Beside him was a full knight in gold-washed mail, his gold helm mirror bright. He bore a lance; on his left arm was a red shield with a device like a gold cat rearing on its hind paws. The knight’s horse was larger than those of the white-caped warriors, though not as large as the chargers normally used by those who wore full mail or plate armor. It was as gold as the cat on the knight’s shield, with a black mane and tail.
Together the company made a picture out of legends. “Oh, glory,” whispered Daine.
Reaching Onua, the knight halted the warriors with a raised hand. His horse refused to stop and walked up to butt his head against Daine’s chest.
“You beauty,” she whispered, running her hand along his mane. “Oh, you pretty, pretty thing.”
Laughing, Onua went to the war-horse’s head and gently made him back up. The knight peered down at the K’mir through his open visor. “Are you camped here?” Onua nodded, and he turned to his company. “Hakim, this is it.”
A brown man in the front rank of the white-caped riders nodded and called out instructions. The result was instant activity: men dismounted, giving their reins over to a few of their number while others removed packs from their mounts and from the spares. Within seconds they were off the road, erecting tents to share the clearing with the ponies and Tahoi.
The knight secured shield and helm to his saddle. Dismounting, he gave the reins to one of the others, then stripped amethyst-decorated gauntlets from his hands. “I should’ve changed to leather,” he complained. “My back has been one whole itch the last mile.” He grinned at Daine. “The outfit looks nice, but it’s not very comfortable.”
Daine was very confused. Out of the saddle, the knight was two whole inches shorter than she was, and built on stocky, not muscular, lines. His cropped, coppery hair was tousled from being inside a helmet. Amethysts winked at his earlobes, stones that matched the color of his eyes.
“My wits have gone begging,” Onua said. “Daine, this is Sir Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau—the king’s champion. Alanna, this is Daine. Wait till you see what she can do with animals.”
Daine stared at the hand offered her, then into purple eyes. “The champion? The knight they call ‘the Lioness’?”
“Don’t tell me,” Alanna said. “You expected someone bigger.”
Daine took the offered hand. Remembering her patient, she asked, “Can you help? I can’t fix ’im at all.”
Onua took the champion’s elbow. “Alanna’s a healer and a sorceress—if she can’t come up with something, no one can.”
“Aren’t you going to be sorry if I can’t?” the knight asked as Onua steered her toward the ailing hawk.
Daine unwound the bird from his wraps. “He won’t eat anything but a little honey and water,” she explained. “Not meat or fish. And he’s dizzy all the time.”
The purple eyes looked at her sharply. “How would you know that?”
Daine met that gaze squarely. “I just do. I’ve—”
“‘A knack with animals,’” Onua chorused along with her, and grinned.
Alanna lifted the bird with a care for the splinted wing. The hawk blinked, looked at her—and buried his head against her chest. “He knows me. Good.” She carried him to a tent the warriors had set up, and went inside.
“Wait here,” Onua told Daine. “Don’t let these men bully Tahoi or the ponies.” She followed the knight inside.
Daine realized she ought to picket the strings so the smaller horses wouldn’t disturb the big ones. Tahoi stuck close to her as she worked, and Cloud was on her best behavior. The warriors smiled at her as they set up more tents and built cook fires. A handful went to the nearby river with fishing lines in their hands. She would have liked to go too, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask these businesslike Tortallans.
“Great merciful Goddess!” The shout came from the tent where Alanna and Onua had taken the hawk. “Of all the gods-cursed, simpleminded—”
Daine gaped. The man the knight had called Hakim smiled. “The Lioness has a temper,” he told the girl. “Sometimes it gets the better of her.”
The knight stamped out of the tent. She had discarded mail for breeches and a white shirt. At her throat a red gem burned like a coal in the fire. “I can’t see—” Her purple eyes lit on Daine. “You, girl—come here!”
Tahoi growled, bristling. He didn’t like the knight’s tone.
Alanna stared at the dog, and then smiled. “I’m sorry. Daine, would you come here, please? I think I need your help.” Steering the girl into the tent, she said, “Onua says you found him under—unusual conditions.” The hawk lay on a man-size cot, his eyes wide and frightened. “How?”
There was something here that pounded on her ears, making her nervous. “Honest, Your Ladyship—”
“Alanna,” was the firm interruption.
She thought of calling the champion, the only lady knight in living memory, by her first name, and winced. “I listened for him, is all. I sat down and just—listened.”
“Would you do it for me now, please?”
Daine swallowed. “But he’s right there, mum. Lioness.”
“Turn your back to him, if that helps.” Alanna fiddled with the red gem at her throat. “Listen for him exactly as you listened back then.”
Listening’s fine, Daine thought nervously. You only listened before, and had no trouble. And the badger said it was all right. Well, then!
Closing her eyes, she emptied her mind, letting her breath slow until she couldn’t hear it. She concentrated on her ears. Outside, Cloud chewed on a clump of grass, thinking she ought to check on Daine, alone with strangers. The gold war-horse shifted; he wanted to run some more.
There! A strange and distant voice, one that sounded like no animal she knew. That had to be the hawk. Was he muttering to himself?
“I hear him.” That sleepy voice was hers. “He’s a prisoner. He can’t get out. But he’s just on the bed—”
“Hush.” Purple fires played inside her eyelids. “Call him, Daine—with your mind. His name is Numair Salmalín.”
“Alanna—maybe Arram’s better.” That was Onua, sounding distant. “He’s only been Numair for eight years—he’s been Arram all his life.”
“True. Call to him as Arram, Daine.” The fires evened into a steady purple light, warming her face like the sun.
“Why—”
“Call him.” The knight’s voice was gentle, but firm.
Daine sighed. “Arram Salmalín? Arram—come on. You’re too far off. It’s all right, Arram—it’s safe—”
Something behind her snapped, breaking her concentration. She opened her eyes as wooden sticks hit the tent wall in front of her: the hawk’s splints. “Now look at this,” she scolded, picking them up. “His wing won’t get any better that way.” She turned to show them the evidence.
The hawk was gone. Onua pulled a sheet up to cover a large, naked man.
He smiled drowsily at the three of them. “Can I have something to eat?”
Daine’s jaw fell open. “Where did he come from?”
Alanna bent over the newcomer, peering into his eyes. Onua grabbed the girl’s elbow and steered her out of the tent. “Explanations later,” the K’mir said. “There’s a lot to be done for him still.”
“Onua, where’s my hawk? Where’d that man come from?” Her knees shook.
Onua put a hand on Daine’s mouth. “Hush. No more questions. I’ll explain everything—later.” She went back into the tent, pulling the flap tightly shut behind her.
“Later,” Daine muttered to herself. “Wonderful. Hawks disappearing, men appearing—why not? Later.” She stamped off to look after the ponies, who at least would tell her things and not wait for any “laters.”
THREE
SPIDRENS AND MEDITATION
Hedgehogs woke Daine as they wriggled into her bedroll, shaking in terror. It wasn’t the controlled fear they felt around hunters, but the wild panic that made them run before a fire. She
eased out of the covers. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Stay here.”
She dragged on her clothes and boots. She felt it now, heaviness in the air and in her mind—not like the Stormwings or the rabid bear, but there was a flavor in it that reminded her of the winged monsters. In the camp around her, the men slept quietly—no snorers like Grandda. Onua was mumbling in her sleep. Tahoi was not with her or the ponies.
“Stay,” Daine told Cloud, who wanted to follow. She fitted the string to her bow and checked its draw as she looked around. A light burned in the Lioness’s tent. The other one, where the man who’d been a hawk lay, was dark.
The wood outside their camp was thick with fear. Tiny beasts dug as far into burrows as they could. The big ones were gone. An owl sitting overhead was almost mindless with terror. That was bad: owls didn’t scare.
Tahoi sat at the edge of the trees, nose to the wind. When Daine rested a hand on his shoulder, the dog flinched. “What is it?”
He knew only that it was bad, and it was coming.
“Stay with the ponies. Guard them.” Tahoi whimpered a protest. Waiting for trouble to reach him was hard; better to hunt it out. “Go on.” He obeyed, reluctantly.
A sentry nearby raised a hand in greeting. Looking past him, Daine saw another. “Do you hear anything?” she asked. “I think something bad is coming. Something wrong.”
“I hear nothing.” It was Hakim. He didn’t take his eyes off the woods beyond. “Go back to your sleep.”
There was no sleeping, not now. Checking the ponies, Daine found they were afraid too. Beyond them the horses were alert, watching the trees like sentries. The war-horse pawed the air: he knew danger was close. Wanting to fight it, he pulled his tether to see if it could be yanked from the ground.
“Not yet,” she said, patting his withers. “Watch. Wait.” She walked toward the forest.
“Don’t go alone.”
Daine wrenched around and lost her balance. A strong hand grabbed her elbow and raised her to her feet. It was the Lioness, wearing a shirt, breeches, and boots. The red gem at her throat glowed steadily; a naked sword lay in her right hand.
“Easy,” the knight cautioned. “What brings you out here?” They walked to a small clearing almost thirty feet away.
Daine took a deep breath and made herself calm down. “There’s something close by that isn’t right. I can’t explain better’n that.”
The Lioness scanned the trees all around them. “I feel it too.” She tapped her gem. “This warns me of trouble, sometimes.”
“Look.” Her ma had said she had an owl’s nightsight. That was how she saw the rabbit in the clearing, when someone else would miss it. Kneeling to lift the body, she found it was still warm.
White light—Alanna’s magic—appeared over her hands. The knight touched the body with a palm and felt its warmth, then touched the red drops at the rabbit’s nose. She sniffed her fingers. “Blood? Its heart burst—”
“It was scared to death.” Daine was sure of it. Gently she lay the dead creature atop a nearby stump. “There’s something else, Lioness. The big animals—there isn’t a one within a mile of this place right now. Listen.”
The knight doused her light and obeyed. “Nothing’s moving out—”
A bat darted between them, chittering a warning. Startled, the knight and the girl jumped back—and a rope that glowed a sickly yellow green dropped into the space where Alanna had been standing.
Noise overhead made Daine look up as she put an arrow on the string. A monstrous spider hurtled down at them. She shot it before she even knew what she fired at. A man screamed above; black fluid fell onto her hand, burning like acid. She put two more arrows into the thing and jumped aside when it hit the ground.
Alanna was shouting a warning to the camp. Daine was about to wipe her hand on a leaf when something moved on the edge of her vision. She leaped out of the way and the Lioness moved in, as smoothly as butter. Her sword flashed once—a powerful cut sliced two of the near legs off a new attacker—then twice, beheading the thing. It happened so fast Daine wasn’t quite sure it happened, till Alanna dragged her out of the way of the monster’s death throes. Knight and girl waited, breathless, for a moment or two, to see if another giant spider would appear.
“I don’t think there are more,” Daine said at last. “It felt—wrong—out here, before. That’s almost gone now.”
Many-jointed legs moved, and she knew the one she’d shot was alive. Gulping down nausea, she drew her dagger and walked around front to kill the thing—cutting off its head was best.
She had thought they were spiders, almost as big as she was, with bodies dressed in dull black fur. That was bad enough, until she saw this one from the front. Head and neck were human—its teeth as sharp and pointed as a giant cat’s. It screamed with a man’s voice, enraged at seeing the knife.
Her mouth dropped open; a cry of fright and repulsion came out as a strangled croak. Her knife dropped from numb fingers. No wonder these had felt like Stormwings in the night. They were just as wrong, an eerie mating of animal and human that had no reason to exist.
“Great merciful Goddess.” Alanna came up behind her. It made Daine feel better to know the paleness of the knight’s face wasn’t due entirely to the light she had called so they could see. “Have you ever heard, or—”
“Never.” She turned her back on it—let it die slowly—and found a log where she could sit, shuddering in horror. Grandda had told her stories about monsters, human-headed and spider-bodied, named spidrens. A brave man hunted them best at night, he’d said: their webs glowed in the dark.
A hand rested on her shoulder. “Little girl, your ancestors are proud tonight.” It was the sentry, the man Hakim. “You are the best archer I have ever seen—better even than the Lioness.”
Alanna nodded. She knelt beside the thing, examining it with a stick rather than touching it herself. “We’re lucky you sensed them coming, Daine.”
The girl swallowed, thinking, You couldn’t pay me to touch that, even with a stick. “The hedgehogs woke me. They didn’t know what was out there. I could feel something wrong was close, but I didn’t think it’d look like—like this.” Wincing as the knight pulled the thing’s head back by the hair—it was dead now—she added, “Grandda told me stories about spidrens, but he said they were killed, ages and ages ago.”
“Not killed.” Hakim’s voice was steady, but his face glowed with sweat. “They were imprisoned in the Divine Realms four hundred years ago, by the greatest of shamans.”
“You mean they’re gods?” Daine asked, horrified.
“Immortals and gods aren’t the same. They just live in the same place.” Alanna dusted her hands. “Like the Stormwings, Daine. They were shut into the Divine Realms at the same time, along with a great many other creatures. Griffins, dragons, and so on.”
Daine swallowed: there were more of these? What if they were loose too, escaped from the prison where they’d been locked for so long?
“Horse Lords.” Onua had found them. “Lioness, what—”
“They’re called spidrens.” The knight’s voice was almost matter-of-fact. “Goddess knows how many of us they would have killed and dragged off to munch on if your Daine hadn’t been alert.”
“You killed one too,” Daine reminded her. She went to the clearing’s edge and listened to the woods beyond, just in case. All around she heard creatures stirring, large and small, as they resumed their night’s business. I don’t know if I’d ever come out of my burrow again, she thought.
Remembering an obligation, she glanced behind her. Hakim and Onua were going over the spidren, using sticks. Most of the camp had come to watch, and to marvel. One of the soldiers was vomiting at the edge of the clearing, which made her feel better. At least she hadn’t thrown up.
She faced the trees where the bat had fled after warning them. “Thanks, wing-friend,” she whispered. “Thank you for both of us.” In the darkness ahead, a bat squeaked in reply. Dai
ne smiled and went back to the humans.
“It’s over,” she told Alanna. “The animals are coming out.” She felt suddenly exhausted; the burn on her hand throbbed.
Onua put an arm around her. “We’ve both had enough excitement. Come on.” She steered her to their fire. “Are you all right?” She hissed in sympathy when Daine showed her the burn, and got her medicines. Daine barely remembered having the burn cleansed and bandaged, she was so tired. The pain gone, she got into bed.
“You’re certain you’re all right?” The woman was plainly concerned.
Daine smiled at her. “I think so.” The hedgehogs snuggled in around her once more. “I’ll have nightmares, for sure.”
“Me too,” Onua sighed. “At least we’re alive to have them.” She eased into her own bed.
“What of him? The hawk—the man?” Daine pointed at the patient’s tent.
Onua smiled. “Master Salmalín slept through the whole thing. He’ll be mad as fire when he hears too. Spidrens are more his line than ours.”
Daine said shyly, “Why didn’t you tell me the truth? About the hawk?”
A sigh came from the other bedroll. “His shape-shifting—it’s a secret. Only a few people know, and we’re not supposed to tell. It isn’t that I don’t trust you—I do.”
“He’s a spy?”
“Only sometimes, when the king’s spymaster can’t send anyone else.”
“He was just supposed to get well and fly off, and I’d never know.”
“That was the plan.” There was a rueful note in Onua’s voice.”
“I know now.”
“Yes. You planning to tell somebody?”
Daine thought about that. “You just said it’s a secret, didn’t you? I won’t tell.”
“Good. Now go to sleep.”
No one left the camp by the river the next day. The men of the King’s Own burned the dead monsters and searched the woods for more. The Lioness and Onua sat with their patient all morning. In the afternoon they summoned Hakim and another soldier who carried a writing desk.