Wolf Justice
Wolf Justice
Chapter 2
Sky laid his ears back and looked at Reandn from the corner of his eye, nostrils wrinkled in excessive irritation at the sight of the bridle in Reandn’s hand. The notion of being bridled before he’d finished the last wisps of his morning hay! Reandn offered a pat in apology and tried not to laugh out loud.Sky. Dark bay racking horse, back hock scarred enough to limit his flexion and give his rolling gait a slight hitch. Oversensitive, defensive, wanting nothing more than a rider who could see through it all and give him the steadiness he needed. Sky, the horse who’d run himself to death at Reandn’s request, racing to keep Ronsin away from the magic that would make him more dangerous than ever.
And Sky, the horse who’d then been healed by unicorns. A walking testament to Rethia’s success in returning both unicorns and their magic to a magic-barren land.
A testament who hadn’t finished his breakfast, thank you very much, and who didn’t have the slightest interest in maintaining the dignity his unique status conferred to him. He flattened his ears, flared his nostrils, and tilted his head warningly, his teeth all but bared.
Reandn poked him gently in the shoulder. "Stop that."
His bluff called, Sky’s ears flipped forward, and he waited for both bridle and the treat that would follow. Just as well he never cared how withered the winter-stored carrots were, considering the abuse Reandn took in order to filch them from the various kitchens he had access to at any given time.
He bridled the horse and gave him his expected chunk of rubbery old carrot, untangling Sky’s forelock and mane from the bridle crown piece with careful fingers and an affectionate pat. There was no true guile in the bay; he was as easy to read as a signpost, if somewhat less consistent.
His saddlebags packed and bulging, winter gear stowed over them—for while Reandn intended to stay at roadhouses for the eight days’ travel to Little Wisdom, he wasn’t taking any chance of getting caught unprepared in the changeable late winter weather—and Sky finally bridled and amiable, Reandn led his horse out into the cold morning wind. His goodbyes, such as they were, had been said, his patrol honored in the Binding ceremony, and his back pay dispensed.
Somehow he wasn’t surprised to find Saxe waiting for him by the keep gate. That gate had probably never been closed, but at least it had a guard—not that the guard would have enough time to sound a useful warning, with the way the tree line had been allowed to creep up on the keep wall. Arval was depending on some kind of perimeter spell to warn him of trouble, Reandn imagined. He’d have been mighty uneasy in the guard’s shoes.
The guard stepped away from Saxe as Reandn approached, his expression an interesting mixture of curiosity and disdain. Reandn had seen a lot of that expression in the past few days; Arval’s small collection of keep guards and strongarms seemed to regard him as stupid for hitting their Minor, but at the same time they wondered about the mettle of the man who’d dared to do it.
Saxe stood in the lee of the gate, his wool-lined collar flipped up to cover his neck and ears, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. Reandn felt the wind more strongly just looking at him, and shivered, hoping for some sun once daylight fully arrived. He hunched inside his own wool-lined jacket, Wolf-issue minus the patch that declared it so, and tucked his neck cape more snugly under his chin. He asked, "Come for some parting I-told-you-sos?"
Saxe shook his head, but didn’t seem to take offense. "There aren’t any told-you-sos that are worth this wind to make." He shrugged inside the jacket. "Just came to say goodbye to a friend, and wish him well."
"I’ll be around," Reandn said. "Probably causing you just as much trouble, one way or the other."
"Going to Kacey’s place for a while?"
Reandn lifted an eyebrow at him. "Most people call it Teayo’s." Kacey’s father still supervised the healing at his home sickroom, and still made most of the house calls, though his age and girth were finally starting to slow him down.
Saxe shrugged again. "She’s the one I first met there; she’s the one I think of. Besides, she’s got a memorable personality. Hells, when you two are in the same room, the words must fly as sharp as knives. Not much like you and Dela."
"Nothing is like me and Dela," Reandn said, his words just as sharp as the ones Saxe imagined. That comment earned him yet another shrug, and Reandn knew he’d been unfair. Saxe might not miss Adela like Reandn did, but she’d been his friend, and he missed her all the same; he wasn’t truly equating the two women.
There was no equating Kacey to anyone, Reandn was learning. She was too much . . . her own person. Which was why, he supposed, they did indeed trade more than the ordinary number of edged words—although between and even during such moments, the depth of her affection for him usually managed to peek out. Well, they’d see what happened once he was around more often. He couldn’t go too far from the healers’ clinic in any case, because Rethia—Kacey’s foster sister—was there, and it took Rethia’s unicorn-gifted touch to keep his potentially fatal reaction to magic at bay.
Reandn twisted in the saddle, looking back at the small outbuilding that housed his—no, not his anymore—surviving patrol members. "I wish you’d let me tell them." To really say goodbye, he meant, instead of neglecting to mention he wouldn’t be back from this particular visit to Little Wisdom.
"I’m sorry," Saxe said, and meant it. "They need something to hold them together while they deal with the shock of this. By the time they learn the truth, they’ll already be separated, and able to deal with the fact that they won’t be reuniting under your command."
"I think that’s a mistake, too," Reandn said, and at Saxe’s frown added, "splitting them up, and keeping them that way."
"Teya’s the least injured of them, and she’s got to take the chance to learn more about magic."
"But the rest of them? And you should keep Teya and Dakina together. They understand one another as well as pairs that have been together for a dozen years."
"As well as you and I?" Saxe said wryly. "I suppose you’re right. I’ve seen that in them, these last few days. I’ll keep it in mind—but that’s all I can promise."
Reandn scowled; Sky shifted beneath him, lifted a hoof to paw the ground, and thought better of it. "What’s going on with the Keep these days, Saxe? You never used to sacrifice your Wolves for anything, always had the good of the pack in mind."
Saxe raised his eyebrows, then shook his head, careful to keep his collar closed to the wind. "Nothing changes, does it, Danny. You’ve never paid enough attention to Keep affairs."
Nothing changes? Reandn snorted, and might have put it into words, but Saxe spoke right over him.
"That’s not really just, I suppose, given that you’ve been Remote for so long. But you should have kept better track. The Resiores are a mess."
"Nothing new about that. Things have been that way since before I left the Keep."
Saxe shook his head, still hunched within his collar. "Not like this. Not like it’s been since the magic came back."
"Surprise," Reandn said dryly, and suddenly, for a moment, they were a team again, commiserating about the way Keep affairs made a Wolf’s job harder.
Saxe gave him a rueful grin. "Half of the Resioran Highborn embrace magic and Keland, and half of them want to break away for Geltria, where the unicorns run thin and so does the magic. The people fall just about evenly on both sides, and the merchants—who are, as ever, fussing over Keland tariffs and taxes—do a good job of keeping them all stirred up."
"We’ve got good people in the Resiores, Saxe. They’ll get things settled."
"Maybe." Saxe shoved Sky’s head away as the gelding decided to inspect Saxe’s left ear. "But no one really believes it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have taken in that unofficial Resioran representative last fall."
Reandn absently lifted a rein, recapturing Sky’s attention. "Why did you? Two factions, one representative . . . sounds like trouble, to me."
"I wish you’d gotten around to asking me earlier, when I was standing somewhere warm," Saxe said pointedly. "You’re right. It could be trouble. But we had to do something, and accepting an official ambassador seemed like the best thing. Once the pass opens up again—which it ought to do within the moon’s change—we’re going to have to do everything right if we’re to avoid war. War with the Resiores, or civil war in the Resiores themselves . . . Goddess grace, so far Geltria is just waiting to see how things play out. Sooner or later, they’ll join the fray."
Saxe closed his eyes, shook his head, and the tension in his red, wind-bitten face gave Reandn a glimpse of the difficulties his friend had been facing. Difficulties he certainly hadn’t made any easier. Not that I wouldn’t do it again . . . Saxe said, "Do you really think we’d have given Arval authority over your patrol if his—and every other Minor’s—support wasn’t absolutely crucial right now? We’ve got enough going on, trying to manage the changes in Keland itself. We’re not going to be able to handle both Keland and the Resiores if men like Arval don’t do everything—and I mean every damn thing—in their power to help us."
Reandn grinned, one-sided and wry-around-the-edges. "Sounds like I’m lucky not to be still stuck in that cell, if the Keep is courting its Minors that seriously."
"Don’t forget it," Saxe said, meaning it. "I fought for you, Danny. But there’s just too much at stake."
There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that. Reandn lifted one gloved hand for a salute, and Saxe took his hand out of his pocket to return it. "Take the quiet roads, Danny. If you can find them."
There was only one road to Little Wisdom from here, and it wasn’t to it that Saxe referred. "If I can find them," Reandn repeated into his neck cape. Sky flicked back an ear in response, and Reandn gave him the infinitesimal squeeze of leg that meant go. Gratefully, Sky popped forward in the odd hop-start he used in deference to his scarred hock, and settled into a quick, steady rack.
Kacey fought the laundry, grappling with the sheets in the stiff breeze of the afternoon. Now was the only time of day the sun hit the clothesline, and the only time in the last ten days they’d had sun at all, and she’d be bloody-damned if she’d miss the chance to get things clean and dry. At least, dry without hanging things all over the house; quite a sight when they were full up from the results of late winter ills. Thank the goddess—either one, Kacey didn’t care—that as her father Teayo had slowed, they’d hired a part-time cook along with their new healer apprentice. Maybe it was even time to get someone to help with the chores around here, so Kacey could devote more energy to healing. She knew she’d never be a gifted healer like her father, or inspired like Rethia. But she excelled at running the sickhouse, and in mixing medicines and herbs—and she knew her limits. All crucial skills to have in a healer’s house.
Rethia, too, was more help than she’d once been; she still walked around in her own private fog half the time, but when she came back to Kacey and Teayo’s world, she was much more apt to notice the practical aspects of life. She was inside right now, stirring the next batch of sheets in the giant cauldron that served to warm the water.
Her father’s wizard friend Farren had just given them a new spell to make fireless heat, and then spent days tutoring their young and fumbling healer-mage, Tellan, to use it. It was, Kacey thought, one of the few truly useful spells to reach their household since magic’s return. Not that she didn’t enjoy seeing chameleon shrews and unicorn sign, and watching the odd stream of thick magic bubble past in the breeze, but none of that was much help when there was laundry to wash and not quite enough wood gathered to do the chore properly.
The noise of wind-snapped sheets and bandages filled her ears and left room for little other sound; her hair blew into her mouth and eyes and her wet fingers grew clumsy in the cold. Rethia, slender to the point of too thin, would be shivered into uselessness by now. Kacey herself was chilled enough, despite two layers of sweaters over her tunic, topped off by one of her father’s huge wool shirts, and the long-legged underwear under her loose trousers. Unlike Rethia, she had plenty of her own padding, but she was still glad enough when the last long bandage dangled from the clothesline. She left the basket where it was and turned to run back into the house—only to discover that she wasn’t alone, and probably hadn’t been for some time.
There, in the lane that wound through the trees between the main road and the large open yard of the house and barn, stood Sky. Reandn sat on him, reins long and looping, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, grinning that lopsided grin that always made Kacey go a little soft inside—though at the same time she had to fight the urge to shake the expression right off his face. She’d never really come to understand that one.
"Damn Wolf!" she cried at him, nonetheless closing the distance between them with some speed. "Always sneaking up on people."
Reandn dismounted, keeping the grin. "Only the ones who aren’t paying any attention. No matter how I ask him, Kacey, Sky does insist on putting his feet down. Never fails to make noise."
"Damn noisy laundry then," she said promptly, and gave him a hug. His arm settled comfortably around her shoulders, giving her a little squeeze as he flipped the reins over Sky’s head and they walked up toward the barn together. "We weren’t expecting you," she said, and stopped, giving Reandn a narrow-eyed look. "You’re all right, aren’t you? You haven’t done anything to get your allergies flared up?"
"I’m fine," Reandn said, lifting both hands in a mercy plea despite the fact that one was still over her shoulder and the other was in Sky’s face. The horse snorted in irritation.
Kacey didn’t reduce the intensity of her gaze. Something was up; it showed in his eyes, where everything always showed.
Rethia came running out of the house, her face reddened by the heat of the laundry cauldron, her body covered by nothing more than the light tunic and kirtle she’d donned for the chore. "Reandn!" she cried. "I knew I felt you coming!" She flung her arms around his neck, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then stepped back to give him space. One of her wise moments, Kacey thought. Reandn had never quite reconciled himself to the fact that Rethia had returned the magic he’d fought so hard to keep out of Keland—or to the fact that he’d considered killing her to prevent it. Such irony that it was Rethia and Rethia alone, with her unicorn-gifted magic, who could soothe Reandn’s allergy to the magic that otherwise would have killed him.
Rethia knew of his conflict, Kacey was certain. But she was never one to let things get in the way of the happiness of a moment.
"What do you mean, you felt him coming?" Kacey asked, suddenly hearing the words. Rethia had felt him from the steamy kitchen, when Kacey hadn’t known he was practically within arm’s reach? That hardly seemed fair.
"Just that," Rethia said. "Like a scent on the current of magic. An aura. Everyone’s is different; I can feel where Father is right now, if I think about it. Can’t you?"
"Of course we can’t," Kacey said, and felt Reandn’s arm tighten around her shoulder. She glanced up at him and discovered he was laughing, laughing and shaking his head.
"Just another one of those Rethia things," he said.
As if he had to tell her about Rethia things. She’d been living with her foster sister since she was fifteen and Rethia was six, dammit. But she sighed and closed her eyes and nodded, recognizing that her snappishness came from being unable to reach out to her father—no, be honest, to Reandn—when Rethia did it so easily that she took it for granted and had never until this moment mentioned anything about magical auras. No, it wasn’t fair. So be it. "Rethia," she said, "you’re going to freeze."
Indeed, Rethia was already shivering. "Come inside," she said. "I’ll have some hot tea waiting."
"Make sure Tellan makes a sickroom check, too," Kacey said. "Some of them will need a trip to the bathroom by now, and help getting there."
"He was doing it when I left," Rethia said over her shoulder, already heading for the house, hugging herself for warmth. "Oh, I never thought I’d miss that laundry! Hurry!" She ran the rest of the way back, heading straight for the door that led to the kitchen at the back of the house.
"I’m colder just from looking at her shiver," Reandn said, removing his arm from her shoulder to tug Sky’s girth loose. "Late spring we’re having this year."
Kacey gave him a push toward the little barn. "Stall that strange horse of yours and let’s get inside then."
But Reandn just looked at her a moment, easily absorbing the nudge. Then he carefully reached out a hand to extract the hair that had blown into her mouth—yet again—and tucked it behind her ear. "Don’t change," he told her, and led the horse away.
Kacey stared after him, and wondered just what, under the surface—for there was so much of Reandn that was under the surface—that was supposed to mean.
"Well," Rethia said, looking at Reandn with a little frown, "it really hasn’t been all that long since I did this, especially if that medicine is doing any good. Is it?"
Reandn shrugged. "It could be. Then again, I haven’t been exposed to all that much magic of late, so it’s hard to tell."
They sat before the long table at one end of the kitchen, the one place in this house where Reandn truly felt at home. It was a huge kitchen, and always busy—full of pungent boiling herbs, cooking meals, stewing laundry—and it served as the informal social center for the house. At the other end of the long room, there was a closed-off area for bathing, set close to the stove for warmth and convenience. Compared to this kitchen and the sickroom, the rest of the house was quite small—a great room with two tiny sleeping chambers off the back, and the loft where Rethia slept. Below the kitchen was a dug-out storage cellar where Reandn was certain he could find at least a few shriveled old carrots, and that was just about it.
There was the small barn, of course, and the several outbuildings, all of which held tools with which he was more than familiar. It seemed to Reandn that Teayo made a serious effort to save up chores for Reandn to handle in his regular, if infrequent, visits. Reandn found that he never really minded—which didn’t keep him from muttering when he was repairing shingles on a hot day, or from contriving to look as miserable as possible when he helped fork new hay into the barn and the intense dustiness bothered the faint, all-too-normal allergies that everyone seemed to have when immersed in hay.
That was how Kacey had thought to try mixing thick herb extracts for his magic allergies—after she’d dosed him because of one particularly dusty wagon, half of which had been thrown out because of mold, and he’d noticed a slight effect on the undertone of magic thrumming in his head.
The undertone was always there, now; it had become a permanent part of his life the day Rethia retrieved the unicorns. Untreated, it grew into a disorienting, dizzying roar, while his chest tightened and his lungs labored, until eventually, he could no longer breathe at all. It had happened once; once he’d almost been in the Heavens with Adela and their adopted son Kavan. Thoughtfully, Reandn fingered the fine white line that slashed diagonally across his left palm, a reminder of that day. For a while, he’d all but sought out a death that would reunite him with Adela, Tenaebra’s death. Life had eventually recaptured his attention, but death no longer scared him, and that made him more reckless than he might have been.
Rethia gently appropriated his hand, tracing her finger along the scar. "She doesn’t come back so often any more, does she."
Reandn didn’t even ask. Of course Rethia knew. She always knew. He took his hand back and curled it around the warm tea mug, feeling the clink of Adela’s ring against the fired clay. "Not so often, no." She’d warned him that it would be like that, during those last few sweet moments together the time he’d almost died.
Kacey shifted on the bench seat opposite him, never comfortable at the thought of Adela’s presence. Her face was red with warmth, though she’d already stripped off all her extra layers—as had he. Tendrils of hair curled damply on her cheeks, escaping from the tie that had captured the rest of the curls since their arrival into the kitchen warmth. She was pretty, Kacey was, though Reandn didn’t think she knew it; it was the sort of pretty that didn’t strike him right away, but crept up on him slowly until one day it suddenly seemed obvious. But she was always too busy glaring at her short stubby fingers, and hiding her figure—quite well-padded, but hardly shapeless—under the oversize shirts and loose trousers she habitually wore, and he doubted it had ever seemed obvious to her.
Rethia was watching him, watching as if she knew . . . something.
"Better do it before your sheets and underwear boil to mush," he suggested to her; she gave him a wiser look than he liked before putting her hands on either side of his head. Reandn closed his eyes for the moment when the world would give a sudden little lurch, and then the noise in his ears retreated to a faint whisper he heard only if he went looking for it. Opening his eyes to Rethia’s inquiring expression, he said, "I don’t think you can ever do that often enough. Especially now . . . I’ve gotten too accustomed to having a patrol wizard who can shield me from things." Even now, he felt the spell on the cauldron working against his body; it was only then he noticed that the thing was boiling without a fire in the pit beneath it. And then he saw the look on Kacey’s face, and realized that she hadn’t missed the import of his words.
"I knew something had happened," she said. "I knew it. Is she dead, Dan? What was her name—Teya?"
Reandn gave a short and bitter laugh. "No. She’s one of the very few left alive."
Kacey stiffened. Back by the cauldron, Rethia dropped the claw-footed clothes handler, ignoring the fact that it immediately sank along with the garments she’d been retrieving.
"Tellan," Kacey called into the house, not taking her eyes off Reandn, "come turn this heat off." In a more normal tone, she added, "I have the feeling we’re done with laundry for the day."
The cook arrived, was introduced to Reandn as Lydda, and promptly set about cooking a bland supper for the sickhouse occupants. Neither Kacey nor Rethia seemed to have reservations about speaking freely in front of the woman, but Reandn found himself watching her until he realized she was simply too absorbed in her task—and making too much of her own noise—to care what they were saying at the other end of the long kitchen.
And so he told Teayo’s daughters what had happened. Rethia simply watched him with the even, unnerving blue and brown gaze to which he’d finally grown accustomed; Kacey frowned most of the time. She’d met most of the patrol—though not Teya, who’d gone on to Solace—when Reandn brought them in to get rid of the head lice with which they’d managed thoroughly to infect one another. That had been midway through winter . . . not so very long ago.
When she frowned over Arval’s broken nose, he knew what that was about, too, though she had the wits not to say anything out loud. And as the kitchen filled with the smell of baking bread and the cook propped open the back door to let the heat out, Reandn told them he was no longer a Wolf, and let the statement settle into silence.
After a moment, Kacey narrowed her eyes at him. Big and brown and often full of sparks, those eyes were entirely too perceptive. "You’re just sitting there," she said. "It’s obvious how you feel about your patrol, and about Arval, and I’d have thought I could’ve predicted how you’d feel about getting kicked out of the Wolves. But you’re just sitting there, and I can’t tell. How do you feel about it?"
Reandn caught himself just short of rolling his eyes. Trust Kacey not to make the obvious assumption, but to ask the same question he’d been asking himself ever since he’d finally understood Saxe’s words. Rethia just smiled her quiet smile, and that figured, too.
They’d both know if he was lying, so he gave them the only truth he had. "I’m not sure."
Rethia nodded, as if it made perfect sense to her, and got up to join the cook. For her, the conversation was over; she knew what she needed to know. Whatever that was.
Not so Kacey. "You don’t know?"
Frowning, Reandn looked at the bottom of his empty mug. Escaped tea leaves plastered themselves to its rough glaze, and gave his eyes something to do while his mind wandered off. No, he didn’t know, and it somehow seemed that that honest answer should be enough for now. His life as a Wolf had changed so much since those days in King’s Keep, when he’d had Adela and Kavan, his secure rank as Wolf First, and a predictable pattern of days and seasons. When Adela had once challenged him to imagine what it would be like if he suddenly lost his place in the Wolves, he’d been unable even to consider it.
Kacey sighed loudly, and Reandn looked up at her in surprise, only then realizing he’d ignored her question entirely. Well, perhaps not entirely. Just out loud. "I . . ." he said, and then got lost again, unable to find words he was willing to say.
"You." Kacey repeated dryly, half mocking him but mostly just giving up. "Fine. Try this one. What’re you going to do now?"
For the first time Reandn realized how he’d come to take Teayo’s little haven for granted. "I was hoping . . . I’ve got some thinking to do, and it’s safe here."
From the magic, he meant, for even if he inadvertently exposed himself to too much of it, he’d have Rethia’s healing touch nearby. Besides, he’d lay odds they had another round of chores heaped up and waiting for him.
Kacey did roll her eyes, then. "Of course you can stay here," she said. "Rethia’ll come sleep with me, and you can have the loft—considering how full the sickroom is, and what it’s full of. That’s not what I meant."
"No," he agreed, understanding that, now. She was asking another one of the things over which he hadn’t been able to gather his thoughts.
"Be natural enough to hire out at a private keep, and do just the things you’re good at now, I suppose. If you could find someone who didn’t mind blunt words."
He showed teeth in a not-smile, an expression that had once taken her aback but to which by now she was well accustomed. "I’m more concerned about finding someone who hasn’t been seduced into flinging magic around."
She scowled at him, but it wasn’t at him. "That . . . won’t be easy."
Rethia, dipping into the conversation from where she was stirring what smelled like bean soup, said, "People with your allergies used to be a great asset, Farren told us once."
"That was in court, Rethia," Kacey said, tucking her hair behind her ear again, her face less flushed now that Lydda’s open door kept the heat down. She glanced at Reandn; he looked away, feeling an unaccustomed chagrin. Born of a camp follower, shoved in as kitchen help in King’s Keep as soon as he was old enough to turn a spit, teased and scorned until he’d proven he could fight back and then mostly ignored until he’d earned his way into the Wolves—a happenstance rare enough to be called unheard of, for the Wolves came from higher born blood than that—how was he supposed to feel about the Highborn? And, more importantly, how was he supposed to change those feelings now, when he was a man grown and in his prime?
He wasn’t. He couldn’t. And Kacey knew it just as well as he did. He glanced at her, finding exasperation—but finding it tinged with affection.
"I know," Rethia said. "But still . . ." And then she tilted her head, looking toward the sickroom as if she could see through walls. "Kacey," she said, putting the long-handled soup spoon aside.
Kacey stood up. No one was surprised to hear Tellan calling for her an instant later, his adolescent voice breaking midway through her name. "You’ll stay here for as long as you want, that’s all you need to know for now. My father will tell you what needs doing." As she left the room, Rethia on her heels, Kacey gave him a little grin and said, "You can start by checking that laundry. In this wind, it just might be dry!"
Reandn jammed the narrow, pointed post-hole shovel into the ground long enough to take off his jacket and toss it over the fence section that was still standing. Rethia’s horse, Willow, stuck his head out of his end stall and stretched it almost to the barn door, longingly eyeing the sunny paddock. From within, Sky snorted impatiently. The immediate clamor of hooves followed: Kacey’s little black mare, just as displeased to be stalled on such a calm and sunny day, and taking out her own impatience on the stall partition. Sky kicked back.
"Watch that hock!" Reandn hollered at the barn. "It’s your own fault you’re in there!" Which it was. Sky had never quite come to terms with the fact that he was gelded late in life, and he’d been pestering the black mare mercilessly since she’d come in season. A little flirt, a little posturing from Sky, and a squeal or two later the sound of splintering wood—and the horses were trotting free through hanging laundry, quite pleased with themselves.
The laundry survived. The fence post didn’t.
Reandn was just grateful that the ground had thawed enough to take the bite of the shovel. He jammed the blade deep into the hole and twisted, breaking up the dirt, and then peered down to decide enough was enough. He could barely reach the bottom of the hole to clear the dirt as it was.
Dropping in the new fence post, he held it upright and trickled rocks in around it, then slipped the rails into place before kicking the dirt back in the hole and tamping it down. This work was just the sort of thing he’d done for Teayo these past ten days, the kind of thing that kept his body moving and his mind more or less free.
Not that the thinking time had done him any good. He still didn’t have any answers, any new direction for his life. He was an anomaly, a man trained to elite standards of physical arts who couldn’t travel far from this clinic and Rethia’s healing touch—who, if he took a direct hit from strong magic, might not even make it back to receive that touch. Yet staying here, trading off chores to slink around behind Rethia’s protection, didn’t set well at all.
Even so, when he stood, pulling his shoulders back in a stretch, he eyed the other posts in the fence. It’d be a good thing to pack stones into the softening dirt around them, and make sure they didn’t wiggle enough to stress and break. Otherwise, the way Sky and the mare had been acting, he would be right back out here digging post holes. He slipped out of the paddock and away from the boot-sucking mud the horses had churned up, and walked the outside of the fence line.
He hadn’t gotten far when he felt the first sly buzz of magic in his ears. He stiffened, stopping where he was, realizing not only that someone worked magic nearby, but that they were working it on him. Not a great magic, not something that posed any real threat to his allergies, but magic. Just the thought of it kicked his anger into dangerous territory; eyes narrowed, he turned a slow circle, searching. From the woods beyond the paddock to the dark entrance of the barn to the lane and front clearing of the house to the bulk of the sickroom, nearly all he could see of the house from here to—
Movement caught the corner of his eye. A medium-sized figure darted from the corner of the barn into its darkness; the horses snorted and the little mare kicked her stall again. The magic flared into something strong enough to make Reandn stagger a step before he pushed past the sudden disorientation it caused, but it didn’t slow his silent approach to the barn. The spell, whatever it was, had no discernible effect.
But the clamor of magic . . . it beat at him, and he fought back, reaching the barn with only one thought—get it stopped. Stumbling into darkness with eyes that were used to bright sunlight and barely able to focus in the first place, he followed the magic straight to its source with no thought or care for the fact that the spell-user might be armed with something other than magic. Past the stalls he went, and into the niche of storage at the other end of the barn. By the time he saw the revealing flash of light-colored tunic, Reandn moved on the energy of his anger alone, and when he grabbed that tunic, he brought them both to his knees in a clatter of falling pitchforks and shovels.
To his astonishment, the spell-user loosed a near shriek of fear that hit his ears almost as hard as the magic. "Shut up!" Reandn bellowed back, while the magic crescendoed around them. The spell-user babbled incomprehensibly, the magic spiraled into agony, Reandn’s chest tightened—and his anger exploded. He jerked the spell-user into the barn aisle and then slammed him against a stall without ever bothering to get up off his knees. As if he could. The feel of magic bobbled uncertainly—and then the irritated mare slammed her hoof into the stall behind the spell-user’s head.
With a strangled grunt, the spell-user went limp, and the magic flickered away. Reandn let the unresisting body fall to the packed dirt of the aisle floor, and ended up on his hands and knees, waiting for the effects of the magic to fade.
"Dan?" Kacey called, her voice close. "What’s going on? Tellan? Danny? Where are you?"
"In here," Reandn told her, not knowing or truly caring if he was loud enough to hear. Evidently he’d gotten her attention, for her voice was suddenly much closer.
"Tellan!" she cried, running the last few steps into the barn. Reandn looked up at her, discovering that his eyes had adjusted to the dim light. Yes, Tellan. The youth made a disoriented noise, alarm and apologies all at once, that gained him little sympathy from Reandn.
"Tellan," Reandn growled, while Kacey crouched over the apprentice, quickly checking him for injuries. "You’re lucky I didn’t kill you, you little idiot. What the Hells did you think you were doing?"
"You did this to him?" Kacey said, her quick glance accusing. Then she frowned, and looked back at Tellan. "You were using magic out here?"
Reandn’s voice came out as a low growl. "He was using some kind of spell on me."
"On you?" Kacey looked down at Tellan again, but whatever she meant to ask, she cut short; instead she frowned at the vague way Tellan looked back up at her. "What did you do to him?"
"Nothing. Not really. Scared him." Reandn sat back on his heels, letting his head tilt back while he took a deep breath and waited for the last effects of the magic to fade. "Your mare kicked the stall behind his head. I think that’s what’s befuddled him."
"Wonderful. Help me get him outside—I want to take a better look at him."
Reandn grumbled, but he climbed slowly to his feet as Kacey pulled Tellan up far enough to shove a shoulder beneath his arm. Reandn grabbed the apprentice by the back of his trousers; between the two of them, they hauled Tellan to the bright splash of sunshine outside the barn doorway. Reandn dropped his half of the apprentice and slid down the side of the barn. The light made his head hurt, and he closed his eyes and decided there would be no more fence-post repairs this day.
Kacey ran her fingers through the hair on the back of Tellan’s head, feeling more than looking for problems. "Not even any swelling," she said. "With any luck he’s just shaken up. You look worse than he does, Dan, you’re as pale as the sunshine."
"He ought to have known better," Reandn said, fighting the urge to rest his head against his upraised knees. His legs felt a little too long, and not in the least capable of holding him up again. "Didn’t you tell him to keep his magic to himself around me?"
"Only ten or fifteen times," Kacey said, and added pointedly, "about as often as I’ve told you to keep your temper around me."
"Am I losing my temper at you?" Reandn raised an eyebrow at her and then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
Kacey didn’t hesitate; her words were sharp. "That’s not what I said, Reandn."
He covered his face with his hands and said through them, "Just find out what he was doing, will you? He was using magic on me and I want to know why. And I want to know why it got so out of hand." From the moment he’d been introduced to Reandn, the apprentice had found ways to avoid him . . . and now this? Not only stalking him, but throwing a spell at him? Reandn glanced at Kacey’s frown and saw that she, too, was at a loss to explain such atypical behavior from the boy.
"Did you hear that?" Kacey said, her voice just as sharp as she turned to Tellan. "I know you’ve had the wind knocked out of your thoughts, Tellan, but you’re all right, and you’re certainly listening—do you think I can’t tell? So speak up!"
There was no brooking Kacey in this mood; even Reandn knew better than that. Moving his hands just far enough to shade his eyes rather than cover them, he looked over at the boy. Tellan was pale, all right, but then, he always looked pale to Reandn. He was an awkward youth, and his was not the sort of awkwardness he could outgrow. His turned-out feet were too big, his shoulders were narrow, and his movements were graceless and often downright clumsy. He had the patchy beginnings of a beard which needed to be shaved, but far too many active blemishes on his face to do it. He struck Reandn as the sort who would never excel at his craft, but who would be quietly indispensable, always functioning in the background.
Reandn leaned toward him and said, "If you don’t talk, boy, I’m going to put you in the stall with that mare."
Kacey made a face at him but didn’t counter the threat, and Tellan opened his eyes, scooted away from Reandn until he bumped into Kacey, and realized, with visible shock, that she wasn’t going to protect him. His words a blurted mumble, he said, "I was just painting you."
Reandn exchanged a glance with Kacey, and she looked as puzzled as he felt. "You were doing what?"
"Painting you." Apparently realizing that Reandn wasn’t really about to haul him into the mare’s stall, Tellan straightened a little, and his voice steadied out. "So I’d know where you were all the time."
Kacey looked at Reandn, and all he could do was shrug. "But Tellan, why?" she asked. "You have strict orders not to work magic near Reandn—and here you were, working it on him."
"It was only a little spell," Tellan said, mumbling again. "I didn’t think he’d even know."
"You thought wrong," Reandn said, puzzlement leaning back toward anger again. "And what the bloody Hells were you thinking, throwing all that magic at me? Don’t try to tell me that was any little painting spell."
Tellan quickly shook his head. "I didn’t mean to do that, I really didn’t. Something happened in the middle of the spell, I lost the structure of it, and then it got out of control, and you were chasing me and I—"
"That’s all right, Tellan," Kacey said, her voice brusque, cutting off the inquisition altogether, as though she’d suddenly gotten full. "I know the look he had on his face when he felt the magic, and it’s enough to frighten anyone. Go inside, why don’t you, and lie down for a few moments. Get yourself pulled together; my father’s coming back for a midday meal, and he mentioned something about taking you with him this afternoon."
Tellan’s face brightened, though plenty of wariness remained as he glanced over to Reandn. Reandn suddenly realized the boy was waiting for his permission as well. He nodded.
Considering the alacrity with which Tellan moved, he wasn’t all that stunned by his experience after all. Reandn stared after him, and leaned his head against the barn, resting his forearms across his knees. Kacey shifted around to put her back to the barn, sitting on the damp ground beside Reandn, their shoulders almost close enough to touch. She said, "I guess he can’t scent people out like Rethia does. Maybe no one can."
"Why the Hells was he trying to keep track of me in the first place?" Reandn grumbled.
Kacey made an indecipherable noise, and Reandn glanced at her to find an expression of mixed affection and exasperation. "Why do you think he wanted to keep track of you, O Wolf-who-stalks-where-he-will? You frighten him!" She shook her head when he just looked at her. "You’ve got a reputation, Dan. You’ve earned it, too."
"For goddess’ sake, I’d never hurt that boy."
"You just almost did."
Reandn stared off toward the sickroom door Tellan had just made hasty use of. He’d never have harmed the apprentice, but Tellan was afraid of Reandn, so he’d tried the paint spell, which had gotten out of hand—the results of which meant Reandn had only confirmed the boy’s fears in the first place . . . Reandn groaned, dizzied anew by it all. "I can’t not protect myself."
"I didn’t mean that. I just meant . . ." she trailed off, frowning. "I don’t know what I meant. Just try to understand sometimes, will you?" She climbed to her feet, brushing off her visibly damp posterior; her knees and shins bore soggy splotches as well. "Besides, if you pay attention, you’ll see it’s when you’re protecting someone else that you get yourself into so much trouble."
She left him then, walking back to the house as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Frustrated, Reandn stared at her back until she was nearly to the sickhouse door, and then shouted after her, "I can’t not do that either!"
"I know," she said over her shoulder, far too airily to suit him. "That’s why we all love you anyway." And then the door closed behind her.
Reandn let his head fall against the barn once more, groaning again and glad there was no one to hear it. Women. What made it worse was that he was certain that the entire exchange had made sense to her.
From inside the barn, Sky blasted a mighty whinny at him, demanding the mare, demanding to be outside, demanding something other than what he had. Reandn waved him away, as if the horse could see or care, and suddenly realized just how much of the damp ground had seeped through the seat of his pants to his skin. The day, he thought, was definitely turning out to be something he’d just as soon have slept through. Might as well take a look at those other fence posts after all.