Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

His eyes blazed into her own—and buried within their scalding depths, Aurian saw a flicker of doubt, a shadow of fear. Miathan struck her again, and seized a handful of her hair at the nape of her neck, twisting cruelly. Aurian clenched her teeth. Though her eyes were blurred with tears of pain, she would not cry out. She laughed instead, harsh and shrill, for the tension of the moment demanded some release; and drawing back her head, she spat into his face.

“Can this be fear I see?” Aurian taunted. “The great Archmage Miathan—afraid of a lowly half-breed servant? Your one mistake lay in underestimating Anvar—which surprises me, since you fathered him yourself.” She flung her knowledge in Miathan’s face, and watched him turn white.

“Liar!” he howled. “I know the extent of Anvar’s powers! I possessed them myself long enough! What did you find on your travels, to match the power of the Caldron?”

Aurian was cornered, driven to desperation by her need to protect the secret of the Staff of Earth. “Nothing!” she shrieked. “Anvar needed nothing, save his hatred of you! And that’s all you’ll ever get from me, Archmage! Naught save hatred, and undying contempt!”

Miathan seemed to shrink before her. Since he had lost his eyes, the subtleties of his expression had become difficult to read, but the Mage was astonished to see his features drawn down in lines of anguish. “It hurts, you know,” he said softly. “You have no idea how much it hurts when you turn away from me and shudder at my touch’

The Mage was so staggered by his admission that she found her voice at last. “Good,” she snapped. “Now you know how it feels. You never cared how much you hurt me when you murdered Forral—you don’t care that you’re hurting me now, with what you’ve done to my friends and Anvar, and what you’re threatening to do to my child. Did it never occur to you that I would despise you for your foul deeds? Are you really so lost to all sanity?”

Aurian steeled herself, waiting for the storm of his wrath to break over her. It did not happen.

Sadly, Miathan shook his head. “You loved me once, when you were younger—remember that. And notwithstanding all that I have done, Aurian, I have never stopped loving you.”

Aurian’s mind was reeling, refusing to accept that in his own sick, twisted way, Miathan still loved her. Images flashed through her mind of her youth, when the Archmage had been a father, her beloved mentor. Before Forral had returned, and come between them. Was that when the good in Miathan had begun to wither? Or had the sickness started long before? The Mage ached inside for those first, good years—but that did not change her feelings now. The thought of her child and the memory of Forral’s dead face strangled any pity for Miathan. “And I have never stopped hating you,” she hissed. “Not since the day you murdered Forral. I’ll loathe you until the day I die.”

Miathan’s expression hardened once more. “We’ll see about that!” His hand came up to clench around her throat.

“Move a muscle, and I’ll choke the lying breath from you,” he hissed.

With a chilling certainty that lodged like a stone within her breast, Aurian knew she had pushed him too far. With his free hand, Miathan grasped her loose robe at the neck and jerked it until it ripped apart. Twisting her arm in a cruel grip, he yanked her away from the wall and flung her down on the thin pallet that served as her bed. Again, the pain shot through her, worse this time, making her cry out. In that helpless moment, Miathan was upon her, kneeling over her, one hand around her throat again, pinning her with all the strength of Harihn’s fit and youthful body. Aurian, choking, her heart hammering wildly, scrabbled frantically among the tangle of blankets beneath her. Her hand closed around the long, cold shape of Schiannath’s dagger and she struck at Miathan’s throat—but in that instant, another spasm of pain disabled her, sending her arching and writhing beneath his hands.

The blow went wide—the dagger grated on Miathan’s collarbone, and drove into his shoulder. The Archmage shrieked in agony, and his hand around her throat went limp, but Aurian was in no state to take advantage of his disablement. Doubled over and gasping, she felt warm wetness flood the blankets beneath her.

Miathan sprang to his feet with a vile curse, wrenching the knife from his shoulder, and looked down on her with hard and merciless eyes. “Now comes the moment at last,” he grated. “Believe me, Aurian, payment is only put off—and not for long!” He rushed to the door, and flung it open to bellow down the stairs. “Woman—get up here! The child is coming!”

Yazour had never guessed that it would take so long to traverse the twisting mountain pass. Seething with impatience, he tried to urge the white mare to a faster pace, but Iscalda would have none of it. Had the idea not been so absurd, it seemed as though she were being careful of his injuries as she picked her way along the snowy defile. Yazour, shivering in the unaccustomed cold away from the cave’s warm fire, tucked his hands into the tatters of his travel-worn cloak, and wondered what to do when he reached the tower. Desperate as he was to see Aurian, there was no way he could climb the crumbling outer walls with his wounded leg. And supposing Schiannath was still up there—how could he persuade the outlaw down from the roof? “I’m a fool to come at all,” the young warrior admitted to himself. Nonetheless, he made no attempt to turn back to the cave, Yazour had a feeling, implacable but strong, that he’d be needed at the tower that night.

As the warrior’s eyes made out the streak of moon-bright hillside beyond the dark walls of the pass, Iscalda’s pace began to quicken, Soon Yazour could make out the tree-clad mound, so familiar yet so strange after his long absence. He could see the blunt top of the tower thrusting itself above the scrubby woodland, but could make out no details at this distance. Then with a jolt that almost dislodged him from her back, Iscalda pricked up her ears and leapt into motion. Fleet and silent as a shadow on the snow, the mare burst out from the concealing cliffs and raced across the intervening stretch of valley floor toward the shelter of the copse that cloaked the tower’s hill.

Oh, the thrill of that wild ride beneath the dazzling moon! When it was over, Yazour came back slowly from the exhilaration of Iscalda’s speed. Branch-whipped scratches stinging on his face, his trembling fingers still locked in a swirl of the white mare’s mane, he peered out from the hoary thicket at the top of the hill and looked across the trampled clearing toward the tower door, shut tight against the cold. Aurian was in there—and Eliizar, Bohan, and Nereni! Yazour twined his fingers more tightly in Iscalda’s mane. It was all he could do to control himself like a seasoned warrior, and not draw his sword there and then to storm that guarded tower like a fool who knew no better. But the tower guards were not Yazour’s only problem. Cutting sharply across the moonlit silence, the grim howling of the wolf pack broke out once more, making Iscalda stamp restlessly, and shudder. Yazour bit down on a curse. The wolves were far too close for comfort—and where in the Reaper’s name was Schiannath?

The wolfsong must have drowned the whir of wings. Before Yazour knew what was happening, he was plunged into darkness as great winged shapes came between himself and the moon. “Reaper save us!” The words were whipped from his lips in a gust of frigid air, and Iscalda reared and backed into the shelter of the thicket as the Skyfolk banked down toward the clearing. Struggling to keep his seat on the mare’s plunging back, Yazour glanced up in time to see one of the two Winged Folk cry out sharply, and point toward the tower roof. He must have seen Schiannath!. The warrior cursed again. That idiot of an outlaw must be up there, plain in the moonlight for the enemy to see. One of the Skyfolk let go of the bundle that they bore between them and angled toward the top of the tower. His companion struggled on alone for a moment, dipping sharply, then, with an uneasy glance at the rooftop, dropped his burden, which hurtled down into the clearing’s hard-packed snow and burst open, scattering hunks of venison and other forest foodstuffs in all directions. As the winged warrior went soaring to the aid of his compatriot on the roof, Yazour could only look on helplessly, ice-cold with dismay. How could he help Schiannath now?