The Betrayal (29 page)

“Join me.”

His eyes widened with fear. Shalár gave him an impatient nudge of khi, and he winced, then mounted the cat behind her, gingerly reaching a leg over its back. She had to steady him and considered unbinding his hands but decided to wait until they had left Night-sand. The city offered too many temptations for a daring captive. Though she had him in control, she did not want a struggle with him.

He was trembling, she realized. She laid a hand on his thigh to calm him.

“The cat will not harm you so long as I control it. I suggest that you not distract me from that task.”

He nodded, and though his breathing remained quick, he seemed to relax somewhat. Shalár made the catamount start along the cliff toward the Hollows and the trail down to Nightsand. Its muscles rolled sinuously beneath her, and it growled a low protest at the weight of its burden. The Steppegard smelled of fear, and she knew the cat sensed it. Perhaps she should have made him unconscious and slung him over the animal's back, but it was too late now.

Her folk shrank from the catamount as it prowled through the streets to the shore. Shalár took the road through the canyon and left it when they emerged onto the high plains, striking westward toward the Ebons. Now she made the cat run, instructing the Steppegard to lean against her. He kept his balance, gripping the cat with his legs. The animal growled, scenting its home on the breeze.

Carrying two, the catamount tired quickly, and she had to let it walk from time to time. She did not wish to kill the beast, but she did not mind exhausting it, so she made it run as much as it could. By the time the sky was lightening, they had reached the foothills of the Ebons.

Shalár took them deep into a thick wood that spilled between two hills. A stream trickled among boulders that long ago had tumbled down the hillsides. Halting the catamount, she made the Steppegard get down first and sit beneath a tree. She felt fatigue tremble through his limbs and was careful in her own dismounting.

She unstrapped her pack from the cat, took out a wooden cup, and went to fill it from the stream, letting the cat drink a little farther down the slope. She drained the cup twice, then filled it again and carried it to the Steppegard.

Above the filter of the forest canopy the sky was growing light. Shalár glanced up at the spreading limbs of pine and decided they would be shelter enough. She stopped before her captive and stood regarding him.

He had his eyes closed, his head leaned back against the tree. She doubted he was comfortable, but he seemed resigned. He had neither protested nor attempted to escape during the long ride through the night.

“Drink.”

She held the cup to his lips. He opened his eyes and complied, spilling a little of the water as he gulped it. Shalár set the empty cup down and took out her knife of ebonglass. The Steppegard's eyes flashed sudden fear.

“Sit forward.”

She stepped behind him and cut the thong that tied his hands. He gave a small gasp of relief and leaned back again, rubbing his wrists.

“Thank you.”

“You are not yet free.”

He glanced up at her, then sighed. When she trusted he would not immediately attempt escape, she sat down against another tree a little distance away.

“May I have some more water?”

“There is the cup.”

Shalár waved her knife toward it. The Steppegard slowly got to his feet and picked it up. She watched him go to the stream, drink his fill, then set the cup aside and splash water on his face.

She could feel his hunger, a dull pulse in his khi. She cast a searching thought through the woodlands, past the sheltering hills and down the plain, but sensed no prey. He stood up, weariness seeming to inform his every movement. For a moment he was still, then he took a step away, downstream.

Shalár frowned. The catamount uttered a low growl.

“You are not yet free.”

He turned, gazed at her in a measuring way, then bent to retrieve the cup and fill it again. He brought it to her, crouching before her and offering the cup.

“Thank you.” She took a sip and set it aside. “Make yourself comfortable. We will rest here until nightfall.”

He settled himself, sitting before her with ankles crossed and his arms around his knees. “Where are we going?”

“Across the Ebons.”

His surprise was satisfactory. She could sense his confusion as he pondered her motives. Also his confidence, which was returning swiftly. A struggle was coming, one she would not relish. She narrowed her eyes.

“I did not bring you here to slay you, but I will not hesitate to do so.”

“That would be wasteful, would it not?”

Shalár smiled slightly. “Indeed.”

She studied him, noting the sinewy strength of his limbs, gone just a little soft with inactivity. His hair as yet showed no sign of whitening, which was fortunate. He watched her with a hunter's patience.

“How am I to earn my freedom?”

Shalár's smile widened. She reached into her pack.

“You may begin by committing this to memory.”

He caught the scroll she tossed at him, the copy of Irith's recollections of Fireshore. With a questioning glance at her, he unrolled it and began to read. A frown grew on his brow, and he looked at her once more.

She nodded. “Learn every detail. Your life will depend on it.”

“You intend to administer an examination? It is a severe tutor who slays her student for failure.”

Shalár chuckled at his ironic tone. “I will leave the examination to others.”

She pushed her pack behind her and settled herself more comfortably against the tree, then slid her knife into its sheath. Aware of his sudden attention, she brought the sheathed weapon to lie on her lap, a hand on its hilt. He went back to studying Irith's notes, and Shalár watched him lazily, waiting for the day to pass.

By late afternoon she had lost count of the times he had been through the pages, and the paper had begun to wear. So had the Steppegard's patience. He rolled the pages together and dropped them.

“I am hungry. May I hunt something for us to share?”

“There are no kobalen nearby.”

“I did not mean kobalen.”

Shalár raised an eyebrow. “You will find other foods less than satisfying. Do you not remember how you were sickened in the pens?”

He looked momentarily distressed, then shook it away with a frown. “But, fresh blood …”

Shalár shrugged. “You are welcome to try.”

He looked toward the stream, his gaze unfocused as he searched the woodland's khi for prey. He stood up, glancing toward her. She let him feel her command of him, then allowed him to move away across the stream, toward some small creature hiding in the underbrush.

His prey, a rabbit, started as he drew near and bounded away through a patch of sunlight. Shalár sat upright, about to warn him, then decided against it. This was a lesson he must learn beyond forgetting, the sooner the better.

The Steppegard ran after the rabbit, straight into the sun. He cried out as the light struck him, and stumbled. Shalár winced in sympathy, for each instant it took him to escape the sunlight would cost him. Not
as badly now, perhaps, as it eventually would, but badly enough so that he would not repeat the mistake.

He tumbled to his knees just beyond the sunlight and stayed, gasping, for a short while. Shalár felt pain ripple through his khi. She was sorry for that but knew it would convince him where her words of warning might not.

Slowly, unsteadily, he stood. Instead of returning as she'd expected, he moved on, following his prey. Shalár silently admitted grudging admiration as he stalked and caught the rabbit despite the agony of sun poisoning.

Determined, this one. Strong-willed. She must be very careful.

He returned, feet dragging, the lifeless rabbit dangling from one hand. He offered it to her.

She shook her head and watched while he dropped to his knees beside the stream and tore into the rabbit's flesh until he found blood. He sucked hungrily for a while, then raised his head.

His glance told her he knew she was right, and resented it. It also revealed his suffering. Shalár decided the lesson had been effective.

She stood and walked over to him, took the rabbit from his hands, and tossed it to the catamount. He made no protest, though he grimaced when she put a hand under his elbow to help him stand.

“Sunlight is poison to you now. Henceforth you are a night-bider.”

She led him to the shadiest tree at hand and helped him sit beneath it. He muttered bitterly to himself.

“Why?”

“Why? Because fate is unkind.”

Shalár knelt to search her pack for a small pot of balmleaf ointment she had brought against this need. She sat beside the Steppegard and gently spread the
balm on his reddened face, throat, and hands where he had been touched by the sun. He winced but made no sound. When she had finished, she put away the ointment and took out a phial of powdered willow bark, then stirred some into the cup of water and made the Steppegard drink it.

He leaned against the tree and closed his eyes, breathing in short, sharp gulps. She watched him until he began to relax, then stood up to stretch her limbs.

He would need to rest for what remained of the day if he was to endure another night of travel. She hoped he would not need more than that. It was well that this had happened today, for the Steppegard must show no sign of sun poisoning when he arrived in Southfæld.

Shalár glanced toward the pool of sunlight that had hurt him, its beams slanting between trees, sparking motes of dust in the shadows. What creator would make such a deadly thing so pretty? What guardian spirit would suffer a race in its charge to be hurt so cruelly by a force that so filled the world?

She paced along the stream down to where the catamount lay idly chewing on the rabbit's remains. A glance at her captive told her the willow bark had brought him some ease.

Why? he had asked. Why, indeed? Clan Darkshore had pondered that question for many centuries. She doubted they would ever find an answer.

 Hallowhall 

Two days before the Council was to convene was the Feast of Crossed Spirits. Glenhallow was filled with quiet celebration, the day being given by custom to the remembrance of loved ones who had crossed the gray veil into spirit. Lord Jharan presided over a vast gathering in the public circle and asked Felisan to accompany him in the ceremony of greeting the ældar. Eliani had never seen so many people assembled together, most of them Greenglens. She found the sea of fair-haired folk unnerving, and escaped as soon as she could to pursue her private meditations.

She thought of her mother, as always. She spent much of the day in the fountain court, for she thought Belani would have liked that place. A wistful hope of hearing her mother's counsel clung to her, but the whispering water offered no insight.

In the evening, Jharan hosted a formal feast of welcome for the Council delegations. Hallowhall's feast hall was filled with long tables and made bright with candlelight and torchlight. Minstrels played softly from the high gallery, but all these comforts could not change the undertone of apprehension among the company. The talk turned ever and again to the possibility of war.

Eliani wore her best gown and her veil, bound with
a violet ribbon and caught at the shoulder with the brooch given her by House Jharanin. She had neglected to bring her new circlet, an omission for which she had apologized profusely to her father. Felisan had merely laughed and said she would be well served if asked to care for the visitors' horses, but Eliani, feeling the need to atone, resolved to take note of all those wearing circlets of state at the feast.

She looked to the head table, where Turisan sat with his father and numerous Southfæld dignitaries. He wore silver-woven robes and a large silver coronet signifying his rank as governor-elect, and seemed to her once again as one who dwelt in a realm far above her.

Five other Greenglens besides Turisan and Jharan wore circlets. Two Steppegards wore them over wildly curling hair: a tall, stern-faced lady whom Felisan identified as Governor Pashani and a lord so like to her that he must be her close kin, both in tunics of russet and pine, elaborately embroidered.