The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing (30 page)

“We are friends in need of shelter from the storm!”
Umbral called up.

The Orange Canyon clansmen bristled their spears and
cocked their bows. They wore ramshorn helms, sheepskin boots and
wool tunics and capes woven, in orange and black on white, with the
Eagle and Ram symbols of their tribe, as well as a Spider On A Web,
which was probably the totem of their clan.

“How do we know you aren’t wolves, here from Green
Woods for retribution?”

Umbral pushed back his hood, so the men could see
his face.

“Rudgo! Why didn’t you say so!” cried one of the
warriors joyfully, and the others accepted his vision, crying also,
“Rudgo! Hey, hey, it’s Rudgo!”

Dindi shook her head disapprovingly.

“Would you rather let them see me as they wish, or
stay out here in the cold?” Umbral asked archly.

The warriors let them in. Dindi did not choose to
stay out in the cold.

Clanfolk peeked out from their doorways, hung with
oiled sheepskins, to wave at ‘Rudgo.’ The rooms behind them glowed
with hearths, rich wool tapestries and numerous children tumbling
on fleece rugs.

“Hey, hey, it’s Rudgo!” The clansfolk shouted to one
another.

“Hey, Rudgo!” one woman called out. “We heard you
were killed fighting in Green Woods, but you survived! Are you on
your way home? Who’s the lass?”

Umbral pulled back the hood of Dindi’s parka, so
they could see she was young and pretty.

“A captive from the battle,” he said. “My slave. I
haven’t decided yet whether to kill her or keep her!”

The clan clapped and laughed. “How’s that, then!
Good on ya, Rudgo!”

Umbral spun a likely tale about his role in the war
and his journey home, then fended off further questions for
‘Rudgo,’ pleading hunger and exhaustion.

“You can stay with the Blind Woman, of course,” one
warrior said. “She’ll be glad of some better company than that
Dwarf of hers.”

“And remember,” added his companion. “If she gives
you one of those ugly rags of hers, praise it to the sky. She won’t
know better.”

Not too surprisingly, the hut of the Blind Woman and
the Dwarf was the frailest, most wretched hovel of the bunch,
isolated in the far corner of the clanhold, between the fodder
shack and the midden heap. Fortunately, the seclusion suited
Umbral.

“I hope you don’t mind what I told them about you,”
he said to Dindi, once the crowd shut themselves back up in their
own cabins.

“Why should I?” asked Dindi tartly. “It was the only
thing you told them that was true.”

No one answered their call, so Umbral and Dindi had
to enter the cabin unbidden to escape the wind.

In some ways, it was much like the other cabins
they’d seen. A tall, standing loom stood against one wall, and
fleece rugs covered the floor around a square hearth pit against
the right-hand wall. But there were notable differences.

Compared to the cheery dens in the other homes, the
interior was dim. The walls were blackened by smoke and not hidden
by wool hangings. The fleece rugs were filthy and oily. The fire in
the hearth had been allowed to burn low, near to embers, even
though a hunched old woman sat next to it, poking the fire with a
stick. She turned her head toward the sound of their entrance; her
orbs were pure white.

A small person sat on the rug. She was the size of a
child, yet no child. Her head and her arms seemed too big for her
chest and legs. She had a piggish scowl, and glowered at Umbral
with narrow, beady eyes. The warrior had called her a Dwarf, but to
Umbral’s surprise, she was no fae. She was human, merely misgrown.
He wondered what hex had twisted her body into that unfortunate
shape.

Both the Blind Woman and the Dwarf were wrapped from
head to toe in the most atrocious material Umbral had ever had the
misfortune to encounter. Instead of the neat patterns of Eagle, Ram
and Spider that everyone else in the clanhold wore, the threads in
their cloth had no rhyme or rhythm. Higgidy-piggidy, threads of
random colors were thrown together in a futile hodge-podge that
offended his sense of order. The origin of this abomination against
fashion was not hard to guess, for there on the loom, only half
finished, was more of the same cloth.

The Blind Woman was still staring sightlessly at
Umbral with her unnerving white eyes. She wrinkled her nose.

“You aren’t Rudgo,” she said flatly. “You don’t
smell anything like him.”

“He’s not Rudgo,” said the Dwarf. “He’s some
stranger. We’ve never seen him before.”

Umbral tensed. He had feared the Blind Woman might
not be fooled by his mask, but how the dwarf saw through his magic
as well, he was not sure. Perhaps it was simply that the Blind
Woman’s certainty had broken his spell. Perception was fragile.

“Another of their pranks,” the Blind Woman said.
“Well, who cares who you are? You’ll share our meal, and buy one of
our blankets. Tomorrow you can repay us with your back and arms.
The roof wants repair.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Umbral said,
easing his stance only slightly. This pair disturbed him. “Do you
mind if I add more wood to the fire? I will gladly replace it
tomorrow.”

The women shrugged. There was no wood stacked by the
hearth, but Umbral remembered seeing a pile against the side of the
house.

“Slave,” he ordered Dindi, “Go fetch more wood.”

Dindi left without a word. He wished he could go
with her, to ask her in private what she thought of their
hosts.

The Dwarf dug a covered pot out of the embers of the
fire. She served potato soup to Umbral and to herself. Then she
brought a bowl to the Blind Woman and spoon-fed her, bite by
bite.

“Forgive me, auntie,” Umbral said. “No one told me
your name.”

The Blind Woman didn’t answer until the Dwarf
finished spooning her meal. Then she wiped her mouth on her
cloak.

“I am Essi, of the Spider Loom Clan. We are all
weavers, and I, especially, am renowned for my weaving skills, as
you can see.”

She gestured to the loom with the haphazard weave.
The Dwarf smirked at Umbral, sharing the joke.

“Lovely,” he murmured.

Dindi returned with wood and built up the fire, but
even then, the Dwarf made no move to prepare another bowl.

“Please feed my slave as well,” Umbral said
finally.

The Dwarf muttered. She ladled a fourth bowl and
shoved this at Dindi so roughly the hot liquid sloshed onto Dindi’s
hands. Dindi rubbed her hand.

Considering the quality of everything else in the
house, Umbral had low expectations for the potato soup, but it was
surprisingly hearty. He devoured it.

“Farla, you lazy runt, since there’s so much light
from the fire, let’s get back to work,” Essi barked.

“I’m too tired to help you now, you sightless old
mole,” snapped the Dwarf. Farla, evidently.

Essi lashed out with her stick, shrieking, trying to
beat Farla, who dodged with a knack obviously born of
experience.

“Wretch! Runt! Rat! You lazy good-for-nothing! Do as
you’re told or I’ll smash you like the disgusting little roach you
are!”

A few of the old woman’s wild swipes connected.
Farla howled and flung her arms over her head.

“Stop!” Dindi stood up. “Please stop hitting
her!”

Essi and Farla both paused, more from shock than
anything.

“Go piss in your own pit, you ugly sow!” snarled
Farla. “No one asked you to stick your snout in our craw!”

“Dindi,” Umbral warned. “Stay out of it.”

Dindi might or might not have obeyed, but Essi put
down her stick, and Farla sat down beside her in front of the loom.
They behaved as if the row had never happened.

Essi’s fingers moved smoothly over the loom,
shuttling a thread in and out of successive rows.

“You see how nimble my fingers are, even now,” Essi
boasted. “I was not always blind. Every daughter in Spider Clan is
a direct descendent of Spider Lady, the Aelfae who defied her kind
to gift the secret of weaving on humankind. She taught our race to
how to build the first loom. I learned to weave before I had seen
three winters snow. No Spider Clan girl is initiated into womanhood
until she is as tall as a loom, and weaves one entire blanket on
her own. All said that my Initiation Blanket was so exquisite that
the eagles looked as though they might fly off the wool. What a
pity I never had a daughter who could learn my skill from me and
stand beside her own loom! I went blind soon after I was married,
and my husband left me. No daughter to follow me, no granddaughter!
My thread ends with me! I was hexed, doubly hexed! I should be
enjoying my elder years waited on by my grandchildren, but here I
am, still weaving.

“I can’t see now, but I remember every Pattern by
thread count, so even blind, I can still reproduce our clan and
tribe Patterns perfectly. Right now, for example, I need to change
from a white thread to a black thread. Farla! Hand me a black
thread.”

Farla handed Essi a puce thread.

“This black is used to outline the other color, so I
will only tie a few knots of black before I switch again. Farla!
Hand me an orange thread.”

Farla handed her more puce thread. Half way through,
she cut it and replaced it with a chartreuse thread. She turned
around and winked at Umbral. Her expression oozed malice.

Dindi sat down next to Umbral.

“Now I know why the cloth is so ugly,” Dindi said,
her words pitched too low to carry. “It has nothing to do with the
colors. It was woven from hate.”

Xerpen took her wings.

After the initial audience in the Chief’s Hall,
Vessia was confined to Amdra’s house. It was actually a compound, a
rectangular yard enclosed by four buildings: two long, narrow
lodges—including the one where Vessia had awakened her first
morning in the tribehold—and two square huts. Slaves slept in one
hut, kilns filled the other. The slaves did not come into the
interior courtyard, and there was no door to the cooking hut, so
although Vessia could hear women thumping mortars into pestles, and
smell the potatoes they roasted, she never saw them except when
they brought her bowls of steaming food.

She sat outside whenever she could, so she could see
the sky, even when it snowed. More often, ice winds blew, though
the courtyard was protected. Either way, she did not care.

Captivity infuriated her. Boredom tormented her.
Ignorance aggravated her. All around her, though she could not see
it directly, she could hear the accelerating pace of activity in
the rest of the tribehold as the important day they called the
Paxota approached. Slaves were busier, Tavaedies were testier, even
the poor little Healer jumped more and gossiped less when she came
on her daily checks.

The sky was Vessia’s only friend. In the lengthening
days, she marked the approach of the equinox. More useful still,
she observed the rounds of the Raptor Riders. They patrolled the
blue much the way foot warriors padded around a patch of
ground.

Raptors also arrived with prisoners, groups of them
at a time, captured and carried in nets. The captives, Vessia
guessed, from what glimpses she had over their fur vests and leafy
headdresses, were Green Woods prisoners captured in the war, being
funneled slowly into the tribehold. Though the Orange Canyon
warriors had been driven from Green Woods in the end, they had
dragged away many unfortunate captives with them—not just warriors,
but women and children, whoever they had come across fleeing the
burning forest during that terrible war.

She did not know the fate of these war prisoners,
only that the Raptors did not land with them in the main
settlement, on West Peak. The birds kept flying east before they
dived out of sight, which meant their final destination was the
forbidden East Peak.

Since Vessia could not leave the compound, she
devised another way to wander—as a passenger in Amdra’s mind. She
did not want to abuse the leash, nor alert Amdra how she had
subverted it, so Vessia used this method sparingly.

She had no plans to use it this evening, but shortly
after dinner, she felt a shock of terror, so visceral that it took
her a moment to realize the emotion belonged to Amdra, not to
herself. Vessia could also feel Hawk in the link, and he was no
less terrified, not for himself, but for his mistress.

Terror turned everything else in the link to fog,
but Vessia tried to pick out a Vision. Three people. In one of the
stone lodges—they all looked the same to her. Perhaps it was the
Chief’s Hall, or perhaps the Raptor quarters. She could hear voices
– one was Xerpen.

All she could see of Xerpen was his feet. Amdra was
on her knees in front of him. Tears streaked her face, hot, wet
stripes. Behind her was her slave, Hawk, also groveling in the
dirt.

“Did you really think I planned to let your
disobedience pass unpunished?” Xerpen asked. Vessia recognized the
tone. He was playing with a toy. It filled Vessia with contempt,
but Amdra was too frightened of him to even hate him.

“Forgive me, Great One, it was the Deathsworn…”

“I know all about the Deathsworn. He will pay for
his meddling. But
you
must pay for your incompetence, Amdra.
In the Blood House.”

Amdra melted into the floor. “Please, no, no, not
the Blood House, you need me, you still need me, Great One, let me
pay with my slave, take my slave, Hawk, let him die in my
place…”

Fear flooded Hawk, yet equally strong hope, that
Xerpen would accept this. Hawk was ready to take her place in the
dread place.

“Why would I want a slave?” Xerpen mocked. “You know
what I
need
.”

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

“Take my son!” she burst. “My baby, my little lamb,
my Medo.”

This time, the explosion of emotion inside Hawk was
not ambiguous. He was outraged. Amdra felt it and squeezed her
leash on him, smothering him into silence when he wanted to roar
with fury.