Kinsman's Oath

by Susan Krinard

  "Now let us go," he said. Cynara couldn't detect so much as a shiver, though the temperature must have been well below minus ten degrees. He seemed as composed and unaffected as if he stood in the ship's galley with a warm mug of kaffé in his hand.

  "Damn," Gunter swore. "You a soldier, man? Too young for the Second War." He moved cautiously toward Ronan and hooked his foot around the suit. "All right. You go now."

  Ronan knelt to pick up Cynara's helmet and offered it to her. "You're crazy," she whispered.

  "It must be done." He placed the helmet over Cynara's head and fastened it, working efficiently though his fingers must be numb. He grasped her arm and tugged her toward the cave entrance.

  It was impossible to reason with him. She considered rushing Gunter and taking his weapon, but Ronan's grip was so hard that she would have to fight him off first. She could hardly see him through the clouds of condensed breath wreathing his unprotected face.

  He had asked to disarm Gunter at the beginning, and she had refused. You still don't trust Ronan. If he dies—

  She cursed Ronan and herself, wondering who was the greater fool.

  Gunter didn't follow them outside the cave. Ronan released Cynara when they were a hundred meters away. She found her bearings and pointed back toward the Thalassa, hoping they could make it quickly enough.

  Ronan shook his head and gestured the way they had been heading before Gunter's assault.

  She flipped on the speaker. "I order you back to the Thalassa."

  He smiled with what she could only assume was wry humor and plunged his bare hands in a snowbank. He raised his ice-covered hands. There was no shivering, no unsteadiness in his fingers. He grasped her wrist and placed her gloved hand flat on his chest.

  His heart beat at a normal rhythm, and his breaths were measured and regular. It was impossible, but it was happening. He lifted her hand, folded it into a fist, and rested his lips on her padded knuckles.

  Where had he learned such a gallant human gesture? "You're insane… you know that, don't you?" She snatched her hand free and shrugged out of her pack, riffling the outer pocket for the thermal blankets meant for Kord. But Ronan had already set off, marching unerringly toward the Pontos's landing site.

  Short of a pitched battle, stopping him was out of the question. "Lizbet, did you copy all that?"

  It was Zheng who answered. "Affirmative. You have a madman out there with you—two, if you count Ronan. Get back here immediately."

  "Negative. Ronan's already out of sight. I'll get us back as quickly as possible. You two remain with the shuttle, is that clear?"

  A long, rebellious pause. "Affirmative, Captain."

  Cynara cut the 'com and peered through the storm in the direction Ronan had gone. He covered ground at an amazing pace, and she had to scramble to keep up. He disappeared over a rise just as she reached its base.

  By the time she had climbed to the top, she was ready to knock Ronan over the head with the nearest convenient rock and drag him back to the Thalassa by his hair. The view from the hill instantly halted such unproductive speculation.

  On level ground twenty meters ahead, its nose driven deep into the snow, lay the Pontos. The hull had blackened and buckled in several places, and the aft section of the shuttle was nearly severed. Cynara picked up her pace and ran after Ronan as fast as the bulky suit would allow.

  Once at the ship, she brushed away a thick coating of snow from the cockpit canopy. With her chisel she hammered at the layers of ice. Kord was a dim, unmoving shape within.

  She set her scanner against the hull. It blinked green; Kord had survived. Emergency life support had remained operational, but it was near the end of its capacity.

  Ronan had already found the hatch release and entered the shuttle. Cynara dumped her pack, unfastened the folded litter, and snapped it open.

  Kord's head was first to emerge from the hatch, followed by his body draped over Ronan's shoulder. Ronan laid him out on the litter and crouched in the snow.

  "He is breathing," Ronan said, his voice snatched away by the wind.

  Cynara clasped Ronan's hand and grinned. She tried to toss one of the blankets over his shoulders, but he caught it in midair and tucked it around Kord.

  Alike as two limpets on a rock, she thought in disgust. Kord had several cuts on his forehead and gashes in his suit, but no visible serious injuries. Most worrisome was his apparent unconsciousness. Cynara pushed up Kord's sleeve and set the medscan against bare skin. The readout indicated broken ribs, a contusion to the forehead, a fractured wrist and tibia, and numerous small lacerations and bruises.

  "Zheng," she said into her comlink, "did you get the data?"

  "Affirmative. Is he conscious?"

  "He seems to be sleeping."

  "Get him awake as quickly as you can."

  Ronan touched Cynara's arm. Kord's eyes had opened. He seemed to focus on her for a moment, and then his gaze wandered to Ronan. His left arm twitched.

  "It's all right, my friend," she murmured. Ronan helped her strap Kord into the litter, and she activated the transparent bubble that would protect him from the elements. Together she and Ronan lifted the litter and retraced their steps.

  Kord's weight was far less a burden than Cynara's concern for Ronan. Whatever allowed him to function under these conditions couldn't last indefinitely. He was still only human…

  The litter jiggled. Cynara half turned, expecting the worst, but Ronan was still on his feet and staring past her shoulder.

  She followed his gaze to the man with the rifle pointed directly at her heart.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  Gunter tore the protective folds of cloth away from his mouth and spat in the snow. "The suit," he said. "It stinks of shaauri."

  Cynara could only speculate how he'd detected the connection between Ronan and shaauri, but Gunter's obvious disgust explained why he wasn't wearing their "gift."

  If she dropped Kord, she might be able to get his rifle, but her only chance was to act before he expected it.

  "Don't even think about it, missy," Gunter snarled. "You made a bad deal. Suit's no good. You pay up." He moved to the litter and stared down at Kord. "You want him alive, you pay."

  Cynara set down her end of the litter. "Return the suit, and we'll get you another."

  "No good." The space between Cynara's shoulders itched, and she could almost feel Ronan weighing his chances. She had no doubt that he'd act just as recklessly as Kord would in the same situation.

  "What do you want now?" she demanded.

  Much to her surprise, Gunter backed away, rifle cradled in his arms. "You come to my cave, alone," he said to Cynara. "Anyone else comes, I shoot him."

  It almost seemed inevitable, though the prospect turned her stomach. "I'm a very poor bargain compared to a suit and supplies."

  "That's the deal. You come alone. If you try to pass, I shoot all of you." He backed away over the next small hill, where he undoubtedly planned to wait until she accepted his kind offer or tested his resolve to murder them.

  She tugged on the litter, urging Ronan toward a more sheltered place under a rocky overhang. Somehow he managed to place himself with his back facing outward to the storm, making a shelter of his body for Cynara.

  "You cannot go to him," he said simply.

  "Right," Kord grunted, his voice muffled through the bubble.

  "How are you?" Cynara asked, crouching beside the litter.

  "I'm alive." He peered up at Ronan. "Don't… let her."

  "I will not." Ronan met her eyes. "This Gunter is ne'lin and without females. He wishes to mate with you by force. This is not acceptable among humans."

  A blush was highly incongruous at the moment. "Damn what's acceptable among humans. I think he means what he says. He'll shoot us if we try to pass."

  "We do not know if his weapon functions."

  "I'm not going to take that chance."

  "Then let me fight him."


  "In your condition?"

  "While I distract him, you take Kord to the shuttle."

  "And what if you're hurt?"

  He made an awkward imitation of a shrug. "If I were your ve'laik'in, it would be my duty."

  "If I do as he demands," she said, "no one will be hurt."

  "Unless he lies, and decides to keep you."

  "Listen," Kord whispered. "Little Mother…"

  Ronan's hand disappeared into the pocket of his shipsuit and emerged holding a pistol. "I found this in the Pontos, and thus I am no longer unarmed. You will… pretend to obey him. When you go with him, I will come after and take him."

  Cynara eyed the gun. 'This is mutiny."

  "My regret," Ronan said. "Let us go." Tucking the pistol under one arm, he opened the litter and helped Kord sit up.

  Cynara had no choice but to assist him. The litter was only a hindrance now, no matter how things went.

  Between them they supported Kord over the small hill, where Cynara could make out Gunter's bulk twenty meters off to the side, in the direction of the cave. He could not yet see them.

  Ronan took Kord's weight against his side. "Can you wait alone?" he asked the Siroccan, easing him to the ground.

  "Yes." The two men exchanged glances that excluded Cynara utterly. "Good water."

  "Good ice would be more appropriate," Ronan countered.

  A joke from Ronan at a time like this? "Ronan—"

  "You go now, Cynara," he said. "Deceive Gunter until I come. I will come."

  She had never heard a more convincing statement in her life. He would come, and he'd find a way to beat Gunter even if he had to put his life on the line to do it. For her sake. For the sake of her "honor." And that had been lost long ago.

  She pushed snarled hair out of her face and glared for all she was worth. "If you die on me, Ronan—" Her throat closed up, and she forgot all the eloquent and vulgar Dharman threats she had been about to hurl at him.

  "If you die," she said hoarsely, "you'll never get more of this." She removed her helmet, seized his shoulders in her gloved hands, and kissed him hard, heating his icy lips with the warmth of her breath.

  A beat of shock, and then Ronan grasped her upper arms and returned the kiss with interest—no expert wooing, nor the urgent passion of a boy who regarded sex as a kind of miracle.

  This was deeply, overwhelmingly personal.

  She broke free and pushed him away. "Go!"

  He went without a backward glance, vanishing into the blowing snow. With hands that shook more now than they had under the threat of Gunter's rifle, Cynara put on her helmet and tapped Kord's shoulder. She had a feeling he'd have a few things to say to her when they returned to the Pegasus.

  Leaving her pack with Kord, she set off toward Gunter's cave. He intercepted her at a hundred paces and signaled her to walk ahead. Even through the suit's filters she could smell him—rancid sweat, filthy furs, and the undefinable odor of masculine lust. She had a single, chilling moment of doubt that Ronan could do what he promised.

  Within a few meters of the cave her footsteps slowed of their own accord. She stumbled and stopped, expecting to feel Gunter's rifle in her back. But it was not fear that had made her falter. Something stirred in her mind, a sensation she hardly recognized.

  She spun on her heel just in time to see Gunter lift his rifle and fire at the figure hurtling toward him.

  Ronan touched the ground so lightly that he hardly left a print, dodging the beam by a hair. He sprang again and knocked Gunter's weapon aside with a swipe of his hand. The rifle plunged into a snowbank. Gunter dived for it.

  As silent as he was quick, Ronan leaped in front of Gunter and slammed his knee into the hermit's face. Blood spattered the snow. Gunter yelled and rolled onto his back, clutching his broken nose.

  Ronan crouched over him, fingers arched and head low. Cynara pushed her way to his side. One look at his face told her that he was ready to kill without hesitation. All Gunter had to do was move.

  Gunter did, clawing at Cynara's leg. Ronan fell on him. His arm drew back, fist clenched.

  She grabbed Ronan by the elbow and hung on with all her strength. He turned his head slowly, focusing on her; his eyes were narrowed to slits, dark gray in a pale, rigid face. Merciless. The expression of a trained assassin.

  If ever she had needed her telepathy, it was now. She forced her fear aside.

  No, she projected, closing her eyes. No, Ronan.

  He flinched and blinked rapidly. His muscles flexed and relaxed in her grip. He lowered his hand.

  He had heard her. The killer's ardor went out of his eyes. The connection was still there between them: She sensed a vague surprise in him, as if he didn't know where he was or how he had come to be there.

  Cynara uncoiled a rope from her pack and held it up, waiting for Ronan to understand. He continued to stare at her in bewilderment, even after Gunter lunged up and sank a knife hilt-deep into his side.

  Ronan fell, not as a man falls, but like one of the great trees in Jyri forest, slowly and without grace. His cheek struck a surface both firm and giving that shaped itself to the contours of his face. Melted snow wet his tongue. Somewhere there was pain, but it did not reach him. It had fled to the same place the cold had gone when he prepared his body for its ordeal.

  Sharp pellets of sound came to him amid the drone of the wind. Motion flashed in the corner of his vision. Someone touched him with the gentleness of the li'laik'i nurturers of Ain'Kalevi, taking him back to his childhood.

  Ronan! He heard the voice, but not with his ears. It rang in his head. He tried to turn toward it, but his limbs would not obey. Blackness grew behind his eyelids.

  Fight it, Ronan! I'll get you back to the shuttle. Just hold on.

  Strange how the sounds seemed unfamiliar, in a language he did not recognize. Yet he understood. He would try to obey, because the one who demanded his obedience held his life as surely as his mind.

  "It is when you face the most difficult challenge that you must call upon all Paths," Sihvaaro said. Ronan tried to summon the chant. The words dissolved before he could grasp them, like the snow melting in his mouth.

  "There is a time to battle for what must change, and a time to accept what will be."

  Acceptance. Relief. All at once he knew that it was better to end here, because what waited on the other side was too terrible, like the death he had seen in his enemy's eyes. On the other side stood a stranger who would steal his soul.

  Accept.

  No. Curse you, no! Warmth like distant memory caressed his face. Heat scalded his mouth, life-giving fire. He knew the lips that touched his.

  Cynara. She was with him, holding him, breathing her will into him with her body as her mind laid siege to his. But another Ronan fought against this woman and her promise of healing as if she brought not life but eternal damnation.

  The battle was lost before it truly began. Cynara swept past the ramparts, carrying all resistance before her.

  Cold. Pain. Ronan opened his eyes. He smelled his own blood, heard harsh breathing nearby—Gunter, who had tried to kill him.

  Something slapped his bared arm. Cynara crouched over him with her lips almost brushing his forehead.

  "A coagulant patch," she said. "It'll help stop the bleeding until we reach the shuttle. Gunter won't be any more trouble. I'm taking you back now. Zheng and Lizbet are on their way—they'll carry Kord. Do you understand?"

  He understood her perfectly, remembered all that had happened with crystal clarity.

  Remembered everything.

  He knew why he had wanted to die, and why he must not. Laughter hissed between his teeth, jarring the deep wound in his side.

  "Don't try to talk. I'll get you back. Just hold on."

  She braced her legs and lifted him, and he did what he could to support his own weight. Pain could be ignored, and biting chill. But not what he had remembered. Not the knowledge of why he was here. Knowledge that brought not certainty and c
onfidence but turmoil.

  Cynara had embraced his mind, and he would never be the same again.

  The infirmary was full to overflowing. Three inmates occupied the permanent beds, and Zheng bustled about like a mechanical babushka, clucking happily over her patients.

  Charis had put the hours to good use in repairing the Pegasus, and the ship was nearly ready to traverse the final wormhole to the Nine Worlds territory. After leaving Ronan, Kord, and Gunter in Zheng's capable hands, Cynara had seen to her own duties and consulted with Adumbe about the incident on Bifrost and the loss of the Pontos.

  She wasn't permitted to go about her work unimpeded. From the moment the Thalassa docked, Janek had been snapping at her heels, demanding immediate access to Ronan for questioning. She couldn't fault his motives. Someone would have to find out how Ronan had escaped his cabin, overcome the guard, and boarded the Thalassa, all without any apparent memory of doing so.

  Janek wasn't going to let her handle it alone, but she fended him off and seized a free moment to watch Zheng's charges through the observation window. Kord lay in an accelerated healing field, bones already knitting while his body was pumped full of medications to speed his recovery. Gunter had suffered no serious injuries in spite of his clash with Ronan, and was being held under sedation until he could be assessed for mental as well as physical health. Stripped of his furs, he looked like a harmless old Dharman banker.

  But he had nearly killed Ronan, who was recovering much faster than Zheng's best prognosis had indicated. He was awake and exchanging comments with the doctor.

  Cynara keyed into the room and worked up a grin for Kord. His body was immobile in the AHF, but he was able to turn his head to look at her. She braced herself for a scold.

  "Captain," he said, "what water-sucking demon possessed you?"

  "I might ask you the same."

  "I did what had to be done."

  "So did I." She pulled a chair close to his bed and sighed. "Let's get this out of the way. No, a captain should never go on a hazardous mission. Yes, I took a big risk. Yes, I could have been killed. No, I never considered not going. No, there's no point in arguing with a headstrong seacow like Cynara D'Accorso."