Flight of the Godkin Griffin, page 17
But you won’t.
“I already have,” I say.
Words, words. Ragna reaches into the tub to tickle my sides.
I squawk—yes, I’m afraid I really do—and grab her, and so it is that Silfie catches us tangled together, half in the tub and half out of it, covered in bubbles and bandages and nothing else, fighting with sliding brushes and a bar of soap.
“So many questions and I’m not sure which to lead with,” Silfie says with casual exhaustion. She unclips her cloak, dropping it behind her, and says, “Make room for me. I think the dried blood is the only thing keeping me standing.”
Ragna’s whiskers twist in a snicker. I’m not sure how we’re going to fit three of us in one tub…I’m thin, but not that thin. Nevertheless, Silfie’s soon wearing nothing but her gods-given ruddy pelt and has an arm in the water.
“How’s the field looking?” I ask, noting the spiral crusts of blood and sweat framing the knob of one of her hips.
“Dirty. Bloody. Stinks,” she says. “It’s going a while to finish counting the dead and tending the wounded. Our allies fared badly…far worse than we did.”
To be expected, that. We’re a regiment, trained to work together in battle, and they were only villagers. I’m not looking forward to my next meeting with my allies.
They’ll think it’s worth it, is Ragna’s comment.
“Let’s let them finish counting before we get too grim.” I hand a brush to Silfie who wedges herself into the tub next to me. I don’t know how…probably only because Ragna’s out of it again. The pard goes back to washing my back. I have no idea how she can stare past that tuft of foam on her nose without going cross-eyed.
“It’ll be good to get off this gods-accursed mountain,” Silfie continues. “What is it with mountain people?”
“I suppose the territory encourages isolation,” I say, all too aware that the woman behind me is one of those mountain people. “When the land itself bars your way, it’s easy to become insular.”
Silfie looks good in soap. Silfie just looks good, in fact. The years have been very kind to her body: enough lines and softness to nod to passing age, but with all the hard strength of constant exercise. I know I’ve said this before, but she was wearing clothes the first time I said it.
Oh my, oh my.
Ragna is laughing at me, I know it. Stubbornly, I press on. “What questions?”
“Well, what happened to Magwen, for one?” Silfie asks. “And for two: why is a foreign shaman guarding your tent flap?” She glances at Ragna. “Why isn’t she clothed would be a third, I guess.”
“Magwen,” I start, then sigh. “Magwen will need talking-to. I just don’t have the energy to discipline him now. Ragna’s not clothed because she just came from bathing in a mountain stream and as far as I know the pard clans weren’t exactly in a position to return her clothing when we left them last. And there’s a foreign shaman guarding my tent flap?”
I told you so when I entered. Such an air of innocence Ragna has. The brush digs into my mid-back.
“I thought you were making light!” I exclaimed.
“Why would I make light of something like that?” Silfie asks.
I glance at her, frowning. “I meant that for Ragna.”
Silfie chuckles and soaps up her chest. “In response to what…her look?”
“No,” I say, distracted by Silfie, entirely too distracted. “In response to her answer.”
“But she hasn’t said anything since I walked in,” Silfie says, glancing at the pard with lifted brows.
Suddenly I remember Ragna’s tongue. I turn slowly to look at the pard. I can’t stand the intensity of her answering gaze, so knowing, a challenge delivered with the mildly fanned whiskers of a smile. I turn back around. “Her body language is so obvious. I just hear the dialogue in my head.”
“Even when your back is turned to her?” Silfie asks.
Suddenly I’m done with this conversation, this entire situation. I pull myself out of the tub, dripping soap and bubbles, and start toweling myself off. My body complains but I ignore it.
“Angharad?” they both ask, seem to ask, whatever.
“I have things to do,” I say, jerking on a clean blouse and a pair of pants. With difficulty, given my wet pelt, but I do it anyway. Hopefully they haven’t developed mystical powers of intuition—that way they won’t catch how much it hurts to do this without seeming to need help.
They don’t stop me as I leave.
The camp is still empty. It will be for hours yet. It takes a while to clean up from battles, and not all my impatience to be done with the mountains, the pards and everything associated with them will make that process any faster.
“You have cause to be unsettled, Godkin,” a voice at my back says.
“I thought you were guarding my tent flap,” I say, turning to face Negrat.
He grins but his eyes are not laughing. “I was, Godkin. You left your tent with such determination you did not notice me following.”
“Are you sure I didn’t notice you, or is this another magic trick?” I ask. I’m getting grumpier. My hair is dripping down my back—I hate that.
“In magic there are no tricks,” the shaman says, unperturbed. “Only the real made malleable.”
I stare at him.
“You will learn these things the deeper into Shraeven you go,” he says. “That is why I am going with you. To teach you.”
“What about your village?” I ask. “Won’t they miss your guidance?”
“The village will find a new shaman…though your concern does you credit,” Negrat says. “However your development is far more important to my country than any village’s spiritual counsel.”
“Your country is a province now,” I say, pulling my hair over my shoulder and twisting it. Water spurts around my fingers, splotching the ground black.
“So you say now,” Negrat says. “We shall see what happens by the time you finish your trek in-country.”
My trek in-country will not change the Godson’s choke-hold on any of his properties…but it’s no use arguing that with someone who thinks magic is real. Speaking of which. “So you are going to oversee my magical education, is that it?”
“You will thank me for the teaching before we’re done,” he says.
I laugh. “Is that prophecy or a threat?”
He grins, dark eyes twinkling from between the folds of skin and fur. “You shall see.”
“How will I learn anything if you’re always so cryptic?” I ask, continuing to squeeze the water from my mane.
“How will you learn anything if I tell you all the answers?”
I sigh. “Spoken like a priest.”
“And so I am one, of a sort. All is well,” Negrat says.
I glance back toward the cliffs and think of the tally of the dead and wounded. We’ll be busy tonight. What will we do with the remaining pards? And will my allies still be as firm in their support after they count their lost? “Is it well, really?”
“Yes, Godkin woman. It truly is.”
And for some reason, hearing him say it, I believe it.
“The leaders should be free to speak with you, Godkin woman,” he says as he digs into a pouch at his waist.
“Then I should speak with them,” I say. “Are you coming?”
“Of course. I’m one of them.” He leans down and places a pebble next to the splotches on the ground as I watch, perplexed. When he straightens, he grins at my expression and says, “You will want to know this spot when you see it next.”
I shrug. “As you say.”
Chapter
Fifteen
“They say you are mighty.”
I stare at the handful of Shraevenese leaders who fought the pard battle with us. The one who spoke has a bandage over his cheek up to his forehead, but his eyes are steady.
“Now we know it’s true,” he says. “You will be Shraeven’s new head of state.”
I get the feeling there’s more to being Shraeven’s “head of state” than the Godson would like. But it’s not my place to tell these people so. They like me—fine. I like them too. I especially like them for choosing to ally with me against one of their own in the name of righteousness. That takes courage and steel bones.
“I’ve had easier victories,” I say and they grin or chuff or laugh, and I’m glad I read their mood right. We’re sitting in the tent erected for conferences, out of the wind with its carrion breath. “But I’m glad of this one. We shed blood together and no bond is stronger.”
“Truth, truth,” they murmur. The valley leader says, “What will you do now with the pards that remain?”
“I thought I’d give them to you,” I say. “To all of you. There aren’t very many left.”
“To execute?” one of them muses.
“No,” I say. “While I am governor here there will be no executions without trials.” Except on the battlefield. “You may try the pards if you can bring a crime against them. But I suggest you integrate what remains of them into your villages and towns. Surely you have some mercy for women and children.”
“For women and children, yes,” the man says. “For men and beasts—none at all.”
“If there are men and beasts left, then we can discuss what to do with them,” I say. “But I doubt, highly, that there are any men and beasts left.”
An approving growl this time.
“You will continue on, then, Godkin Woman?” the valley leader says. “Out of the mountains? We will be glad to finish the remaining tasks here. You are needed at the seat.”
“Not just needed, but overdue if I don’t keep moving,” I say. “Yes, I’ll move on. But if you will see my second, she’ll have a document for you to sign. When we meet a common foe on a battlefield we like to have a record of the alliance for ourselves and for our allies. As a sign of victory and friendship. I’d be honored if you would put your marks to it.”
“It is we who are honored,” the valley leader says.
Outside the tent, I reflect on how quickly I went from foreign interloper to honored war leader. I don’t notice my shadow until he says, “Of course it was swift. Few people are unmoved by someone who will take a beating on their behalf.”
“Did you just read my thoughts?” I ask, eyeing Negrat.
“Were you sending them to be read?”
I fold my arms—with a hiss, since they still hurt—and scowl. “This is related to what Ragna was doing, isn’t it.”
“Was od Ragna doing it, or were you?” Negrat asks.
“I don’t know!” I exclaim.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yes!” Now I’m exasperated, and Negrat lifting his hands and laughing only makes my frustration more acute. “What?”
“At last, you have admitted you may not have all the answers,” he says. “Finally, we can begin.”
“Shamans!” I mutter.
At last, there is organization…among my men, at least. I put myself to work checking on them, visiting the wounded and conferring with my captains. Here I learn the grim news about Oweir and Donal—their units were charged with the area broken through by the beasts. Oweir has no unit left…and Donal’s is down a third of his people. I need to have a full conference but not here where the natives can listen. I trust them but only as long as they believe in my strength. I don’t need them listening to a report of my army’s weaknesses.
So I pass the word: “Pack up. We’re leaving as soon as we can.” And my people are relieved.
Magwen stays out of my way—good tactics, since I’m still in the mood to eviscerate him. Silfie and Ragna seem no worse for having shared my tub…in fact, they seem friendlier now, making me wonder what transpired in my absence. Negrat is my new bodyguard, or at least so it seems—he follows me anywhere I go and camps outside any tent I enter to await my return. I’m used to people following me, so I let him. At least he’s not in the way.
I want to get off this mountain.
A few days later, we finally band together to start back down the mountainside, toward the valleys and the road further inland. I’m relieved to find Honeydipped mending though not hale enough yet to ride…so I have my old beast saddled for me, and on the pommel I find one extremely sated corvid messenger.
“Glutted yourself, did you?” I ask.
The raven beams. Sleepily. Despite knowing how it got such a smug expression, I can’t help a chuckle as I pull myself gracelessly astride.
“I’m glad someone had a good time,” I say, and turn the beast toward the path for the slow clamber down to civilization.
A train of soldiers takes a while to file out of a valley. The last of my people is just exiting beneath my watchful eye when Negrat rides up. I feel like I should be surprised that he’s on a squat, sturdy mount with ram’s horns, but I’m not. Can you imagine a shaman on a normal beast? Me neither.
“There’s a thing for you to see before you follow them,” he says. “Come with me.”
I shrug—gingerly—and turn my mount after his.
He leads me to a nondescript place—without our camp as marker, it recedes back into the countryside, just another jumble of rocks and flat places.
“What should I be looking at?” I ask.
He points down.
There’s a pebble there. Also a flower. A flower? A pebbl—oh.
“I told you we would want the spot marked.”
“Why is there a flower growing from solid rock here?” I ask.
“Because you shed water there, and it grew,” the shaman says cheerfully. His legs stick out over the plump barrel of his riding sheep. The whole conversation feels as ridiculous.
I dismount, which makes the messenger ruffle his feathers on my saddle, and carefully crouch next to this flower. When I brush the dirt layer away from the ground near it, I feel a thick crack. “This flower didn’t just split the rock overnight. Did it?”
“Sometimes they do that,” he says, eyes twinkling.
I eye the flower. “You’re about to tell me this has great meaning.”
“Of course,” he says. “That is a baby’s-bed blossom. Named because it mimics the color of the afterbirth. Such flowers are good luck and are said to presage a rebirth when spotted in the highlands…where they are rare.”
I cover my eyes. “The water I squeezed from my hair dropped on solid rock and sprouted a portentous flower.”
“Why, yes, I suppose you could say it that way,” Negrat says, beaming.
I get back onto my mount. “Let me guess. I’m getting better with the mystic symbols part of magic.”
“It’s not hard to be better at something you were terrible at before,” Negrat offers.
“Augh!” says the corvid messenger, echoing my feelings. Negrat laughs. I admit it—so do I.
Chapter
Sixteen
“Mistress, I beg your indulgence.”
Yes, he’d better. I don’t even look at him until his voice comes again, muffled, “Please, Mistress.”
He’s lying flat on the ground with his limbs stretched and his face in the dirt.
“Oh, for the sake of the gods, Magwen,” I say. “Get up before my mount decides to step sideways onto your head.”
He draws himself up to his knees but no further. The train is squeezing through a narrow passage between a long drop and a cranky cliffside that hurls rocks at intervals. It’s a slow process and I’m at the back, watching. Which means Magwen has plenty of time to make his abject apologies to me before I get my turn down the trail.
“Mistress, please. I was out of line.”
“Yes, you were,” I say. “Tell me, Magwen. Did it occur to you that as a nineblood you weren’t worthy of someone of my position even before I got mobbed by animals?”
“I have always known that, Mistress,” he says, eyes downcast.
“So it was just your tongue running ahead of your mouth,” I say.
“Yes, Mistress,” he says.
I like it when they’re succinct…unless I don’t understand why they made the mistake. “I’d come to expect better of you, Magwen. You seemed so discreet. Now I’m not so certain.”
“I am sorry, Mistress,” he says. “I was simply overcome by thoughts of your future welfare.”
“Your job is to see to my current welfare, Magwen. I’ll worry about my own future.”
“Yes, Mistress,” he says, still looking at the ground.
My mount shifts under me, sensing my irritation. I sigh and say, “I’ll forgive you.”
“Thank you, Mistress—”
“—later,” I say. “Until then, you will put your extraordinary cooking skills to use feeding the company. When I decide I’m ready to look at your face again I’ll have someone get you for me. And until then, you are free to tell anyone who asks that you ended up cooking in the mess tent because you failed me. Because you do realize that you failed me, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mistress,” he says.
“Get out of here,” I say, and he lifts himself to his feet and quickly takes himself away.
I sigh.
The green of the valley is below us, some distance still, but at last we can see it. It seems like ages since I sat astride Honeydipped in that verdant field, wondering where Ragna had gone…or been taken.
Sometimes it is good to come full circle.
In keeping with the day, Ragna is missing again. This time I offer my thin wrist to the messenger, who hops onto it after a moment’s teasing disobedience.
“My pard,” I tell the messenger gravely, “is missing again. Can you find her for me?”
A disdainful stare. Of course he can.
“Would you find her for me?” I ask. “Please.”
That’s what he was waiting to hear. With a hissing shuffle of feathers, the messenger is in the air. I am content and go back to supervising the train’s passage as it continues down trails that are growing broader and easier. The men are of greater cheer now that the valley’s in sight. A few more days and we’ll have passed through the valley and resumed the journey broken by our little detour into the high peaks.
