The Unfinished Song (Book 5): Wing (8 page)

“I don’t see how much rest she requires to lie on
her back and spread her legs for you.” Ash snickered unpleasantly.
“But, fine, have your fun with her. Obsidian Mountain will overlook
it. But let me warn you, Umbral, they will not forgive you if you
let your games interfere with your duty. Don’t spend so much time
toying with her that you let the White Lady get away. And if you
take a woman against her will, you’d better kill her after, or else
she might decide to make you pay for what you took.”

Ash grinned. She would know.

“I’ll do what must be done.” He let a note of
bitterness creep in. “I know the Elders of Obsidian Mountain still
don’t fully trust me, but I thought that you, at least, did.”

That stung her.

“I trust you with my last thread of light, Umbral. I
just don’t trust you with yours. That girl can hurt you.”

In more ways than one
, he thought. But Ash
still did not suspect who the girl was.

Ash placed her burned hand against his cheek, so
that he could feel her scars and ridges of melted flesh.

“We aren’t part of their world anymore,” she said
softly. “We belong to Death now. They can mean nothing to us. You
helped me to understand that. Now I’m trying to help you. If you
try to hold onto a life that is dead to you, you will never stop
dying.”

“Shadow Sister,” he said, and kissed her forehead.
“You are precious to me. But you worry too much. I know what I am
doing.”

“You’ll kill her?”

“I’ll do what needs to be done,” he replied with
deliberate ambiguity that was not lost on Ash.

“Fa!” she snorted. “Well. Your pretty little kitten
is finishing up her bath now—and don’t pretend you weren’t peeking
and don’t know it—so I will go. But Umbral, if you cannot do it,
remember. I can. And I will.”

Though the fae had warmed the water for her, Dindi
still shivered as she dressed. Orange pixies twined themselves in
her hair, blowing it dry.

Umbral had left her a beautifully tooled outfit. A
simple tunic and legwals of soft white wool hugged her form, so she
could wear them under heavier garments. The outer legwals were made
from strips of waterproof reindeer intestine and salmon skin. The
downy breasts of seventy-eight skinned birds, waterfowl with slick
feathers, had been sewn together in squares, to create a dense and
warm feather parka with full sleeves. The cuffs at the neck and
wrists were made from beaver fur. Umbral had even left a hood and
matching boots, also white, reindeer fawn edged with winter
foxtails.

The pixies stirred and squawked in alarm.

“Flee, flee!” they squealed. “Danger!”

All of them flew away. Even the ice wisps dispersed,
though they were normally loath to leave their icicles.

The man in black returned to the clearing. Umbral
had bathed and changed. He wore black tanned bearskin legwals, the
full-body pelt of a black wolf formed into hood and shoulder pads
over a dark waterproof gutskin parka, and a fur-lined raven-feather
cape. His black horse-which-was-no-horse trotted after him. He did
not tie it up, but the unhorse did not stray. It did not nibble at
shrubs or grass poking up from the snow, as a real horse would
have.

“Why do the fae avoid you?” she mustered the courage
to ask him.

He took his time finding a response for her.

“One might say that I have a permanent dispel
geis
around me,” he answered finally.

One might say
. What did that mean? That one
might say it, but it wouldn't be the full explanation?

“You still plan to kill me.”

“True.”

“But not yet.” Or else why give me such warm and
sturdy clothes?

“True.”

“Why?”

He gazed at her steadily without answering. He still
wore Kavio’s face, and now he adopted Kavio’s pensive stance as
well, as if he were studying one of this piles of thinking stones.
It unnerved her.

“Have you a name?” she asked after a moment. “I am
Dindi of the Lost Swan Clan, of the Rainbow Labyrinth Tribe.”

“You know my name. I know yours.”

“Besides Umbral. I mean your clan and tribe.”

“The dead have no clan, no tribe.”

“But…once…before… you must have…”

Anger flashed in him, the same deadly rage she had
seen before, straining at a leash. “Enough, girl! Never ask, never
speak of it!”

He looked like he might fly at her and slap her, but
he only stood very still and simmered. His fists clenched and
unclenched at his sides. She refused to cringe.

“My name is Dindi. You may be dead, but I am
not.”

She thought she might trigger his fury again, but he
was back to cool and brusk.

“We best gather more wood for the fire before it
gets dark,” he said. “We will camp here. You are tired. Tomorrow
will be a hard ride.”

“Will you tell me what it is you want from me?”

“Not tonight,” he said. “Once we are away from
hostile territory, I will bargain with you for your life. If you
accept my terms, maybe I can spare you. If you refuse…. You already
know.”

“I thought you believed you were fated to kill me,
and my fate could not be changed.”
I don’t trust you to keep any
bargain, you lying murderer
.

“Sleep will keep even a bear from his fate, if he is
tired enough, and after a whole day of slitting throats, I am sick
of murder and bone-tired.”

Tired enough that she could let him fall asleep,
then try to pull free of the leash?

He shook his head, smiling faintly. “But not yet
that tired. Truce, girl? Until you hear out my offer?”

She nodded unhappily, then helped him start to
gather sticks and branches.

After they had the fire secured, he laid his raven
cloak on the ground for her. The underside was soft black mink.

“Sleep here, girl.”

“My name is Dindi.”

“Dindi.” The way he said her name made her shiver,
and she wished she had not corrected him.

“What about you?” she asked, lying down on the black
cloak, nervous from his nearness.

“I’ll be fine.” He tucked the black cloak around her
like a blanket. It was the finest, softest fur Dindi had ever felt.
Umbral himself settled down on grimy leather bedroll on the
opposite side of the fire.

She didn’t think she would be able to sleep with
Umbral so close. The leash chaffed her neck. The dark energy
pulsing through the collar unsettled her stomach. But the fur was
so soft. She was sick of fear; she was bone-tired. Within moments
she was asleep.

Umbral speared and cooked a fish before the girl
stirred awake at dawn. She accepted her portion of the meal
gravely, watching him as an antelope would while deciding if it
should stay stock-still or spring away.

“You said you would offer your bargain today.”

“Let’s eat in peace first.”

“Being your captive brings no peace to me.”

Indeed.

He reached out for her aura with his own, to reflect
her own light back to her in order to lull her fears, but she
recoiled in horror when his shadow started toward her. He withdrew
his Penumbra, annoyed. He had forgotten his powers of deception
were wasted on her. Because last night she had been tired, she had
been easy to bully. As she grew more and more restless, however,
sooner or later it would occur to her to use her magic to escape
him. Although he could prevent that, it would be
unpleasant—especially for her. Umbral wanted her to stay of her own
volition. It would be inconvenient if he had to drag her by the
leash the whole journey.

“Have you forgotten you owe me a lifedebt?” he
asked. “I did save your life on the battlefield.”

“And then erased that debt by trying to kill
me.”

“But I spared you.”

“I owe you
nothing
.” She said it flatly. “You
have no right to me. I am not yours to spare. And even if you
had
saved my life and not tried to kill me, you killed
Kavio. Not even saving my life could have balanced ending his. His
life was worth far more than mine.”

“How could you think that?”

“Because I am nothing to anyone, but he was much to
many.”

Had any other young and lovely girl said such a
thing, Umbral would have suspected her of being coy. But not this
girl, Dindi. It was possible that she did not realize how beautiful
she was, how desirable, especially to him. Now that he had
penetrated her secret, he could see her as she truly was, as none
of those bumpkins in the local clans would be able to perceive her.
He could see her radiant with a kaleidoscope of light that made her
skin glow, her hair glint, her eyes shine, her whole face light up
like a captive sun.

He remembered how her body had felt squirming next
to his on horseback, and he imagined her squirming again, but
underneath him on his raven cape, naked, her face suffused with
ecstasy. That fantasy was followed by another, darker image.
Instead of welcoming him, she recoiled from him, in horror and
disgust, knowing, as she did, what he was.

Noticing that Dindi was staring at him with wide
eyes, Umbral broke off his perverse reverie. Could she see his
thoughts in his aura? No. That was absurd. He could not read her
thoughts in her aura; she could not read his. But perhaps it wasn't
hard for her to guess what he'd been thinking. He met her fawn-like
eyes, making her blush and lower her lashes.

He cleared his thoughts and his throat.

“You wanted to know what you could trade for your
life, or at least a delay in your execution. The time has come for
me to tell you.”

At dawn everyone gathered in the field outside the
tribehold for the Chase. The prisoners were brought out together,
to the jeering of the crowd. Scampering boys hocked mud. Fights
broke out when the guards refused to let the men and women with
skull-painted faces, relatives of the dead, do worse. The Rainbow
Labyrinth tribesfolk wanted to use their horses during the Chase,
and some Green Woods tribesfolk—jealous, probably, because they had
none—argued that it was cowardly. More bickering, more
barely-avoided brawls. Finnadro knew from experience, it would take
a while before the churning mob settled down enough for the Chase
to begin.

“I won’t be coming back after the Chase,” he told
War Chief Nann.

The war had worn her down. Her jowls sagged lower,
and more white hairs specked her hair, while her once white fox
headdress was smudged with so much soot, the fur had grayed.

“I want you on the raid,” protested Nann.

“My duty to rescue the White Lady must come first.
With every delay the trail grows colder.”

“What about your duty to
me
?
I
am your
War Chief, not the Green Lady.”

“Don’t make me choose, Chief.”

Nann snorted. “Because it wouldn’t go well for me,
would it? But Finnadro, there is one thing I must tell you. We can
call this a victory if we want—we sent them back with their tails
between their legs, at the last, and that’s not spit. But you and I
both know that though the pups yap for revenge, Green Woods tribe
cannot take on Orange Canyon. They have three times our numbers,
even if most of them are worthless sheep keepers. If they came back
in full force, it would be like the war against the Bone Whistler
all over again. We would be driven to the deep forests of the
north. We may burn for revenge, but our fire could hurt us more
than them.”

He put his hand on her arm. “You don’t have to tell
me.”

Gradually, some order appeared from the chaos. The
predators and their prey formed two long rows, war prisoners
kneeling in front, hunters standing guard behind them. There were
several hunters for each prisoner.

War Chief Nann worried her lower lip between her
teeth. One other thing bothered her, but it took her a while to
cough it out. “Many wildlings were killed in the forest fire.”

“The losses were brutal.”

“Do you know…?”

“I’m sure she’s alive, Nann. She’s a clever
one.”

War Chief Nann nodded curtly. “The sooner we start
this Chase, the sooner we can end it and go from burning to
re-planting. Except you, of course.”

Finnadro acknowledged that with a tight-lipped
smile.

War Chief Nann swaggered in front of the crowd to
address them all. She brandished a spear with black raven feathers
tied to the shaft.

“Here are the rules,” she said, without preamble.
“Each of the captives here has the blood of our kin on his hands.
Each of the hunters has a Raven Arrow hungry for a bleeding heart.
We’ll pay as many Ravens with these war prisoners as we can, but we
won’t kill them in cold blood. That wouldn’t be sporting, now,
would it?”

The crowd roared something ambiguous—approval,
mockery or simple blood lust.

“So we will release the captives,” she continued.
She thrust a spear, sharpened end first, deep into the earth beside
her. “Give them a running start. When the shadow of the spear
reaches this mark”—she scratched a spot with her boot—“then the
hunters will start the Chase. The Ottermark River is a day’s jog
from here, and beyond that is no man’s land. Any prisoner who can
make it across the river to the other side is safe. No hunter will
chase a prisoner beyond the river, or he will be himself cut down
by the Wolf Hunter.”

She pointed at Finnadro, who inclined his head. He
suspected he would be already across the river long before sunset,
but he did not expect trouble from this bunch. It was the wildlings
who worried him.

He strolled over to the one prisoner who had no
huddle of hunters salivating behind him. Hawk was alone. Like the
others, he was on his knees and his hands were still tied behind
his back, but he looked up sharply as Finnadro approached.

“I’ll be hunting you,” Finnadro said. He pulled out
his flint knife.