The Wild Road

by Jennifer Roberson

  Rhuan jumped up the steep steps and tried to open the door, but it was latched. So he banged on the door, shouting Ilona’s name over the clamor of the storm. And at last the door was opened. She stood there all wrapped in a length of beautifully woven wool the color of a sunset. But the woman within the wrap had hair straggling down her shoulders and spine, and shivered.

  She moved aside as he shut and latched the door behind him. “Here,” he said, “let me warm you.”

  Ilona grimaced. “I’m not certain I can be warmed. This is the coldest I’ve been since joining Jorda’s karavan.” As if to balance the statement with something other than words, she shivered again and pulled the wrap tighter yet. She handed him a blanket. “Wrap up in that. Though you’re not nearly as wet as I was. Did it soak through the leather?”

  “No. One reason I wear it—though I do have weather clothing as well.” He grinned. “If I strip out of these clothes to get dry, I suspect I would not don new ones any time soon. Besides, I have no clothing here. What I have is on its way to Cardatha with Jorda, as I neglected to retrieve my belongings from the supply wagon before it left.” He shed the baldric of throwing knives, unbuckled his belt. Off came the boots; he set them neatly next to the door.

  It had crossed his mind to take her down into the mattress and blankets with him, but he discovered all bedding was soaked. Instead, he guided her to the bed platform, climbed up and set his back against the wooden partition, then pulled her down to sit in between outstretched legs, her spine against his chest. Despite dry clothing and the woolen wrap, she was damp and icy cold. He shivered once himself from the initial contact, but set his arms around her, held her closer and more tightly yet.

  Summer was a time of high temperatures, humidity, and rains that did nothing to cool the surroundings. “Alisanos has upset the seasons.”

  “I know. You’ve said that before.” Yet another shiver ran through her body. “As you are a child of Alisanos, do you suppose you could ask the deepwood to be less chilly?”

  Rhuan grinned into the back of her head. “It doesn’t listen to me. I am a child to it. I don’t count.”

  “Until you ascend to whatever position it is all the primaries appear to want?”

  He rested his chin atop her skull. “Ascending is eminently better than failing to do so. I would like to keep all my parts.”

  He felt her soft laughter against his chest. “Yes, I as well. I rather admire your parts.” But she pulled away and turned toward him before he could speak, tucking her legs under her. Even slightly damp, chilled, wet hair in disarray, he found her beautiful. It was not a vapid, insipid beauty, but a strong, determined beauty. Weak men would not see what she was, would not understand.

  As he stripped out of his leather tunic, she set her hands against his chest. “You’re always so warm.”

  His flesh had jumped against the chill of her touch. “We all are, we Alisani.” He caught up his hair, pulled all of it forward over his right shoulder and squeezed. “I asked you this once before. Now I ask again. Will you braid my hair?”

  “Sick of it loose, are you?” But her eyes did not speak of such things as that. “You told me what it means.”

  “I did.”

  “Then—this is what you want?”

  His smile was fleeting. “Well, perhaps not. Perhaps I only ask to tease.” But the smile returned, deepening dimples. From the belt he had shed, he took a pouch. He loosened the drawstrings. “Put out your hands. Cup them.”

  Ilona did so, and he poured into them a stream of beads both metal and colored glass, coin rings, fetishes in silver and gold, drilled gemstones, metal clasps. In the light from the single lantern depending from the Mother Rib, glass glinted, gold glowed. She stared at the array, clearly stunned, then raised her head and met his eyes, keeping her tone light. “You have more fripperies than a woman.”

  Smiling, he separated a section of hair on either side of his face. “It will not be done all at once. But one begins with the sidelocks.”

  Chapter 29

  RECENT RAIN HAD washed out hoofprints left by his return from Cardatha with the four Hecari warriors, but Brodhi’s land-sense never led him wrong. It was a simple matter to ride across the plains with no thought to his route, trailed by two wagons and four riders. No one questioned his knowledge of such things; couriers always had a superior grasp of directions and routes, as did karavan guides. That land-sense had nothing to do with his role as courier, attributable instead to being a dioscuri, did not matter. It existed. He used it.

  Here, trees were not so commonplace as in other areas of Sancorra. The grasslands spread before the small karavan beneath bright, broad skies. He heard the muted thunk of hooves against earth, the click of horseshoes striking stones, the metallic rattle of bit shanks when the horses shook heads to ward away insects.

  “It’s clouding up.” Bethid, again falling in beside him. Her torso was twisted as she looked behind them. “That’s downright ugly. They must be getting rain at the settlement.” She turned back. “And I’ll wager we’ll probably get hit as well.”

  He did not need to look. He felt it in his bones. It wasn’t the ache of age and injury, as with humans, but his increasing connection to the patterns of the human world, the workings of weather. He supposed he should tell Ferize. He supposed they should share a Hearing, so she might then report to the primaries that he was, at long last, allowing himself to begin to understand this world that wasn’t his own, to understand humans. But he could not find it in himself to like them or admire them or view them as anything other than a weak, undisciplined folk. That was enough, surely. Wasn’t it? The primaries would want no more than that. Would they?

  Yet why the primaries insisted dioscuri spend time in the human world was completely beyond his ken. He had asked, as all young dioscuri did, but there had been no satisfying explanation, no details for him to grasp. Tradition. The journey was required because it always had been.

  Tradition. Such weight in a word. It had the power to tame any dioscuri, any primary, who might otherwise choose a different path.

  “Look,” Bethid said. “Scavenger birds. Something’s dead. And not far from here.”

  Brodhi looked. Ahead, the dark blot of birds circled repeatedly, then slowly began to descend. As they neared the earth, the flock broke apart. No more circling. No more waiting. They fell upon their prey. No one, now, could see them. Except for one still high in the air, still circling languidly with no apparent goal.

  Brodhi sighed. Ferize?

  Yes. Do you like me this way?

  What are you doing up there?

  He felt her distant amusement. I’m not hungry.

  Why are you here?

  You don’t wish my company?

  He glanced sidelong at Bethid, who was shielding her eyes against the sun with a raised hand. “What is that bird doing?” she asked. “Why not go down with the others?”

  Brodhi said, “Perhaps it’s not hungry.”

  Ferize laughed within the link.

  Bethid frowned. “Scavenger birds are never not hungry. They’re voracious.”

  Under the circumstances, it struck him as amusing. He smiled, still watching Ferize in bird form. “So they are.”

  The bird rode a swirl of breeze, flying higher and higher. Then it left its fellow scavengers on the ground and flew toward the small karavan. Its shadow flitted against the ground. All in the party looked up at it. Timmon made a warding-away hand gesture. This was not in the least normal behavior for a scavenger bird.

  Ferize, you are confusing the humans.

  Good. That is the intent.

  Why?

  Because otherwise I’m bored. Now she circled directly overhead. I was not made to be patient.

  Brodhi smiled. Well, no. So you weren’t.

  He glanced at Bethid
and saw what he expected to see: consternation. But he saw also a faint trace of fear, which surprised him. It wasn’t like her. Wasn’t like her at all.

  “Bad luck,” she murmured. “Oh Mother, don’t let this unnatural bird be a harbinger.”

  “Harbinger of what?” Brodhi asked. “It’s just a bird.”

  Bethid tipped her head back against her shoulders, staring upward. “It’s wrong. It’s wrong, Brodhi. It isn’t ‘just’ anything.”

  “Superstitious nonsense.” His mouth twisted. “I believed you were less likely to succumb to such, Bethid.”

  She completely ignored the disdainful edge in his tone. “I’ve never seen this before. This is unnatural.” She turned her head to look directly at Brodhi. “I think one of us is to die.”

  He was incredulous. “Oh, Bethid, that’s ridiculous. People don’t die because a bird is circling overhead.”

  Bethid shook her head, still watching the bird as it dipped lower. “Scavenger bird, Brodhi. They eat dead things. There is no reason for this bird to be here, right here with us. Not like this. Not when dead meat is so near.” She paused, then said, “Unless one of us is soon to be dead meat, too.”

  The shadow, wings outstretched, drifted over them again. Brodhi heard Timmon and Alorn speaking in hushed voices, but the tone of them contained a rising concern. He twisted in the saddle to look back at them.

  “It’s a bird,” he said firmly. “And it’s a foolish man—or woman—who imputes danger to such.”

  Their expressions suggested his mocking reassurance made no impact.

  Brodhi sighed. Ferize, stop playing with the humans.

  I find it amusing.

  I don’t. I have to ride with them.

  Very well. I’ll put their concerns to bed. But this really is ridiculous that they would believe a bird could bring bad luck.

  Of course it is, he agreed. But who can explain them? You can’t. I certainly can’t. They just are what they are.

  “Brodhi,” Bethid said uneasily. “Where are you? You’ve gone away in your head.”

  Ferize, go.

  She drifted in one more lazy circle, then flew swiftly back to the scavengers feasting on an indefinable carcass.

  “You see?” Brodhi asked. “I told you. It’s just a bird.”

  “I don’t like it,” she muttered. “It’s a harbinger.”

  “It’s no such thing, Beth—” But he broke it off. The stony expression on her face told him nothing he could say would make the slightest difference. Surprisingly, he found himself annoyed. But humans were a superstitious people. They worshipped the moon, visited any number of diviners, based much of their decision-making on nebulous predictions by charlatans. Brodhi shook his head.

  “You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” she asked.

  He looked at Bethid. “Yes.”

  “But it’s true,” she insisted. “You saw how it came to us, how it circled over all of us. How it watched us. Someone’s going to die.”

  He debated whether to tell her the truth. She knew what he was. His words might carry weight, might disabuse her of this notion.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  They rode side by side again, horses matching pace. Brodhi felt the wind come up, felt the first contact with his clothed back. On the wind rode a scattering of raindrops. A glance back at the sky confirmed that the storm from the settlement was fast coming upon them. The day went gray, deep, ugly gray. Clouds boiled up, and the wind strengthened.

  Brodhi frowned. There was something. . . .

  And then out of the roiling mass of clouds came something else, something living. The wingspread was enormous. The clouds had blotted out the sun to a dim, insignificant smear so the flying thing cast no shadow. Everyone else looked ahead, curious, he believed, about the scavenger birds.

  That was foolish superstition. This was real.

  He wasted no time. “Bethid, get down. Get off your horse. Now.” Brodhi wheeled his horse to face the others. “Draka! Get down!”

  “Oh, sweet Mother,” Bethid murmured.

  He cast a sharp glance at her. “Get down, Beth . . .” But his attention shifted. “Halt those wagons. Stop moving. And keep your horses still!”

  “You see?” Bethid asked. “It truly was a harbinger, that scavenger bird.”

  Brodhi had never seen such an expression on her face before. Her temperament was steady, her confidence sound. She dealt with challenges easily, almost dismissively. Perhaps it was because she had fought her way into the Guild. But now, as he looked at her, he saw fear. Abject fear.

  And he did not like it.

  “Get down,” he told her sharply, then twisted again in the saddle to look at the others. Already Jorda’s horses and the farmsteader’s were restive, not wanting to halt. “Timmon! Alorn! Go to the teams! Now! We’ll collect our horses later.”

  DAVYN GAVE THE draka one glance. He needed no more. Blessed Mother . . .

  He felt a cold shiver go down his spine as he heard Brodhi’s orders. Stay still? How could they stay still? The beast was huge.

  Clouds collided. A heavy, lashing gust of wind caught him across the back. The fine spray of raindrops quickened into a steady rain, then became a downpour.

  Alorn was on foot now in front of Davyn’s wagon, hands gripping the lead horse’s bridle. What Alorn said in an effort to calm the horses, Davyn didn’t know; nor did he have time to wonder about it. Part of him wished badly to leap off the wagon bench and flatten himself against the ground, which was quickly becoming mud. But Jorda, ahead, showed no signs of doing any such thing. Timmon was with the karavan-master’s team, trying to calm them while Jorda worked with reins.

  “Bethid! Get down!”

  Davyn followed Brodhi’s line of sight. The female courier was still in the saddle. The horse beneath her fought to be free, fought to run, but she would not allow it. “Churri! Settle! Easy!”

  It wasn’t a shadow. It wasn’t a thing of the bright skies beneath a bright sun, but something dark. Something conjured of nightmares.

  Busy controlling his team in concert with Alorn, what Davyn saw was fragmented, a series of images imprinted in his mind. Bethid, astride, her horse terrified; Brodhi, also astride, reining his horse close to hers. The courier leaned, clamped an arm around her torso, and yanked even as he urged his horse away from her own.

  “Let him go!” Brodhi shouted. Too quickly for Davyn to see clearly, Brodhi slipped boots from his stirrups and half-slid, half-jumped down, taking Bethid with him. They landed in a tangle of limbs upon the ground even as all four courier horses fled.

  “Mother damn you!” Bethid cried. Davyn could not make sense of the arms and legs heaped upon the ground. “Brodhi—let me go!”

  He did not. And Davyn, open-mouthed, watched the draka, rather like the scavenger birds, fall upon its prey. It was a raptor’s stoop, an abrupt, controlled downward rush. Not in the least slowed by the saddle, the draka sank claws through saddle leather and horseflesh.

  Bethid heaved her body out from under Brodhi, swearing at him in truly vile language. She was on her knees, then on her feet. She took two staggering steps against the wind. “Churri!”

  But the draka beat skyward in the rain, horse clutched in massive talons.

  The woman whirled to face Brodhi. Her face was pale and tight, cropped blond hair slicked against her skull. Wind battered her. “Damn you!” she cried. “Mother damn you for that!”

  “Beth!” It was Alorn, shouting against the wind. “He saved your life!”

  “He sacrificed Churri!”

  “It’s what any of us would have done,” Timmon declared, shouting as well. “Mother of Moons, Beth—”

  Her raised voice cut across his. “Leave it. Leave it be, Timmon.”

  Wind surged a
gainst them. The day had been clear; none of them had pulled up hoods from the necks of their rain gear. Rain streamed down faces, streamed down hair.

  “It was a horse,” Brodhi said, raising his voice over rain and wind. “A horse.”

  “Leave it, Brodhi—”

  “Your life is worth more than that of a horse.” His tone matched hers: icy and angry. “Would you rather I had let the draka take you both? Would you allow any of us to be taken by a draka if you could prevent it? You leave it.”

  She swung away, strode three long steps, stopped. Her back was to them, wet rain garb flattened against her in the gusting wind. She placed hands on hips and stood stiffly in the rain, looking at no one. Staring into the sky.

  When at last she turned, her face was white to the lips. Perhaps she wept, but Davyn couldn’t tell. Not in the rain.

  Chapter 30

  ILONA DUG UP the cracked hand mirror she used now and again. She raised it before his face. “Well?”

  Rhuan very carefully considered his reflection. Again he wore temple braids, and again they were weighted with ornamentation. He turned his head from side to side, then nodded. “A beginning.”

  Ilona hid a grin. Vanity? She thought not. Tradition. Culture. It represented a part of his inner self. And maybe, maybe just a little vanity. “To do the rest will require days.”

  “It always does.” Rhuan took the mirror from her hand and set it aside. “But we need not think about that just now. It’s my turn to braid your hair.” He smiled. “Just temple braids, like mine. A beginning, as I said.” He rose, bent to keep his head from knocking against a canopy rib, and slid onto the bed platform. He physically turned her so that she faced him, brought her close. With care, he sectioned a thick, wiry lock from the rest of her hair.

  “You look terribly serious,” she observed.

  He smiled back briefly, flashing dimples, but his eyes remained fixed on her hair. “It’s a serious thing, isn’t it? This announcement of our new relationship?”