Blood Ward

by Glynn Stewart

  “Then we also test whether your gifts work for this and perhaps save ourselves time in the future,” he noted. “If you are prepared to risk it.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Teer said. He still hesitated, then nodded with a long sigh. “But if you must see yourself, we do what needs.”

  Kard winced.

  “No more,” he agreed. “If her story is true, we yoke ourselves to her fate. Know that as well.”

  “We do what needs,” Teer repeated. “Should I wake her?”

  “No,” Kard decided aloud. “Go rest, Teer. I’ll wake everyone in the morning, and then we shall see what truths and lies are yet to be seen.”

  10

  Teer woke to the chill light of early dawn and the scent of brewing tea. He rose from his bedroll to see Kard stirring the pot over the fire. The El-Spehari looked up at his movement and waved him over.

  “It seems I don’t need to wake either of you,” he said. “The girl is pretending to be asleep, but she’s been awake for a while. Go get her.”

  The younger bounty hunter pulled his coat tight around himself against the cold as he obeyed. Lora stopped pretending by the time he reached her, turning slightly in the bedroll to wrap the blanket tighter around herself.

  “What now?” she demanded.

  “Tea,” Teer told her as he began to undo the ropes. “If I take you for a nature call, are you going to be trouble?”

  She glared at him, but her look softened as she touched the bandages on her chest.

  “No,” she promised. “Can you help with the bandages first?”

  They took care of the bandages and necessary morning ablutions without any difficulty, allowing them to return to the campfire and settle on several logs Kard had found for seats. The campsite had been noticeably improved overnight, and Teer was able to settle Lora down on a log and tie her to it while leaving her hands free for the tea.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, wrapping her hands around the cup. “It’s cold.”

  “Wind off the prairie,” Kard said. “Go north, you’re shielded by hills and then hit the swamp, it gets warmer pretty quick. East, west or south?” He shrugged. “Get used to the wind.”

  “Not goin’ much of anywhere, am I?” Lora asked, drinking her tea.

  “You’ve a choice there,” the older Hunter told her. “You’ve convinced my young friend here that you won’t face a fair trial in Carlon. He’s young and foolish, but I know the worth of his will.”

  Kard spread his hands, palms up, toward the woman.

  “You have a choice to make,” he repeated. “I am older than Teer and have heard far more sob stories intended to weigh down a Hunter’s heart than he has. I will not be fooled by a flash of skin and sobs in the night; do you understand me?”

  She nodded, her hands tightening around her metal teacup.

  “If you swear to tell me the truth—the entire truth—and submit yourself to a ritual I know, I will consider aiding you,” he told her. “If you have lied to Teer, to impose on his callow youth, I will kill you myself.”

  Lora stared down at the cup.

  “I did not lie,” she whispered.

  “Then it’s an easy choice, isn’t it?” Kard told her. “But I feel the risks should be clear.”

  She swallowed the entire cup of tea, wincing against the heat, then looked at Teer across the fire.

  “I did not lie to you,” she repeated, meeting his gaze. “I will do whatever you want.”

  “Courage, young one,” Kard told her, his accent and tone shifting. “Then do not fear.”

  She was looking at Teer and missed Kard dropping the illusion. She held his gaze for a few more seconds, long enough for him to be absolutely certain of her truthfulness, then turned back to Kard.

  “Iron Pillars,” she swore as she saw the true Kard for the first time. Now she saw the same tall and dark-haired and pale-skinned man that Teer did, a sight few ever saw. Even Doka, who had ridden with them for tendays, had not seen what was under Kard’s magic.

  “You do not need to know my true name,” Kard told her. “I am El-Spehari, unbound from the King in Winter and so proscribed by the Midnight Proclamation. You now hold my life in your hands, and so if Teer’s trust is misplaced, your life is forfeit.”

  Lora trembled as she faced the personal nightmare of any child of the Unity: a Spehari of any kind at close range.

  “Give me your hands,” Kard ordered, kneeling in front of her. “Open your mind and submit to my will.”

  She obeyed and Teer forced himself to breathe as he watched purple light swirl around Kard’s hands. He’d seen the compulsion spell once before, when Kard had tried to use it on him. Against his gifts, strange and unknown as they were, the spell had failed.

  Against Lora, the purple light swirled up her arms and wrapped around her head.

  “Oh,” she said softly, a half-pained, half-relaxed exhalation.

  “Now. Tell me everything that happened,” Kard ordered. “Leave nothing out; conceal nothing. Tell me.”

  Teer felt the power in the last words from across the campfire and shivered himself. Kard’s mental powers were useless on him, but he could still feel the fringes of it.

  “Carind was known in the inns in Carlon,” she finally said. “We knew he always took a girl to his room and didn’t care if she was supposed to be one of the workin’ girls or not. Paid well for that and had the power to break any hotel in town.

  “So, when he told me to come with him, I figured my time had come. He was gentler in bed than I dared hope, but I never meant to sleep there. Yet I did. And I woke up with a red thing on me, a crystal beast of a dozen legs—and Carind stabbing two of those legs into me.

  “I kicked him off. He grabbed a knife. I beat him to death with the crystal thing.” She inhaled sharply, a chest-felt sob. “He was dead. Not breathin’, not movin’. Dead.

  “Da heard the struggle. He was waitin’ by the door, had been all night,” she confessed. “He broke the door down when I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think, couldn’t do…anythin’. So, Da carried me to the stables, had the staff put together a travel pack and…sent me on my way.

  “Didn’t know where to go, where to run, just…east. To get beyond Unity, keep my family safe. Keep my Da…safe.”

  The ropes prevented Lora from curling entirely into a ball, but she was trying. The purple lights around her faded but remained present as Kard studied her.

  “The crystal thing,” he said softly. “It was entirely redcrystal, yes? No frame, no casing, just a spiderlike thing of redcrystal?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Ten legs, I guess?”

  “And were there ‘legs’ embedded in Carind when you woke up?” he asked.

  She stared blankly at the ground.

  “I don’t think so. It all moved so fast.”

  The purple lights vanished as Kard nodded. Lora was already curled into the fetal position, but Teer figured she’d have collapsed further if she could.

  “She didn’t tell me about her da,” he admitted to Kard. “But the rest was the same. And…”

  “I don’t blame her for protecting her family,” Kard replied. He was staring off into the air, his face a frozen mask.

  “You know what that thing was, don’t you?”

  The El-Spehari nodded and turned away from the two young Merik. He crossed over to Clack and removed a book from the saddlebags. He flipped through it for a minute as Teer shifted over to hesitantly pat Lora on the shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Lora,” Kard said as he returned. “The thing that he attacked you with, did it look like this?” He held out the book, open to a page with a sketch drawing of a twisted ten-legged monstrosity.

  The text on the page was completely unfamiliar to Teer. It wasn’t even the script he’d been taught to read in.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “What is it?”

  “Something that shouldn’t exist anymore,” Kard told her, taking a seat on the dirt facing her. “It’s call
ed a blood ward and it was created for emergency first aid on the battlefield. It borrows life force from one person and gives it to another.

  “The intent was to keep people alive until the healers could reach them, but some of the medics realized that if they took enough, they could heal the injuries directly,” he said grimly. “And then some of those medics realized that aging could be treated just like injuries.

  “After the blood wards started going missing, we tracked them down and destroyed them. But the craft of making them…that we couldn’t destroy. It lives in the minds of the Spehari who created them. So, there were always rumors that some of the favored Marked and Bonded were given them to keep them alive.”

  He stared at the book and shook his head.

  “Spehari do not age like the mortals of Aran,” he told them. The Merik, the Zeeanans, the Kott, the Kota—all of those races were native to the continent of Aran. The Spehari came from over the sea and no one except them knew why.

  “So, if they valued a Marked or a Bondservant, they would give them this so they could steal the life of others to extend their own. To save himself one turning, Carind would have taken ten or more from you, Lora,” he concluded. “You would have lived, but…you would have aged ten or twenty turnings in a few tendays.

  “It is a callous, vicious magic. One even the King in Winter forbids, but my father’s people are unused to thinking rules apply to them.”

  The campsite was silent.

  “So, what now?” Lora asked.

  “Teer, cut her loose,” Kard ordered.

  “I don’t know, Miss Lora,” he admitted as Teer removed the ropes from the young woman. “We only have two horses, and all you have is a thunderbuss and a handful of shells. I will not cut you loose in the wilderness.”

  Lora half-collapsed against Teer for a moment, then accepted his help in sitting back down. She shivered on the log, staring at them both as Teer poured her another tea.

  “Where would she be safe?” Teer asked. “The wardtowns talk to each other, so…”

  “Attempted murder might not normally spread by those channels, but Carind will probably make sure it does,” Kard admitted. “And he will be furious that you broke his blood ward. That is why he lived, Miss Lora. You likely did kill him.”

  “And the crystal restored him?” she asked.

  “Yes. Between that and being used as a club, it is now wreckage. He will no longer be able to steal others’ lives unless he asks House Ilit for a new one.”

  “Will he?” Teer said.

  “Unlikely. That ward takes a thousand stone of redcrystal to make, at least,” Kard noted. “I doubt he’s worth enough to them to get a second illegal and highly expensive artifact.”

  “So, anywhere Carind’s influence can reach is lost. We’ll need to take her outside the Unity,” Teer concluded.

  “You don’t need to take me anywhere,” Lora told them. “If you’ll let me go, I’ll be fine.”

  “You have no horse, no gear, no map, and almost no wilderness skills,” Kard said bluntly. “You need help, Miss Lora. If I will not deliver you to Carlon, then I will deliver you to safety. Unless you would truly prefer to be abandoned?”

  As he was speaking, Kard was weaving magic, sparks of white light flickering up from his hand to recreate his illusion. Lora blinked several times as the man changed in her view—though Teer averted his eyes to minimize the headache.

  “Tyrus,” Kard finally said.

  “Doka mentioned him, right?” Teer said. “He was her teacher?”

  “Exactly. He’s one of the senior shamans of the Kotan tribes that are staying outside the Unity’s control for now,” Kard replied. “I’ve known him for twenty turnings or more. He was a scout for Sunset, once.

  “His tribe will take you in and you’ll be safe with them,” he told Lora. “It won’t necessarily be easy or anything that you’re used to, but you’ll be safe.”

  “Have you ever worked an inn, Kard?” Lora asked drily. “I can handle ‘not easy.’ I can work my keep.”

  “Then that’s an option,” the El-Spehari said. He looked over at Teer. “I wanted to bring you to Tyrus anyway. If anyone on Aran can tell you anything about your magic, it’s him. He might not know much about Merik power, but he can teach you how to use what you have.”

  “All right,” Lora said with an exhausted sigh. “I’ve been awake a candlemark and I’m already half-done. How far do we have to go and when do we leave?”

  11

  It was three hundred miles as the crow flies to the Venedor Hills, the northern foothills of the mountains that loomed eastward of the Unity’s territory. Those mountains were not, yet, the limit of the Spehari’s expansion…and Teer wondered if even their immense natural bulk would impede the ambition of the immortal demigods who ruled his people.

  But the Venedor Hills were the last place Kard knew Tyrus’s tribe had been, so the three of them plotted out a course on their maps. The crow might be able to fly straight, but even across the great plains, people and horses could not.

  “This ford is closest, I think,” Teer said, tapping a symbol on the map. “Carlon is closer, but…”

  “We’re not goin’ through Carlon,” Lora agreed. “A full tenday? Perhaps more?”

  “We’ve the supplies,” Kard told her. “You’ll ride double with Teer. We can’t go much faster, not with Star carrying two.” He shrugged. “Clack would be worse off, I fear.”

  Teer could tell that wasn’t all of Kard’s reasoning, but a level gaze at his partner did not unveil any further comments.

  “The sooner we ride, the farther we are from Carlon when Ashan finds her next batch of Hunters,” Kard continued after a few moments. “North to the river, east to the ford at Helsh.”

  “Is there anyone at Helsh for us to fear?” Lora asked.

  “There’s no town,” Kard said. “Might be other travelers, but they’ll mind their roads and leave us to ours.”

  “Let’s get things packed up, then,” the young woman said decisively.

  Teer chuckled at her but rose to his feet and began putting the last few things they had out in the saddlebags.

  “Kick the logs away from the fire pit,” he instructed Lora. “Then cover the ashes with dirt. Helps avoid flareups and hides us from trackers.”

  She obeyed with a will, clearing and concealing the fire as the two Hunters finished packing up.

  As he packed everything away, Teer also removed the thunderbuss they’d retrieved from the ground when they’d captured her. He didn’t have a saddle scabbard for it, but it fit in one of the larger saddlebags and had a shoulder strap of its own.

  “Here,” he told Lora as she came back to him. “No point in you being unarmed. This isn’t safe country.”

  Despite their promises and plans, she froze in surprise as he handed her her weapon. The thunderbuss was a plain thing, an undecorated but solidly built double-barreled weapon that folded open to load, but it was an effective-enough gun. Against enemies that weren’t unnaturally armored like wolfen, anyway.

  It took Lora a couple of moments to regather herself and take the gun. She opened it to confirm it was unloaded before she slung it over her shoulder, and something in her body language shifted.

  “I thought I believed you before,” she murmured. “But now…now I really do.”

  “Come on,” Teer told her with a smile. “We’ll get you up on Star and be on our way.”

  The difference between riding with a bound prisoner on the front of his saddle and riding with a willing companion was surprisingly noticeable. Teer suspected that Lora was doing more leaning back against him than, say, Kard might have been in the same position, but he couldn’t bring himself to object.

  Both horses were used to long-distance travel, more than capable of handling their own speed and stamina to keep together and eat up the miles a dozen at a time. It took them three candlemarks to reach the ford, which put them almost forty miles from Carlon.

  The for
d was not, however, as abandoned as they’d been expecting. A collection of plain tents had been set up off to one side, and gray-uniformed young Merik and Zeeanan soldiers had taken up positions on both sides of the rivers.

  “Hail, travelers,” a Zeeanan woman with an array of gold symbols emblazoned across her left breast shouted to them. “Hold up a moment and chat.”

  Kard pulled up his horse, and Teer brought Star to a halt next to him as the tanned officer looked up at them. She had a repeater slung across her back, the same factory-stamped weapon Teer was used to seeing in the hands of Wardwatches.

  “Hail, Captain,” Kard replied. “How may we assist the Unity?”

  “Easy enough today,” the soldier said. “What brings you across the Carahassee?”

  “My brother has a plot-claim up north. I’m bringing my son and his new wife out to join him as hands.” Kard waved at Teer and Lora as he claimed them as family.

  “Eh, fair enough,” the Captain agreed. “We’re reinforcing the ford; couple of supply wagons for Fort Issi got stuck and we lost most of one to the current. If you stick to the left side of the ford, outside where my troops have set flags, you’ll avoid the concrete and stone. Might be deeper than normal, but you won’t be a permanent part of the region, either.”

  “Don’t want to get in the Unity’s way, Captain,” Kard said, touching his hat with two fingers. “May we ride on?”

  “Of course, of course,” the officer confirmed. “Just making sure we don’t make each other’s lives harder, traveler. Ride safe!”

  Peaceful as the Unity platoon’s intentions were, Teer had to conceal a shiver as he rode past the armed guards watching the ford. There were at least thirty soldiers there, and while many were stripped down to work in the river, there were still a dozen gray-uniformed soldiers standing on the banks with their hands on their repeaters.

  He could feel Lora tense against him as they rode past the guards.

  “Breathe,” he murmured to her. “’Em’re looking for raiders and trouble, not us. We’re just travelers, as the Captain said.”