The Realms of the Gods (19 page)

“They carried me off. I used my Gift to shield myself, but it took them some time to learn that
I
was the source of their pain. Once they did, they fled. When I returned to the Chaos vent, and realized that you had gone over the cliff—” He swallowed hard.

“You can thank a number of trees and a deep part of the river that I'm reasonably alive.” She sat next to him, inching over until he was forced to raise his arm. Flinching at the bite of her cuts and scratches—she'd have to tend them soon—she tucked herself into the curve of his arm, then rested her head on his chest.

“You're trembling,” she murmured.

“I'm only tired.” He was lying, she knew. “I used my entire Gift to reach you.”

“You shouldn't have,” she told him. “You need it to defend yourself—and we still have to reach the Sea of Sand.”

Numair's arm tightened. She looked down so that he couldn't see her wince. “If I'd lost you and kept my power, I would hate myself. Eventually magic returns, even after a draining. I had no way to know if
you
would.”

She looked into his face, and smiled. “It would take more than falling off a cliff to keep me from you.”

Numair kissed her again, his mouth lingering. The flooding heat of desire nearly swamped Daine before he broke the kiss. “I'd hoped you felt that way,” he whispered. He kissed her eyelids, and the tip of her nose, then found her lips again. When he stopped, Daine was limp within the circle of his arm; now she too was trembling.

He sighed regretfully. “I should look at your cuts.”

Daine sat up as he drew the pack over. Gingerly—even her bones ached—she lifted her shirt hem.

“Daine!”

“What?”

He had turned crimson under his tan. “You—we aren't—you should be clothed!”

“I've a breast band on, dolt. Besides, this shirt's in shreds. Like the rest of me.”

He shifted slightly. “It just doesn't seem
right.
I feel that I'm . . . taking advantage of your innocence. A man of my—years, and reputation—”

“ ‘Taking advantage of'?” she repeated. “And
what
reputation?”

“You of
all
people should know that I've been involved with ladies of the court.”

“What has
that
to do with the price of peas in Persopolis?”

“It's easy for an experienced man to delude a young woman into believing herself in love with him. It is the basest kind of trickery, even when the man does not intend it.”

“Do you love me or not?” she demanded.

“That is
not
the topic under discussion.” He fumbled, getting Sarra's ointment from his pack. Jelly and Leaf trickled over, carrying a bottle of water between them. “Thank you,” Numair told them as he took charge of it.

Defiantly the girl stripped off her shirt, turning her back to him. Her breast band was in little better condition than her outer clothes, but she didn't care.
He
was making the fuss, not her! “We're not talking about love?” she demanded, wincing as he began to clean the cuts on her shoulders and back. “What are we talking of, then? Canoodling?”

“Daine! Is that what you think I want?” he demanded, outraged.
“Sex?”
Despite his dismay and fury, the hand that smoothed ointment on her was gentle.

“It isn't?” Rising to her knees, she stripped off what remained of her breeches. She heard Numair move away.

Swinging to face him, she searched his eyes; when
they met hers, she knew that she'd hurt him. But how? she thought, baffled. Why? Perin only wanted to bed her, as a few Snowsdale men had bedded her mother. Then she knew. Grabbing the hand with the bracelet, she held the locket. A lover's token, she'd thought before. She had been right. “You're in love with me?”

He looked away.

“Love's fair wondrous. Where's the harm?”

“I was ‘canoodling,' as you so charmingly put it, when
you
were four. You're so young, Daine. I knew that if I spoke, you might think yourself in love with me; you might ma—” He stopped.

“Marry?”
she squeaked. “
Marry
you?”

He wouldn't look at her. “One day you'd turn to me and see an old man. You'd want a young one.” He got up and walked out of their shelter. She watched him go to the river and crouch there, a big shadow against sun-bleached rock.

She rubbed her face. Love was well enough, but
marriage?
There was so much to consider. All her life she'd heard that no respectable man would marry Sarra's bastard—though she wondered if the Snowsdale gossips would think Numair respectable.

All those things he'd said of her waking up someday could be turned to fit him. She had managed to get a look at all of the women whose names were linked with his. They were typically in their thirties or late twenties, buxom, well-groomed, beautiful, mature.

What if
he
woke up, later on, to see a baby where he wanted to see a woman?

If they married, they would be trapped. Daine had seen enough bad marriages to know a life sentence when she saw one. Some of those marriages had involved men whose marriage proposals her mother had turned down.

Unrolling one of Numair's shirts, she wrapped it around herself—the scrapes on her back were healing fast, thanks to her mother's ointment—and walked down to him.

“Can't we just go on as we have?” she asked. “This is a fair weight to solve when things are so—mad.”

He looked up and smiled, just barely. “That is certainly true.”

“I know I love you. Maybe I always have—”

“Which is what I was afraid of.”

She ignored his frivolity. “Once we're home—once the war's done—we can work it out. We'll talk then.”

Standing, he cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her gently. “Indeed we will.”

Her mother's ointment made small work of her injuries. As Numair cut his spare clothes down to fit her, she took advantage of the powerful thermals in the canyon, letting them carry her in hawk shape above the rim. There she flew upstream until she found the path of destruction that she'd left in her tumble down the cliff.

Here was the trail they had been on, minus the cluster of gray rocks. She followed it through winding stone alleys, keeping high enough to see the river as well. Numair was right. If they kept to the water's course, they could find the path where the river met open scrub-land. Beyond that lay the desert—the Sea of Sand.

She returned to him, and donned the clothes he'd cut down for her. Once the worst heat had passed, they set out again, pacing themselves to avoid heatstroke. After dark, nearing the spot where they could pick up the path again, Daine sensed Stormwings. Rikash was there for certain; she also thought she knew at least two of his companions.

Spying on the waiting immortals through a crevice between two rocks, Daine sighed with relief. She
did
know two of the others. One crowned female had the appearance of a mortal in her fifties. Her nose was prominent and forbidding over a mouth carved by a master sculptor, her dark eyes commanding under
perfect black eyebrows. The girl thought that Queen Barzha of the Stone Tree nation of Stormwings must have been a beauty in her youth; age had added majesty. Her younger consort, Hebakh, had a pale, intense face lit by slightly mad gray eyes set over an aquiline nose.

Daine walked into the open. “Hello.”

Some of the immortals idling near the path jumped, caught by surprise. The air was filled with metallic clicks as steel feathers ruffled and fell into place.

“Don't you make
noise?”
one of them demanded crossly as Numair came forward.

“You dine on fear, but you don't care to feel it yourself?” the man asked innocently.

When the immortal opened his mouth to reply, Daine said, “Enough, both of you.” She bowed to the crowned female and her mate. “Queen Barzha and Lord Hebakh. May I present Numair Salmalín?” He had seen the Stormwings in Carthak last fall, but she didn't think they had been properly introduced. “This is Leaf.” The darking nodded its hatted, knobby head. “And that's Jelly.” The darking under Numair's shirt thrust out a tentacle, waved, then disappeared into its refuge.

“It hasn't met royalty before, that we know of,” Numair explained. He bowed elegantly to Rikash's queen and her consort. “May I say that it is good to see you again?”

“As long as you don't get downwind of us, right,
mortal?
” taunted a male voice from the rear of the flock.

“Do you challenge my decision, Vekkat?” Barzha asked without looking away from the humans. “Have you questions left unanswered?”

There was no loud reply, though Daine could hear voices whispering “Shut up!” and “Aren't you in enough trouble?”

Rikash came up beside his queen, green eyes glittering. “I confess, the most amusing part of our association
is that I am not sure who is more puzzled by it—you or me,” he said wryly. “I'm shocked Sarra let you go out dressed that way.”

Daine looked at her clothes. “My things got lost. I fell off a cliff.”

“You take such a fall well, Veralidaine,” Barzha said, her voice wry. “Rikash tells me I should apologize for not killing Ozorne while I had the chance.”

Daine smiled. She hadn't thought the formidable Stormwing Queen
had
a sense of humor. “He's good at survival,” she remarked. “I know you gave it your best.”

Hebakh bated. He was a nervous creature, always shifting his weight from one clawed foot to another. “We have not put the matter aside yet. There will be other chances to explain to Ozorne how things are done
properly
among our kind.”

“In the meantime,” Rikash said, “Queen Barzha has agreed that we shall carry you over the Sea of Sand, to the portal of the Dragonlands.”

“We are in your debt,” added Barzha. “You freed us from Emperor Ozorne. We shall feel better if we may repay you.”

Hebakh whistled. Two Stormwings flapped over, bearing some dark substance coiled in their talons.

“Your mother helped us to make these slings,” explained Rikash. “It won't be an easy ride, but it's the quickest way to cross the desert.”

Numair and Daine nodded. The pair with the slings, assisted by Rikash and one of the other immortals, spread their materials on the ground.

“I heard something that might be of interest to you, if you didn't hear it yourselves,” Daine told the Stormwing Queen. Briefly she related the conversation she'd heard by Temptation Lake, before she had known the darkings were Ozorne's spies.

The queen dug into rock with her claws, eyes glittering with malice. “So Qirev—”

“The other must be Yechakk,” interrupted her mate. “He's the only old one left.”

“They are finding mortal warfare a bit rich for their stomachs,” said Barzha. “Perhaps Mogrul of Razor Scream also feels the pinch, after losing eleven. Perhaps—”

“You'll never turn Queen Jachull,” Hebakh said, bating. “She is empty. There isn't a Stormwing inside of her, only a void. But the others—they might yet listen to reason.”

Their conveyance was ready. After the humans secured their things and sat in the rope webs, Barzha croaked a word: shimmering with gold and crimson fire, the slings rose. On Hebakh's command, five Stormwings took flight, the ropes that cradled the humans in their talons. Three carried Numair; two bore Daine. Belatedly, she said, “You know, I could shape-shift and fly my own self.”

“Save your strength for the dragons,” replied Hebakh.

The Stormwings began to climb. The magic that had lifted the slings to a level where their porters could grab them released. Daine and Numair dropped an inch, then rose, borne by Stormwings.

The scrubland came to an end and was replaced by sand dunes. Like all deserts, this one was cold after sunset. Daine shivered, but was resigned; at least the cold laid the Stormwings' odor.

Barzha flew close to Numair. Mage and queen spoke, but Daine couldn't hear; the wind bore their words away. Jelly was nowhere to be seen. Leaf, to the contrary, was looped around Daine's neck, its small, eyeless head stretched forward to take the full brunt of rushing air. It was talking softly. She had to bring an ear close to the darking to hear, and when she did, she laughed. Leaf was saying, “Funfunfunfunfun.”

For a while, she was content to sit, shivering, as she
watched the immortals. There were sixty-three Stormwings present, all of the queen's allies. These were the ones that Rikash had spoken of, those who took honor and tradition seriously.

There's
a thing to boggle the mind, she thought, rubbing her shoulders to warm them. Stormwings with honor!

Rikash had been flying in the van, watching the sky. Now he fell back, gliding into position near Daine. A female Stormwing behind them called, “Mortal lover!”