Valdemar 05 - [Vows & Honor 02] - Oathbreakers Page 14

  While Kethry was still staring at the place where the spirit had stood, Tarma was clawing the door open, all thought of subterfuge gone.

  She headed down the corridor at a dead run, and she could hear Kethry right behind her; this time there would be no attempt at concealment.

  Warrl’s “voice” was sharp in her mind; angry, and tasting of battle-hunger. Mindmate—one comes. He smells of seeking death.:

  Keep him away from Jadrek!

  There was no answer to that, as she put on a burst of speed down the corridor—at least not an answer in words. But there was a surge of great anger, a rage such as she had seldom sensed in the kyree, even under battle-fire.

  Then Tarma had evidence of her own of how strong the mindmate bonding between herself and the kyree had become—because she began to get image-flashes carried on that rage. A man, or armed man, with a long, wicked dagger in his hand, standing outside Jadrek’s door. The man turning to face Warrl even as Jadrek opened the door. Jadrek stepping back a pace with fear stark across his features, then turning and stumbling back into his room. The man ignoring him, meeting the threat of Warrl, unsheathing a sword to match the knife he carried.

  Tarma felt the growl the kyree vented rumbling in her own throat as she ran. Felt him leap—

  Now they were in the older section—running down Jadrek’s corridor. Kethry was scarcely a step behind her as they skidded to a halt at Jadrek’s open door.

  There was blood everywhere—spilling out over the doorsill, splashed on the wall of the corridor. The kyree stood over a body sprawled half-in, half-out of the room, growling under his breath, his eyes literally glowing with rage. Warrl had taken care of the intruder less than seconds before their arrival, for the body at his feet was still twitching, and the kyree’s mind was seething with aggression and the aftermath of the kill. His hackles were up, but he was unmarked; of the blood splashed so liberally everywhere, none of it seemed to be Warrl’s.

  “Goddess—” Tarma caught at the edge of the doorframe, and panted, her knees weak with relief that the kyree had gotten there in time.

  “Jadrek!” Kethry snapped out of shock first; she slid past the slowly calming kyree into the room beyond. Tarma was right behind her, expecting to find the Archivist in a dead faint, or worse; hurt, or collapsed with shock.

  She was amazed to find him still on his feet.

  He had his back to the wall, standing next to the fireplace behind his chair, a dagger in one hand, a fireplace poker in the other. He was pale, and looked as if he was likely to be sick at any moment. But he also looked as if he was quite ready to protect himself as best he could, and was anything but immobilized with fear or shock.

  For one moment he didn’t seem to recognize them; then he shook his head a little, put the poker carefully down, sheathed the dagger at his belt, then groped for the back of his chair and pulled it toward himself, the legs grating on the stone. He all but fell into it.

  “Jadrek—are you all right?” Tarma would have gone to his side, but Kethry was there before her.

  Jadrek was trembling in every nerve and muscle as he collapsed into his chair. Gods—one breath more—too close. Too close.

  Kethry took his wrist before he could wave her away and felt for his pulse.

  He stared at her anxious face, so close to his own, and felt his heart skip for a reason other than fear. Dammit, you fool, she’s just worried that you’re going to die on her before you can help her with the information they need!

  Then he thought, feeling a chill creep down his back; Gods—I might. If Char has been a watcher on me all this time, it means he’s suspected me of warning Stefan. And if that watcher chose to strike tonight only because I spoke to a pair of strangers—Archivist, your hours are numbered.

  Kethry checked Jadrek’s heartbeat, fearing to find it fluttering erratically. To her intense relief, it was strong, though understandably racing.

  “I—gods above—I think I will be all right,” he managed, pressing his free hand to his forehead. “But I would be dead if not for your kyree.”

  “Who was that?” Kethry asked urgently. “Who—”

  “That ... was a member of the King’s personal guard,” he replied thickly. “Brightest Goddess—I knew I was under suspicion, but I never guessed it went this far! They must have had someone watching me.”

  “Watching to see who you talked to, no doubt,” Tarma said grimly, her lips compressed into a thin line. “And the King must have left orders what was to happen to you if you talked to strangers. Hellfire and corruption!”

  “Now I’m a liability, so far as Raschar is concerned.” He was pale, and with more than shock, but there was determination in the set of his jaw as he looked to Tarma. “‘Char has only one way of dealing with liabilities ... as you’ve seen. Lord and Lady help me, I’m under a death sentence, without trial or hearing! I—I haven’t got a chance unless I can escape. Woman, you’ve got to help me! If you want any more help with finding Idra, you’ve got—”

  Kethry had angry words on her tongue, annoyed that he should think them such cowards, but Tarma beat her to them.

  “What kind of gutless boobs do you think we are?” Tarma snapped. “Of course we’ll help you! Dammit man, it was us coming to you that triggered this attack in the first place! Keth, clean up the mess. Go ahead and use magic, we’re blown now, anyway.”

  Kethry nodded. “After the visitor, I should say so—even if there wasn’t anyone ‘watching,’ he’ll have left residue in the trap-spell.”

  “Did you pick up any ‘eyes’?”

  She let her mage-senses extend. “No ... no. Not then, and not now. Evidently they haven’t guessed our identity.”

  “Small piece of Warrior’s fortune. Well, I’m getting rid of the body before somebody falls over it; it’s likely this bastard was the only watcher, Archivist, or you’d have been caught out before this.” She paused to think. “If I hide him, they may wait to check things out until after he was due to report. Hell, if they can’t find him, they may wait a bit longer to see if he’s gone following after one of Jadrek’s visitors; that should buy us a couple more hours Jadrek, are there any empty rooms along here?”

  “Most of them are empty,” he said dully, holding his hands up before his eyes and watching them shake with a kind of morbid fascination “Nobody is quartered along here who isn’t in disgrace; this is the oldest wing of the palace, and it’s been poorly maintained and repaired but little.”

  “Gods, no wonder nobody came piling out to see what the ruckus was.” Tarma’s lip curled in disgust. “Bastard really gives you respect, doesn’t he? Well, that’s another piece of good luck we’ve had tonight.”

  And Tarma turned back to deal with the corpse as Kethry began mustering her energies for “clean-up.”

  Tarma bundled the body into its own cloak, giving Warrl mental congratulations over the relatively clean kill; the kyree had only torn the man’s throat out. The man had been relatively small; she figured she could handle the corpse alone. She heaved the bundle over her shoulder with a grunt of effort, trusting to the thick cloak to absorb whatever blood remained to be spilled, and went out into the corridor, picking a room at random. The first one she chose didn’t have its own fireplace, so she left that one—but the second did. It was a matter of moments and a good bit of joint-straining effort to stuff the carcass up the chimney; by the time she returned, a little judicious use of magic had cleaned up every trace of a struggle around Jadrek’s quarters, and Kethry and the Archivist were in the little bedroom that lay beyond the closed door in his sitting room. The mage was helping Jadrek to make a pack of his belongings, and Jadrek was far calmer now than Tarma had dared to hope. Warrl was stretched across the doorway, still growling under his breath. He gave her a gentle warn-off as she sent him a thought; his blood-lust was up, and he didn’t want her in his mind until he had quieted himself.

  Jadrek had lit a half dozen candles and stuck them over every available surface. The bedroom was
as sparse as the outer room had been, though smelling a little less of damp. There was just a wardrobe, a chest, and the bed.

  “Jadrek, how well do you ride?” Tarma asked, taking over the bundle Kethry was making and freeing her to start a new one.

  “Not well,” he said shortly, folding packets of herbs into a cloth. “It’s not my ability to ride, it’s the pain. I used to ride very well; now I can’t stand being in a saddle for more than an hour or so.”

  “And if we drugged you?”

  He shrugged. “Drugged, aren’t I likely to fall off? And you’d have to lead my beast, even if you tied me into the saddle; that would slow you considerably.”

  “Not if I put you on ‘Heart. Or—better yet, Keth, you’re light and you don’t go armored. How about if I take all the packs and ’Bane carries double?”

  Kethry examined the Archivist carefully. “It should be all right. Jadrek doesn’t look like he weighs much. Put him up in front of me, and I can hold him on even if he’s insensible.”

  The Archivist managed a quirk of one corner of his mouth. “Hardly the way I had hoped to begin my career of adventuring.”

  Tarma raised an eyebrow at him.

  “You look surprised. Swordlady, I did a great deal of my studying in hopes of one day being able to aid some heroic quester. After all, what better help could a hero have than a loremaster? Then,” he held out one hand and shoved the sleeve of his robe up so they could see the swollen wrists, “my body betrayed me and my dreams. So goes life.”

  Tarma winced in sympathy; her own bones ached in the cold these days, enough that rough camping left her stiff and limping these days for at least an hour after rising, or until she finished her warming exercises. She didn’t like to think how much pain swollen joints meant.

  “Have you any plan?” the Archivist continued. “Or are we just going to run for it?”

  Tarma shook her head. “Don’t you think it—Running off blindly is likely to run us right into a trap. We came out of the south, the Hawks are to the south and west—I’d bet the King’s men’ll expect us to run for familiar territory.”

  “So we go opposite?” Jadrek hazarded. “North? Then what?”

  Tarma folded a shirt into a tight bundle and wedged it into the pack. “North is where Stefansen went. North is where Idra likely went. No? So we’ll track them North, and hope to run into one or both of them.”

  “I know where Stefansen intended to go,” Jadrek said slowly, “I did tell Idra before she went missing. But frankly it’s some of the worst country to travel in winter in all of Rethwellan.”

  “All the better to shake off pursuit. Cough it up, man, where are we going?”

  “Across the Comb and into Valdemar.” He looked seriously worried. “And winter storm season in the Comb is deadly. If we’re caught in an ice storm without shelter, well, let me just say that we probably won’t be a problem for Raschar anymore.”

  “This is almost too easy,” Tarma muttered, surveying the empty court below Jadrek’s window. “Keth, is there anything you can’t live without back in the room?”

  The mage pursed her lips thoughtfully, then shook her head.

  “Good, then we’ll leave from here. Nobody’s been alerted yet, and evidently Jadrek’s in poor enough condition that nobody has even considered he might slip out his window.”

  “With good reason, Swordlady,” Jadrek replied, coming to Tarma’s side and looking down into the court himself. “I can’t imagine how I could climb down.”

  “Alone, you couldn’t; we’ll help you,” Kethry told him. “I can actually make you about half your real weight with magic, then we’ll manage well enough.”

  The Archivist looked down again, and shuddered, but to his credit, did not protest.

  They’d sent Warrl for a short coil of rope from the stables; there were always lead-ropes and lunges lying around, and any of those would be long enough. He returned just as Kethry completed her spellcasting; they tied one end around Jadrek’s waist, then Kethry scrambled out of the window and down the wall to steady him from below as Tarma lowered him. Before they were finished, Tarma had a high respect for the man’s courage; climbing down from the window put him in such pain that when they untied him they found he’d bitten his lip through to keep from crying out.

  All their gear was still with the mares. When they’d left Hawksnest, they’d chosen to use a different kind of saddle than they normally chose, one meant for long rides and not pitched battles. Like the saddles Jodi preferred, these were little more than a pad with stirrups, although the pad extended out over the horse’s rump. When Tarma carried Warrl pillion, he had a pad behind her battle-saddle to ride on; there was just enough room on the extended body of this saddle for him to do the same. So Kethry had no trouble fitting Jadrek in front of her, which was just as well—

  Jadrek had mixed something with the last of his wine and gulped it down before attempting the window. He was fine, although still in pain, when they started saddling up. But by the time the mares were harnessed and all their gear was in place, he was fairly intoxicated and not at all steady.

  They did manage to get him into the saddle, but it was obvious he wouldn’t be staying there without Kethry’s help.

  Warrl? Tarma thought tentatively.

  :All is well, mindmate,: came the reassuring reply. : There is no one in sight, and I am distracting the gate guards. If you go swiftly, there will be no one to stop or question you.:

  “Let’s move out now,” she told her partner, “while Furface has the guards playing ‘catch-me-if-you-can’ with him.”

  Kethry nodded; they rode out of the palace grounds as quietly—they’d signaled the mares for silence, and now Hellsbane and Ironheart were moving as stealthily as only two Shin‘a’in bred-and-trained warsteeds could. They managed to get out unchallenged, and waited outside the palace for Warrl to catch up with them, then put Ironheart and Hellsbane to as fast a pace as they dared, and by dawn were well clear of the city.

  “Any sign of tracking?” Tarma asked her partner, reining Ironheart in beside her as they slowed to a brisk walk.

  Kethry closed her eyes in concentration, extended a little tendril of energy along the road behind them, then shook her head. “My guess would be that they haven’t missed the spy yet. But my guess would also be, that with all the mages I sensed in Raschar’s court, they’ll be sending at least one with each pursuit party.”

  “Anything you can do about that?”

  “Some.” She reformed that tendril of energy into a deception-web that might confuse their backtrail. “Listen, we need supplies; how about if I lay an illusion on you and ‘Heart and you go buy us some at the next village we hit?”

  “How about if you spell all three of us right now? Say—old woman and her daughter and son? Nobody knows Shin‘a’in battlemares out here, and ‘Heart and ’Bane are ugly enough to belong to peasants: you needn’t spell them.”

  “Huh; not a bad thought. What about Warrl?”

  : I can seem much smaller if I need to.:

  Kethry started. “Furface, I wish you wouldn’t just speak into my mind like that—you never used to!”

  :My pardon. I grow forgetful of courtesy. How does the Wise One?:

  Jadrek was three-quarters asleep, slumped forward in Kethry’s hold, his head nodding to the rhythm of Hellsbane’s hooves. Kethry touched his neck below his ear lightly enough not to disturb him. “All right; his pulse is strong.”

  :If you would have my advice?:

  When the kyree tendered his opinion, it was worth having. “Go ahead.”

  : Rouse him up and make him speak with you. He will do his body more harm by riding unconscious.:

  “On that subject,” Tarma interrupted, “how long can you keep our illusions going? What kind of shape are you in?”

  Kethry shrugged. “I’ve been mostly resting my powers so far. I can keep the spell up indefinitely. Why?”

  “Because I want to stay under roofs at night for as long a
s we can. Rough camping is going to be hard on our friend at best—be a helluva note to save him from assassins and lose him to pneumonia.”

  Kethry nodded, thinking of how much pain the Archivist was already in. “What kind of roofs?”

  “In order of preference—out-of-the-way barns, the occasional friendly farmer, and the cheapest inns in town.”

  “Sound, I think. Pull up here, I might as well cast this thing now, and I can’t do it on a moving horse.”

  “Here” was a grove of trees beside the road; they got the horses off and allowed them to browse while Kethry concentrated.

  Warrl flung himself down into the dry grass, and lay there, panting. He was not built for the long chase. Before too very long, Tarma would have to bring him up to ride pillion behind her for a rest.

  Kethry got Jadrek leaning back against her, then spread her hands wide, palms facing out. A shell of faint, roseate light expanded from her hands outward, to contain them and their horses. Tarma could see her lips moving silently in the words of the spell. There was a tiny “pop” like a cork being pulled from a bottle; then Tarma felt an all-too-familiar itching at the back of her eyes, and when she looked down, she saw that she was wearing a man’s garb of rough, brown homespun instead of her Kal‘enedral-styled black silks. So Keth was going to disguise her as a young man; good, that should help to throw off nonmage spies.

  Jadrek was now an old, gray-haired woman with a face like a wrinkled apple, and a body stooped from years of hard work. Behind him, Kethry was a chunky, fresh-faced peasant wench; brown-cheeked, brown-haired and quite unremarkable.

  “Huh,” Tarma said. “This’s a new one for you. You look like you’d make some dirt-grubber a great wife.”

  Kethry giggled. “Good hips. Breed like cow, strong like bull, dumb like ox. Hitch to plow when horse dies.” As Tarma stifled a chuckle, she turned her attention to her passenger. “Jadrek, wake up, there’s a good fellow.” She shook his shoulder gently. “Open your eyes slowly. I’ve put an illusion on us all and it may make you dizzy at first.”