She tilted her head to one side and smiled her wolf’s smile. The noble backed up half a step. The guard on the left, the swordsman, suppressed a smile. The crossbowman on the right and the two chair carriers pretended they hadn’t seen anything. Somehow, they all gave the impression of having had plenty of practice at that.
“You are an escaped slave,” the noble said slowly, as if he expected her to misunderstand him. He spoke the common tongue, but his accent was one Dhulyn had never heard. “Tell me quickly what House you’re from and I promise I won’t punish you too severely.”
“You are a fool,” Dhulyn said, just as slowly and clearly, aware that to him she’d be the one with the accent. “Tell me quickly you won’t jump to conclusions again and I promise to stop laughing at you.”
The man’s face darkened to the point that Dhulyn feared for the condition of his heart. The ghost of a smile on the face of the swordsman standing behind him widened to a real grin, quickly stifled.
The noble lifted his hand and the two guards tensed. “Don’t lie again,” the noble said, still with great clarity.
Dhulyn raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t lie,” she said. “You are a fool.”
“The scars on your back show you are a slave.”
“Scars don’t make a me slave, just as a sword doesn’t make you a warrior.”
The noble dropped his hand.
Dhulyn didn’t need the signal, having seen from the corner of her eye that the crossbowman was lifting his weapon. As the man’s finger tightened she jumped to the left and caught the bolt in her right hand. With her left hand, she pulled off her head covering and threw it into the face of the swordsman, leaped forward, and drove the crossbow bolt into the noble’s hand, pinning it to his thigh, jerked his sword free herself—knew it was belted too low—as she swept the noble’s feet out from under him, and turned to face the two guards.
Only to find them openmouthed, wide-eyed, and staring.
“Paledyn,” the crossbowman said, his weapon hanging slack from his hand.
Dhulyn stepped backward until she had all three men clearly in her line of sight.
“What are you waiting for? Kill her!” The stupid noble was pulling at his hand, apparently unaware that was the fastest way to cripple himself.
“But, Xar, she is Paledyn.” Now it was the swordsman who spoke.
Now the man turned again to face her, and the color drained from his face.
“Your p-pardon, Xara,” he said. Dhulyn would have bet her second-best sword it was rage that made him stutter, not fear or awe. “I did not see—I could not have expected a woman.”
“I told you not to jump to conclusions,” she said.
The two guards looked from Dhulyn to the noble and back again, as if expecting something more. Finally, the noble spoke again.
“I offer you my home, roof, table, and bed. I am Loraxin, House Feld.” The underlings, even the slaves by the chair, relaxed.
Again, Dhulyn was willing to bet that the House’s gritted teeth spoke more of his anger than his pain.
“I am Dhulyn Wolfshead, the Scholar,” she replied equally formally. “I was Schooled by Dorian the Black Traveler. I fight with my Brother—” her throat closed and she had to cough and start again. “I have fought at the sea battle of Sadron, at Arcosa for the Tarkin of Imrion, and Bhexyllia to the westward, with the Great King.”
“May we tend the House’s wound, Xara Paledyn?” The swordsman stepped forward.
“Lay your sword on the ground and back away from it,” she said.
“I assure you, Xara—”
“Just do as I say.”
The man nodded, laid his sword flat on the ground, and backed away from it. Dhulyn picked it up without taking her eyes from anyone. Just as she thought. This was a real sword, not the jeweled toy the Noble Loraxin Feld had been wearing. At her nod, the two guards bent over their employer.
“It should come out of the thigh muscle quite easily with a little cutting,” she said. “Unless, of course, he’s complicated matters with all this squirming about.”
The crossbow bolt hadn’t penetrated very deeply into the man’s thigh, and they detached it quickly and cleanly using the method she had suggested. When it came to removing it from his hand, however, the two guards were clearly beyond their knowledge, though it seemed to Dhulyn that the swordsman at least was contemplating the risks involved in knocking his noble patron out.
“Allow me,” she suggested. “I am not a Knife, but it appears I’ve had more experience with wounds than you.” She nudged the crossbowman with her toe. “Bind the thigh wound, will you? And you,” she said, turning to the swordsman. “Brace him against your knees and hold his hand quite still.”
She’d noticed, in the brief time she’d held the thing, that the bolt itself was metal, but the fletching was the more ordinary feathers, glued to the metal shaft, and stiffened, no doubt, with the selfsame glue.
“Bring me some water.”
The crossbowman had finished with the man’s thigh wound, and now ran to the chair to fetch a large skin. Dhulyn accepted it with a nod, rinsed out her mouth, spat out the grit that had accumulated, rinsed again, and filled her mouth with water, swishing it through her teeth several times. Handing back the waterskin, she bent over and slipped the whole fletched section of the crossbow bolt into her mouth, losing only a few drops of water in the process.
The man’s hand smelled of scent—sandalwood and rose water if she was any judge—and just a little of sweat and old leather. She worried at the fletching with her teeth until the stiffened feathers were free of their glue and she could spit them out. She eased the now clean bolt through the man’s hand.
She glanced up. House Feld had fainted.
“Why not soak the fletching loose with just the water?” the swordsman said, as the other guard bound up the wound.
“It wastes water,” she said. “And saliva helps to dissolve the glue faster.” She picked up the skin again, rinsed out her mouth once more, and took several healthy swallows.
“I’m sure House Feld intended to offer you his chair, Paledyn,” the swordsman said. “But . . .” he raised his eyebrows and indicated the unconscious man he held against his knee.
Dhulyn almost smiled. “I would not have taken it,” she said. “Are we far from the table, roof, and bed that he did offer me?”
“We were on our way to Pont House, but we will return to Feld House at once, Paledyn.”
“You will call me Dhulyn Wolfshead,” she told him, walking back to the chair as the two guards lifted the unconscious noble.
She hesitated, causing both men to look over their shoulders at her. She waved them on and followed, feeling the slaves’ glances flick away from her as she neared them.
Loraxin Feld became aware of the sounds of sandals slapping lightly against the road surface; light voices conversing quietly. The smell of the chair carriers. His eyes fluttered open and what he saw made him struggle to sit up. The sun was at the wrong angle, they were heading in the wrong direction. A sharp pain in his hand, and a throb in his thigh brought everything back to him with a jolt.
The Paledyn.
His heart began to pound, and he forced himself to calm down, to take a deep breath. Could this finally be the opportunity he’d been seeking for so long? He’d been looking for a way to bring himself to the attention of the Tarxin, Light of the Sun. And rumor had it that the Tarxin, Light of the Sun, was looking for a Paledyn.
And now he, Loraxin Feld, had a Paledyn.
If she was a Paledyn. He chewed at his lower lip. Could a woman be a Paledyn? He had never heard of such a thing.
What if the whole thing was a trick? His neighbors playing some dangerous joke on him? He cursed himself for a shortsighted fool. If only he hadn’t been so quick to offer her roof, table, and bed. He was bound now, like it or not. Female or not. She could have been trained. And tattooed for that matter. He would need to devise some way of testing her. He closed his eyes and pretended he was st
ill asleep. Caids, his hand hurt.
Eight
XERWIN HAD NOT SEEN a great deal of his sister since her accident. Once Xendra was out of danger, he’d had to rejoin his Battle Wing on the southeastern frontier almost immediately. Somewhere in those foothills were camps that—among other things—were helping escaped slaves make it through the mountains. Xerwin couldn’t leave his men for very long; in the Tarxin’s armies, discipline was applied from the top down.
And it didn’t help that he was now Tar, and had so many more responsibilities. Xerwin had thought he was busy when all he had to worry about was the First Battle Wing and the Nomads. Though his father the Tarxin had taken the trade with the Nomads back into his own hands—and badly, Xerwin privately thought—other, more highly public duties had been added. Regular oversight of the Sanctuaries and the Libraries; inspections of the properties held directly by the Tarxinate; meetings with ambassadors—especially those from the land of his betrothed. He smiled, thinking of the headdress she had sent him, embroidered with her own hands. It would be a few years yet until she would be old enough to leave her father’s house.
And now, it seemed, his own sister was not likely to leave her father’s house. The Tarxin had agreed to break the betrothal to Naxot with very little argument. Had seemed, in fact, to be pleased with Xerwin for suggesting it.
“A very good thought, young one,” he’d said, his harsh voice unusually warm. “I begin to think you may actually have the brain of a Tarxin under all that armor. It’s not enough, as I’ve often told you, to be a good soldier.”
Maybe not, Xerwin thought. Still, this latest breach with the Nomads hadn’t happened on his watch—but his father was still speaking.
“A Storm Witch is too valuable a tool to waste in breeding.”
“But she’ll be sent to the temple of the Slain God.” At least, that’s what Naxot had told him.
“Ridiculous. Oh, they’ll ask for her, of course. Let them. They’ve no more notion of what to do with a real Holy Woman than my dog has. Old Telxorn is trembling in his sandals at the very idea that someone with higher status than his may come to live at his temple. Besides, I’m still Tarxin here, and she is still my daughter. Let them send whatever priests or attendants she must have. But Telxorn has agreed that Xendra is better left here.”
After a hefty donation to the temple. Xerwin was smart enough to keep that thought to himself. His older brother, the previous Tar, had died of expressing himself too freely. Well, probably, Xerwin thought, as he strode down the corridor toward his sister’s apartments, delegated to tell her of the change in her betrothal, now that she was too valuable a tool to waste in breeding.
He wondered how his sister would like being such a valuable tool.
The guards at Xendra’s door came to attention and saluted him, but did not stand aside, or open the doors to her suite to allow him to enter. He smiled and raised his eyebrows, where his father would have raised his staff.
“Gorn and Tashek, isn’t it?” he said, dredging their names out of his memory. It was this kind of detail, his old general had taught him, that made men willing to follow you anywhere. “A reason I should not enter?” He nodded at the door, prepared to be given some girlish excuse.
“No one is to enter, my Tar,” Swordsman Gorn said. “Orders of the Tarxin, Light of the Sun.”
Xerwin’s heart was suddenly in his throat. “Has something happened to her? Has her illness returned?”
The door was suddenly flung open from the inside. “Do you think you’re making enough noise? I—Oh, I beg your pardon Tar Xerwin, I didn’t see you there.”
At any other time, or with any other person, the abrupt change of tone would have been funny. It wasn’t Kendraxa in the doorway, but Finexa Delso, one of Xendra’s newer attendants. And she was giving him the kind of smile women at court had increasingly given him since his brother had . . . died.
“The Swordsmen were just telling me that no one is to enter here, Xara Finexa. On my father’s orders. But it’s on his orders that I’ve come.”
“Oh, Tar Xerwin, surely the Tarxin, Light of the Sun, couldn’t have meant you.” Finexa fluttered her eyelashes and extended her hand as if she was about to touch him on the arm. Xerwin wasn’t averse to female companionship, but he preferred those with considerably more discretion than Finexa Delso practiced.
“I’ll just see that the Tara is ready to receive you, Tar Xerwin,” the woman murmured in an even more honeyed voice before turning and walking to the inner door, hips swaying.
Since her back was turned, Xerwin permitted himself a small sigh and did his best not to grimace when the door opened again and Finexa beckoned him in with smiles and demure looks.
He stood blinking at the state of the room while the woman closed the doors behind him. Much of the furniture had been pushed against the walls, and Xendra’s usual pastimes—her sewing, her collection of costumed dolls, and her box of vera tiles—showed evidence of neglect. Large maps had been spread across the center of the room, where a little grouping of padded chairs and small tables had always stood. Ornaments of glass, metal, and stone had been taken down from the shelves and ledges to keep the edges of the maps from curling up.
In the center of this, on her knees, was his sister Xendra. She sat back on her heels as he came in, still frowning down at the maps in front of her.
A bruise darkened her right cheek, and Xerwin felt instant rage, clenching his hands into fists. Almost immediately, he realized that there was only one person who could have struck the Tara of Mortaxa. The one person against whom even the Tar of Mortaxa could take no vengeance.
Their father. The Tarxin.
When Xendra finally raised her eyes to his, he’d had enough time to relax his fists, take a deep breath, and smile, though he found he was still angry.
And then his anger was gone, vanished like a drop of water hitting a blade being hammered at the blacksmith’s forge. In the instant that their eyes met, Xendra had looked at him as though she did not know him. And while she was now smiling, and nodding, and getting to her feet, Xerwin still had the uneasy feeling that all her recognition was on the surface.
“I expected Kendraxa,” he said, grasping at any thought that might explain his sister’s oddness. “Is she ill today?”
“I don’t know,” Xendra said. Her tone was curiously flat, and her answer definitely unexpected. Xerwin would have wagered his best short sword that Xendra had known her nurse Kendraxa’s exact whereabouts ever since she was old enough to toddle after the noblewoman.
“The Tarxin sent for her yesterday morning, after the thunder-storm,” his sister continued. She was standing now, but still frowning down at her maps. “I haven’t seen her since.”
“You didn’t ask?”
At this question, Xendra looked up. “I assumed the Tarxin had other duties for her.”
Xerwin swallowed, temporarily speechless. What could possibly have happened that would lead Xendra to speak of her dearest companion in that cool, matter-of-fact voice? And did it have anything to do with the bruise on Xendra’s face?
Kendraxa had never had any other duties in this House but attendance on Xendra. She had come to the capital with Xendra’s mother for the express purpose of looking after the children of the royal marriage. Unless Xendra herself sent the woman away, their father would probably not even remember Kendraxa existed.
And Xendra had never before called their father “the Tarxin.” Never. When they were alone together she had always called him “Father.”
Xendra was changed, he thought, and in more ways than even Naxot had suggested.
That reminded him. “I have news from our father,” he said. “I don’t know whether it will be welcome to you.”
She looked up again, eyes narrowed, face set like stone. Whatever it was that had passed between his sister and his father, Xendra at least had not put it behind her.
“You are no longer betrothed,” he said—and stopped. He could have sworn t
hat an expression of relief had flitted over Xendra’s face.
“I’m sure the Tarxin, Light of the Sun, had his reasons,” she said.
Xerwin licked his lips. What was happening? A suspicion began to form in the back of his mind, one that he studiously ignored.
“It was Naxot,” he said. “The Scholars of his House told him that you were a Holy Woman now, and that Brides of the Slain God didn’t marry in the ordinary way.”
“I see,” she said. “Well.” She looked around her at her maps. “I do expect to be quite busy with my other duties. You might tell the Tarxin that I’m working very hard, when you see him.”
“Do you have any message for Naxot?”
“Who?”
“Naxot. Of House Lilso. Your former betrothed.”
This time it was her turn to stand, blinking. “Please say whatever you think appropriate,” she said finally.
The floating, hazy uneasiness that had been with him since he’d come into the room suddenly solidified. There had been that moment when it seemed Xendra hadn’t recognized him. Then her total lack of concern for Kendraxa. Now she appeared not to remember a man she’d been making moon eyes at her whole life.
Who are you? Once again, hard-won caution kept him from speaking his suspicions aloud. In fact, it might be better to pretend that he had noticed nothing unusual, at least, until he had a chance to find out more.
Which begged the question. Did his father know? Xendra’s accident seemed to have done more than give her the powers of a Storm Witch. But was this simply memory loss that was being concealed, or—Xerwin could hardly form the thought—was this in some way no longer his sister?
He made what excuses he could—it wasn’t hard, she was already focusing on her maps—and almost ran out of his sister’s rooms. When he found himself heading for the Tarxin’s wing, he slowed. He needed to know more before he confronted his father—if he did so at all. Xerwin tapped his fingers on the leather-wrapped hilt of his formal sword. He needed more information. Who would be likely to have it?
He nodded slowly, lower lip between his teeth.
The Storm Witch Page 11
