Raven's Strike

There was a rustle of her mattress, and He

“Phoran, you remember He

The Emperor nodded. “Of course. Raven.”

“Your Highness,” He

“No.” Phoran had tried to call it every way he could think of.

“Well enough,” said Seraph. “It’ll come eventually. He

He

“Toarsen knows it all, of course, and Kissel,” Phoran said. “I’ve told the others I’ve had a spell of some sort laid upon me by the Masters and you”—he swept his hand to include everyone in the room—“might be able to help me.” His mouth tightened. “I don’t dare trust them with the whole of it.”

“It always surprised me that Rufort was recruited by the Path,” said Tier. “I’d stake my life that he’s as honorable as any man I’ve known.”

“He’s calmed down a lot this past year,” said Toarsen. “He used to have a terrible temper. He’d go out and have a few at some tavern, then pick a fight with the biggest fool he could find. He quit doing that after Kissel beat the—”

Phoran cleared his throat and Toarsen ducked his head. “Beg pardon, my ladies. Kissel beat him pretty badly, and he stopped picking fights. Rufort told me once a man with a broken leg had a lot of time to lie on his back and think about what he was doing with his life.”

Toarsen paused, then said, “They’d have had him killed soon—the Raptors and the Path’s Masters. I think they might have already tried. One of the other Passerines was found dead not far from Rufort’s room a few weeks before Tier was brought to us. He was a nasty piece of work, and no one missed him—but Kissel, who saw the body, told me the person who killed him was a big man like Rufort. We didn’t think about it much, until you showed us the Path killed more of the Passerines than it graduated to Raptor status.”

“Ielian I don’t know as well,” said Tier. “I remember him being quiet—and one of the better swordsmen.”

“He’s a good man,” Toarsen said. “He gave an excellent account of himself in the battle in the Eyrie. There are few men I’d rather have at my back.” He yawned.

Seraph stood up. “It’s time for sleep. Phoran, you can take our room—”

But he was already shaking his head. “No, my lady. That I won’t do. I’d never drive a lady from her bed. The barn is good enough for us—a bed of hay will be far softer than anything we’ve slept on these last weeks.”

“Fast riding,” commented Tier, “to make that trip in so short a time.”

“Toarsen knows all the shortcuts, and our horses are grain-fed,” said Phoran. He took a step toward the door, then stopped. “You didn’t tell me why you were already sending Lehr out for the Healer.”

“I brought back a gift from the Masters,” said Tier. “Hopefully Brewydd will be able to take care of it. Nothing for you to worry about. Jes, can you take them out and get them settled with the others?”

“Wait,” said Jes. “He

She frowned. “I don’t remember.”

“You will.” Jes said confidently.

Lehr closed his eyes and let his body absorb the rhythm of the mare’s trot. He’d never ridden a horse like this one.

Akavith may have sold her for far less than she’d have fetched from a nobleman’s house, but it was still more money than Lehr had ever held in his hand before.

The chestnut mare shied a little, and Lehr opened his eyes to see what startled her. He didn’t see anything, but he watched her mobile ears. There was something in the woods to the left.

It might have been nothing. But they’d been moving for several hours, and she’d handled flapping pheasants and a startled rabbit with remarkable aplomb.

He asked her to walk, and she shook her head in protest before slowing to a prance. See, she told him with each dancing step, I am not tired, and this is too slow.

Lehr breathed in and out slowly, as Brewydd had taught him. Quiet your mind, boy. Let your senses talk to you.

He smelled it then, wild and frightening, the monster lurking in the shadows to eat you when you weren’t cautious enough.

“Jes,” he said, drawing the mare to a halt. “What are you doing here?”

The wolf emerged from the trees as if he had just been waiting for Lehr’s call. Cornsilk raised her delicate head and watched him, but she didn’t tense under Lehr’s hands. The wolf looked at him with Jes’s dark eyes.

“I don’t need protection,” Lehr said, answering his own question.

The wolf sat down and scratched his ear with a hind leg, then rose to his feet with a snort that might have been a mild sneeze. He trotted up to the mare, ignoring Lehr entirely, and exchanged a muzzle-to-muzzle greeting. Then he started on down the narrow hunting trail without a backward look.

“Curse it, Jes,” muttered Lehr. “I don’t need help.”

The wolf had disappeared behind a curve in the trail.

“Company is not so bad, though,” he told the mare.

She snorted and leapt forward into a canter when he shifted his weight. Lehr gri

It took them three days to reach Colbern.

As promised, the city was walled. It looked to be smaller than Leheigh, but Lehr supposed that was an effect of the wall itself. The space within would be limited, so the people lived closer together.

The gates of the city were not as impressive as the wall, being both lower and less sturdy. A battering ram would have them down in short order. There hadn’t been a war in the area for generations, though, so Lehr supposed the gates were adequate. They were shut tight with makeshift yellow flags hanging over the top as a clear warning to passersby that the inhabitants were fighting a plague.

Jes flattened his ears and growled low.

“I smell it, too,” Lehr told his brother. The stench of death—disease and rotting bodies. He pulled his tunic up so it covered his nose and dismounted.

Cornsilk appeared undisturbed by the smell, but she had been trained as a hunter. Blood and death would not fret her as they would most horses.

“You’d better be a human, Jes, when someone opens the gate,” Lehr glanced over his shoulder when he spoke—to meet his brother’s bland, human face.

“I like this mare,” Jes said as he rubbed underneath the cheek strap of Cornsilk’s sweaty headstall. “She’s pretty.”

Lehr pounded on the gate again, but no one answered. He backed up a few steps and leapt up to catch the top edge of the gate. He swung his legs and hooked a heel, then rolled over the top and landed on his feet on the other side.

Two- and three-story buildings looming over narrow streets gave the town a claustrophobic air, which was not helped by the utter lack of movement. Lehr looked around warily, but saw no signs of watchers.

He pulled the heavy bars off the gate and opened it.

“I haven’t seen anyone,” he told his brother. “Keep alert.”

The Guardian gave him a smile full of teeth and led Cornsilk onto the cobbles of the town road. “Can you tell if the Travelers were here?”

Lehr walked back to the dirt path around the gate. He took a deep breath and sat on his heels to contemplate the ground. It took him a while, because there had been a rainstorm sometime in the past week that had blurred and thi

“They’re here,” he said, coming back to take Cornsilk’s reins. “They came in and never left.”