False Covenant

perspective, as always. What she had, instead, was two parallel tracks of recent memories. At any given second, she was staring at the bishop, or a nearby tree, or the array of tombstones. But one heartbeat later, she could recall not only that vista at which she'd been looking, but another angle on the cemetery, from somewhere off to her left: a different tree, a different side of Sicard, or even- gods, even herself, flailing around and trying to catch her balance. She didn't see what Ferrand saw, but she remembered seeing what he'd just seen.

The earth lurched beneath her feet, her stomach heaved, and Widdershins wondered how her sanity-how anyone's sanity-could stand up to this.

Sicard continued to chant, his voice growing rough and jagged, and the world began to steady, her thoughts to cease their drunken capering and once more fall into some semblance of order. As if controlled by an expert stagehand, a thick curtain swayed shut between her own perspective and her memories of what Ferrand saw-or had seen, or whatever it was. She still received the occasional muffled sound or brief glimmer of light, but it was a minor distraction at worst, easily ignored. Only if she deliberately chose could she peek through the curtain and share in the monk's own experiences.

“Well…” Widdershins staggered to her feet and reached out a hand to help Ferrand in doing the same. “Did the earth move for you, too?” she asked him.

Ferrand opened his mouth, shut it, and looked away, blushing.

“It seems to have worked normally,” Sicard said, also rising. “But I can't be sure….”

“I don't know,” Ferrand said. “I don't feel any different.” Then, at Widdershins's startled look, “I mean, no, that's not…We're linked. I can remember what she sees, what she hears.”

“Which, incidentally, is creepy,” Widdershins added. Only then did she realize how dry her mouth was, and reached out a hand for the bishop's flask. He handed it over without question.

“Uh, yes, that's one word,” the monk agreed. “But I mean…Well, I thought I would feel your, um, your magics, or Olgun's power, or something. But I don't-”

“That,” the thief said just a tad smugly, “is because he's not doing anything.”

“Uh…”

“Olgun?” Far too softly for the others to hear, she continued, “Olgun, are you all right?”

The waft of emotion Widdershins received in reply was a good-humored, teasing contempt at the very idea.

“Well, excuse me, Your Divinitiness! Some of us aren't used to more than one point of view at a time! Guess that's why you're the god, and we're just poor little…Ooh, you're impossible! It's not too late for me to trade you in, you know. I bet I could get a whole herd of good-quality horses for…” It was right about then that Widdershins realized her voice had risen, and that she was being very studiously examined-possibly to determine which asylum would best suit her-by more or less everyone else present.

“What?” she challenged. “You talk to your gods in your ways, I'll talk to mine in mine.”

Oddly, that didn't seem to assuage any of them.

“Fine. Ferrand? Pay attention.” Widdershins sprinted for the nearest tree and leapt. Soaring past the first layer of branches, she finally wrapped her fingers around a particularly thick bough close to twenty feet above the grass. She swung, the bark refusing to bite into her skin, and flipped backward, clasping another, higher branch with her knees. There she hung, her hair dangling, arms crossed over her chest, and smiled at her audience. The air around her hummed and crackled with the touch of Olgun's power.

Brother Ferrand himself had literally staggered back and slumped to the ground, sitting against the side of a weather-worn grave marker. “My gods…”

“Well, one of them,” Widdershins said. At which point, rather belatedly, a thought occurred to her. “Olgun? If Ferrand's drawing on your power-even through the bishop's spell-does that mean he's likely to start including you in his worship when this is all over with? And if he does, what does that mean for you and me?”

She was somewhat less than comforted to interpret the god's response as indicating that he wasn't sure. Of course, Olgun could always refuse to accept a mortal's worship-but the longer he remained Widdershins's god alone, the more he risked dying if something should happen to her.

Widdershins couldn't repress a surge of white-hot jealousy at the idea, and she was ashamed. Was it fair even to ask that of him? Could she-?

“Shins?” Julien called. “Are you, uh, coming down any time soon?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Widdershins relaxed her legs and let herself slide from the branch. She slapped a quick hand against the trunk to slow her fall, as well as to twist her around feetfirst, and landed in a crouch among the bulges of the tree's roots.

“Thank you,” the major said. “My neck was starting to hurt.”

“You didn't have to keep staring at me up there, you know.”

“Actually, I-”

“I remain less than thrilled,” Igraine interjected, her voice marinating in impatience, “that we're supposed to just wait, now.”

The others nodded, though several scowls suggested that the priestess was not the only one unhappy with this stage of the plan.

“Didn't you just have this conversation?” Julien demanded. “If you've got any idea of how to find Iruoch when he could be anywhere in Davillon, I'd be delighted to hear it. Otherwise-”

“No, I don't have any such idea!” Igraine snapped. “But we're risking an awful lot on the idea that the creature not only senses Widdershins and Brother Ferrand, but that he doesn't suspect it's some sort of trap to begin with!”

“It doesn't matter what he suspects,” the Guardsman said. “You heard Widdershins. She's the only real threat Iruoch's faced since he arrived! If he thinks he feels two people with her power, he has to investigate!”

“I heard what Widdershins said, yes. I'm just not convinced that-”

The sudden flutter of songbirds taking flight was lost in the sudden, “Get down! ”

It was Julien who shouted, as a shadow blotted the sun from the sky, a grotesque missile plunged into their midst, but there was little else he could do. By the time he'd even begun to move, Renard Lambert had dived forward, spurred on by expertly trained reflexes borrowed from Evrard. He slammed into Widdershins, knocking her from the path of the falling object-for indeed, it had been she, of everyone in the group, at whom the attack had been aimed.

(That she could probably have gotten herself clear-with Olgun's speed if not her own-was not the point. Julien, though clearly relieved that she was unhurt, was just as clearly horrified that, as he'd anticipated, he'd proved all but helpless in the face of their impossible enemy.)

The rest of the band leapt aside as best they could, seeking cover, shielding their faces and heads against the worst of the shrapnel. The body of the poor horse to which Iruoch had been tied-now limbless and headless- crashed to the earth, where it had been hurled with inhuman strength. On impact, a row of twine stitches poorly sewn into its belly burst open, splaying a handful of viscera-soaked rocks and bricks in all directions. Several voices cried out-Widdershins couldn't tell precisely whose-as some of those revolting projectiles drew blood or bruised flesh. The acrid stench struck nearly as hard, making her lungs burn and her chest ache.

Or maybe some of that ache was Renard laying limp across her ribs.

Widdershins squeezed out from beneath him and rolled to her feet, drawing her blade and searching intently for the source of the attack.

It didn't take her long.

He should have been a little less disturbing, a little less fearsome, viewed in the bright sunlight of midday. Instead, if anything, he was worse. He moved across the cemetery with that hideous, spastic, sideways gait, each stride seeming to take him in a different direction yet always ending up one step nearer his destination. But his shadow…Iruoch's shadow, regardless of which direction he moved, regardless of what position the sun might hold at his back or side, always pointed directly behind him, as though he were literally dragging it along by its heels.