“But having to wait will make you appreciate me more.”
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After breakfast, they went out into a windy morning with high clouds racing across the sky. Gwynn tilted her head and then took a deep breath of the restless air. “There’s some rain coming. It should catch us the day after tomorrow, three days on the outside.”
He nodded, ready to believe her, because somehow, weather prediction seemed a likely thing for someone who said she could call the wind. “We’ll be in Mazlo in less than two days, well ahead of the rain,” Shae assured her. “We can wait it out there and start south on the Western River Road when it’s over. Even if it lasts a seven-night, Mazlo is the center of two trade routes. There are dozens of inns you can perform in, a city aristocracy that would probably invite you for the evening, and I might run into a brother or sister Southron to get some practice with.”
“Again, you are putting together an entire journey in your head before we mount up. I haven’t thought beyond getting on Rogue,” she confessed.
“Organization is a useful skill to cultivate. It is one you could improve on from what I’ve seen of your navigation and packing abilities.”
“You don’t spare your employer’s feelings, do you?”
“I told you, Southrons never lie.”
“I believe that sometimes I’m going to wish you would.”
“Probably,” Shae agreed when their horses were led out. He tossed Gwynn’s saddlebags behind her when she got on Rogue and turned to put his own on Talon. He whistled appreciatively at his waiting horse. “You are right; those saddlecloths do show off your apparent success.”
“Fashion sense, skill a Southron could benefit from if his color preferences are any indication.” Gwynn’s tone was tart when she gestured at Shae’s new black riding leathers.
He didn’t respond while he attached his bow case to 52
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his saddle before handing Hamish several crowns and tossing one to each of the boys. The ostler’s eyes widened and he tugged his cap. “Thank you, Southron, you are too generous, and you as well, lady bard. Return to Rathgarven when you can.”
“Oh, I’m certain I’ll be back someday. Bards tend to come wandering in at unexpected times.” Gwynn waved to the boys when Shae swung into his saddle, the boys returning hers until they made the turn into the market square. After a day of rest, the horses were fresh, and Shae set the pace at a brisk trot once out of Rathgarven’s gates. By midday, they had easily covered more than half the distance he had decided they needed before nightfall. “Rogue is in good shape,” Shae told Gwynn when they halted to water the horses. “The two of you are having no trouble keeping pace with Talon and I.”
She slid off Rogue to stretch her legs and refill her water skin. “You won’t find us slowing you; we can go like this for days at a time.”
“Good, the more ground we cover today, the shorter the ride into Mazlo tomorrow. That way, we will get in well ahead of the rain and have the best possible choice of inn.
We’ll eat and give the horses a rest.” When the companions got ready to leave, Shae followed her to Rogue’s side. “You might as well let me give you a leg up; you’re putting extra wear on your stirrup leathers climbing.” They both chuckled when his easy lift almost put her over Rogue, instead of in the saddle. “Your bones must be as hollow as a bird’s; I’m surprised the wind doesn’t blow you away.”
“It’s tried a time or two.”
They forded the stream, continuing their journey east.
A companionable silence reigned between them. Neither felt compelled to make conversation; they were content in each 53
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other’s company.
54
CHAPTER FOUR
“We have nearly two hours of daylight left, which is earlier than I would normally stop, but this would be a good spot to keep the wind off if we can find water close by.” Shae pointed at the low limestone bluff climbing to the left of the road and providing shelter from the intensifying north wind.
Gwynn listened around the wind for a moment. “We may be in luck; I believe I hear a spring.” She hopped off Rogue and led him toward the sound. After following the bluff right for about forty paces, she spotted water pouring from the pale rock face a hand span above her head. It fell into a basin-like hollow at the bluff’s foot before seeping off into the brush on the east side. “I would say you found a perfect spot.”
“The time before sunset can be good for hunting if you know what you’re after,” he offered, leading Talon toward her. She realized she had not heard him dismount; he must have dropped from the saddle in complete silence. “Do you like rabbit? There is probably half a dozen in the brush right now.”
“Rabbit is fine as long as I don’t have to field dress or skin them; those big brown eyes make me feel guilty. I don’t like it when my dinner looks back at me.”
“I can ignore anything if I’m hungry enough, which is most of the time.” Shae grinned at his companion. “Let’s settle the horses, and you can start a fire while I look for 55
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small animals to prey on.”
“Don’t make me feel worse!”
Once the horses were watered and having their grain, Shae removed his sword, leaning the blade against his bedrol . “I don’t want to scare the bunnies. I just want to have dinner,” he explained before he tucked some snare lines into his belt and disappeared into the brush.
She retrieved a brown stoneware bottle of Liam’s dark beer and another of his cider from her saddlebags and dropped them in the spring basin, deciding that chilled drinks would be a nice treat for camp. There were plenty of stones for a fire ring, which she built before she gathered firewood and called the fire. A foray around the foot of the bluff located some likely green wood for a spit and several different wild herbs she knew would season rabbit nicely.
Shae returned before long with two expertly dressed rabbits and surveyed the camp. “A ready fire and a spit, you’re much more useful than some of my previous charges.” He handed Gwynn the cleaned rabbits. “Those won’t make you feel too guilty, will they?”
“No, they aren’t looking at me.” She laid the rabbits on the fire ring and began tucking herbs inside. “Excellent choice for camping, we have fresh seasonings.”
“I told you I was good at my job.” Shae sat next to the fire, wound his snares, and returned them to his saddlebag. “We made good time today; we should be in Mazlo tomorrow in time for a late lunch.”
“Here we are cooking dinner, and you are already thinking about tomorrow’s lunch!”
Shae grinned while he put the seasoned rabbits on the spit. “A Southron is always looking forward to his next meal.” “The way the wind has been blowing today, I believe we’ll have rain by tomorrow evening. It’s coming more 56
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quickly than I first thought; it’s more severe too. I will listen to it later and then I can tell you more.” In addition to the cider and beer, Gwynn had a loaf of fresh bread and soft cheese to complete the meal. When Shae carefully removed a large apple tart from his saddlebag, she huffed in annoyance. “How did you get that? I couldn’t talk Liam out of one of those at any price. He said they weren’t done. You had a friend in the kitchen and a crown says she was a redhead.”
“That crown would be well spent,” Shae assured her with one of his wolfish grins. “Make friends with the serving girls, and you will never go hungry.”
“Or hunger for other things either, I’ll rely on your skills in that area. An apple tart? Shouldn’t it be cherry?
After all, she was a redhead.”
Shae paused in mid-slice. “Just for that, I don’t think I’ll share.”
“Who said I wanted your ill-gotten gains anyway?”
“Ill-gotten? I’ll have you know that I paid well for this particular tart—”
“The pastry or the redhead?”
Shae glared at he
r before replying. “I walked right into that trap, didn’t I?”
“Sometimes I say things before I have a chance to consider the consequences.”
“Then it’s just as well you have me. Your razor wit could get you into bigger trouble than you could take care of by yourself.”
“Sadly, whatever is in my head, usually, just gets spoken aloud.”
“You should try to curb that or hope to all you hold sacred that I’m within arm’s length when you fail.”
After they finished their meal, Gwynn brought out her harp. She tuned it quietly, listening to the whistling wind 57
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and the restlessness driving it. Spring was making its way north to the Stalencraes, and the mountains weren’t happy about it.
When she told Shae, he just chuckled. “Since when are mountains happy or unhappy?”
“Have you ever seen the way winter storms roll off those peaks? Tell me they can’t be angry.”
Shae considered the winters he had spent in the Northlands and was forced to agree. “I see your point.”
She returned to her listening, using the harp to echo what she heard, the discord in the music was as plain. “This will be bad; we’ll want a solid roof over head our heads and sturdy walls when it arrives. High ground too, especially with streams and rivers already full to the banks from the snowmelt.”
“Mazlo’s built above the river apart from the ferry docks, so we’ll be fine. How long do you think we’ll be holed up there?”
Gwynn’s eyes lost their focus, and it took a while for her to answer. “Maybe five or six days, there seems to be a lot of rain headed our way. Now how long that will delay our trip south is more your area of expertise.”
“The River Road dates from the height of the Empire, so it is stone paved and follows the top of the bluffs all the way to the Meranian border. Once the rain breaks, we can be on our way.”
“We may be there for a bit, so we need to pick the most comfortable inn that we can find when we get there,”
Gwynn said before she grinned at her companion. “Or maybe we should pick the one that employs the most redheads.”
“That is a terrible thing to say, but since you mentioned it, I also like willowy blonds.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open for likely prospects.”
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Shae went to check the horses, and Gwynn banked the fire before she picked up her harp again, but she didn’t want to echo the wind anymore. She had heard enough. She had no desire to listen to more of its mournful wail tonight.
Instead, she played to the fire, using its warming cheer to fend off the discord in the wind’s song. When he returned, Shae stopped at the edge of the flickering light and watched the fire respond to her music. When she played quickly, it would blaze up and then subside when she slowed.
Gwynn continued playing for a bit after he rejoined her and then stretched out on her bedroll, staring up at the sky. “Enjoy the stars,” she said, “we won’t see them for a few nights.”
Just after dawn, the wind shifted northwest and began to gust instead of blow steadily. Gwynn had felt it in her sleep and sat up, wide-awake and listening intently.
“What’s wrong?” Shae asked, alert the moment he had heard her move, his hand secure around the hilt of his sword almost before his eyes were open.
She regarded the sky while she answered. “Nothing is wrong, but the wind just changed, and it warmed up during the night. Ah, what storms these will be!” Gwynn turned to look at her companion. An arcane wave surged around him and the fire felt it too, leaping up between them with a sudden roar. Her gray eyes had turned silver and glowed with a light of their own. She was in full voice and the oncoming storm could be heard in the harmonies. “Isn’t it magnificent?
You can feel the strength of it!” Gwynn’s heightened sensitivity also caught the way Shae’s muscles had tightened.
She slammed what control she could into place, not wanting to further discomfort him by releasing the magical energy she was drawing from the storm. “I’m sorry. That was rude, and I don’t always have the control of these things that I 59
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should.” When Gwynn offered her apology, the fire subsided but the blaze in her eyes did not.
“No offense taken. Are bards earthbound like hedgers?”
“Not quite.” Hedger was a somewhat derogatory term, often used for rural wise men and women without formal arcane training. Since she had been made aware of the Southron opinion of magic, Gwynn took the implied insult in stride, feeling that she deserved it after exhibiting such a blatant lack of tact. “Bards are sensitive to natural energies, and storms generate a great deal. Wind is also one of my elements, so I’m picking up on that too. I suspect I now know how an over-wound harp string feels.”
They broke camp quickly under a sky full of streaming clouds racing on the high wind. The horses were feeling the weather change too, tossing their heads and anxiously fidgeting while they were being saddled. Talon was normally rock steady, even in the middle of a storm, but today, he was dancing around just like Rogue. They set off at ground eating lope in hopes of settling them.
After a short time, the dusty dirt road widened, becoming paved with broad smooth stones. Although the stonework was ancient, it was still in good condition. The roads had once bound the Khymerian Empire together, and it remained a credit to the skill of the Empire’s engineers that the roads endured long after the Empire they served had fallen.
Distracted, Gwynn remained mostly silent since they had broken camp, too immersed in the discordant energy of the building storm to make conversation. While she rode, she used both her senses and Rogue’s, listening to the growing disharmony following behind, her half wild spirit feeding off the charged clouds sweeping toward them. Late in the morning, she halted Rogue and turned to face the way 60
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they had come. Shae stopped too, searching for what had gotten Gwynn’s attention.
“Look how fast it’s coming on,” she said, “I hope we make it to Mazlo before it swallows us.”
Shae eyed the approaching cloudbank. “We have to be less than four leagues from Mazlo. I am sure we will get there ahead of it.”
Just then, a fierce gust of wind whipped around them.
It tore at Gwynn’s hair and loosened the leather thong holding her braid in place, the blue-black strands snapping out behind her like a banner. She laughed out loud, unable to keep from reveling in the tempestuous day. “I think we’re being told to keep moving.”
“I think you should be glad we’re not in Hasdran and I’m not an ignorant farmer concerned about his livestock or his crops.”
“What? Why?”
Shae didn’t answer immediately; instead, he studied her for a moment before giving Gwynn one his wolfish grins. “Because with that black mane of yours flying in the wind and your gleaming eyes, you could be a ninka.”
The Hasdranian term was unfamiliar to Gwynn. “A what?”
“A ninka. That’s what the inhabitants of the Ballancrae Mountains call the storm spirits. The legends say that they can appear as either black hawk-like creatures or black-haired women with fiery eyes, depending on what fancy strikes them. The legends also say that if you can catch one and bind her with a rope soaked in saltwater, she will have to remain in her human form. In her human form, a ninka can be sacrificed to avert the storm damage.”
“Please tell me you are joking.”
“No, a large portion of the less educated Hasdranian population believes it. You should be grateful I’m neither 61
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uneducated nor Hasdranian, otherwise you might find yourself tied up with a wet salty rope. Let’s go; I don’t want to be out in the open when that thing hits, even though I have an acceptable sacrifice at hand.”
“I’m going,” she assured her friend, turning Rogue’s tail to the wind and legging him immediately into a canter.
Shae fo
llowed, amused that he had managed to make her a little uncomfortable, since she had served him the same in the last few days.
They covered the last few leagues into Mazlo rapidly; the wind seemed to urge them on, growing fiercer with every passing moment. They came over a low rise, sighting the city perched on a high stone bluff above the Dinar River. Mazlo had been the main northern river outpost of the Empire, and its heavy fortifications remained. The Western River Road wound away to the north and south of the city, paralleling the river. There was considerable traffic heading into Mazlo from both directions. In addition, a line of wagons and packhorses was waiting for entrance to the western gate in front of them.
The two slowed their horses to a walk when they came up behind a wagon, and Gwynn stared at the walls towering over them. “I had no idea it was so large!”
“Large? Mazlo? How many cities have you been in?”
“I grew up outside of Epiris; I’ve been there a number of times.”
“Any others?”
“I guess that would depend on what you consider a city. Inishmore, Wexrin, and Kincara are sparsely populated.
Mother didn’t travel; she was a household bard. Then I went to Inishmore to study. I might as well have been chained to a post for those years. I hardly saw the sun I worked so hard.” “Well, maybe that just encouraged you to meet your 62
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potential a little earlier,” Shae teased.
“Perhaps. So how long does this kind of thing take?”
she asked, gesturing at the line in front of the city gate.
“Not too long, trade city guards are pretty efficient. A few pointed questions, then move on. They want you inside to spend your money and pay tariffs.”
“That makes sense.”
“It never takes me long anyway, since most people don’t question Southrons too closely.”
After the wagon in front of them had passed through, a guardsman motioned them forward. Another with a ledger and quill sat just inside the wall itself, recording information about each entrant to Mazlo. Gwynn noticed that these guards, unlike the ones in Rathgarven, were not at al unnerved by a Southron, but the first man addressed him respectfully.
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