Images of her mother and father filled her mind. Killing’s too merciful. If she brought the creature back to Waddams and let the villagers wreak their anger on it, they would be more likely to forgive her transgression in running off to deal with the two mindstealers herself. It might make them value her more.
The mindstealer stirred and whimpered. Kyla ran to her pack, fished out the rope, tied the creature’s arms to its sides, and bound its ankles.
“I’ll have to get rid of those claws so you can’t steal any more minds.” She grasped the creature’s hand and rammed the blade of her knife into the upper joint of the first finger. Working the knife back and forth, she sawed off the end of the finger with its deadly talon. Blood gushed, making her hands slippery and the work more difficult.
The creature’s screams were agony to her wounded ear, but she persisted, the thought of the suffering it had caused untold numbers of victims and their families steeling her resolve. She sawed off the claw from each finger while the mindstealer struggled and screeched and the wind tore around her as though enjoying the sport. At last all eight claws lay in the dirt, and the mindstealer’s screams settled into a steady wailing.
Spattered with blood, she retrieved her travel pack and pulled the firesticks from it. “Calm now, calm,” she told the wind.
The gale eased to a zephyr. Kyla tore the bark from a firestick, and flame burst from its tip. She thrust the stick against each of the bleeding fingers. The creature howled and went limp. The fire hissed and flickered out. The stench of charred flesh filled Kyla’s nostrils; she gagged and retched. The wind quickened, caught the odor, and lifted it away. Cold air washed over Kyla’s face.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Hearing a scuffling noise, she raised her head and grabbed for her knife. A man in a long black cloak stumbled from the pass and blundered into the boulders. The creatures’ victim! Dropping the knife, she jumped to her feet, caught hold of his arms, and halted his erratic progress. Though he was a head taller than she, she easily pushed him into an awkward sitting position, his back against the rocks like a huge collapsed puppet.
His shoulders slumped, his arms flopped into his lap, and his legs bent at awkward angles. Dirt smeared his white tunic. His hazel eyes, dull and unfocused, stared at nothing. A thread of spittle trailed from his open mouth, coarsening the fine features. A trickle of blood oozed from each ear.
He’d been handsome, this man who looked only a few years older than she. He must be a person of some importance. His clothes were of cloth far finer than the best material produced by the weavers of Weaversville. Perhaps this man was a townmaster. Or a scribe like her father.
“What am I to do with you?” she asked the insensible figure.
A quick thrust into the heart would be the kindest course. She balanced her knife across the palm of her hand.
No. This man’s friends and family would be searching for him. Although it would break their hearts to see him like this, the right to decide between death and deathlike life was theirs, not hers.
The mindstealers had probably surprised their victim in the pass only a short time ago. She guessed he’d entered from the eastern end. Of the few settlements in the eastern mountains, the mining town of Hightree, an hour’s walk from the pass, seemed the most likely place to find his home and family. She could go that much farther.
CHAPTER THREE
MINDSTEALER
With the seasons of waiting to avenge her parents ended at last, Kyla should have felt relief. Yet the killing of the one mindstealer and the prospect of displaying the other as a trophy brought her no cheer.
Perhaps it was exhaustion. The ear pierced by the mindstealer’s talon ached dreadfully, and after the night’s journey and the morning’s battle, she needed to stop and rest. First, though, she had to find water to clean the blood off her clothing.
Fearing that the mindstealer would regain consciousness, she considered how to bind it. She decided to cut strips from the bottom of its victim’s full cloak to bind them in place. It was a shame to damage such a fine cloak, but its owner couldn’t object, and the strong yet soft fabric would not cause more bleeding, as binding the stumps with rope would likely do. She didn’t want the creature to bleed to death before she could get it back to Waddams.
The material resisted cutting, proving almost as difficult as sawing off the mindstealer’s talons had been. The three-finger-width strip she separated from the bottom of the cloak would have to do. She bound it around the creature’s wrists, wound the ends around its body, and tied it so that it held the hands in place against its chest.
She pulled the mindless one to his feet, turned him, and, while the mindstealer remained limp and quiet, she used the rope she’d brought, tied the mindstealer to its victim’s back. She passed the cord under the armpits of the creature, over the shoulders of the man, and around both their bodies, binding the mindstealer firmly to him, back to back.
“Sorry to make you bear such a burden,” she said to the man, “but you have a strong back, and I can’t manage you both any other way.”
She took his hand. His fingers, lax and clammy, dwarfed hers. His palm was not callused but smooth—the hand of a scholar. His light brown hair, matted now with blood from his ears, had been trimmed and neatly shaped.
She tugged him around and dragged him into the pass, then pushed him in front of her and prodded him along the path. Tall as he was, the mindstealer was taller; its heels trailed through the dirt behind its mind-robbed bearer.
“Who are you? And what made you venture alone into Martyr's Pass? You don’t look like a foolish man, but that was a foolish thing to do. Well, the sooner I find your family, the sooner I’ll know the answers.”
Talking to him brought some comfort, even though he could neither hear nor respond. It also made her wonder what he would answer if he could. She imagined conversations they might have had. Perhaps they would have argued philosophy or religion. He might have had knowledge to share about nature. Or poetry. Or the wonders of the heavens.
Empty dreams. Like her father, this man would never speak another word or have another thought.
The sooner she found his family, the better, though she dreaded witnessing grief such as she had known. She pictured herself trying to comfort a heartbroken wife, or hunting for the right words to say to a son or daughter faced with that tragic loss.
Kyla thrust those images from her and set the mindless one into motion. She sang a short wind-song. “Stay at our backs,” she asked the wind. “Help us move quickly.”
With the wind as her ally, Kyla had little fear of being ambushed. She met no one as she traversed the narrow, rock-walled defile. When she reached the eastern exit, a thin gash, she paused and sang again to the wind, a longer song. The answering croon of the pale blue breeze assured her the way beyond was clear; no other mindstealers roamed the valley. The people of Waddams were safe; her delay might anger them but it would cause no harm.
She pushed her charge sideways through the breech. The mindstealer strapped to his back made the added bulk almost too great for the gap. Kyla shoved until they scraped through, then slipped through after them. The tight fit left the mindstealer’s knobby knees raw and bleeding. It screeched, curling its lips to reveal sharp, lizardlike teeth.
“So, you’re awake. Stop that caterwauling or I’ll gag you,” Kyla snapped.
The loud cries subsided to low moans. It swiveled its head and its teeth menaced its bearer’s shoulder.
Though the man could no longer feel pain, she would not allow him to suffer the defilement of a bite. She smacked the mindstealer’s head away, and it let out another loud shriek. Kyla released it from the man’s back and secured the rope around its waist, wrapped the other end around her wrist, and grasped it tightly. “You’ll walk from here on,” she told it. “Try to escape and you’ll get my knife in your back.”
The mindstealer didn’t move. “Hands pain. Fingers burn. Eyes can’t see.” The complaints
burst out in wheezing blasts like air from a rusty bellows.
The rasping words startled her. “So you can speak. You can’t see because you’re blindfolded, and your fingers burn because I cut off your claws.”
The thing wailed. “Hurt! Hurt! Can’t walk,” it said. “Feet sore. Pain.”
The creature’s bony heels were raw and bloody where they’d scraped along the stony path. Too bad! Its refusal to walk was wasting time she could ill afford. Ignoring the creature’s yelps, she shoved the mindstealer back against its victim and tied it, pulling the rope tight enough to cut into its leathery hide.
Kyla again grasped her silent companion’s limp hand and tugged the man forward along the widening path.
“Part of us gone,” the mindstealer rasped. “Empty place. So empty.”
“No emptier than this poor man’s mind,” she told it harshly. “But he’ll be your last victim.”
“Not poor. Honored! Chosen!” Its screeches assaulted her ears.
“Honored! Chosen!” she mimicked. “That’s what you call destroying a mind? Leaving a man like this?” She drew her knife. “I’ll kill you if you say anything like that again.”
The creature flinched. “Not destroy mind. Add to One.”
Kyla stopped abruptly. “What are you saying?” she demanded. “By eating the minds you make them part of you?”
“Eat?” The mindstealer seemed genuinely puzzled. “Not eat. Join with One.”
Kyla had always believed, along with all the villagers, that the mindstealers somehow ate the minds they took. Unable to reconcile that assumption with the mindstealer’s unclear explanation, she growled, “Your babbling’s slowing us down. Quiet or I’ll kill you and leave you here to join your One.”
The threat did not completely silence the mindstealer, but it reduced its protests to low, staccato mutters: “Pain. Wind witch knows nothing. Hands on fire. We suffer.”
The sound grated on Kyla’s frayed nerves. She had to admit to herself, however grudgingly, the truth of the creature’s accusation. She’d absorbed the village lore about these sworn enemies, but she realized with growing unease what she and the villagers did not know: where the mindstealers came from, why they stole minds, how they lived. She hadn’t known they could speak. Village lore was full of guesses and contradictions, but no one had ever attempted to study the dangerous creatures and learn more about their habits and way of life.
It was well that she’d kept this mindstealer alive. Possibly from it she could supply some of the needed knowledge. At present she was too tired and uncomfortable to make that effort.
She stumbled from weariness. The wind, always capricious, had deserted her, leaving the air still, dry, and oppressive. Her feet felt like stones. As she forced them to carry her forward, she thought of Waddams, her cottage, her soft bed. Her duty to the townspeople.
They would have no messages from the wind this day. If danger threatened, they would go unwarned. She could not, would not be guilty of the crime for which she condemned the previous windspeaker. Hightree was only a little farther. She’d soon discover whether this man came from there. If he did not, she’d have to entrust him to the care of those villagers anyway. Let them find his kin; she would have to return to Waddams.
The sound of running water drew her a short distance from the path, to a thin, clear stream cascading down the mountainside and pooling in a rocky basin.
After tethering her mindless companion to a spike of rock, she hurried to the small pool, stripped off her bloodstained clothes, and stepped into the icy water.
Teeth clenched against the chill, she scrubbed herself until every fleck of dried blood disappeared and her skin glowed. Then she pulled her tunic and leggings into the pool. Rubbing until the material threatened to part beneath her hands, she flushed out the filth and the worst of the bloodstains. That accomplished, she spread the garments on the rocks to dry in the noonday sun.
“Your turn.” She untied the man, and led him into the water, with the mindstealer bound to his back. The cold water licked the mindstealer’s feet, and it screamed and kicked, throwing its awkward mount off balance. With a huge splash, the man toppled into the water. She needed all her strength to haul the man to his feet before he drowned.
While the mindstealer screamed, she tugged her stumbling, choking charge out of the pool. She released the mindstealer from the man, held its tether with one hand, and pounded the man’s back with the other until he coughed up the water he’d inhaled.
“Deathwater,” the mindstealer shouted. “Fear!”
Kyla shut her ears to its screeches and tied it to the rock spike so she could get its sodden victim out of his wet clothes.
“Tch! You’ve soiled yourself like a baby. Of course, you are a babe, and far worse.”
As she tugged him into the shallow water, the years of caring for her father came back with unnerving vividness. The child she was then had been ashamed at having to undress her father, see his nakedness, and cleanse his private parts. She’d shed many tears while bathing the large and utterly helpless man. She shed a few now as she repeated that task for the first time in many years.
While she gave the man a thorough scrubbing, she chattered to calm herself and drown out her painful memories along with the mindstealer’s maddening bleats.
“I’ve got to get you presentable to meet your family, though nothing I do will ease the blow. Are you married? It won’t be easy to face a heartbroken wife. Scarcely easier if it’s a mother, a father, a sister, a child …”
The man’s fine clothes indicated wealth. Perhaps the family would hire her to care for him. Could she bear to look day after day at this wreckage of what had been a healthy man? She’d borne the pain with her father, and this man was, after all, a stranger.
An extremely attractive stranger. She ran her hand over his muscled arms and let it linger on his chest, curling the dark hair around her fingers. “Such a beautiful body! What a man you must have been before those filthy wretches stole your mind.”
An unexpected surge of desire unsettled her. Her face flaming, she chuckled at her foolishness. Yet she could not quell the sudden longing this contact aroused. Caring for her father had never brought such thoughts.
Stop that! The wind’s the only lover you need.
Time to get out of the pool. Her tugs and pushes brought her charge stumbling out of the water. She wrapped him in his cloak, which covered him to his knees even without the strip she’d cut from it. Though trembling with cold, she punished herself for her wayward thoughts by gathering his underclothes and returning to the pool to wash them. His outer garments were too fine and the cloth too delicate to scrub in a pond. She brushed them, sponged away what spots she could, and spread them on rocks to air and dry. Only then did she put on the clean clothes from her pack.
She ate sparingly of the food she’d brought, and, as she had done for her father, she fed small bites to the man, taking care that he didn’t choke.
The mindstealer moaned and sighed. She would not share her food with it. She did offer water, which it refused. After checking its bonds and satisfying herself that they were tight, she left it propped against the rock. Exhausted, she lay against her mindless charge for the warmth of his body, meaning only to rest briefly while the clothes dried.
The wind woke her, blowing dirt against her face, whistling in her ears. Day had not ended, but an early fog had crept in. Kyla sat up and strained to see through the dense gray veil.
The mindless one lay next to her, wrapped in his cloak exactly as she had left him, open eyes staring at nothing. She shuddered and turned away, hunting the mindstealer.
Rope fragments and blindfold marked its empty place. It must have gnawed through the rope while she slept.
She jumped to her feet. “Where?” she asked the wind.
The wind nudged her onto the trail, sent her racing along it. A spindly shadow appeared through the fog. The wind lending speed, she hurled herself onto it and brought it down.
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It yowled. Straddling it, she pressed her knife to its throat. “I should’ve killed you when I first caught you, you wretched sneak!”
Its head swiveled; its orange eyes glowed like beacons. She turned her face away and slammed its head against the ground. “That does it. You’re too great a risk to keep alive.”
Her knife bit into the black flesh. Beneath her the creature writhed. “No!” it screeched. “Not kill! Restore prize.”
“Prize— The mind?” Her knife eased its pressure. “You can restore this man’s mind?”
“Core, yes. Core not yet joined to One.”
“Keep your head turned away.” She placed her knife blade against the back of its neck.
The creature was most likely only trying to gain time so it could try again to escape, but if there were even a slight chance that this man might be restored, Kyla felt obliged to take that chance. She got off the mindstealer, took firm hold of its arm, and with her knife pressed against its back, led the mindstealer back to the camp by the pond.
The dim light filtering through the fog showed her the creature’s victim lying just as she’d left him. Using her knife and an arm lock, she shoved the mindstealer toward him. “Let’s see this restoration.”
“Core hidden. Down trail. Need light. Sun.”
“So this is a trick? You’ve been lying to me?” Kyla jabbed the point of her knife into the flesh of its neck.
It cringed. “No lie. Core hidden. Safe for collectors.”
“Collectors? What collectors? Who are they?”
The mindstealer squirmed and hid its face.
“Explain or I’ll throw you into the pond.”
The creature trembled violently. “Deathbringer. Want core? Spare us.”
“I promise to spare your miserable, rotten life if you restore this man. If you try any trick, I’ll drown you in the pool. Tell me about the collectors.”
“No pool. No pool.” The mindstealer’s words clacked out through chattering teeth. “Collectors, parts of One. Gather cores. Take to join One.” It stopped as though the explanation were full and clear.
Mistress of the Wind (Arucadi Series Book 1) Page 3
