“Lady help me,” he murmured, and then walked out of his prison.
Chapter 33
The news of the Regency ceremony had gone out swiftly, and now the palace grounds swarmed with carriages and horses. The receiving rooms groaned at the seams. No one wanted to be left out, and no one wanted to be suspected of snubbing the new Regent by not attending. Even Kebonsat and his retinue had been summoned to celebrate. All the ahalad-kaaslane in Koduteel had turned out, though each knew the Regent would not welcome them in return. All the ahalad-kaaslane, that is, but for Reisil, Sodur, Juhrnus and Yohuac.
The afternoon was breezy. Puffy white clouds scudded across the sapphire sky. The group of four had assembled in Tirpalema’s stable yard, where Indigo stood saddled and ready. The gelding pawed the ground and thrust his nose under Reisil’s arm.
Reisil glanced at her companions, who wore their court finery beneath billowing cloaks. “You’d better get back. You’ll be missed.”
Juhrnus stepped forward, handing her a bulging pouch the size of her palm and pulling her into a rough hug. “Bright journey. And don’t be long.”
“And you be careful. Whatever you and Metyein are up to—remember, the Regent is watching.”
Sodur took her hand. He still had that cunning, sideways look that reminded her of a crow. But he had given her a map to the valley where he thought the wizards’ stronghold was. He squinted against the sunlight, the corners of his eyes damp.
Reisil grasped his forearm in a firm grip and then pulled him close. “Wish me luck.”
“I do. I believe in you. I always have.” He pulled back, giving her a long, meaningful look that Reisil could not interpret. He touched a finger to the chain holding the Lady’s amulet. “Don’t forget your true path.” She nodded and turned to Yohuac, her throat tight. She wondered if she’d ever see any of them again. She took the arm he proferred, grasping it firmly. “When do you expect Baku?”
Yohuac frowned. “He has gone looking for magic. It sparks in your land where he did not see it before. Some very old, some new. He wonders why.”
Reisil felt chill fingers stroke her heart. “That’s easy enough. Another sign the Lady’s withdrawn,” she said. Then she shook herself and gave Yohuac a thin smile. “Take care of yourself. I’ll send word when I know something.”
“Remember my promise. I won’t sit idly by.”
“I won’t forget.” She tucked the pouch Juhrnus had given her into her saddlebags and swung astride Indigo. She tossed Saljane up into the air.
“Be careful,” Juhrnus said.
“You be careful. The Regent will come hunting the ahalad-kaaslane soon,” she said, and then clucked to Indigo. They trotted under the archway and into the street.
Juhrnus gazed after Reisil. “I hope this is the right thing. If I were the wizards, I wouldn’t look too kindly on her.”
“Too late to change your mind,” Sodur said.
“Too late for a lot of things. We’d better get back. The Regent will be counting heads.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Sodur said, and then hurried away, Lume trotting at his heels.
Juhrnus watched him go. “I hope he shows. The Regent might overlook us, but never Sodur.”
“You think he won’t?”
“He’s not acting like himself.”
“Should we follow him?”
Juhrnus shook his head as Sodur disappeared beneath the entrance to the stable yard. “Can’t drag him. He’s a grown man, and he knows the Verit better than any of us do. I just don’t know if he cares anymore.” He shrugged. “Nothing we can do. C’mon.”
Yohuac fell into step beside him.
“Mind a bit of advice?” Juhrnus asked as they walked.
“What’s that?”
“Next time, kiss her.”
Yohuac faltered. “Reisil?”
“You didn’t want to kiss the horse, did you?”
“No.” Yohuac flushed, and Juhrnus smirked. Yohuac wasn’t easily discomfited.
“You ought to have kissed her, then, while you had a chance.”
The two fell into sober silence, striding quickly along. You might not get another. She might not come back.
Indigo tossed his head impatiently, but Reisil held him on a tight rein. She headed west, toward the Lady’s Gate. Juhrnus had made sure a guard there would pass her through without any questions.
There were few people in the streets, though Reisil doubted it had much to do with the Regency ceremony. The plague had intruded into Koduteel. After mobs had nailed whole families up inside their homes and torched the buildings, people had begun to hide the affliction. Even those who were not infected skulked nervously, afraid that they might be suspected regardless and burned alive.
Reisil sniffed. The lingering odor of the destroyed buildings permeated the air, overriding the slighter scents of roasting meats, baking breads and the ever-present brine and fish smells from the ocean. A noise caught her attention, and seeing its cause, Reisil hastily kneed Indigo beneath an awning outside a sparsely populated kohv shop. Others ducked inside doorways up and down the street. A squad of guardsmen halted at the intersection, halberds shining in the sun. Four men marched out of the file to nail up broadsheets on each of the facing buildings. They fell back into formation, and as swiftly as they’d come, the guardsmen trotted away up the street.
Reisil hardly waited for them to turn the corner before she hurried over to read the notice.
“What’s it say?” a man asked.
“Instructions from the Regent. He’s locking down the city. They are going to close off the quarters. Every soul will be counted and cataloged, including names, ages and residences. Then everyone will be restrained to their homes. Head counts will be taken every morning and evening. Food and water will be provided each morning, sufficient for the day. Those refusing to be counted or who break quarantine will be sealed inside their homes with their families and left to starve. The same for anyone attempting to bribe a guard or sept leader.”
“It can’t be.”
Reisil backed Indigo out of the gathering crowd. “Believe it. They are coming.” The sound of booted feet and scores of horses echoed along the streets as full regiments of soldiers marched into the city.
People began spilling into the street beside her, running and breathless, most carrying little else but the clothes they wore. She threaded Indigo through the thickening flow of humanity, hands catching at her legs and dragging at her. Indigo tossed his head, yanking his bridle out of the grasp of a square-faced merchant. He sped faster, boring through the bodies, thrusting ahead in leaping jumps.
Reisil had hoped the regency ceremony would delay sealing the gates, but rounding a corner, she discovered the Lady’s Gate was already closed. The gathering crowd clamored and pressed to be released and were prodded back with pikes. The tension was high, and everywhere Reisil looked, she saw terror. A spattering of rocks flew at the guards. Then a flurry of missiles sailed, whatever anyone could find to throw. The guards shouted and swore, ducking down, but there was little protection. The walls weren’t built to protect from attacks from within.
A roar burst from the throats of the massed peoples as one guard fell to his knees, blood streaking from beneath his hand as he clutched his head. Then like an enormous beast, the mob bounded up the crisscrossing steps, swarming over the parapet with ravening fury. The guards stabbed furiously with their pikes. A dozen bodies fell. But the butchery only inflamed the mob. Townspeople rushed the guards. More bodies fell and were churned underfoot. Just as quickly, the guards disappeared beneath the seething mass. Moments later the portcullis creaked upward, and the bars holding the gates were thrown down. For a few moments it seemed as if everyone were frozen in place. A dam of struggling bodies blocked escape. Then the dam broke, and people went stampeding down the road and up toward the hills.
Reisil and Indigo flowed out with the current of people. Her hands shook as she clutched the reins. Her lungs contracted so she could
hardly get a breath. A sob caught in her throat. She squeezed her eyelids shut as if she could erase the memory of the massacre. Then Indigo snatched the bit in his teeth and bolted, his body low and flat against the ground, and all she could think of was not falling off.
Reisil hung on, not daring to tug at the reins, afraid she’d force a misstep. But in truth, she didn’t want him to stop. The wind roared in her ears. Indigo’s mane snapped against her face. She welcomed the stinging pain, the surge of his solid body beneath her, the jolting thud of each pounding stride. There was a freedom in that speed: an illicit joy in leaving Koduteel behind, in not having to be there to face the Regent’s new edicts, to decide what to do, how to help. Much as she tried to quash the feeling, it continued to swell. She bent forward, pressing herself low against Indigo’s neck.
He slowed of his own accord, far out along the western road. His nostrils were ringed in red, and his breath thundered in his chest. Reisil patted the gelding’s drenched shoulder and turned him north away from the road, angling toward the distant mountains. She glanced back toward Koduteel.
~Saljane, dear heart. Watch carefully, she called to the circling goshawk.
Reisil wasn’t worried about assassins. But those fleeing the city had done so empty-handed. She and Indigo would be an enormous temptation for those who now owned nothing. In those next hours Saljane called warnings to Reisil, who angled away from the straying people, taking a serpentine course to dodge them. They might have meant her no harm. But she dared not take chances.
When the light faded, Saljane drifted down to settle on Reisil’s fist. They were climbing into the foothills, following an animal track. Reisil dismounted and led Indigo over the trail, her wizard-sight showing her the way. Near midnight, she made a cold camp in a grassy clearing. The night closed in, warmer than she expected. But she was high above the ocean now, protected by hills. She lay back with her head on her saddle.
Despite the bloody images of the fallen Koduteelians that continued to haunt the edges of her thoughts, the soothing smells of sun-warmed earth and pine cocooned her in pleasure. Indigo’s soft cropping of grass, the twitter of night birds and the rustle of insect life in the bushes were a balm to her nerves, to a mind too long nurtured only by cold stone and wearying suspicion alone. She sighed, snuggling under the green cloak, stroking her fingers over its supple leather. She lay on top of the gray cloak, which served only as bedding and shelter. Saljane settled against her shoulder, stroking her beak along Reisil’s chin.
The next morning’s travel brought them to the banks of the swift-flowing Blan Ciiel River. They followed it north in search of a ford detailed on the map Sodur had given Reisil. She found it eight leagues up. It was little more than a widening in the snaking length of the river. In the summer months, it was belly-deep to a horse, but with the spring rains and snowmelt, the water churned muddy and deep. Reisil dismounted, tossing a stick into the current. It whipped quickly out of sight.
Indigo snorted and sidled around her so that his rump faced the water. Reisil laughed.
“I agree. But we may as well get it over with. You can rest on the other side. See? Saljane’s already waiting for us.” Reisil waved to the goshawk, who had alighted in a poplar on the opposite bank.
Reisil tied her cloak behind her cantle and lunged up into the saddle, biting her lips against a moan. This morning she’d had to walk a quarter of a league before her leg muscles loosened enough to ride.
Indigo shook his head and laid his ears flat as she nudged him to the edge of the water.
“No fussing,” Reisil admonished, patting his shoulder. “If this is the worst of what we have to do, then we’ll be lucky. Let’s go.”
Indigo stopped at the water’s edge, dropping his nose to sniff at the ugly brown slurry. He lifted a hoof and pawed the air above the water. At last he stepped into the current, snorting and bobbing his head. They entered the river at the top of the ford, and Reisil angled Indigo against the current and away from the landing. Water closed around Indigo’s legs and rose over Reisil’s boots and then up over her knees. It was frigid, and in no time at all, Reisil lost sensation in her toes. She clamped her legs around the dun gelding, holding tight to her pommel with her right hand, pulling Indigo’s head to the left to keep him aimed upstream.
Indigo’s breathing was loud and heavy, his ribs pumping like bellows. Reisil spoke to him, urging him in a wide circle, turning him upstream. Gradually they inched closer to the shore and the current released them from its hungry grip. Indigo lunged out of the water, stopping on the shingle to shake himself, his head dangling as he panted. Reisil slid to the ground. She couldn’t feel her feet, and her legs shook. She squatted, bracing her elbows on her knees until the shaking passed. Then she struggled up, pulling the cinch loose and shoving the saddle onto the ground with a thump. She grabbed the gray cloak and began rubbing Indigo’s legs. By the time she was through, he had begun to breathe more evenly and the sun had done a great deal to warm them both. Reisil heaved the saddle back onto him, the saddle blanket sodden.
“Sorry about this, boy. But you’re going to founder if we rest now. We’ll stop a little farther on.”
Reisil led him up into the trees, following a deer track. She continued on into the early afternoon, her wet boots chafing. She pushed on despite her discomfort. Every moment wasted was another moment the plague ate away at Kodu Riik.
In the late afternoon, Reisil made camp near a spring, turning Indigo loose to roll around and crop grass. She spread her saddle blanket in the sun, pulling her boots off to examine the damage to her feet. She had blisters on her heels, toes and on the balls of her feet. With a sigh, she spread salve on them and wrapped them with strips of cotton cloth from her pack, pulling a pair of fresh socks over them. Afterwards she unrolled her map.
By her best guess, she’d not made much progress. She had to cross long leagues of rolling farmland before climbing into the Aavrel mountain range. Mysane Kosk nestled in a low valley on the northern end with the wizard’s stronghold somewhere in the middle near Sapriim’s peak. She found it on the map with her finger. In between were two more rivers. With any luck, they would be easier to cross.
Reisil rolled up the map and tucked it back into her pack, reclining in the grass and stretching like a cat. The ground was soft and moist smelling, the scent of the grass tangy. The spring burbled, and chickadees and wrens twittered. Reisil’s lids dropped.
Reisil woke blearily when Saljane returned from feeding.
~Did you hunt well?
~Very well.
Saljane radiated lambent satiety and predatory pride. She perched on the saddle and began preening herself, her stomach bulging as if she’d swallowed a small dog. A growl sounded loudly from Reisil’s stomach, and she obediently dug in her pack for dinner. That night, as with the night before, she fell asleep nestled close to Saljane, boneless with exhaustion.
She awoke to a silent scream.
~Saljane!
Fear. Pain. Rage.
Need.
Reisil lunged to her feet. From the center of herself she wrenched up magic. It flooded her like lava, crackling around her hands, turning her vision crimson.
Then silence fell over her mind.
Irrevocable, unbearable silence.
Reisil screamed.
Chapter 34
Her scream continued until her lungs emptied and her throat was raw. Her ears were filled with a roar like an avalanche. She could hear nothing else. Reisil drew up her hands to strike. She would make them pay. She would fire the meadow. She would incinerate the entire valley. She would level the hills to the ocean. She would—
“You must control yourself. We do not wish to hurt you.”
The words cut through Reisil’s frenzied grief and fury like a sword of ice. She stiffened, predatory instinct settling over her. She swung her head from side to side, the crimson mist still veiling her vision. The shapes she saw were mere wraiths of red in a landscape of vermillion. It was enoug
h. She raised her hands up above her shoulders, white energy flaming around them.
“Hold. Do not act rashly. Your bird is not dead. Merely . . . silenced.” The voice was sharp and commanding and—Reisil cocked her head. Apprehensive. Her lips stretched in a smile. Good. Let them fear her.
The power wreathed around her elbows and climbed to her shoulders.
~Ahalad-kaaslane!
Panic. Killing rage. Helplessness.
~Saljane?
Reisil’s hands dropped, her head whipping about, hope a firefly spark as Saljane reached into her mind with talon strength.
“Saljane!”
The connection ended abruptly as if it had never been. Reisil’s head tipped back, and she wailed, an inarticulate, desperate sound.
Reisil spun, fixing on the speaker, renewed fury fueling the magic that began to scorch.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“We are . . . emissaries. We want you to accompany us.”
“From who? Where?” Her lips felt papery and tight, cracking with her words. Flames streaked along her skin. When she spoke, sparks fluttered from her tongue.
“From the wizards in exile. Our home lies in the Aavrel Mountains.” The speaker’s voice was urgent. “Once we are there, your bird shall be released to you, unharmed. An attack on any one of us will result in her death.”
Reisil’s body shook. She could smell burning hair. Her skin felt raw and too small. Her bones were fire. Her hands curled into claws.
“Hurt her, and I will kill you all,” she whispered at last.
“Yes. I know.”
The magic within burned for escape. Reisil had held it in check for too long. She could not merely disperse it. She didn’t know how. She didn’t want to, even if she could.
“Let me remind you.”
She turned from her captors and flung the power at a tree-covered knoll two hundred paces away. The hill exploded, the trees bursting apart and sending pieces of burning wood and leaves in every direction. A hail of dirt and tree debris rained down on Reisil and her wizard captors. A sharp pain erupted beneath her right eye, and a trickle of blood rolled down her cheek. She blinked, her eyes gritty and parched. Slowly the redness cleared from her vision. She swung back around, searching for Saljane. She found her cradled in the arms of a gray stranger; the goshawk’s legs were bound together, her body swaddled in a woven black material. Reisil made a howling sound and reached out, fury crackling up again.
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