trap with a determined gait despite branches of bitter-thorn raking her flanks and tearing a pale gray feather from her wings. Those wings, folded tight, protected Marit's legs.
'That's the second warning you've given me, or maybe the third,' said Marit, bending low in case some cursed fool decided to loose an arrow or fling a spear.
As they cleared the canyon and found themselves in a rugged intersection of hills and ridges with the suggestion of a valley opening away to the southeast and the sharp spine of the high mountains to the west, Marit wondered if she had imagined the ambush.
'You choose,' she said to the mare. 'Anywhere but north.'
The mare took flight, bearing due south according to the sun. Steep hills were easily cleared. Almost before Marit realized they had come upon human life, they sailed over a high meadow where a flock of sheep grazed. The youth watching over the flock plucked strings, head bent over a two-stringed lute.
The mare trotted to earth out of sight of the meadow, and Marit left her with reins loose, hoping the horse wouldn't stray. She cut through a stand of pine, thick with scent, and brushed through knee-high grass at the meadow's edge. The lad played intently, biting a lip. His concentration gave him charm. A handsome dog emerged from behind him and ran toward her with ears raised, interested but not particularly suspicious. The dog raced around her as she advanced, and a startled blat from one of the grazing sheep caught the boy's attention. He looked up as Marit paused a stone's toss from him.
His eyes opened wide. Equally startled, she took a step back.
He grinned and set down the lute. 'The hells!' He whistled, and the dog pattered over to him. 'Usually he barks,' the boy added. He was old enough to be sent to the high pastures with the sheep but not quite old enough to be called a man. 'Where did you come from?'
'Just over the ridge.' The box canyon wasn't all that far from here, truly, although she wasn't entirely sure how to reach it traveling on
the ground. Reeves sometimes lost that skill, seeing everything from on high.
'You're not from around here. Are you hungry, or thirsty? I've got plenty.'
'I would appreciate a bit.' Reeve habit died hard: you ate and drank whenever opportunity offered, as you didn't always know in the course of a patrol when you might have leisure to eat and drink again.
He shared a cursed sharp cider and a ball of rice neatly wrapped in nai leaves, poor man's food but filling nonetheless.
'I'm surprised to see anyone up here,' he said with nice manners which, together with his pleasant features, would make him a favorite among women when he got a bit older. He was water-born, judging by the pattern of tattoos ringing his wrists. An attractive youth, but forbidden to her because she was also water-born. 'We're about as far west as folk live. You can see how the mountains rise.' He indicated a barrier of grim peaks to the west. 'Nothing beyond that but the flat salt desert.'
'You've seen it?'
He laughed. 'Not myself. My uncle claims to have climbed the Wall, to see onto the deadlands. He said they stretched for a thousand mey, farther than he could see even from the mountains' edge, nothing but pale gold to the flat horizon. Maybe it's true, or maybe he just said so to impress the woman he wanted to marry. He did bring back a shard of an eagle's egg. From a nest, so he said. Said he climbed to it, and fetched it out. But he did talk blather. I bet he just lound it on the trail, fallen from a high place.'
He carefully asked no questions, plying her with highlands hospitality, offering a second flask of cider. He was an open lad, sure she wasn't a bad person because the dog — whose name was Nip — tolerated her. She was just utterly stunned to be having a commonplace conversation.
'I see you've a lute there. Have you always played?'
'Surely I have, since I could pick one up. Would you like me to play for you?' He was sure she would like to hear him; everyone always enjoyed his playing.
She nodded, settling more comfortably cross-legged beside him. I le plucked a pair of tunes and hummed a melancholy melody that
made her eyes water. Thin clouds chased across the high landscape. As the sun passed into shadow, she shivered at the unexpected draft of cool air seeping down from above and pulled her cloak more tightly around her torso.
'Listen, ver. I'm called Marit. I'm lost, truth to tell, and I got lost by running from a nasty pack of bandits who aren't too far from here by my reckoning. I'm not sure it's safe for you. You might be safer walking back to your village, wherever you came from, and warning them that dangerous men are wandering out here looking to make trouble.'
He shrugged with a peculiar lack of concern. 'We've had trouble for years with that crew, most of them out of Walshow and other places north of here. But we've made our own defenses.' With a sly grin, he indicated Nip. 'You'd be surprised what that dog can do when he's roused. We've learned to defend ourselves. It wasn't so bad before, when I was a nipster — a toddler, like. The elders say it was peaceful then. Still, the troubles are all I've ever known. But your bandits won't be finding this pasture. I'm surprised you did.'
'How long have bandits been wandering up here? How can they feed themselves? How do you know they're come from Walshow? How far is it to Walshow from here?'
He snapped his fingers. Two more dogs appeared out of the grass. They were bigger than Nip and had massive muzzles and powerful chests. They loped over to sniff at her, then slipped away to resume their patrol. 'You're a reeve, aren't you?' he asked. 'We see them now and again, hunting around here.'
'Do you? Where do they hail from?'
He shrugged. It was obvious he was telling the truth and never thought once of lying to her. He didn't even feel he needed to lie, he was that confident. 'I don't know. They keep to themselves, although it's true that a time or two we've had a bit of help from them when packs of men came drifting down out of Walshow.'
'They're not patrolling out of Gold Hall? Clan Hall hasn't the resources. I suppose Argent Hall or Horn Hall might fly these parts. Don't they oversee your assizes?'
He looked at the ground, dense with the green growing breath of plants feeding on the early rains and the promise of a fresh year. It
almost seemed that he darkened in aspect, pulled shadows over himself as he changed his mind about trusting her. He was hiding from her, flashes that pricked at her vision
what if she knows?
a snake winds through underbrush, tongue flicking
keep a vessel as of clay about your thoughts, — it is the only protection against the third eye
She blinked back tears and realized he was not speaking.
Fear makes you cold. Shivering, she clambered to her feet. Nip barked as the other dogs circled in. There were five dogs that she could now see, but three wagged their tails tentatively. None threatened her; they simply remained vigilant.
'You're one of them, seeing into me,' he said in a hoarse voice. 'You're death. Have you come to kill me?'
The speed of his transformation from pleasant companion to frightened lad shocked her. She took a step away from the ugly emotion she had roused in him. 'What do you mean?'
He scrambled to his feet and backed away, holding the lute as if it might shield him from attack. 'She hides us, it's all she can do against the others, for they have all become corrupt and soon their shadow will darken every heart. It's just that the dogs didn't bark at you. Why is that? What power do you have that can charm the clogs? Is it all for nothing, all that she has done for us to spare us?' Tears ran down his cheeks. He wept for what his folk had lost. And lie continued backing away, angling so she had to turn to keep lacing him.
Desperately, she said, 'I don't know what you're talking about. I'm seeking answers. I'm lost.'
'That's what they all say. That's what she warns us they will say, trying to get inside us, to get past the defenses she taught us to build. Nothing is safe. Nothing.'
For so many years the protection had held. Now, in an instant, all had fallen, fallen. The shadow will grow, and in the end it will consume even those trying to hide from it.
Marit swayed, struck by the hammer blow of his fear and grief. The sun cleared a cloud; its light forced her to raise a hand to spare her eyes. He had turned her, so the sun's glamour blinded her.
I le whistled. The dogs bolted into action, rounding up the
