Wings of Flame (7 page)

“Look,” Seda said. “The red-tiled roof—that is the temple.” Where the priests of Suth read the great charts and kept the horses at the sacred stable. “And the gold dome—that is King Auron's dwelling.” At the very center of the city, amid all the glitter, and outshining it all.

“I must be out of my mind,” Kyrem said abruptly. He backed Omber until the court city vanished like a vision behind the crest of the hill. Then he wheeled his horse and headed at a canter back up into the foothills, toward the wilderness and its sheltering woods.

“What is the matter?” Seda asked, startled.

“I can't go in there! I look like a beggar!”

He was variously put together with pieces of looted gear and clothing borrowed from dead men. He had a black-enameled helm that rose to a stubby point, and he had a belt, his long knife and a curving sword. He was thin, but he had his strength back; he looked dangerous and lean. Seda sniffed at him.

“No one would ever take you for a beggar,” she told him, “and especially not on Omber.”

“Omber needs grooming,” Kyrem muttered. He had dismounted and was poking about the woods with a fixed intensity of expression but with no purpose that the girl could divine. She slipped off the horse in her turn.

“Whatever are you looking for?”

“Isn't there a sort of bush that makes black dye?”

“Yes, it grows by streams. But what …” She broke off and stopped where she stood, her hands on her narrow hips and her bony elbows pointing out to either side, weaponlike. “Ky Crazy,” she stated, “we are not going to stay in this wood for another minute! Something has been hunting you for weeks, and now, half a mile from safety, you take it into your head to decide you want matching clothes!”

“You've grown louder since I've known you,” Kyrem remarked.

“You are out of your mind if you spend another night away from Avedon.”

“For all I know, the one who is trying to kill me sits on the throne in Avedon.”

“I keep telling you,” she shouted, “King Auron is not like that!”

“How would you know?” he retorted, and he turned on her in harsh, unwilling anger. “Damn it, Seda, I have come weeks on a starving journey to a place I hate and fear, harried like a rabbit by Suth knows who or what, some malevolent, faceless enemy—damn it! I can't just walk in there like someone coming to pay a morning visit!” He stood breathing raggedly. “Twelve brave men lie dead between here and Deva,” he added, more quietly but more fiercely. “Don't you understand?”

“All right. I'll help you dye your mourning!” She threw up her small, twiggy hands and marched off downhill, toward where she judged a rivulet might run. “Don't expect to sleep,” she added sharply over her shoulder. Until then she had taken the main burden of nighttime watching, reasoning that Kyrem was mending and needed his rest. Until then.

They found the plant, made their small camp, stripped the needed bark and placed it in a kettle of water to boil, all in silence. There was nothing to eat and no pot to cook it in. Seda shrugged and sat by the fire. Kyrem scowled.

Three mocking voices sounded in the dusk. “Where's your mother?” one neighed. “Where's your lover?” chanted the second. “Bastard! Bastard!” the third one cried.

“That's right, demons dear,” said Kyrem morosely. “Curse me all you like. Here I sit, hungry, twelve comrades dead on my account, called mad by the one remaining”—he cocked a sour eye at Seda—“attended by flapping monsters, sent off into unknown peril by the command of a father who probably uses me more than loves me—” He stopped.

“You think your father has betrayed you into danger?” Seda asked, astonished.

Kyrem jumped up and paced, as if to outstrip his anger. “It is hard to say,” he hedged. “He chose me out of the dozen of us, and I am not the eldest—he would never send his eldest son, the heir, on such an errand. Nor am I the youngest, or the cleverest, or—or anything. He sent for me and told me without a word of explanation that I was to go as hostage to Deva, without encouragement or sorrow or emotion of any kind. That is his way, and I should be accustomed to it by now, but I can't help feeling like … like an outcast.”

Though they had shared much in the course of their journey, he had not yet shared so much of himself with her, and she felt all the honor of it. Instantly peace was made, anger forgotten and only empathy left. She knew that outcast feeling well. “Surely your mother was sorrowful to see you go,” she said anxiously.

“I have no mother.” He laughed at her expression, the warm laugh of a friend and equal. “It is true! We princes are all bastards. The king sows his seed where he will, that is the custom, and he brings home his choice of the crop. We boys were all raised together in a big barracks.”

“So that is what you meant,” Seda said. “What you and the others told me that first day.”

“That we were all bastards? That was part of it.” He sat beside her again. “It's a sort of joke also, the Devan way of saying that we are none of us any too sweet. Devans are a tolerant folk.”

He was forever extolling Devans. That was his inner defense, Seda guessed in a quick rush of insight. There was a vulnerability about him she had not seen before.… He stood up and unlaced his shirt, preparing to place it in the dye pot, and the girl turned away from the sight of his strong, naked shoulders, feeling a thrill she refused to acknowledge or admit to.

“Seda,” said Kyrem rather suddenly, “have you ever thought of looking for that twin you think you have?”

Odd that he should mention that scarcely remembered other. Odd; since her flux she had felt for the first time that absence, that lack, like an ache or an empty place, like hunger.

“Your brother whom you have never known.”

Sister. She had told him something of herself during their weeks together, but not the secret that troubled her the most. Her young breasts were swelling, a development she noted with dismay; she bound them sternly beneath her rough shirt so that he would not feel them against his back as they rode. She was still a boy to him.

“Do you think you might be a Devan? You somewhat resemble the nomadic folk I have sometimes seen in Ra'am.”

Ra'am was his father's capital city, with its walls of yellow clay. Thinking of herself, of her sister, of hidden parts and secret feelings, full of confusion, she did not answer. But he was used to her silences. Noticing nothing amiss, he began to groom his horse.

“High polish for you, old nuisance,” he said to the steed softly, “for in the morning we'll be riding you into Avedon.”

“I'll walk,” said Seda, and Kyrem looked at her in surprise. “I am a shuntali to everyone except you,” she explained. “They could kill me for sitting on a horse.”

“But how can they know,” Kyrem asked, “if you do not tell them?”

“They'll know.” The question seemed nonsensical to her. She fully believed that her taint, her unworthiness, was manifest in every aspect of her being as plainly as if it had been branded in black glyphs on her forehead.

“May your breasts droop!” a voice whinnied from the darkness, and Kyrem roared with laughter, not knowing that such nonsense made her wince.

Chapter Six

Shirt and tunic and short cloak and trousers were dyed a rusty black and hung up on prickly bushes to dry. Girl and youth kept watch that night or dozed uneasily, but no danger threatened them, and they arose with relief at dawn. The city gates would not open until sunrise or later.

“I hope they have something to eat in there,” Kyrem muttered as they waited. “Ride with me,” he urged when it was time.

She shook her head again. “I will walk.” And he knew better than to coax her; the lad could be very stubborn in her quiet way.

“Well.…” He vaulted onto Omber and stroked the steed's neck, gaining courage. Then somehow, subtly, he transformed himself into the Prince. Seda knew his power as a person, his innate magic, his gift, but for the first time she sensed the power of his rank and his office. Straight and sober, all in black, sword at his side, black hair curling from under his black helm, he sent the splendid blue-black horse forward at the slow and collected ceremonial walk. The hostage rode forth to meet his fate. In a moment he would crest the last rise and ride down into Avedon—

“Game ho!” a voice shouted, the cry of a hunter who sights his quarry.

And arrows flew at them from several directions. One clanged against Kyrem's helm, and one pinned his cloak to his shoulder from behind, striking the bone beneath the skin; for a moment he was almost blind with pain. Some swished beneath Omber's belly and through the grass at Seda's feet.

“Come on, Seda!” Kyrem called, turning and offering her his hand to pull her onto the horse with him. But her thought was different. “Ride, Ky!” she shouted at the same instant, and she gave Omber a fierce swat on the rump with her palm to send him plunging forward. Then she scurried back toward the shelter of the thicket they had just left. Omber's rush carried Kyrem over the rise toward the safety of Avedon. Or so Seda hoped.

Kyrem let Omber run as far as the first bridge, then drew him to a halt, cursing. The few peasants who were about scattered at the sight of him, for a man on a horse was an omen, awful, a harbinger of war. And the black horse was the darkest omen, the worst. The blue roan, black of skin, not much better.… Kyrem laid his head on Omber's neck and tried to think.

Wounded. What might they be doing to Seda? Raise the garrison of the city, hundred men or more, go find the boy—obstinate pride stirred. For all he knew, those within the walls were his enemies as well. And they were Vashtins, they would care little for him, and for the shuntali even less. Painfully he sat up and reached around to where the arrow jutted, removed it with a jerk, letting the blood flow down and soak his black clothing. He would have to find Seda himself.

And to do that he would have to circle around behind the lines of his unseen enemies. Hills hid him for the time.… He turned Omber and set off northward at the canter, following the yellow verge of the river. From the topmost tower of Avedon a watchman studied him curiously until he vanished around a curve of the terraced land.

“Find Seda, Omber,” Kyrem murmured to his steed, his head bent low to the horse's ear. If somehow by the focusing of his thoughts and his will he could make the animal understand.… Omber's half-wild senses were more likely to find the lad than his eyes would ever be.

Omber snorted and carried him yet farther northward. Kyrem could only assume that enemies were in those woods the horse avoided, and he cursed them since he could not confront them. Curse their eyes and their strong, recurving bows that could shoot such parlous distances.… Curse them. No curses in the air above him … what was this unaccustomed silence? Where were the flapping demons, his black entourage? They had left him. His heart rose at the thought, though for a moment he felt, irrationally, almost resentful. No retinue for the prince—but at least their presence no longer marked him.

The day wore on into hunger and confusion. He wound his way up the foothills toward the Kansban in a different valley, one studded with spicules of bright pink flowers among the blue rocks, and he had to fight his way through thorn forest at the end of it and make a crossing when he judged he was out of danger. There was no knowing where the mysterious archers were, but one could assume that they went afoot and Omber had moved far faster. Still, the sun was high when he at last found his way back to the track and prepared to approach Avedon all over again. Somewhere along the way, he hoped, he would find Seda.

She was in the selfsame copse by the stream where they had camped during the night. He took a long time getting there, starting and shying at every movement and cloud shadow as if he were half horse. Twice Omber took him on a circuit off the path. His wound had stiffened and his stomach had ceased protesting its fate and the day had passed from pain to faintness when he saw the shuntali at last and could scarcely believe his eyes. For her own part, she was as startled as he.

“Kyrem!” she hissed, rather sharply. “You ought to be in Avedon.”

“Leave you here?” he murmured, sliding off of Omber and collapsing beside her.

“I can take care of myself!” she retorted.

“Forward urchin,” Kyrem grumped. “Ungrateful malapert. Have you seen any of our friends?”

“
What
friends?”

“The flappy-flappies?”

“Gone.”

“How about the arrow-zingers, then?”

“Listen,” she whispered.

The tramping of many feet, with no attempt at secrecy. They crept to the edge of their cover. Looking out between the leaves, they could see the movement of many helms and lances and the scarlet and yellow colors of Avedon. Auron's men were scouring the demesne.

“Come on,” Kyrem breathed, inching back.

“Go to them!” Seda protested out loud. “They are clearing away your enemies, they are looking for you.”

“I can take care of myself too,” Kyrem said stubbornly. “Come on!” He tugged her back to where Omber stood.

“Ky—”

“I am going to Avedon, I'm going! Do you think I would break my father's bond? But I'll not be brought in like a captive by a bunch of hirelings. I'll go on my own.” He lifted her onto the horse and they set off southward, eluding the foot soldiers.

“Ky, you are out of your mind.” Seda was no more than mildly annoyed, for she felt blissfully the passing of danger. All day she had spent on the move and in hiding, going to tree or to ground like an animal, eluding the weasel-faced man and his brigands. She had come back to the copse at last only because they had already hunted through it twice and might not search there again.… Safe, now. She settled comfortably into her place behind the prince. It would be good, this one last ride before he entered the city. The sun beat down hotly, sending clouds piling high overhead in the brilliant turquoise sky. She dozed.