By the Sword (38 page)

“It's my job,” she reminded him, and looked up at the sky, critically. There were still stars in the west, but the east was noticeably lighter above the thick pines. It was time to find somewhere to hide for a while.

“We need a cave, or a ledge overhanging some bushes, or something,” she continued. “We're going to need to hide for at least two days, maybe three, maybe more, so it's going to have to stand up to some scrutiny. I want a cave, I really do.”

He looked bewildered, and not particularly happy. “Two days? Three? But—”

She cut him short. “I know what you're thinking. Trust me on this one. I'm hurt, you're hurt, and the Karsites are going to expect us to make straight for the Border. We need time to recover, and we need time for our trail to age. If we hole up back here, and stay here, we'll get in behind them. They won't look for us to come from that direction.”

Herald Eldan was hardly more than a dark shape against the lighter sky, and she realized that she really didn't know what he looked like. He shook his head dubiously, then shrugged. “All right, you obviously know what you're doing. You did get me out of there.” He gestured grandly. “Lead on, my lady.”

Ordinarily, that would have caused her to snap
I'm nobody's
lady,
much less yours,
but something about Eldan—an unconscious graciousness, a feeling that he'd treat a scullery maid and a princess with the same courtesy, made her smile and take the lead, afoot, with Hellsbane trailing obediently behind like an enormous dog.

She knew what she was looking for, when she'd started searching here among the cliffs off the road, following the barest of game trails, and she had the feeling she'd find it in these uneven limestone slopes. A cave. Somewhere they could could hide and rest and not have to worry about searchers. Above all, though, their hiding place had to be big enough for the horses, too—maybe Eldan's Companion could make himself into a drift of fog and escape notice, but Hellsbane was all too solid.

She tried several places that looked promising, but none of them were near big enough. She began watching the sky with one anxious eye; the rising sun had begun to dye the eastern horizon a delicate pink, and once the Karsites had completed their morning devotions, the hunt would be well and truly up. There was one advantage; a small one. Bats would be returning to their lairs for the day, and bats meant caves.

There was a ledge—and she thought she saw a dark form flit under it.

She fumbled her way up to it, tired limbs no longer responding, reactions gone all to hell. Predictably, she tripped, completely lost her balance and grabbed for a bush.

She missed it entirely. She fell down the slope with a strangled cry, rolling over and over, landing in a tangle of bushes—

And falling through the clutching, spiky branches, into blackness with a not-so-strangled shriek. She got a face full of gravel, and rolled farther, finally hitting her head, and seeing stars for a moment.

She lay on her back in the darkness, her ears ringing, wondering what she was doing there.

“Kerowyn?”

She blinked, trying to remember where she was, and who that voice could belong to.

“Kerowyn?” The voice certainly sounded familiar.

She sat up, and her head screamed a protest—but it all came back. Eldan, the rescue—
Right.

“I'm in here!” she cried, hearing her voice echo back at her from deeper in the darkness with an elation not even her aching head could spoil.

“Are you all right?” She looked in the direction of the voice, and saw a lighter patch in the dark. That must be the entrance, screened off by bushes so thick
she
hadn't even guessed it was there.

“Pretty much,” she replied, getting carefully to her feet, and sitting right back down again, prudently, when her head began to spin. “Can you bring the horses in here? Right now my knees are a little shaky.”

“I think so.” There were sounds of someone thrashing his way through bushes, leaving, then returning. “It looks big enough. Hang on, I'm going to make a light.”

She winced at the sudden flare of light, and looked away, toward the rear of the cave. Interestingly, she couldn't see an end to the darkness. When she looked back again, Eldan had a candle in one hand, and was leading Hellsbane in, the horse whickering her protest at being taken through scratchy bushes, but obeying him readily enough.

Which was a miracle.

“She should be breaking your arm, you know,” she said conversationally, as Eldan coaxed the mare down the slippery gravel slope to the bottom of the cave. “She's trained not to obey anyone but me, or someone I've designated that she's worked with in my presence. She should be trying to kill you, or at least hurt you.”

“One of my Gifts is animal Mindspeech,” he said, just as casually. Then he dropped the reins, grinned at her thunderstruck expression, and scrambled back up the slope, leaving the candle stuck onto a rock.

“Oh,” she said weakly to the mare. “Animal Mindspeech. Of course. I should have known....”

 

“Doesn't this hurt?” Eldan asked, peeling blood-soaked and dried cloth away from a slash on her leg. The wound wasn't deep, but it was very messy; she was bleeding like the proverbial butchered pig.

And now that they were safe, it definitely did hurt. Quite a bit, as a matter of fact.

“Yes,” she replied, from behind gritted teeth. “It hurts.”

“Then why don't you yell a little—it might do you some good.”

“It isn't going to do any good to howl, much as I'd like to,” she pointed out. “And there might be someone out there to hear me.”

He sighed, and repeated what he'd just told her earlier. “One of my Gifts is animal Mindspeech, my lady. If there
was
anyone out there, the wild things would know it, and I'd know it. The only creatures that are going to hear you are some deer and a couple of squirrels.”

“Call it force of habit, then,” she replied, clenching her fists while he continued to clean the wound as he talked.

She'd already done the same service for him, finding mostly bruises, and a couple of nasty-looking cuts and bums where the priestess had tried a little preliminary “work” on him. He proved to be quite a handsome fellow; lean and muscular, a little taller than she was, with warm brown eyes and hair of sable-brown, but with two surprising white streaks in it, one at each temple. He had high cheekbones, a stubborn chin, and a generous mouth that looked as if he smiled a great deal.

“I don't think this needs to be stitched,” he said, finally, “Just bandaged really well.”

“That's a relief.” She allowed herself to smile. “Thanks for taking care of everything. I'm sorry I had to find this place with my head.”

Eldan had spent a couple of candlemarks pulling up armloads of grass and bringing it into the cave for the horses, then hunting up food for the humans. That was when he'd assured her that his Gift of understanding animal thoughts would keep him safe. Somehow she hadn't been too surprised that he'd brought back roots, edible fungus, and fish. Obviously if there was going to be any red meat or fowl brought in, she would have to be the hunter. And that would have to wait until tomorrow, since she'd managed to give herself a concussion when she fell.

But the ceiling of the cave was high enough that a fire gave them no problems, and the hot fish, wrapped in a blanket of clay and stuffed with the mushrooms, together with the roots roasted in hot ashes, tasted like the finest feast she'd ever had.

“How in the Havens did you ever become a mercenary?” Eldan asked, wrapping a bandage around her leg, and securing it.

“Sort of fell into it, I suppose,” she replied. “I expect this is going to sound altogether horrible to you, but I happen to be good at fighting. And I didn't want the kinds of things considered acceptable for young ladies.”

“Like husbands and children?” To her mild amazement, Eldan nodded. “My sister felt the same way. It's just that I can't imagine anyone with the Gift of Mindspeech being comfortable with
killing
people.”

“I don't use it, much. The Gift, I mean. Wouldn't miss it if it got taken from me.” She felt a little chill; Eldan was the only person besides Warrl to know about this so-called Gift, and the idea frightened her as nothing else in the past five years could. “Don‘t—let anyone know, all right?”

“There's no reason why I should,” he assured her, and somehow she believed him. “But I must admit, I don't understand why you'd want to keep it secret if you don't use it that much.”

“I live with mercenaries,” she pointed out to him. “People who value their privacy, and who generally have secrets.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Where, among the Heralds, such Gifts are commonplace, and we understand that one doesn't go rummaging about in someone else's mind as if it were a kind of old-clothes bin. There's a certain protocol we follow, and even the ordinary, unGifted people understand that in Valdemar.”

For a moment she tried to imagine a place where that would be true, a land where she wouldn't be avoided for such an ability, or considered dangerous. She shook her head; places like that were only in tales.

“Well, we're different,” he admitted. “Let me look at that slash along your ribs, hmm?”

She pulled off her tunic and pulled up her shirt without thinking twice about it; she'd have done the same with Tre or Gies, or Shallan. But when Eldan cleaned the long, shallow cut with his gentle hands, she found her cheeks warming, and she discovered to her chagrin that she found his touch very arousing.

She caught the way her thoughts were tending, and sternly reprimanded herself.
But that's no reason to start with him.

:You know, my lady,:
whispered a little caress of a thought across the surface of her mind,
:just because you've always been afraid of something, that's no reason to continue to fear it.:

For a moment she was confused, then angry with him for eavesdropping on her thoughts, until she realized he was talking about Mindspeech, not sex. But the touch of his mind on hers was as sensuous as the touch of his hands just under her breasts; the only other Mindspeaker she'd ever shared thoughts with was Warrl, and he was not only unhuman, “he” was a neuter. She had never felt anything quite so intimate as Eldan's thought mingling with hers ... there were overtones that speech alone couldn't convey. A sense that he found her as attractive as she found him; an intimation that his body was reacting to the near-brush with death in the same way....

We're going to have to stay in here until the hunt dies down, she thought absently, more than half her attention being taken up with the feel of his warm hands soothing
her aching ribs, and the silken touch of his thoughts against her mind.
It's going to happen sooner or later—we're both young, and we're both interested. There's no earthly reason why we shouldn't. If we don‘t, things are only going to get very strained in here.

She caught his hands just as he finished bandaging her ribs, and slowly, and quite deliberately, drew him toward her.

He was surprised—oh, not entirely, just surprised that she was so forward, she suspected. There was just a sudden flash of something like shock, and only for a moment. She deliberately kept her mind open to his touch, and after a brief hesitation, his thoughts joined hers as their lips met, and he joined her on her bedroll.

She prepared to kiss him, parting her lips, only to find he'd done the same. She chuckled a little at his evident enthusiasm; he slid his hands under her shirt, over the breasts he had been trying very hard
not
to touch a moment before. She undid the fastenings of his breeches and helped him to get rid of them, while he rid her of shirt and underdrawers.

Tired and battered as they were, they moved slowly with each other, taking their cues from the things picked out of each other's minds. Making love mind-to-mind like this was the most incredibly intimate and sensuous experience Kero had ever experienced; and it was evident that Eldan was no stranger to it. In fact, given the evidence of her senses, she'd have to account him as very experienced in a number of areas, with a formidable level of expertise.

Quite a difference from Daren.

At some point, the candle burned out, leaving only the fire for illumination; she hardly noticed. She saw him just as clearly with hands and mind as she did with her eyes.

One more thing that was different from Daren: incredible patience. It had been a very long time since her last lover; Eldan was understanding, and gentle—and made certain she was fully satisfied, sated, in fact, before taking his own pleasure, pleasure in which she joined, thrilled by the overwhelming urgency she felt rushing into her from his mind. He arched his back and cried out, then slowed, breathing ragged and spent, and came to rest atop her. They lay together entwined, and gradually Kero realized he was falling asleep and fighting it. She soothed the back of his neck with a delicate brush of fingertips, and he sighed at the wordless exchange and gave up the fight. He withdrew from her, gently and slowly, still aware of all the sensations of each others' bodies. When she was certain he wasn't going to wake, she carefully disengaged herself, found another dry piece of wood, and threw it on the fire, giving her a little more light to see by. She reached out and caught a comer of his bedroll, shook it out, and draped the blankets over both of them.