Wintertide (18 page)

“Blessings of the day, young lady,” Khamsin called and the girl looked up. “I’ve been told to ask for Mistress Elsy.”

“I’m Elsy.” The girl put the handful of nuts into the basket at her feet and stood. “Can I be of assistance?”

The girl’s manner and mature phrasing took Khamsin by surprise.

“I’m called Camron,” she told her. “And I’m traveling North to meet with my uncle. It’s been a cold morning and I was told I could purchase some hot tea and maybe some bread.” She held her palm out. Several coins glinted in the light.

Elsy choose two of the smaller ones and motioned to the long rear porch. “Take a seat, traveler. I’ll bring something out for you.”

The tea was hot and an excellent, rich brew. Khamsin sipped it appreciatively and was offered a thick piece of sweet bread laden with raisins.

“You Kemmon?” Elsy openly studied the sword at Khamsin’s side.

“No. But I’m not much of anything else, either.”

“My Pa’s Kemmon-Ro.” There was an unmistakable pride in her voice.

Khamsin had the good sense to look impressed though the name of the faction was unfamiliar.

Encouraged by Khamsin’s nod, Elsy launched into a monologue of her father’s accomplishments; how strong he was, how fast he could run, how he rode the wildest stallions. Her small face beamed with love. Khamsin regretted that she could only stay for a few minutes, as time was pressing. Elsy reminded Khamsin of young Lissa and of better times at Cirrus Cove.

She handed the empty mug to her chattering companion as a male voice spoke out from behind.

“Talking some poor lad’s ears off again, eh, little Elf?”

Khamsin spun around. She stared up into the gray eyes of a Kemmon-Ro Hill Raider in full riding regalia of dark leather breeches and vest. Involuntarily, she shuddered as she forced herself to remember that to Inlanders, the Hill Raiders were often their local heroes. And the man before her looked the part, the boyish grin on his well-tanned face contrasting with the visibly lethal knives strapped to his thighs and the dagger on his wrist. His shirt was of a coarse material with black bandings on the cuffs and high collar; his vest was also trimmed in black.

“’Tis all right, Pa. He’s just a traveler, looking for his uncle up North Country.”

The man eyed Khamsin. “Your Uncle, lad? He’s Kemmon, I take it.”

Khamsin’s mind worked quickly. “To be truthful, Sirrah, its been years since I’ve seen him, or he, me. He’s my ma’s youngest brother, ’bout your age, perhaps. And, as I am her youngest…”

“Babes takin’ to the hills,” the man muttered and pulled at the downy beard covering his chin. It was a recent growth and was lighter than the chestnut color of his hair, which was pulled back and tied at the nape of his neck. There was no doubt as to the source of Elsy’s auburn locks.

“You’re not fifteen if you’re a day, lad.”

Khamsin glanced down at her boots.

“Things that bad at home?”

She nodded silently.

He gestured to her sword. “Where did you get that?”

“Was my grandfather’s, Sirrah. My only inheritance.”

“Best learn how to use it before you try it out on someone.”

“Yes, sir.” She knew she could use it very well, thanks to Ciro. “I’ll be on my way now. Thank you for your kindness, Mistress Elsy, Sirrah. Blessings of the day upon you.”

As she mounted Cinnabar she glanced back towards the small corner house. The chestnut-haired Hill Raider had grabbed his daughter around the waist and lifted her up, twirling her around. A burst of childish giggles reached her ears. She watched with envy as father and daughter shared a love that she had never found in her own life.

She stroked Nixa and the small cat purred her disagreement.

‘Of course, I love you, too, Nixa.’ Khamsin rubbed the cat’s whiskers and focused on the forest path opening before her. And not on the hole in her heart she tried so hard to keep closed.

The road leading towards the East-West Pass rose sharply under Cinnabar’s hooves. Khamsin felt the horse strain as they picked their way around large boulders strewn in their path. They were in the mountains that separated the tranquil forest villages west of Noviiya from the wilds of Darkling Forest. The Pass was the only way through the high ridge that ran from north to south. Khamsin kept alert lest they veer off in error onto one of the lesser pathways and find themselves lost.

And many side trails there were, too, as the region was dotted with Hill Raider ‘nests.’ But the trails were as treacherous as those who’d carved them. Several times Khamsin was forced to dismount and stare at a cross-road, seeking signs of the most well-traveled way.

The closer she came to the East-West Pass, the more difficult traveling became, as few ventured this far into the Land. The pass led to Darkling and Darkling bordered the Khal. She wondered if she were the first of the Cove people to willingly set foot on this part of the Land.

A chilling wind whispered through the pines. She drew her cloak more tightly around her, the hot tea of the morning now just memory. Tonight, perhaps for the first time, she’d build a fire. She hadn’t done so before. Traveling alone, she avoided attracting attention of those who roamed the forests at night.

Suddenly, Cinnabar reared. Khamsin clasped the reins in one hand and Nixa with the other. The horse’s great front legs pawed the air.

“Whoa, Cinnabar, whoa!” The quiet horse wasn’t easily spooked. She glanced to her right. Something dark slithered across the road and out of sight.

A snake. A long, black shiny-scaled snake. But in winter?

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She transferred Nixa to her left hand. Quickly she reached down to her boot top and pulled out her short hunting knife.

She longed to draw her sword. A black snake this time of the year wasn’t natural. The flash of the blue spellbound metal would be a reassuring sight. But Ciro warned her to use her magic sparingly. And only when absolutely necessary, lest the Sorcerer or his siblings pick up on her whereabouts. What was the use in shielding her identity if she then broadcast it loudly through the powers of a spell?

She waited, listening, her gaze flicking left and right. She heard only the sigh of the wind and Cinnabar’s soft breathing. And nothing more came crawling from the rocks.

She urged Cinnabar onwards, but slowly, her eyes keen to every movement around her.

The path narrowed through a small grove of bristling pines. Their scent was almost sickeningly sweet. It stuck in the back of her throat. Nixa sneezed.

Then she heard an almost imperceptible scratching sound over her heard. She jammed her heels hard into the horse’s side. Cinnabar bolted. Khamsin turned just in time to see the snake drop from an overhanging branch. Its two-inch long fangs almost grazed the horse’s flank. She yanked him around as she threw the short knife with deadly aim. It pinned the snake in the center of its flat head, splitting the skull. A green ooze gushed from the opening and a foul smell. A familiar unworldly, foul smell. The body spasmed and disappeared.

Slowly Khamsin climbed down from the horse, her boots touching on the graveled surface as if she feared a flood of more reptiles at any moment. But no such scaly black creatures sprang from the stones. She snatched her knife from the ground, which was bare and dry with no sign of the snake. Just Cinnabar’s hoof marks in the dirt.

She shoved the knife back into her boot and rode on for over a mile before her hands stopped shaking.

There were stories, legends about those who attempted the East-West pass into the Darklings. Tales told around the hearth fire late on Fool’s Eve night to scare little children and timid adults. Tales of horribly deformed creatures that crawled out of the Black Swamp and into the hillsides, seeking the flesh of innocent travelers to feast on. Was the black snake such a creature, a poisonous vampire seeing her as something warm and blood-filled? Or was it something more? An omen, a message-bearer, a warning? Did its jeweled eyes see her as Camron the Traveler or Khamsin the Healer?

Without her magic, she couldn’t even begin to guess.

High, bare cliffs rose on either side of her. Her progress was slowed by the unevenness of the road. Without the protection of the forest, it was badly rutted from furrows dug by driving rains. Small boulders cascaded down from the heights, leaving a crumbling trail that was almost impassable. Finally, she was forced to dismount and in the waning light of the setting sun, led Cinnabar carefully around the obstacles in their path. She hoped to clear through the pass before nightfall. But the lengthening shadows around her told her that wouldn’t be so.

Darkness settled quickly. The moons had yet to rise. The pale light from the few stars overhead did not help. Again, Khamsin longed to use her magic, to cast fiery elementals to light their way. But she feared the power of the Sorcerer more than she feared the pass at night. She settled for sending Nixa on ahead and keeping a light mental contact with the feline who had the natural ability to see in the dark.

They were on the descending trail for more than an hour when the moons finally rose pale into the sky. But it was an overcast night and their glow diffused into the clouds. Everything was deathly still. No owls hooted, no mountain wolves bayed. Even the wind seemed to have vanished. The steady clop-clop-clop of Cinnabar’s hooves took on an eerie resonance.

Finally, the trail widened and small clusters of trees cropped up again, sparse and thinning. Nixa darted on ahead and came back with the news of a grove of pines on the left.

With Cinnabar tied to a low branch and Nixa snuggled in the safety of her arms, Khamsin fell into an exhausted slumber on the bare ground, foregoing even the promised pleasure of a fire.

*

Twice Cinnabar snorted softly. The sound carried through the early morning mists of lavender and gray rising from the frost-covered ground. Khamsin stirred and rolled over on her side, her knees curling up against her chest, her eyes tightly closed. She stretched out one arm in the languid, clumsy movement of someone in a deep sleep. Then she slowly edged her fingers towards the hilt of her hunting knife and, feeling the coldness of the metal, lay her hand firmly against it.

Nixa twitched her ears and relayed back to her mistress what she and the horse sensed. Intruders. Men. In the pines around them. Coming closer.

How many
?

An image of three forms flashed into her mind. From the per-spective of height, she knew the information came from Cinnabar.

Nixa
?

The cat lazily opened her eyes, slit-like.

One. She saw only one.

That made four. Only Nixa’s approached her, the other three fanning out through the small grove. Khamsin felt a man’s touch on Cinnabar’s soft nose. The horse held still at her instructions, though the desire to rear and strike out at the intruder was strong within him.

No
. Khamsin didn’t want either of her animals injured.

At her signal, Nixa scampered into a nearby bush. It was a normal reaction as the intruder knelt down beside Khamsin, his hand stretching out towards her. She waited ’til he was only inches away. She sprang into action. She grabbed the outstretched wrist and forced it backwards. The man fell on one elbow with a loud grunt, collapsing onto his stomach as Khamsin wrapped his arm in back of him and yanked, hard. She knelt on his back, her meager weight not as much of a deterrent as the sharp point of her knife just under his ear.

“Stay where you are or I’ll slit his throat!” She yelled her warning out into the pine trees. The three men moved towards her, their own knives drawn.

“I mean it!” She nodded to Cinnabar, who with two quick shakes, unwrapped his reins from the tree limb and reared up at the closest man, snorting and whinnying. Had the men carried spears, she wouldn’t have allowed the horse his glory.

“Druke, hold up!” came the muffled command from man beneath her. He spat dry twigs out of his mouth. The men stopped and Cinnabar shook his head pridefully.

“Damn it, lad, didn’t mean you no harm!” It was her intruder again.

Khamsin looked down at the point of her knife and saw the soft beginnings of a downy beard on a well-tanned, square-jawed face. Chestnut-colored hair fell across his cheek and over one ear.

She had almost killed Elsy’s father.

She stood up abruptly and shoved the knife back into her boot top.

The Kemmon-Ro Hill Raider rolled over into a sitting position, ruffling the pine-needles out of his thick hair. He glared up at Khamsin but with more amusement than anger in his gray eyes.

“You’re pretty quick for a light weight.” He offered her a crooked grin.

“I could’ve killed you.”

“Aye, I know, lad. My mistake. I thought you were still asleep or I would’ve hailed you, proper. As I said, I mean you no harm.”

Khamsin nodded. “My apologies, Sirrah.”

“Egan!” A stocky man with a fringe of black hair surrounding a bald spot on his head stepped out of the brush. He was clothed in the same manner as Elsy’s father, but his black-edged vest barely covered the plumpness of his stomach. He eyed Khamsin warily, a thin dagger still in his grip.

“Put your knife away, Druke. The rest of you, too.” Egan waved at the other two coming into the small clearing. They were clean shaven, and looked as if they’d not yet seen their twenty-first birthdays. Their hair, like Egan’s, was a deep reddish-brown and their faces had the same strong lines hinting at a blood relationship between them and the older man.

Daggers slid from sight.

“You have business in Darkling?”

“My uncle.” It was the tale she’d told him in the small village. She hoped it would be adequate now.

“So you said. But my daughter told me neither he nor you are Kemmon. What makes you think you’ll find him here?”

“Because that is where I was told he was.” She answered as a fourteen-year-old lad would; stubbornly, but with a trace of respect.