Path of Fate (20 page)

Presence.

~
How fare you, Saljane?

Hunger. Hunt.

Reisil tried again, hoping for something more tangible. Words.

~
We need you here.

Curiosity.

~
There’s a logjam. A spell could break it up, but they need your help in placing it.

She put her palms over her eyes, curling her fingers into her hair, and tried to create a picture in her mind. Instead she found herself unable to focus, fragments of the last weeks intruding, chief among them Kaval. Tears squeezed from her tightly shut eyes and she pressed harder with her palms. She wasn’t ready to think of him yet. Slowly she built the image of the tangle of logs damming their path. She willed Saljane to see, wishing she had the power to bring the bird into her mind as Saljane did her.

Her vision canted suddenly and her mindscape was full of whirling green. Then it settled and she realized that Saljane perched at the top of the tree canopy. The whirling green was Saljane’s swift-moving gaze sweeping across the panorama of wind-tossed trees. In the near distance, Reisil saw the thrust of gray mountains rising above the forest. The Dumu Griste mountains.

Saljane’s hunger twisted in Reisil’s own gut. The goshawk hadn’t eaten since the blue grouse the previous day and it had hardly been enough to dull the gnawing in her belly then. Reisil said nothing. She would not ask Saljane to do more than she would, not on the fragile link that held them together. It was possible that Saljane would hunt swiftly and wing her way back before nightfall. They could be in Priede early in the morning, if no logs bashed them in the night.

Suddenly Saljane launched, up and up. Reisil gasped and rocked back and forth, her stomach bounding into her throat and then dropping to her toes.

“What is it? Are you all right?” Kebonsat put his hand on her rigid shoulder.

“Flying,” she said through clenched teeth. “High.”

“Is she coming?”

Reisil shuddered as Saljane flipped almost sideways, buffeted by winds. A storm was moving in over the mountains.
There’s no danger,
she told herself.
You’re back on the boat. Only your mind is with Saljane.

The wind sang along the edges of her wings as the goshawk coasted on a current. Saljane could feel her
ahalad-kaaslane
struggling against her rising panic. The bird crooned soundlessly. Reisil felt the croon vibrate in the marrow of her bones, and with it a flower of delight bloomed inside her at this sign of concern.

“Fish,” she said to Kebonsat, her hands still over her eyes. “She’ll be hungry.” Then she gave herself up to the flight.

 

By the time Saljane returned, Reisil had managed to relax enough to enjoy the sensation of flying without feeling as if she were going to throw up. The landscape spread out against her inner eye in odd shapes intermixed with carefully tended fields and cots. As Saljane approached the silver ribbon of the Sadelema, Reisil stood, extending her arm. Saljane circled, then plummeted down, snapping her wings wide and landing gently on the outstretched arm, her talons closing convulsively on the leather gauntlet.

Reisil pulled her around to stroke shaking fingers over the bird’s smooth head. She grinned with the wonder she felt sharing their flight and landing. The goshawk dipped her beak and again Reisil felt that croon and the flower inside bloomed larger.

~
There’s fish for you.

Saljane flapped to the deck, where Kebonsat tossed one of a dozen trout he and Glevs had caught during Saljane’s return flight. The silver and rainbow-hued fish flopped on the polished wood. Saljane snatched it in her talons and flew to the rail, where she proceeded to tear and bolt the flesh. She ate three more in quick succession before Reisil stopped her.

~
You’ll not be able to fly if you eat all of them at once.

Saljane dropped the head of the fish she’d just finished and scraped her beak against the rail to clean it.

~
Are you ready?

Reisil glanced at the sun. An hour or two of daylight left. If the spell worked quickly, they’d be in Priede by nightfall.

“What’s going on?” Upsakes stood with his feet braced wide, hands on his hips. A dose of laudanum taken with his lunch had put him to sleep, and Reisil had been glad that he had not observed her rapport with Saljane or Koijots’s preparations for the spell. Looking at the elder
ahalad-kaaslane
now, his eyelids drooped over bloodshot eyes. “What is your
ahalad-kaaslane
doing here, girl?” he demanded.

Reisil glanced at Kebonsat and back.

“I called her.”

“Why?”

“I needed her.”

Upsakes face twisted. Reisil took a step back. Was this the same man who had been so congenial, if superior and haughty, these last weeks in Kallas? Sodur laid a hand on Upsakes’s shoulder and gave Reisil a sober, questioning look.

“My tracker has a means to destroy the logjam, with the bird’s help,” Kebonsat said, shifting to stand between Reisil and Upsakes. “It’s a minor spell and should do the trick, if it’s placed correctly.”

With his explanation, Upsakes’s fury increased, his eyes bulging, veins standing out on his neck and forehead. Sodur’s hand tightened, but Upsakes pulled free, shoving the other man aside. Lume snarled as his
ahalad-kaaslane
stumbled and fell. Juhrnus helped Sodur up, his sisalik hissing. Upsakes’s weirmart reared up and bared her teeth, gathering herself to launch at Kebonsat’s face. Before she could, Saljane flung herself into the air and beat at the
ahalad-kaaslane
pair with her wings. Upsakes swung at her but she flipped aside, avoiding the blow. He fell heavily on one knee, unable to recover his balance after his lunging swing. Before he could do more, Sodur and Juhrnus took him by the arms. He struggled against their grip, swearing viciously. When he realized he couldn’t free himself, he turned on Reisil.

“Wizardry! Here? After what they did at Mysane Kosk! And you—helping them with it. Traitor to Kodu Riik! Traitor to the Blessed Amiya!” He fairly shrieked his accusations, his pupils so dilated his eyes appeared black. Spittle ran down his chin and he nearly wrenched free of Sodur’s and Jurhnus’s restraining grips. Reisil blanched and her stomach churned. Still she refused to back down, refused to look away. She reached out mentally for Saljane’s support, needing the strength of her steel-edged mind.

“I am
ahalad-kaaslane,
” she found herself saying, and wished immediately that she hadn’t. She might have Saljane, but she’d not come to this willingly. It seemed wrong to claim it when she hadn’t yet earned it. Did she want to earn it? The question startled her and she surprised herself with the answer. Yes. Yes, she did. But on her terms. She would do what she knew was necessary and right, no less.

“I am
ahalad-kaaslane,
” she repeated more clearly. “I serve Kodu Riik and the Blessed Lady in the fashion I believe best.”

Reisil turned to Koijots, who remained a silent observer, his eyes blue as deep water. “What do you need Saljane to do?”

He held out his palm. On it rested a thin piece of leather. A complex construction of thread, leaves, hair and sticks stuck up stiffly from the leather base. Reisil frowned at it and then back up at him.

“That’s it?”

“It’s enough, placed properly,” he replied in an unexpectedly soft voice. But then he was a tracker and silence was his way.

“Where?”

“There. See in the middle near the bottom where the three logs have splintered? See that smaller branch, shaped like a half moon, the bark still green and white? There.”

Reisil repeated the instructions to Saljane, though the goshawk made it impatiently clear she already understood.

~
Be careful. Those logs could shift and catch you. Be swift,
ahalad-kaaslane.

Reisil’s mind caught on the last word in a flash of revelation. Earlier in the day she’d asked Saljane if she remembered her name, and the reply had been
ahaladkaaslane
. Suddenly Reisil understood that Saljane had intended no insult, a refusal to know her. It was an endearment. It meant someone close to the heart, soul-kin. Reisil stroked Saljane’s chest, a lump in her throat at the rush of emotion she felt for her.

~
I have been stupid, haven’t I? I will try to be better.

The response from Saljane was both impatience to begin, and the emotional equivalent of the tolerant smile adults give to children who have just realized an important lesson.

Reisil placed the leather loop handle Koijots had attached to his spell in Saljane’s beak. The goshawk fluttered into the air and flew to the logs. Reisil held her breath. For the first time she became aware of the creaking shift of the massive pile, fully twenty feet high, and how loud the river sounded, pounding against the logs.

S
aljane clambered to the correct spot in fluttering hops, talons gripping the slick, wet wood with splintering strength.

“Gently, gently,” Koijots whispered, drumming his fingers on the rail. Reisil was surprised. When first she’d met him, he’d had the self-contained air of a hunting cat, relentlessly patient.

Upsakes continued to mutter epithets and Sodur and Jurhnus retained their sharp hold on him. The weirmart wound around to reach her
ahalad-kaaslane
’s face, licking his cheeks with worried absorption. Upsakes shook the little animal off with a bull-like bellow and the weirmart ducked down, clinging with all her might to his surging shoulders.

Reisil clutched the rail, unable to do anything more than watch. Suddenly the pikemen at the bow of the boat shouted. Thunder sounded and the boat jerked and leaped like a child’s toy on the end of a string. The group at the stern stumbled together and Upsakes tore free to scrabble over the rail. Sodur caught him, Lume’s mouth closing around the powerful man’s ankle. Upsakes hardly noticed. Juhrnus and Glevs closed to help, and between them they wrestled the angry man to the deck. His weirmart squalled and yowled from beneath the tangle of bodies, but never loosed her companion.

The boat dipped. Reisil felt the deck below her shudder as logs hit it one after another. Nine thunderous bangs in all. The squeal of wood scraping along the hull echoed in the air, and Reisil felt the deck twist and buck as if a sea serpent roiled beneath. Voli shouted orders and the pikemen shoved on the great, tumbling tree stems.

Forgetting her mindlink to Saljane, she screamed warning to the bird.

“Saljane! Look out!”

The horde of logs crashed into the jam with a deafening sound. Jets of foaming spray exploded upward, drenching the deck. Like thrown matchsticks they tumbled, end over end, careening wildly. One shot straight up like a giant’s arrow, falling in a long, graceful arc to smash down on top of the jam with a crack of thunder, only to tumble free on the other side. Reisil gripped the rail with white fingers. There was no sign of Saljane in the maelstrom.

At last there was calm. Not silence. The swollen river continued to rush, the logs thumped and rubbed, waves and foam washing over them. The crew cheered for themselves, that they had kept the boat from capsizing, that the logs had struck glancing blows and not holed the hull. Reisil would have cheered too, but she still didn’t see Saljane. Koijots stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her, searching the wreckage. Reisil searched the sky.

~Ahalad-kaaslane.

Tears sprang into Reisil’s eyes and she whirled around, eyes raking the air.

~
Where are you?

~
Here.

She heard a whistling and Saljane winged past, the spell still dangling from her beak.

Koijots muttered something and turned to Reisil.

“It can still be done. I think. There as before, lower now, but quickly, before these new logs set. It’ll take more than I’ve got if that happens.”

Koijots pointed out the spot he wanted and Reisil communicated it to Saljane. Once again the bird perched on the top of the wood tangle, talons gouging into the slick wood, wings unfurled for balance. With fluttering hops, she journeyed down to the spot Koijots had indicated. The tangled mass creaked and shivered beneath her. The recent additions to the pile groaned and cracked together, rolling and pitching on the river’s angry current.

Finally Saljane hung the spell on the stump of a branch, as big around as Reisil’s wrist, and broken off less than a foot from the trunk. The goshawk launched herself up with heavy flapping of her wings, but did not gain much altitude. A log beneath her canted and rolled, shoving upward what appeared to be little more than a sapling. Reisil screamed as the wood whipped into Saljane. Feathers exploded like dandelion puff and Saljane screeched. She fell into the water at the edge of the boat, just out of Reisil’s reach.

The young
ahalad-kaaslane
didn’t think. She vaulted over the rail into the frigid, boiling current. She sank, sodden boots and clothes pulling her down. The current grabbed her, drove her forward toward the battering logs. Reisil kicked furiously upward and back, against that angry pull. The cold cut through her chest, and when she broke the surface her lips were already blue. She kicked hard against the current, searching for Saljane.

There! Too near the tumbling logs. The goshawk’s head was above water, her beak open, her eyes impossibly wide. Her wings opened and closed in the water, but the saturated feathers were too heavy to be of any use, even if she could have dragged herself from the water, even if the blow had not broken something.

The current whirled Saljane around and batted her toward the churning logs. Reisil kicked hard, flinging herself up and over, letting the driving current help her. Her arms closed around Saljane and she pulled them both under. The bird struggled against her grip. Reisil broke the surface again, kicking backward, the knobby bark of redwood log not eight inches from her face. Saljane’s talons raked her stomach in panicking fury, but Reisil refused to let the bird go. The vicious beak bit deeply into her cheeks and neck as the terrified, pain-stricken bird fought for freedom. Blood ran down her face in thick ribbons, but Reisil was so cold she hardly felt the injuries.