The Sentinel Mage (34 page)

She circled away, unable to watch.

“I
CAN’T SEE
a thing,” Harkeld said, frustrated. The sounds of fighting reached his ears, faint, barely audible: the clash of swords, shouts.

He could see two witches hovering over the battle in the shape of hawks—a small, dark speck that would be the girl and, lower down, a larger speck that must be one of the males.

An arrow speared into the sky, tiny and swift. Harkeld frowned. “Is someone firing at the witches?”

“What?” Justen pushed forward to see. “Where?”

Another arrow stabbed into the sky, arcing upwards. Harkeld squinted, trying to follow its course. The smaller speck tumbled, caught itself, and began to glide steeply downward.

He heard Justen catch his breath. “Did it hit him?”

“Her,” Harkeld said, beginning to run. “I think that’s the girl.”

They scrambled down into the next gully, then up another sandstone crest. Harkeld kept his eyes on the hawk as he ran. It was heading for the river in a lopsided glide. He heard Justen panting at his heels. The hawk was near enough now to see the dark plumage, to see the arrow piercing its wing.

They plunged down into another gully and scrambled up the next ridge. The sky was empty.

“Where is she?” Justen gasped, trying to catch his breath.

“Somewhere close. You go that way.” Harkeld pointed. “I’ll go this.” He ran, following the ridge as it curved, scrambling down into the next gully. He wasn’t sure why he cared about the witch. Perhaps because she’d saved his life. Because he owed her.

Justen scrambled down behind him.

“I told you to go the other way!”

“My first duty is to guard you,” Justen said, panting. “Sire, we’re too close to the fighting—”

Harkeld clambered up the crest of the next ridge. “There she is!” A hawk flapped awkwardly on the mottled sandstone, an arrow jutting from one wing.

His boots scraped on stone as he slid down into the gully. He lost sight of the hawk for a moment behind a jumble of boulders. When he rounded them, running, the witch had shifted into her own shape. She crouched with her head bent. He saw loose black curls hanging down like a curtain, hiding her face, saw the slender line of her bare back, saw the arrow impaled bloodily through her upper arm.

The witch heard their footfalls. She glanced up—white face, dark eyes, pain—and then abruptly shifted. A small black hound crouched on the sandstone, an arrow piercing its front leg.

Relief swept through him. A hound was much easier to deal with than a naked woman.

Harkeld slowed his steps and crouched, reaching for her. The hound whimpered and drew its lips back ina half-hearted snarl. “Don’t be silly,” he told it. “I’m helping you.”

He examined the injury carefully, Justen looking over his shoulder. “It’s a clean wound,” Harkeld said, sitting back on his heels. “It hasn’t struck bone.”

Justen blew out a breath. “Thank the All-Mother.”

A pale-breasted hawk arrowed down from the sky, landed, shifted into Petrus. “Innis!” he cried. “What happened to her?”

“Arrow wound,” Harkeld said. “She’ll be fine.” He lifted the hound in his arms and stood. She flinched and whimpered again, but didn’t try to snarl.

“Let me see!” The witch pushed Justen aside. He touched the hound gently, stroking his hand over her head and neck, and leaned close, examining the wound.

“The battle?” Harkeld asked.

“Over,” Petrus said. He stroked the hound’s head again, a tender gesture.

“Are there any injured?” Justen asked.

“I didn’t stay to check—” Petrus glanced up, and flushed faintly. “I’d best get back.”

Harkeld nodded. He shifted the hound slightly in his arms, not watching as Petrus became a hawk again. He heard wings flapping up into the sky. “Can you find the way back to the river?” he asked his armsman.

Justen nodded. “Shall I carry her, sire?”

“She’s not heavy.”

It wasn’t until he was following Justen down the gully that Harkeld realized what the armsman had meant:
Shall I carry her because she’s a witch?

He almost missed a step, almost stumbled. The creature he held in his arms was a shapeshifter. A monstrosity. Something both human and animal. But the hound—the witch—didn’t seem monstrous at this moment. She rested quietly in his arms. Harkeld was aware of her heart beating beneath his hand, her rapid, shallow breathing, her warmth.
She trusts me.

The thought alarmed him—not because she shouldn’t trust him, but because she
could.
A few weeks ago, if she’d been pointed out to him as a witch, he would have killed her without hesitation; now he was trying to help her.

Because I owe her
, he reminded himself, clambering after Justen up the sloping side of the trough.

But that wasn’t the reason, and deep inside himself he knew it.

They reached the crest. Justen pointed. “The river’s there.”

Harkeld followed his armsman along the ridgeline, carefully holding the injured hound. Disquiet filled him. When had he stopped thinking of the witches as purely monsters? When had they started to become almost human to him?

T
HREE OF
T
OMAS’S
swordsmen bore injuries, none of them serious. Petrus stopped the bleeding, his attention not wholly on his healing. “There,” he told the last man. “That’ll do until we get to the camp.”

The soldier spoke his thanks awkwardly, hurriedly, and backed away.
As if my touch will infect him.
But Petrus’s rancor was half-hearted; his thoughts were on Innis.

A stir among soldiers made him turn his head. He saw men hastily stepping aside, hauling on their horses’ reins. A lion came trotting through the parted men. Gerit. Blood streaked his flank.

“Is that your blood?” Petrus asked.

The lion shook his head. He sat down with a grunt and yawned widely, showing sharp, white teeth.

Petrus glanced up at the sky. “I’ll see you back at camp. Innis has been hurt. An arrow.”

The lion’s eyes widened with alarm. He surged to his feet.

“It’s not serious,” Petrus said. “She’ll be fine.” But even so, he wanted to be with her. “Will you guide them back?”

The lion nodded.

Petrus shifted, leaping into the air almost before he’d fully changed. He flew swiftly upward, leaving behind the aftermath of the battle—the stench of blood, the sprawled bodies, the riderless horses.

“I
T WAS MY
fault,” Innis said. “I wasn’t watching the fighting.” She sat cross-legged on her bedroll, wrapped in a blanket.

“May I see?”

She turned back the blanket, showing Petrus her upper arm. “See? It’s fine.”

Petrus touched her arm, his fingers lightly resting on the fresh scar. She felt his healing magic flow gently as he examined the injury. “Did Dareus heal you?” he asked.

“No, I did. It wasn’t a difficult wound.”

Petrus released her arm. “A better job than I could do.”

Innis shook her head. She studied his face. He looked the same as he always did: the steady gaze, the smile lines creasing the corners of his eyes, the mouth that laughed easily.

Petrus hadn’t turned away from the battle. He’d watched, he’d seen the arrows coming and avoided them.
As I should have done.

Outside the tent she heard the clatter of hooves on stone, heard the murmur of voices—Tomas and his soldiers returning. Innis looked down at the blanket. She picked at a thread. “I couldn’t bear to see them kill each other. That’s why I wasn’t looking. Why I didn’t see the arrows.”

Petrus reached for her hand, his fingers wrapping comfortingly around hers. “Dareus shouldn’t have asked you to watch.”

“Yes, he should. I’m a Sentinel. I should be able to—”

“To watch people die and not care?” His grip on her hand tightened. “That’s not what being a Sentinel is about.”

“No, but—”

“I found it hard too, Innis.”

She looked at him. “You still watched.”

Petrus grimaced. “Yes.”

The campsite was busy now. Through the open flap of the tent she saw a string of weary horses pass by. Captain Anselm’s packhorses, with the captain’s supplies loaded on their backs. Two soldiers strode past. Their voices were loud, boisterous.
Because they survived.

“Did any of Tomas’s men die?”

Petrus shook his head. “Three sword wounds. I patched them up.” His tone changed, became neutral: “Did the prince carry you all the way back?”

Innis nodded.

“That was...good of him.” The words were grudging, as if he found them difficult to utter.

“Yes.”

Petrus released her hand. “I’d better help Dareus finish the healing. My patches were pretty rough.”

“I can help—”

“No. They’re not serious. You rest.” Petrus paused in the opening, crouching, and looked back at her. “I think Dareus was wrong. He shouldn’t have sent you.”

“Why not? He sent you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Because I’m not a man? Cora’s not a man either.”

“Cora’s older. You’re too young to see such things.”

Too young.
She’d heard that so many times in the past few months. “You think I shouldn’t be a Sentinel?”

Petrus hesitated.

He does
. Innis drew the blanket more tightly around her. Something clenched miserably in her chest. Petrus was one of those who’d thought her appointment a mistake.

“I don’t know what I think,” Petrus said. “Except that I want you to be safe. And being a Sentinel isn’t safe.” He sighed. “I’d better go.”

Innis nodded.

She lay down and stared at the ceiling of the tent. Petrus was right: being a Sentinel wasn’t safe. She of all people knew that. Her parents had been Sentinels; her parents had died.

Innis rubbed her arm, tracing the scar.
This was my own fault.
She should have been watching the fighting. She should have remembered that Anselm’s men had fired at Gerit when he was a hawk.

Neither of her parents would have made such a mistake.

Her lips tightened.
I let them down.

T
HE SCENERY CHANGED
the next day. They left the choppy sea of rock behind as they followed the River Ner—and Captain Ditmer—further into Masse. The river carved itself a canyon, with high walls of red sandstone. Massive boulders lay tossed and tumbled by ancient floodwaters.

Picking their way around a boulder the size of a cottage, they found hoof prints in a sheltered patch of sand. “Captain Ditmer,” Tomas said.

Harkeld nodded, seeing Ditmer’s face in his mind’s eye: square, flat-cheeked, brutal.

Late in the afternoon of the second day, the landscape changed again. The river swung east. On the southern bank of the River Ner, the sandstone cliffs still reared up, pock-marked with caves and hollows; north of the river, a plain of rock and sand stretched into a hazy distance. The sand was as red as the rock, huge drifts rippled by the wind. It was surprisingly beautiful.

They rode until dusk, towering cliffs to their right, the sea of red dunes to their left. As sunset stained the sky, the color of the dunes deepened until they were almost blood-red. The last of the daylight drained away. The dunes shaded slowly from red to purple, and then faded into the gloom of night.

Rather than pitch tents, they camped in one of the caves that honeycombed the cliffs. A snowy-white owl flapped out of the darkness while they were eating. A few minutes later the witch, Petrus, joined them at the fire.

“How far ahead is Captain Ditmer?” Tomas asked. “Are we gaining on him?”

Petrus nodded. “He’s about a day and a half ahead now.” He took the bowl of stew Dareus handed him.

Tomas grinned. In the firelight he looked predatory, almost wolfish. “Good,” he said. “We’ll catch him before Ner.”