Deepwoods (Book 1) (16 page)

“Ha!” she scoffed, not believing that for a minute.

“Considering what we spend on food expenses every month, you
can’t blame her for not believing you,” Denney pointed out.

“We saved seventy-five kors alone when we sent Wolf on that
one-man escort mission this spring,” Sylvie observed.

“I don’t eat
that
much,” Wolf protested.

“Yes, you do,” at least four people disagreed in unison.

This started off a round of bickering on who ate more. Siobhan
decided she didn’t care to be in the middle of that debate and went back to her
plate. As she moved, she saw Pyper approach Rune with a slow tread, her nose
sniffing him curiously. Rune regarded her approach with the same caution, not
at all sure how to respond to her.

Denney, bless her, went and sank down next to the dog, her
tone neutral as she asked Rune, “You got experience with dogs?”

“Only hunting dogs, not like these,” he nodded toward Pyper
and Pete. “These are friendlier.”

“Colliers,” she supplied. “They’re more watch dogs than
anything. Smart ones, these are. Pyper’s trying to figure out if you’re a
friend or not. You feed her something, she’s likely to think you are one.”

Rune listened to this advice carefully. “She like bread?”

“They both do.”

He picked a biscuit off his plate and offered it to Pyper on
a flat palm. She sniffed it for a second, then tilted her head sideways so she
could pick it up daintily. Typical of dogs, she then proceeded to swallow it
whole, without seemingly chewing at all.

Being a dog, her affections were then sealed, and she nosed
at Rune’s hand in thanks before circling around once and settling down right at
his feet, her head resting against his legs.

“Well.” Denney beamed at him openly. “Glad she likes you.”

Rune smiled back, seemingly out of sheer reflex. “That’s
good.”

“It is. In many ways.” With that cryptic statement, she rose
back onto her feet in a smooth movement before going back to her plate. “Pete!
You stay out of my stew, you rascal.”

Siobhan watched all of this play out without a word, smiling
in satisfaction. If the dogs approved of him, she knew that Denney would too.

That left the rest of the guild still to go.

Since the first day Siobhan had become guildmaster, she had
developed the habit of walking through the area and double checking everything
before going to bed. Even in their own guildhall she did this. It set her mind
at ease that all was well in her corner of the world and she could let the
worries of the day go in favor of much needed rest. Here, especially, she felt
a strong need to do a patrol around their little house.

The night air felt cool against her skin, unpleasantly so,
and she rubbed her arms as she walked, scanning everything around her with
sharp eyes. The village had mostly gone to bed, only a few hearth fires still sending
plumes of smoke twirling into the night sky. In this open country, with little
to no trees to bar her view, the sky overhead was a brilliant show of stars.
She paused on the path in front of the house and turned her face upwards, drinking
it all in. Rarely had she seen such a breathtaking display.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Fei observed quietly from nearby.

Startled, she jerked around first to the left, then to her
right, but she could see no sign of him. “Fei?”

“Up here.”

Even with this vague direction, she almost didn’t see him.
He sat quite comfortably on the roof, as if the slanted angle didn’t bother him
any, dressed in an array of clothing that blended in perfectly with the night.
She looked up at him in exasperation. “I realize your shin-tei training makes
being sneaky second nature to you, but will you please try to breathe loudly?
Clear your throat now and again?
Something
so that you don’t constantly
sneak up behind me and give me heart failure?”

He seemed to find this amusing, if that glint of white teeth
was any indication. “I’m sitting in plain sight, Siobhan-ajie,” he pointed out,
tone laughing.

“Ha!”

“You were also the one to set me as first watch, were you
not?” he continued, grin widening. “You should have known I was out here.”

“And at the highest point possible, yes, alright, I’m the
fool for nearly leaping out of my skin,” she riposted sarcastically.
“Obviously, with my amazing powers of deduction and clairvoyance, I should have
known before asking exactly where you would choose to sit.”

“Precisely.”

Siobhan threw her hands into the air, giving up.

Without a trace of noise, he shifted to the edge of the roof
and lightly leaped down, landing in a crouch. Siobhan eyed him curiously, not sure
why he had decided to move from his perch. Fei came to stand very close to her,
barely inches away, even bending his head slightly to put their heads on the
same level. Only then did he speak, voice barely above a murmur. “You should
put Wolf-ren and Rune-gui on the same watch tonight.”

Fei had this remarkably bad habit of thinking things though
at great length and then only sharing his conclusions aloud. Siobhan was
certain he had several very good reasons for this suggestion, but dragging them
all out of him would be akin to pulling teeth from a sick, wounded alligator.
Bracing her feet, she met him eye to eye and responded in the same soft tone,
“And why is that?”

“It would do them both good.”

“Fei,” she requested with forced patience, “start from the
beginning, please.”

“Rune-gui is like a lost child.” Fei’s brows furrowed
slightly as he spoke, as if he struggled to put into words something that he
only understood on an instinctive level. In the cool lighting of the stars and
bright moons overhead, the words he spoke felt like a forbidden secret. “Your
kindness baffles him. And yet, he gravitates to you, drawn to that kindness.
Wolf-ren, watching this, is uneasy.”

Yes, she had noted that unease herself. “Because by watching
Rune, he’s reminded of himself in the past.”

Fei nodded agreement. “That is part of it. But he sees what
I see…Rune does not let you out of his sight for long. Wolf-ren does not
understand why and assumes the worst.”

Something in Fei’s tone said he didn’t share the assessment.
Siobhan cocked her head slightly. “What do you think?”

“I think even Rune-gui does not understand his actions right
now. I think speaking to a man that has been in his place will help both of
them.”  

Now there was a thought. Siobhan turned it over in her mind
and found that she couldn’t find any fault in Fei’s logic.

“Scribbling on faces only works for some people, not all,”
Fei added, chuckling.

So he’d caught on to her ploy, eh? “I had to do
something
.
The tension was killing me.”

“It worked well on those two,” he agreed, shrugging. “But
the same tactic will not work on all of us.”

Truly. But that did beg the question… “If you’re
volunteering all of this, it means you’ve come to trust him?”

“He does not wish us harm.” Fei sounded absolutely certain
of this. “He doesn’t know what to think of us, or how to respond to the
kindness shown him, but he has no ill intent. I also feel that given time, he
will prove himself to be an invaluable friend, as Wolf-ren proved to be.”

Until he said those words, Siobhan hadn’t thought of Rune in
that light. But with it now said, she instinctively felt that Fei would prove
to be right. Wolf had not reacted like Rune in the beginning, not in some ways,
but the way he’d frozen when kindness was shown to him, as if lost on how to
respond to it,
that
was exactly the same. Siobhan freely admitted that
her mothering impulses had been in overdrive with Wolf the first year he was in
the guild. Rune’s behavior made her react the same way.

Those mothering instincts were not certain about putting two
survivors of a dark guild on watch, in the dead of night, without witnesses
around. Especially when they didn’t trust each other. But she didn’t believe
for one second that Wolf would harm the kid without very good reason. She also
trusted Fei’s assessment of the situation—so far, she had never seen him wrong,
not on matters like this. So she blew out a breath, running a hand over her
hair.

“Alright, I’ll rearrange the schedule so they’re both on
watch after you.”

Pleased, he nodded in satisfaction and headed back toward
his perch.

More than ready to crawl into a warm bed, she headed inside.
A blanket had been draped over the rafters, cutting the room in half, women
sleeping on one side and men on the other. Siobhan stuck her head into the
men’s half, unsurprised to find that Wolf was lying on his side with one eye
open, watching for her return. But Rune was also still awake, sitting up in his
bed, idly flipping a dagger around his wrist. Hmm? Why would he bother to stay
up…? Ah, never mind, it didn’t matter. She paused long enough to catch Rune and
Wolf’s eyes. “Both of you stand the next watch.”

For just a moment, they were strangely in sync as they gave
her the same expression of surprise.

“Why…?” Wolf asked slowly.

With no compunction whatsoever, she shifted the blame to
someone else’s shoulders. “Fei suggested it. Night!”

Before they could start an argument, she let the curtain
fall back into place and retreated to her bedroll near the door. Siobhan put
the twin swords at her hip on the ground, resting above her pillow, then shimmied
out of the boots, pants, and thick jacket she wore. Now in just thick leggings
and a billowy shirt, she felt more comfortable. Siobhan slithered into her
blankets with a small smile, more than ready for this day to end.

ӜӜӜ

She awoke to the sounds of battle.

KLANG ching ching shiiing.

What in the—?! Siobhan rolled to her feet, both swords in
hand, before she could get her eyes properly open. The blankets wanted to keep
her left foot, and she had to shake it free even as she scurried for the door.
Whatever was going on seemed to be happening in the front yard, as the noise
came from there.

The morning hadn’t really started yet, as the sun barely had
its head above the horizon, and most of the world seemed intent on sleeping a
little longer. (Siobhan rather agreed with this after taking the third watch.)
But Fei and Rune seemed to be of the opinion that if there was light, then it
was a good time to fight.

Siobhan stumbled to a stop on the porch and watched with an
open mouth as the two men went at each other with ferocious intensity. Fei had
his wadoki short sword in one hand, the metal scabbard in the other which he
used like a shield, although he hadn’t put on his utility belt. Dare she take
that as a sign that this wasn’t meant to be a serious fight?

Rune had the iron gloves she’d retrieved from the Ahbiren on
his hands, which covered everything from knuckles to elbow, but other than that
she didn’t see a weapon on him. Not that she believed for one second he was
unarmed. He could make daggers appear and disappear at will.

Both of them flew back a pace, giving each other some
breathing room, and then leapt forward again with a baring of teeth like wolves
going at each other’s throats. Fei’s sword sliced through the air with a
whistle of noise, Rune catching the edge of the blade on one of his knuckle
guards before diverting it away, his free hand coming up in a sharp jab aimed
at Fei’s stomach. Somehow Fei blocked it with his scabbard, knocking the fist
away, although he grunted at the effort.

They parried and sliced and punched at each other with such
speed that Siobhan could barely track it all with her eyes.

Wolf ghosted up behind her and murmured, “Relax. It’s just a
test.”

“
That’s
a test?” she repeated in amazement, unnerved
by the ferocity.

“It started out friendlier,” he offered.

“Yes, that makes everything all better,” she retorted
acidly. When he chuckled, she shot him a look from the corner of her eye. “If I
didn’t know any different, I would say they’re trying to take each other’s
heads off.”

Unconcerned, Wolf shrugged.

She rolled her eyes to the heavens, praying for patience.
Well, what had she expected? Wolf’s idea of ‘danger’ and hers were as different
as moon and sun. Her main question was, why hadn’t Fei called a halt to this?
She could tell after ten seconds that Rune had incredible fighting skill.
They’d been at this for several minutes.

Clapping her hands loudly, she called, “Alright boys, quit!”

Fei paused with his sword in mid-swing, aiming for Rune’s
head. The other man had both hands up in a guard position, and he looked at her
over one shoulder in an open pout.

“Awwww,” Rune whined. “It was just getting fun!”

“Yes, that’s why you’re stopping,” she informed him dryly. “I’d
rather not have a body on my hands, thank you.”

“We wouldn’t have hurt each other, Siobhan-ajie,” Fei
assured her.
Much
, his tone added.

“Uh-huh.” Siobhan stared him down. Why did she feel like a
mother scolding two young boys for playing in the mud? “It’s alright, the two
of you can play more after breakfast.”

Fei and Rune perked up.

Rune asked the obvious. “Meani’n it’s time ta go into
Sateren?”

“A-yup.” Siobhan checked her mental schedule and realized
with a groan that she was in charge of cooking breakfast. Curse all the luck.
“Do I need to write a formal note to send along with you?”

“That’d be best,” Rune admitted.

She’d do that after breakfast, then. “So your guards weren’t
damaged in any way?” she pointed her chin to indicate the metal guards strapped
to Rune’s arms.

“Oh, no,” he said happily. Raising them up a little, he
flipped his arms both ways, so she could see either side. “Just fine.”

She still felt a bit bemused that the guards and a few
random daggers were his only weapons. After seeing the multitude of weapons Fei
carried around, or the long swords that most of the men in the guild favored,
she would have thought that just two long hand guards would put Rune at a
severe disadvantage. But after seeing him fight on par with Fei, she would have
to put that idea to rest. Perhaps he had been called “Bloodless” because he
chose to break bones over shedding blood? His hand-to-hand combat skills made
her think so.

Shrugging, she let it go and went back inside to get dressed
and start the day. After having the light scared right out of her, she didn’t
feel like snoozing for a few more minutes.

As she went about cooking breakfast and nudging people
awake—cautiously, in Tran, Conli and Sylvie’s cases—Siobhan kept a weather eye
on Wolf and Rune. Despite standing on guard with each other for three hours
last night, they didn’t seem to be on better terms. Not that she had expected
them to bond or anything, but it would be nice if they stopped eyeing each
other like two yard dogs after the same bone. 

Breakfast happened without mishap, and Siobhan sat down to
write a very carefully worded note to any karl of Silent Order asking for a
meeting. Markl actually stepped in and helped her write most of it. He was far
better at crafting words than she.

She rolled the letter in on itself and stuffed it into a
carrier tube, which she handed over to Fei. Both he and Rune stood just in
front of the porch, fully ready to go. Fei took it from her and slipped it into
an inside pocket in his jacket before he refastened it.