Kindred and Wings (20 page)

They passed a nykur, standing patiently at the rear of a tent, its long green hair blowing in the warm wind, and he thought of his sister. Yet this could not be her beast, it was someone else’s. He almost ducked when a griffin screamed above, and couldn’t help sneaking a look. The black shape was startling against the bright blue sky. Pelanor flinched slightly, since she must have heard many terrifying stories of the Named.

Luckily, no one was taking particular notice of them, and Byre led them confidently forward, though he had no real idea where they were going. Ellyria had only told them to discover the truth about the Caisah. She had given them no instructions on how to act, or what to do in the meantime.

Byre had thought that he was leading them in a directionless manner, but as soon as he saw the tent directly in front of them, he realized that he had been very wrong. Some strange beacon had drawn him here.

He stopped and could not help but stare. He didn’t care in that moment if he drew attention, or what anyone thought about him. Pelanor was somewhere at his side, but the rest didn’t matter. It was his family’s tent, and he couldn’t decide if he should turn and run, or turn and run inside.

The Blood Witch at his side made a strange hissing noise, as if she was trying to get his attention, but he ignored that, trapped in indecision.

“It’s theirs, isn’t it,” she said, and then her fingers wrapped around his arm. She was trying hard to tug discreetly at him, but he was a rooted tree.

“Come on,” she whispered. “We have to find the meeting.” He could feel his blood racing in her veins. It was an odd, but decidedly erotic sensation.

Finally, Byre let her pull him away from the tent with its flapping red banner, and back toward what they had come for.

Pelanor was trying desperately to keep his attention on her. She squeezed his hand. “So, tell me what you know of the Caisah’s coming. I know you were only a child, but . . .”

Byre closed his eyes and thought back. He had been small, yes, but he had also been a child of the Vaerli. His memory was perfect back then, like a crystal pond before the Gifts came. As he sorted through those recollections, he felt the disconnect of reality and the past. The sounds and smells he was experiencing now were exactly the same ones he had experienced then. It made the line between memory and now blurry.

He saw his mother’s face as she had turned to leave the tent. Her words echoed back from then.
The meeting has started. You have made me late, Retira.
Then she had bent to kiss his father on the brow, a genuine smile of love and respect on her lips.

With a lurch of his stomach, Byre understood his mother. She had loved them. He had always been so wrapped up in the memories of her leaving them that he had been unable to see past to those other, just as important moments.

“Mother left,” he muttered under his breath to Pelanor. “She headed . . .” he opened his eyes and oriented himself within the scope of the camp once more. “In that direction.”

Pelanor followed his finger, and they both saw the huge green tent that stood a little apart from the rest. It had been set up near the wide entrance to the underground part of the Salt Plain. The Blood Witch rolled her eyes, and he understood. They had both been so consumed by the chaos and heartbreak of the gathering.

They stood there for a moment, hands pressed together, and must have looked like a bonded couple. “You two lovebirds, out of the way!”

And there he stood: Drynis Alorn, the centaur. Pelanor blinked up at him, and Byre felt her whole body go stiff. She had faced Alorn in another, similar gathering place. She had told him it all, in those days trapped by flame.

He was certainly an impressive Named; thick, muscular horse-like legs, attached to an equally massive human torso. He’d been Named many years before Byre had been born, and as a child he had actually been terrified of Drynis Alorn. As a little boy he’d run screaming for his father even just hearing the crash of his hooves on the ground.

Since then, Byre had seen many, many things. He stood his ground while the centaur stamped and scowled at him. They did not want to be noticed, and an argument with a centaur was bound to draw attention to them. Byre wrapped his arms around Pelanor and pulled her into the shadow of a nearby tent. The centaur let out a angry snort, and passed them. The musky scent of him was overpowering.

Pelanor stared just as angrily after him. “I see in the past he was just as charming as when I will first meet him.” She looked up at him. “One thing has always puzzled me about your people; why did they Name Kindred at all?”

It was something he had wondered in his odd time. “I don’t know. Once again, I was too young to be taught such mysteries.” He knew there was a deep vein of bitterness in his voice, but he didn’t care. “Perhaps only because they could. Perhaps to amuse themselves they decided to play with the legends of others. Maybe it was even to cow the various tribes that they invited to Conhaero.”

“I hope they didn’t Name any for the Blood Witch legends.” Pelanor wrapped her arms herself before jerking her chin in the direction of the large green tent. “So if that is where the confrontation happened . . . I mean . . . will happen, then where did the Caisah come from?”

It was good she herself had changed the subject, because it would do her no good to find out that the Vaerli had not spared raiding the Blood Witch mythology as well. Instead, Byre scanned the white expanse that lay beyond the gathering. “I have heard tell that he came from the Salt—but that is impossible; the Salt kills any who are not blessed by the Kindred. Vaerli.”

The Blood Witch at his side was silent a moment, but she had her head raised to the wind like a dog tracking prey. “Vaerli all around me,” her voice was in a soft tone, almost loving. “But to the west something else . . . something mortal.”

“Mortal?” Byre followed her gaze, but even his eyes could detect nothing. “Out there? Impossible!”

“We must go,” she said, taking his hand once more.

“How far?” he asked.

“Impossible to tell,” she replied. The idea that they might miss learning about the Caisah, maybe even stopping him, was not acceptable to Byre. He turned and strode away, leaving Pelanor to follow in his wake like a child.

His jaw was set as he approached the nykur. The dark, clear eyes regarded him from under the razor sharp green hair. It was no Named Kindred, but it was a creature of this world. It had chosen to obey his kind, and now it would have to obey him.

“I have need of you,” was all Byre said, holding out his hand and thrusting all fear away.

The unnamed nykur regarded him from its great height, threatening impalement by tossing its horned head a few times. Up this close it smelled of salt and danger.

“I need to find him,” Byre finally pleaded, hoping that some of his sister’s abilities still lingered in him. “They told me I need to see. Ellyria did.”

The nykur opened its mouth, so that all of its saber-like teeth were visible. Pelanor, who had caught up with him, caught at Byre’s elbow, but she was clever enough not to say anything.

They both stood there, easily within striking distance of the beast. When it finally tossed its head and lowered one foreleg in a bow, Byre felt as though he were hallucinating.

“Isn’t this stealing?” Pelanor asked, before hastily adding, “Not that I care if it is . . .”

“The Vaerli have no real concept of personal possessions,” Byre replied, as he slid his hand under the nykur’s nose. “Besides, there is no owning a beast like this. He is no Named Kindred that owes anyone anything. It is his choice to come and go.”

When he turned and looked at her, he knew a mad grin was on his lips. “And he has chosen to go with us . . . at least for a bit.”

None of the Vaerli around them took any notice as the nykur folded his forelegs and allowed them to mount on his back. The thought flashed across Byre’s mind that this was how his sister must have felt the first time she climbed onto Syris.

Pelanor leapt up easily behind him. “What a wondrous beast,” she whispered. “Look, even his hair reminds me of home.” She held up her fingers so that Byre could see the stripes of blood on them.

When she licked them off with her tongue, the nykur was not the only one to stir. “Waste not, want not,” she said with a slight smile.

When the nykur rose, there was no choice but to hold onto the hair. Unlike Syris, this beast had no saddle on him, so they were both grateful of their leather pants and skirts. Unfortunately, their hands would not have such an easy time of it.

It was a small pain compared to the greater ones he had endured. Byre wrapped his palms around two great clumps of the nykur’s hair. “Hold onto me,” he said to Pelanor, which she did gratefully.

No one wanted the Witch to require more blood quickly. So it was Vaerli blood that flowed onto the nykur, which seemed only right.

The beast trotted from camp, with them clinging to its backs and feeling like children who were doing something very naughty.

“That way,” Pelanor said, pointing over Byre’s shoulder. “I smell the blood of something not Vaerli.”

It should have been impossible, but on this day of great horror, it was almost a relief to hear her say that something was different. Something was coming.

Once beyond the camp, the nykur began to run. The flex of muscle and power under him was a heady thing. Byre now began to understand why his sister was so wrapped up in the beast. The green, cutting hair flew in the wind of the nykur’s passing. It kissed Byre’s skin, leaving tiny cuts where it touched, but it was a small price to pay.

Riding a horse was nothing compared to this. It felt as though if Byre asked, the nykur could carry him to the end of the world itself. It was a temptation.

Pelanor would not let him just fly away. Her senses were keen, and all too quickly she was pointing again. “There!”

Now he saw it, too. The disappearing shapes of Kindred, sliding beneath the Salt Plain, back into their own world. They neither stopped to speak to the two of them approaching on the nykur, nor gave any indication that they were aware of their arrival.

However, they had left something behind.

“Impossible,” Byre whispered, even as the nykur slowed first to a trot, then to a walk.

How had the Caisah gotten to the gathering of the Vaerli, had always been the question. The answer could not be that the Kindred had brought him! That would be a betrayal of the pact between the Kindred and his people. Why would they have done such a thing?

The nykur stopped feet from where the crumpled body of a man lay face down on the salt. The curly dark hair was immediately familiar to Byre; he would have known it anywhere. The costume that he wore was strange; it appeared almost to be a kilt, but armored. An unusual looking helmet had come off his head and lay a few feet away.

Byre sprang down and picked it up. It looked like iron, but the curious thing was a line of tall feathers that ran down the middle. It made Byre think of a rooster vying for attention.

With his foot, he rolled the man over. It was indeed the Caisah—but dressed most strangely, and in a position that no Vaerli from Byre’s time would have recognized.

The timeless face was as relaxed and vulnerable as a baby’s, yet he knew it had committed terrible atrocities. It had ordered the death of Byre’s own father. What he would do with this information now was the question. A hard ball of vengeance began to gather in the pit of his belly, and the only thing Byre knew would soothe it was blood.

Three nights the royal mistress waited, all nerves and lack of sleep. The Caisah did not call for her and the darkness was not her friend. Kelanim sat on the wide edge of the window and looked out over the sleeping city. Perilous and Fair was always at its best when under the gentle ministrations of night; the strange silvery writing and the undulating drawings that were carved on every wall and roof gleamed with moonlight. Only the Vaerli—and perhaps Kelanim’s love—knew what they meant.

They also made her think of the strange writing on the old looking piece of vellum that the centaur had her slip beneath the Caisah’s pillows. She twined one lock of her long, thick red hair about her finger and tried to hold back the rush of fear that suddenly filled her belly. The beast had said it would allow him to become human and mortal again. She herself had heard him wail and complain about how he hated his immortality, how it was driving him mad . . . so she could not have done a bad thing.

The cool night breeze slipped in through the window and scampered over her skin. The delicious tug of it over her breasts pulled a little gasp from her throat. It, in turn, made her think of him. Wriggling slightly, Kelanim pulled up the hem of her night robe. It was very plain, and nothing like she would wear for him. It was made for comfort, not for seduction.

She was just about to retire to her narrow bed, when movement caught her eye. White in the dark sky, a flicker of the thin moon on a shape fluttering down toward the conical outline of the Chapel of Wings.

Wings. Kelanim sat up straight, suddenly more awake than she had been for hours. The chapel of the Swoop had been sealed up when they had proved disloyal. Their loss had sent the Caisah into a rage only matched by the one he had when the Hunter had been lost to him.