Thunderlord

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “You’re looking better.” She shoved the wood into Edric’s hands and bent to inspect the roasting meat.

  A short time later, both of them were sitting on the insulated ground, contentedly chewing on the bones. Kyria had packed the water skins with snow the night before, and it had melted, leaving delicious water.

  “How did you do all this?” Edric gestured at the fire and the remains of their meal. “And how did you know how to make a shelter?”

  “My younger brother Rakhal taught me trapping, and I picked up the rest along the way. I used to trap game in the winter, when food supplies ran thin.”

  By her accent, she was well-born. “That wasn’t a problem with your family?”

  “For a long time, Father pretended not to notice, so long as I was careful. Alayna kept teasing me that I was going to get into trouble, running all over the mountains in my brother’s cast-off clothes. Really, why should it make a difference if I wear skirts or breeches at home? The traps work just as well and people have to eat. Eventually, I had to reconcile myself to the fate of women everywhere. At least my father was able to arrange an advantageous”—she put a slight, derisive twist on the word—“match for me.”

  “I, for one, am glad of your skills,” Edric said, licking a drop of fat off his fingers.

  “I’d rather not have needed them.” She glanced skyward. “At least, my sister is well cared for.”

  Edric heard the longing in her voice and yearned to ease it. “Soon you will be reunited and all this will be no more than a fireside tale.”

  For a moment, she was silent. Then: “I borrowed your knife, the one in your boot.” She slipped it out from the top of her own boot and offered it, hilt first, to him.

  “You’d best keep it for the time being.”

  After a little silence, they discussed how to proceed. Without the supplies carried by the pack horse, they’d have to stop every day with enough time to trap more game, slowing their progress and keeping them in the heights longer, which increased their risk from weather and other hazards. They were still below the tree line, but banshees had been known to hunt at lower altitudes if the snow was deep enough. The mare needed to forage, and there was little grass here, even if she could reach it through the snow. In the end, they decided to remain in their shelter long enough to trap and cook enough meat for a day or two.

  The next morning brought a catch of two more hares and a rabbit-horn. They ate the fattest portion of the rabbit-horn and set another portion aside in the snow for dinner, then sliced the lean meat and hung it on a primitive tripod over a small, smoky fire to preserve it. The process took an entire day. As they worked, they talked of inconsequential things or of the work. Once they had finished preserving the last of the meat strips, however, the issue of their destination would have to be faced.

  Edric found his opening as they finished their evening meal. Everything had been made ready for an early start the next morning, and night had fallen. The only light was the cook fire at the entrance to their shelter, but he would not need to see Kyria’s expression to know her feelings.

  “We cannot go back the way we came,” he began. “The rock fall made that trail impassable. So we must trust that this trail leads to a settlement—a village or small estate—and then to a road that will take us to one of the passages through these mountains. It’s clearly in use, although not by large numbers of travelers.” Although he did not say so aloud, the trail had been leading in the approximate direction of Aldaran.

  “When we were strangers, sharing a traveler’s shelter together, we observed shelter-truce,” he went on when she did not comment. “We refrained from asking or offering our full names and destinations. If I am to escort you to your promised husband, I must know who he is.”

  “He will not want me now.”

  Even in the dim light of the dying fire, Edric caught the heated color as it swept across her cheeks. “I was in the hands of the lawless men of Sain Erach, and then alone, unescorted, with a man not my kin. I may be countrified and unsophisticated, but even I know what everyone will assume. And a man like my,” she paused, took a deep breath, “like my promised husband will not take to wife any woman who is not—who has—”

  Feeling Kyria’s distress as sharply as if it had been his own, Edric reached out his hand and took hers. The touch of her skin sent a ripple of awareness all through him. A look, a movement, a breath would catapult that awareness into love.

  Edric had forgotten the sexual prudery of the world outside Tower walls. In a matrix circle, minds and hearts knew no barriers, and matters such as physical intimacy were discussed openly. No one could hide attraction, nor was it healthy to do so. Because sexual energy flowed through the same channels as laran, pent-up frustration could cause dangerous blockages. In his time at Tramontana, Edric had enjoyed several lovers, mostly women. Their only promises to one another had been honesty. All had parted on affectionate, respectful terms.

  “Surely your promised husband knew you to be a woman of virtue when he chose you? He will believe you, rather than appearances.”

  “Would that were so.” Kyria shook her head. “He has never laid eyes on me, nor me on him.” The light from the coals glittered on her unshed tears. “My father never insisted on an arranged marriage, but they offered such a large bride-price, how could I refuse? Oh, Edric, I have not the words for what that meant to us! Our future secure—and a dowry for Alayna! I never dreamed I would be able to save my entire family. How could I not agree? But that hope is gone now that my virtue has been tarnished. I am of no value to my promised husband. He will think himself well rid of me.”

  So wrought up was Edric with the aftermath of their escape, the psychic closeness catalyzed by physical touch, and by Kyria’s plight that he acted without thinking. He took her face between his hands, holding her with all the tenderness he could pour into the gesture. She closed her eyes, lashes dark against the rose blush of her cheeks, and lifted her face to his. The next moment, his mouth pressed to hers.

  He had kissed women before, and lain with them, but never before had he done so with his heart so open, utterly without reservation. In that kiss, he offered himself to her, everything he was or could ever hope to be. He had no expectation that she might return his feelings, he knew only that they flowed from him without hesitation.

  “Sweet Cassilda, who is this fool of a lord?” he asked once he could draw breath. “Tell me his name that I might challenge him for your hand.” Insofar as he was capable of rational thought, he meant the words as romantic nonsense, but she took them seriously.

  “My betrothed is Gwynn-Alar, Lord of Scathfell, and I believe he will relinquish his claim on me for a mere blade of grass. As for my own consent, you have had my heart since the first moment I saw you.”

  Scathfell! Of all the Zandru-cursed lords on the face of Darkover, why did it have to be Scathfell?

  He pulled away, his heart aching under the weight of the world.

  “What’s wrong?”

  For a wild moment, he considered denying anything was the matter, rather than attempting to list the ways his brief moment of happiness had been shattered. His mind churned with old history and present realities. What had he been thinking? He could not marry the daughter of an impoverished lordling, without power or strategic alliances, not even to spite his most bitter enemy. Not even to follow the dictates of his heart.

  Before he could draw breath, an ululating cry broke the silence outside. It lifted and fell in a long, eerie wail, echoing off the mountainside so that Edric could not tell from which direction it had come. But he knew what it was. Only one creature hunted by night in these mountains, its cry terrifying its prey into immobility.

  11

  When Kyria clasped her hands over her ears, Edric’s instincts urged him to do the same, to shut out the banshee’s cry. It was said to drive men mad, but he had never before understood
why. The sound pulsed, throbbing, until it vibrated his eardrums and seemed to fill his skull, driving out all rational thought. And then it subsided. But he had learned discipline at Tramontana, how to overcome physical discomforts and to master his fears. In a working matrix circle, a lapse on the part of any one worker might have disastrous consequences for them all. Now he drew Kyria to him, held her close against his body, and forced himself to listen.

  The banshee wailed again, louder now. The cry rose and swelled, shrill and eerie, cresting and dying down, only to begin again. The mare snorted and tossed her head; the whites of her eyes showed as gleaming crescents. Yes, the banshee’s cry was definitely louder. The thing must be coming closer.

  “The fire!” Kyria started toward the opening to the shelter, where the embers still glowed red. “It’ll draw the banshee. They hunt by warmth. We have to put it out!”

  He grabbed her arm and stopped her before she could scatter the remains of the fire. “Listen to me! The banshee will come to the fire, yes, but it will seek out the hottest object first. That will give us a chance to get away. Or find a way to kill it.”

  “Kill a banshee? Are you insane?”

  Edric wanted to laugh, but there was no time to point out that she’d asked the same question when he’d rescued her from Sain Erach.

  “We have no weapons, unless you count that little cooking knife,” she went on. “Or do you propose to bring it down with your bare hands?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.” He spun her around toward the fire. “Build it up! Hurry!”

  He rushed to the flimsiest portion of their shelter, the place where the snow-covered branches were thinnest. He seized the nearest branch, and by luck it was thin enough to snap. One after another, he broke the ones he could and bent back others. Some were sturdy as trunks and refused to yield. He left them. The draped shelter shook under the force of his assault. Bits of bark flew up and the roughness of the wood bit into his gloves, but he kept on. In the corner of his vision, the fire flared up. Bless all the gods, Kyria was so competent.

  Clumps of snow slid down on top of him, and the wind coming through the opening felt just as cold. The opening was now big enough for a person to slip through, if they didn’t mind splinters, but not the horse. And Star’s speed was their only hope of getting away while the banshee occupied itself with the fire.

  “The mare!” Edric shouted over his shoulder. “Saddle her! And hurry!”

  He kept pulling and shoving, grabbing one branch after another. Then the banshee let out another wail. Its nerve-rending, unearthly cry sounded even louder now. Closer. The mare whinnied, on the edge of terror, and he heard Kyria’s voice, soothing the horse as she wrestled with the last buckles.

  “Done!” she exclaimed.

  Edric left the opening, hoping that a determined effort would be enough to pass an unmounted horse. Lather now covered the mare’s neck. Her sweat smelled acrid. She threw her head back as he grabbed the reins. Through his gloved touch, he felt the tension in her body and how close she was to breaking.

  “Easy, easy.” Edric reached out for the horse with his mind as well as his words. Star lowered her head just a fraction.

  “Hold her,” Edric said, thrusting the reins into Kyria’s hands. “Stay under the branches. The snow will mask the heat from your bodies. If the banshee gets past me, you’ll have to push your way through the opening. Wait until you’re outside to mount up. Promise me that this time, you’ll keep going.”

  “And you? What will you be doing?” Kyria said as she led the mare to the opening. “You’re going to make an idiotic stand, the way you did back at the river?”

  “Promise me.”

  She glared at him, mutinous. The blaze burnished her cheeks like sunrise.

  “Star can’t carry both of us, not at the speed you’ll need to outpace that thing,” he said. “At least one of us will get away.”

  “I won’t—there must be another way—”

  Her protest was overpowered by another wail, so loud it shook the branches of the shelter. A horse-sized shape emerged from the darkness. Edric caught a blurred glimpse of a stormcloud-gray body that tapered to a naked neck and head, like that of an enormous kyorebni, the vulture of the heights. Fleshy discs took the place of eyes. The firelight gleamed on its sharp, hooked beak. The banshee paced back and forth on the far side of the fire, snaking its head down toward the flames. It was searching . . . hunting.

  “Go!” Edric shouted at Kyria, who stared at the banshee as if ensnared, her expression one of horror.

  The mare tried to rear, slamming the back of her head into the branches. She plunged back to earth, trembling. The banshee wailed, in full hunting mode now. The movement of the horse must have engaged its tracking instincts.

  Desperate to distract the banshee, Edric lunged to one side of the fire. “Hey!” he yelled, waving his arms. “Here I am! Come get me!”

  Quicker than Edric would have thought possible, the banshee darted toward him. The fire was still too high for the enormous bird to scale, assuming it could jump at all, but it moved around the fire with terrifying speed. Edric sprinted to the other side of the fire. The banshee changed direction. Again he swerved, and again the gigantic bird followed him. It was fast, almost supernaturally so, and the lack of eyes didn’t hamper it.

  From the far end, Edric heard the shuffling of hoofs and Kyria’s voice as she tried to soothe the mare. Momentarily distracted, he stumbled, on what he couldn’t see, and barely avoided sprawling on the ground. Before he’d gotten back to his feet, the banshee had come most of the way around the fire.

  “Edric, watch out!” Kyria screamed.

  No longer separated by the fire, the banshee was almost on him. Its bulky body loomed over him. He noticed for the first time the thick webs between the toes, toes that ended in curved, talon-sharp claws. This close, the carrion stench of the creature almost overpowered him. His muscles refused to obey him. He watched with horrified fascination as the banshee tipped its head, preparing for a disemboweling strike with its beak.

  A fist-sized knot of wood sailed past Edric and smacked into the banshee’s skull, striking near the beak. The banshee skittered to a halt, hissing and swinging its head from side to side, trying to make out the direction of the attack.

  Edric kicked the edge of the fire. His boot toe lodged underneath one of the larger sticks and sent it hurling into the air. Cinders flew up in a fountain of burning debris. With a squawk of frustration, the banshee recoiled, giving Edric enough to time to make it to the other side of the fire.

  The banshee recovered more quickly than Edric thought possible, and he found himself darting and weaving again, trying to keep the fire between himself and the banshee.

  This game couldn’t go on for long. Eventually the fire would die down, or he would tire or lose his footing again. Either way, the banshee would be on him in a moment. Kyria had gotten in a lucky shot, but chunks of wood made a poor defense. He had to find a way to slow the banshee down or interfere with its ability to sense movement. He had no weapons except his bare hands, not that they’d be any use against that wickedly hooked beak.

  Think! He could not tell if the interior voice was his own or that of his Keeper back at Tramontana Tower, who had berated him so many times for acting on impulse.

  The banshee sensed heat and movement—how? Those flat, fleshy discs on either side of its head? Nervous systems carried tiny electrical currents. Perhaps the banshees used those same currents to detect changes in their surroundings.

  Electrical currents. The same energy as lightning, lightning that he could control. It wouldn’t be the same as calling a storm or sending bolt after bolt smashing into an army. He needed only to confuse the banshee, blind it until he and Kyria could get away.

  To buy a morsel of time, he danced back and forth, forcing the banshee to change direction several time
s in succession. As fast as it was, he was more nimble. He reached for his laran, for that place within his mind that could not only detect but manipulate electrical energy. Normally, he’d use his starstone, but there was no time to take it out and focus through it.

  As his vision shifted, the banshee’s body appeared doubled, one an opaque gray shape, the other a network of luminous threads that condensed into nodes of brightness. The brightest lay in the center of the bird’s skull, attached by glowing ribbons to the fleshy discs.

  Again the banshee’s wail filled the shelter. With doubled sight, Edric watched as the banshee gathered itself and charged straight through the fire. It crouched and pulled back its neck to strike, but before that hooked beak shot out, Kyria leaped at it from the side. The bird staggered under the impact. She stepped lightly on to the flexed upper leg. The next instant, she swung up on its back, straddling the banshee like a rearing pony. One arm went around the front of the neck while the other drew back. The firelight flashed on metal in her hand—the cooking knife!—just before she plunged the blade into one of the fleshy plates.

  With a cry even more terrible than its hunting wail, the banshee hurled itself up and backward. Its head jammed into the branches at the shelter entrance. Droplets of blood sprayed in all directions. Wrenching free, it threw its head from side to side with such violence that Kyria went flying.

  Kyria landed on the remains of their bed, and the dried needles cushioned her fall. She scrambled to her feet and assumed a fighting crouch, but she no longer had a weapon. The knife remained lodged in the banshee’s head.

  As quickly as he could, Edric mentally grasped the glowing ribbons in the banshee’s energy body. When he tried to wrench them apart, they resisted his efforts. Pain raced along his nerves. He took the pain, reversed it, and poured it back into the banshee’s channels. The nodes and ribbons brightened. He drove laran energy into the banshee’s nervous system, as much and as fast as he could muster. It felt as if he were stripping his own nerves raw, shoving psychic energy through himself at a brutal rate. A red hue washed across his visual field. He smelled smoke.