Circling Rand.
~~~~~
“Dacey?”
The voice was hesitant, and Dacey felt that if he made the wrong move it would whisper back into the gathering. It reminded him of Blaine somehow, and he took a chance.
“Lenie?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, relief evident. “Won’t you tell me what’s happening? Are you...all right?”
“Not many here are that, I’d say.” Dacey looked straight at the direction of her voice. “The boys have organized and hope to free the men. They’re going to fight the Annekteh. We...we just have to wait and see how it turns out.”
“But there’s no seer. All the older folks said we couldn’t do nothing without no seer.”
“You can’t do but what you try to do,” Dacey told her. When she didn’t respond, he added, “In the Annekteh Ridge fight, the folks were spread out, and never got a chance to use the wards like we done. We got all the children, and you women, safe. It’ll make the difference.”
“And Blaine’s been with you this whole while?” Her voice said she wasn’t sure if that was admirable or scandalous.
Dacey nodded. “I’m real sorry you all thought she was kilt. It was safest for her that way.” He blinked then, and hard. His obsidian vision seemed to have greyed. Distracted, he said, “She’s done good, Lenie. She’s held things together at times when we would have lost all chance otherwise.”
Suddenly she was there, directly in front of him, blurred and dim, a blonde-headed face of worry. Dacey took a startled step back and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.
“Dacey?” she said, sounding a little wary.
Cautiously, he took his hands away. She was indistinct, but she was there. Her hair was drawn tightly back, her dress wasn’t clean, and her face was smudged, but to him she was beautiful.
“We’re winning,” he said under his breath. Winning, and weakening the Annekteh magic.
She just looked at him, obviously teetering on the edge of trust.
“Look,” he said holding his hand up and following its motion with his eyes. “The Annekteh magicked my eyes, but the spell’s fading.” He blinked, trying to erase the grey veils that still dimmed his sight. “They’ve done lost strength. Some of ’em’s gone.”
“Some of ’em?” she repeated. “I thought it was all One, that just spread.”
“More than one, all connected.” Dacey’s attention was on the blocked doorway and the silvery nimbus beyond the table. He hadn’t actually seen the ward when he was practicing with Blaine, and distracted, he added, “Lenie, girl, I can’t explain it now. You just take my word for it — them boys have got the upper hand.”
Confused, Lenie nodded. “I don’t know about you, Dacey Childers,” she said. “Don’t know how much to trust you. Don’t know how much of this is your fault. But...I guess you’re doing what you can to get us out of it.” She took the hand of the little girl who had been by her side — Sarie, if Dacey recalled rightly — and led her away.
Dacey looked at her straight back a moment, suddenly able to imagine Blaine sparring with this young woman, and the struggle between them — so different, yet with the same kind of fire. He shook his head and put the thought behind him, leaning up against the smooth old wood table to peer out the door, squinting through the silver glow to focus on the hill opposite the hall.
His eyes narrowed at what they saw there. Shades of shifting purple centered on the side of the hill, pulsating, oozing — and fading. The leaves, a sickening shade of green overlayed with violet, brightened into fresh spring colors.
He turned and laid his back up against the wall. He’d never seen such things before, but he knew instantly what it was, and that knowledge didn’t come easy. The talents of his blood, wakened by the tampering of the Annekteh.
Seer’s eyes. Seer’s responsibilities.
And no one to teach him. No one of the old blood left to show him the ways — and a spirits-damned time to learn, on the hills against the Annekteh. The wavering patterns of light over the mountain should have meant something to him, he was sure; it could have been anything from magic in process to mere indications of Annekteh presence. There were shades other than purple adorning the mountain as well, and for those he had no name.
Dacey suddenly realized the women were all watching him again, staring at his odd behavior. For the moment he couldn’t respond to them; he was caught up in seeing. Seeing the frightened and apprehensive faces around him, some of them brighter than they ought to be, given the transom light. The great stone fireplace at the end of the hall, which somehow radiated its sturdy construction; the minute detail of the black smoke stains tracing their way up the wooden logs at the sides of the fireplace, which he shouldn’t have been able to see at all from here.
His restored sight meant he should be up the on the hill with the others. His new sight meant he had to be there. He could make sure all the annektehr had been driven away, and that none were hidden amongst the men, playing possum till it was too late to stop the spread again.
To go out was to break the wards, and if he hesitated long enough for them to dry he would have to go through the complete procedure to reset them. He had to go now.
Dacey turned back to the table and placed his hands against it, using all his strength to move it just enough so he could slide sideways through the space he’d made.
The silvery light flickered out. Immediately, he turned, holding up his fist — unwashed, it might yet have some trace of Blaine’s blood. “Seek,” he muttered. For an instant there was nothing; he waited, tense at the sluggish response. Silver light sizzled and blinked, evanescent and uncertain — and snapped abruptly into place, strong against his touch.
“You’re not leaving!” Lenie protested through the narrow opening by the table; her words drew a tumble of objections behind her. They might not completely trust him, but they wanted him here.
He ignored the objections. “I reset the wards, but nary one of you go through or they’re broke for good. Have you got that?”
“Yes,” she said, taken aback.
“And should any men come back, you stay where you are. Don’t come out for none but me or Blaine. Do y’hear?” He stared fiercely at her until she nodded, and he hoped he’d frightened her enough that she would ensure their compliance.
He turned away from her and ran from the hall. The path up the point was distinct, pounded out by Annekteh patrols, and all the steep places were marked with great gouges of dirt stepholds. Dacey, unarmed and unmindful of it, barely slowed to take them. He was seized with a sense of urgency, and he felt Mage’s anger course into his thoughts and become his own. He didn’t take the time to question such feelings, but pushed himself on. Pushed himself hard.
There was trouble on the hillside, and Blaine was in the thick of it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 21
All is not lost. The Blaine-child was within reach — and with the Blaine-child, they could break Dacey Childers’ spirit. Surprising enough he had any spirit left at all. But it was he who still drove this fight, who charged for this very spot at top speed, new seer’s magic whirling around him. That was a mystery for another time. For now, they had enough — the memories of the annektehr lost in the south, lost to Dacey Childers’ fierce fears for the Blaine-child.
And almost within reach, the Blaine-child herself.
They would present Dacey Childers with a decision that would kill him as surely as any Annekteh blade.
In moments all will be regained. Shadow Hollers and Dacey Childers will be ours.
~~~~~
“Mage, stay!” Blaine said desperately, her hands clenched with fear for the dog. “Oh, please stay.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he stopped, trembling in every limb with the effort of obedience.
“He’s all right, I think,” she said, relaxing a fraction. “So much has happened — he’s just upset. He doesn’t know you. He’s Dacey’s dog.”
Rand
looked at the ever-growling Mage and shuddered. “I hope that’s it, Sissy,” he said. “I hate to think your friend’s dog has been Took, Blaine, but I’ll kill it if it gets any closer.” His injured arm made a bow useless, but he hefted the short sword he’d scavenged.
Blaine tugged Dacey’s knife from her skirt band and pulled the sheath off. “I reckon I’ll help you, if it comes to that,” she said sadly, wondering what she would tell Dacey; she walked over to her brother, carefully watching the dog and not watching Rand at all.
Mage stayed, sinking to the ground and trembling all over; his snarl crescendoed and his eyes fairly snapped with fury. Blaine hesitated, staring at him, at a loss. She hefted the knife, trying to imagine using it, wondering what force it would take to drive the heavy blade into the dog, and in the next moment knowing she could never hurt this loyal creature, Taken or not. How ever had the boys been able to kill men they knew, on this battlefield?
A new sound cut through her hesitation, one that had been grumbling in the background, unnoted. It crescendoed into a bellow of rage —
And it came from Blue. He bounded from the tree where Blaine had left him and zeroed straight in at her and Rand, his face filled with such savage intent that Blaine’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. In the corner of her eye, Rand’s sword moved up and ready. “Don’t!” she said sharply, reaching to stay his hand.
“No! Blaine, no!”
The yell rang across the hill and Blaine froze. Dacey. How...? As confused as she and running up against Mage, Blue stumbled to a clumsy stop.
“Blaine, no!” Dacey repeated, coming into sight at a reckless run, looking at her — looking at her — and at Rand. She turned to exchange a baffled glance with Rand.
The eyes he turned on her belonged to someone else. Something else.
“Rand!” she cried, refusing to believe. Unable to believe. Rand, nekfehr. Taken.
He beheld her with reproach. “Seer’s blood.”
“No,” Blaine said, her voice quivering. No, this can’t be Rand. No, I ain’t got no seer’s blood. She gave Dacey a wild look — entreaty, denial — but Dacey didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear; he was snatching up a bow from beneath the tree, capturing arrows from the bushes — the very weapons she had dropped. The annektehr in Rand paid him no attention, and focused only on Blaine.
“Yes. Your brother knows of your dreams, Blaine Kendricks,” Rand said. “So do we. We saw you, there in the tree. And we’re not through here — so you must die. Or become one of us, if your blood runs too thin.”
“Rand, no,” she whimpered, edging back, trying to gain ground without triggering the annektehr into action. Behind her, Mage snarled, a wave of sound that rode the swells of his breath.
Watch Mage.
Dacey’s advice rang through her ears — too late. Mage had known Annekteh scent all along, had howled for Annekteh quarry. Had tried to warn her before it was too late. And Dacey had done his best to tell her so without placing the unique dog in danger.
Having at last stumbled on to it, Blaine turned to dart away and also stumbled over her own feet, falling hard on Blue.
The dog scrambled to get out from under her. Her hand locked on his collar and he dragged her, gaining precious distance before he stopped, obeying the tug of her weight. Stricken, Blaine blinked up at her brother — not her brother — tightening her grip on the knife she had almost dropped.
She had seen the boys fight their own. Now it was her turn.
He moved for her — but glanced up and froze.
Dacey stood well within range, an arrow aimed directly at Rand, no doubts on his face. His chest heaved from his run up the hill, but his aim did not waver.
He wouldn’t miss.
“Dacey...” she said. Don’t kill my brother, Dacey, please. But another inner voice, one she couldn’t bear to hear, pled for something else. Don’t let him live like this.
“That’s right, Dacey,” Rand smiled, but not any smile that Blaine was used to seeing on that face. And his voice seemed twisted, with a sudden strange, flat accent. The annektehr within Rand. “He’s her brother. You kill him, and she’ll hate you forever.”
“You’ve lost,” Dacey said evenly. “Might as well leave that boy be.”
“Have we?” Rand sneered, another expression Blaine had never seen on her brother’s face. “You know nothing. You’ve no magic in you. And you won’t kill me, or you would have done it by now.”
“I had no magic.” Dacey raised an eyebrow. “You done changed that yourself, trying to spell my eyes. Go home, annektehr. Take all the annektehr with you. This is over, and you’ll never get another chance.” He pulled the bowstring back another inch. At this distance the arrow would half go through its target.
“You won’t,” said the annektehr, taking a step toward Blaine. “She’ll be lost to you.”
Blaine tightened her fingers around the knife and looked at Dacey, desperately trying to read him. “Dacey...” she repeated, and this time she didn’t know what she was asking for.
Rand — only nekfehr, now — grinned, and took another step. “You won’t,” he said again. “And once I touch her, you’ll never win. You can’t kill her.”
“That’s the truth,” Dacey said mildly, as Rand bent, reaching for the bare skin above Blaine’s boot, below her too-short skirt.
Blaine closed her eyes. Rand, she thought, overwhelmed by memories of how close they’d been, of the understanding he’d always given her. If only you’d listened to me. There was little chance of both of them coming through this — there was little chance of either of them coming through this — but he was one of the few annektehr left in the hills. Maybe the only one. And if Dacey wasn’t going to...
Rand, I’m sorry. She turned on her hip and plunged the knife upward, ready to spring away out of reach. Hoping to.
“Blaine, no!” Dacey snapped, a sound as taut as the bowstring he released, as sharp as the thunk of the arrow hitting its target. Blaine froze, and waited for the body to fall. To fall on her.
Nothing. No smothering weight, no cry of pain. Cautiously, Blaine cracked her eyes.
Arm still flung up before his face, Rand stood as frozen as she, his eyes wide with terror — human eyes, human terror. An arrow quivered in the tree beside him. Blaine looked at Dacey, and found reassurance in his satisfied smile, the relaxed way he lowered his bow. The annektehr had run.
Blaine jerked the knife back behind herself and dropped it. If she had her way, Rand would never realize how close she had come to killing him.
Or at least to trying.
“Rand?” she asked, unable to help the hesitation in her voice. She looked at Dacey again, saw his nod, and rolled to her knees to reach out to her brother. At the pressure of her hand he lifted his head; another split-second of indecision and he hauled her into his arms for a crushing hug.
“I thought I was kilt,” he said, and she felt his head lift from her shoulder to look up at Dacey. She snuggled happily into him, hearing the pureness of proper mountain speech in his voice again.
“So did the nekteh,” Dacey said, joining them as Mage stood up, shook off, and trotted over to him.
Blaine twisted around to look at him, her expression incredulous. “What iff’n it hadn’t left him, Dacey?” What if I’d been Taken, too?
He shook his head. “You gotta play it as it happens, Blaine,” Dacey said. “The decisions for the what if’s don’t gotta be made, and I don’t reckon you’ll ever hear an answer to that particular question.”
He bent down to pick up the knife she’d dropped and handed it out to her. Blaine didn’t move to take it. “It’s yours, Dacey.”
“No.” He shook his head once, decisively. “Take it. You know how to use it.”
She’d killed a bear with this knife. She’d almost killed her brother. There was respect in his eyes for that, an expression that made Blaine feel sick and proud at the same time.
She took the knife.
Mage hovered
at Dacey’s side, no sign of hound wrath on his face. Mage, who came from a seer-bred line of dogs, and who had done his best to protect her. And Blue, who had charged in to help his endangered packmate with no thought for his own safety. Now he came up to nudge her hand, looking a little long-eared and embarrassed at his part in a sequence of events that made no sense to him.
Blaine rubbed his floppy ears, but her attention stayed on Dacey; he stood alert, and looking down the hill as though he could see through the rhododendrons to something else.
Something that put that intent, worried look on his face.
Beside her, Rand straightened, tense, also watching Dacey. He murmured, “The Taker...when it had me...it knew there were others left — I felt it. That’s why it was so cocky, so easy to scare off.”
Blaine suddenly realized the one person she had not seen in this fight; she stiffened. “Nekfehr.”
“Yes,” said Dacey.
~~~~~
They left Rand with his voluntary prisoners and ran for the meeting hall. It was a scrambling race, along the curving side of the hill, over the slight rise of the point, and then down, down behind the barn. Blue bounded along beside Blaine as she fought to lift her tired feet above snagging roots and deadwood, sliding in the deep humus and snatching at the blessed support of the trees around her. Even so, she pulled ahead of Dacey.
They descended between the two points and into the little bowl that held the hall and barn, where the confusing babble of activity there overcame the noise of their own movement. Blaine stopped herself up against a tree, lying against it; Dacey came up behind her and used the same tree to steady himself, his arm reaching over her head. Breathing hard, they listened to the sounds, tried to decipher them. It sounded like the women had broken the warding, and were out with the men in the yard.
Or was it a little more strident than that?
The ear-piercing scream of a child broke through their questions. Dacey pushed off the tree and ran break-neck down the hill, leaving Blaine in a struggle to catch up.
Seer's Blood Page 29
