Really, why should he, all things considered? What did he owe the man—half-man, but wholly male—who’d raped, branded, enslaved and humiliated him? Only, as vivid as those memories were, the irritating, painful, even frightening ones—there were others that came later, which stirred things within him. Bloodraven, biting back hereditary impatience to attempt the teaching of a difficult language. Bloodraven, sharing campfire cooking tips—sharing the secrets of mountain roots that made edible, if not always palatable, meals. Bloodraven, speaking haltingly of dreams that he’d always held close to his heart. Bloodraven, fighting a lifetime of instinct and wanting the opinions, the history, the company of a human. Guilt, protectiveness—a fondness so unpracticed that it might entirely be mistaken for something else.
Yhalen sat there, cross-legged on a large and comfortable bed and found himself yearning for the shared warmth of a bedroll on a cold, rocky mountain trail.
Fool. Fool, fool.
To have developed affection for his captor—and he had it, no doubt. There was no other emotion that would stab so sharply when life and limb were in danger. He knew the symptoms of minor infatuations well enough, having gone through enough of them in the idyllic years in the great forest. The longings were clear enough, and the desire to be close, to keep safe—but, Goddess, this ran deeper. Bone-deep pangs of worry and uncertainty and longing and pain that ought to have nothing to do with careless dalliances.
Until he saw with his own eyes and felt with his own hands, his gut would be in turmoil and there would be no rest.
He put on a thicker tunic more suited to crossing the considerable distance of a valley caught in winter and grabbed a cloak. Following the maze-like turnings of the keep, he reached ground level and the main hall leading out to the courtyard. He expected all the while to hear a reprimand or a cutting comment from Elvardo, but none came.
He went to the stables and found the old man nowhere in sight—no doubt attending other duties. So he chose his own mount from among the stalled beasts and put on his own tack. He had become adept at it, the riding and readying of horses and beasts of burden, since the journey into the mountains with Bloodraven. Another skill to add to those he never would have known had he stayed in the forests.
He patted the small, white spot on the forehead of the blood bay mare he’d chosen when he led her out into the stone paved courtyard. Vapor formed in little clouds around her nostrils from the cold air and she tossed her head, not happy to be out and about this morning when her fellows all waited behind her in a warm stable. Yhalen sent calming thoughts at her and a promise of treats when she returned.
He led her to the gates, which swung open easily enough at his touch, and did not look back at the keep on his way down the steep trail to the valley.
The humans and the ogr’rons had dispersed. A grey layer of morning mist had settled down between the ridges, and it was hard to see to the far end of the vale, much less if the group of halflings had reached that goal. Much easier to discover the human soldiers were back at camp from the thoughts of their mounts, which were glad to be back at picket and away from the large, strange-smelling creatures their riders had insisted on confronting.
He set a slow, leisurely pace across the vale, intent on giving the halflings time to come to some sort of terms with their new home before inflicting more human presence. He didn’t attempt to hide his presence, and surely the mist wasn’t so thick that Alasdair’s scouts didn’t see him, but no human guard attempted to intercept his passage.
The intermittent mists played with his senses, shrouding the newborn village from his sight until he was upon the outskirts of it. Boulders thrust up from the earth there as if in angry protest. The first and last time he’d been here, there had only been a handful of halflings, but now the clearing at the edge of the woods was crowded with bodies. There was the gruff murmur of fog-dampened voices raised in greeting, in question, in welcome, and even in hostility as males encountered males and did what ogre males did as they tried to establish dominance.
He left the mare to graze on the damp grasses and moved silently up the path. He skirted around stragglers on the slope, and if they noticed him, they made no comment. What threat did he pose, after all, small and weaponless as he was? He saw the structures, grey and insubstantial in the morning mist, and thought there were more of them than there had been. Certainly there were more ogr’rons.
And they smelled of exertion and blood and violence.
He froze, mind traveling back to another time and place, amidst a sea of ochre-skinned giants. The
ground opened up beneath him, a yawning pit of fear that, for a brief moment, blacked out thought and vision. He came back to himself trembling and sick, wishing vehemently not to be noticed. Wishing to fade into the background like so much mist.
He backed up a step, his heartbeat a hard, thick rhythm in his chest. Goddess, what foolish notion had taken him, that he thought he could come here and wade among them as if nothing had happened at the hands of their brethren?
He took another step and saw a brown shape sprawled on the flat rocks away from the path.
Vorja. He scented her blood. She lifted her big head and looked at him, ears twitching. He stared back, feeling her weakness and utter exhaustion.
He moved towards her, and no one seemed to notice—perhaps because he willed it so strongly and Goddess alone knew what he was capable of when he wanted it badly enough. He certainly didn’t.
Her nose wrinkled, taking in his scent, and her ears pricked forward. She gathered herself to rise, her tail thumping against the rock, and he urged her to stay down. He went to his knees beside her and gingerly placed hands on her blood and mud spattered coat. Taking care that she had reconciled herself to his touch first, he ran his hands down her flank and found the wound on her back that was crusty with dried mud and blood. He shut his eyes and sought after the source of her pain and weakness.
Severed muscle and flesh would knit, but there was a slow leaking of life’s blood on the inside from something vital that had been nicked. That was where the weakness came from, and slow death would follow.
He took a breath and drew from the wellspring of his own source of power, relying on instinct alone to mend the tear because nothing in Elvardo’s teachings had touched on the healing magic that came so naturally to Yhalen. It was the one thing, he thought, that he could do that Elvardo could not.
It was a tiny tear, and closing it took little effort now that he knew a bit more about focusing power instead of wildly throwing it about. He mended muscle and flesh on the way out and put a last bit of energy into healing the mouth of the wound to keep out dirt and infection. After, he took a breath and wiped the mud away with his fingertips to reveal the healthy closed flesh of a new scar. Fur might not grow over it, but on the inside the dog was sound. She rolled her eyes up at him from where her heavy head rested on his knee, and he scratched behind the ear that Bloodraven always attended when he was feeling generous with his affections.
“Tell him,” Yhalen said softly, ashamed. “That I was here.”
He gave her another scratch and slipped out from under her weight. She rose this time, easy and powerful, and watched him with canted head as he backed a few paces down the slope then turned and headed for the valley floor and his mare, who had wandered off a few dozen yards to graze on a patch of dandelions.
The only reason Yhalen knew they were coming was that he overheard the old man complaining to one of the women about soldiers tromping through the castle and their horses mucking up his stables.
“Who?”
Yhalen had no qualms intruding upon a private grievance, and the woman had just smiled at him the way Elvardo’s women did, like he was an amusing stray their master had taken in—generously tolerated but not taken seriously. The old man tended to be clearer with his irritations, not hiding a scowl. Not for the first time, Yhalen wondered how he’d ended up in Elvardo’s service.
“As if it’s business of yours. Ask the master.”
“The master’s holed up in his study,” Yhalen retorted. “Who’s coming? Sir Alasdair?”
The old man waved a hand. “Him and his. The half men. Be a right shindig, getting them all together under one roof.” Then he shuffled off, muttering that he couldn’t fathom what the master was thinking, playing host to such an odd lot.
Yhalen stood there and swallowed.
It had been two days since Bloodraven came back. Yhalen had stretched his far senses as Elvardo had taught him, but there was too much jumble at the far end of the valley, too many bodies and too many agitated essences for him to sort out any real detail. He’d thought about maybe riding out again, but conveniently found a distraction, instead practicing a bit of sorcery that Elvardo had set him to, days and days ago. Nerves made him fail at even that.
Of course they would parlay here. Neutral ground, under the roof of a power greater than either ogr’ron or human. He should have expected it. He didn’t know what to do with himself, waiting.
Alasdair’s party approached first. Ten men on horseback in their military best, with the king’s banner waving as if King Valeran himself were riding among them, instead of them simply carrying the iron force of his aspirations.
Yhalen watched from one of the shadowed alcoves above the courtyard. The blonde and the redhead welcomed them with their usual sensual aplomb, but their master made no appearance—either having no interest in the proceedings or preferring a grander entrance.
The ogr’rons came not much later. There were three of them—two grim-faced halflings and Bloodraven. They followed Bloodraven through the gates and into the courtyard, and Yhalen thought that perhaps the lack of numbers in his escort was a statement on Bloodraven’s part. An unspoken declaration that three ogr’rons were worth ten human knights in battle any day.
Yhalen dug his nails into the stone of the balcony and stared, his heart pounding and breathing short as he watched Bloodraven stride towards the castle. The ogr’ron was armored and armed, with feathers and beads adorning the two locks of hair hanging down from his temples. If he was injured from the mad flight here, he didn’t betray it in his posture. There was nothing there but grim determination.
They were led inside, to the long formal dining chamber where Elvardo had first greeted them months ago. Yhalen trailed just close enough, halting in the shadows outside the double doors, to see the gathering of men that rose upon the entrance of the ogr’rons. The woman discreetly backed out, pulling the doors shut behind her and gliding away, leaving Yhalen alone to lurk outside the chamber.
Almost, he expected to hear the uproar of swaggering knights offending prickly ogr’ron egos, but no sound of disagreement yet breached the doors. He dithered for while, fighting the urge to move closer.
Eventually, though, he grew bored and no small bit embarrassed that he’d stayed here as long as he had, ineptly spying on closed-door proceedings.
He went outside to the courtyard, shivering a little at the chill. The old man had picketed the horses near the stone stables, and despite his earlier complaints, seemed to have no issue with walking among them, offering water or handfuls of grain. He could be overheard speaking more gently to his equine guests than he ever did his human ones. He’d have taken Yhalen’s intrusion unkindly, so Yhalen wandered to the far side of the courtyard, where there were neat rows of winter herbs in raised stone 280
planters. He sat down on the ledge of one and occupied himself plucking stray weeds from between the plants.
He practiced stretching his senses to the forest on the slopes of the valley and the various harmonious lives within it. Deer and tree rodents were abundant. Rabbits, and the odd snake. Large, predatory birds. Smaller birds were impossible to discern, as were the smallest of woodland scavengers, their minds and essences too scattered and instinctual to easily pick apart from the rest of the forest. He shied away from raven presences, perhaps even sending out a sliver of his unease, for a flock of them rose as if spooked from the trees to the east.
An hour passed. Perhaps two. Restless, his stomach a curl of knotted nerves, he went back inside.
The hall outside the formal dining chamber was column-lined and peppered with dark nooks and mysterious passages. Some led to legitimate destinations, others seemed the product of a warped sense of humor, leading nowhere or to unsettling things. Yhalen knew enough to shy away from dubious passages in this keep, but the nooks provided excellent cover when it was needed. As was the case when he was halfway down the hall and the doors swung open, emitting the sound of men’s voices and the shuffling of men’s feet as they exited.
He ducked into a shadowed recess and watched them pass. Human knights first, and most of them grim of expression—but then that was how most of them usually looked. He saw Sir Alasdair in profile and he seemed not displeased, so perhaps the meeting had gone well. The ogr’rons came past. Yhalen ducked further back into his shadows, almost flinching when Bloodraven passed, his stomach quivering in what might have been anxiety or excitement.
He breathed a sigh of relief when they passed, and slid out to watch the retreat—but Bloodraven paused and looked over his armored shoulder. Golden eyes narrowed into the shadows and Yhalen was caught, too late to step backwards into obscurity. There was nothing to do but stand there wishing he could dig his fingers into the slick surface of the column, while Bloodraven exchanged a few words with his two kinsmen, who nodded and headed towards the courtyard.