Patricia Briggs (27 page)

My brother's death, though, belonged to the bloodmage. As the disaster that had descended upon Fallbrook belonged to the bloodmages, all of them. Without them there would have been no unraveling of the binding. No war. No mercenaries-turned-bandits. So I gave Moresh's mage the guilt for all of the deaths of this spring and summer, for every evil thing that had befallen me and mine.

There was some inconsistency in my logic—I knew it even then—but anger clouded my thoughts, and it felt good. I gathered my righteous rage around me like a warm blanket. There was someone to blame for this. I'd thought the bloodmage dead, safe from my wrath. I felt the fury pounding in my blood as if Quilliar's death were just yesterday.

“Aren!” Caefawn peered worriedly into my face. “Aren, what did you see?”

I tamped the rage down gently for later use and said, “Moresh's bloodmage is coming back. I saw him on the old road that runs around the back of Faran's Ridge, near Mole Rock.” Caefawn frowned, coming to his feet and pulling me to mine. “He's come for Kith—to kill him.”

“When?”

“Moresh gave him three months. Until last spring planting. When the mountain fell, when Moresh died, I thought that would be an end to it.”

Caefawn shook his head. “Not yesterday; there was no lightning storm on the ridge yesterday. Not today either, or at least not this morning, although it might rain on the ridge between now and nightfall.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them and shook his head. “The mountain says there won't be such a storm today. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Which puts him at the village tomorrow, or possibly the day after.” I hugged myself tightly, though I wasn't cold.

Time was giving me perspective, and I felt the rage seeping away. Moresh's bloodmage was no more responsible for my situation than the raiders were. He'd once been a victim, too: I'd never heard of anyone apprenticing to the bloodmages happily. Remembering the relief I'd felt giving him all the guilt and fear that were mine, it was easier to understand the villagers who hated me.

Rage or not, the bloodmage had to be stopped. Though it would have been nice to have more time to prepare, it really didn't matter. I knew what Kith would do—nothing. He'd believed all along that he was living on borrowed time, and he didn't seem very willing to fight for more. Albrin would fight—but he was not yet in shape to be any help. Koret was a trained fighter, but he knew nothing of magic. In any case, the village needed Koret in order to survive; I couldn't risk getting him killed. No more than I would risk Caefawn in a battle that was not his.

There was no one to fight the mage except me.

“So how do I fight a bloodmage?” I asked him.

I noticed for the first time that the hob's ears were pinned back against his skull, though his smile was easy enough. “That's a very good question, but you're asking the wrong person. You forget what the bloodmages did to my people. I was there—and didn't fight very well.” His hand flexed on his staff. He continued softly, “I don't remember it, but I dream of it every night.”

“You couldn't have done anything,” I said, his pain drawing me out of my preoccupation with the bloodmage. “You were wounded so badly your people gave you to the mountain because they could not help you. What could you have done that your people did not? From the stories I've heard about the binding, the magic was worked far from here, far from the Hob. There were no battles to be fought. It's said they sacrificed a dragon to power the spell. If the mountain couldn't fight it, there was nothing you could do.”

“Whatever happened, it is long since over,” he agreed bitterly. Bitterness was not something I would have credited the hob with, though he had cause for it.

I didn't want to hurt him further and risk bringing back memories that the mountain had seen fit to take. However, still less did I want to face the bloodmage without any idea of how to oppose him. So I rephrased my question.

“Have you battled anything with magic?”

“Yes,” he said curtly. “Though when it was and what it was I don't know. Detailed advice wouldn't help you anyway. Your powers are not my own, but they are not the bloodmage's either. Use that against him.”

“Use what?” I asked, losing my own battle with bitterness. “Visions? Shall I ask him to meet me in the night so I can call up ghosts? Ghosts he can doubtless use better than I can—death dealer that he is.”

He spread his hands apart in a gesture of surrender. “I have nothing more to offer you. I'm not certain there is a way to vanquish such a one, but I'll help as I can.”

“No,” I said. I didn't want to risk the hob, not just because he was the key to the village's survival, but because I didn't want to risk losing him as I'd lost so many people I loved. I stared at him, and admitted to myself that I loved him.

Caefawn rose to his feet, shaking out his cloak. He said mildly, “I swore to help the village survive. If I think that its chances are better with Kith alive and willing to fight, it's no one's business but my own. Come, I'll escort you far enough so that you can find your own way back. Then I need to look into a few things.”

I
WASN'T SLEEPY AT ALL ON THE RIDE BACK
. I
F THE
mage wasn't enough, there were the berserkers who followed him. One-armed, Kith'd been able to stand off the raiders for the better part of a day. What could he have done had he been whole?

To fight the berserkers, the village only had two well-trained fighters. Two. And one of them wouldn't fight. I knew Kith—better now than before he'd left for war. He'd already accepted his death, distancing himself from people whenever possible. Not only because he'd been altered by magic into some kind of superior soldier, as I'd thought when he'd first returned, but because he knew he had only a short time to live. He wouldn't fight it, because deep inside he felt that he deserved nothing better. He'd been tainted with death magic, and the One God taught that such men were already dead.

Koret was good, but he had nowhere near Kith's proficiency. I'd seen them spar a time or two, and even I could tell the difference. He would stand little chance against the bloodmage's men.

There was Wandel. From what he and Kith had said, they both considered him able to fulfill the king's command to kill Kith if Moresh failed to do so. I thought about the harper, who was even now writing songs of thanks to the earth, and wondered how he'd stand up against a berserker.

Duck tripped over a small, downed tree hidden beneath a clump of grass. I noticed then that we were alone; Caefawn must have decided I could find my way down from here.

He would help, he'd said so—there was no reason to feel abandoned. A sudden thought caught me like a fist in my stomach. I remembered his ears pulled back against his head like a stallion whose territory was threatened. I sat back, and Duck stopped.

He wouldn't
, I thought,
not so far from the mountain, where his powers would be little better than nothing
. But even as I thought it, I worried. The woods were his element, and even so far from the mountain he might feel confident. Three berserkers and a mage against a hob—would those odds worry the hob, who ate (if he could be believed) hillgrims for breakfast? Who'd greeted my suicidal run this morning with laughter and a “be smarter next time” speech?

I tried to convince myself I was wrong. But all I could see was the look in his eyes when he told me that he, of all people, would be of no use against a bloodmage. It wasn't just sorrow there, or anger. It was guilt.

Who better than I to understand that? By virtue of my
sight
, I'd been given guilt enough to fell an ox. Guilt for Daryn and my family. Guilt for surviving when they had not. How much more would the hob feel it? He was the last of his kind, the only one the mountain had saved.

I threw myself forward, and Duck, catching my sudden urgency, took off like a shot. He was traveling far too fast for the track, but I didn't care. I had the sick feeling I'd traded one person I loved for another. I didn't want to be responsible for anyone else's death, least of all Caefawn's. If I could get to town soon enough, perhaps I could arm the village—or at least the patrollers. If I could get enough people and run them up to Faran's Ridge, maybe Caefawn would stand a chance.

The track we followed turned onto a trail both Duck and I recognized, and he stretched out even more. Running downhill always felt like falling to me, with the horse frantically trying to get his feet down faster than his body.

The mountain shuddered under Duck's hooves, and we fell. Luckily the slope was shallow, and Duck scrambled to his feet almost before I quite knew we'd gone down. I could feel the mountain's rage, and knew my suppositions about the hob were correct. He'd told her where he was going, and she knew who'd told him about the bloodmage. She wasn't happy with me.

Fear sped Duck faster than any goad, and we jumped and dodged and wove like a shepherd's dog as Duck fled down the side of the mountain. Tree branches caught at the cedar staff, but I held it fast.

“I know,” I shouted, though I wasn't certain the mountain would hear me. “I'm getting help.”

Duck fell to his knees again as the solid footing shifted under him a second time. I steadied him as he scrambled to his feet, and he redoubled his speed. Great muscles trembled with his effort and his breath escaped in noisy gulps. If we did get off the mountain, there was a good chance he'd never run again.

The brief break from the rain was over, and the ground grew wet and slippery. The mountain sent rocks tumbling after us, some of them as big as Duck. One crashed into a nearby tree, knocking the old giant to the ground in front of us.

Given no choice in the matter, Duck bunched his hind legs underneath him and jumped with the power bred to drag an iron plow deep into the earth. I'd just enough warning to bury both hands in his mane and hang on.

It wasn't a graceful jump; he landed with both hind feet tangled in branches and went down for a third time. But those same branches cushioned our fall. I threw myself as far away from him as I could get, to give him room as he somehow scrambled up.

Duck stood there a moment, head hanging in exhaustion. His chest was foam-covered, and a good portion of the water dripping off his back was not rain. His knees were cut and scratched from his earlier falls, but only the skin was damaged, as far as I could tell.

The earth shook slightly one more time, but there were no more boulders or rocks. The sudden silence made me realize just how loud the earth had been. Now there was only the sound of the rain. A flash of lightning hit in the direction of Faran's Ridge.

“I thought you said there wouldn't be a thunderstorm tonight,” I accused, but the mountain didn't answer.

The lightning meant there would be no time to get help. I didn't doubt the hob could make it to Faran's Ridge to confront the bloodmage, but it would take us mere humans a full day to get there.

Duck and I continued toward the village at a slow walk.

I didn't doubt that the bloodmage would reach Fallbrook. I
knew
it. If I let go of the staff I held, I would see it, too. The vision hovered just behind my eyes. I gripped the staff tighter and tried not to think.

I
WALKED BESIDE
D
UCK ALL THE WAY TO THE INN
. There were a few people out in the rain. The smith's wife gathered her children together and hustled them into the smithy. I guess I must have looked pretty battered.

Duck picked up his pace for a few steps when he saw the inn, but he soon slowed again. He waited patiently as I stripped him of his tack and wiped him off with a knobby towel. I put him in his stall and measured him a bit of grain. His chest was wet with sweat and rain, but cool from the long walk. I wouldn't have to worry about giving him too much water.

“What's wrong?” Kith's voice didn't surprise me, even though I hadn't heard him come in.

I hooked the stall door and turned around. In the silence between us I played out what would happen if I told him.

He would tell the villagers that it was between him and the bloodmage. They would let him surrender himself. His father was too ill to protest; Merewich could not risk losing what control he had of the village; Koret would see it as Kith's choice.

If the village gave Kith to the bloodmage, the mage wouldn't harm the village. He would stay here; there was no other place for him to go. Me, he would kill, but he might be persuaded not to kill Kith because all of the reasons to kill him were gone. Though from what I knew and what Kith had said about him, that was not likely. Then what?

If the earth spirit had not believed me when I told him we were not allied with the bloodmages, he would have destroyed Fallbrook's food supply. What would he do when he discovered a bloodmage living here?

I had the means to defeat the mage. I had known it all along—I'm sure the hob did, too. But I wouldn't have done it for revenge or to save Kith's life. But for the village, I would do what I wouldn't for the man who was as close to me as my brother. In order to accomplish it, I'd need to confront the bloodmage alone. I looked into Kith's eyes and knew he wouldn't let me do that. So I lied.