Raven's Shadow

“They were so afraid of him and his magic,” she said in a low voice trembling with rage and sorrow. “But they killed the wrong one. Stupid solsenti, thinking that being a Traveler makes one a mage, and that being young and female makes me harmless.”

“We can’t afford to linger here,” he said briskly, though his heart picked up its beat. He’d gotten familiar with mages, but that didn’t make them any more comfortable to be around when they were angry. “Are you ready?”

She spun from the window, her eyes glowing just a little with the magic she’d amassed watching her brother’s body burn.

Doubtless, he thought, if he knew exactly what she was capable of he’d have been even more frightened of her.

“There are too many here,” he said. “Take what you need and come.”

The glow faded from her eyes, leaving her looking empty and lost before she stiffened her spine, grabbed both bags resolutely, and nodded.

He put a hand on her shoulder and followed her out the door and down the stairs. The room had cleared remarkably—doubtless the men had been called to witness the writhing corpse.

“Best be gone before they get back,” said the i

“Make sure and burn the curtains, too,” said Tier in reply. There was nothing wrong with any of the furnishing in the room, but he thought it would serve the i

The girl, bless her, had the sense to keep her head down and her mouth shut.

Out of the i

“We’ll leave the cart,” he said to the boy, not the Traveler. “I’ve no wish to continue only as fast as this child could haul a cart like that.”

The boy’s chin lifted. “M’father says you have to take it all. He doesn’t want Traveler curses to linger here.”

“He’s worried that they’ll fire the barn,” said the girl to no one in particular.

“Serve him right,” said Tier in an Eastern dialect a stable boy born and raised to this village would not know. The girl’s sudden intake of breath told him that she did.

“Get me an axe,” Tier said frowning. They didn’t have time for this. “I’ll fire it before we go.”

“It can be pulled by a horse,” said the girl. “There are shafts stored underneath.”

Tier snorted, but he looked obediently under the cart and saw that she was right. A clevis pin and toggle allowed the handpull to slide under the cart. On each corner of the cart sturdy shafts pulled out and pi

Tier hurriedly discussed matters with the boy. The i

Tier shook his head. As he’d done a time or two before, though not with Skew, Tier jury-rigged a harness from his war saddle. The breast strap functioned well enough as a collar with such a light weight. He adjusted the stirrups to hold the cart shafts and used an old pair of driving reins the boy scavenged as traces.

“You’ve come down in the world once more, my friend,” said Tier as he led Skew out of the stable.

The gelding snorted once at the contraption following him. A warhorse was not a cart horse, but, enured to battle, Skew settled into pulling the cart with calm good sense.

While he’d been leading the horse, the girl had stopped at the stable entrance, her eyes fixed on the pyre.

“You’ll have time to mourn later,” he promised her. “Right now we need to move before they return to the i

She scrambled up somehow, avoiding his touch as much as she could. He didn’t blame her, but he didn’t stop to say anything reassuring where the stable boy might hear.

He kept Skew’s reins and led him out of the stable in the opposite direction that he’d come earlier in the day. The girl twisted around to watch the pyre as long as she could.

Tier led Skew at a walk through the town. As soon as they were off the cobbles and on a wide dirt-track, Tier broke into a dogtrot he could hold for a long time. It shortened his breath until talking was no pleasure—so he said nothing to the girl.

Skew trotted at his side as well as any trained dog, nose at Tier’s shoulder as they had traveled many miles before. The rain, which had let up for a while, set in again and Tier slowed to a walk so he could keep a sharp eye out for shelter.

At last he found a place where a dead tree leaned against two others, creating a small dry area, which he increased by tying up a piece of oilskin.

“I’d do better if it weren’t full dark and raining,” he said to the girl without looking at her. “But this’ll be drier at any rate.”

He unharnessed and unsaddled Skew, rubbing him down briskly before tethering him to a nearby tree. Skew presented his backside to the wind and hitched up a hip. Like any veteran, the horse knew to snatch rest where it came.

The heavy war saddle in hand, Tier turned to the girl.

“If you touch me,” she said coolly, “you won’t live out the day.”

He eyed her small figure for a moment. She was even less impressive wet and cold than she had been held captive in the i

Tier had never actually met a Traveler before. But he was well used to dealing with frightened young things—the army had been filled with young men. Even tired and wet as he was, he knew better than to address those words head on—why would she believe anything he said? But if he didn’t get her under shelter, sharing his warmth, she was likely to develop lung fever. That would defeat his entire purpose in saving her.

“Good even, lady,” he said, with a fair imitation of a nobleman’s bow despite the weight of the heavy saddle. “I am Tieragan of Redern—most people call me Tier.” Then he waited.

She stared at him; he felt a butterfly-flutter of magic—then her eyes widened incredulously, as if she’d heard something more than he’d said. “I am Seraph, Raven of the Clan of Isolda the Silent. I give you greetings, Bard.”

“Well met, Seraph,” he said. Doubtless her answer would have conveyed a lot to a fellow Traveler. Maybe they’d even know why she addressed him as bard, doubtless some Traveler etiquette. “I am returning to Redern. If my map is accurate—and it hasn’t been notably accurate so far—Redern is about two days’ travel west and north of here.”

“My clan, only Ushireh and I, was traveling to the village we just left,” she returned, shivering now. “I don’t know where Ushireh intended to go afterward.”

Tier had been counting on being able to deliver her back to her people. “It was just the two of you?”

She nodded her head, watching him as warily as a hen before a fox.

“Do you have relatives nearby? Someone you could go to?” he asked.

“Traveling clans avoid this area,” she said. “It is known that the people here are afraid of us.”

“So why did your brother come here?” He shifted the saddle to a more comfortable hold, resting it against his hip.

“It is given to the head of a clan to know where shadows dwell,” she replied obscurely. “My brother was following one such.”

Tier’s experience with mages had led him to avoid questioning them when they talked of magic—he found that he usually knew less after they were finished than he did when he started. Whatever had led the young man here, it had left Seraph on her own.

“What happened to the rest of your clan?” he asked.

“Plague,” she said. “We welcomed a Traveling stranger to our fires one night. The next night one of the babies had a cough—by morning there were three of ours dead. The clan leader tried to isolate them, but it was too late. Only my brother and I survived.”