Dagger's Point (Shadow series) (30 page)

That evening after supper, as they sat in Vedara’s tent, Jael pulled out the broken pieces of Kresh armor and blades she’d brought out of the dragon’s nest. Cupping some of the smaller pieces in her hand, she concentrated on them. To her surprise, although she’d never tried to work with a metal this hard before, the strange white metal responded exquisitely, almost as if eager to assume any form she chose. She melted the bits into a single large lump, then formed similar nuggets from the other broken bits and pieces. She considered the nuggets, wishing she had the knowledge and skill to form blades for swords or daggers, but she did not. One thing she did know, however, was how to tip arrows, and after a few attempts she was able to produce a very passable arrowhead, sharp and true. She looked at the tips on Vedara’s spears, but reluctantly acknowledged that her newborn skill simply wasn’t up to the larger tips; they’d obviously been filled in some way to give the spear tip sufficient weight.

Tanis watched these proceedings with great interest, encouraging Jael when she made the occasional blunder. He was duly impressed with the finished arrowheads, once again marveling at the amazingly sharp edge the white metal would hold.

“I thought I’d give these to Wirax,” Jael said when she was finished. “In exchange for all the furs and the meat. They’ve been awfully kind to a couple of shifter-infected strangers.”

“I’m sure they had reasons.” Tanis glanced away.

“Why do you say that?” Jael asked puzzledly. “Is it so strange? Most clans of elves in the Heartwood would do the same.”

“For other elves,” Tanis said pointedly.

Jael grimaced, but she could not dispute what Tanis said. There were still clans in the Heartwood who, upon finding humans poaching in the Inner Zone of the forest, would kill the humans immediately.

“Well, our coin’s no good to them,” Jael said practically. “If they had any other motive, they must’ve wanted the Kresh’s gratitude and goodwill.”

“Or yours,” Tanis muttered.

“I
am
grateful, and you should be, too,” Jael said, wondering what in the world Tanis was getting at. “Tanis, what’s the matter? It’s not as if they’ve asked, even hinted, for anything in return.”

“I just thought—” Tanis hesitated. “I think maybe I’ll try the new tent tonight. It’s a different type than our old one, and I pitched it after dinner. I think I’ll sleep there tonight.”

Jael raised her eyebrows.

“That’s a pretty foolish idea,” she said. “We’ve only got one more night to sleep comfortably on soft furs with a fire in the tent. Why waste it? Besides, Vedara wants to stay with us.”

“I think he wants to stay with
you,”
Tanis said softly.

“Oh, gods, Tanis, where did you get that notion?” Jael protested, glad that the dim light concealed her sudden flush.

Tanis still would not meet her eyes.

“From listening to you talk to him last night,” he said.

Jael’s cheeks burned, and she fought to keep her voice even.

“We thought you were asleep.”

“Apparently so.” Tanis sighed. “I must’ve been, mostly. I thought I’d dreamed what I heard, until I woke up and there you were in his arms, naked.”

“Oh, Tanis,” Jael protested. “That wasn’t anything. I woke up in the middle of the night and I had a fever and—”

“Look, you don’t have to explain.” Tanis poked at the fire. “I’ve got no right getting possessive, as you told me once before. And it’s not as if I’ve been exactly celibate myself, ever since we left Allanmere.”

“Tanis, you’ve got it all wrong,” Jael sighed. “Just
look
at them. I couldn’t do anything with Vedara, no matter how he or I might want to, and we both know it, and if you’d been awake enough to listen to the whole conversation, you’d know it, too. It’s just a strange thing with his scent and mine, that’s all.”

“His scent?” Finally Tanis looked at her, wrinkling his nose. “He smells like an animal. They all do. They’re clean, but it’s not that nice of a smell.”

Jael was vastly surprised by his answer. Like animals? She’d smelled a good many animals in the Heartwood, and none of them had had the delightful aroma of Vedara’s people. She knew Tanis’s sense of smell was less acute than hers, and if there was anything offensive in Vedara’s aroma, surely it would have affected Jael even more strongly than it did Tanis. Perhaps it was only because Vedara and Wirax were males; sometimes males of a species had a special scent to attract females of that species, and vice versa.

“What about Vani?” Jael asked. “Does she smell bad to you, too?”

“They all smell alike to me,” Tanis said, shrugging.

“What about me?” Jael asked. “How do I smell?”

Tanis sniffed, then shrugged.

“Right now, like that strong herb they flavored the meat with, and a little like smoke from the fire,” he said. “Why?”

“Because Vedara said his people found the scent of the Kresh attractive, and the other way around,” Jael said. “I can’t smell my own scent. Nobody can. But that doesn’t matter. The point is that you’re still the only man, human or otherwise, I’ve ever tumbled. Anyway,” she added practically, “who’d lie with someone infected with the shifter curse?”

Tanis grinned abashedly.

“I did.”

“Well, not everyone’s that foolish.” Jael chuckled and put her arm around Tanis’s shoulders. “And soon we’ll be in the mountains and there won’t
be
anyone else for me to tumble, and who’ll you be jealous of then? The birds? The rocks?”

“All right, all right,” Tanis said embarrassedly. “It’s my arm that’s not working right now, thank you, not my common sense.”

“You certainly fooled me, then,” Jael said mildly. “Now let’s forget this and go to bed. As I said, it’s our last night in a soft bed, and I want to get some rest.”

“I’m tired, too,” Tanis admitted. As Jael stood, however, he grabbed her hand. “I’m sorry I got jealous. I told myself all day long I was going to be fair about it, let you be with him if that’s what you wanted. You’ve certainly been understanding with me all this time. But as I thought about it, it just made me angrier and angrier. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I could do anything myself, I mean—”

“I know.” Jael squeezed his hand. “But maybe it’s just as well. Your wound was bad, and I was rather sick last night. Let’s give ourselves a few days.”

Tanis sighed, but he nodded, extending his good hand to help Jael to her feet. He followed her to the sleeping pit and sighed again, this time contentedly, as Jael curled up with him, laying her head on his shoulder.

“You’ve been worrying, too, haven’t you?” Tanis said quietly in the darkness. “About meeting your father, I mean.”

“Uh-huh.” Jael sighed. “Some of the elven clans don’t like half-bloods, and I don’t think the Kresh have ever even
had
any. What if I’m nothing but an embarrassment?”

Tanis was silent for a moment.

“Wirax has never made it sound like that,” he said at last. “He

speaks as if you finding your clan’s just—well, expected, I suppose. He made it sound as if he was certain they’d welcome you.”

“I wish I were that certain,” Jael said softly. She touched the pendant around her neck. “You know, when I found this, I thought I’d just rather go back to Allanmere. I’m curious about Farryn, sure, and his people—my people, too, in a way—but I’ve never really fit in anywhere, in the city or with the elves, either. I started thinking, what if I couldn’t fit in here either? That’d be hard enough to take. But even worse, what if I
did
fit in here? What if all of a sudden here I was, everything working right, everyone making me welcome? Gods, that’d be an awful choice, staying here among strangers where I fit in, or going home to my friends and family where I don’t.”

Tanis’s muscles tensed under her cheek, but it was a long time before he spoke.

“You never talked about that,” he said, very softly. “About staying once you got here. I think that’s what I’ve been most afraid of all along.”

“I never thought about it, really, before I found the soul keeper,” Jael admitted. “But as soon as I saw the plains and the mountains, it was as if I recognized them, like I was coming home. But how can it
be
home without my friends and my family?” She sighed and shook her head. “Anyway, I can’t stay even if I wanted to. I’ve got to take the book back to Blade, and I couldn’t just leave my family like that.”

Tanis sighed, too, but with relief.

“Besides,” he said, “now that you’ve got your beast-speaking under control and don’t break every spell in the vicinity, and now that there won’t be any more controversy about you being named Heir, maybe you’ll fit in better in the city, and with the elves, too.”

“That’s true,” Jael agreed. “I can’t wait to see Mother’s face the first time I pick up a light globe at the supper table.” She hesitated. “I still wish we didn’t have to go on. It seems easier to just go home where I know I’m loved than to take a chance.”

Tanis stroked her hair.

“Your family and your friends who love you, you’ve earned that love,” he said gently. “If a complete stranger doesn’t accept you as easily as you’d like, that’s their failure, not yours.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Jael protested. “You don’t have

to worry about being rejected by your own race—or one of them, at least.”

“No, all I have to worry about is the shifter curse or freezing in some Baaros-forsaken mountains half a world away from home,” Tanis said cheerfully. “Much better.”

Jael chuckled.

“You’re right,” she said. “I suppose there are more important things for me to worry about.”

Tanis kissed her hair, and they lay silently for a moment. Finally Tanis chuckled.

“The two of us sleeping chastely together,” he said. “Somehow it seems rather familiar.”

“Well, famine to feast to famine again,” Jael agreed. “But never worry; before long I’ll be tearing your clothes again.”

“With that promise,” Tanis said with great satisfaction, “I can wait.”

IX

“By all the gods,” Jael said softly, staring. Tanis gave a low whistle but said nothing.

Even from the narrow south tip of the plains, it had taken them two days to reach the foot of the mountains, and those mountains were taller than Jael would ever have believed possible, their heights vanishing into mist. The rock walls were steep and jagged, bare of vegetation except for a few patches of lichen and a little brush in the lower reaches. The mountain road, if it could rightly be called such, seemed a mere goat path winding upward between boulders and sheer rock faces. Jael was glad now that they’d brought the sturdy ponies instead of horses; she had doubts enough that
they
could manage the poor trail.

The grass hunters’ caves were impressive structures, the entrances small and narrow but the caves beyond expansive, level, and dry, and interconnected via a maze of passageways. Vani explained that the Kresh had made the caves sometime in the dim past, perhaps for their own use, perhaps in some trade agreement with the grass hunters’ ancestors. Vani herself thought that perhaps the Kresh had used the caves as a sort of winter home, living on the edge of the plain where the weather was less harsh and game more readily available.

Vani and Vedara showed Jael and Tanis the chambers they used as storerooms. Except for personal jewelry, favorite weapons, and a few household items, all Hunts of the grass hunters shared property communally. When one of the Hunts traded with the Kresh for metal goods or pottery, they took what they needed and left the rest in the storerooms. When other Hunts came to trade, they would first check the storerooms for surpluses before determining their own trading needs.

As they’d arrived at the caves in midafternoon, Vani, Vedara, and the other hunters decided they’d start back for home. Since the ponies were already exhausted, however, Jael and Tanis would spend the night in the caves and start up the mountains the next morning. Vedara told them they were welcome to use the furs and supplies stored in the caves, and reminded them sternly to wear their warm clothing on the morrow. They should have plenty of furs and supplies even for the worst weather and several days’ travel, although Vedara was certain the Kresh couldn’t possibly live more than a few days’ journey into the mountains and surely they had already sent a party to meet the travelers.

“And you must be certain to use the salves I gave you every day without fail,” Vedara cautioned them. “Without the salve, the taint in your blood will spread more quickly. Food, sleep, and warmth are important, too, for disease spreads rapidly in a weakened body.”

Jael pulled out the piece of leather in which she’d wrapped the arrowheads she had made, handing the bundle to Vani.

“I made these from metal I found in the dragon’s nest,” Jael said. “It’s not much in return for all your help, but it’s all I could think of.”

Vani unwrapped the leather, then smiled delightedly.

“This is fine work,” she said. “Many plainsbeasts will fall to these arrows.” Then she frowned. “But I fear the few pelts and meat we gave you are a poor trade for these.”

“You gave us a lot more than meat and pelts,” Tanis corrected. “And I swear by Baaros’s purse I couldn’t ask for a better bargain.”

Jael quickly slipped the earrings from her ears and handed them to Vedara. For a moment she felt a pang of loss, remembering Solly of the Thieves’ Guild who had been so kind to her as a child, and who had died a horrible death at the hands of a demon.

“I want to give you these, because they mean something special to me,” Jael told him. “They belonged to a friend of mine

who was killed. I’d like you to have them.”

Vedara smiled, touching the green stones with something like reverence. He removed the earrings from his ears and donned Jael’s earrings instead.

“Then you must have this,” Vedara said, removing his dragon bracelet and sliding it onto Jael’s wrist. “A fitting trophy for your adventures.”

Vedara’s wrist was so much larger than Jael’s that the bracelet was far too loose; Jael hurriedly slid it up her arm, where it fit comfortably between her elbow and her shoulder.

“Have the Wind Dancing Clan send a messenger bird, if you return this way,” Vedara told her. “I would be pleased to see you again.”

“This is pretty much the only way back,” Jael chuckled. “But I hope we won’t be quite as much trouble then.”

Vedara only smiled, clasping Jael’s face in two of his hands and kissing her forehead gently.

“Bright as the sun,” he murmured, then turned away.

Tanis wrapped his good arm around Jael’s waist, watching the grass hunters leave.

“Well, it’s just us again,” Tanis said, sighing, but Jael fancied she could hear some relief in his voice. “Just you, me, and the mountains.”

“Oh, please, no mountains till tomorrow,” Jael said wryly, rubbing her bottom. “Other than one short and panicky ride through the Singing Forest, I haven’t ridden any distance since we got to Willow Bend, and I haven’t ridden any distance without a saddle for—well, I don’t even know how long. And I wasn’t roped on like you. I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.”

“You won’t have to walk tomorrow,” Tanis said practically. “You can ride the ponies.”

“Even worse, Jael said, sighing, then grinned. “Besides, look at the condition of that trail and tell me again that I won’t have to walk. The ponies will be doing well just to keep their footing without our weight, too.”

“All the more reason for us to rest comfortably and not worry about it tonight,” Tanis said lightly. “Now, since I’ve only got one arm to use, and that’s the wrong arm, why don’t you take a pony while there’s still daylight and see if you can get us some fresh meat for supper, and I’ll unload the other ponies, lay a fire, and borrow a few furs from their storerooms to soften our bedding.”

Jael had no desire whatsoever to do any more riding, and she doubted she could actually bring herself to kill anything, but there seemed to be no harm in trying; besides, this would be Jael’s first opportunity for a little time alone in some days, and likely her last for a goodly while more.

Jael found her solitary ride over the grassy plain wonderful, refreshing to her spirit. As far as she could see around her was nothing but grass and the towering, mist-shrouded height of the mountains. The only sounds were those of the wind and the birds and insects of the plain. The only smells were those of the grass and flowers of the plains and the sweaty scent of her pony.

Ah, gods, this was what she’d wanted, this wonderful solitude with the world stretching out all around her. Even from atop her pony she could feel the stone roots of the mountains winding through the soil under her. The wind combed invisible fingers through her hair and carried a thousand subtle messages to her nose.

Drawing her bow, Jael urged the pony into the wind to follow one of those scents—no need for reins now when she could simply speak directly to the pony’s thoughts to convey what she wanted. Searching with her mind, she felt the spark of life at the end of the scent trail, and followed the beacon to its source, a large hopping plant-eater Jael had never seen except cooking over the grass hunters’ fires. She urged the pony to greater speed, but stopped it when the animal broke cover so she could shoot. Effortlessly she shut down her beast-speaking sensitivity as she loosed her arrow.

When the arrow hit home, however, and the strange creature fell dead, Jael stayed where she was, surprised and confused. Even now that she had some conscious control over her beast-speaking, she’d expected to feel at least a pang of sorts at the creature’s death. None of the elven beast-speakers she’d met hunted, ever; in retrospect, she couldn’t imagine why she’d even tried. Even a fully controlled beast-speaker who could close out all the residual mental clamor of the animal minds in the area avoided the hunt completely, and Jael had always assumed that perhaps in the intensity of the hunt, the intimacy of the kill could still penetrate a beast-speaker’s defenses. But Jael had felt nothing but a kind of savage joy, together with a sense of near regret that her prey had been nothing but a grass rodent. Was it because of her mixed blood?

Jael retrieved her kill, slinging it over the saddle in front of her. She glanced back toward the mountains, but hesitated, reluctant to return to the caves. Right now, at this moment, she was completely free, unencumbered by other presences. Why, she could start into the mountains right now, just herself and the pony. When she needed shelter, she could make a cave in the stone of the mountains. When she needed food, she could track game with her thoughts as she’d just done. She could travel much faster, and in glorious solitude, without the puny human whom she’d only have to nurse and coddle, who would hold her back—

Jael froze in the saddle, horrified at her own thoughts. What in the world had come over her? Tanis was her friend and lover. He certainly hadn’t been
holding her back
the many times he’d fought by her side, protected and tended her, even saved her life. And what made Tanis “puny”? He was at least as skilled with a sword as she, and he’d done his share and more of the providing on their journey. And if he did indeed require nursing and coddling, well, he’d taken his wound helping to defend their lives, hadn’t he? Jael had no illusions that if the position were reversed, he’d carry Jael through the mountains on his back, if necessary.

Resolutely Jael urged the pony back toward the caves, only to stop again. The sun was setting behind the mountains, and for the first time she could see the outline of their full glorious height. The rays of the setting sun colored the mists gold around the craggy peaks, and Jael watched, awed, as the drifting mist deepened to orange, then red, then purple. The sudden vision was like music resonating through her body, pulling her toward the mountains as inexorably as a hooked fish is drawn to shore.

Mine,
Jael thought suddenly, every drop of blood in her veins, every particle of her bones answering that resonance that echoed through her very soul.
The mountains belong to me. And I belong to them.

Again Jael shook her head and urged the pony toward the caves, but for the first time a deeper doubt had settled into her. Before the dragon’s nest she’d been seeking her wholeness, her very self, and after that there’d been no time to question who or what, indeed, that self was. When she’d felt the gap in her soul healed, there had seemed to be no reason to go on—and, as she’d told Tanis, more than a few reasons not to. Now that she and Tanis were continuing on, perforce, to meet the Kresh, her own kinfolk, Jael wondered if in truth she was seeking more than a cure for the shifter curse, or to satisfy a natural curiosity. There were more answers, it seemed, to be found, and Jael wondered uneasily if these strange thoughts and feeling she experienced were only the beginning of her self yet evolving, a Jael more a stranger to herself than ever. Was she seeking a cure, or a key to herself, or—

Or a home?

“I worry too much,” Jael said aloud, her voice startling in the silence. “That’s what Aunt Shadow would say. I’m thinking awfully far ahead for a person infected with the shifter curse.”

By the time Jael made her way back to the caves, Tanis had a cheery fire burning. He gave Jael a curious look when she showed him her kill, but asked no questions, helping her clean and skin the rodent, and they jointed the animal so it would cook more quickly.

Jael had enjoyed the open space of the plain, but she found the cave, the sensation of stone surrounding her, even more comforting. The only problem was that over the years, the caves had become thoroughly impregnated with the scent of the grass hunters, a scent that Jael found very distracting. Nevertheless, the feeling of security lightened her mood considerably, and she and Tanis laughed and joked while they ate, looking at some of the adventures of the earlier part of their journey in a more humorous light now that they’d come so far.

At last their laughter quieted, and Jael met Tanis’s eyes over the fire.

“How’s your side feeling?” Jael asked softly.

“Not too bad.” Tanis’s eyes twinkled. “How tired are you?”

Jael grinned.

“Not too tired.”

Tanis raised one eyebrow.

“I suppose the smell in here makes a difference, eh?”

“Maybe.” Jael shrugged. “You’d rather go outside in the cold?”

Tanis rolled his eyes upward as if considering, then sighed and shook his head.

“Just let me get my tunic safely out of the way, will you?”

In the morning they donned their warm furs. The garmentswere a little large, but that was good, as it permitted Jael and Tanis to wear extra clothing underneath if they later required it. They led the ponies into the mountains, as the trail was far too steep and crumbling to ride. The trail climbed at such a sharp angle that Jael and Tanis started to wonder if they wouldn’t be forced to take the ponies back to the plain and abandon them after all, but by noon the trail leveled and widened somewhat. Sometimes the trail ran between rock outcroppings, but more often it was worn out of the side of the mountain, falling away at one side or the other, often steeply.

By midafternoon they were riding again, which was just as well, for the air had grown steadily colder and thinner since they began. The ponies did not seem troubled, but Tanis, already weak and tired by the morning’s exertions, was so affected that Jael wondered uneasily whether he could walk if the trail became too difficult again. She herself felt wonderful, exhilarated, her chest and nose clear for once without potions. She could feel the power Vedara had spoken of, what he called the heart of the world, thrumming through the rock like a heartbeat indeed. Gods, she could spend years roaming through these mountains, exploring from the tip of the highest peak to the deepest root.

Tanis did not share her enthusiasm. He hunched miserably on his pony, silent unless Jael spoke to him, shivering even in the heavy furs. Jael wondered uneasily whether the shifter curse was spreading more quickly through his body because of his weakness.