The sound of galloping hoofbeats retreating brought him back. For a moment, he thought his masters and the other man had abandoned him here. The thought brought both fear—what would he do so far from home and alone?—and a vague relief.
Then Kwahsiu and Nalorih walked through the door, and relief fled.
“That wasn’t fair!” Raven shouted as his wooden practice sword went flying once more. His face was as red as his hair. “You’re far stronger than any ordinary man, and you’re not holding back!”
Linden sighed. “But I am holding back, Raven. I might well have broken your fingers, thumb, or even wrist if I hadn’t. But if you persist in letting your thumb slide up as if you were holding reins instead of a hilt,
anyone
will be able to knock your sword out of your hand—all they’ll need is the right angle of attack.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re too angry to teach at the moment. Why don’t you get one of the weighted metal swords and practice hacking at the leather dummy? That will both strengthen your wrist, and give you a chance to work off that temper.”
For a moment Linden thought Raven would refuse. But the younger Yerrin stalked off across the sand of the indoor riding ring they used for weapons practice. He chose a sword, and went off to the other end where a well-padded dummy wrapped in stiff leather and mounted on a stout pole awaited him.
Shaking his head, Linden turned to where Maurynna sat on the sidelines, watching. “Your turn, love. Just a quick bout—we’re nearly done for the day—and then you can go get that bath I know you want.”
Grimacing, Maurynna heaved herself to her feet and picked up her practice sword. She stopped in front of him, sword raised, knees slightly flexed.
“Good, love, good,” Linden said. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good.” And with that, Linden’s sword swung down at her head.
To his relief, hers flashed up to block, parry, and dart in for an opening. He met it, then tested her again and again and again. Each time she caught his sword on her own. He knew he drove her hard; sweat dripped down her face. But by the gods, he’d make damn certain that if she couldn’t depend on Raven, she could rely on herself.
If only he could find some way to go with her … .
Taren watched, amused, from the shadows of the stable aisle that led to the indoor ring. Ah, such gentle barbs he could slip into the young fool tonight,
inflaming his anger with the big Dragonlord even more. A little more and, if necessary, he was certain he could get Raven to betray at least Linden Rathan once they were in Jehanglan.
It promised to be a most amusing evening. He slipped deeper into the shadows as the session came to an end, but kept watching. After they put their swords away, Linden Rathan and Maurynna Kyrissaean exchanged a quick kiss, and she left the ring by one of the other doors. He went to the water bucket which sat on the bench by the wall.
Raven still swung at the dummy. But as Linden Rathan bent to drink, the young Yerrin stopped to watch him. Then he walked briskly across the sand.
Puzzled, Taren said nothing. But he kept his eyes open.
“So, you’ve found them,” Kwahsiu said. “Put them on.”
“But these are the robes of a Walker,” said Liasuhn. “Why do I have to wear them?”
“Don’t ask questions,” Kwahsiu snapped. “Just put them on.”
Liasuhn had half a mind to refuse until he got an answer. But Nalorih took a step forward, his expression hard as granite. Even Kwahsiu wasn’t smiling for once.
Suddenly afraid, Liasuhn clutched the robes to his chest as if they might protect him. What had become of his two jolly traveling companions? They were gone now, replaced by men as dangerous as angry tigers.
“Put them on,” Kwahsiu repeated.
“Or else,” Nalorih said. A knife appeared in his hand. It looked cold and deadly and hungry for blood. So did Nalorih.
The weapons session over, Linden bent over the bucket sitting on the bench and splashed water on his face to wash the dust off.
“Brrrr!” The water, drawn from a deep well, was still icy cold. Linden pushed his damp hair back from his face and fumbled, eyes squeezed shut, for the towel. As his hand patted the bench where he thought it was, his clan braid slid over his shoulder and tickled his fingers.
Curse it all, where was the blasted thing? He could have sworn the damn towel was right—
His ears caught the sound of quick, stealthy footsteps coming up behind him. A sudden prickling along his spine made him pause, hand still outstretched. The footsteps stopped, and at just the right distance, he guessed: too far away to grab at a wrist, but just close enough …
Moving slowly and deliberately, Linden straightened, wiped his eyes with his knuckles, and turned.
He looked down at the sword pointed at his chest; then his eyes met Raven’s. Fury blazed back at him.
Shaking, Liasuhn undressed and pulled the priest’s robes on as quickly as he could. When he was done, Kwahsiu jerked the hood up.
Nalorih picked up a silk scarf that Liasuhn had dropped. He tossed it into the air. As it fell, the knife darted out like a living thing and slashed at the scarf.
For a moment Liasuhn thought Nalorih had missed. But two bits of blue silk, not one, fluttered to the floor.
The thought of a knife that sharp made Liasuhn’s stomach turn.
“Once Nalorih and I have donned our robes, we’re all going on a little journey,” Kwahsiu told him. “Stay between us, keep your face hidden, don’t make any trouble, and you don’t get hurt. Understand?”
Liasuhn nodded; his teeth chattered so hard now that he couldn’t speak. But to his relief, Kwahsiu was satisfied with that.
“Good. Very good.”
Fury at him, yes, but there was more for Raven himself as the deadly point fell away.
Raven watched him, half defiant, half terrified at the enormity of what he’d almost done. “You could have me hanged for that,” Raven said, his voice harsh as a crow’s. But he stood straight and proud as he spoke.
“Why? I wasn’t in any real danger, was I?”
Raven cast the sword away. “You know I wanted to! Or do you think I’m too afraid to kill a man?” Anger warred with guilt in Raven’s face. Guilt won, followed by shame.
“No, I believe that, if necessary, you could kill to defend yourself and Maurynna. But you’re not a murderer,” Linden said quietly, “nor are you a coward to stab a man in the back.” He looked around and caught up the towel. As he wiped his face dry, Linden said, “As for wanting to, I can well believe you thought you did. Just as I once thought I wanted to kill my father when I was young. But we both knew it would solve nothing; you this day, myself so long ago.”
Raven stared back at him, shocked. As well he should be, Linden thought; kinslaying was one of the heaviest of sins for a Yerrin clansman. Even threatening kin with a weapon might be cause for expulsion from a clan if the elders decreed it. Linden smiled grimly as he saw Raven’s gaze drop to the clan braid that had fallen over his chest.
“No, I didn’t raise the blade I held that day, so I wasn’t outcast; I wear my braid honestly, Raven.”
Linden licked his lips before going on. This was not a thing he was proud of; he had not told anyone since he’d confessed to his sister Fawn centuries ago.
“My Da was always at me, always trying to start an argument so that he could win—as he saw winning. And since he would take the opposite side from me no matter what, of course he never won by convincing me. Gods help me, I honestly believe that had it come to an argument about where the sun would rise the next morning, he would have said ‘west’ to my ‘east’ just so he could have a fight. They always ended, you see, with his knocking me into the nearest wall when I wouldn’t give in. When you’re a child, it’s hard to argue when you’re crying too hard to speak. That was how he ‘won’—until I was big enough to hit back, that is. And if I refused to play his games, he’d keep after me and after me until I broke and fought.
“But one day … One day I had a knife that my little cousins had dulled almost beyond hope with digging in the stony ground of our keep. The knife was my eldest brother’s, and I knew Oriole and Thistle would get a whipping for well-nigh ruining it. So I took it to sharpen before their father found out. But my father found me first, and started on me, I don’t even remember for what now. Whatever it was, he wouldn’t give up.”
Linden shut his eyes for a moment, caught up in the old anger, the all-too-well remembered feeling of his stomach churning with frustration and fury. He almost forgot Raven was there. His voice sounding distant and hard even in his own ears, Linden went on, “I don’t know why that day was different, why that one time of all the times the same thing happened, it was just too much. But may the gods help me, I wanted to slash out at him, to drive him away once and for all. Even if it meant killing him. Instead, I pressed the blade against my own wrist, harder and harder. I wanted to hurt him—but I couldn’t. He was my father, no matter how angry he made me. So I showed myself a little of how much it would hurt, and told myself I couldn’t do that to my own father.”
Linden laughed harshly and shook his head. “I was lucky Oriole and Thistle had done such a good job of dulling the blade. I’d have opened my veins by accident and spilled my life’s blood—for what? Some bit of stupidity I don’t even remember now.”
“He didn’t bring you to the clan elders?”
Linden snorted with laughter. “D’you know, I don’t think he ever realized the
why
of what I was doing. Was he too conceited to conceive of someone wishing him ill? Was he too stupid? Or did he just not want to see it, because he would have had to bring me up before the elders at the next clan gathering? He saw only that I was apparently trying to kill myself, and it frightened him, because I think that deep inside, he did love me even though I was a disappointment to him, sickly little thing that I was then.
“But, gods, how I wanted to kill my father in that instant.” Linden eyed Raven with a touch of envy as he tossed the towel he still held over his shoulder. “At least you don’t have that burden on your soul.”
“Some would say what I wanted was as bad,” Raven countered.
Linden raised an eyebrow. So Raven wasn’t about to let himself off lightly. “Were you set to kill a Dragonlord—or a rival?” The expressions passing over the young Yerrin’s face told him what he’d suspected. “So you felt the same way ten thousand other disappointed suitors have felt about their rivals. As long as you do nothing worse than that, no harm done. Stop beating your breast and heaping ashes over your head, Raven. It’s over, and I’ll say naught about it if you don’t, either. Done? Good. Now that’s no way to treat a weapon, so why don’t you clean it off and put it away, and we’ll work together with the wooden swords for just a bit longer.”
Raven nodded and went off for the weapon he’d cast aside. He picked it up, staring at it a moment as if it were tainted; then, his gaze still fixed on the blade in his hand, he said, “Do you—Do you think that if …” A flush spread across his pale cheeks.
“That if Maurynna weren’t a Dragonlord, that the two of you might have wed? Yes, I do; her heart would have been free then.” At Raven’s quick look, Linden said gently, “She had no choice, you know, nor did I.”
“What if, if I had …” The blade flashed as the younger man turned it to and fro.
“You would have destroyed her as well.”
Raven came back, the sword carefully pointed down and away from Linden. “I can’t stop caring for her just like that,” said Raven with a last burst of defiance.
“I don’t expect you to,” replied Linden. “It’s only because you
do
care so much that I’m willing to let her go with you as her only bodyguard.”
And if you only knew how much that hurts—and frightens–me,
he nearly said. Instead he said as calmly as he could, “Nor do I want you two to cease being friends. That would sadden Maurynna no end.
“Now, once we get the practice swords, I want to work on your blocking … .”
Taren leaned against the wall, his knees weak. By the Phoenix, he’d thought that damned young fool would kill the Dragonlord! That would not do. Taren had no love for Dragonlords, but these four must reach Jehanglan so that the words of the Oracle were fulfilled.
Luckily neither man had seen him hiding in the shadows of the doorway. So caught were they in their private drama that he’d been able to retreat with no one the wiser.
Taren pushed away from the wall and left as quietly as he came. Amusing as it was to create mischief between the boy and his betters, Taren knew it had to end. He didn’t know why Raven hadn’t plunged the sword into the Dragonlord’s unprotected back when he’d had the chance, or what the two men had
spoken of so quietly and with such passion, but he couldn’t take the chance that further veiled baitings and false sympathy might push the younger Yerrin into the murderous folly he’d so narrowly avoided just now.