Patricia Briggs - Raven's Shadow

“So, gents,” said the innkeeper, glancing toward Wresen, who was finishing the last few bites of his meal. “A dead man cannot pay his debts and they are left to his heir. This one owes me a silver and has no means to pay. Do any of you need a slave or shall she join her brother where he burns in the square?”

The flush of anger that had highlighted her cheeks paled abruptly. Obviously, she hadn’t known the other Traveler had been killed until the innkeeper spoke, although she must have suspected something had happened to him. Her breathing picked up, and she blinked hard, but otherwise she controlled herself until all that showed on her face was anger and contempt.

Stupid girl, he thought again—then he felt the tingle of gathering magic.

He’d been nine long years in the Imperial Army under a Sept who commanded six wizards—doubtless that was the reason Tier was contemplating helping the Traveler rather than running out the door like a proper Rederni. Those years had taught him that mages were just people like anyone else: this girl was unlikely to be able to save herself from a mob of frightened men. After they saw her work magic, no one else would be able to save her either.

She was nothing to him.

“One silver,” Tier said.

Wresen started and shifted to alertness, his hand touching his sword, staring at Tier. Tier knew what he saw: a travel-stained man, tall and too thin, with a sword on his belt and his years in the Emperor’s army recorded in the myriad small scars on face and hands.

Tier opened his belt pouch and sorted through a smattering of small coins before pulling out a silver round that looked as though it had been trampled by a dozen armies.

“Take off your hood,” said the innkeeper. “I’ll see a man’s face and know his name and kin before I take his money.”

Tier tossed his hood back and let them see by his dark hair and eyes that he was no Traveler. “Tieragan from Redern and late of the Imperial Army under the Sept of Gerant. I’m a baker’s son, but I gave it up for the battlefield when I was young and stupid. The war’s ended by the Emperor’s writ, and I am homebound.”

The girl’s magic died down to a slow simmer. That’s it, he thought, take the time I’m giving you to remember that one man is easier to take than a whole room. You don’t really want revenge; you want escape. He didn’t know whether he was saving her from these men, or the men from her.

“If you take her, you won’t stay here,” blustered the innkeeper. “I don’t want her kind in my inn.”

Tier shrugged, “I’ve camped before, and my horse will take me a few hours yet.”

“Two silver,” said Wresen abruptly. The nobleman set his hands on his table with enough force that his sword bounced and the big silver ring on his left hand punctuated his words with a bang. When all eyes turned to him he said, “I’ve always wanted to sample Traveler bread—and that one looks young enough to bring to heel.”

Tier couldn’t afford to offer much more than Wresen’s two silver. Not because he didn’t have it, the better part of nine years of pay and plunder were safely sewn in his belt, but because no one would believe that he, a baker’s son and soldier, would spend so much money on a strange woman-child no matter how exotic. He could hardly believe it himself. If they decided he was a confederate of hers, he might find himself sharing the pyre outside. On the other hand, a bored nobleman could spend as much as he wanted without comment.

Tier shot Wresen a look of contempt.

“You’d be dead before your pants were down around your knees, nobleman,” Tier said. “You aren’t from around these mountains, or you would understand about magic. My armsmate was like you, used to the tame wizards who take the Septs’ gold. He saved my life three times and survived five years of war, only to fall at the hands of a Traveler wizard in a back alley.”

The mood in the room shifted as Tier reminded them why they had killed the man burning outside.

“We”—he included himself with every man in the room—“we understand. You don’t play with fire, Lord Wresen, you drown it before it burns your house down.” He looked at the innkeeper. “After the Traveler killed my fighting brother, I spent years learning how to deal with such—I look forward to testing my knowledge. Two silver and four copper.”

The innkeeper nodded quickly, as Tier had expected. An innkeeper would understand the moods of his patrons and see that many more words like Tier’s last speech, and he’d get nothing. The men in the room were very close to taking the girl out right now and throwing her on top of her brother. Much better to end the auction early with something to show for it.

Tier handed the innkeeper the silver coin and began digging in his purse, eventually coming up with the twenty-eight coppers necessary to make two silver and four. He was careful that a number of people saw how few coppers he had left. They didn’t need to know about the money in his belt.

Wresen settled back, as if the Traveler’s fate was nothing to him. His response made Tier all the more wary of him—in his experience bored noblemen seldom gave up so easily. But for the moment at least, Tier had only the girl to contend with.

Tier walked to the stairs, ignoring the men who pushed back away from him. He jerked the girl’s wrist and pulled her past the innkeeper.

“What she has we’ll take,” Tier said. “I’ll burn it all when we’re in the woods—you might think of doing the same to the bed and linen in that room. I’ve seen wizards curse such things.”

He took the stairs up at a pace that the girl couldn’t possibly match with the awkward way he kept her arm twisted behind her. When she stumbled, he jerked her up with force that was more apparent than real. He wanted everyone to be completely convinced that he could handle whatever danger she represented.

There were four doors at the top of the stairs, but only one hung ajar, and he hauled her into it and shut the door behind them.

“Quick, girl,” he said, releasing her, “gather your things before they decide that they might keep the silver and kill the both of us.”

When she didn’t move, he tried a different tack. “What you don’t have packed in a count of thirty, I’ll leave for the innkeeper to burn,” he said.

Proud and courageous she was, but also young. With quick, jerky movements, she pulled a pair of shabby packs out from under the bed. She tied the first one shut for travel, and retrieved clothing out of the other. Using her night rail as cover, she put on a pair of loose pants and a long, dark-colored tunic. After stuffing her sleeping shift back in the second pack, she secured it, too. She stood up, glanced out the room, and froze.

“Ushireh,” she said and added with more urgency, “he’s alive!”

Tier looked out and realized that the room looked over the square, allowing a clear view of the fire. Clearly visible in the heat of the flames, the dead man’s body was slowly sitting upright—and from the sounds of it, frightening the daylights out of the men left to guard the pyre.

He caught her before she could run out of the room. “Upon my honor, mistress, he is dead,” he said with low-voiced urgency. “I saw him as I rode in. His throat was cut and he was dead before they lit the fire.”

She continued to struggle against his hold, her attention on the pyre outside.

“Would they have left so few men to guard a living man?” he said. “Surely you’ve seen funeral pyres before. When the flame heats the bodies they move.”

In the eastern parts of the Empire, they burned their dead. The priests held that when a corpse moved in the flame it was the spirit’s desire to look once more upon the world. Tier’s old employer, the Sept, who had a Traveler’s fondness for priests (that is to say, not much), said he reckoned the heat shrank tissue faster than bone as the corpse burned. Whichever was correct, the dead stayed dead.