As the Crow Flies Read online

  “Cats make me sneeze,” I tried.

  The pack horses fell into step behind him as the lead rope drew taut. “Then stay away from it.”

  “Tanris, we can’t feed a cat. What’s it going to eat?”

  He looked back at me over his shoulder, and it was probably just as well I couldn’t make out his expression in the dark. He just kept riding.

  :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

  A sleepy little town, Batifa possessed a grand total of four streets arranged around a picturesque green, and by the time we arrived the waxing half moon had risen to a height sufficient to illuminate the scene nicely, silvering the landscape and throwing shadows into sharp relief. The Belching Bull sat directly across the square from a huge barn or grange. A small temple occupied the middle of the northern side, and opposite that stood a fine house that could only belong to the mayor. Typically quaint houses and shops filled the remaining spaces.

  The proprietor of the Belching Bull was not altogether keen about being awakened in the middle of the night. Decent folks apparently arranged their travel schedules more considerately. After an extra pair of silver coins crossed his palm, he allowed as how the rainy weather this time of year made the roads miserable, and he pointed out that we were lucky to have had such a singularly lovely day, and how fortunate none of the bridges had washed out yet.

  “He has a cat,” I pointed out. Tanris gave me a freezing look—much different from the searing ones he’d given me earlier for talking to strangers—and the innkeeper glowered and passed over the key to our room. A room, mind you, that we were going to have to share, as the inn was full up. He apparently did a brisk business here.

  “Just keep it away from my big gray tom,” he warned. “Old Moggy will tear it to pieces.” He opened a door at the back and hollered for someone to come tend to our horses.

  I looked around hopefully for Old Moggy, but he didn’t show himself. Maybe in the morning I could arrange a meeting over a nice dish of cream or something. Tanris jostled my elbow, and I swear he knew the scene in my mind exactly. I gave him a look of sleepy surprise.

  “If you’ve got any leftovers from dinner, good sir, we’d be mighty grateful,” Tanris said in a voice much kinder than the freezing look he’d given me.

  “Aye, I’ll bring a couple plates up for you, and I’ve likely got some warm water left, too.”

  Not exactly the hearty dinner and hot bath I’d envisioned, but I was too tired to put any energy into indignation. I hobbled after Tanris as he mounted the stairs. Several hours riding and pushing two wagons out of the mud had certainly had a detrimental effect on my healing leg, and I barely managed to take the steps one at a time. My unfortunate acquaintance with the saddle had only just begun, and already I feared being bowlegged for the rest of my life. As it was, I could barely climb the steps. One thing I knew for certain: there would be no wagon pushing or pulling on the morrow. Would it be possible to sit sideways in the saddle for awhile, or would that be considered unmanly?

  Tanris turned the key in the lock and we peered inside, only to discover that our single room had a single bed.

  “I am not sleeping with you,” I said.

  “Suit yourself,” came his response. He grabbed a sorry-looking pillow off the bed and tossed it onto the braided rug covering the floor. “Better go out and get one of the horse blankets. Feels chilly.”

  “Surely you jest.”

  He dropped his saddlebags on the floor and sat on the bed to pull off his boots and gear without replying. The cat, evicted from its cozy nest in Tanris’s coat, jumped down and began a curious exploration of the room.

  “I’m wounded.”

  “So am I.”

  “But I can hardly walk.”

  “So what are you doing standing there?”

  Thinking about holding a pillow over your face? Thinking about locking your cat in a cupboard? I did not like animals. Having to deal with the horse was imposition enough. Cats—and dogs and pet birds, not to mention noxious demons—had an annoying habit of appearing at exactly the wrong moment. They gave away the presence of the most clever, soundless of thieves. I knew. I had experience. Grumbling to myself, I limped to the room’s single chair and sat down to take off my own gear. All the while, I silently and vigorously practiced telling him to go put a hot poker up his nose—in four different languages.

  While we waited, I took out the vial with the potion for my usual dose. I tried to check the level, but it was utterly impossible to see inside, no matter which way I tipped it or held it to the light. Disgruntled, I swallowed the requisite two drops. I just knew Duzayan had made it hideously bitter on purpose, the wretch.

  A gentle tapping on the door a few moments later announced the innkeeper with a tray full of food, which was wonderful, and a bucket of steaming water, which was less so. Bad enough I had to share a room, but the bed and the bath as well? Staring at them with lips pursed, I wondered where my scathing humor had gone, for now would be an excellent time to wield it. Obviously, I was tired.

  And wounded.

  And don’t forget the cat.

  The food tasted delicious, but it was a toss-up whether the credit belonged to my starvation or the talent of the innkeeper’s wife. It pained me to watch Tanris feed the cat some of the perfectly tender roast and gravy. I would have happily eaten it myself if he wasn’t particularly hungry. We solved the problem of who got the warm water first by using it at the same time—an event I would never repeat, even if it meant bathing in cold water.

  “The cat stays off the bed,” I warned Tanris as we settled ourselves on either side of the mattress. He didn’t even bother to look at me.

  The cat, of course, did not stay off the bed. In fact, it liked my side better and particularly enjoyed delicately stabbing me with its needle sharp claws as it kneaded my leg or my chest, purring so loudly it was a wonder the innkeeper didn’t come banging on our door. I lost track of how many times I pushed it off. The last time was more energetic than the others, provoking an odd-sounding grunt from the creature.

  His back to me, Tanris didn’t move, but he did speak. “You hurt the cat, I hurt you.”

  :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

  “So how long have you been married?” I don’t know what prompted the question besides utter boredom. I was glad for my hat, for the rain had begun again and the brim kept the constant, relentless drizzle off my face and the water from leaking down the back of my neck—a small boon considering my overall sogginess. While clever Tanris had provided oilskin capes for us, they could only do so much.

  I was beginning to think Tanris had either dozed off or died when he finally spoke. “Two years tomorrow.”

  “Ah, well, happy anniversary.”

  He slanted me one of those consummate sideways looks proclaiming my idiocy, and that if it wouldn’t hold us up further, he’d reach across the way and knock me right out of the saddle. He had yet to do any such thing, but the promise was frequently displayed in his expression. I pretended not to notice and looked about at the scenery with artificial interest. It was the same drab, gray, wet, muddy, cold, utterly miserable scenery I’d been looking at for weeks, and I’d run out of synonyms to describe it adequately.

  Batifa lay two weeks behind us, and I had decided I passionately loathed camping. After a lengthy torture, my legs and buttocks had reluctantly resigned themselves to the saddle. All well and good, but there was rain. Copious rain. If the stars still existed, I did not know it. Only the fact that I’d viewed the stars and the moon in my previous life supported the assumption of their continued existence. We had no light to speak of, except my little witchlights, and as far as Tanris knew I only had one. I’d brought it out so he could see to light a fire one night. How he’d found dry wood I had no idea. He’d stared at the witchlight for several long, silent moments, and when I’d asked him if there was a problem, he’d simply bent himself to the task of striking the fire. It was the only fire we’d
had, and I found myself missing it now. Passionately.

  “River ahead,” Tanris announced.

  “How can you tell?” It would not surprise me at all to discover the entire world had turned into a gigantic swamp and I recalled the southern strait with a sudden wave of nostalgia. It would be lovely and dry and warm this time of year. There was something to be said for the desert in winter.

  “Listen. There’s a rumble in the air. In the ground.”

  I listened, but all I heard was rain, rain, and more rain. “How far?” I inquired, adroitly sidestepping my ignorance.

  “A few minutes. Just over the rise,” he pointed.

  What rise? I peered into the misty, uniform grayness and couldn’t tell. On my own, I might come to a cliff and not known until I fell off—which very nearly happened. It took perhaps ten minutes to top the rise, and the road curved abruptly to run along the edge of the end of the world. I pulled my horse up a careful distance away and attempted to peer into the bottomless chasm, which turned out to be only about thirty or forty feet deep and filled with a river, a startlingly cold mist, and an abundance of fog.

  “Don’t get too close to the edge,” Tanris warned kindly, but unnecessarily. “Wet as it is, the ground might crumble out from under you. Wouldn’t want that.”

  “No, indeed we wouldn’t.” I backed my mount away and scratched my cheek, recalling the layout of the map and mentally placing us on it. I could imagine us as a little ink-splotch on the squiggly line indicating the road from Batifa northward. A second squiggly line running parallel to the road was the River Le’ah, which joined the greater Numana and subsequently flowed through Marketh and into the sea. In spite of riding forever, the ink-splotch hadn’t gone terribly far. The distance we’d traveled was hardly a drop in the bucket compared to how far we still needed to go. I laughed softly at my own warped sense of humor. Of course I was thinking in terms of water and buckets. Was there a dry place left in the world? Oh, yes, I reminded myself, the desert across the straits.

  The road stayed far too close to the ledge for my comfort, and it had washed away in two places. Unperturbed, Tanris merely guided the horses around each jagged gash. I looked into them both as we passed and couldn’t help but imagine some further piece of road giving way and dumping us into the river. Even after we reached the bottom, the river continued to roar loudly between the walls it had carved out. Here was no gentle riverbank, but a steeply cut passage in which the water battered fiercely at its rocky confines as it hurled itself toward the sea. I studied the gorge curiously as we rode along.

  “Hold up,” Tanris ordered, reaching for my reins and jolting me out of my reverie. His voice was unexpectedly terse, his frowning gaze fixed on some indefinable point ahead of us. I stretched my senses and immediately made out thumping and grunting, then a distinct scream. Tanris abruptly hauled the cat out from its cozy nest inside his coat front—quite unceremoniously—and dropped it on the ground. It made a hideous noise and sped off into the fog. Goodbye, kitty. Untying the pack horses’ ropes, he handed them to me. “Stay here.”

  Of course I was going to stay there, safely hiding in the rain and fog right in the middle of a road that anyone at all might come riding up or down while he, an expert warrior, went off to deal with—No, I don’t think so. Giving a quick look around, I espied a pile of head-high boulders some short distance down the slope and off to the right. I pulled the packhorses behind them and tied the long leather reins to a boulder, which gave them no room at all in which to maneuver but was certainly better than having them wander off or run away. Yanking off my gloves and tucking them into my belt, my half-frozen fingers worked at unknotting the ropes holding my gear so I could remove one of the grappling hooks. Yelling joined the thumping and screaming, and I scrambled back into the saddle and kicked my mount into a run.

  It was a surreal thing to go galloping off into the thick fog having no idea what awaited me. Fear and excitement pumped through my blood in equal measures. We slowed to take a turn and started to slide down an unexpectedly steep incline. I pulled the horse up completely, and while it stood there, straight-legged and shaking its head, I swiftly surveyed the scene below. I picked Tanris out easily. He’d shed his waterproof cloak somewhere along the way and stood in his stirrups, heroically swinging his sword at a pair of men armed with long clubs. Bodies lay on the ground, and another huddled near the wheel of a wagon that had apparently become stuck somehow. The horse sprawled lifelessly in the traces.

  More alarming was the sight of another figure running up on Tanris from behind, and that one had an axe. “Tanris! Look out!” I hollered at him and kneed my horse forward onto a little outcropping of rock. Tanris twisted and brought his sword around in a deadly arc, and I swung my hook, letting it fly straight toward one of the other attackers. The rope burned as it slid through my hand. I was a good shot, and it nailed the man right in the head, knocking him over sideways. Immediately, I gave the rope a tug and a flip, and the hook sailed back my way, clattering against the rocky wall. I reeled it in as the figure by the wheel—a female by the look of it—struggled with another man. In a trice, the man knocked her down and dragged her toward the other side of the wagon and a measure of safety.

  My horse danced and fidgeted beneath me, and I couldn’t help a snarl of irritation. “Be still!” I ordered it, and realized that in throwing the hook, I’d been pulling rather wildly on the reins. What did fighters on horseback usually do in such situations? I only had so many hands. I gave a sharp, authoritative tug, then let them fall. Likely, I was asking to be promptly tossed from our rocky perch, but I hadn’t time to dwell on that. I launched my hook again. It sailed true, but the girl’s assailant jerked to one side. The hook skimmed the side of his face and banged over his shoulder. He started to turn around. Gritting my teeth and bracing for what I knew was coming, I pulled as hard as I could.

  He screamed, spun around completely, and flailed wildly to the ground with two of the hook’s claws anchored in his neck and shoulder. The girl fell, tangled in his legs. She didn’t stay there long. Her face a desperate blotch of white, she grabbed a rock and proceeded to batter her attacker. It was more gruesome a spectacle than I wanted to watch.

  Tanris, in the meantime, had dispatched the fellow with the axe as well as one of those with the clubs. He was on foot—a move I’d missed—and now had a knife as well as his sword. “Do you surrender?” he bellowed at his remaining opponent.

  “Oh, please,” I said, astounded that he’d show such clemency to a bloodthirsty highwayman who had not only attacked a wagon out in the middle of nowhere, but clearly had a hand in killing or maiming some of the occupants. I rather doubt they had a shopping excursion in mind for the girl, either. “Just run him through and be done with it.”

  He ignored me, of course, even when the fool bandit launched into a new attack. Swiftly, smoothly, Tanris parried the swinging cudgel with his sword, twisting it about in a remarkable fashion to pin it against the earth and bring its wielder to his knees. He clubbed the back of the fellow’s head with the hilt of his knife. Just like that. It was rather beautiful to watch, however impractical the result.

  Chest heaving, Tanris turned to glare at me. “Didn’t I tell you to stay with the horses?”

  “Oh, you did. And you’re welcome. So happy to save your life.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The horses? They’re tied up back there.” I pointed back the way I’d come.

  “Go get them.”

  I made a face at him. “Yes, sir!” Giving the hook’s rope a flip, I turned my horse around and went to fetch the pack animals, which were right where I’d left them. I returned to find Tanris standing in the road with the girl clinging to his neck, sobbing her eyes out while he awkwardly patted her back.

  “Crow, can you—?” He gestured at her behind her back.

  I waved a dismissive hand and eased myself out of the saddle to the ground, which was fairly gravelly here and didn’t immediately sink m
e up to my ankles in mud. “You look like you’re doing fine,” I said cheerfully, and went to rescue my hook from the mutilated corpse. I shouldn’t have looked at it too closely. I had to step away from the scene of the crime to spew my midday meal behind another convenient rock. There was plenty of water available to wash my face and rinse my mouth; I had only to tip my head up to the sky.

  “So, what’s the story?” I asked when I could once again manage a casual attitude.

  “I don’t know. All she’s done is cry.”

  It was rather satisfying to see Tanris look so helpless and uncomfortable. I left him that way to go check the other bodies. It was fairly easy to tell who was who; the owners of the wagon wore simple farmer’s homespun, and the bandits had various bits and pieces of armor and weaponry about them. Both of the farmers were dead, and when I looked in the back of the wagon, I found a third body, but this one, an elderly woman, looked to have been dead for some time, and there wasn’t a mark on her. Some foodstuffs occupied the space along with a pair of shovels.

  “On the way to bury this one, I suppose,” I said to Tanris, and the girl clung to him even more tightly, her body shaking with great, hiccuping sobs.

  “Go tie him up,” he said, pointing to the fellow he’d knocked out.

  “Can’t I just—” Well, clouting him over the head had lost some of its appeal after witnessing what the girl had done to her attacker.

  “No.”

  So I tied him up. I’m not exactly sure how it came about, but shortly after that I found myself helping Tanris dig a grave some little way off the road. The rocky soil made for ridiculously back-breaking labor, and after I’d worked up a sweat discernible even beyond my already-drenched state, I leaned on my shovel and looked pointedly at Tanris until he straightened. “This is a waste of time.”

  “It is not a waste of time to give folks a decent burial.”

  “Do you think they’re actually going to care?”