The White Road n-5

by Lynn Flewelling

  “So how did you get ahead of us on the trail?” Seregil asked Rieser, seemingly at ease now and playing as if he didn’t already know that answer.

  Rieser spared him a brief glance, then turned back to minding the fire.

  “My oo’lu has a long voice,” the witch told him, grinning.

  “You signaled someone?” asked Seregil, showing the witch more respect than he did his master. “Who?”

  “I have—”

  “That’s enough,” growled Rieser.

  “As you like, friend. As you like,” the little man chuckled, but Alec was almost certain he saw a flash of something less friendly in the witch’s black eyes. Small and dirty as he was, Alec could feel a power in him, and felt a gut level mix of respect and dread when he saw the way the dark tracery on the witch’s face and hands seemed to move on its own with his moods. Micum was watching him closely, too, and gave Alec the slightest hint of a nod as their eyes met.

  Seregil was not oblivious, he knew, but was playing his own game—one he was very good at.

  Pointing over at Sebrahn, who was still with Hâzadriën, Alec asked, “So, why are they drawn to each other like that?”

  Rieser looked annoyed. “It’s the blood.”

  “You mentioned others last night. Do they all look like yours?”

  “More than yours does.”

  “Do they all favor the one they are made from?” asked Seregil. “Sebrahn certainly looks like Alec, and nothing at all like Hâzadriën.”

  “They do,” a young man replied. He had the same dark hair and long face as Rieser, but appeared to be half his age and twice as friendly. “Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Except for the coloring, they all are a little different in the face.”

  “Is that why this one has a woman’s face but a man’s name?”

  “They have no sex,” Rieser snapped. “Shut up and eat. We ride as soon as the way is clear.” He turned to one of the older men. “Sorengil, you’re in charge. If any of the captives give you trouble, bind and gag them. Turmay, come with me.” Tossing his last crust into the fire, Rieser stalked away down the hill to oversee the work.

  With weapons, Alec and the others probably could have taken the half dozen men and the woman left, but Alec had no idea what the witch would do and Seregil seemed content to play the toss as thrown for now.

  Sorengil looked to be the same age and temperament as Rieser, while the one who’d answered Seregil appeared to be friendlier.

  “What’s your name?” Alec asked him, sensing a weak point on the enemy’s side.

  “Kalien í Rothis. And you?”

  “Alec í—”

  “Bastards don’t name their fathers,” one of the young ones sneered, tossing the bit of stick he’d been whittling into the fire just close enough to stir up sparks in Alec’s direction. This one was maybe even younger than Alec in pure ’faie years.

  “That’s enough, Rane,” warned Sorengil.

  “I’ll speak to him if I want! Who has more right than I do?” Rane snapped back.

  “Let him speak,” the youngish woman with dark eyes said, sparing Alec a none-too-friendly look.

  Alec looked around and found the others watching him like a pack of wolves, looking for his weaknesses. “What do you mean by that?” he asked, meeting the younger man’s glare with one of his own.

  “I mean, you whore’s get, that you’ve cost me a father and a brother already, and I’ll be more than happy to stick the knife in you when the time comes!”

  “Rane, I said stop it,” Sorengil ordered.

  “I don’t mind him,” Alec shot back. “If my tayan’gil’s song killed your kin, then you’ve got no one but yourself to blame. We didn’t skulk after you through a snowstorm, now, did we?”

  The boy launched himself across the fire at Alec, drawing a belt knife before any of the others could react.

  Rane was fast, but Alec was faster. He jerked out of the way and caught him by the wrist, using the boy’s own momentum to flip him on his back and wrench the weapon away. Grabbing up the fallen blade, Alec straddled his chest and had the blade to Rane’s throat before the other Hâzad pulled him off. The seemingly friendly one nearly broke Alec’s fingers taking the knife away. Only then did Alec see that Seregil and Micum were on their feet now, too, and that Seregil was holding a struggling Sebrahn around the waist, a hand clamped over the rhekaro’s mouth as he whispered frantically into Sebrahn’s ear.

  Kalien got an arm around Rane’s neck and restrained him. “Sit down, ya’shel, and your friends, too, or this will end badly for all of us.”

  “I had a father,” Rane wheezed, struggling to get loose. “His name was Syall í Konthus, and he died hunting the filthy cur of a Tírfaie that rutted you into your mother’s belly! And your cursed tayan’gil killed my brother.”

  “My father was a good man!” Alec yelled, lunging against the arms that held him back. “Your people killed my mother!”

  “Let them fight,” some of the others urged, forming a loose circle around them. “No knives, just fists!”

  Alec glanced back at Sebrahn, who was clawing at Seregil’s hands now, and then at Seregil, who was regarding him steadily.

  If I let Sebrahn go, you know what will happen, that look said, clear as a hand sign. Is that what you want me to do?

  As tempting as it was, Alec couldn’t do it. Not against an angry boy who’d lost his father, even if it wasn’t Alec’s fault.

  He dropped his arms to his sides. “I’ve eaten your food. I won’t dishonor myself and my talímenios,” he shot back. But he couldn’t resist adding, “Or my parents’ memory.”

  “What about you, Rane?” Sorengil demanded. “Does the ya’shel have more atui than you?”

  The boy pulled away. “Where’s Rieser’s atui? The honor of the Ebrados? Why are these bastards still alive?” he snarled, and strode off into the trees.

  A young woman spat in Alec’s direction. “You honor your parents little, backing down from a blood feud.”

  “I’ll have a blood feud with your kin, Allia, if you don’t watch your tongue,” snapped Sorengil.

  Alec pulled away from the men holding him and smoothed down his coat. “My father was a good man, not a kin killer.”

  “If your mother had let us have you and your father, she might be alive now, though her shame would have followed her to the grave,” Sorengil told him.

  “Alec, maybe you should calm Sebrahn,” Seregil suggested with a look that said let it go for now.

  No one tried to hold Alec back as he lifted Sebrahn in his arms. “It’s all right, Sebrahn. Don’t hurt anyone, understand?”

  “Huuurt,” the rhekaro whispered, eyes still dangerously dark.

  Kalien and the others stared at them. Even the tall rhekaro seemed to take notice.

  “It talks?” one of the riders gasped.

  “He’s not like yours,” Alec growled, “and you’ll do well to remember that. The next time you lay a hand on me or any of my friends, I won’t hold him back.”

  The threat didn’t win him any sign of respect, but no one taunted him after that.

  It took four horses to drag away the huge firs that the Retha’noi had felled for them. Rieser could see several more of the small hill folk watching from their heights. Not knowing how many more there might be made him uneasy.

  When the sections of the great trees were finally moved to the side of the trail, Rieser sat down on a log and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. He’d taken off his wolfskin coat, but even so he’d worked up a sweat. Nowen did the same as she sat down beside him.

  “The others asked me to speak for them,” she said without preamble. Nowen was always direct. “We don’t like you going off with these men.”

  “Do you think you could convince the ya’shel to come with us and bring his tayan’gil?”

  “No.”

  “And what do you think that tayan’gil will do, if we try to take them by force? Do you want another taste of its powe
r?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what would you have me do?”

  “They will kill you, the first chance they get.”

  “That would mean abandoning their tayan’gil. The ya’shel will never do that. He still mistakes it for a child, one that can feel and love.”

  “Perhaps it can. It’s so different from Hâzadriën.”

  “It is, which makes it all the more imperative to bring it back to the valley.”

  “Yes,” said Turmay, who’d been eavesdropping. “You must take it back. You must! Perhaps you could let your people take it away when you and the ya’shel are gone? You could find your way back, yes? I could wait with you and guide you.”

  “That would leave the ya’shel behind.”

  “Once you’re away from his tayan’gil, you can kill him.”

  Rieser mopped his brow again. “I’ve thought of that, but you said yourself that he is something new, too. He died and came back to life. I believe our khirnari would rather have him brought back than killed. Besides, there’s always the chance that this Sebrahn is connected to the one he was made from, as Hâzadriën and the others were to their ’faie. If I kill Alec, then Sebrahn might know and attack you. From a distance he killed one of us. What do you think will happen if he’s in your midst?”

  “So you’re going to trust them?” asked Nowen.

  “No, but I will go with them. If they attack me, I can defend myself. But they won’t.”

  “You believe the Bôkthersan?”

  “I do.”

  “But why? For all you know, they are going back for the book so that they can make tayan’gils for themselves!”

  “I watch Seregil as he watches the little one. He won’t make any more. And he would not do that to his talímenios.”

  Nowen gave him a frustrated look. “I have followed you all these years, and never known you to be a fool. I pray to Aura this isn’t the first time.”

  Rieser chuckled. “So do I. I will keep my word to them and you will stay here. When the time comes, we will find a way to bring them both back.”

  “I think that would mean killing the other two.”

  “We’ll see. We owe nothing to the Tír. The other is a problem.”

  “I wonder what Khirnari Seneth ä Matriel would make of that, bringing a stranger into the valley?”

  Rieser pondered that for a moment. “We can deal with him, once we have him there.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Unwelcome Companions

  RIESER kept his word. When the road was clear, he gave them back their horses. Seregil had, with some difficulty, managed to convince Alec to let Sebrahn ride with Hâzadriën rather than try to carry him on foot for a day’s march. If a chance to escape presented itself, Seregil wanted Micum and Alec both mounted and ready. Their weapons were bundled away on one of the packhorses; if they made a break for it again, they’d do it unarmed, but that might still be their best hope.

  Someone had masked Hâzadriën’s true appearance again. Seregil hadn’t seen the witches do it, or heard them play the oo’lu horns, which meant that there must be a proper wizard among the company, as well as the witch. Even with normal coloring, though, Hâzadriën was hard not to notice, the way his face remained expressionless. He might as well have been still wearing one of those animal masks.

  Their captors were not a friendly bunch. They talked and laughed among themselves, but ignored Seregil and the others, except to keep an eye on them. Micum might as well have been air for all the attention anyone paid him. The youngster named Rane looked like he’d go after Alec again without much provocation, but Alec kept to himself and rode beside Hâzadriën, more at ease with the tall rhekaro than any of its companions.

  What will you do when the time comes to part from Sebrahn? Seregil wondered. His own doubts were exacerbated by guilt; if it had been up to him, he’d have been very tempted to tell Rieser to take Sebrahn and go. He was not proud of that, but knew it would probably be better for everyone concerned, including Sebrahn. If it was true that the Hâzadriëlfaie kept tayan’gil safe, then it was the best place for him. If Hâzadriën was anything to go by, then the tayan’gils were treated with respect. The others sometimes spoke to him and it was clear that they considered him their equal.

  The witch named Naba had left them after breakfast, but Seregil caught the occasional glimpse of other Retha’noi on the heights. Rieser and his people were keeping a watchful eye in that direction, too.

  “Think they’re going to drop another tree on us?” Micum asked in a low voice.

  “It would open up certain possibilities if they did, but I suspect they’re just making certain we keep going out of their lands.”

  “You see them?” asked Turmay, coming up beside them. “Those are Retha’noi people, too.”

  “The ones who blocked the road?” asked Seregil, though he had no doubt of it.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what you meant by your oo’lu having a long voice, then.” The painted horn slung across Turmay’s back apparently had many uses, including putting one to sleep at the most inopportune moments, as demonstrated yesterday. “You signaled ahead. Or was it magic?”

  The witch just smiled.

  “Why did they help you? Because you are of the same people?”

  “I’m no kin of theirs. They helped me because they want you to go away.”

  “Are they frightened of Sebrahn?”

  Turmay shrugged. “They want all of you to go away. They don’t like strangers in their mountains.”

  “Tell me, Turmay, are you frightened of our tayan’gil?”

  “It is not a tayan’gil,” the witch said softly. “It is a monster.”

  They rested their horses by a stream at midday, then set off again as the way sloped down more steeply before them. The snow was fast disappearing and the meltwater turned the trail into a muddy stream in places.

  The forest grew denser, closing in around them and blocking out the sky. As they rode along in the pine-scented twilight, Seregil nudged Star up beside Rieser’s tall white horse.

  “That’s a fine-looking animal you’ve got there, Captain.”

  Rieser spared him a brief glance.

  “Do you really mean to go into Plenimar with us?”

  “I said so.”

  “You do realize that you’re going to have to pretend that Micum is your master?”

  That got the man’s attention. “What?”

  Micum overheard. “You didn’t think three ’faie could waltz into the Riga slave markets and tell them you’re only passing through, did you?”

  Rieser scowled at Seregil. “And you will allow this? To play the slave to this Tír?”

  Seregil gave him the crooked grin. “You’d be surprised, some of the roles I’ve played. And I might point out that the risk to Micum is just as great. Those caught with wayward slaves aren’t treated well, either.”

  “And you think you can fool these Plenimarans?”

  “Certainly. When you searched our baggage, you must have seen the metal slave collars. Those are one sign.” Seregil pushed back his sleeve and showed him the fake brand. “And this. More Orëska magic. Too bad our wizard isn’t with us, to fix you up properly. That’s going to be a problem.”

  Rieser snorted softly, then pushed his own sleeve back and passed his left hand over his forearm. An identical mark appeared on the underside. “I have no need of your magic. I have my own.”

  Ah ha! Got you. That explains who is maintaining Hâzadriën’s disguise. This man might actually prove useful in a pinch. “No amount of magic is going to hide us from a necromancer or slaver’s wizard. Sometimes a bit of lying works better. So with Micum as our master, we should go unnoticed.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then I steal that book for you, we all come back, and you let us go.”

  Rieser just gave him a smug look and kicked his horse into a trot.

  “Now I trust him even less,” Micum muttere
d in Skalan.

  “Me, too, but he knows if he double-crosses us and tries to hurt Alec, Sebrahn will sing again. Maybe Sebrahn could kill a few more of them, in close proximity.”

  “Then all we have to do is get Alec to pick a fight with that surly young fellow Rane and we’re home free.”

  Seregil had been thinking the same thing, but for later, not now. It had been madness to think that they could take Sebrahn back into Plenimar without someone noticing him. Thero’s disguise was fading away more rapidly now. In the morning light Sebrahn’s skin was blotchy and his hair was more silver than brown. If the Hâzad wanted to look after him while they were gone, he couldn’t think of better caretakers—if Sebrahn let Alec leave. He glanced at Sebrahn ahead of them, riding contentedly on Hâzadriën’s saddlebow. “Maybe he won’t be so quick to defend Alec anymore, now that he’s found another of his own kind.”

  “Don’t let Alec hear you say that. I think he’s heartbroken already.”

  Seregil sighed. “Bilairy’s Balls! Why does he have to love the damn thing so much?”

  “Wouldn’t you if it had your face?”

  “No, I would not!” Seregil whispered.

  “Can you love Sebrahn, who has Alec’s face?”

  “I wish I could. I care for Sebrahn, but keeping him is simply impossible for so many reasons. Alec knows that as well as I do. He just can’t admit it to himself yet.”

  “He’s softer hearted than you.”

  “Soft headed, more like it,” Seregil muttered. It wasn’t the best trait in a nightrunner, but Seregil had to admit it was one of the things he admired about Alec. Still, it wasn’t going to make things any easier when they came back with the book and had to face the inevitable.

  That night they camped beside a small waterfall. As Alec scavenged for firewood, he noticed that there were handprints carved into the trees here, as there had been at the western end of the trail.

  “This must mark the end of Tamír’s Road,” Seregil said.

  Alec’s heart sank lower; this meant they were that much closer to parting from Sebrahn. He knew Seregil was right about the risk of taking him, and the thought of Sebrahn being torn apart by another alchemist made him sick.