Patricia Briggs - Raven's Strike

“If you are a god,” Seraph said, “shouldn’t you have been able to take care of a troll far better than we did?”

“But I am only a small god,” said the horse, sounding amused. “I could not destroy the troll—not that troll, which was a minion of the Shadowed and escaped the Fall to live centuries more than a troll ought, and still keep my priest alive. Death doesn’t relinquish its rightful prey lightly, and healing is not my province.”

“Why didn’t you let him die?” she asked, though she had no desire for Karadoc’s death. “No one has ever said that the priests of Ellevanal are immortal.”

He laughed in soft huffs at her tart tone. “He is an excellent skiri player, which priests seldom are. Most of them are more given to things of the spirit rather than cleverness of the mind.” The picture of a priest playing a board game with his god struck Seraph as extremely odd, but before she could ask him about it, the forest king’s voice became serious. “There are no others to take his place. His apprentice will be fine in a few years, but I needed my priest now.”

The rain had stopped, and rising warmth turned the moisture in the grasses to fog where the last light of the sun peeked through to light the small clearing where the god stood. Steam rose from the white horse’s flanks and ribs, ribs that were a good deal less prominent than they had been when he’d first joined her.

“You’ve been feeding,” she said.

The horse set his nose in a knee-high clump of grass and ripped some from the ground. He raised his head and chewed pointedly.

Seraph shook her head at him. “No grass pads ribs so quickly.”

“Where do you think the power that you’ve been feeding into the forest goes?” He laughed, again. “Before the first of Rederni’s Bards was born here, I was little more than a very old stag who wandered about. But a Bard is a very powerful thing, if subtle. There may be more than one reason that the Travelers never stay long in one place.”

Seraph stared at him. Of course Tier wasn’t the only Bard born to the Rederni, not with the way music flowed through them like blood.

“You feed off magic?” she said, setting aside the question of more Ordered solsenti .

“Did I say that?” asked the horse. “I would never lie to you, Raven. I feed off the land only.” His eyes lit with wicked laughter at her huff of frustration. “Careful, Raven. Anger and magic are a volatile combination. I don’t understand it completely myself.”

“What do you understand?” she asked.

“Travelers have not come here in a long time,” he said. “Not since the Fall and seldom before that. Only when you came to live here with Tier did I notice there is something about the Orders that makes the land… more alive. It is not magic, not that I can tell. There.” He tossed his head. “I have told you as much as I know. The forest is my realm, and its secrets belong to me. Travelers belong to no gods and, I think, they have more secrets than most.”

He stayed with her until she completed the circle, then wandered away, swishing his tail in mild irritation at an impious bug.

Seraph staggered almost drunkenly to her feet, sympathizing with Tier, as her knees throbbed, and her back ached. She’d worn a hole in her pants, but that didn’t matter. Now that they were home she’d have to go back to wearing Rederni skirts.

As Seraph picked her way tiredly down the slope toward home, Jes ran up. She heard him before she saw him because he was chanting softly, “I found her,” as he ran.

He was laughing when he stopped just in front of her. “I found you,” he said. “I found you before Lehr.”

She touched his shoulder lightly. “You did at that. Is everyone all right?”

He nodded and fell into step with her. “Hennea sent us out. She said it should be safe to find you now. She said if someone didn’t, Papa was going to undo all the good she managed to do for his knees by coming out here himself.”

Seraph remembered the troll’s fist closing around Tier’s legs. “Is he all right?”

Jes nodded. “He grumbled about his knees, so they must be fine.”

Seraph smiled. “So they must.” If he’d been really hurt, not a word would have crossed his lips. “And Rinnie?”

“She’s asleep next to Papa, who’s singing with Ciro. She has a bump on her head and a bruise on her shoulder about this big—” Jes held his hands apart to show how big, and Seraph hoped he was exaggerating, though that wasn’t one of Jes’s faults.

“Lehr was jealous of her,” he said. “He said he’d never had a bruise that big. I have though. Remember the time I fell off the barn? That was a bigger bruise than Rinnie’s.”

“I hope none of us ever gets a bruise that big again.”

Jes nodded. “Me, too. Here comes Lehr. I found her first, Lehr. I’ll see you at home.” Jes slipped off in the darkness, leaving Seraph alone with Lehr.

“Once I quit trying to track you and began to follow the sound of Jes’s voice you weren’t hard to find. Jes is happy to be home,” said Lehr. “You look tired, Mother. Are you all right?”

Seraph nodded. “Fine. Just a little worn, I’m not used to handling so much magic. Jes said your father and Rinnie aren’t hurt much?”

“They’re fine—just a bit bruised and battered,” agreed Lehr, and something inside of Seraph relaxed. “Ciro made Papa tell everyone the story of what happened while we were gone.”

Ciro, the tanner’s father, had been a close friend of Tier’s grandfather, and had helped Tier learn to love music. Not that Tier had needed much encouragement.

“Ciro said he was going to make Papa’s story into a song. Then they got in a contest to see who’d come up with the funniest verses.” He turned his attention to the rough ground they were walking on for a moment, then said, “They’ve been having trouble here for the past few weeks. The troll was the worst of it, but there’ve been goblins and other things.”

“The forest king found me while I was trying to get rid of the troll’s death magic,” said Seraph. “He told me the wizard-priest, Volis, had done something to call the servants of the shadow. Hennea and I must have missed that while we were going through the temple. Karadoc stopped the summoning, but he was hurt.” She glanced at her son.

Lehr nodded. “He’s staying in the house right now.” He cleared his throat. “He’s been staying in your room. Papa said to leave him there tonight. He looks pretty bad, pale and bruised, but they carried him out for the music, so he can’t be as bad as he looks.”

Seraph was tired, her clothes were wet, and she’d been looking forward to sleeping in her own bed. “Karadoc’s not a young man anymore. If he’s hurt, he’d better stay in our bed until they move back to town—which shouldn’t be too long. The forest king told me Karadoc helped destroy the rune that summoned the tainted beasts here. The troll should be the end of it. I’d imagine tomorrow or the next day they’ll all be back in Redern.” She hoped.

“Jes will be glad to hear that,” said Lehr. “He took one look at Aunt Alinath and hid behind Hennea.”

“She took care of Rinnie for us,” said Seraph, and stumbled over a branch she hadn’t seen.

Lehr took her arm. “I know. But she’s never known how to treat Jes.”

“She wouldn’t have been so bad if Jes hadn’t gone out of his way to be at his worst with her.”

Lehr snorted. “Papa says the same of Aunt Alinath and you.”

There was a small gathering of people in front of the house, where someone had lit a small bonfire despite the damp. Tier, one knee tightly bound and stretched out in front of him, was playing the lute he’d brought back from Taela. Rinnie was wrapped up in a blanket and had fallen asleep with her head on Tier’s unbound knee.