Patricia Briggs - Raven's Strike

“The smith’s work is good enough by the local standards,” Tier told Benroln. “You can’t expect master-level bladecrafting from a man who makes mostly nails and plowshares. If you’d asked for a plow, doubtless you’d have been better pleased.”

“We have not the slightest need for a plow,” grumbled Benroln. “Or nails either. But either would have done us more good than three braces of ill-balanced, rough-handled knives.”

“Then your own smith can use the metal to make something more suitable,” soothed Tier. “You know as well as I that the real benefit you gained this day is that next time you—or any Traveler—comes by here, you will be welcomed and treated fairly.”

“Is Benroln still complaining?” Seraph came up to ride by Tier’s side. She gave Benroln a steady look. “If you’d really wanted a good bargain, you’d have driven it before we killed the mistwight and Brewydd healed his family. Afterward, you get what he gives and be grateful for it.”

Benroln muttered an excuse and dropped back to talk with someone who would listen to him with a more sympathetic ear.

“The knives aren’t so bad,” said Tier. “They’re just not up to the standards of the clan’s smith.”

Seraph watched him closely. “What’s wrong?”

“My knees,” he lied. She saw too much with her clear-eyed gaze. “They’ll be fine.”

He would lose her, he thought. She would stay with him for a while because the children needed her and because she’d given her word to him. But the boys were young men already, and their daughter was no longer a helpless child. How long would his love cage her from the life she was born to?

She’d grown into a woman who could deal with the responsibilities she’d come to him to escape. She was Raven, and he thought perhaps for the first time he understood what that meant.

“We can stop for a while and give your knees a chance to rest,” said Seraph. “Brewydd could probably use the rest as well.”

“No”—he shook his head—“Brewydd is tired, but all she has to do is sit on Skew until we make it back to camp. As for my knees, I just walked too far today. My knees will be fine. No fun, but a long way from unbearable.”

Unbearable was that he could see no way to hold Seraph without destroying her; by comparison his knees were nothing. “I’ll be fine.”

Midmorning the next day they came to a crossroads, and Benroln called a halt. As soon as everyone had stopped he strode directly to Tier and Seraph.

“We are called to the southern fork,” he said in a tight voice.

Seraph smiled at him. “Is this the first time?”

Benroln nodded jerkily.

“Some leaders never hear the call,” she told him, then glancing at Tier, she explained. “When the clan’s help is needed, the leader of a clan knows. It spoke to my brother. He told me it’s like a whisper or a tugging string.”

“A string,” said Benroln, his face a little flushed. “It pulls my heart. My father said his father had it—but I never really believed.”

“You go on then,” said Tier. “We’ll continue west on our own. It’s not far now.”

Benroln’s face lost the absent look it had held. “You have to come with us. Without you we have only me and the Healer. Brewydd says that there is another Shadowed.”

Tier looked around. “I see a lot of people. Surely you don’t dismiss everyone without an Order as useless?”

Benroln gave a huff of frustration. “You know what I mean.”

Tier nodded. “I do. But I have a young daughter staying with my folk—who’ve no magic at all. Now, when my sons were chasing the Shadowed—”

“We don’t know he was the Shadowed,” said Seraph.

“All right,” agreed Tier. “But if he wasn’t another like the Unnamed King, then he was wearing the robes of one of the Masters of the Secret Path, so he must have been a wizard. I’m minded then, that he was killing off Travelers and stealing their Orders just as the others were. He’s not going to be best pleased with the people who destroyed his work—and I’ve the nasty suspicion that he’s going to hold me mostly to blame for it, despite the fact I spent most of the battle chained up and helpless. Benroln, my daughter Rinnie is staked out in Redern like the bait in a mountain-cat trap. I’ll not leave her alone any longer than I can help.”

“How do you know that he knows anything at all about your daughter? The wizard, Shadowed or not, was in Taela—that’s a long way from Redern.”

“The Path had someone watching our family,” Tier told him, feeling a trace of the anger that he’d felt when he’d first found out. What if they had decided to steal away one of the children instead of him? What if he had died? Would the Path have been able to pick off the children one by one? The thought brought an urgent need to have his family together, where he could keep an eye on all of them. He needed to get to Redern.

“He knows about Rinnie,” Tier said firmly. “I’m sorry, Benroln, but I won’t risk her.”

“You’ll find a way to do what you are called to do without us,” said Seraph.

Hennea, the other Raven, was not a member of Benroln’s clan either, but had come to Seraph in Redern and traveled with his family when they rode to Taela, the capital of the Empire, to rescue him. She had no real ties to them.

“Perhaps Hennea will go with you,” suggested Tier.

Jes had jogged over to see what the delay was, Gura at his heel. The big dog had been reluctant to let any of them out of his sight since they’d gotten back from killing the mistwight, and tended to race back and forth from one of his people to another—sort of like Jes.

Before Benroln could reply to Tier’s suggestion, Jes shook his head, and said positively, “Hennea stays with us.”

Tier raised his eyebrows, hiding the worry he felt about the budding relationship between Jes and Hennea. “Hennea’s a Raven and will do as she wishes, Jes. I thought you’d know that, having grown up with your mother. Why don’t you go find her and see what she says?”

Hennea usually liked to stay toward the back of the clan when they traveled. Jes found her there, talking with a half dozen or so people and Lehr, who smelled of mint and the herbs he must have been collecting for the Healer.

Lehr looked up, saw Jes, and asked, “Why are we stopped?”

Jes felt the weight of everyone’s attention focus on him; their fear tangled with curiosity beat upon him. He didn’t like it, and neither did the Guardian. He dropped his eyes to the ground and tried not to feel them or notice how they backed away.

“Benroln is called south,” he told the ground. “We’re going on to Redern because Papa is afraid that the Shadowed might try and hurt Rinnie.”

The Guardian agreed with Papa. He also believed that the man they had chased was a Shadowed one, not just shadow-tainted.

Jes missed the first part of what Hennea said, though the last of it—“I should go with Benroln”—was enough to bring the Guardian boiling to the surface.

“No,” Jes said, but that was all he could manage around the Guardian’s growl, unheard by anyone else.

< She comes with us! She is mine! >

Jes agreed with the sentiment, but was certain that the Guardian’s telling Hennea as much would be disastrous. So he fought to keep control. It didn’t help that as the Guardian had arisen, the icy dread of his presence increased the fear of everyone around him. Their emotions roiled around him like the river in a storm, until Hennea put her hand on his arm, bringing with her the cool relief that was a part of her. He could still feel the others, but somehow, Hennea’s presence managed to shield him from the worst of it.