The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing (21 page)

Nonetheless, just to be safe, he strolled
closer.

A wave of roaring hobgoblins rushed toward him.

Vessia awakened on a sleeping mat, elevated on
raised turf by a hand’s span, softened with several layers of wool
blankets. More wool blankets, folded, served as pillows under her
head. The turf cot was one of several lining a long, narrow room.
The walls had been fashioned from stones fitted without mortar. The
wood and thatch roof was pitched high. Carved gables held up this
crown at both ends, along with four rows of slender beams at
intervals all down the hall. Owls slept in the rafters. It was
middle morning, she guessed. The air in the lodge was thick with
the smell of owl pellets, and the rusty, musty dust of
feathers.

There were only two windows, one round hole in each
gables; and one door, in the broad side. The doorway was blocked by
a wood mesh, through which Vessia could see four human men in
orange legwals, wool tunics and feather headdress, who carried
spears and stone-head maces. She recognized them as Eaglelords,
warriors from the self-important Tavaedi caste of the Orange Canyon
tribe, although these four were obviously lowly minions, relatively
speaking.

What a fine cage.

She wore nothing but her legwals. Leaves and sticky
medicine covered the injuries on her shoulders and chest, where
Amdra, as a Raptor, had razed her with talons. Vessia knew she
should have been dead. Her stout fae constitution had apparently
saved her life once again. She sighed. It would have been easier if
she had had the good sense to die when she had the chance. Vessia
touched the place where she hurt most, the back of her neck. The
majority of the gashes had already been woven shut, neatly and
cleanly, by Yellow magic. Who had done that? The Morvae of Orange
Canyon had no healers of their own. Vessia sat up, too fast; she
was still a bit dizzy. But that was not so much because of her
injury as because of her age—the much subtler effect of the Curse
that made her mortal.

She was not alone in the room. Hawk lay in another
bed, asleep. As with her, his injury had been treated by a real
Healer, with both magic and herbs.

The other lodger was a young woman occupied with a
baby, which she dandled on her knee. She sat cross-legged on a bed,
for lack of another seat. She beamed with good health and a good
nature. She held something soft and fuzzy up to the baby, eliciting
infant laughter. Despite the circumstances, it was hard for Vessia
not to smile at the gladdening sound. The fuzz was a large
mouse—no, it was too fat and too furry—it was one of the wild
mountain rodents which the locals called a guinea pig. Locals ate
them, though Vessia found the meat too gamey for her taste.
This
plump, spoiled creature was unlikely to see the inside
of a pot. The guinea pig was clearly a pet.

Here was the answer to the first mystery: The plump
young woman must be a pet as well, someone’s pet Healer. She was
Morvae, but the wrong Chroma for this tribe, and by that fact alone
almost certainly a slave. If that were not clue enough, Vessia
could see the leash of Orange magic woven into her shiny Yellow
Chroma. Like the well-kept guinea pig, she was spoiled rather than
abused, fed and petted, plump and shiny. Gold bangles pinched her
wrists and ankles, and her hips stretched a garment of yellow and
blue, belted defiantly between two thumb-thick rolls of tummy by a
chain of gold bangles. She also had a basket, which rested on the
blanket beside her. The contents were hidden, but the scent was
pleasant. Herbs, not food.

When she noticed Vessia sitting up, the young woman
gave a cry of alarm. She stashed the baby on the bed behind her and
went so far as to draw a tiny flint blade.

“Behave, or I’ll call the guards!”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Vessia. “I won’t hurt
you.”

“They said you were a terribly powerful warrior, and
might attack me,” said the human girl. “Also, if you escape, they
will kill me. Admittedly, they might kill me anyway, though
probably not. They always seem to have a new use for me. I wish
they didn’t.”

“You must be the midwife who delivered little Medo
there. Did you nurse him as well?”

“How do you know the baby’s name?”

“I’ve known his mother Amdra since she was Medo’s
size. And yourself? How did you happen here? I can’t imagine it was
by choice. You’re from Yellow Bear, aren’t you?”

“I was on my way to Rainbow Labyrinth in answer to
the call of the White Lady for a contest to become Vaedi,” said the
Healer. “That was last summer, and the trail through the mountains
led me near the tribehold. A warrior riding a bird fetched me one
day, not by force, but with a lot of fine promises of rewards, if I
would help another Raptor Rider. She needed a Healer…well, a
Midwife, as you’ve surmised, and I’m both. So I came. They did give
me many nice things. But they would not let me leave. I’d have
rather they gave me nothing, but left me free.”

“Yes,” said Vessia. The sky was so blue past the
small round window in the gable, the only circle of blue she could
see in this gray and brown owl-pellet of a room. This fine cage.
“We are in Cliffedge, the tribehold of Orange Canyon, aren’t
we?”

“Yes. This is Rider Amdra’s house. You’re her
honored guest.”

Vessia snorted. “Don’t play their games for them,
Healer. I know what I am, and how likely it is they will let me
walk out that door on my own. As like as they would let you.”

The Healer bit her lip, too flustered by that to
reply. She wasn’t long at a loss for words, however. Once it became
clear Vessia did not plan to devour her for middle meal (which was,
instead, potato and leek soup), the Healer relaxed, played again
with the baby, and gossiped about the doings in the tribehold.
While the Healer babbled, an ugly thought crept on Vessia, and she
checked the threads of her aura. Sure enough, she found nasty
thorns of light digging into the Pattern of her Chromas, distorting
the rainbow with extra Orange.

That little beast, Amdra, had tried to
leash
her.

Ha!

We’ll see about that, little girl
.

Late in the afternoon, Amdra entered the lodge. She
walked straight to Hawk, who was still unconscious, put her hand on
his forehead, and discussed his health in low tones with the
Healer. Only after Amdra had satisfied herself he would recover did
she turn to Vessia.

“Aunt Vessia,” Amdra said with a nod of token
respect.

Vessia’s eyes narrowed.

“I had to leash you, auntie,” Amdra said nervously.
“For your own protection, you must understand.”

Vessia’s eyes narrowed further, to slits.

“Please, be reasonable,” stammered Amdra. “Let’s not
make a problem.”

“It’s not a problem.” A pause. “For
me
.”

Trying to be subtle, Amdra tested the link. Vessia
fed her a few surface reflections. She allowed this thought to drip
down the thread like a drop of honey:
Your mother once ate my
thoughts
.

Amdra gulped it up.

She never tasted the other half of the thought,
which Vessia held back:

She regretted it
.

If Vessia did not normally enjoy eating other
people’s thoughts, it was not because she lacked the skill. Her
talent in the area was unappreciated because too many people
associated self-restraint with powerlessness.

Even as Amdra gobbled up the few drops Vessia fed
down the line, Vessia pulled back, ever so softly, reversing the
major course of the flow. Not just Amdra’s Orange thread of
thought, but her Green heartline, her Yellow healthline and the
other colors which Amdra herself was hardly aware she had in her
aura, since she could not use them for magic.

A cough from the other side of the room grabbed
Amdra’s attention. Vessia could clearly feel the bolt of concern
and hope that went through her niece. A new complication began when
Hawk woke up. Amdra could taste his aura, and through Amdra, Vessia
could as well.

Hawk—ah, his real name was Anayo—opened his eyes.
Amdra warmed inside when a slow, sexy smile spread on his face. As
he considered how she had taken her Raptor shape to not only return
to enemy territory to rescue him, but risk the ire of her own
people by bringing him back here in disregard for the taboo, he
admired her courage and wondered if, after all, she really loved
him.

Amdra tasted all this, yet it brought her no joy.
She knew Anayo yearned to escape, though he would have to kill her
to break the mating bond to do so. He had entertained the thought,
of her death and his freedom, many times. She had punished him for
the wish, but that only drove it deeper inside him, where she could
not reach it. She knew better than to imagine he had abandoned the
plan.

But right now he was thinking:
She looks sexy
with feathers in her hair
.

Amdra touched her hair. “I look a fright.”

He just smiled at her. “Are you rested,
mistress?”

“Yes. What about you? How is your wound?”

“Fine,” he said.

It hurts like muck all
, he thought.

“Liar.” She studied the wound, but she had no
healing skills. “The Healer says you will recover.”

She put her hand on his, and he squeezed it. She
leaned over him and brushed his lips with hers. Desire flared in
him, and when she felt how he wanted her, Amdra wanted him just as
desperately. If they had been alone in the room, if he hadn’t been
recovering, she would have peeled back the blanket and… She forced
herself to pull away.

This is pathetic
, thought Vessia.

Vessia wondered if she could talk to Hawk/Anayo
without Amdra overhearing. Or would it matter if Amdra could hear,
as long as she didn’t trace the though back to Vessia?

You don’t have to kill Amdra to escape
.
Vessia floated the picture of the whole family flying away and
taking refuge in the Labyrinth.
Take her with you
.

Would she come with me?
He doubted it.

Anayo, please
. Amdra rubbed her temples.
“Can’t you drop it?”

“Of course.”
Never
, he thought.
You
betrayed me and enslaved me. I hate you, I hate you, I hate
you…

“I don’t care if you hate me, as long as you obey
me!” she snapped.

His face darkened. Anger. He used it like a wall.
Emotions baffled Amdra. For her, it was like trying to walk on
scree on a steep slope, slippery and treacherous. She needed
something tangible, clean and linear. The Orange threads of his
thoughts were buried under a rockslide of the Green threads, love
and hate and anger and despair, all jumbled and shifting too fast
for even Anayo himself to catch. When Amdra tried to digest this
mess, she tasted nothing but gravel.

“Don’t do that,” she warned. “Don’t shut me out. You
know I hate that.”

His lips set in a flat line.

“
Tell me what you are
thinking!”

“Nothing.”

“You will tell me what you are
thinking!”
she Commanded.

“
Nothing
.”

“Damn you! Speak to me! Tell me the truth!”

Vessia sensed the jolt of pain that Amdra sent
through the leash. Hawk writhed on his bed. The Healer squealed and
wrung her hands, but didn’t dare speak out. His half-healed
injuries began to bleed again.

“Hawk!” Amdra sputtered, frightened she had hurt
him. The pain stopped.

And he smiled at me so sweetly when he first woke
up
, Amdra despaired.
As usual I ruined everything
.

But Amdra cooked that fear inside. Hawk couldn’t
taste it. Only Vessia could.

“
You risked too much to come back
for me,” he said bitterly. “Why did you bother?”

“Why didn’t you help our enemies? Surely they made
the offer.”

“How could I? I am your obedient slave. My mind is
your loom to weave.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“You always ask me for that. What’s the point? Truth
is like the wind. If you could make it stand still long enough to
catch it, it wouldn’t be wind anymore.”

She expelled a breath. “Are you hungry? I’m
starving.”

“We have potato soup!” the Healer interjected
brightly.

Hawk reached up and pulled something from Amdra’s
hair, which he handed to her. “A feather.”

He was all mushy inside for her again.

Ayaha!
Vessia rubbed her head.
You two are
exhausting
.

Vessia left the leash in place, but withdrew from
contact. If she eavesdropped on any more of their drama, she would
lose her lunch.

After a great deal more fussing and silliness, Hawk
was ordered to stay in bed, but the Healer declared Vessia fit to
meet the Great One.

At least she would get to go outside.

Deathsworn Tip Number Four: When fifty armed
hobgoblins rush you, run the other way
.

Umbral turned and ran.

His spear was with his rucksack, which he’d rested
on a rock. He lifted it up and kicked off the rock in an aerial
flip to land amidst the hobgoblins.

The fae could not see him, but they could feel the
chill of his passage, and these hobgoblins seemed pretty sure they
knew he was there. They shouted at each other to hone in on his
direction.

“Over here!”

“This way!”

“In front of me!”

He didn’t give them time to organize. He smashed
right through their ranks, lancing fae with his spear as he went.
When the bodies were skewered three deep, he used his foot to shove
them off the end of his spear. The only problem with killing them
was that now they knew exactly where he was. Being fae, they had no
fear of death. They flung themselves at him mindlessly.

Dozens of clawing hands and kicking feet buffeted
him. Umbral tumbled to the ground. He crawled underneath them and
came out the other side of their circle. With his spear in one hand
and his dagger in the other, he slashed and jabbed, slashed and
jabbed, until the glittering gore of faery blood splattered his
whole body.