Raven's Strike

When the light headed toward evening, Lehr bestirred himself to look after Cornsilk, but he found her unsaddled, brushed, and fed in a smallish corral that had, from the height of the fences, served to keep goats rather than horses. Jes was nowhere to be seen, so Lehr went back to Brewydd.

She had saved him when he’d been wounded to the soul.

He’d killed men. He snuck up on them under the cover of night and sliced their throats from behind before they had even known he was there. He’d killed them coldly, pla

Brewydd had taken him under her wing afterward and taught him about being Hunter and human—and he was almost certain she’d practiced some of her healing art on his soul. Under her overbearing ma

“Here,” Jes said.

Lehr looked up and took the dry flatbread Jes handed him. It was from their packs, not from this town. Lehr took a small bite and swallowed. “Where have you been?”

“Checking for the living,” Jes said, his gaze sliding away from Lehr’s. “We couldn’t leave anyone. But everything is dead here. Human and animal.”

“I won’t leave her here,” Lehr said. He didn’t say that she was dying or that moving her would be senselessly cruel. Jes would know.

“I’ll wait with you,” said his brother, and sat down on the ground to do so.

She didn’t awake again, but drifted off sometime in the night while Lehr was dozing.

Jes found a shovel and helped Lehr dig a proper grave near the maple tree. He buried her wrapped tightly in the bedclothes.

Jes stood beside him when he was finished. “Somewhere,” he said, “a new lark flies.” He squeezed the back of Lehr’s neck with gentle affection, though he released him quickly. “We need to leave before others come.”

Lehr saddled Cornsilk and walked beside her and Jes until they came to the gates. Then he sent Jes out with the mare while he shut the gates and barred them. Climbing over the top from the town side was easier than from the outside, and he dropped to the ground near Jes.

He put both hands against the wall and did the easy part first. Walls are built to keep people out, and he reinforced that with power. No one would be able to get over them or through them until the energy he left here wore away. That would probably take a month or more, he thought. Those walls had been stoutly built: they wanted to keep people out.

The gate was more difficult. By the time he finished, both the mare and Jes were getting impatient.

“At least there’s only the one gate,” Lehr said, when he was finally satisfied. The wall had shown him that much.

“Walls and gates,” said Jes. “Why, Falcon?”

“Because Hunters set traps.” Interpreting Jes’s aborted speech without much trouble, Lehr climbed tiredly into the saddle. He patted an apology on Cornsilk’s neck for his awkward mount. “Brewydd told me that fences, walls, doors, locks, and gates listen to me because they keep things in, so they fall under my Order.”

“Hunters trap or cage their prey,” said Jes thoughtfully.

Lehr set Cornsilk on the trail toward home and concentrated on staying on. He’d not slept much last night, and the magic he’d worked had drained him.

“The bag,” he said suddenly worried. “Did you get the bag Brewydd wanted us to give mother?”

“Yes,” Jes said. “It holds mermori. Rongier the Librarian’s and the others that Benroln had. There were five of them. Mother won’t be happy. She already has too many of them.”

The sun was warm, and Lehr found himself fighting to keep his eyes open. His eyelids burned, and his throat hurt.

“Go ahead and doze,” said the Guardian at Cornsilk’s shoulder. “Jes and I’ll keep you safe. There’s nothing more you have to do.”

“I’m sick,” said Lehr in surprise.

“Yes,” said the Guardian. “Rest.”

CHAPTER 10

“You should have gone out fishing with the children,” Tier observed mildly, without looking up from his carving.

That of the “children”—He

“You’re as anxious as I am,” she told him, turning to pace the other direction. “That’s the only time you ever carve.”

Tier held up the unrecognizable object he’d spent the better part of the morning shaping with his knife. “Obviously a good decision on my part,” he said.

Seraph sat down next to him on the porch bench and rested her head against his arm. She sighed. “It has two eyes, but the right one is too big and a little lower than the other.”

“That’s the mouth,” he said. He set the carving on his lap and ruffled her hair. “They should have been back by now—even if they were bringing the whole clan here.”

“According to the map,” she reminded him. “None of us have ever been that way. Maps are unreliable.”

They’d had several variations of this conversation over the past week. This was the second one that morning, and it was her turn to point out the harmless things that might have delayed the boys—at least, she assumed Jes had gone off with Lehr.

At their feet, Gura lifted his head and turned his head to look at the trail that Lehr had taken away from the house. Seraph felt Tier’s pulse speed up to match hers, but then Gura flopped over on his back to expose his belly to the late-morning sun.

Tier sighed. “At least He

“When he’s still, he manages to look as though he’ll never move again,” Seraph said.

Tier laughed. “I’ll grant you—”

Gura rolled to his feet and gave a soft woof, staring at the trail. Seraph looked with him, but couldn’t see very far down the trail because it curved back and forth up the forested hillside.

Tier set his carving aside and walked to the end of the porch. He put his hand up to shadow his eyes as if that would improve his chances of seeing around corners. Gura’s tail began to wag.

“It’s the boys,” said Seraph.

“Or the others returning from fishing by a roundabout way.” Despite the laconic words, Seraph heard the eagerness in her husband’s voice.

Gura’s tail wagging doubled in speed, and he let out a series of thunderous barks.

“Go get them,” said Tier.

Gura didn’t wait for a second invitation before he took off up the trail as fast as he could run. Tier gave Seraph a wide, relieved grin and waited for the boys to appear around the corner.

But they didn’t.

“Too long,” said Tier, echoing Seraph’s thoughts.

“Go ahead,” she said.

He leapt off the porch with much the same speed as Gura had exhibited, and ran up the trail with the wolfish gait that she’d seen him use to eat up miles in the woods. There was no sign of his limp, and she hoped he’d been truthful about how much better his knees were doing. Knees or no, he’d not stop ru

Seraph went into the house and got out the bread she’d baked last night and began to slice and butter it. The boys would be hungry; her boys were always hungry.

They would be fine. She repeated it to herself like a mantra.

The front door opened at last, and instead of the cool greeting she’d composed to cover her pleasure, Seraph said, “Lay him on the bed. Did you carry him all the way down the hill?”

She stripped Lehr’s bedding down so her grim-faced, sweat-drenched husband could lay their son in his bed.