Part 7 (1/2)

”I lost my first Racha,” she said. Her eyes unfocused, as if she no longer saw the world around her-the stream, the pool, and Dhulyn Wolfshead-but the past. Koba left his perch next to Dhulyn and half flew, half hopped until he was beside Yaro, crooning deep in his throat, a keening sound. ”I was very young, and I found him, you see, fallen from the nest.”

Dhulyn made a querying note in her own throat and Yaro glanced at her. ”It does happen,” she said. ”Rarely, but it happens. Perhaps too many chicks hatch, perhaps there is a shortage of food that season, and one chick or more is pushed or falls from the nest.”

”But the trial,” Dhulyn said. ”I thought for the bond to form, there had to be a trial?” That was why bonding with a Racha was usually part of the Life Pa.s.sage.

”I saved him from a wolf,” Yaro said. She breathed deeply in through her nose and, blinking, turned to the living bird beside her and smiled. Koba rubbed his hooked beak against her right cheek.

”That was considered enough of a trial, you see, and we were bonded.” Yaro cleared her throat. ”We were two months together,” she tapped the faded tattoo of feathers on her left cheek, ”when I fell ill of a brain fever. I was near death for days.”

Yaro looked up, and Dhulyn saw the young girl, and the young girl's sorrow and loss in Yaro's face. Her living bird pressed his head against her, and both closed their eyes for a moment.

”My Racha, my-” Yaro pressed her lips tight, as if she could not say the bird's name. But, gaining strength from contact with her living bird, she opened her eyes and continued. ”My first first Racha died during my fever. I fell into what all who saw me thought would be the final sleep, but Sortera the Healer came.” Dhulyn looked up and Yaro nodded. ”Two weeks before she was expected, she came and Healed me. But when I finally woke, I was alone, my bond broken, and that she could Racha died during my fever. I fell into what all who saw me thought would be the final sleep, but Sortera the Healer came.” Dhulyn looked up and Yaro nodded. ”Two weeks before she was expected, she came and Healed me. But when I finally woke, I was alone, my bond broken, and that she could not not Heal.” Heal.”

Dhulyn cleared her throat but remained silent when Yaro again touched the faded tattoo on her left cheek.

”I believe it was the Healing that kept me from following my soul into death,” she said. ”But I believe I should have died before ever Sortera came. My Racha gave me his his life, and that is how I lived long enough to be Healed. life, and that is how I lived long enough to be Healed.

”I could not throw away his gift, but neither could I remain in the Clouds and see around me every day the s.p.a.ce where my soul was not. So I went to serve the Sleeping G.o.d another way.” This time Yaro touched the green-and-gold tattoo above her ears. ”I have no talent for scholars.h.i.+p, and I feared the meditative life, so I became a Mercenary Brother.”

Dhulyn nodded her understanding. Though she did not know where the belief originated, she knew the Clouds considered the Scholars, the Jaldeans, and the Mercenary Brotherhood to be three orders of the ancient priesthood of the Sleeping G.o.d, and therefore three disciplines open to any Cloud who chose to leave the mountains.

”In the Brotherhood I found another kind of bond; you will understand me, you are Partnered. But while I was Healed, still I was not whole.”

Dhulyn touched her own tattoo, her Mercenary badge, traced her finger along the black line that threaded through the colors. The line that showed she was Partnered. Did Did she understand? She had always believed in the bond of Partners.h.i.+p. But now, after Parno's insistence that they return to Imrion, and especially after her Vision of his child-was it possible that he might leave her, leave the Brotherhood as Yaro of Trevel had done, and return to his House? Marry? Father children? Did this mean their souls were she understand? She had always believed in the bond of Partners.h.i.+p. But now, after Parno's insistence that they return to Imrion, and especially after her Vision of his child-was it possible that he might leave her, leave the Brotherhood as Yaro of Trevel had done, and return to his House? Marry? Father children? Did this mean their souls were not not one? She pushed the thoughts away. one? She pushed the thoughts away. Today's worry today, Today's worry today, so said the Common Rule. so said the Common Rule.

”One day,” Yaro was saying, ”I found myself thinking again of my home, the color of the sky above the mountains, the smell of the pines. Alkoryn Pantherclaw, who is Senior Brother to us all here on the Peninsula, advised me to make a visit home.” Yaro looked at Dhulyn from under her lashes. ”My coming was seen as the direct intervention of the G.o.d. My cousin Evela, who had been a toddling child when I left my clan, had become a young woman, a Racha woman. Two days before I arrived she had fallen ill. Of a brain fever.” Yaro leaned forward, elbows on knees. ”My bond had been broken, and I lived. It was hoped I could help my cousin do the same. But it did not fall out that way.”

”Was the Healer . . .?”

”Arrived too late. This time it was my cousin who died, having given her soul to her Racha, who lived.”

Koba keened again, this time a throat-rasping cough that had almost the sound of a sob in it. Yaro rubbed Koba's face with her hands, smoothing the feathers, somehow not cutting herself on the razor-sharp beak.

Dhulyn looked from woman to Racha and back again. ”But that's not possible . . .” She let her voice die away.

”So it was thought.” Yaro looked Dhulyn directly in the eyes. ”The Healer came too late to save my cousin, but when she came, she had a Mender with her. They, Healer and Mender, saw that there were two of us, each with our broken bond-and so together they Mended us, and we were Healed.”

It had had to be true. The bond was there, obvious. Real. to be true. The bond was there, obvious. Real.

”You were Mended and and Healed?” Healed?”

Koba hopped up to Yaro's shoulder as the Cloudwoman raised herself to her feet. ”Together they did what neither could do alone. Koba and I were broken, sick at heart. Now we are whole.”

As she followed Yaro of Trevel and Koba the Racha back to camp, Dhulyn was conscious that she should feel honored by the woman's confidence-and awed at the achievement of the Marked, Mender and Healer. But she went with her eyes cast down, paying special attention to her footing, struggling to keep her face from showing the churning of her thoughts. She found that, after all, she could not rid her mind of the other part of Yaro's story. That part in which a Mercenary Brother left the Brotherhood, to return to clan and family.

When the trail they followed came close enough, Mar looked out over the silent and empty expanse of twisted rock and sand.

”It looks like a gla.s.smaker's pot,” she said. As she let the reins fall slack, the packhorse came to a stop. ”But only the dirty bits they don't use.”

”There are three such places in the Letanian Peninsula,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said. ”But whether that means that the Caids had their princ.i.p.al places here,” the Mercenary woman shrugged, urging Bloodbone along with her knees. ”The Scholars are still arguing over it.”

”But what happened here?” The packhorse followed Bloodbone, and Mar looked back at the Dead Spot over her shoulder. ”What went wrong?”

”Only the Caids know,” the Lionsmane said from where he rode behind her.

”The knowledge was lost,” Wolfshead added, ”like so much of what the Caids knew.”

”And perhaps for the best, if their knowledge could do this.” Lionsmane gestured with a wide sweep of his arm. Wolfshead shook her head, but Mar couldn't tell if she disagreed.

Their Cloud escort left them when the road turned northeast once more, though Yaro's Racha bird Koba soared high above them a while longer, looking out and communicating with his bond mate in their private fas.h.i.+on. The whole morning Mar had kept to herself, unable to fully trust the Clouds, and finding herself looking even at her bodyguards from the corners of her eyes.

”That would be the first time you saw someone killed,” Lionsmane said.

Mar's neck felt stiff as she nodded in reply. ”I've seen dead people, but never . . .” Her voice trailed off as her gaze moved ahead to where the Wolfshead rode several horse lengths ahead of them. All because of me, All because of me, she thought. Because of some letters from Tenebro House, a young man, younger than she was herself, a boy really, was dead. she thought. Because of some letters from Tenebro House, a young man, younger than she was herself, a boy really, was dead.

When the letters had come, her world had suddenly opened to so broad and wide a thing that she could barely sleep for excitement. She hadn't been unhappy with the Weavers, exactly, but she'd been just old enough when the sickness had taken her family to remember what it was like to have a Holding, to know that you were a part, however small, of a n.o.ble House, part of a greater whole. The letters brought the chance of going to the capital and taking up her rightful place as a cousin of that House, and even the possibility of the restoration of her Holding, if she could show how well she understood her allegiance. She had letters she hadn't shown Dhulyn Wolfshead, letters which had given her a job to do, for which she could be rewarded. Her task had been to hire two particular Mercenaries to guide and protect her instead of waiting for the spring salt caravans. A woman of the Red Hors.e.m.e.n and her Partner, the letters had said. Mar'd had all her friends on the lookout for them, and as soon as Rilla Fisher had seen them come off the Catseye, Catseye, Mar had practically dragged Guillor Weaver to the Hoofbeat Inn to hire them. Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane. She'd liked them, and even being on the trail with them had seemed like an adventure, once she'd got over the discomfort and the strangeness. Mar had practically dragged Guillor Weaver to the Hoofbeat Inn to hire them. Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane. She'd liked them, and even being on the trail with them had seemed like an adventure, once she'd got over the discomfort and the strangeness.

But the adventure had ended with the sight of Clarys' blood spilling on the ground.

Mar risked a glance at the Wolfshead's straight back. Lionsmane gave a great sigh, and she froze.

”Seeing someone killed does make a difference, doesn't it?” he said, as if he were commenting on the suns.h.i.+ne.

Mar s.h.i.+vered, making the packhorse toss his head. ”I must seem such a child,” she said, hardening her voice to make it stop shaking. ”It's not as though I didn't know what soldiers and Mercenaries do.” She looked up at the golden-brown man beside her. ”You'll have seen many like Clarys?”

”I have,” he said quietly. ”The first when I was much younger than you.”

”And killed them, too,” the girl said, her eyes returning to the back of the tall woman with blood-red hair.

”Yes,” he said more quietly still. ”But that was later.” Mar glanced at him again, lowering her eyes quickly when he held her gaze.

”That's not all that's frightened you, is it?”

”I didn't know if you were paid enough.” Mar cleared her throat. ”I thought you might let them take me.”

”Fine bodyguards we would be,” Lionsmane said softly, ”to let that happen. You needn't worry about that.” He indicated his Partner with a tilt of his head. ”Dhulyn might kill you herself, but she wouldn't allow you to be taken and sold.”

”She might kill me me?” Mar rounded on him, twisting in the saddle. Was he joking? Was he joking?

He shrugged. ”No need to look like that. Anyone Anyone might kill you. Dhulyn's been in slavers' hands herself. Death is easier, she says. Not necessarily preferable, just easier. She was lucky enough to be taken from a slave s.h.i.+p by pirates when she was eleven, maybe twelve.” might kill you. Dhulyn's been in slavers' hands herself. Death is easier, she says. Not necessarily preferable, just easier. She was lucky enough to be taken from a slave s.h.i.+p by pirates when she was eleven, maybe twelve.”

”Lucky? Taken by pirates is lucky?”

”Of course lucky. She was first captured at eight, and no one takes an eight-year-old child to be a household slave.”