. I had never, ever, chosen before. When he came into me, I shuddered, and he held off until I drew him back down, fiercely, burying my face against his shoulder and losing myself in him.

At the end, though, I had to look, to see his face, D'Angeline and beloved, above my own. Chosen. He cried out at the end, a sound of wonder and amazement.

Afterward, he rose and walked away, standing alone.

I could only watch, lying in furs beside the fire, that same strange pain twisting at my heart. Joscelin, my Cassiline, my protector, his beautiful body bruised and torn in my service. Somewhere, in the distant part of my mind, I was astonished at it all, not the least that we were here, together, like this; both of us alive, naked in this cavern and not freezing to death.

"We have dreamed this day," I said aloud. "Joscelin, we dream still, and tomorrow will wake from it."

He turned about then, his face grave. "Phedre ... I am Cassiel's servant. I cannot cling to that vow, no matter how I've betrayed it, and be otherwise. And without the strength of it, I've not the strength to endure. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Tears stung my eyes, which I ignored. "Do you think I would have survived this long, were I not Naamah's servant, and Kushiel's chosen? I understand."

At that, he nodded, and came back to sit with me on our makeshift bed.

"You're bleeding again." I rummaged in our things for a length of clean cloth, making a pad and binding it over the wound in his side, not meeting his gaze as I did it. It was different, now, touching his flesh.

"I thought. . ." he began to say, then stopped, and cleared his throat. "It's not only pain that pleases you, then. I didn't know."

"No." I glanced up at him, smiling slightly; he looked so earnest and disheveled, naked and battered, his wheat-streaked hair tangled in Skaldic braids. "Did you think that? I answer to Naamah's arts, and not Kushiel's rod alone."

He reached out and touched Melisande's diamond where it hung, still, about my throat. "But the latter calls louder," he said gently.