Raven's Strike

“I will not,” Tier said, his blood turning to ice in his veins. “But I will give you myself.”

“Will you?” said the god, his voice hushed. He reached up to cup Tier’s chin in his hands.

Pain snaked down Tier’s spine, and he heard himself cry out. Nothing, not even Telleridge’s hammer slamming down on his knees, hurt so badly. He fell to the ground, and the god knelt with him, keeping that gentle touch that rent and tore without a physical wound.

“Pull away, Bard,” said the Stalker. “Pull away, and the pain will stop.”

Tier closed his eyes against the voice, pull away and lose any chance for victory. He could not, would not do it.

In the end the god released His hold and stood. “If I could do something about the thieves who take My power without asking, I would have long ago. There is nothing I can do.”

“I am a Bard,” whispered Tier, curled in a sweating ball on the clean, cold floor. “I can tell when You lie.”

For the first time, Tier saw honest emotion on the face of the Stalker: anger. “You overstep yourself, Bard. I am the Lord of Death and you are in My realm.”

“Binding the Orders to the gems hasn’t worked to loosen the veil that keeps you imprisoned,” said Tier a little desperately. It sounded like truth to him, and he found the reasons why. “I think that if they had loosened, You would already have destroyed Willon yourself. Hi

From somewhere he found the strength to sit up, though his muscles were still twitching, waiting for more pain.

“If your wife destroys the gems without freeing the Orders, it will loosen the barrier,” said the Stalker.

“Willon wants my wife to clean the spirit from the gems so that he can use them all,” Tier told him. “He knows about the Guardian Order. If my wife does not show him, he will learn how to do it eventually. He has all the time in the world, because death has no hold on him. Eventually he will take all the gems and eat their power—the power that belongs to You and to the Weaver. Then he will destroy You both.”

He’d read Willon’s intention when he first realized what it meant that Willon was not looking for six spirit-cleaned gems, but all of the gems clean.

The Stalker turned away, jerking his eyes from Tier’s as if Tier had some sort of hold on him.

“You told him how to bind the Orders to the gems,” Tier said. He wasn’t certain he could stand, so he didn’t. “If You had not done that, the Travelers could have dealt with him eventually. That is the task they bear for their imperfect sacrifice. Their greed for knowledge, for the libraries and Hi

“You said it yourself, Bard,” the Stalker said bitterly, “death has no hold over him. I can do nothing to him so long as he holds My power.”

“So what can I do to him?” asked Tier. “How do we stop him for You?”

The god sighed. “I can help.” He said. “I will sing with you and we will withhold my power from Willon for a time. You have proved to me that you can withstand the pain of My song inside you. While we hold the power back, Willon must be killed.”

“Lehr?” asked Tier.

“Only the war god can kill an immortal,” said the Stalker regretfully. “There will be sacrifices before the Shadowed is dead, Tier.”

“The Guardian believes that if he kills someone, it will destroy Jes,” said Tier.

“The Guardian is right,” agreed the Stalker. “He

“Lynwythe,” Tier heard himself finish the word and realized that the entire episode had taken no time at all.

Everyone paused, waiting for something to happen. Tier released Ri

The Stalker had told him the song didn’t matter, but Tier picked a soldier’s song, one of those pieces with eight lines of chorus for every two lines of verse, and the number of verses was limited only by his memory for risqué puns. He could sing it from now until sundown.

He bent his head to tune a string, and said, very softly. “Jes, when I start the second chorus, the Guardian will be able to kill Willon.”

“It didn’t work,” said Willon. “The Stalker didn’t answer you.”

“Did you think He would?” asked Tier. Of course Willon would know the god’s real name. He would have to have both names if he were going to steal their power. “Why would He answer me?”

“I can do it,” said Lehr, who had also heard Tier’s words.

Tier shook his head and began singing.

“What are you doing?” asked Willon, but Tier could tell that Seraph wanted to ask the same thing.

He could answer neither one of them because the god’s power burned through his throat like fire. He understood why the Stalker had tested him with pain because this song hurt, the Stalker’s power no lighter for him to bear than it was for the Shadowed—and Tier would take no other person’s life to make it easier.

“What are you doing?” asked Willon again, and this time he was angry, certain Tier was making fun of him with his choice of song—a silly thing about a soldier who goes out into a strange village looking for a woman to lie with.

“He is a Bard,” said Seraph suddenly. “Music is his gift, Willon.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tier saw Jes release his hold on He

Willon had been watching, too.

“Two hundred and twelve years,” said Willon, “and I never knew that there was a sixth Order. I thought Volis was talking about the Stalker when he called him the Eagle. If it hadn’t been for Ielian, I never would have known that I was missing one. Where did he go?”

“He’s still here,” said Seraph. “Can’t you feel the ice of his breath on the back of your neck?”

Bless her, thought Tier, as he forced his pain-laden finger to exert the proper pressure on the neck of his lute. She didn’t know what he was doing, but she knew he was doing something. The longer she kept Willon distracted the better.

“I told you to shut up, woman,” said Willon in a vicious tone that broke through his merchant-smooth ma

Nothing happened. Tier was no mage, but he had a Rederni’s keen sense where magic was concerned, and he felt nothing at all.

“Bitch!” snarled Willon, obviously placing the blame for his failure upon Seraph. He sucked in a breath and pulled the merchant’s mask back over his face. “But I am more than just the Stalker’s avatar. I am a wizard who bears the Raven’s Order.”

He ripped open his tunic neck and Tier saw that he wore a necklet covered with gems. He

“I can’t,” the Guardian said into Papa’s ear. “I can’t risk Jes.” Jes sensed the Guardian’s cold terror before it was buried beneath the avalanche of the Guardian’s protective rage. A Guardian defended those he considered his—and Jes belonged to him.

“Only you can do it,” said Papa in a quick whisper between verses. “The Stalker said only the Guardian can kill him.”

Jes understood than. Somehow the god his father had called upon had given Papa’s music the power to hinder the Shadowed. But the power came at a terrible cost, the shimmering waves of agony that rolled over Jes were only a taste of what his father felt.

The Guardian couldn’t perceive Tier’s suffering as Jes did, but he could see the sweat that dampened their father’s tunic and the lines of pain around his mouth. And all of Papa’s hurt was to make a way for them to kill the Shadowed.