Fires of Aggar

by Chris Anne Wolfe

  “Suspicions others in Khirla share, perhaps?” Brit challenged.

  Rutkins shrugged uncomfortably and settled his stance more solidly. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Then you might think on it,” Brit returned quietly.

  There was a pause and eventually a short nod. But it was admission enough that he would consider the notions. “Might I suggest something to you in turn — as a friend?”

  “That it might be expedient to go tonight? With the others that are already packing for earlier-than-planned departures?”

  “Might be wise, at that.” Again he moved uneasily, his broad back still turned. “Especially with you being a healer, Amazon. I don’t know, but if I was them I’d start thinking this old woman Tessie chattered to her associates a bit. Maybe she chattered a bit too much? Any rate, it’s a risk to consider.”

  “In truth.” Brit drew a tired breath and touched Sparrow’s elbow lightly. “Let’s go see the damage done to us, Soroi. ”

  “Mother’s Wind ride with you.” Rutkins added, glancing back one last time to catch Brit’s eye. He nodded to Sparrow as well. “With the both of you.”

  “With all of us,” Brit amended and pulled her shadowmate along with her, carefully skirting the edges of the firelight and torches.

  They’d be better off than many, Sparrow guessed. They’d arrived late and had been parked fairly well towards the back fringes of the encampments. Yet, she still felt her mouth sour with the bile of memories. The wreckage tonight wasn’t as thorough nor as bloody as many pillaged camps that she had seen during the Changlings’ Wars — nor during the drunken conflicts between the acrobats’ caravan and the swindled townfolks in her childhood days. But it was the same too — the violence and the bullies — a piece of it always seemed the same.

  “I’m sorry—” Sparrow pulled back from her thoughts abruptly, belatedly realizing that Brit must have been speaking to her because the sound of Brit’s gristly grumble seemed suddenly absent.

  But Brit’s smile was soft as it turned to her. Despite the dark shadows’ dance in the wavering torch light and the grimy smudges across her face, the warm glow of Brit’s gentle understanding reached in to touch Sparrow’s aching soul with sweetness. The breath caught in Sparrow’s throat. Their tenderness dissolved the night’s woe. And for just an instant Sparrow felt the peace of their heartbond utterly suspend time and tears. An answering chord gently curved a smile across her own lips.

  The night noises began to intrude again, filtering in and bringing awareness back to the world at large.

  Guiltily, Sparrow ducked under Brit’s strong arm to offer what support she could. Her partner’s stiffened gait bespoke of bruises yet to rise. Brit squeezed her lightly with a hug, at once both grateful for the help and reassuring in their love.

  “What were you saying?” Sparrow prodded quietly.

  They picked their way through the rubble and scattered folk for a moment or two before Brit answered. “I was wondering how your own endeavors had gone earlier?”

  Brit’s voice was kept low, its tone as neutral as the words were vague. But Sparrow knew that was for the benefit of any who might be overhearing them, not from any lack of interest.

  “I noticed,” Brit continued softly, “that your right hand’s a bit swollen.”

  “I’ll wrap it before I go for the horses,” Sparrow promised. Inside, she felt inexplicably wonderful, though. That lingering sense of their specialness was still warm within her. “Aside from my hand, I think it went well.”

  “Hmm,” Brit picked up her skirts to shake a foot as the ankle of her trousers caught on a bit of broken timber. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “There were no surprises.” The grimness crept back into her voice as Sparrow remembered that silver sheen caught by the moon’s light she had reflected in her mirror. She would have preferred to prove Brit and Gwyn wrong, however; she had no fondness for the Clan’s weapons regardless of who might wield them. She could not believe anyone would harbor those things for anything but evil interests.

  “No surprises, huh? That’s a pity.” Brit sighed heavily, leaning more of her bulky, old weight into Sparrow’s shoulder.

  Sparrow’s heart lifted at her lover’s trust. She knew it had taken Brit a very long time to learn there was strength in this spindly, little shape of a shadowmate-lover. And she knew that tonight was the kind of night her beloved needed tangible reminders of that strength. She sighed, feeling comforted in knowing that this was one thing she could offer. And in this small way, she freed Brit — bolstered her with renewed confidence — to pursue and unravel the answers that ultimately might make things better for them all. Sparrow shifted her grasp to fit herself closer to Brit as the memories of past wreckage finally retreated from her mind’s eye completely.

  “Was there a way to deal with what you did find?”

  Brit’s question returned Sparrow to the issue of the armory’s fire weapons. “I left the glass and palm mirrors in place as you suggested. The window vents were fairly high. I doubt anyone’s going to get a glimpse enough to start suspicions, not even from the reflections. Least, not before late mid-day. And by then, it’ll be too late.”

  Brit nodded. The sulfur compound she’d mixed was very sensitive.

  Sparrow shrugged slightly, still beneath Brit’s arm. “Some bird or pripper might change the angles.”

  “For one maybe. Unlikely that both would get shifted too far aside.”

  “We hope.” They both knew it’d only take one focused little thread of bright light to set off that powder — and subsequently the chain reactions from the weapons’ own explosive fuels.

  “We could be a good ways away by mid-day,” Brit observed absently. “We can probably skip off the roads earlier, forget the trading stop in the sou-east village altogether. With so many leaving, the tracks are going to be confused for leagues. It’ll certainly save us time.”

  Sparrow glanced at her quickly, frowning.

  “It would be foolish not to go.”

  “What?” Sparrow felt the anxiety stab beneath her breast as she suddenly realized what Brit was implying. “You can’t be thinking of staying? Not now. Not after this… this rampage against healers! Brit, it’s not safe!”

  “No, it’s not.” Eyes narrowed shrewdly as if weighing some distant stakes in a gambling game. “There’s more to this than we see, though.”

  Sparrow considered that a moment. It was a thought that wouldn’t have occurred to her. But then, bullies in arrogant, drunken attacks — that was a plausible rationale for most any violence in her opinion, given her personal history. But Brit thought in terms of power and plots, not merely in terms of loyalties and lusts. So through the seasons, Sparrow had come to realize that those using power often hid behind the facade of brainless lusts.

  “All right,” Sparrow allowed that Brit’s experience might be better suited to interpreting tonight’s events. “Should we stay or go?”

  “We go.” The older woman pursed her lips with an irritated frown. “It’d be too conspicuous not to. And we have a Sister needing our help.”

  But, you don’t like it in the least, Sparrow read shrewdly. Her Love didn’t like to be manipulated into doing anything. And the more Sparrow thought about it, the more she had to agree. In one form or another, it seemed that they were indeed being run out of the city…. She knew Brit would have preferred knowing just a little bit more about why.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Chapter Two

  “Llinolae?” Gwyn crouched low just outside of the cave-like den of the tree roots, holding a cloth bundle and cake of soap. The early afternoon air was humid and heavy with the promise of rain shortly, and she wasn’t about to waste the opportunities a storm could present right now. Softly, she called again, “Llinolae?”

  There was a sudden rustle. Then stillness was followed with a tentative, “Yes?”

  “The rains will start soon.”

  “Yes.” A shadowy figure resolved i
nto Llinolae’s disheveled self. She crawled out into the light with a blanket in hand. “Thank you for the rest. It has helped.”

  “Would a quick scrub and a fresh shirt help more?” Gwyn gestured at her armload with a lopsided grin. “Wish I could offer more, but most of my gear trotted off with Nia and Ty. And we won’t meet up with them for another day or two.”

  Llinolae’s blue eyes flickered between the soap and the game trail behind them. The tip of her tongue brushed her lower lip almost hungrily, and her hoarse voice carried a note of yearning, “Dare we?”

  “Aye! Come on!” Gwyn tugged her gently by the wrist, and Llinolae discarded the blanket in eager compliance. The creek babbled and called from below the short slope, and in little time the two of them had scurried down to meet the bubbling waters. Lithe, Gwyn hopped across the stones to a flat rock in mid-stream that sat beneath a drooping, young honeywood. She tossed the towel and tunic over a limb as if it were a clothes rack and found the soap a rocky niche next to her feet. Laces fumbled loose, she went to strip that smoke-tainted vest and tunic from her body, glancing up quickly to Llinolae on the shore. Abruptly their gazes caught and they both froze, each stayed with fists full of fabric and arms cris-crossed in preparation of shedding their shirts. Then just as suddenly they were grinning like fools and sharing in silent laughter as they peeled out of the grimy clothes.

  As Llinolae left the short trousers on the shore and waded into the ankle deep stream, Gwyn felt herself go still again. She didn’t even move when the soap was snatched from its rocky shelf. She stood, half in shock from the swatch of bruises beneath Llinolae’s left breast and half in stunned amazement at the sheer beauty of the lean body before her. Even smudged with soot and mud, her skin pale except for those purpled abuses of limbs and ribs, even with that hacked mess of a hair cut, this woman was beautiful. Tall as Gwyn was herself, small breasted with darkened nipples that grew taut in the splashing rinse of the creek’s waters, sleek with strength and decisiveness in those quick movements — all converged to tie Gwyn’s tongue in a way that hadn’t been done since her adolescence. Speechless, she barely managed to draw a breath, and she felt a sudden rush of warmth as her skin flushed into that burnished gold of the richest apricot which so easily gave her emotions away — as if a Blue Sight would need obvious demonstrations!

  Llinolae looked to her then, offering a puzzled but friendly sort of smile, and Gwyn started, realizing her arms were still bound in front by those half-removed garments. Yet as she discarded those things, all she could grasp was how much more attractive that smile and those eyes were with the dirty smudges washed away from them.

  Gwyn squatted low to wet her own face and grinned a little self-derisively at just how fast her heart was beating. It was undoubtedly prudent to refrain from washing more than her top and hair today. She had no need to make a more foolish spectacle out of herself than she was already managing. Standing stark naked before a good friend was one thing, doing it in front of a graceful, lean and handsome woman who just happened to have the Blue Sight, then tell her why you’d suddenly become a stuttering youngster, was more than even a Niachero’s ego could stand.

  They scrubbed in silence for a time, but as Gwyn straightened and offered Llinolae the first use of the single towel, the other waved it aside. “You need it more. You’re chilled already.” Then as she bent to have another try at her hair, Llinolae asked, “Are all Amazons so susceptible to cold water?”

  Gwyn accepted the polite evasion with a faint shake of her head, appreciative of the graceful excuse for her darkened skin tones. “Only some of us. Most of Valley Bay’s Sisters have been much better bred than us throwbacks.”

  “Does that explain the hair also?”

  Gwyn crooked an eyebrow high, pausing briefly in running the towel through her shoulder length tangles.

  “I’ve never seen anything like…” The woman hesitated, shrugging slightly. “The color — I don’t know what to call it.”

  “Red.” Gwyn grinned a bit wickedly and sent the bunched towel flying at a startled Llinolae.

  “Red?” A baffled amazement backed the denial. “No, it’s fair. Almost like some of the Clan folk, I’ll admit, but I’d not call it red.”

  “Well, we do. And it comes in shades as dark as a bay mare’s hide, as bright as a copper tile or as light as this feathery stuff.”

  That brought a hint of mischief alive in those blue eyes, and Llinolae challenged, “Feathery? Or straggly?”

  “It’s wet. What else would you expect?” But it was a happy retort, and a suspiciously pleased sort of titillating tingle stayed with her as Gwyn tugged the clean tunic from the tree limb and passed it to the woman. She sighed then, resignedly retrieving her own smoke-scented vest and shirt. With a flap or two, she separated the garments and tried to air the tunic better, but she knew that wasn’t going to make much difference. Oh well, think of poor Nia trudging around with that gear for four days without respite.

  “Marshal?” the whisper held warning.

  Gwyn spun about, in one motion tugging her shirt into place and her belt’s dagger from its sheath. Llinolae’s cautious nod directed her towards the slope’s crest, and she heaved a sigh of immense relief at Ril’s bright-eyed pant.

  “Dumauz! Scare us a bit more and you’ll be dodging steel blades! What were you thinking?”

  Ril whined a faint apology, then her dark ears perked up through her ruff as her body went taut in alertness. Gwyn silently made her way across the rocks, listening with all the concentration her bondpack had ever taught her. A faint rumble of thunder descended. The hushed scurry of small animals and the cooler touch of the stream’s waters carried on the breezes. She glanced back at Ril, “But no Clan scouts?”

  A sneeze-like dip answered her emphatically, and Gwyn was satisfied.

  “Good. We’ll be away from here soon.” Llinolae’s stillness registered then, and Gwyn touched the woman’s arm lightly in reassurance. “This is Ril, one of my bondpack. Ril, this is Llinolae — Khirlan’s wayward Dracoon, no less.”

  Ril flicked her ears forward in brief greeting. Then quite oddly she vanished, leaving Gwyn with a frown of confusion.

  “One of your bondmates?” Llinolae pressed, sliding back into the short trousers hurriedly. “You’ve more than one sandwolf with you?”

  “There’re three of us,” Gwyn muttered absently, still worriedly gazing after Ril. But as the thunder rolled again, they were both reminded to move for camp. As they topped the crest, Gwyn shook her unease aside and continued more sociably. “There’s Ril, Ty and myself. At the moment, Ty’s leading my third mount, Nia, on a meandering chase north that will lead the Clan scouts astray — I hope. It may take them a while to notice you didn’t burn in that building, but I’d wager most anything that they will notice.”

  “Aye, they will.” The Dracoon too was grimly certain of that.

  “With this storm though, Ty will turn Nia back. Like us, she’ll take advantage of the rain to cover their tracks. If we all keep off the worn game trails and the Trader’s Road, this leaf mulch and rain will leave precious little trace of us.”

  “Oh yes.” Llinolae seemed to pull her wits together with an impatient, internal little shake. “That’s why risk the bathing….”

  “This storm has the earmarks of a heavy one.” Gwyn eyed her companion with concern. “The rains will wipe out any signs of us in the camp and down at the stream.”

  “Which I should have realized myself,” Llinolae admitted ruefully. “Seems my head’s not quite functioning yet.”

  “That was a nasty blow they gave you yesterday.”

  At Gwyn’s gentled tone, a sarcastic curl twisted the slender line of Llinolae’s lips. “Small blessings are favors too. I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Disgruntled, Gwyn glanced above at the darkening skies beyond the forest canopy. Those patches of ghostly glows were becoming duller by the moment. She couldn’t tell if the cloud cover was thicken
ing or if the early moon was preparing to set. She thought it was too soon for the latter, but given her nerves tonight that internal clock might well be wrong.

  And they were still a good league from the gorge — Mae n’Pour!

  Cinder shied as Ril emerged from the wooded shadows, and impatiently Gwyn kneed her mare back into obedience, but not before the sharp ‘clack’ betrayed a hoof striking against some rock or other. Gwyn admitted defeat with that hollow ring. They weren’t going to make the valley floor before sunrise. At this rate they weren’t even going to make the gorge edge without leaving a trail akin to a wounded buntsow’s! The horses were stumbling around in the dark, the wind was chilled and picking up, and nothing but more rain and darker hours were to come. Certainly the sliver of the midnight moon tonight wouldn’t cut through this overcast by itself, and if that early Twin was on the verge of setting, then they really did need to find shelter soon. And if the early moon wasn’t setting, then the second half of this storm was going to be worse than Gwyn wanted to think about!

  “Either is a good reason to hole up for the rest of the night,” Gwyn muttered. Ril nudged her booted ankle with relieved agreement. It was enough to make Gwyn smile again. “All right, old friend. I stand rebuked. Now tell me — have you some place in mind already?”

  Ril trotted off the game trail with an eagerness that made Gwyn chuckle, and they all followed. She should have known.

  From behind Cinder, Calypso grunted with a weary satisfaction. The mare knew from long experience how the abrupt change in manner from a sandwolf meant the day’s trek was nearly done. Gwyn couldn’t blame either of her mares, nor the weary slump of the cloaked figure astride Calypso — she’d been pushing them hard. The more distance they claimed between rains, the fewer clues would be left for the Clan scouts. But even her own aching muscles attested to the fact that none of them were invincible. It was time to rest.