Gail Martin - The summoner

Vahanian frowned. "Every place wants healers."

Carina shook her head. "Not there. It's harsh country, and they have no patience for anything

weak. 'Better to die than hold back the herd,'" she quoted softly. "Healers just slow down the process." Another pause, longer this time. "They might have suffered the lord's twins, on account of his being the lord. But even he couldn't tolerate magic, once he knew it for what it was." She looked up at him, and angry tears glistened in her eyes. "I found out I could heal when I was twelve. And when they caught me at it, the next year, they decided to 'foster' Cam and me out. Only they never wanted us back." She looked at him defiantly. "So I took a name I chose myself, since I had no family, and no home. We made a good living, Cam and I, with one merc group after another until Kiara caught up with us and gave us a place to live in Isencroft. There. That's the story. Got what you came for?"

Vahanian held her gaze. "Yeah," he said finally, as she turned away. "I did." He paused. "So they don't like healers, huh?" He shook his head. "That's about the dumbest thing I've heard of, next to bashing people over the head with a stick."

"You really are impossible," she repeated, but this time, her voice lacked its edge. Vahanian was suddenly aware of just how warm the stable had become. She stood only a few inches away, and wrapped in the oversized cloak she looked small and vulnerable. He could smell the scent of herbs that clung to her robes, aware all at once that his heart was hammering in his chest. The attraction he felt was not new; it had been building now for weeks despite his barbs. The peril in the slavers' camp only served to heighten it, although until now, Vahanian had been able to force it out of mind. But here, in this moment, alone with her and close enough to touch, he felt it fully, enough to know its danger.

"That's what they tell me," Vahanian said, turning away with effort and feigning interest in the straps of a saddle that hung along the wall. "Come on," he said a little more abruptly than he intended. "We've got an early morning ahead. Let's get some sleep." She followed him back inside the inn without another word, and all the way, Vahanian cursed himself silently for being a fool.

Those slavers must have addled your brains when they ran you through, an inner voice castigated. First, you're fool enough to take on a job with no money up front. Then you stick around when they're even hotter than you thought. Now, you start noticing a paying customer. Exiled or not, one that's the wrong side of the blanket for being noble. Don't fool yourself, Jonmarc, the voice in his mind warned. Chummy as your passengers have gotten, they'll remember their place as soon as you're back to the City, and they'll remember yours. Hired help, and don't forget it.

By the time they reached the rooms and found the others asleep or dozing by the fire, he found that his mood, sour to begin with, was considerably worse. Half a bottle of brandy did nicely to remedy that, and he settled down a candlemark later to enjoy the last safe night's sleep he was likely to find for at least a fortnight.

MORNING FOUND THE group in surprisingly good spirits. Gabriel had already settled up with the innkeeper. Alyzza informed them that she would be heading in a different direction, and took her leave just after sunrise. Gabriel's purse outfitted them all amply with horses and tack, and the innkeeper, grateful for paying customers, found clothing to replace the group's tattered outfits. Homespun, plain and scratchy, they were suited to the cold and would pass unremarkably among the other travelers. Their disguises from the night of Haunts had worn off long ago, and they did not continue to dye their hair or alter their appearances the further they got from Shekerishet. Tris's white-blond hair was most likely to attract attention, and he usually wore it in a queue, covered with a hat.

So they headed north once more, choosing a different route from that which either the caravan or the slavers followed, mindful of ambush and anxious to reach Westmarch before the early snows made the roads impassable. The snowfall grew heavier with each hour, and as the road wound north, drifts filled the ditches and edged the fields. In the month since Haunts, the days had grown shorter and the winds colder. This far north, snows came much earlier and stayed longer than in the plains of southern Margolan. While the Library was in the same general direction as Principality City, it was further northeast, in the foothills of the mountains. An early winter was even more likely there, and Tris wondered if they would be able to leave the Library easily.

It took more than an hour before Carina felt like talking, and Vahanian's mood remained dark even longer. At Gabriel's suggestion, each of them carried a bundle of torches soaked in pitch and a tinderbox, along with buckets of a sloppy, thick pitch mixture that could flare into fire at the barest spark. Tris found that he could call a spark to hand as quickly as he could strike one with a flint, and agreed to carry more than his share of torches for ease of lighting, should they encounter the beasts.

"Skrivven for your thoughts," Tris said to Carroway as he rode beside him. Vahanian took the point position this hour, with Carina and Berry in the middle, and Tris taking his turn in the rear. Every few candlemarks, Tris and the other fighters exchanged positions, giving each a turn on watch.

Carroway grinned sheepishly. "If you have to know," he admitted, "I was thinking about the menus at Shekerishet at this time of year. Roast mutton, potatoes and leeks and warm puddings." He sighed. "And those end-of-the-season-at-court parties before the outlying nobility go back to their lands for the winter, all of them needing a bard and feeding me well for my trouble!"

Tris smiled, savoring the memories for a moment himself. He had learned quickly to make do with hard biscuits and sausage on the road north, and to be thankful when they weren't moldy or full of maggots. Memories of a warm banquet hall filled with the delicacies of a court kitchen seemed increasingly like a half-remembered dream.

"You might find the social calendar altered a bit with Jared in charge," Tris remarked, shaking himself from the reverie. "And Arontala put a damper on any event if he walked in the door. I wonder if the nobles feel as much like celebrating, now that Jared is king."

"I wonder, sometimes, what will be left, by the time we can go home," Carroway said, sobering. He stared out toward the gray, barren tree line that marked the uneven horizon. "Whether we winter at the Library or in Principality City, we'll have to stay somewhere over the worst months. If the Sisterhood is sending you to the Library, then there must be something there you need, maybe books or spells or who-knows-what."

"I wondered about that myself," Tris said. "I'll need far more training before I can hope to defeat Arontala. But I don't have years… at best we've got months."

"Then there's the question of raising and outfitting an army," Carroway supplied. "That won't happen at a library. "We'll have to spend time- months-in Principality City to do that. It won't be cheap, either. It's a good thing you've got your uncle's accounts there; and having him vouch for you doesn't hurt, either. Then we have to get back down into Margolan-no small trick."

"By the Hawthorn Moon next summer," Tris added, feeling hopeless. "Grandmother's spirit came to me in a dream," he said quietly. "She told me that Arontala means to work magic on the Hawthorn Moon to free the spirit of the Obsidian King from where it was bound at the end of the Great War. If he does that, and gains even more power-"

"There won't be any way to stop him, without another great war, even worse than the first," Carroway finished his sentence for him. "That isn't leaving us a lot of time, Tris."