Dockalfar (68 page)

There was a horse outside, miserable in the rain. She wanted to be about this business soon. She looked at the people closest to her in the world and forced an encouraging smile to her lips.

“I’ll be back by nightfall.”

“Of course,” Neira’sha said, her agreement very much for Okar’s sake. He flashed them both a dangerous, tight look.

“Do not do this. Give him the girl and be done with it.”

She smiled at him sadly, he was close to losing control. “Have you ever known him to back off from anything? I need to reason with him. I can reason with him.”

“He will not know how to reason with you. Not after all that has passed. Not with his court looking on.”

“Think you know him so well?”

“Well enough,” he scowled. “You cannot walk into his camp alone.”

She lifted a brow in question. They had been through this.

“You would go with me? Well that would make all the difference, he being so fond of you. Let it be, Okar. I’m decided.”

She turned to Neira’sha, briefly touched her cheek and exchanged a meaningful stare. Neira’sha would make certain she did go alone.

“Take care,” the elder said. “Be wise.”

She went for her farewell with Okar but paused at the speculation in his eyes.

He was not so clever at hiding his thoughts. Not from her. She pressed her lips together and glanced to Neira’sha.

The elder came off the wall casually.

Okar’s eyes caught the movement. He caught the expressions on both their faces and his own turned wary. He held up his palms towards them.

“Damn the two of you. Do not!” He took a step backwards as if their magic might have a limited striking distance.

“This has been decided,” Ashara declared firmly. “There will be no interference. From anyone.”

He stood there glaring at the two of them, knowing that if anyone could worm their way past his considerable shields it was Neira’sha, and if anyone could batter them down it might be Ashara, who knew him so well. His shoulders slumped finally, and the tension went out of him.

He drew a shaky breath and the glare turned moist. He cursed her and crushed her to him, pressing his face into her hair.

“I swear to you, if he harms you, I’ll make him pay – “

“Of course we will, dear.” Neira’sha patted his shoulder. Ashara pulled away, afraid her own eyes were going to tear.

Out into the rain before she could think of a reason to delay. Onto her shivering horse. There was water at the high point of the valley now. Up her mounts fetlocks. And ever more coming.

She passed silent faces peering out of her from the shelter of stone doorways.

Children inside one. She could hear their quiet chatter. Too young to know exactly what was going on. Her own was among them. Her second child. An infant yet.

Only recently weaned. It had suckled on another. A bendithy. Sidhe women were notoriously shy of milk. Sidhe children notoriously distant from their birth parents. It was the way things were. It did not mean she did not love her children.

Even the one who rode with Azeral and thirsted for her demise.

~~~

Dusk moved through the forest, wraith like. Instinctively he kept to the shadows. It was his nature. It was most certainly an easy task on such a day. The sunlight did little more than hazily illuminate the woodland features. Down the slope he went, making not a sound.

The cat made more noise.

She was following him. He could hear her clumsy descent. Occasionally a disgruntled growl or a snarl as she became entangled in some patch of vine or briar. She was growing into her adult size, but her stealth and hunter’s cunning had a long ways to develop.

The fringe of forest abruptly ended and the downward slope continued on covered in rain slicked grasses and rock.

Below that as the valley flattened out was a jumble of mist shrouded structures. Dusk moved back within the shelter of the wood and studied the view. Occasionally there was movement down there, but not much.

The newest inhabitants of this vale were mostly likely holed up in whatever rain-proof buildings remained, shivering in misery from the damp chill. Victoria was down there somewhere. He stared down intensely for a moment, until he heard the cat closing the distance between him and her, then he set out westward to circle the tree line.

He heard the deluge before he actually saw it. A great rushing of water and debris that plunged down the eastern slope of the valley, savagely ravaging its core. He moved up the slope for a better view, and found a gash in the tree line as the flood ripped all but the oldest trees from its path.

There were sidhe near the flooding.

He could pick out the sounds of their movement against the roaring cry of the flood. Their voices were inarticulate noises. First reflex was to shrink deeper into the forest unseen. He pushed that back and moved closer to the swollen stream.

His boots sunk deep into mud and pine needles. He bounded to a flat sheath of rock where the footing was more solid and crouched there, head cocked, discerning which direction the sidhe were coming from. Across the water bed, in the flanking forest. On the wrong side of the stream for his purposes.

The water was too wide and turbulent to risk crossing afoot. He was developing a bit of wariness for turbulent rapids and storm-induced mud slides. Bad luck twice before was enough of an inducement not to risk a third chance with fate. Over it then.

He sprang up and caught the lowest limb of an old, old conifer. Clambering up to the higher branches, he danced outward on the sturdiest limb and sprang, squirrel like, to the neighboring tree. That tree stood immersed in brown water. Only by the great width of its trunk and the doubtless far-reaching limits of its roots did it still stand amidst the rushing water.

Another of its ilk stood further across the flood path, the tips of its outer limbs barely touching the tips of the one he sheltered in. He went as far as he dared trust his weight and leapt. A too-weak limb gave way beneath him and he scrambled for purchase. He caught a brittle branch with one hand and used the momentum to swung himself further inward where the limbs were heavier. He moved without pause across intersecting branches, crossed with more ease to a final tree outside the influence of the flood and jumped soundlessly to the ground.

The sidhe party was down slope. He caught a slight movement of forest green against the somber atmosphere. He hastened through the wood, skirted around the party, not wanting to come upon them from behind and trigger violence towards him from surprise or fear. Let them come upon him. He had to alter his path as they altered theirs, skirt around a snaking finger of the flood, and finally when he was certain they were coming straight towards him, he sat upon an outcropping of rock, one knee pulled up to his chest in a position of harmless nonchalance and waited.

Five of them, there were. All armed with bows and knives. All afoot and grim of face. They missed him at first. He was in plain view for a half dozen heartbeats before the sharpest of them caught sight of him and then only because he shifted position to make it easier on them. The alarm went through them with a mental, magical spur. Knives came out, a bow or two was drawn.

Dusk looked at them expressionlessly. Held up his hands, palms outward in a gesture of peace, and noted absently that the two with knocked arrows had moved backwards to give themselves more range. Their eyes grew a little wild. They were undoubtedly using magic abundantly and getting no results.

He sighed and leaned back on the rock.

“How long ere the valley floods?”

“Demon spawn!” one of the archers hissed and tensed. The bowstring quivered.

“No.” The foremost sidhe made a sharp motion to his fellow, glared back accusingly to Dusk. “How did you pass the wards?”

“I have come to see the human woman. I mean you no harm.”

Confused, wary, they conferred amongst themselves. He waited.

~~~

She passed the boundary of the rune stones alone. She had forbidden her folk to follow her that far. There were none of his waiting on the other side. She rode on in silence, fear a thing she kept tightly under lock and key within her. Her horse struggled on wet footing. Silently she encouraged it. She kept an eye to the forest around her. The unprotected wood where her enemies lurked. But none showed themselves just yet. She wondered if Azeral had told anyone of her request.

Was he waiting for her to show up in his camp unannounced? Did he wish for the speculation and shock that would cause?

Possibly. He was never one for moderate enterprises. Or entrances.

No, moderation had never ever been a strong point in Azeral’s personality. Not from the moment she had met him, long, long ago, when they had both been young and less powerful than they were now.

When they both had been willing to believe that it mattered not what house a body hailed from if souls and hearts were aligned. And the souls had been. Oh yes, their souls were the perfect match, it was just the heart that balked. It was the heart that could not forgive and not forget.

Up the hill and she reached a stretch of flat land. Through the rain she caught the foul stench of ogre. Ogres en masse.

Shivering, she sent out a finger of magic and found the source of the odor, not quite half a league to the west. A company of them at least, entrenched beneath the forest canopy. Waterlogged and foul because of it. Every thing was waterlogged. She sent her senses up to where she knew the Dockalfar camp perched. It was protected against prying. She’d known it would be.

Up the hill and riders moved out of the forest towards her. She slowed her own mount and let them come. High sidhe in grand armor. Visors making faces featureless. There were two of them. They ushered her onwards with elegant gestures of their gauntleted arms. Of course they fell in behind her. She did not look back at them or attempt a probe. They mattered not. What lay ahead mattered.

The land started drifting upwards again towards the final ridge that overlooked the valley. The trees thinned here as the land grew too rocky for the purchase of roots. The first of the pavilions entered her view. A grandly colored tent that was surrounded by other gaudily decorated shelters. Lesser canvas stood over the picket lines of nervous horses. Sidhe stood under the protective flaps of the pavilions, dressed for court or hunt and looking so out of place in the midst of the downpour and the mud. All their eyes were on her. Eyes flecked with anticipation or hate or morbid curiosity.

She knew which tent belonged to Azeral.

The greatest of the pavilions at the center of the cluster of tents. She kept her seat until the last moment, stopping her horse just before the outer canvas ledge.

No one stood waiting in that alcove.

She dismounted and her escort followed suit. They did not follow her as she strode towards the closed flap of the pavilion.

She paused one moment before pushing aside the thick canvas and entering. She found herself in light and warmth and comfort. The floor was thick rugs over dry canvas. Magically dry, she was certain.

Pillows dominated the corners and spilled out into the floor. A bronze brazier housed a hungrily dancing fey light. There was a short-legged glass table near the back covered with food. Two women reclined behind it, observing her. There was ill-concealed hostility in those eyes. One she knew not, nor cared if the emotions raging behind the placid face were malevolent or otherwise. The other…disturbed her. The other’s hatred she could not, and never had understood.

“Mother,” Leanan purred from her pillow.

Ashara’s spine stiffened. No one had tried her shields. She buffered them regardless.

“Will you join us, lady?” the other asked. By the Four, there was hatred beneath her calm surface. Dockalfar hatred for Liosalfar? Or something more?

Ashara returned their gazes levelly. She would not have touched their food or drink at any amount of urging. Not with the malevolence emanating from the two.

She did not ask after Azeral. He knew she was in his camp. He chose to make her wait on his pleasure. She would do that with dignity. She stood before the brazier and faced its warm glow. The two women watched her, idly picking at the feast before them.

“Are you here to beg mercy, Mother?” Leanan finally asked, her tone dripping with insolence. The other smiled lazily at the question. “What have you brought to barter?”

“They say she rode in with nothing,”

the other commented. “Perhaps what she wishes to tempt him with is on her person?”

“Oh? I’ve heard tell that Azeral was ever so indulgent of her wishes in his youth. Will he be so willing to trade for your charms now?”

Ashara glared across the brazier at the creature she had spawned. The other’s eyes had narrowed considerably at Leanan’s words. His current lady, then.

She refused to demean herself by returning their jibes. She drew breath and ignored them.

After a sufficient wait, the tent flaps drew back and her host appeared. He put on a most elegantly concerned visage at the sight of her.

“My lady. Have you been waiting long?”

He knew exactly how long. She met him eye for eye and silently let him know she knew. “I am at your disposal, my lord,” she said softly.

“Yes,” he agreed. His eyes took her in. Traveled the length of her and deeper.

She could not help feeling bedraggled and dirty. She had the urge to twist her hair into a more orderly arrangement.

He had changed very little. More refined. More graceful. His hair was damp and hung in heavy waves about his head and shoulders. As ever his eyes were startlingly, penetratingly blue.

The spell was broken when he moved past her, ushering her to the mountain of pillows at the back of the tent. She allowed him to herd her, settled down stiffly on the pillows with him between her and the women. He offered her a goblet of wine. She took the glass but did not bring it to her lips. She watched him as he did. Watched the gazes of the female sidhe as they flickered between him and her.

“Have you come to surrender?” he finally asked, driving around courtesies and getting right to the point.