Before Gwena could jerk her head away, Elspeth had her by the bottom of the hackamore. 'Look,' she said tightly, 'You know how important strategy is. That, and tactics. Especially here and now.
Gwena tried to look away; Elspeth wouldn't let her. 'Yes,' she agreed faintly.
'You have been withholding information,' Elspeth continued, her voice still dangerously flat and calm. 'Information that I-we need to have to plan intelligently. What would you do to someone who had deliberately withheld information that vital?' Gwena shook her head slightly, as much as Elspeth's hold on her hackamore would permit.
'I. Have. Had. Enough.' Elspeth punctuated each word with a little shake of the halter. 'If you haven't worked that into your 'great plan,' you'd better start thinking about it. No more holding back. DO you understand?
Gwena rolled her eyes and started to pull away. Elspeth wouldn't let her, and Gwena was obviously not going to~ exert her considerable strength in something that might harm her Herald. But from the look of shock in her bright blue eyes, she had not expected this reaction from Elspeth.
'I said, do you understand me?' Elspeth pulled her head down and stared directly into her eyes.
Darkwind stood with his arms crossed, jaw set in a stern expression.
He was trying his best to give the impression he supported Elspeth's actions completely. In fact, he did.
'Yes,' Gwena managed.
'Are you going to stop holding back information?' Gwena pawed the ground unhappily, but clearly Elspeth was not going to let her go until she got an answer she liked.
'Yes,' she said, meekly, obviously unable to see any other way out of the confrontation.
'Good.' Elspeth let go of the halter. She straightened, put her hands on her hips, and gave Gwena a look that Darkwind could not read.
'Remember. You just gave your word.' Darkwind did not think that Gwena was going to forget.
*Chapter Thirteen
A gray sky gave no clue as to the time, but Darkwind thought it was not long after dawn. He had spent a restless night, haunted by the exhausted faces of the k'sheyna mages. He had not been expecting anyone so early and the first words out of Darkwind's mouth when Elspeth appeared at his ekele were, 'We cannot do it here.
He had been thinking hard about what they were to do; all during his meal, the long soak before bed (in the midst of which he had fallen asleep until a hertasi woke him), and into the night before sleep ook him.
And he had decided on certain provisions as he dressed. What they were to do was no problem; thanks to Elspeth and Treyvan he was accustomed now to improvising on existing spells. This would be a variation on the seeking-spell. But where-that was different. It could not be done within the confines of the Vale, even outside the shielded Practice ground. He knew that with deep certainty that had only hardened during sleep. Every instinct revolted when he even considered the idea.
Something was happening -to the Heartstone, or possibly within it. He had no notion of what was going on, but now he did not want to do anything that affected it while within its reach. It was not just that the Stone had drained k'sheyna mages, it was the way it had happened. It had waited, or seemed to, until they were certain of success and off their guard.
Perhaps that had been accident, but what if it was not? He did not know. It didn't seem likely, but less likely things had been happening with dismaying regularity. These were strange times indeed.
He realized as soon as he said the words that Elspeth would have no idea what had been going through his mind since the meeting. He felt like a fool as soon as he closed his mouth.
She's going to think I've gone crazy, that I'm babbling.
But instead of confusion, Elspeth met the statement with a nod of understanding. 'Absolutely,' she replied, as if she had been talking to him about the problems all along. 'Too much interference from shields and set-spells, plus the Heartstone's proximity itself. I've been thinking about that since last night. That Heartstone of yours is acting altogether too clever for my comfort. I don't want to do something it might not like when I'm anywhere around it. It might decide that since I'm an Outlander, it'll do more than just drain me.'
'It is not a thinking being,' he protested, but without conviction.
'Maybe not, but it acts like it is.' She glanced back over her shoulder, in the direction of the Stone. 'Maybe it's all coincidence, or maybe it's something that Falconsbane set up a long time ago. But when it acts like it can think, I'm going to assume that it is thinking and act accordingly.' She grinned crookedly. 'As my Shin'a'in-trained teacher would say,'Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn't follow that you are wrong.'
' Shin'a'in proverbs from an Outlander. God help me. But he couldn't help but smile ruefully in reply. 'The trouble with proverbs is that they're truisms,' he agreed. 'You make me think that you are reading my thoughts, though.' it was a half-serious accusation, although he made it with a smile. It was no secret that these Heralds had mind-magic-but did they use it without warning?
She laughed. 'Not a chance. I don't eavesdrop, I promise. No Herald would. It was just a case of parallel worries. So, where are we going to go to work?' No Herald would. Perhaps the Companion might... but I suspect she knows that. He wasn't worried about her Companion reading his thoughts. It was not likely that there was anything he would think that a Guardian Spirit had not seen before.
'Have you eaten yet?' he asked instead. When she shook her head, he went back into his ekele and rummaged about in his belongings and what the hertasi had left him. He brought out two coats draped over his arm, and fruit and bread, handing her a share of the food. She took it with a nod of thanks. 'I thought,' he said after she had settled beside him on the steps, 'that we might work from the ruins.'
'The gryphon's lair?' She tipped her head to one side. 'There is a node underneath it. And we're likely to need one. But what aboutwellattracting things when we do the magic?'
'We won't have the shields of the Vale, and that's a problem,' he admitted, biting into a ripe pomera. 'I don't know how to get around that.' She considered that for a moment, then shrugged. 'We'll deal with it, I suppose,' she
