Meek

Though a spark, Eli watched Riadn climb down the lumpy stone wall.

Despite her injuries, she moved as easily as if she were walking down a staircase. He watched Lara follow with equal ease--despite her injuries.

Then he exchanged a glance with Payde, who scratched his jaw and said, "Couple of lightweights. It's nothing for them. If I try that, I'll tumble pommel over haft."

"I'm not looking forward to it myself," Eli admitted.

Payde raised his voice. "Fetch us a ladder, lass! Have mercy on the gallant wounded and the blessed halt!"

"A ladder?" Eli asked.

"She's resourceful."

"You called her 'captain?'"

"That's right. She's in charge."

"So how come you, uh, keep giving her orders?"

"Noticed that, did you? Well, there's a good reason, I can assure you of that. A blessed good reason." He gave Eli a solemn look. "It's on account of I like giving orders. And she obeys me, too--unless she disagrees, in which case I obey."

"Sounds like a system."

"Works for us." Payde inspected Eli. "Your Lara, is she any good with that bow?"

"She hit me more'n she hit the bear. With a blowgun, though, she can pin a hummingbird at twenty paces."

"Dryads," Payde said, shaking his head.

"Dryn," Eli said.

"Oh, aye. No offense."

"So who's your old friend? The one who wrote the message the lady sent?"

"Fellow named ... well, Lawrence. Joined the Order young. Retired to a peaceful life as a mercenary."

Eli snorted. "That's peaceful?"

"Anything that doesn't involved mages feels right restful after enough time in the Order. And he's not a mage. Not like you and me. He's more like Riadn and ... " He gazed at Eli, the picture of innocence. "And Lara, she's not a mage either."

"Is that what you're trying to get out of me?"

"Choir's bells," Payde muttered. "That time I figured I really was being subtle."

"She's not a mage," Eli told him. "At least not that I'll admit to you. But the Mother Glade ... well. She spreads Her canopy wide over Lara, and tucks her into the shelter of Her limbs."

Eli didn't know what that meant, if anything. But it sounded both drynish and mysterious enough to explain any usual spark-based behavior that the Shepherds happened to notice.

"Well, trees don't have the precise limbs that I prefer to seek shelter in, but--" Payde paused suddenly. "I probably shouldn't finish that thought."

Eli's spark watched Lara and Riadn dragging a broken branch of the star-elm tree closer. "So, uh, you follow the path of the Shield ...?"

"Do I look like a two-fold mage?" Payde heaved a sigh. "I've only got about six good shields in me before everything goes fuzzy."

"That's more than I've got."

"I'm not a good mage, but I'm good for the Order. Well, I'm good as a hound. I'll keep barking and baying while a lost mage crashes through my shields, right up until Riadn puts an arrow through their temple." He scratched his delk-hide leather. "Well, right until the day she doesn't. Oh, she's going to weep bitter tears when that happens, let me tell you. Doesn't know she's in love with me. What a tragedy."

Eli couldn't tell how much of that had been in jest. "Very sad."

"You know my only problem with dying, Meek? It's that I won't be there to see the look on her face when she realizes."

"I'll keep an eye out," Eli said. "And fill you in when I follow along."

Payde snorted a laugh. "Good man."

"Here's your ladder," Riadn called, propping the branch against the side of the building.

Eli felt silly, treating his injury so gently when he was the only one who could heal. Well, barring whatever herbs and tonics the Shepherds used. Still, he didn't want to do himself further harm. If a third bear attacked--please, Dreamers, let there be no third bear--before he fully healed, he didn't like the odds. One more hit, and he wouldn't stay conscious long enough to use his rooting-around-in-a-slurry-of-flesh-with-his-sparks method.

He shuddered when he remembered the taste.

Frankly, death might be preferable to repeating that experience.

He snorted at the thought. No. He'd never been this attached to living. He'd never burned this hot and this bright. He might think 'death is preferable' but he wasn't the square-jawed hero in the saga who embraced a noble, tearful end; he was the monster in its dripping lair who scratched and crawled and howled for one more breath.

After he lowered himself to the ground, half-climbing and half-sliding, Lara brought the horse. They only had one now, which Riadn had shepherded--ha--back after it fled from the bear.

Lara collected what she could from the dead horse, then Eli gritted his teeth and mounted. His hip didn't hurt exactly, but he felt a sudden spread of weakness. Still, he kept his saddle when Lara swung into place behind him.

"Lead with beauty!" Payde boomed, spurring his horse forward. "I'm in front again."

Riadn made a noise in her throat.

"Is he always like this?" Lara asked.

"Not always," she said. "Only 'too often.'"

She followed more slowly, her bow close to hand. Keeping distance between her and Payde. Letting him beat the bushes for trouble while she stayed at her best range.

"How do Shepherds ... " Lara wrinkled her nose. "I mean, members of the Order choose partners?"

"We're assigned them by unfeeling fate." After a moment, Riadn sighed. "No, I requested him. We are well-suited. Quiet, loud. Close, far. Trusting, wary."

"One of you is trusting?" Eli asked.

She smiled and didn't answer.

"The knives do all the killing?" Lara asked.

Eli expected Riadn to take offense, or to fall silent, but she merely said, "Most of it."

"I don't like killing," Lara said, and her grip tightened on Eli. "We don't like killing."

"Then you should return to your Glade."

"If we return, there will be more killing, not less."

That time Riadn did fall silent.

Lara shifted behind Eli, and turned her gray gaze to the ground, reading signs he couldn't decipher. Well, that he didn't even notice. Her furrowed forehead and solemn expression gave her an uncharacteristically stern look. She was worried, tense, afraid. He understood, he sympathized and even agreed. Still, he wanted to smooth her brow.

So he touched her cheek lightly, once, with a spark. Which drew a smile, but she didn't speak.

He lofted that spark above and sent the other humming around Riadn. Never touching her, but getting a sense of her mount, her gear. Out of curiosity, and a little paranoia.

"Most of the mercenaries turned back," Lara said, after a time. "But a small force continued toward the Weep. Pursuing the children."

"Didn't they come through before them?" he asked.

"They left West Town earlier, but spent days in the hills." She gestured to the east. "Somewhere. They returned, and ambushed a bandit force at the crossroads."

Eli didn't understand the sequence of events, but didn't bother asking. As far as he was concerned, this was simple. Find the kids. Find the Bloodwitch. Find the lady.

"Most fled the bear," Riadn said, "but some remained undaunted."

"Well, they also fled the bear," Lara said, with a small smile. "But to the north."

Riadn inclined her head. "Undaunted by the Weep."

"Ah. Have you ... ever been there?"

"No. From what I've heard, mages dislike the Weep. Somewhat paradoxically. There's too much magic there."

Eli frowned. "What happens to them?"

"Nothing worse than discomfort, according to reports. Still, lost mages tend to avoid the place, which left the Order no reason to come."

"The Reach?" he asked, mimicking Lana's ignorance.

"Heaven's Reach. The highest tower of Ehrat Break, the only one that survived." Her rippling gaze flicked for the briefest moment toward them. "Ehrat Break is the old name of the city that is now the Weep."

"Ah," he said.

"The Great Warding was cast from the Reach, by the Eld and the Angel. It still stands ... at least, to a certain degree."

"Mages avoid the place?" he asked. "But the Bloodwitch lived there for decades?"

"The fact that she lived for decades at all is even more alarming," Riadn said. "If it's true."

"You doubt it?" he asked.

"No, I'm the trusting one."

Lara laughed, a warm sound in the chill afternoon.

"Tell me what you know of the witch," Riadn said, her eyes scanning the road ahead. "Of her soldiers, and of Ehrat."

As Lara spoke, the mounds of melted stone grew rarer but larger in the bramble and woods that surrounded the sheet-stone road. A breeze blew from the hills to the east, catching the scent of clover from the meadows before reaching the road. Eli's hip knit fully together and he clenched his sparks, one then the other, into hard invisible fists.

Or at least into hard invisible thumbs.

When he'd fought the brigands in the camp, he'd used the sparks like pressure points against an eye, a knee, a neck. They weren't strong enough to do real damage--yet--but they'd still given him a tremendous advantage.

By the time Lara finished recounting their tale--slightly edited--the road had started rising toward a crest. Halfway to the top, the dull thud of horseshoes against dirt changed to a brighter note. The melted cobblestones beneath them fused together, even more tightly and smoothly, into a flow of gem-hard stone.

Payde awaited them at the top, standing beside a melted stone fence upon which he'd arranged a few chunks of cheese and lengths of jerky. He greeted them with extravagant courtly politesse, but none of them listened.

None of them ever looked at him.

Because there, in the distance, was the Weep.