Song of the Beast (35 page)

We left the green and beautiful place called Devonhill and rode slowly southward in the garish spring weather. I would have preferred rain and gloom. In the first days I had to stop every hour and walk to loosen up my leg, and after only a few hours of riding I was so tired I would drop off to sleep on whatever piece of ground was closest.

Narim reviewed his plan, insisting that the impossible would happen and the Senai would learn what was necessary to free the dragons. I mouthed the answers he wanted from me. Yes, I would see the dragons brought to Cir Nakai right away. They would not come to the lake on their own, for they would surely remember the poison, the jenica in the water that had caused all their trouble. MacAllister must convince Roelan to lead the others to the water. It was the only way. And yes, there must be no delays. Once the hold of the Ridemark was broken, there would come a storm of vengeance such as the world had never seen. The dragons must be secure before the storm could break. I would not think of what was to come after. It would never get that far.

Narim was as mad as MacAllister. Was this the punishment for my childish rage at the future life had parceled out to me? Because I was not content with my own people, I must live out my days with lunatics of other races?

By the fifth day we were making good speed through the rolling forestland of southern Elyria, stopping only to rest the horses and to eat. On the sixth morning, as the land began to rise toward the rainswept hills of Aberthain, I could not spur my mount fast enough. I felt like wolves were nipping at my feet. When Narim called a midday halt at a deserted crossroads, I wanted to scream.

“One moment only, Lara, love,” he said, “and you can be off at your own pace to find our friends. Our paths must diverge here, for my instinct is the same as Aidan's. I believe he will find Roelan in Aberthain, so I've got to set things in motion. I'll come find you the moment I get word you've made the attempt.”

Mad. They were both mad. “So you'll not be there to watch him die?”

“I'll not be there to see him reap the joy he so deserves. No. Sadly not.” Tenderly he brushed away the hair that straggled across my ugly face as he had done so often when I was healing from my burns. “But I will see him after, and I will see the fulfillment of your destiny, Lara. You will soar across the sky, and your beauty and courage and honor will be visible for the world to see.”

I spurred my horse as hard as I dared and left Narim, hand outstretched, in the middle of the crossroads.

 

By nightfall I rode into the stableyard of a small, tidy inn tucked away in the forest half a league from Aberswyl, the royal city of Aberthain. Lanterns sparkled in the clear darkness, and laughter and the music of pipes and whistles spilled out doors and windows opened to the warm, humid night. I left my horse with a stable lad—a sleepy Florin boy with a slave brand burned into his cheek.

I headed across the yard toward the inn, but the boy's scarred cheek reminded me too closely of my own. The thought of stepping into a brightly lit common room was so repulsive that I walked right past the door and into the dark cluster of sheds, storehouses, and refuse heaps crowded between the inn and the surrounding trees. Crouching beside a stack of bricks, I waited for the party to be over and the lamps to be turned down. From the number of revelers who staggered into the yard to vomit, and the tittering flower-decked couples who stumbled into the trees only to emerge panting and rearranging clothing a quarter of an hour later, I gathered it was a Udema wedding party. If so, it could go on all night.

I settled down for a long wait and slept a bit, only to be waked about moonset when a wagon decorated with flowers, wheat sheaves, and cowbells carried the happy couple to their bed. The remaining guests returned to the inn for another hour of serious drinking before heading home.

It was in the quiet that followed that I heard the call of the teylark from the woods. Only those who had grown up in the tents of the Twelve Families would remark the nasal, yipping cry of the most common bird in Elyria. And no one else would recognize the code: one chirp, then two rising, then one again, and a trill.
All is ready.
A double whistle, then a single.
Hold until the command.
In a ring around that forest glade the calls repeated, blending in with the humming insects, the rustling of new green leaves, and the occasional bark of a dog who'd had good luck in its night's hunting. Inside the inn a sentimental piper squalled on his pipes.

Ridemark discipline would permit no further breaking of the silence, so I would learn nothing more of their plan. But it was easy enough to guess. Somehow they had learned that MacAllister was inside. As soon as the wedding guests were gone, they would take him as easily as boys stealing blackberries. The question was whether they had a man inside keeping watch on the Senai. If so, the problem was far more difficult. My instinct said not. Best test it quickly. More guests were straggling away down the road, and soon the teylark would cry again with a far deadlier message.

How was I to get to the door? If the watchers were counting who came out and who returned, my unexpected appearance could set off the very attack I feared. Amid the cheers and laughter of the company, another flower-draped couple darted out the front door into a rose arbor to express their fervent hopes as to the newlyweds' fertility. Before I could figure out how to take the girl's place, they were strolling back to the inn.

An unendurable quarter of an hour until someone else staggered out of the doorway. The pudgy man relieved himself against my pile of bricks, happily singing mournful songs of youth and love along with the piper's tune. Clearly the fellow had drunk a barrel of ale. I plowed a foot straight into his belly before he could get himself tucked up again. It knocked the wind right out of him. I dragged him into a stinking slaughtering shed, trussed him up with my belt and a scrap of rope, then patted his cheeks and his exposed bit of Udema manhood. “We're setting up a surprise for the groom,” I whispered in his ear, counting him too drunk to remember that the groom had already gone. “Hold quiet here until he comes, and we'll have a good laugh.” Udema love bawdy jokes.

My victim giggled, then shushed himself, spluttering. “Shhh ... no noise ... good joke ... shhh ...” He would most likely fall asleep and dream a hilarious outcome. I borrowed his cloak and stumbled across the yard toward the inn, growling a note or two as I went.

Perhaps twenty people occupied the lamplit common room. Most of them were gathered about two long tables littered with empty tankards, baskets of flowers, pools of ale, and the bones, crumbs, and rinds of a farmer's feasting. They were singing at least three different songs at once and drinking prodigiously. A fat man snored from one corner of the room, while an exhausted serving girl carried a heavy tray of filled mugs to replenish the table, and a drowsy Elhim turned a goose on a spit. No one in the group had the air of a Rider.

MacAllister and the two Elhim huddled over a small table to one side of the party, not looking at anyone. I shed my stolen cloak and startled the three of them out of a year's peace when I dropped onto the bench beside MacAllister. “You've got to get out of here right now ...” I said, forestalling the Elhim's greetings as I told them of the circle of Riders posed at the edge of the forest. “We can pretend we're wedding guests. Head down the road with some of these others.” Even as I said it, three young men fell weeping on each other's shoulders and waved farewell to the others, holding each other upright as they staggered out the door.

“They're sure to have a checkpoint on the road,” said Tarwyl.

“Through the woods might be better, then,” said MacAllister. “We could slip between the watchers.”

“You don't understand,” I said. “These will be experienced Ridemark scouts, and the moon's full. You couldn't do anything in the woods they wouldn't notice.”

“Well,” said Davyn. “There's one thing they wouldn't notice.” He nodded his head toward a burly man who had his hand down a blond woman's bodice while she slathered his mooning face with kisses. The other partygoers began cheering and garlanding the two with flowers. A fiddler took up the piper's tune.

“Tjasse's gift!” toasted a red-haired farmer with a feathered hat. “May Ule sire fifty sons!”

“May Norla birth healthy babes!” cried a wizened woman, who then sucked down a tankard of ale without taking a breath. The group laughed and applauded when the burly man and the blond woman, draped in flowers and already half-undressed, ran out into the night bearing the blessings of Tjasse. The more matings at this celebration, the more pleased Tjasse would be and thus the more likely to bless the newlyweds with children. Two more fawning pairs were close to bolting.

“Offer to buy a round for the party,” said Davyn, placing a silver coin on the table. “Make your good wishes. And ... demonstrate your sincerity.” He jerked his head at me. He had to be joking. MacAllister flushed, his gaze riveted on his mug.

“We'll take the road and kill the sentry if we get stopped,” I said. “Attach ourselves to the other guests here. Or do something else ... set fire to the place to cause a commotion.”

Tarwyl ignored me, wrinkling his brow. “You could each approach one of the guests. At a Udema wedding party anyone is fair game—well, I don't think they'd take me or Davyn.” He grinned. “But of course if you two were together it would be easier. Once you were sure the watchers had lost interest—a convincing few moments at most—you could be away. We'll come along later. Meet you at the shop in Aberswyl. Aidan knows where it is. Are you game?”

MacAllister glanced over at me bleakly. “We'll think of something else.”

The Elhim were right, and we had to be quick. “I can do what's necessary. You keep saying the same of yourself. Prove it.”

Davyn was sympathetic. “I understand that customs differ widely in these particular matters—”

“Stop talking and do it,” I said, fighting not to scream at them. Every time the music fell quiet, I feared I would hear the teylark's hunting call that meant
now.

“Begin here,” said Davyn, laying a hand firmly on Aidan's arm as the Senai started to stand up. “Do not these activities take fire in small ways?”

A grinning Tarwyl raised his cup and proclaimed loudly in his deep voice, “To our human friends who have developed such affection for each other—an uncommon bond, unrivaled in all of history.”

If we were not so desperate, I might have laughed at Tarwyl. MacAllister closed his eyes and murmured, “Vellya, god of fools, defend us.” Then he raised his mug to Tarwyl, drank deep, and laid his arm around my shoulders as if trying to do it without touching me.

“Your turn, Lara,” said Davyn. “We're trying to attract attention here, if you recall. From your current aspect you might well be mistaken for a part of this bench.” The two Elhim were having more fun than the Udema.

“Put your hands on him, Lara,” whispered Tarwyl, unable to smother his grin. “I'm sure hands are important.” I gritted my teeth and clasped the gloved hand that rested so lightly on my shoulder, and I put my other hand on Aidan's cheek, pulling it close to mine.

“This isn't going to work,” I said. “I can't—”

“Perhaps it would help to think of something else.” Aidan's head was resting on mine. He whispered in my ear, “Did I ever tell you about the time I was chasing bats out of a cave and set my hair on fire?”

I turned my head and stared at him, sure he'd gone mad.

“Oh, gods, don't look at me,” he whispered, ducking his head so that I could only feel the heat from his rush of embarrassment. “Do you think these people will notice if we take the Elhim with us for tutors? Were ever two players so woefully miscast?”

From such a close view, I could not miss the nervous terror behind his merry humor. Suddenly I understood a great deal about him that I had never imagined. “You've never ... in all your youth ... all the people you met ... the women and girls fawning over you ...”

“I never had time. Always traveling. Preoccupied. Tangled with gods and music. And I'd been brought up so strictly. You just didn't ... not even to look ... until you'd known someone a long—Until you married. And I never learned—Damn! Am I red enough now?”

To Davyn's and Tarwyl's immense satisfaction, I burst out laughing. Was nothing ever easy? I'd thought he was only excessively modest or disgusted by my common manner or revolted by my ugliness. I had never imagined that a Senai noble who had grown to manhood in the world could be a virgin.

“Laugh as you will,” he growled quietly. “But you're perhaps not so worldly as all that. You were only thirteen when you took up with Elhim!”

“I grew up in a tent smaller than this room with my parents, two grandmothers, two uncles, one aunt, three cousins, and an older brother with many friends. Modesty is not a value the clan prizes, nor is celibacy. There is nothing that you don't see and nothing that you don't hear, and a Ridemark girl is available to her father's friends and her brother's friends and any Dragon Rider when she is eleven.” I said it lightly, but it had been yet another teaching of my true place in the clan. There was nothing of pleasure in the remembrance of ale-sotted men and groping boys in the dark corners of the family tent.

“Ah ... Well.” He didn't know quite what to say. “I'll do as you command me, then.”

“The couple at the end of the table are the bride's parents,” whispered Davyn, who had been observing the Udema while we were babbling. “And they've sent a boy to light their lantern.”

“Time for the second chorus,” said MacAllister. “Perhaps I can do better at this part. I suppose you'll have to bear with me.” His grin chased away a shadow from his face. I had most likely revolted him with my unclean past. He looped my hands over one of his arms so he could grip his ale mug securely with both hands; then he approached the wedding party, wobbling a little as if he'd drunk as much as they.