Raven's Shadow (16 page)

“I don't know what I can do to help you,” she said at last, because, in the end, there was no choice. “I can take a message to the clans, though I don't know where any are at present. I will give you what aid I can.”

“You don't understand,” Hennea said. “I've come to help you.”

“
You
are going to help
me
?” asked Seraph. “With
what?”

Hennea smiled grimly. “Your new Sept travels with quite an entourage.”

“Including you and Volis,” Seraph said. “Is the Sept one of the . . . what did you call them, something stupid . . . the Secret Path?”

“The Sept?” she said. “No, not him, at least I don't think so. He's charismatic, the Emperor's best if not only friend, and he's very good at political games. No one is surprised at the number of people who follow him around. Volis said that someone called in a few debts and offered a favor or two so that the Sept would agree to build a Temple of the Five Gods here.”

Hennea stood up and began pacing in abrupt, quick steps. “The Secret Path decided to bring the religion out into the public. They don't tell people that they get their five gods from the Travelers' Orders, of course.”

“There are six Orders,” observed Rinnie.

“They don't know about the Guardian,” said Jes. “Travelers don't talk about their mistakes.”

“You are not a mistake,” said Seraph, though Jes was more
right than wrong about the Travelers' reasoning regarding the Guardians. “Travelers protect the Guardians' secrets because your Order works better that way.” As if that settled the matter, Seraph turned back to Hennea, and sorted through her story for some way to change the subject. “Why did this Path of yours change and decide to bring their church to the masses?”

Hennea shook her head. “I don't know. Volis thinks that it's because the truth must be made known—but Volis wouldn't know the truth if it tore his throat out. I don't think that all of the wizards believe in their made-up gods, so there must be another reason.”

“Volis told me they chose to set his temple here because of Shadow's Fall.”

“I've heard him say that, too,” agreed Hennea. “I don't know what they want with Shadow's Fall, but I suppose that whatever power still lurks there can defend itself more than adequately.”

“Indeed,” said Seraph. “My husband is proof of that.”

“No,” said Hennea. “I don't think that he is.”

Seraph stiffened. “Oh?” she said softly.

“There were some wizards who traveled with us from Taela. They stayed with the Sept when Volis moved us into the new temple.” She stopped her pacing to frown down at Seraph. “Understand, please, that I've had to take a few facts and string them together. A few days ago, Volis got some correspondence from Taela. It wasn't signed, but from the content I think that it was from one of the wizards who came here with us. The letter devoted an entire paragraph to your family—unless there is another family with a Raven, Falcon, and Cormorant?”

“No,” said Seraph softly.

Hennea nodded once and began to pace again. “Someone's taken a Raven's eye to your home—and a real Raven would know that you had a Guardian, too. So it must have been one of the Path's wizards wearing one of their stones.”

Seraph nodded.

“I'd been listening to talk since we came here, and I heard of a Traveler mage married to a
solsenti
farmer. Since it was unlikely that any other Travelers had settled here, I could only
suppose that you'd been blessed with two Ordered children, half-blood or not. I decided to warn you as soon as I could, though there seemed to be no particular urgency. Then, last night, a man came to tell Volis that your husband's dead horse had been found with a few human bones. Tier's dead, they said, and they mourned the loss of his music.”

Hennea stopped again, rubbing her wrist absently. “And I thought on that letter I'd read. The first line read, ‘we have the Owl safe here.' ”

Seraph froze as her heart leapt to her throat. “By Lark and Raven,” she said, imbuing the words with compulsion, “do not mislead me on this.”

Hennea nodded to herself in satisfaction. “Your husband was Traveler and Owl and they took him to Taela to work their magic on him.”

“My husband was Rederni born and bred—but given to the Order of the Owl,” corrected Seraph absently to give herself time to regain control.
Tier was alive?
“If there was Traveler blood in his lineage it was a long time ago.”

“Ah,” said Hennea, revealing mild surprise. “I've never heard of something like that.” She rubbed her wrist again. “Anyway. I waited until Volis left on business this morning and set out to find the place where the huntsman found your husband's horse. It wasn't difficult to follow the huntsman's trail.”

“What did you find?” asked Seraph, her voice so soft that Lehr shifted uncomfortably.

Hennea shook her head. “Not much.” She shivered and clenched her hand over her wrist where Volis's
geas
band held her. “I have to get back soon.” She straightened slightly and continued, “The huntsman and his men buried both the horse and the skull, and I had no means to dig them up. I found hints of old magic, but nothing that would cause a person's death. There were a few tracks—but I'm not a Falcon to be certain of anything the tracks could tell.”

“Lehr is,” said Rinnie.

“Yes,” said Hennea, “I know. I had hoped to prove my suspicions before I talked to you—but I'm unlikely to get a chance to come so far again. Take your Falcon and find out what they
did. Then come and help me deal with Volis—and I'll help you find your husband.”

 

“I don't like leaving Rinnie alone,” said Lehr as he led Seraph through the partially plowed field.

“She'll be safe with Gura,” Seraph said, though she wasn't happy with it either. “And Jes will be back soon.”

She'd certainly be safer at home than investigating a place that might have been Shadow Blighted. If Seraph hadn't needed Lehr's help, she'd have found some way to leave him behind, too.

Jes, she'd found excuses to send off with Hennea. The forest king's territory extended on either side of the trail to town, but Jes thought that as long as he was with her the forest king wouldn't stop Hennea a second time. The
geas
had obviously been very painful by the time they'd left—Jes could get Hennea back to the temple sooner than if she had to find her way herself.

So now she only had to risk one of her children to find out if Hennea had been right.
Tier was alive.
Seraph was too much a Raven to allow herself to believe it without more proof, but even so, the thought thrummed through her. She would have the chance to save him, as she hadn't been able to save Ushireh.

“There's two places I could pick up the trail,” Lehr said. “But knowing Jes, I thought that it might be shorter to follow the path he took with the forest king than to try and follow the trail he made bringing Hennea back.”

“You're the Hunter,” Seraph said. “I trust you.”

Lehr stopped where the field turned to forest. “The forest king came here,” he said, but he didn't immediately start on the trail, just stared at the ground. “Are you certain that I'm a Hunter? Papa could . . . can track as well as I can.”

He didn't look at her as he spoke.

Lehr, she thought, saw beyond the power to the cost of acknowledging his Traveler blood. He knew that a Falcon could never belong to Redern.

“It doesn't matter,” she said gently. “We just need to track Jes to where he found the girl, then follow her trail to
where . . . where the huntsman found whatever he found.”

“Right,” he said and started through the forest.

Seraph followed Lehr's rapid gait with an effort, but made no complaint. The afternoon was well spent and he would need light to track. Whatever he hoped, she could feel the hum of magic as it passed from him and seeped into the woods around her. She had learned basic tracking skills herself, but she could see no sign of bent grass or footprint in the trail Lehr followed—she doubted that anyone but a Hunter could have followed the forest king through his own territory.

But she said nothing of it. Lehr would have to accept his abilities in his own way—or not.

When Lehr began a steady jog, Seraph left off her musings and concentrated on keeping up with him. He ran a mile or so before dropping back to a walk in a glade of wild wheat edged by forest on three sides and a formidable rock formation on the other.

“I think this is where Jes picked up the girl,” he said, glancing around at the ground. He turned his back to the stone formation and knelt in the thick, spring-short grass. “There are several sets of his tracks. Do you see how much deeper Jes's print is here than it usually is?”

A branch moved behind his head. Seraph hissed a warning and called her magic.

“Now there is no need for that, Raven,” said the man who rolled nimbly out from under a particularly thick area of foliage that gathered in front of the stone formation. “It is you who have invaded my home, not the other way around.”

Lehr got to his feet and dusted off the knee of his breeches. “Mother,” he said. “This is Jes's forest king.”

He looked more like a grubby farmer fallen on hard times, thought Seraph. The tunic he wore was patched on top of older patches. His feet were bare and his hands were the knobby-knuckled, dark-nailed hands of a man who had worked the land.

She'd always wanted to see Jes's friend, and on any other day she would have had a number of questions for him. But nothing mattered except Tier.

Seraph bowed her head shallowly so she could keep her eyes on him. “We are sorry to disturb you,” she said. “We are following the woman's tracks to the place where my husband's horse died.”

“You won't find it trying to track her from here, Hunter. I didn't bring her by ways you can follow.” The forest king grinned, revealing yellowing teeth that looked sharp, and his eyes stayed cold and watchful. “The place you speak of is outside my realm, but you can follow the girl's tracks starting from the big waterfall. Let me loan you a guide.”

He turned and looked at the brush behind him. It shuddered briefly then a rangy vixen emerged. Seraph felt no magic, though beside her Lehr stiffened as if he heard something odd, but the vixen stared at the bedraggled forest king as if he were talking to her before setting out at a trot without looking at Seraph or Lehr.

The forest king waved his hand at the fox. “Follow her—she won't wait.”

“My thanks.” Seraph bowed again and started out after Lehr, who was already headed deeper into the forest.

 

It was chilly near the falls where the cold river water was pounded to vapor at the bottom of its descent. The fox shifted nervously while Lehr paced by the river. The moment he found Hennea's trail and knelt beside it, she left without waiting for gratitude.

Lehr rose to his feet and set out at a gait scarcely slower than he'd used to follow the fox. Even so, the sun was low when they broke free of the trees at last and began climbing a narrow path up the rock-strewn side of a mountain.

“Lots of traffic here,” said Lehr, pointing at a rock scored by a shod hoof. “More than usual for such a remote place.”

“Hennea was here,” Seraph reminded him. “The huntsman and his men.”

Lehr shook his head. “More people than that have been here. Some of the tracks are pretty faint, but I'd say five or six horsemen were here a month or more ago. Their tracks go up the mountain and back down again. Isn't that what we're looking for?”

Seraph nodded. “If you find anything that might have belonged to them, a bit of cloth or hair, get it for me.” She wiped the sweat from her face to clear her eyes. “I can use it to get more information.”

“Like you did from Frost's bridle,” Lehr began moving again, but only at a walk. His change of pace might have been to allow him to observe the tracks more clearly, but Seraph suspected it was more likely to allow her to catch her breath.

They didn't slow long, and after a few miles Lehr seemed to forget she was there. The trail he followed snaked across the foothills and into the crevices of the Ragged Mountains.

Seraph's calves ached, then burned as they hadn't since her Traveling days. Farming was hard, but climbing at a jog in the mountains was a different sort of work. Lehr didn't seem bothered by it, even though he wore the pack she'd filled with things they might need.

When Lehr stopped, she wondered if he were finally getting tired, but then she really looked at where they were.

The deer trail they'd been following had widened into a piece of open level ground as big as the kitchen garden. In the center of the cleared area, a waist-high white rock with an unusual flat top broke through the dirt.

The grass in the clearing was knee-high, unusually tall for this time of year this high in the mountains. It carpeted the ground in dark bitter green, except for a large mound of disturbed earth to one side, a burial mound large enough for a horse.

“Why did they bury the horse?” asked Lehr.

“Sometimes,” said Seraph, “the Blighted Places can recharge their magics. The bodies will tend to attract people or animals, and it's best to get them safely buried. There are also stories about odd things happening to the bodies of people who die of Shadow Blight—things that don't happen if the bodies are safely buried.”

“Weren't they afraid of the magic?”

“Maybe,” said Seraph. “There are a lot of Rederni who can sense magic—especially the ones who spend a lot of time out in the mountains. Maybe because in earlier times, when the
Shadowed's hand was heavier on the mountains, the people who couldn't sense the Blighted areas didn't survive.” Tier had said that he could sense such places—she pushed hope away and said, “There isn't any magic that I can feel now—likely the huntsman felt the same. Take a look around, would you, and tell me what you find.”

Lehr nodded, then stopped. “Do you believe her, Mother?” he said, his voice tight. “Do you believe Papa might be alive?”