The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing (14 page)

“Visions are often fragmentary, but any piece, any
word, any flash of an image could be important. Anything at
all.”

“She wants her freedom.”

“Anything beyond the blitheringly obvious.”

“Wings,” Dindi blurted. “Something about wings.”

“Wings.”

“Right.”

“Just…’wings.’”

“Just wings.”

“Not terribly helpful. We know the White Lady has
wings, but her captors aren’t likely to let her fly.”

“I’m sorry, that’s all I saw.”

He studied her for a several thumping heartbeats.
Then he shrugged.

“We’ll make for the Ottermark Ford. You will ride
Shadow,” he said in a flat voice. “I will walk. Maybe if I don’t
physically touch you, my Penumbra will not affect you as much. In
your previous Vision, you saw the Orange Canyon warriors were on
horseback, so we cannot afford to dally. The forest will rob them
of some advantage. We must try and overtake them before they reach
the Boglands.”

He gestured to Shadow. “I would lift you up, but it
seems it would only discomfort you, so you’ll have to manage on
your own.”

She climbed onto the strange black horse. Umbral
took off at a brisk jog and Shadow trotted after. Over his
shoulder, he tossed, “Let’s hope your Vision still holds true.”

Her Vision. Vivid. Disturbing. Completely
irrelevant. Dindi had no idea if the White Lady’s Orange Canyon
captors were still on horseback. They could have turned into fish
and jumped into the river for all Dindi knew. What would he do if
he discovered her lie? Would he consider their bargain broken?
Would he deem her a pledge-breaker?
Was
she a
pledge-breaker? Did honor demand that she be honest with a man who
lived by lies?

Finnadro kept low. The tree line had ended a short
distance back. Between here and the Ottermark River was nothing but
waving grass.

Hawk was ahead, almost to the ford. Finnadro would
let him cross, then start to close the distance. He was fairly sure
that Hawk couldn’t fly with his injury, and Amdra and Vumo had been
spotted riding horses. As long as they were on foot, or on
horseback, Finnadro could track them. If they flew, he was
lost.

As if in mocking response to his thoughts, a raptor
swept out of the sky. It was a hawk, and at first Finnadro thought
it was
his
Hawk, before he realized it was larger than a
usual raptor. It was a female.

The giant female hawk already bore two riders, but
she swept low over where Hawk ran in the grass.

Finnadro abandoned stealth. He raced across the
plain. He knew he had only one chance left: stop Hawk before he
could climb onto the back of the raptor.

“Don’t go back to them, Hawk!” Finnadro shouted.
“Don’t give up your freedom!”

“I have no choice, Wolf Hunter!” Hawk shouted back.
“I must return to my nest!”

The raptor screeched at Finnadro. She did not land;
she simply grabbed Hawk in her talons and lifted away.

Finnadro skidded in the dirt and swung his bow into
position. He launched one, two, three arrows, knowing already it
was futile. She soared out of his range.

She flew high over the river, diminishing to a speck
in the clear skies over the Boglands.

Umbral and Dindi reached the Ottermark River near
sunset, just in time to see a huge raptor sweep out of the sky and
pick up a man running through a field toward the ford. Umbral knew
it would be useless to try to catch the man or the raptor.
Interesting that it was a female raptor.

“Amdra, you sly toad,” he murmured. “Who knew.”

Dindi looked confused.

“Your Vision is clear enough now,” Umbral said.
“Wings indeed. It seems Amdra is also a shapeshifter.”

“That bird was Amdra?”

“I suspect so. It was probably Vumo the One Horned
Aurochs, her father, and the White Lady riding on her back. I
believe it was Hawk she saved. It’s odd, though, that she would
risk revealing her talent to save a slave. I don’t think Orange
Canyon wants it known that their Riders as well as their Raptors
can change shape.”

A hunter had been tracking the man picked up by the
raptor. There was no mistaking the figure: tall, rangy, dressed in
fur and leaves, painted in green and brown, with the distinct
silhouette of the Singing Bow in his hands.

Umbral had tangled with Finnadro the Wolf Hunter,
Henchman of the Green Lady once before. At the time, Umbral had
been still new to being Deathsworn, and not as adept with the
Obsidian Mirror. Umbral had made a foolish mistake, and let the
other man see his real face. It would be dangerous to cross paths
with the Green Lady’s Henchman again. Fortunately, when Finnadro
saw his prey had escaped, he trotted back to the woods and
disappeared. Presumably he would return to his tribehold and
prepare to lead his people in a retaliatory raid into Orange Canyon
tribelands in a few days. By then, Umbral planned to be long
gone.

First, though, he needed to decide which route to
take. Straight across the Boglands would be fastest, which would be
fine, if they could fly. He frowned at Shadow. The black energy
shaped into a horse seemed strong enough for the moment, but the
other dark beasts ridden by his fellow Deathsworn had already
dwindled away to nothingness. His Shadow would last longer if
Umbral did not push it. Not to mention, it would be deadly if
Shadow were to fail while they were in the air.

On the other hand, he was loath to travel by foot
across the Boglands. There were two other routes. North, around the
marsh, or south, toward the Corn Hills. Each had advantages and
disadvantages.

“I need some time to think,” he told Dindi. “We’ll
cross the river, to be safely out of Green Woods tribelands, and
camp on the other side for the night.”

They crossed the ford, both riding Shadow to avoid
the icy water. Dindi paled to ashen by the time they crossed.

Because of me
. Umbral felt his stomach
twist.

He had never been in contact with ordinary people
long enough to make them sick. Obsidian Mountain’s prohibition of
relationships between Deathsworn and non-Deathsworn made grim sense
to him now. Deathsworn had no light of their own. They lived by
stealing light from others. As long as he was close to her, his
Penumbra would siphon power from the Chromas in her aura. If he
concentrated, he could force himself to take light from everything
but
her—he usually leached power from the magic permeating
the land and air—but her light glowed so much more brilliantly than
anything else around him, the block was hard to maintain. The
minute his focus slipped, his Penumbra began to leach from her
Chromas again.

He had kept two fish from the morning catch for
their dinner. Dindi offered to cook and he accepted gratefully,
since there was something else he wanted to do.

While she roasted the fish, Umbral gathered smooth
river stones from the bank. He sat down on a big, flat rock, with
his back to Dindi, and began to place the small stones in
piles.

Though absorbed in the abstraction of growing piles,
he still heard feet crunching on the rocky beach behind him. He
paused without looking at her.

“The fish is ready,” Dindi said.

“I imagine you’d digest better without my company.
Go ahead and eat.”

To his annoyance, she ignored his order. Umbral
resisted the urge to scatter his piles when she leaned over to
examine his neat pyramids of river stones.

Wasn’t threatening to kill her, and physically
making her sick, for mercy’s sake, enough to keep her from
pestering him?

Apparently not.

“What are you doing?” she asked. She picked up one
of the stones.

He snatched it back. “Don’t let the fish get
cold.”

“Are you… using
thinking stones
?”

A cold current of dread washed over him.

“How did you know that?” He jumped down off the rock
and grabbed her by both shoulders. “Are you using magic on me? Did
you eat my thoughts?”

Her face was white. She stared at him with the
oddest expression.

“Answer me!” he demanded. “No one else does this. No
one else calls it that.
So how did you know?
”

“Kavio did. Kavio used thinking stones,” she
whispered.

He released her abruptly.

“Oh.” He felt like an idiot. “So that’s where I got
it.”

“I don’t understand. Why would he teach you…?”

“He didn’t
teach
me,” Umbral spat. “Sometimes
when I swallow a victim’s aura, some of their memories nest inside
me, a tangle of their personal quirks. Usually it’s not a big egg
to hatch. The threads dissolve quickly enough, and the memories are
inconsequential. But the stronger the magic, the longer
the…aftertaste….lingers. I absorbed Kavio’s powers when I…”

“Killed him,” she filled in.

“Killed him.” Umbral repeated it flatly. “I must
have picked up a few threads of his Pattern at the same time.”

“Something of Kavio remains alive…in
you
?”

“Don’t look at me like that!
” He shouted the
words, not enflamed, but icy with rage. She cringed, afraid of him
again. Good. “Nothing of Kavio remains alive! There is just
me.”

Umbral lifted his dagger and smashed all the river
stones off the big rock. They clattered onto the beach with a sound
like hail.

Finnadro knew he ought not to, but he needed to see
her.

She
always sensed his need. Emerald sparkles filled the air and
coalesced into the svelte form, pale green skin, jade hair, jewel
eyes. The sight of her was like the sun after a month of night. She
was his song, she was his music.
I love you, I love you, I love
you
.

He fell to one knee.

“I have failed you, my Lady. They have left our
tribelands by wing. There is no chance to catch them before they
reach the Orange Canyon tribehold.”

“Then my Orange sister has won.”

“
My Lady, I am sorry. There is
still vengeance.”

“Vengeance?” she scoffed. “A human frivolity. What
use is vengeance to a faery? My sister has won, and now I must
support her plan, though I dread what powers she has
unleashed.”

“My Lady?”

The Green Lady paced before him. “The situation is
more dire than you know, Finnadro. I told you, the True Enemy, Lady
Death’s Henchman, started the war between the human tribes to
distract us all. Now he is also hunting my Aelfae sister. Whatever
dissimilarities my Orange sister and I have, we are agreed on one
thing. The Deathsworn must not have the Last Aelfae. You must stop
him before he can reach the White Lady.”

“I will kill him.”

“Excellent. Then we will join forces with the Vyfae
and Orange Canyon…”

Finnadro could not believe he had heard right. “Join
forces with them?”

“Yes. You must…”

“No
.”

The Green Lady was not used to hearing him refuse
her anything.

Anger boiled inside him, however, and he could not
keep the heat from his words.

“They massacred my people—and yours! They burned the
Sylfae! Razed our tribehold to the ground! Set fire to the forests
and drove the wildings into the frozen North where many will die of
cold and starvation! They are beasts, Lady! They have wronged us!
We cannot let injustice fly free. We must make them pay! We
must
have vengeance!”

“Some compromises are necessary, Finnadro.”

“And some rivers cannot be crossed. I am not a man
who makes compromises. I love you without compromise. That is why
you chose me as your Henchman.”

“If you love me, you will obey me.”

“I love justice too.”

“You cannot love me and also justice. You must
choose. Obey me without question, blindly and faithfully, or abjure
me and I will choose another.”

He drew a jagged breath. The air still tasted like
ash. The trees were black and dead bones of themselves, miserable
corpses supplicating him not to forget their agony.

“Give me a chance to prove I can do it my way,” said
Finnadro. “I can serve you
and
kill the Deathsworn
and
save the White Lady.”

“You cannot do it alone. It’s too much.”

“I won’t be alone.”

“Your wolves will not be enough, Finnadro. Sooner or
later, you will need wings.”

“All I ask is the chance to try, my Lady. I swear I
will hunt nothing else until I either pierce the Deathsworn’s heart
with my arrow or I drop dead.”

“Or you agree to do things
my
way,” she
added. She caressed his cheek. “I do not want to see you dead, you
sweet, stubborn fool.”

“As you wish, my Lady.”

The air shimmered and she was gone.

Vessia held her breath. She was bound hand and foot,
as before, but now she sat in front of Vumo on Amdra’s feathered
neck. As soon as Amdra, still a raptor, lifted Hawk into her
talons, Vessia wrenched her self to the left. Vumo lost his grip on
her and she sailed over the side of the bird.

She plunged through the air. She had use of neither
her hands nor her feet, but she didn’t need them.

Not when she had wings.

Her wings sprouted behind her and she caught a
breeze. No matter how long it was between flights, it was always
effortless for her. Amdra emitted a raptor shriek of dismay, and
banked her own trajectory to chase Vessia. But Amdra could not raze
Vessia with her claws without dropping Hawk.

Vessia flew toward Green Woods tribelands. It was
not far. This was her only chance…

Unfortunately Amdra’s powerful airstrokes, on the
wings of a predator, carried her swiftly over the wind. Sharp
curves snapped around Vessia’s neck. Pain shot through her. Amdra
could not use her talons, so she had grabbed Vessia with her beak,
even though the wound inflicted would be fatal.