Raven's Strike (10 page)

“That's what I thought. I asked him how he knew, and the Guardian deliberately switched to our Jes just long enough to tell me he didn't know, then switched back.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I think that if the Guardian had told me he didn't know, he would have been lying.”

“The Guardian knows things that Jes doesn't know?” Seraph groped for Tier's hand; when she found it she held it tightly. “That's not a good thing. If Jes is to survive, he and the Guardian have to be one.” That's what her father had told her Guardian brother anyway.

“I'll talk to him,” said Tier, as if talk could solve all problems.

Seraph let it make her feel better anyway. For Tier, talk solved a lot more problems than it ever had for her.

Tier tugged her until her head was on his shoulder, then pulled the bedding over her shoulders.

Hennea loved Jes. Seraph was fairly certain that Jes felt the same way, though it was sometimes difficult to tell.

“She's never said so much, but I don't think she has anywhere else to go,” Seraph told him. “I don't know what Jes said to her to get her to come with us, though Lehr told me that at first she was going to go with Benroln. I know what would make her stay, though.”

“What is that?”

“Duty. She's a Raven, Tier. She has responsibilities that supersede love and family. Somewhere out there is a Shadowed who wants to destroy you, my love. Doubtless he is hunting you down—and it is her duty to be here for the kill.”

Tier laughed, bouncing her head gently. “His or mine?”

“Go to sleep, you,” she scolded, to hide her worry.

When she and Tier approached the house the next morning, the priest was sitting on the porch bench with his eyes shut.

“You look tired, Karadoc,” said Tier, waving at some people who'd shouted greeting to him from the fields, where they were taking down tents.

Karadoc's bright brown eyes opened. “You're a fine one to talk. From the way you're walking, I'd say you've bruises to rival mine.”

Tier tilted his head toward the fields. “Is it safe for them to return to Redern?”

Karadoc smiled, a secret, pleased smile. “Ellevanal tells me that the village is safe, so I've told everyone to start packing. You'll have your home back to yourselves by nightfall.”

Karadoc's prediction was a little optimistic, and Seraph and Tier spent another night in Isolde's
mermora
house. The villagers were more interested in celebrating their victory than in returning home. Then, too, Seraph thought, they were a little nervous about returning to the village. It would be a while before Redern felt safe to them again, despite Karadoc's assurances.

“Thank you again for watching Rinnie for us,” said Seraph, as she helped Alinath gather her things from the corner of the house where Lehr and Jes usually slept.

It was the afternoon of the second day since they'd returned home, and Seraph was hopeful that they'd all sleep in their own beds tonight. To that end she'd sent her children and Tier out to encourage the stragglers to return to Redern.

“Rinnie is a joy,” said Tier's sister, folding a shirt neatly and setting it into a pack. “Until we came here, she helped us in the bakery.” She paused. “Thank you for finding my brother. If you and the Travelers hadn't found him, he'd be dead.”

Seraph shrugged uncomfortably. She didn't know what to say to Alinath. The old animosity had faded, but she wasn't certain what to replace it with.

“Tier is resourceful,” she said at last. “Did he tell you he had the Emperor asking him for advice?”

Alinath smiled, and the relief in the expression told Seraph that she was finding this no easier than Seraph herself. “Yes, he said something about it, but I thought he was exaggerating.”

Seraph shook her head. “No. I've never heard him exaggerate about anything he's done—usually just the opposite.”

“Really?” Alinath thought about it a moment. “Did he really take all the young thugs and turn them into an army for the Emperor?”

“They're still thugs. Most of them anyway. But they adored Tier and fought for the Emperor for his sake. Tier has a way with young men.”

“Speaking of young men,” said Alinath, “have you noticed the way that half of the village girls are swooning over Lehr? He's a hero for fighting and killing that troll.”

“He and most of the men in the village,” said Seraph dryly. “And
I
killed the troll.”

Alinath grinned; the expression looked a lot like Tier's. It wasn't one that Seraph had seen on Alinath's face before—but then Alinath had seldom been happy in Seraph's presence since Seraph's marriage to Tier. “No one is going to chide you for using magic this time. But I doubt you'll have anyone swooning over you either.”

Seraph stole Rinnie's favorite expression and rolled her
eyes. “Probably run the other direction. It took them twenty years to forget about the time I almost flattened the bakery—do you suppose it'll be twenty years before they forget the troll?”

Alinath put the last of Bandor's shirts in the pack. “I don't think they'll ever forget,” she said seriously. “But I don't believe that is necessarily a bad thing that they are reminded you are not just a farmer's wife.”

“That is what I am.”

“No.” Alinath tied the pack and lifted it. “You are a Traveler, a Raven of the Clan of the Silent.”

“The Clan of Isolde the Silent,” corrected Seraph. “I am also Seraph Tieraganswife. Isolde's clan is dead these twenty years and more. I have been Rederni for longer than I was a Traveler.”

“Seraph,” said Alinath. “You have always been Traveler—and Raven, too. We've known that since the day you almost flattened the bakery, all of us—even Tier.”

She picked up her bags and left Seraph alone.

After a moment, Seraph shook off the effects of Alinath's words. Alinath wasn't Tier, with his fearful accuracy where people were concerned.

Seraph had given up her Traveler heritage and exchanged it for Tier and for her children. True, the time she'd spent in Benroln's clan this summer had been comfortable, like taking out a shirt stored for years and finding that it still fit. But here was where she belonged.

But she still wore Traveler's clothing rather than Rederni skirts.

With brisk movements, Seraph stripped the bedding from the bed for washing. She started for the ladder, then turned around. The room was small and spare, a third the size of the cell that Tier had occupied in the palace in Taela. It was the room in which her children had been born.

In a few weeks it would be harvest season. There would be no harvest this year, but that was all to the good because there was the Shadowed and the problem of the Ordered gemstones. Traveler business that had to be taken care of before she settled down and became just a Rederni wife again.

Then, no more magic except the seasonal strengthening of the warding.

“This is my home,” she said aloud to counter the feeling of suffocation that made her chest tight. “I belong here.”

Leaving Tier and her sons to expedite the villager's exodus—Tier restricted to a supervisory role—Seraph recruited Rinnie to help clean the house and take inventory.

“It's a good thing you've been taking care of the garden while we were gone,” Seraph said, scrubbing at a new stain on the floor. “I was worried we'd have to send Tier to Leheigh for supplies, but with the garden we'll be all right.”

“Aunt Alinath, Uncle Bandor, and I came out once a week.” Rinnie climbed onto a table so she could get a better view of the cupboards. “The bakery is hard work. I see why Papa decided that he'd rather farm.”

“Farming is hard work, too,” said Seraph. “And the bakery brings in a lot more money.”

“But at the bakery you have to be inside all the time.” Rinnie pulled a jar out of a cupboard and peered inside it. “I missed Gura and Skew and the garden.”

“But not us?”

Rinnie grinned. “I missed you, too. Next time you go on an adventure, I get to go.”

“It looked to me like you had your own adventure,” Seraph observed.

“Mother, Cormorants aren't any good for
anything,
” Rinnie all but moaned, setting the jar aside. “Look at how Papa, Jes, Lehr, and you fought that troll. All I could do was
rain
on him.”

“The Orders are all different,” said Seraph. “We met another Cormorant—did your father tell you? He made a lot of money by manipulating the weather. He'd pick a wealthy village and let it dry out for a month or two, then have them pay him to make it rain.”

Rinnie straightened up, aghast. “Travelers are supposed to
help
people, Mother.”

“And so I told him,” said Seraph serenely. “He doesn't do it anymore.”

Rinnie grinned. “I wish people would listen to me when
I
tell them things, the way they listen to you.”

The door banged open, and Jes came in. “They're gone, we're back,” he said in one breath. “We took them to Redern. I'm glad they're gone.”

Seraph raised her eyebrows. “Boots?” she suggested gently. “I've just swept the floor, and I have no plans to do it again soon.”

He backed rapidly out of the house and sat on the porch. “Everyone kept touching, touching, touching. ‘Hello, Jes.' They'd say. ‘Good to have you back.' Touch. Touch. Touch.”

“I'm sorry. You should have asked them not to touch you.”

“Hennea said, ‘Stop touching the man, you fools. It hurts him.' and they stopped touching me.” He pulled off a boot and looked up with a pleased expression.

“Hennea yelled at them?” Seraph asked surprised.

He shook his head. “No, she just said it very firmly. But she can touch me. I told her so.”

“In front of everyone?” asked Rinnie, horrified.

Seraph was hard put not to laugh.

Lehr and Gura stepped up on the porch on the tail end of Jes's story.

“Hennea blushed and walked off,” Lehr said. “Papa laughed and told Jes it wasn't polite to tell a woman she could touch him while other folk were listening in. Everyone congratulated Jes on finding such a pretty girl.”

“Poor Hennea.” Seraph tried to suppress her smile.

“Papa told us to tell you he was staying in town tonight to help Aunt Alinath and Uncle Bandor. He'll be back after baking tomorrow morning. The bakery was in pretty rough shape. It looks as though something besides the troll took a run through town.”

“Is everything all right?”

Lehr nodded. “The bakery looked like a pair of kids went through and tried to make the worst mess they could. One of the pots of breadmother was tipped over, but Papa says he thinks they can save it. If not, it's a local one, and Alinath can bargain with the beermaster for more.”

“What about Hennea?”

Lehr grinned again. “I expect she'll be along. I don't know where she went, but she'll be over her embarrassment by now.”

“Where is she going to sleep?” asked Jes.

“You and I can go get a couple of poles from the barn,” Lehr said after a moment. “We can frame off Rinnie's alcove and put up sheeting. Rinnie and Hennea can sleep behind it. Papa was talking about doing that this year for Rinnie anyway.”

“That's a good idea,” said Seraph. “There's an old mattress out in the barn, I think. All it needs is stuffing. You might as well put your boots back on, Jes.”

Jes heaved a sigh and shoved his foot back in his boot. “Off shoes, Jes, you'll dirty the floors. Then on shoes, Jes, I've work for you.”

“It's for Hennea,” Lehr reminded him.

Jes sighed again and retied his boot.

C
HAPTER
4

Hennea came back a while later, a slender book in her hand.
Warned by Gura's happy barks, Seraph met her on the porch.

“We didn't do a very good job looking through the temple,” Hennea said, staggering a little as the big, black dog welcomed her home. “Down boy, good boy. Yes, I'm here. Now go lie down.”

“You went to the temple looking for some way to find the Shadowed.” The disapproval Seraph felt spilled into her voice, though she had no real authority to disapprove. Hennea was an adult, and a Raven. There was no reason she should feel obligated to talk to Seraph before she explored the temple. It should have been safe enough.

She cleared her throat, and said, “I know we didn't find the rune that summoned the tainted creatures. Did we miss something else that was dangerous? There weren't any Order-bound gems left, nor any shadow-touched items.”

“The rune was my fault,” said Hennea. “I should have thought to check for it.” She wiggled the book she held. “And I certainly should have thought of the library. It just didn't occur to me that the books were dangerous.”

A wizard would never have left the temple without taking every book in sight. Hennea was no wizard; she was Raven. All the Shadowed were wizards, so she wasn't the Shadowed either. Not that Seraph really believed the Shadowed could live so near Lehr and Jes without alerting one or the other of them.

Seraph hadn't realized that she had still been worried by Tier's observations—but she wouldn't have felt such relief otherwise. If Hennea was old, as Tier felt, there would have to be another explanation for it.

“What did you find?”

Instead of answering, Hennea handed her the book.

Sitting on the porch bench, Seraph opened the slender volume at random. On the left page was a drawing of a meadowlark. On the right was a page of closely written script in a language that looked vaguely familiar. The
solsenti
of the Empire spoke a little over thirty dialects in four languages—though Common was spoken by most of them. She spoke a smattering of them, some better than others, and read more than she spoke.

“I don't know this language,” she said.

Hennea took the book from her and began reading. “Unto the Lark it is given to Heal all things and to make right the heart and head. First are fourteen things that all Lark are blessed to bear. Sweet breath for he who has breathed in water. Blood sealing—”

“The Song of Orders?” Seraph interrupted. “But it's forbidden . . . sorry, I'm being stupid. Obviously someone did write it down. But if he had the Song of Orders, why didn't Volis understand what the Orders were?”

“Maybe he couldn't read it either?” suggested Hennea. “Or maybe he thought it was wrong—as he thought we were wrong. It is incomplete—only the Lark, Cormorant, and Raven are here, and only in partial form. The rest of it is a hodgepodge of Traveler legends.”

“Do we destroy it?” Seraph found herself curiously reluctant to do so; it was a beautifully bound book.

“Not until I read the legends to the Bard,” Hennea conceded. “Let him hold the stories and pass them on to the next
generation. What we need to do—you, I, and your Ordered family—is go through that temple from top to bottom. We can look for the Shadowed and search for less obvious dangers than shadow taint.”

They headed out early the next morning, leaving Gura to guard the farm. Jes didn't want to go back, and grumbled to himself all the way to Redern. He did not like cities. But when Seraph told him he could stay home, he'd liked that even less. She kept a close eye on him, but the Guardian stayed safely asleep. Rinnie skipped next to her glowering oldest brother and tried to tease him into a better mood.

Hennea led—mostly, Seraph thought, to stay away from Jes. Lehr walked beside Seraph, giving her his arm. Among other things, Brewydd had taught him to mind his manners even with his own mother. It made Seraph want to smile, but she restrained herself and tucked her hand in the crook of his arm.

The Rederni greeted them as they climbed up the zigzag streets, mostly with shy smiles and averted eyes. When Hennea started directly for the new temple, Seraph caught her elbow.

“We need to talk to Karadoc. I should have talked to him while we had him at our home, but I didn't think of it. Ellevanal told me that he used Karadoc to destroy the Shadowed's summoning rune. He might know something interesting. I also want to stop and tell Tier what we're doing.”

“Ellevanal?” Hennea stopped dead and stared at Seraph. “You believe a god directed the priest Karadoc?”

“That's what he told me.”

“The priest?”

“Ellevanal,” said Lehr with a small smile. “Didn't Mother tell you that she had a conversation with Him?”

“Ellevanal's the forest king,” said Jes unexpectedly. Seraph hadn't known that he'd realized that much. “I don't know about being a god, though.”

“He told me he was only a little god,” Seraph told him.

“There are no gods, Seraph,” said Hennea softly, almost to herself. “They are all dead.”

Travelers did not believe in gods—demons and shadowed in all forms, but not gods.

Seraph shrugged, her years in Redern had softened her attitudes toward gods. “Hennea, this village has worshiped Ellevanal since Redern was settled. Ellevanal is most certainly the forest king—
ell vanail
means lord of the forest. From what he said to me, I think he was originally a Keeper or perhaps just an elemental who escaped the devastation the Shadowed King brought upon them. When men settled here after the Fall, Ellevanal used the forest to protect them from the shadow-touched things that escaped as well.”

“He is no god, no matter what he told you,” Hennea said.

Seraph shrugged. “I don't worship him, but I'm grateful that he fights at our side and not against us. If he wants to call himself a god, I can't see the harm in it. Come, we need to talk to Karadoc before we start messing around in the temple.”

They found Karadoc wrapped in blankets and banished to sit in the sunshine outside of the temple while a number of people were cleaning inside.

“Greetings, Seraph Tieraganswife,” he said with a mischievous grin that made him look more battered and pale in contrast. “Greetings also Jes and Lehr Tieraganson, and Rinnie Seraphsdaughter.”

Seraph bowed her head. “Priest Karadoc, may I make you known to my compatriot Hennea, Raven of the Clan of Rivilain Moon-Haired.”

“Priest,” said Hennea in a low voice.

Karadoc tilted his head, and replied, “Welcome, daughter. I've seen you before, I think. In the new temple?”

She nodded. “I served the would-be-Priest Volis.”

“Until she had Mother kill him,” added Lehr in an undertone. But the old priest heard him.

“Yes,” Karadoc said. “You look much healthier than you did that night.” He turned back to Seraph. “How is it that I might serve you, daughter?”

That “daughter” grated. Even after all these years in Redern, the tendency of the menfolk to diminish any woman and patronize her bothered Seraph. Especially after the past months spent in Travelers' company.

Lehr's hand touched her shoulder—likely he knew just how she felt, having tasted something of the same treatment in
the Traveler camp. Karadoc didn't mean to demean her, Seraph knew, but still it grated.

She squatted on her heels in front of him—something she wouldn't have done if she'd been wearing her Rederni skirts as she should have been, because they tended to tangle in her feet and make it difficult to rise again. The move put her head level with his, and gave her time to quash her temper. Anger had no place in the heart of a Raven—though it resided full often in hers.

“I need you to tell me about the new temple and how you stopped it from calling more tainted creatures to it,” she said baldly.

He leaned back farther in his chair, and the merriment faded from his face. “Do you now? Why is that?”

“Because when Hennea and I went through the temple that night we saw no magic that should have called to the shadow-touched. Either we missed it, or it wasn't there then. That rune was drawn by the Shadowed.”

“The Shadowed died five centuries ago,” he said, not arguing exactly, more as if he were horrified than as if he didn't believe her.

Seraph nodded. “The Unnamed King died at Shadow's Fall. But he is not the first to contain the Stalker's curse, and, unfortunately, he won't be the last. We have a new one—ask Ellevanal if you do not believe me.”

He stared at her and pursed his lips. But he didn't ask her what the Stalker was that its curse could create the Shadowed, he just said, “We'd already been having trouble—mostly with the kinds of things we'd usually only see in the outlying areas—goblins and the like. They killed a few goats, scared some boys who were too near the new temple. Then the bigger things started coming—an ogre that Ciro's grandson killed with that axe he's so proud of. We'd just finished burying one of the boys who died in the battle when Ellevanal called me to him.”

He stopped and smiled with remembered pleasure. “I thought I was too old for him to call me that way anymore.” He blinked and came back to himself. “He told me something in the new temple was summoning these beasts. He couldn't enter the building except through me, and he asked permission to share my body.”

Hennea hissed in through her teeth. Seraph tapped the other woman's knee in a demand for silence. The Colossae wizards once had a word for such body sharing—
shadowing,
they'd called it.

“So you let him accompany you,” Seraph said.

Karadoc nodded. “We went into the temple—I'd had the doors boarded up after Volis died, but Ellevanal pulled the boards off.” He glanced at his hands, and Seraph saw his nails had been broken past the quick. He saw her look, and said, “It didn't hurt when he did it. He led me through the temple—” He closed his eyes as if he could see it again.

“We went from room to room. Sometimes we would stand in the middle of the room and do nothing—I had the feeling he was listening very hard to something I couldn't hear. We came at last to a room just barely large enough to stand upright in—almost a cupboard. We knelt in the hallway just outside the door. Ellevanal waved my hand over the floor of the little room, and I could see it, too—a scattering of strange shapes that looked almost like writing, except they weren't organized right to left in straight lines as we write. Instead the symbols were organized into odd shapes. Ellevanal put our hands on the shapes and . . .” Air left his lungs in a wheeze.

“Fire,” he said in a low voice. “Ice and fire flowing through my veins like shards of glass.”

“By Lark,” whispered Hennea. “I wonder that he dared.”

Karadoc looked at her.

“He worked magic through a man with no affinity for it,” she said. “If you had failed him, it likely would have killed the both of you”—she looked at Seraph pointedly—“god or no god.”

“I don't know how long it took,” Karadoc said. “It felt like years. But I remember seeing the marks fade from the floor before I fainted. When I awoke, Ellevanal was there beside me.”

“In the temple?” Seraph asked. “I thought he couldn't go there.”

“He told me we'd cleansed it,” said Karadoc. “He picked me up and brought me here to His own temple in the blink of an eye. Frightened my apprentice nearly to death.” He smiled a little. “After that, few new creatures came. But the ones
already here were bad enough. Something, I don't know what, attacked me here in the temple itself. I would have died if He hadn't saved me. That's when Ellevanal told us to go to your farm where your Traveler magic would help us. We hadn't been there two days when the troll came.”

“I don't know much about wizardry”—Seraph turned to Hennea—“but I think I would have noticed such a spell if it were present while we were looking through the temple. That means that the Shadowed was here after we searched the temple the night the false priest died.”

Hennea nodded.

“Thank you, Karadoc,” Seraph said, getting to her feet.

He laughed. “I'm glad to be helpful.” He tipped his head to the temple behind him. “They won't let me clean,” he said. “I was feeling old and useless.”

“Let them clean,” said Seraph. “I have it on the best authority that if it weren't for you, a lot more people would have been killed.”

“Whose authority would that be?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “He says you play
skiri
well.”

He paused and looked at her thoughtfully before gifting her with a secretive smile. “Maybe your informant is right.”

“So sit and rest,” she told him. “Enjoy the fruits of your labors for a day or two more. They'll work you hard enough later. I expect that attendance at Ellevanal's temple is due for an increase.”