"Friend or foe?"
Jame's heart jumped at the sound of her brother's voice behind her. For a moment, she thought he meant her, but then she turned and saw that he was looking down at the orphaned feet.
"Neither, really. Just someone in the wrong place at the right time."
"Somehow, I'm not surprised." He surveyed the surrounding ruins. "Your friend Marc warned me that I would probably find the Riverland reduced to rubble and you in the midst of it, looking apologetic."
"Er . . . sorry."
A winter of things waiting to be said, and that was all she could manage before this cool, strangely elegant man who was her brother. She could feel him withdrawing into the mantle of the Highlord's power, out of reach. Even now, he wouldn't deal with her twin to twin if he could help it.
Then he saw her face, and the mask of his expression slipped.
"Oh." Despite himself, he raised a splinted finger as if to touch her scarred cheek. "I dreamt . . . ."
A noise made him turn sharply, his uninjured hand leaping to the empty sheath at his side.
Graykin stumbled out of the dust. Narrow face set and ashen, he looked more like Genjar's death banner than ever—a bastard Caineron, clutching Kin-Slayer in his dirty hands.
Torisen went white under his dirt and stubble. "Treason!" he said, in a deep, hoarse voice. Terrified, the Southron fell back before him, unsteadily raising the sword's blood-stained point.
Jame slipped between them. "Tori, no!" She seized her brother's arms, feeling a strength in them far beyond her own. "The bolt is shot!"
He blinked at her, confused and suddenly—frighteningly—vulnerable. "What bolt?"
Impossible to explain, then or perhaps ever, that she had barred a door in his soul-image against their father's madness. Enough, that he had asked in his own voice, not in Ganth's.
Graykin had knelt, face averted but with a wary look askance, to offer Kin-Slayer hilt first—a dedicated sneak, embarrassed to find himself in so prominent a position.
"Company," said Jame softly.
On the far side of the indentation stood Chingetai. His shaman-elders huddled about him, their helpers including the erstwhile Challenger close behind them in a gray, wary clot. The chief was staring at Kin-Slayer. The Knorth war-blade had come into these hills before, in different hands, to leave stories repeated for generations. Neither he nor his followers were armed at all except for Ashe's confiscated staff.
Still, they out-numbered the Kencyr more than two to one.
Torisen accepted Kin-Slayer and turned to face the Merikit, casually grounding the sword's point. Sonny's blood ran down its blade to form a small puddle at his feet. Jame had fallen back a step to his side. The brush of a furry shoulder against her leg heralded the arrival of the Wolver. The shift upward of the Merikits' eyes told her where Brier Iron-thorn had come to stand behind Torisen, and an unbreathing coldness at her back announced Ashe. Graykin scuttled to the rear, where Index and Kirien could be heard greeting him with surprise.
The two front lines regarded each other warily.
"All right," said Torisen quietly. "I'm open to suggestions."
"Can you use that thing one-handed?" Grimly muttered up at him out of the corner of his mouth.
"You've got Father's ring on your sword-hand," Jame said, "and Kin-Slayer has just tasted life's-blood. I'd be careful, if I were you, what you swing at."
He shot her an impatient look. "You can't mean that it's all a trick, as simple-minded as that. Anyway, how in Perimal's name would you know?"
Jame grimaced. "The same way as usual: trial and error."
Chingetai suddenly launched into a speech. At first, his attention still fixed on the sword, he inclined to preoccupation. Soon, however, he hit his normal, loud stride, with a piping echo from the back row where Index translated in paraphrase.
The Kithorn massacre of eighty years ago was mentioned, with the implication that it had been the fault of its misguided victims. Marc's collection of the resulting blood-price nearly side-tracked the Merikit, but after a brief boggle he plowed on, gaining vehemence.
"What is all this in aid of?" Torisen asked over his shoulder.
"Hush! He's finished with ancient history."
Chingetai jumped into the depression.
"It's all his fault!" he roared in Merikit, scooping up and brandishing his son's truncated remains.
What followed, up to a point, was the same denunciation as before, not at all hindered by Sonny's inability to hear it. Although sacred space had departed, Jame found that she didn't need Index's gleeful translation to understand; therefore, she knew what Chingetai was saying even when the old scrollsman broke off and began apparently to choke.
"No!" she cried, chagrined to discover that her new knowledge of Merikit didn't extend to speaking it. "Index, tell him that that's impossible!"
His indictment of Sonny's feet concluded, Chingetai seemed momentarily at a loss what to do with them. Then, with a shrug, he tossed them into the well and clambered out of the indentation. Jame fell back a step as he limped toward her, all fear of Kin-Slayer forgotten, a broad grin splitting his blackened face. She had barely time to note that under the charcoal much of his skin was tattooed when she found herself swept up in a bear hug that made her ribs creak.
"No, no, no!" Index was gabbling as he clung onto Tori's sword-arm.
Hearing Brier's quick footstep behind her and a growl from the Wolver, Jame made a flailing gesture for them to hold back. "It isn't—umph!—what you think!"
The next moment she had been dropped to regain her breath as best she could while the Merikit swept out of the courtyard after their chief. On the way, they nearly ran into Cattila and Lyra but skirted them, glaring. Jame remembered the Merikit trophy skins in Caldane's apartment.
Meanwhile, Index had collapsed into another coughing fit, which turned out to be laughter.
"A Kencyr girl, foisted on Chingetai as the new Favorite, his heir for the year! And what does that madman do to save face and get his people safely away? Declares her his new son, to take that young idiot's name and fill his boots—for which, ancestors know, he has no further use. What do you say to that, hey?"
"Only this," said Jame, glowering: "If that man expects me to earn any right-hand braids, he's in for a long wait."
"Hoo!" The old scrollsman wiped him eyes and nose, both of which had run copiously. "There is this, though: we're still on Merikit land. Chingetai has gone to raise his village. He'll be back as soon as he can with the whole tribe to kill us all—except you, of course, favorite son. Time we are leaving."
High time, thought Jame, looking up.
Mount Alban showed through rifts, its exposed inner walls glimmering ghostly silver in the gray dawn. The red-lit clouds had begun to disperse, the fire within them dying with the onset of summer's first day. The weirdingstrom was finally breaking up. The college was about to depart.
Below, glowing wisps trickled out of the broken shell of the smithy. In the back by the forge, where the chimney still upheld the rear wall and part of the roof, weirding light shone briefly as though seen through an open door. A dark figure moved against it, then came forward, brushing tendrils of mist from white, desert gear with a silken handkerchief.
"Well, really!" said Adric, Lord Ardeth, surveying the shattered courtyard with fastidious distaste.