Dragon Blood

15 - WARDWICK

My father taught me that vengeance is meaningless. All that matters is surviving your enemies.

Unnoticed, I followed Garranon through the maze of halls that led to the guest rooms. Unlike me, he had no problem negotiating his way to the room he'd been given, three doors down from my own.

I walked on to my room and closed the door behind me. Chills crept down my spine and stayed there. Not because of Buril's fate, though that was certainly part of it. Not because of fear, though what I was planning scared me spitless.

I'd been thinking while the others had been arguing downstairs in the hall.

Jakoven's first two attacks had been aimed at Garranon. The king had been seeking revenge, I thought, because Garranon had left him at long last. They'd also been experiments, to see what the Bane could do, successful experiments. Jakoven wouldn't have wasted his last drop of Tychis's blood on experiments, so I had to assume he had enough to power the Bane for at least one more attack - a real attack this time. Only if a weapon tested well, my aunt said, should it be used in battle.

My father had respected Jakoven's grasp of strategy. And good strategy would send Jakoven to attack Hurog next. Jakoven, like my uncle, would have seen the power of Hurog over Shavig. If he took Hurog right now, before the first battle, Shavig would lose the united front against Jakoven. All the dragon-blooded people who lived at Hurog made it an even more inviting target, more power for his Bane. And by now, he'd know we were keeping Kellen there.

We'd been counting on the winter to keep Hurog safe until improvements to the gate and walls could be completed, but we'd left the Bane out of our calculations. Jakoven would need no besieging army to take out Hurog with the Bane - not if he killed every person in Buril in a matter of hours.

If I were Jakoven, I would take Hurog next. Since I was the Hurogmeten instead, I had to stop him - and Garranon had just told me how I might do it.

Garranon had asked how far away the Bane had been from Buril. I'd come up with an interesting answer.

Magic doesn't work well long distance. My own pain every time I left Hurog taught me that over and over again. Jakoven hadn't had to be at Hurog the night his creature had attacked - a geas had done the traveling for him. There were other ways to work magic over a distance. Runes sometimes worked - or a jewel could carry a spell almost forever until it was loosed. Oreg had once transported himself a day's ride to a place he'd never been - but, as he'd later explained, he'd only done that because the magic that had bound him to me pulled him far more strongly than his body did. So there were exceptions, but I didn't think that Buril was one of those.

I believed Jakoven had brought Farsonsbane to Buril - and I had the means to test my theory.

Sitting on my bed, I closed my eyes. I wouldn't look for Jakoven. Finding takes magic, and there was always a chance that a wizard might feel the magic I used to find him. So I sought Farsonsbane instead.

I thought of the Bane as I'd last seen it, an age-darkened bronze dragon, poorly wrought and crude. It was unremarkable except for the unmistakable power that hung about it and the small jewel that hovered in the dragon's mouth.

I found the Bane half a day's ride away to the north.

I opened my eyes and could barely breathe over the possibilities of what I had discovered. A chance.

As I'd tried to explain to Haverness, no man would want to announce he was using Farsonsbane - not in the position Jakoven found himself. He wanted a world to rule, not a barren wasteland. So he had to keep the Bane secret until people were so cowed by it, and him, they would not fight against it - say after he laid waste to Hurog, for instance, something more spectacular than the mere death he'd left behind him at Buril. But for now he had to keep it secret or his own men would turn against him.

If Jakoven had brought an army with him, they'd have turned on him the moment he brought out the Bane and used it. If he'd brought an army, his use of the Bane to destroy Buril would not be a secret. I knew with absolute certainty that Jakoven wasn't stupid enough to have brought an army with him.

He'd come in secret, and was leaving the same way. And I knew that Jade Eyes would be with him.

The chill in my spine was anticipation. A part of me salivated at the thought of sinking ax or blade into Jade Eyes's flesh. Blood lust was a portion of the legacy of my father, and not something I was proud of. But I preferred the hunger for Jade Eyes's death to the bone-deep fear the rest of me felt.

If I were to go after Jakoven, I couldn't let Kellen or the Oranstonians know what I intended. The Kellen who'd fought to engage the poor geas-driven thing Jakoven had sent after Garranon in my hall would never stay behind given a chance to face Jakoven one on one. That was something I wouldn't allow to happen. If the attempt to wrest the Bane from Jakoven failed, Kellen would be Shavig's only hope.

Jakoven had the Bane. With it he could slay any army sent against him if he had sufficient warning - warning that the sounds of an approaching army would bring. A stealth attack could work, though. If Jakoven were a half-day's ride away from Callis, traveling to Estian, it would take us at least two hard days to catch him.

I couldn't go alone. Jakoven couldn't have an army, but I had no doubt he'd brought his core of wizards and guardsmen he trusted. I'd bring Axiel ...

There was a soft tap at my door.

"Who is it?" I called, still wrestling with whom to take and how to contact them.

"Tisala," she said. "Are you all right, Ward?"

"Come in." Part of me would have left her behind, given the choice, but the rest of me was smarter than that. Our love would never survive if I tried too hard to keep her safe. Either I'd cripple her spirit until she wasn't my Tisala, or she'd leave me. So I was glad she'd come to my room, because I might not have asked her otherwise.

But I had a few things to say before I told her about Jakoven.

"You didn't look well," she said. "But I see you're doing better now. My father isn't expecting to have all the nobles here until the day after tomorrow - so I thought you might like to ride with me. It's better than waiting around."

She didn't meet my eyes as she said the last, pretending to look out the window. As if I didn't have far better reasons to ride with her than as an escape from boredom.

"I'm glad you came here," I said. "I need to tell you some things."

She turned back to me, her face carefully neutral.

I had never been a man of easy words, and the look on her face all but locked my throat.

"Look," I managed. "I've been trying to give you time, but I don't think I can do so any longer."

It somehow didn't seem fair that I should have to declare how I felt when she was standing across the room from me. I thought longingly about how much easier this would be if she had said it first, or if she were holding me as tightly as I wanted to hold her. But things were never easy around Tisala.

"I love you," I said, careful to keep my eyes on her face. She deserved to see the truth in my face. When she would have spoken, I held up my hand. "I am not saying that because I expect something from you. Unless you are a lot stupider than I think, you already knew how I felt - but I needed to give you the words. I intend to ask you to marry me, and if we survive until next week, I'll do that. Again, I don't need an answer. But I did need to tell you that."

Silence hung over my final words. I couldn't tell anything from her face, and when she finally spoke, it wasn't, directly, about what I'd told her.

"What's happening?" she asked.

I told her about Jakoven, the Bane, and what I intended to do. She heard me out and then said, "Who else will you take?"

"You know the country better than I," I said. "How many do you think I could take and not risk alerting the king's party?"

"Just how many people do you think Jakoven has?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Not many, I'd guess. At least ten, but not more than twenty, probably fewer than that. His wizards and a few guardsmen he'd trust to keep his secrets. Maybe a few more guards that he could eliminate before they have a chance to tell anyone what they've seen."

She swore softly to herself. "Gods, Ward. With such a small party, he'll be able to hear approaching groups easily. We'll have to be mounted, or we'll never catch up to him, and that will make us noisy. Not more than ten, I'd say."

"So I thought," I agreed. "We'll need Axiel. He has some knowledge of magic - it might make the difference between survival and not."

"I've seen him fight," she said, nodding in approval. "I can find him for you - and Tosten, too. He knows which end of his blade is which."

"I know where Garranon is," I said. "I don't know if he'll leave his wife now, but I thought he deserved a chance to avenge Buril if he wants it."

"Lys is tough," said Tisala. "She'll pull herself together if he needs to go."

"If he doesn't come, I'll talk to Duraugh," I said. "I don't want to. If I don't make it, Kellen and Beckram both will need his experience, but it will take more than four people. Rosem would be nice, but I don't want to try and take him without Kellen."

"What about Oreg?" Tisala asked.

"No," I said. "You know what he is. For longer than I care to think about, he was a slave of the Hurogmeten. When I first met him ... " I tried to think of a way to describe the terrified, defiant soul who'd offered himself to me with the platinum ring I still wore, though its spell was broken.

I decided finally that his condition after a thousand years of slavery was something I didn't need to share, not even with Tisala. "When I met him, he asked me a riddle as we stood over the bones of a dragon one of my ancestors had killed. He asked me if I would have let the dragon go free, knowing that by chaining it I could have saved Hurog."

I looked away briefly, remembering the sight of the chains that held the dragon long after its death. "I told him no. But he, wise man that he was, didn't believe me. In the end I proved that to save the world I would not only sacrifice Hurog, which I was sworn to protect, but also Oreg himself." I met her eyes. "I won't do it again. This is not Oreg's fight. I won't use him as my ancestor used that poor dragon who died in her chains."

"Out to save the world by yourself again, Ward?" she said.

I flinched at the truth of that, but I answered as honestly as I could. "I am the Hurogmeten. It is my job to protect the dragons that are left, not place them in jeopardy. Even if Jakoven uses the Bane to level the world, Oreg will survive."

"Will he?" she asked softly. "I don't think that he'd survive your death. Everyone needs a reason to live, Ward, even dragons. You didn't see him when you were in the Asylum and he couldn't get to you. I think that if you leave Oreg behind, even if you survive and win, Oreg won't. Letting the dragon go free is more than keeping it safe, you know."

"I won't use him," I said, but the battle was already lost, and even I knew it.

The door at my back opened and I turned on my heel to see Oreg slip in looking apologetic. "I spent a long time," he said to Tisala without looking at me, "spying on people and hearing things that I had no business hearing. For the last few years, I've been trying to drop old habits. So when I was walking to my room, and I grew tired and rested my head against the door to Ward's room, it wasn't to eavesdrop. But you can imagine my surprise when instead of Ward declaring his undying love, I heard my own name. Naturally, I had to listen to what he had to say."

"Naturally," agreed Tisala, smiling.

He held out a hand and she gave him hers, which he brought to his lips. "How good it is to hear someone else scold him on his tendency to usurp the rights of others under the pretext of protecting them."

Finally he looked at me and I saw a touch of anger in his eyes. "Ward, if I had been more observant in those years when you were growing to manhood in Hurog, I would not have had to ask that riddle. You have never sacrificed anything except yourself. I have apologized for forcing you to do what you had to do to keep the dragon bones from the hands of evil. You suffered from that and I was freed."

He took a deep breath and swallowed his anger. "There's a difference between using someone and asking them for help - which you know very well. You can't keep everyone safe, Ward." His voice gentled further. "I'm not a child - for all that I look younger than you. I'm not Ciarra or Tosten, who needed you to protect them."

He put his hand behind my neck and pulled me down until my forehead rested against his as he said softly, "I am the dragon that would have eaten you, if you'd managed to go defeat Jakoven without asking me to play, too."

I pulled away and laughed ruefully. "Fine. If you come, too, we just might manage to survive."

"Now," he said, "why didn't I hear you proposing to Tisala when I all but told you to? I think you might have scared her off if you'd asked her when you wanted to"  -  he turned to Tisala - "which would have been within ten minutes of the first time he saw you handle your sword"  -  back to me - "but if you keep trying to seduce her without telling her how you feel, she's going to think that your purpose is other than honorable. It's not like you to miss your aim, but if you hesitate too long, the rabbit'll escape the snare."

Tisala laughed and made little rabbit ears on the top of her head with her hands.

"Enough, Oreg," I said. But the blush staining my cheeks robbed some of the force from my voice.

"It's all right," said Tisala, still chuckling. "That's the first time anyone ever called me a rabbit. Actually, Oreg, if you'd started listening about five minutes earlier, you would have heard Ward's half of that very conversation. I haven't gotten around to my half yet. Why don't you go see if you can get Axiel and Tosten to meet us in the stables. Tell anyone who asks you that I suggested you three come out hunting with Ward and me." To me she explained, "My father just got word that the southern lords won't be here until late tomorrow. He'll think, at least for a while, that I took you out to entertain you."

"As my lady commands," said Oreg, grinning. He turned on his heel with military precision and shut the door as he left.

"He could still be listening," I said after the door closed behind Oreg.

"I'm older than you," she said baldly.

I waited.

"I'll never be beautiful."

"My dear lady," I said, exasperated. "I don't know if I ought to be angry that you think I am so shallow that I need an ornament at my side to be happy, or if I ought to tell you that when I first saw you wear court dress in your father's hall all those years ago, you made the other ladies fade into obscurity. Or if I should tell you of the heat in my blood every time I see you use your sword."

"At least I don't take my shirt off during sword practice," she accused. "Did you honestly think that I believed you were hot? There was snow on the ground."

I grinned at her, the butterflies in my stomach settling back to where they ought to be. Oreg, bless him, had been right about the effect of my embarrassing outburst on the raft.

"You didn't have to look," I suggested.

To my delight she snorted, sounding very much like Feather. "You're interrupting me," she said unfairly.

I obediently closed my mouth. The humor drained out of her face to be replaced by something that made my heart pound. She stepped forward and touched the side of my face. I closed my eyes briefly and turned my head into her touch until she withdrew it.

"I tried so hard not to love you," she whispered. "I didn't want to love a Shavig barbarian. Shavig's winters are too cold."

"At least it doesn't rain all the time," I said, my voice hoarse.

"Ward, I love you. If we both make it out of this alive, I will marry you - gods help you - if you still want to marry me."

Yes! I caught my cry of triumph before it passed my lips, but I grabbed her around the waist and swung her high. She laughed, gripping my shoulders. The joy in my heart was matched by her eyes.

I let her slide down my body, savoring the muscled curves of thighs and belly, the softer touch of her breasts. I stopped her when her mouth was level with mine and tasted her lips with more relief than passion - though that quickly changed.

She hadn't been kissed often. I could tell from the occasional surprised sounds she made. I was out of practice and bit her bottom lip a little too sharply once. When I would have pulled back, though, she returned the favor.

At last, nibbling on the corner of my mouth, Tisala said, "I'm too heavy for this."

I laughed. Aroused as I was, I could have held her forever, but I used the excuse to set her down before I did something we'd both regret.

"If we don't hurry, Oreg will be back up here," I said.

She touched my chest lightly and the sensation burned into my skin. "I'll go tell my father that we're going out hunting."

I knocked lightly.

Garranon opened the door. "Ward?"

"If you'll give me a minute," I said, "I have a proposition that might interest you."

"Let him in," said his wife from somewhere behind him.

Garranon stepped back and allowed me into his room, shutting the three of us in the small room - four if I counted the exhausted child sleeping in the bed.

"My husband tells me that you believe that Jakoven holds Farsonsbane and that he used it to kill our people." Allysaian sat upright on the edge of the bed and Garranon took up a stance in front of the window. The separation between them was as vast and solid as ice.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you or your wizard have an idea of how to stop him?" she asked.

"Yes, actually, that's what I came to talk to Garranon about, Lady," I said, and, as succinctly as possible, I told them what I intended to do.

When I was through, Garranon shook his head, the expression on his face showing nothing but mild regret. "I have told my lady that I will not leave again."

"He regrets that he had left me all these years and forced me to play the lord rather than the lady," said Allysaian expressionlessly.

A muscle in Garranon's face tightened.

I turned to Garranon. "Do you think that you could have prevented the deaths of your people where your wife did not?"

His eyebrows climbed up his beautiful face. "Of course not." He made a sharp dismissive gesture with his hand. "The only way to have prevented this is if I'd had the courage to kill Jakoven while he slept."

"If you had done that," his wife said hotly, "you would be dead. And Buril would have been razed to the ground as the holding of a regicide, and our people left to the bandits. This is not your fault."

"Isn't it?" he asked.

"No," she said. "No more than it is mine."

"If I had not been his lover ... " he began.

"There's no profit in that," I said. "My father complained bitterly about you. He used to say that if it hadn't been for you, the king would have divided up Oranstone among his loyal followers, including him. I doubt that was completely true - but I don't know how much of his restraint was for your sake and neither do you."

"My father," said Allysaian as she stood up and touched Garranon's rigid shoulder, "told me that the king gathered the children of the rebels together to kill them and break Oranstone's heart, but he changed his mind abruptly after walking through the cells where the children were held - after seeing you."

Garranon took his wife's hand tightly and looked at me. "Jakoven won't be alone - why do you think you can take him?"

"Oreg can handle anything the wizards throw at him," I said. "With you, Tisala, and Axiel to cover the sword work, I'll take on the Bane. It was my blood that woke it, and I think I know something about how it was made. Enough, maybe, to unmake it."

Allysaian rose onto her toes and kissed Garranon on the cheek. "Go, my lord," she said. "Do what must be done and come back to me."

He bent and kissed her, not a gentle kiss good-bye, but one full of promise.

Axiel, Oreg, and Tosten were already mounted with a second horse tied to their saddles when we got to the stables. Tisala was arguing with one of the stablemen. When she saw us, she pointed at me, and the stableman followed her finger and frowned before turning abruptly and disappearing into the stable.

Tisala handed off the two horses she'd been holding to Garranon and followed the stableman. She returned with another pair of horses.

"Having trouble finding a horse up to my weight?" I asked, eyeing the small, narrow-chested, fine-boned horses she held.

Tisala grinned at me. "These are mine. They could carry you all the way back to Hurog without showing the effects," she said, patting one arched neck fondly. "But you'd die of embarrassment before you'd ridden a mile with your feet dragging in the mud. We have a couple that will do you better, I think."

The stableman came out with a young gray mare much taller and stouter than any of the other horses he'd brought out. There was something about her hindquarters that looked familiar, but her raw-boned head matched the other Oranstone horses. I took the reins and mounted.

"She's not a trained warhorse," warned Tisala. "She's just coming four and is still pretty green."

I nodded my head and sat still, letting the mare adjust to my weight. The stableman came out with my second mount and I took a good look at her before I turned a chiding expression at Tisala. The mare the stableman held was a dead ringer for my Pansy, except that she lacked his thick stallion's neck.

Tisala laughed at my face. "We had your stallion for almost a month," she said. "Do you really think I wouldn't take advantage of it? My father was appalled that I did it without asking."

"Be careful with the dark mare, my lord," advised the stableman as he reluctantly handed over her reins. "She loses her temper if she doesn't understand what you want of her."

"Her sire's the same way," I told him, knowing from the way his hands lingered on her neck that she was a favorite. "I'll take good care of her."

We left Callis without incident, moving at a steady trot. The mare I rode was sensible, for all that she was young, and it didn't take her long before she steadied under me and ignored the antics of her dark sister.

"I thought you said Pansy was a cow," I said.

Tisala snickered. "That was before I saw him in battle. It hurt, though, to write that name on her pedigree."

Tosten, riding beside us, grinned. "The name our father gave him is Stygian, if you'd prefer. That's the one we use on the breeding papers."

She shook her head. "My father's stable master doesn't speak Shavig, and I didn't tell him a pansy was a flower."

It was raining, which surprised no one. Winter in Oranstone was one long rainstorm. But as evening approached, the water poured out of the skies as if some giant were dumping out her mop bucket on our heads - or so Oreg claimed.

"At least we won't freeze to death," replied Garranon in exasperation at Oreg's complaints.

Behind Garranon, Oreg grinned, having worked at getting a rise out of Garranon for the last ten miles. "But the snow you can dress for," whined the dragon in human seeming. "The wet seeps into everything and you can't get warm. And everything is covered in mud."

"He's trying to cheer Garranon up," I told Tisala as the discussion descended into a series of childish comparisons of Oranstone to Shavig.

She laughed and pushed her gelding ahead until she rode shoulder to shoulder with Oreg. "How many Shavigmen does it take to saddle a horse?" she asked.

"At least in Shavig we ride horses instead of ponies," claimed Tosten, riding up to join them.

"I hope you know what you're doing," said Axiel to me under the cover of the resulting hilarity.

I shook my head. "But if I don't do something, Hurog will be next to fall to the Bane." I explained my reasoning and Axiel nodded agreement.

"The Bane is powered by Hurog blood, Axiel," I told him. "I don't know that anyone other than Oreg and I have a chance at it. I thought about asking Haverness's wizard for help - but he's the most powerful wizard who's not bound to the king. If we fail here, he'll be the best chance they have."

"If we fail," said Axiel soberly, "my father will join the fight. If we had the strength we had half a millennia ago that might be enough to turn the tides. But I'm afraid dwarvenkind will fall as easily as the Empire did."

"I hadn't thought of that," I said. "I only thought about having someone I trusted at my back." I thought a moment. "I wish I knew how many people he has with him. But I don't know Jakoven's private guard well enough to seek them, and I can't try to find his wizards without the risk of alerting them. If you think this is putting your people in danger, Axiel, you need to go back to Callis."

He shook his head. "No. If the Bane survives us, everyone must join in the fight. At least this way my father will be spared endless debate. If I die, he is within his rights to declare war without consulting anyone else."

I gave him a strained smile. "Let us hope it doesn't come to that, eh?"

He nodded his head.

We rode several hours in the dark, several hours past the time when Jakoven's party had stopped ahead of us. We only halted when Tisala determined that the swamp in front of us couldn't be crossed in the dark.

Axiel, Tosten, and Oreg set up camp - such as it was - while Garranon, Tisala, and I consulted her father's maps by my magelight. Tisala showed me where we were and lined the map up with the trail. Then she and Garranon made educated guesses as to where Jakoven was from the information I could give them.

There were only two passes through the mountains into Tallven that Jakoven could be headed for. The first was the pass I had taken into Oranstone four years ago, and the second was more difficult and less used.

If we followed Jakoven at our present pace, we'd catch up to him well into Tallven, but still a day's travel from Estian. If we chose correctly, we had a chance of catching up much sooner, because the direct route to either pass was chock-full of swamp and mire. Jakoven'd have to ride around, and Tisala knew a better route to either pass. If we chose the wrong one, there was a chance that Jakoven would get to Estian before we caught him.

I left Garranon and Tisala discussing the relative merits of both passes and approached Oreg, who was struggling with one of the oilskin tent coverings. My extra hand made short work of the problem.

"I need to talk to you," I said to him.

Oreg found a seat on the raised root of a walnut tree. I crouched in front of him.

"Jakoven probably has his wizards with him," I said. "He has Farsonsbane and he is something of a wizard himself. I don't know how good he is, but Jade Eyes and Arten are both very strong - if ignorant by your standards."

"You want me to take on the wizards while you attack the Bane," he said neutrally.

"There is some connection between the Bane and me," I said. And I worried that if it was I who confronted Jade Eyes, my fear of him would defeat my desire for his death.

He nodded his head. "Have you considered that the connection goes both ways? It might make you an easier victim."

"Yes," I said. "What do you think?"

"You said that you felt it recognized you?"

I nodded my head. "It felt a little like the magic of Hurog but more intelligent. I think it's like the memories of Menogue - still tied to the remembrance of being dragons. I made it curious."

Oreg rubbed his hands together as if they were cold. "Did it feel like one creature or three?"

I closed my eyes, trying to remember. "There was a ... texture to it, yes. Not really separate, more like a rug where several strands of yarn are bound together."

"So after your blood touched it, it recognized you," he murmured.

"No," I shook my head. "Before. It's hard to explain. I don't think the Bane was ever completely dormant - just powerless. As soon as Jakoven took it out of the bag he'd enspelled to hide the Bane, I could see blackness flowing from it, though neither Jakoven nor Jade Eyes seemed to see it. When the black power touched me, it knew me - or maybe it knew Hurog's magic."

"Did it feel evil?"

I shook my head. "No more than Menogue or Hurog."

"And after he used your blood?"

I tried to remember how it had felt. "The stone turned blue, and I felt a wild surge of magic." I remembered something else. "I think it was connected somehow to Jakoven - the stone's blue magic. But the blackness was a separate thing."

"We'll play it the way you want to, if we can," said Oreg finally. "I'll try to stop Jakoven's wizards and leave the Bane to you."

I gave up crouching and sat on another root. It was wet, but not very muddy. "I wondered if the spell binding the dragon's magic to the stone might not be similar to the one your father used to bind you to the keep."

Oreg nodded. "Probably."

"When I broke the spell that held you to Hurog," I said, with a flash of visceral memory of my knife sinking into Oreg's side, "I felt the weave of the magic binding. I might be able to unbind it."

"That might not be what you ought to do," said Oreg after a moment. "It's not just magic that is bound to the stone, but the spirits of three dragons who are not very happy with the human race right now. Farson tried to use the Bane the way other wizards used a rowan staff - but the only magic he could work with the Bane was destructive, and that was when the spell was new."

"What do you suggest?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I've never gotten as close to the Bane as you have. You'll have to play it as it comes. Just be careful."

We ate the stew Axiel had created with dried meat and bits of this and that. Flavored by hunger and cold, it tasted better than it was. Tisala and Garranon between them had decided that Jakoven was headed for the less well-known pass.

"I wouldn't have thought that a Tallven would even have heard of the pass, but Garranon tells me that Jakoven knows geography," said Tisala before she blew on the stew steaming on the small chunk of dry bread.

Garranon nodded. "He's smarter than he lets on. There'll still be merchants traveling the greater pass to Estian. He won't want to meet anyone. The only people who use the other pass are hunters and bandits. With the Bane and his wizards he has little to fear from bandits, and the hunters on this pass are a wary bunch. They'd never approach a party of strangers."

"I know a path that bypasses most of the swamp that Jakoven seems to be traveling through," said Tisala. "If he's where Ward says he is now, we'll beat him to the pass and wait there."

Tosten had brought his harp, and he played it by the dying fire. We joined in the songs we knew, and he surprised Axiel with a mournful tune sung in the dwarven tongue. Axiel sang the chorus with him and added a verse or two.

"I didn't know you understood Dwarven, Tosten," Axiel said when they'd finished.

Tosten shook his head. "I don't. But your cousin several times removed taught me that one when your folks came to help rebuild the keep. Here's something a little less sad." His fingers plucked a rapid, catchy rift and he sang another of his "Shavig Giant" songs - a little more polished than the last time I'd heard it.

When he was finished, I banked the fire while Oreg checked on the horses. Tisala ducked into the smaller tent while Axiel and Garranon disappeared into the larger one.

Tosten laced his harp case and looked thoughtfully at my face. "Oreg told me Tisala accepted your proposal."

I nodded.

"Ward, our chances of getting out of this aren't good, are they?"

I stopped what I was doing. "No," I said.

He finished lacing his harp. "We decided - Oreg, Garranon, Axiel, and I - that there was only room for four in the big tent." He stood up and glanced at the smaller tent, set apart from the others. "And even that will be crowded. Since you're the biggest of us, we decided you'll have to share with Tisala."

I gave him a slow smile, which he returned briefly. Then his face became serious and he put his hand on my shoulder, "Ward - " he began, before coming to an uncertain halt, unable to say the words. So he said something else. "Ward, I'm glad you are my brother."

"Me, too," I said. Then after he ducked into the larger tent, I said the words I was too much my father's son to say to his face. "I love you, too, Tosten."

"He knows," said Oreg, coming out of the darkness where the horses were making quiet horse-noises. He tossed me my bedroll, which I'd left with my saddle, and took the camp shovel from me and finished banking the fire.

Wordlessly, awkwardly, I rested my hand on his shoulder.

Oreg set the shovel aside and patted my hand. "I know, too."

He left me alone by the banked fire. I looked for Jakoven and found him in the same place he'd been for the last few hours, camped far enough from us that there was no chance he'd smell our campfire.

I stuck my head into Tisala's tent, my bedroll under my arm.

"They told me there was no room for me in the other tent," I said diffidently.

"Come in, Ward," she said.

In the golden glow of my magelight, I pulled my boots off and set them just inside the tent next to hers. She waited until I had finished and was setting my bedroll beside her blankets before she pulled off her wool tunic to reveal only a thin silk undershirt. I saw a glint of pink shiny skin along her triceps where a sword had nicked her. She didn't look at me when she untied her trousers and folded them for tomorrow. Like a boy, she wore silk shorts under the trousers, but like her top, it was thin and revealed the flesh beneath.

"I can keep my clothes on," I said in a hoarse whisper. "We can sleep together for warmth."

She turned to me then, blushing hard enough that even in the dim glow I could see it. "Is that what you want?"

No! Absolutely not, I thought.

"I will not use this to push you into something you don't want," I said, instead.

"That's not what I asked," she observed. She gripped the bottom of her shirt, and pulled it over her head. I still might have resisted, but the hands that still held her shirt while she sat half naked before me were white-knuckled and shaking.

I closed the distance between us and pulled her head against my shoulder. "Before we begin," I said into the pale softness of her ear, "I need to know if you've done this before." I remembered the bruises the king's torturer had left on her thighs and hoped she'd had a dozen lovers before him.

She nodded against me and whispered, "Once, and I swore I'd not do it again. I never thought it worth repeating until now."

She obviously didn't know I was aware of that rape. Her wry tone was meant to kept me from feeling sorry for her, and gloss over the incident. I understood the impulse. I ran a hand over her bare back and up under her hair, feeling her tremble as my fingers closed on the back of her neck,

"Ah," I said. "The main thing to remember is that making love is at once the silliest and the most sacred act humans can perform. There is no wrong between us, Tisala, only things that feel good and things that don't. If you like something or if you don't, you have to tell me. Please, it's very important for you to tell me, especially if something hurts."

"All right," she said tightly.

I left her and arranged our blankets as best I could. Nerves had robbed me of much of my passion. I wished I had something better than a bed of coarse blankets over marshy soil.

The first time was full of shy caresses and urgent needs. It was somewhat painful for her still, I thought, though she didn't tell me except with a few involuntary twitches of muscle in her face. The second time was better.

I held Tisala while she slept, and listened to Oreg take watch from Garranon. I'd called for three watches with two sentries a watch, but no one tried to wake either of us. I closed my eyes and savored her warmth against me.

Tisala listened to his quiet breathing, and held very still so she wouldn't wake him.

He thought her a warrior, brave and ... She wondered if he knew just how frightened she had been. He hadn't said anything, but his hands had been very careful as he replaced the nightmarish memories with his caress.

It amazed her how different the sensations of the same touches performed by different men were, what a delicate touch his big hands had, causing pleasure rather than violation.

One of those hands tightened about her and shifted her closer. It might have been a more comfortable position for her sleeping lover, but now her neck bent at an awkward angle.

She smiled as she wiggled until she was in her former position. Let him sleep this night, but if this would be the only night she had with him, she intended to stay awake for the whole of it.

A large arm slid from its resting place under her waist until it was under her hip and heaved, leaving her, somewhat surprised, on top of him. He examined her with sleepy eyes.

"Still awake, eh?" he asked, his voice low with sleep and other, more private things. "Can't have that."

When he was finished with her, she fell asleep before she could remind herself to stay awake.