Song Magick (12 page)

“Stay close to me. I’ll help you keep your
feet as best I can.”

Although Telyn knew how cold the spring-fed
stream was, she could not keep from sucking in a startled breath as
the icy water seeped into her boots and crept up her legs. The bed
was stone, which was to their advantage, but their footing was
still uneven and less than stable in the rapidly flowing water. The
stream pushed against her with surprising force, and it soon
swirled around Telyn’s knees. In one more step, it became
waist-deep.

The bard suddenly found herself under water
as her feet were swept out from under her in midstream. A strong
hand above her elbow pulled her up, gasping and sputtering, and
kept her on her feet, but even Mithrais was having difficulty
against the torrent of water. They struggled to the opposite bank,
exhausted by the time they staggered out of the water to collapse,
panting, on the stones.

“I’m getting careless,” Mithrais said, his
voice hoarse with exertion. “I shouldn’t have risked crossing the
stream. I misjudged the depth, and you might have drowned.”

“I’m all right. I should never have said I
couldn’t get colder and wetter,” Telyn responded, her teeth
chattering. Mithrais climbed slowly to his feet, and helped her
rise.

“Come. I can see the outpost from here, and
you need a fire quickly.”

Telyn moved on numb feet up the bank,
trailing from Mithrais’ hand. The grayish light of the Wood seemed
to brighten, the clouds beginning to part, weak moonlight waxing
and waning with the passage of the storm. The path continued to
climb, and Telyn was able to make out a rocky cliff ahead of them
with a shadowed recess near the bottom of the bluff.

“Is that a cave?” Telyn managed to ask around
a convulsive shiver.

“It’s only a shallow depression in the rock
that goes back less than a dozen paces. The entrance to the outpost
is a natural opening inside the bluff.” Mithrais led her to the
base of the cliff and inside the small cave. “Unless one is
familiar with this particular outpost, the entrance is almost
perfectly camouflaged by the rock formations. It’s here.”

The inside of the wall curved sharply to the
left, and a narrow black opening yawned before them. Mithrais
entered it, pulling at her hand encouragingly, and Telyn hesitated
momentarily. She did not care for caves, but the thought of getting
warm overpowered her reluctance. Telyn let Mithrais guide her, her
own eyes unable to make out any details. She had the distinct
impression that although not wide, the fissure was very high. Her
cold fingers trailed the rough natural stone wall lightly,
following its contours.

To her surprise, there was another acute turn
to the right just six paces inside the black crevice, and the walls
beneath her fingertips became smoother. Mithrais halted. “There is
a flight of steps that lead upwards directly in front of you,” he
said, his quiet voice echoing slightly. Telyn stepped up cautiously
and found the stone stairs, which were even, flat, and not natural
formations.

“Follow them to the top. It will open into a
large room, where there should be a little more light,” Mithrais
told Telyn. “I’ll be behind you.”

Telyn mounted the stairs slowly, and as she
climbed, her eyes became able to make out shadows and recesses in
the wall meant for candles or torches. The top of the stair was a
large, square opening level with the stone floor of the room, just
as Mithrais had described. A series of narrow, vertical openings in
the wall behind the stair and to the right allowed dim, watery
moonbeams to cast lines on the floor.

Mithrais moved past her to a chest-high,
darker opening in the wall opposite the stair and reached for an
object on a ledge above it. Telyn edged cautiously to the narrow
windows and peered out. She could hear the flooded stream rushing
past below them and saw the rising mist in the moonlight above the
tops of the trees, but little else was visible in the night. Her
shivering returned with the absence of movement, and Telyn turned
hopefully at the sound of flint striking. Mithrais knelt before the
dark opening, now revealed as a fireplace as he coaxed a finger of
flame into life with dry tinder, flint and steel. He fed the fire
with a small stack of kindling.

“There is firewood enough for one night, at
least,” Mithrais remarked, adding some more sizeable pieces as the
fire took hold of the dry twigs. He stood up and hung his bow,
quiver and sword on projections in the walls beside the fireplace,
then stripped off his dripping cloak, hanging it on one of a series
of pegs in the mantelpiece. Mithrais assisted Telyn in removing
hers, draping it on another peg on the opposite side of the mantel.
She moved eagerly to hold her hands out before the crackling
flames, and her shivering began to ease as the warmth penetrated
her wet clothing.

“There should be blankets here, and possibly
dry clothing as well. I’ll see what I can find.” Mithrais moved to
objects Telyn had not noticed in the room, which were now
illuminated in the firelight as wooden chests.

Telyn removed the soaking wet leather pack
from her shoulder, wondering if their provisions were ruined. As
she opened the leather bag, Telyn breathed a sigh of relief and
silent thanks to Riordan and his seneschal. The packages of bread,
dried meat, fruit and nuts were sealed in waxed cloth, and
completely unharmed. A small round of cheese was no worse for the
wear, either. She emptied out the residual water in the bottom of
the pack, setting the wrapped food on the mantelpiece, and the bag
before the fire to dry.

She removed her belt and scabbard, hanging
them beside the fireplace as Mithrais had done, but pulled the
sword a few inches from the wet leather sheath to check its
condition. Running a finger lightly down the flat near the edge of
her blade, feeling the nicks and pits created by the previous
night’s encounter, Telyn wished that she had thought to ask Riordan
for a sharpening stone and oil. She sheathed the blade with a sigh,
knowing it would have to wait until they reached Cerisild.

Unwilling to leave the growing warmth, Telyn
sat before the hearth and set about struggling with the wet laces
of her boots. Mithrais returned from his forage through the trunks
with a pile of blankets, a few items of apparel, and a cloak that
was the twin of his own.

“I fear that there is little in the way of
clothing, but we can use these until our own are dry.” He handed
Telyn a large shirt, and kept a pair of loose trousers for
himself.

Telyn watched him for a moment as he began to
unlace his jerkin, then turned her attention back to the fused
laces of her boots, picking at them determinedly. While they had
changed from their costumes in the cellars, no thoughts of anything
but their escape into the Wood had crossed her mind at that time,
but now...Telyn risked another glimpse as Mithrais pulled the
jerkin and shirt off over his head, revealing a smoothly muscled
torso and the well-defined arms of an archer. She looked away again
hurriedly, the heat in her face the result of more than proximity
to the fire. The laces finally gave way and she tugged one boot
off, unable to resist glancing his way again as Mithrais hung the
shirt and jerkin on the mantle.

Mithrais removed the silver clasp that kept
his dark hair gathered tightly at the nape of his neck, and ran his
hands through it to separate the dripping strands. Released from
its customary queue, his hair fell just past his shoulders in waves
that threatened to curl. Telyn realized that she was staring again
just as Mithrais caught her watching him. He returned her gaze, his
eyes turned amber by the firelight. Telyn looked away hurriedly,
embarrassed, pulling at her other boot.

“I’m sorry. I did promise that I would
behave,” she said with a self-conscious laugh. Telyn set the boot
beside its mate on the hearth and turned her back to him, working
intently at the fastenings of her wool tunic. She sighed in
resignation, and set about performing the mental disciplines that
helped her keep unwanted emotions deeply buried—but because her
heart was not really in it, it took a bit longer than usual.

* * * *

Mithrais grinned at her newfound
concentration and settled on the floor, removing his own boots.
There had been little on his mind but sleep until now, for even a
Wood-born Silde’s constitution had its limits when denied rest for
more than a few days, but a few feet away, Telyn was slipping off
her wet tunic. The creamy skin of her back tapered to a slim waist,
and generously curved hips were accentuated by her own leggings.
Her hair and the honor marks tattooed on her wrist were startlingly
dark against her skin in the firelight as she reached for the dry
shirt on the floor beside her and pulled it on. When Telyn stood
and began to take off the drenched leggings underneath the
knee-length shirt, Mithrais looked away with a concerted effort and
stepped quickly out of his wet clothing and into the trousers. If
Telyn could control herself, so could he.

* * * *

Telyn waited until Mithrais was moving about
again before she rose to hang her wet clothing before the fire. She
spread the blankets before the hearth for their beds as Mithrais
saw to the care of his own weapons, and then claimed the spare
cloak for herself, wrapping it around her shoulders and gathering
the ends of it over her arms so that she could walk about the room
in the flickering orange light.

The outpost was larger than she had first
thought, and much of it had been a natural cave until the floor,
stairs, and the inner wall had been skillfully inlaid with flat
stone and mortar. To her right, beyond the stairway in the floor,
lay the narrow windows, which were little more than arrow slits cut
directly into the rock face of the bluff.

Her bare feet were beginning to regain
feeling, but the flagstones beneath them were still cold and strewn
with leaves and dust. She returned to the fireside and sat down on
one of the blankets, tucking the cloak in around her feet.

“Why do the Tauron not use this outpost?”
Telyn wondered aloud. Mithrais answered her without turning
around.

“We are too few in the Western Wood to man
them all, but there are no longer any Gwaith’orn near this outpost.
The last one became silent a few years ago.”

“Silent? What do you mean?” Telyn cocked her
head curiously.

“It no longer resonates with the others. The
tree still lives—we passed it on the way up the bank—but it no
longer communicates with us, or the other Gwaith’orn.” Mithrais
finished his task and returned to sit beside Telyn on the blankets.
“This is happening at a frightening rate all over the Wood—several
a year, when there have been Gwaith’orn in the Wood longer than the
Tauron’s recorded history can say. When my father was a Tauron
warden, there were five within a league of this outpost, and a
hundred times that in the Wood. Now, nearly half are silent.”

“Why?” Telyn’s brow furrowed. Mithrais shook
his head.

“We don’t know. We’ve asked the Gwaith’orn
themselves, but their response is beyond our comprehension. Their
way of speech is largely symbolic and this is something for which
we have no point of reference. My father has been combing the
written histories of the Tauron for several years now, looking for
any information that might be included there, but he’s found
nothing. I hope that when we arrive he may have found more that he
can tell me.”

Mithrais frowned and changed the subject. “We
will have much time to speak of this later. The nearest Gwaith’orn
is an hour’s walk from here. It’s not in our path, but we must go
there to be certain that The Dragon isn’t tracking us. We should
sleep while we can. I’d like to continue as soon as it’s
daylight.”

Telyn began to protest, but a yawn prevented
her from saying anything. The suggestion of sleep was almost
irresistible. She lay down atop one of the blankets that she had
spread before the hearth, curling her arm beneath her head.
Mithrais added a few more pieces of wood to the fire before he
stretched out beside her, drawing the last blanket over
himself.

“How long before we reach Cerisild?” Telyn
murmured sleepily as she closed her eyes.

“We should reach the outskirts of the city
within three days,” Mithrais responded wearily. “Rest well,
Telyn.”

“Rest well.” The words barely escaped her
lips before both of them were asleep.

* * * *

In the faint, blue light of early dawn,
Mithrais woke first in the shadowed confines of the outpost,
listening to the continued rush of the stream below the bluff. He
discovered that sometime during the night, he and Telyn had shifted
together, and he was wrapped around the still-sleeping bard, arms
holding her against his body protectively.

He should not even be thinking of love until
he knew that Telyn was safe, but since their first meeting, Telyn
had stirred his blood and very soul. Lying motionless with Telyn in
his arms, memorizing the scent and feel of her, Mithrais felt a
change in her breathing, a slight tensing of muscles, and realized
that she was no longer sleeping. He relaxed his embrace, giving her
the knowledge that he was awake and the choice to move away.

She didn’t move away, but merely sat up to
face him, the overlarge shirt falling from one shoulder to reveal a
tantalizing glimpse of her soft curves. Her hair falling in a
tumble of darkness against her skin, she suddenly seemed shy and
uncertain, and he could feel the heat of her blush as she lowered
her eyes from his appreciative gaze.

Mithrais rose to his knees before her,
touching her face gently before tentatively lowering his lips to
hers. The kiss was gentle and sweet, and Telyn gave a small sigh,
closing the distance between them. Feeling her respond, he could no
longer deny the hunger that threatened to consume him and pulled
her close against his chest, drinking deeply of her kiss. She
returned his ardency with a passion that matched his own fire. For
a moment, he was lost in it, until his senses returned with the
remembrance of where they were, and why.