Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (25 page)

           
In the first awkward lunge, Kellin
felt the slide of horsehair against breeches and the odd, unbalanced
weightlessness of a runaway. With it came a twofold panic: first, the chance of
injury; the second because of the lion.

           
He had ridden runaways before. He
had fallen off of or been thrown from runaways before. It was a straightforward
hazard of horsemanship regardless how skilled the rider, regardless how docile
the horse. A horseman learned to halt a runaway mount with various techniques
when footing afforded it; here, footing was treacherous, and vision
nonexistent. This particular runaway—at night, in the dark, with customary
reflexes obliterated by pain and disorientation—was far more dangerous than
most.

           
Kellin's balance was off. He could
not sit properly. He was forced to ride mostly upright, perching precariously,
breaking the fluid melding of horse and rider. Vibrations of the flight,
instead of dissipating in his body, reverberated painfully as the horse broke through
tangled undergrowth and leapt fallen logs.

           
Branches snagged hair, slapped face,
cut into Kellin's mouth. A clawing vine hooked the bridge of his nose and tore
flesh. He felt something dig at one eye and jerked his head aside, cursing
helplessly. One misstep-—

           
He tried to let reflexes assume
control, rather than trusting to himself. But reflexes were banished. His spine
was jarred as the horse essayed a depression in the ground, which in turn
jarred his ribs. Kellin sucked in a noisy breath and tried to ease his seat, to
let the response of muscles to his mount's motion dictate the posture of his
body, but failed to do so.

           
The horse stumbled, then dodged and
lurched sideways as it shied from an unseen terror. Kellin blurted discomfort,
biting into his cheek; he thought of snubbing the horse's nose back to his left
knee in the classic technique, but the trees were too close, the foliage too
dense. He had no leeway, no leverage.

           
The horse hesitated, then leapt
again, clearing an unseen impediment. It seemed then to realize it bore an
unwanted rider. Kellin felt the body shifting beneath his buttocks, away from
clamping legs; then it bunched and twisted, elevating buttocks, and flung its
rider forward.

           
Awkwardly Kellin slid toward the
horse's head, dangling briefly athwart one big shoulder. Hands caught
frenziedly at mane as he tried to drag himself upright, clutching at reins,
digging in with left heel, but the horse ducked out from under him.

           
Kellin was very calm as he hung
momentarily in the air. He was aware of weighty darkness, encroaching vines and
branches, the utter physical incomprehensibility that he was unconnected to his
mount—and the unhappy acknowledgment that when he landed momentarily it would
hurt very much.

           
He tucked up as best he could,
cursing strapped ribs. One shoulder struck the ground first- He rolled through
the motion, smashing hip against broken branches shrouded in tangled fern, then
flopped down onto his back as the protest of his ribs robbed him of control. He
landed flat and very hard, human prey for the hidden treacheries of unseen
ground.

           
For a moment there was no pain. It
terrified him. He recalled all too clearly the old Homanan soldier who had
taken a tumble from his horse in the bailey of the castle. The fall had not
been bad; but as fellow soldiers—and Kellin with them—gathered to trade jests,
it became clear that though old Tammis lived, his neck was broken. He would not
walk again.

           
The panic engendered by that image
served as catalyst for the bruised strength in legs and arms. Kellin managed
one huge jerking contortion against broken boughs and fern. It renewed all the
pain, but he welcomed it. Pain was proof he could yet move.

           
I will walk again. But just now, he
was not certain he wanted to. Now that he could move he did not, but lay slack
and very still against a painful cradle. He forced himself not to gasp but to
draw shallow breaths through the wreckage of his chest.

           
When he at last had wind again,
Kellin gasped out a lengthy string of the vilest oaths he knew in Homanan, Old
Tongue, and Erinnish. It used up the breath he had labored so carefully to
recover, but he felt it worth it. Dead men did not swear.

           
The horse was gone. Kellin did not
at that moment care; he could not bear the thought of trying to mount. He
wished the animal good riddance, suppressing the flicker of dismayed
apprehension—a long and painful walk all the way to Mujhara—then set about
making certain he was whole.

           
Everything seemed to be, but he
supposed he could not tell for certain until he got up from the ground.

           
Sound startled him into stillness.
But a stride
     
or two away came the
coughing grunt of beast, and the stink of its breath.

           
It filled Kellin's nostrils and set
him to flight. It might be bear, mountain cat— He flailed, then stilled
himself.

           
Lion?

           
It bore Corwyth's hallmark.

           
With effort Kellin pulled his elbows
in to his sides and levered his torso upright, lifting a battered chest until
he no longer lay squashed and helpless. "Begone," he said aloud,
using the scorn of royalty. "You have no power over me."

           
The odor faded at once, replaced
with the damp cold smells of winter. A man laughed softly from the shadows
shielding the beast. "The lion may not," he said, "but be certain
that I do."

           
Kellin's breath hissed between set
teeth as Corwyth exited the shadows for the star-lighted hollow in which the
prince lay. The Ihini wore dark leathers and a gray wool cloak. Pinned by a
heavy knot of silver at one shoulder, the cloak glowed purple in the livid
shadows of its folds.

           
Knowledge diminished pain; made it
no longer important. "Corwyth the Lion. But the guise is now ineffective;
I have learned what you are."

           
Corwyth affected a negligent shrug.
"I am whatever it serves me—and my master—to be. For you, it was a
lion." The Ihlini walked quietly toward Kellin, crackling no branches,
snagging no vegetation. His hands were gloved in black. "Indeed, we heard
of the small prince's fear of lions. It permitted us certain liberties, even
though we were powerless within the palace itself. Fear alone can prove
effective, as it did in your case. You believed. That belief has shaped you,
Kellin; it has made you what you are in heart and spirit, and placed you here
within my grasp."

           
Kellin longed to repudiate it, but
he could not speak. What Corwyth said was true. His own weakness had provided
the Ihlini with a weapon.

           
The gloved hands spread, displaying
tiny white flames that transformed themselves to pillars. They danced against Corwyth's
palms. "Ian's death in particular was most advantageous. Your certainty
that the Lion had killed him was unfounded—it was but a child's imagination
gone awry, interpreting a passing comment into something of substance—but that
substance, given life, nearly consumed you." The flames within his palms
bathed Corwyth's smiling face with lurid illumination. His eyes were black
pockets in a white-limned mask. "That, too, served, though it was none of ours.
A fortuitious death, was Ian's. We could not have hoped for better."

           
Kellin stirred in protest, then
suppressed a grunt of pain. He wanted very badly to rise and face the Ihlini as
he would face a man, but pain ate at his bones. "Lochiel," he said.

           
Corwyth nodded. "The hand at
last is outstretched. It beckons, Kellin. You are cordially invited to join
your kinsman in the halls of Valgaard."

           
"Kinsman!"

           
Corwyth laughed. "You recoil as
if wounded, my lord. But what else are you? Shall I recount your
heritage?"

           
Kellin's silence was loud.

           
The Ihlini continued regardless.
"Lochiel was Strahan's son. Strahan was Tynstar's son, who got him on
Electra of Solinde. She was, at the time, married to Carillon and was therefore
Queen of Homana; but her tastes lay with her true lord rather than the Mujhar
who professed to be."

           
White teeth shone briefly.
"Strahan was her son. He was brother—rujholli?—to Aislinn, who bore Niall,
who sired Brennan—and a multitude of others—who in turn sired Aidan. Your very
own jehan." Corwyth nodded. "The line is direct, Kellin. You and
Lochiel are indeed kinsmen, no matter what you might prefer."

           
Something slow and warm trickled
into Kellin's eyes. He was bleeding—the cut Aileen had stanched?

           
Or another, newer one?

           
Corwyth laughed. "Poor prince.
So battered, so bruised .. . and so entirely helpless."

           
Kellin pressed himself up from the
ground in a single painful lunge, jerking from its sheath the lethal Cheysuli
long-knife. It fit his grasp so well, as if intended for him. Blais could not
have known—

           
He flipped it instantly in his hand
and threw, arcing it cleanly across the darkness toward the Ihlini sorcerer. My
own brand of Tooth!

           
But Corwyth put up a gloved hand now
free of flames. The knife stopped in midair. Emerald eyes turned black.

           
"No!" Kellin's blurted
denial was less of fear than of the knowledge of profanation. Not Blais'
long-knife!

           
Corwyth plucked the weapon from the
air. He studied it a moment, then tucked it away into his belt. His eyes were
bright. "I have coveted one of these for a century. I thank you for your
gift." The young-looking Ihlini smiled. "Without you, I might never
have acquired one; Cheysuli warriors are, after all, well-protected by their
lir." Corwyth paused to consider. "But you lack a lir and therefore
lack the protection. Leijhana tu'sai, my lord."

           
Kellin wavered. His fragile
strength, born of panic and fury, was spent. Nothing was left to him, not even
anger, nor fear. An outthrust hand earned him nothing but empty air, certainly
little balance. Fingers closed, then the hand fell limply as Kellin bit into
his lip to forestall collapse. He would not, would not, show such weakness to
the Ihlini.

           
"Give in to it," Corwyth
suggested gently. "I am not here to be cruel, Kellin ... you paint us so,
I know, and it is a personal grief; but there is no sense in maintaining such
rigid and painful control merely out of pride."

           
The darkness thickened. Sorcery? Or
exhaustion compounded by pain? "I am Cheysuli. I do not in any way, in
words or deed or posture, even by implication, suggest that I am inferior to an
Ihlini."

           
Corwyth laughed. "Inferior, no.
Never. We are equal, my lord, in every sense of the word. Sired by the gods, we
are now little more than petty children quarreling over a toy." His hand
closed over the wolf-headed knife tucked into his belt.

           
"Once, we might have been
brothers. Rujheldi, as we say—is it not close to rujholll?" Corwyth did
not smile. "Uncomfortably close, I see, judging by your expression. But it
is too late now for anything more than enmity. The Cheysuli are too near
fulfillment. The time is now to stop the prophecy before it can be completed.
Before you, my Cheysuli rujheldi, can be permitted to sire a child upon an
Ihlini woman."

           
Kellin wanted very much to spit. He
did not because he thought it was time he showed self-restraint. He, who had so
little. With careful disdain, he asked, "Do you believe I would so soil my
manhood as to permit it entry into the womb of the netherworld?"

           
Corwyth laughed. It was a genuine
sound kiting into darkness. It stirred birds from a nearby tree and reawakened
Kellin's apprehension. "A man is a fool to trust to taste and preference
in a matter so important. I recite to you your own history, Kellin: Rhiannon,
Lillith's. daughter, sired by Ian himself—"

           
"Ian was tricked. He was
bespelled. He was lirless, and therefore helpless."

           
"—and Brennan, your grandsire,
who lay with Rhiannon and sired the halfling Ihlini woman at whose breast you
suckled."