The Oathbound Read online

  “Cat-child, I expected you at least to want him cut up into collops.” Justin lounged back precariously in his chair on the hearth, balancing it on two legs. “I can’t fathom why you went along with this.”

  “I wanted to hurt him,” the girl replied, trimming her nails with one of her knives. “And I knew after all these years of watching him that there’s only two ways to hurt that bastard; to hit his pride or his moneybags. Revenge, they say, is a dish best eaten cold, and I’ve had three years of cooling.”

  “And here’s to Kethry, who figured how to get both at the same time,” Ikan raised his mug in a toast.

  Kethry reciprocated. “And to you, who convinced the Council I was worth heeding.”

  Ikan smiled. “Just calling in a few old debts, that’s all. You’re the one who did the talking.”

  “Oh, really? I was under the impression that you did at least half of it.”

  “Some, maybe. Force of habit, I’m afraid. Too many years of listening to my father. You may know him—Jonis Revelath—”

  “Gods, yes, I remember him!” Kethry exclaimed. “He’s the legal counsel for half the Fifty!”

  “Slightly more than half.”

  “That must be why you’re the one who remembered it’s against the law to force any female of the Fifty into any marriage without her consent,” Kethry said admiringly. “Ikan, listening to you in there—I was truly impressed. You’re clever, you’re persuasive, you’re a good speaker. Why aren’t you...”

  “Following in my father’s footsteps? Because he’s unable to fathom why I am more interested in justice than seeing that every client who hires me gets off without more than a reprimand.”

  “Which is why the old stick wouldn’t defend Wethes for all the gold that bastard threw at him,” Justin chuckled, seeing if he could balance the chair on one leg. “Couldn’t bear to face his son with Ikan on the side of Good, Truth, and Justice. Well, shieldbrother, going to give up the sword and Fight for Right?” The irony in his voice was so strong it could have been spread on bread and eaten.

  “Idiot!” Ikan grinned. “What do you think I am, a dunderhead like you? Swords are safer and usually fairer than the law courts any day!”

  “Well, I think you were wonderful,” Kethry began. “I couldn’t have done it without you and Cat being so calm and clear. You had an answer for everything they could throw at you.”

  “Enough!” Tarma growled, throwing apples at all of them. “You were all brilliant. So now Wethes is poorer by a good sum; Cat has enough to set herself up as anything she chooses, we have enough to see us to the Plains, and the entire town knows Wethes isn’t potent with anything over the age of twelve. He’s been the butt of three dozen jokes that I’ve heard so far; there are gangs of little boys chanting rude things in front of his house at this moment.”

  “I’ve heard three songs about him out on the street, too,” Cat interrupted with an evil grin.

  “And last of all, Keth’s so-called marriage has been declared null. What’s left?”

  “Kavin?” Justin hazarded. “Are we likely to see any more trouble from him?”

  “Well, I saw to it that he’s been declared disinherited by the Council for selling his sister. Keth didn’t want the name or the old hulk of a house that goes with it, so it’s gone to a cadet branch of her family.”

  “With my blessings; they’re very religious, and I think they intend to set up a monastic school in it. As for my brother, when last seen, Kavin was fleeing for his life through the stews with the leader of the Greens in hot pursuit,” Kethry replied with a certain amount of satisfaction. “I saw him waiting for Kavin outside the Council door, and I was kind enough to pinpoint my brother for him with a ball of mage-light. I believe his intention was to paint Kavin a bright emerald when he caught him.”

  Justin burst into hearty guffaws—and his chair promptly capsized.

  The rest of them collapsed into helpless laughter at the sight of him, looking surprised and indignant, amid the ruins of his chair.

  “Well!” he said, crossing his arms and snorting. “There’s gratitude for you! That’s the last time I ever do any of you a fav—”

  Whatever else he was going to say ended in a splutter as Ikan dumped his mug over his head.

  “Still set on getting back to the Plains?” Kethry asked into the darkness.

  A sigh to her right told her that Tarma wasn’t asleep yet. “I have to,” came the reluctant answer. “I can’t help it. I have to. If you want to stay ...”

  Kethry heard the unspoken plea behind the words and answered it. “I’m your she‘enedra, am I not?”

  “But do you really understand what that means?”

  “Understand—no. Beginning to understand, yes. You forget, I’m a mage; I’m used to taking internal inventory on a regular basis. I’ve never had a Talent for Empathy, but now I find myself knowing what you’re feeling, even when you’re trying to hide it. And you knew the instant I’d been taken, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you’re being driven home by something you really don’t understand.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it have anything to do with that Goddess of yours, do you think?”

  “It might; I don’t know. We Sworn Ones move mostly to Her will, and it may be She has some reason to want me home. I know She wants Tale‘- sedrin back as a living Clan.”

  “And She wants me as part of it.”

  “She must, or She wouldn’t have marked the oathtaking.”

  Kethry stretched tired muscles, and put her hands under her head. “How much time do you have before you have to be back?”

  “Before Tale‘sedrin is declared dead? Four years, maybe five. Kethry ...”

  “It’s all right, I told you, I can feel some of what you’re feeling now, I understand.”

  “You‘re—you’re better. I’m—I’m feeling some of what you’re feeling, too.”

  “This whole mess was worth it,” Kethry replied slowly, only now beginning to articulate what she’d only sensed. “It really was. My ghosts have been laid to rest. And revenge—great Goddess, I couldn’t have hoped for a better revenge! Kavin is terrified of me; he kept expecting me to turn him into a toad, or something. And Wethes is utterly ruined. He’s still got his money, but it will never buy him back his reputation. Indirectly, you got me that, Tarma. I finally realized that I would never reach Adept without coming to terms with my past. You forced me into the confrontation I’d never have tried on my own. For that alone I would be indebted to you.”

  “She‘enedran don’t have debts.”

  “I rather figured that. But—I want you to know, I’m going with you because I want to, not because I think that I owe you. I didn’t understand what this oath meant at first, but I do now, and I would repeat it any time you asked.”

  A long silence. Then, “Gestena, she‘enedra.”

  That meant “thank you,” Kethry knew—thanks, and a great deal more than thanks.

  “Yai se corthu,” she replied uncertainly. “Two are one.” For she suddenly felt all Tarma’s loneliness and her own as well, and in the darkness of the night it is sometimes possible to say things that are too intense and too true for daylight.

  “Yai se corthu.” And a hand came from the darkness to take hers.

  It was enough.

  Four

  “Tarma, we’ve been riding for weeks, and I still haven’t seen any sign that this country is going to turn into grass-plains,” Kethry complained, shifting uncomfortably in Rodi’s saddle. “Brush-hills, yes. Near-desert, certainly. Forest, ye gods! I’ve seen more trees than I ever want to see again!”

  “What’s wrong with forest, other than that you can’t do a straight-line gallop or get a clear shot at anything, that is?”

  Kethry gazed in all directions, and then glanced up to where branches cut off every scrap of sky overhead. Huge evergreens loomed wherever she looked; the only sunlight came from those few beams that manag
ed to penetrate the canopy of needles. It seemed as if she’d been breathing resin forever, the smell clung to everything; clothing, hair—it even got into the food. It wasn’t unpleasant; the opposite, in fact, especially after they’d first penetrated the edges of the forest after days of fighting a dusty wind. But after days of eating, drinking, and breathing the everlasting odor of pine, she was heartily tired of it.

  It was chilly and damp on the forest floor, and lonely. Kethry hadn’t seen a bird in days, for they were all up where the sun was. She could hear them calling, but the echoes of their far-off singing only made the empty corridors between the tree trunks seem more desolate. This forest had to be incredibly ancient, the oldest living thing she’d ever seen, perhaps. Certainly the trees were larger than any she was familiar with. They towered for yards before branching out, and in the case of a few giants she had noticed, their trunks were so large that several adults could have circled the biggest of them with their arms without touching hand to hand. The road they followed now was hardly more than a goat track; the last person they had seen had been two weeks ago, and since that time they’d only had each other’s voices to listen to.

  At first it had been pleasurable to ride beneath these branches, especially since they had spent weeks skirting that near-desert she had mentioned, riding through furlong after furlong of stony, brush-covered hills with never anything taller than a man growing on them. While the spring sun had nowhere near the power it would boast in a mere month, it had been more than hot enough for Kethry during the height of the day. She couldn’t imagine how Tarma, dressed in her dark Sword Sworn costume, could bear it. When the hills began to grow into something a bit more impressive, and the brush gave way to real trees, it was a genuine relief to spend all day in their cool shade. But now...

  “It’s like they‘re—watching. I haven’t sensed anything, either with mage-senses or without, so I know it must be my imagination, but ...”

  “It’s not your imagination; something is watching,” Tarma interrupted calmly. “Or rather, someone. I thought I’d not mention it unless you saw or felt something yourself, since they’re harmless to us. Hadn’t you ever wondered why I haven’t taken any shots at birds since we entered the trees?”

  “But—”

  “Oh, the watchers themselves aren’t within sensing distance, and not within the scope of your mage-senses either—just their feathered friends. Hawks, falcons, ravens and crows by day, owls and night-hawks by dark. Tale‘edras, my people call them—the Hawkbrothers. We really don’t know what they call themselves. We don’t see them much, though they’ve been known to trade with us.”

  “Will we see any of them?”

  “Why, do you want to?” Tarma asked, with a half-grin at Kethry’s nod. “You mages must be curiosity incarnate, I swear! Well, I might be able to do something about that. As I said, we’re in no danger from them, but if you really want to meet one—let’s see if I still have my knack for identifying myself.”

  She reined in Kessira, threw back her head, and gave an ear-piercing cry—not like the battle shriek of a hawk, but a bit like the mating cry, or the cry that identifies mate to mate. Rodi started, and backed a few steps, fighting his bit, until Kethry got him back into control. A second cry echoed hers, and at first Kethry thought it was an echo, but it was followed by a winged streak of gold lightning that swooped down out of the highest branches to land on Tarma’s outstretched arm.

  It braked its descent with a thunder of wings, wings that seemed to Kethry to belong to something at least the size of an eagle. Talons like ivory knives bit into the leather of Tarma’s vambrace; the wings fanned the air for a heartbeat more, then the bird settled on Tarma’s forearm, regal and gilded.

  “Well if I’d wanted a good omen, I couldn’t have asked for a better,” Tarma said in astonishment. “This is a vorcel-hawk; you see them more on the plains than in the forests—it’s my Clan’s standard.”

  The bird was half-again larger than any hawk Kethry had ever seen; its feathers glistened with an almost metallic gold sheen, no more than a shade darker than the bird’s golden eyes. It cocked its head to one side and regarded Kethry with an intelligent air she found rather disturbing. Rodi snorted at the alien creature, but Kessira stood calmly when one wing flipped a hair‘s-breadth from her ear, apparently used to having huge birds swoop down at her rider from out of nowhere.

  “Now, who speaks for you, winged one?” Tarma turned her attention fully to the bird on her arm, stroking his breast feathers soothingly until he settled, then running her hand down to his right leg and examining it. Kethry edged closer, cautiously; wary of the power in that beak and those sharp talons. She saw that what Tarma was examining was a wide band on its leg, a band of some shiny stuff that wasn’t metal and wasn’t leather.

  “Moonsong k‘Vala, hmmm? Don’t know the name. Well, let’s send the invitation to talk. I really should at least pay my respects before leaving the trees, if anyone wants to take them, so ...”

  Tarma lowered her arm a little, and the hawk responded by moving up it until he perched on her shoulder. His beak was in what Kethry considered to be uncomfortably close proximity to Tarma’s face, but Tarma didn’t seem at all concerned. Thinking about the uncertain temperament of all the raptors she’d ever had anything to do with, Kethry shivered at Tarma’s casualness.

  When the bird was safely on her shoulder, Tarma leaned over a little and rummaged in her saddlebag, finally coming up with a cluster of three small medallions. Kethry could see that they were light copper disks, beautifully enameled with the image of the bird that sat her shoulder.

  She selected one, dropepd the other two back in her bag; then with great care, took a thong from a collection of them looped to a ring on her belt, passed the thong through the hole in the top of the medallion and knotted it securely. She offered the result to the bird, who looked at it with a surprising amount of intelligence before opening his beak slowly and accepting the thong. He bobbed his head twice, the medallion bouncing below his head, and Tarma raised her arm again. He sidled along it until he reached her wrist, and she launched him into the air. His huge wings beat five or six times, raising a wind that fanned their hair, then he was lost to sight among the branches.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Politeness, more than anything. The Hawkbrothers have known we were here from the moment we entered the forest, and they knew I was Shin‘a’in Kal‘enedral when they came to look at us in person—that would have been the first night we camped. Since then they’ve just been making sure we didn’t wander off the track, or get ambushed by something we couldn’t handle. We’ll be leaving the forest soon.”

  “Soon? When?”

  “Keep your breeches on, girl! Tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Anyway, you wanted to see one of the Hawkbrothers, and it’s only polite for me to acknowledge the fact that they’ve been guarding us.”

  “I thought you said they were watching us.”

  “Since I’m Shin‘a’in and we’re allies, it amounts to the same thing. Sa-hai; I just sent my Clan token off to our current guardian, whoever it is. If he or she chooses, we’ll get a response before we leave.”

  “Moonsong sounds like a female name to me,” Kethry replied.

  “Maybeso, maybeno. The Hawkbrothers are v-e-r-y different—well, you’ll see if we get a visitor. Keep your eyes busy looking for a good campsite; stick to the road. As Shin‘a’in I have certain privileges here, and I’m tired of dried beef. I’m going hunting.”

  She swung Kessira off under the trees, following the path the hawk had taken, leaving Kethry alone on the track. With a shrug, Kethry urged Rodi back into a walk and did as she’d been told.

  Still homing in on the Plains; she’s been easier than she was before Mornedealth, but still—home is drawing her with a power even I can feel. I wonder if it’s because she hasn’t a real purpose anymore, not since she accomplished her revenge.

  Kethry kept Rodi to a walk, listening with ha
lf her attention for the sound of water. Running surface water was somewhat scarce in the forest; finding it meant they made a campsite then and there.

  I don’t really have a purpose either, except to learn and grow stronger in magic-but I expected that. I knew that’s the way my life would be once I left the school until I could found my own. But Tarma—she needs a purpose, and this home-seeking is only a substitute for one. I wonder if she realizes that.

  When Tarma caught up with her, it was a candlemark or so before sunset, but it was already dark under the trees. Kethry had found a site that looked perfect, with a tiny, clear stream nearby and a cleared area where one of the giant trees had fallen and taken out a wide swath of seedlings with it. That had left a hole in the green canopy above where sunlight could penetrate, and there were enough grasses and plants growing that there was browse for their animals. The tree had been down for at least a season, so the wood was dry and gathering enough firewood for the evening had been the task of less than a candlemark.

  Kethry discovered when she was sweeping out the area for stones to line a firepit that others had found the site just as perfect, for many of the stones bore scorch marks. Now their camp was set up, and the tiny fire burning brightly in the stone-lined pit. When they had entered this forest, Tarma had emphasized the importance of keeping their fires small and under strict control. Now that Kethry knew about the Hawkbrothers, she could guess why. This tree-filled land was theirs, and they doubtless had laws that a visitor to it had better keep, especially with winged watchers all about.

  She heard Tarma approaching long before she saw her; a dark shape looming back along the trail, visible only because it was moving.

  “Ho, the camp!” Tarma’s hoarse voice called cheerfully.

  “Ho, yourself—what was your luck?”

  “Good enough. From this place you take no more than you need, ally or not. Got browse?”

  Tarma appeared in the firelight, leading Kessira, something dangling from her hand.