An icy wind kissed my nose. Like distant thunder my sire’s voice laughed mockingly. A bee sting flamed as an ember on my hand, then faded. Wet noses prodded my arm and a rough tongue licked my face as the breath of cats warmed me. The creatures of the spirit world could not cross into the mortal world except on Hallows’ Night… or in my wake, as Rory had.
“May blessings bring quiet sleep and plump deer to you and yours, Aunt,” I said politely, “and let me assure you that your son is well and behaving himself as much as he can. But I seek my cousin eru and the one she travels with. If they will cross with me.”
An eerie arc of day broke over the land. In its wake rolled a coach and four. The coachman drove right for my outstretched arm, and I grabbed at the harness and flung myself backward to draw them with me.
The coach rolled into the entry hall as people shouted and scattered. It kept on through the open front doors and glided a hand’s span above the steps before settling to earth on the graveled forecourt. The horses stamped, a mist steaming off their pearlescent skin. The coachman tipped his hat to me. His blue eyes tightened with a smile that did not touch his lips. The footman jumped as lightly down from the back as if she had hidden wings. She flipped down the stairs and opened the door.
“What is your wish, Cousin?” the eru asked. In the eyes of everyone else she appeared as a man. Perhaps I just found her more comfortable to talk to as a woman.
“If you will convey us, I would be glad of it. Bee, Rory, get in.”
The eru swung the bags of provisions up onto the roof.
“What means this, that those who served us now serve you?” The mansa looked ready to ignite.
“They do not serve me, nor did they ever serve you,” I retorted. “But if you wish, Mansa, you can come with us. We could use a powerful cold mage.”
“So it has come to this,” he muttered. “I am being led by two girls.”
His irritation brought a smile to my lips for the first time in days. I made an elegant courtesy. “Yet you must admit, Mansa, that my dearest cousin Bee and I are two exceedingly fine young women, with quite unexpected depths.”
Only a man of his stature and birth could manage an expression that so purely combined a censorious frown shaded by a wrinkle of amusement at his eyes, for as much as he disapproved of my bold way of speaking, it was equally obvious a part of him found it appealing.
“That is one way to describe it, Catherine. We have not the leisure for me to explain the other. My predecessor could not have imagined that the bargain Four Moons House forced onto the Hassi Barahal clan sixteen years ago would lead to this peculiar end.”
But he wanted Vai back as much as I did, so he dismissed his djeli and gave orders to his nephew to follow with the surviving Four Moons soldiers and mages as soon as they could get horses. Then he got in.
The door was shut. The squinty gremlin eyes of the latch stared at me in what I thought might be surprise to find me back again. The coach jostled as the footman swung up onto the riding board in back. On the whip’s snap we rolled, on our way at last.
44
Drake’s trail led north in fire and ashes.
The first staging post lay in smoking ruins. Locals poking cautiously through the remains of a cottage, kitchen-house, and stable yard told us of fire and confusion none of them had been close enough to observe. The staging-post attendants were missing and the horses had all been stolen.
“A clever move on his part,” remarked the mansa as he paced the scorched grounds of a third staging post, later that afternoon. “All the local militias are in disarray from the campaign. Had we not this magical conveyance, his actions would have slowed down our pursuit so greatly there would have been no chance we could catch him.”
Seeing my distress, Bee ushered us back into the coach. As we headed into the gathering dusk, she talked to fill the silence. “Can the blacksmiths’ guild not be recruited to help us?”
“What can they do?” he retorted. “They have devised their own means to control and channel the destructive chain of fire magic, but they cannot combat this. I am come to appreciate General Camjiata’s devious mind. He raises a fire mage who can win his battles and discards him when he becomes too powerful, yet does so at no risk to himself. From what you’ve explained, Catherine, it seems to me the general pushed the man into embracing the worst of his anger without the man realizing he had been manipulated.”
“Yes, it does seem that way.”
I stared out the window at a rabbit racing across a meadow in fright for its life. A hawk stooped. With a gasp, I leaned to watch. In a flash of feathers the hawk thumped. Then we rocked around a corner and I never saw whether the hawk had caught its prey or the rabbit had escaped.
