The Wizard's Ward (Queen's Quests Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “I will take that.” He seized the pack from her. “You should sit down and rest a moment.”

  “Not until we are out of danger.” Her answer gusted out on a ragged breath. “Besides, if I do not keep moving I may start thinking.”

  “Please yourself then.” Rath dug a length of rope from the pack and used that to tie it down.

  By the time he had finished, Maura was back with the second one. “How did you know where to find this raft?”

  “I was the one who put it here.” He lashed down the second pack, hoping it would balance with the other one. “Over the years, I have discovered a body can never have too many escape routes. Can you look about on the bank for a long pole to help shift this thing?”

  While she was busy searching, Rath led the reluctant pony down to the water. There he fashioned a harness from the last of the rope and tethered the skittish creature to the makeshift barge.

  “I found one.” Maura climbed aboard, handing Rath the pole. He handed it right back to her. “I need you to push while I try to convince this stubborn beast to pull. Do not squander your strength, though. Wait until I give you the signal.”

  The pony did not seem to approve of Rath’s plan at all, but at last it responded to his tugs on the harness by wading into the water.

  “Now!” Rath called to Maura. “Push!”

  The raft did not budge.

  “Here.” He thrust the rope into Maura’s hands while taking the pole from her. “See if you can coax the beast to pull harder.”

  He dug the pole into the silt of the riverbed and pushed until his muscles fairly groaned in protest. Still the raft did not move.

  Rath cursed. He did not want the morning sun to catch them on this side of the Windle. If it did, there was far too great a likelihood the Han would also catch them.

  Maura’s voice rang out. Was she cursing, too? Perhaps. Rath did not understand any of the words.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “I do not know. It is something I heard Langbard say to the pony by times. I thought it might be a beast charm.”

  “Beast charm?” Rath scoffed as he tried to rally his dwindling strength for one more push. “Why do you not just summon the fenfolk while you are at it, or whistle for the Waiting King and ask if he will lend us a hand.”

  Preposterous stories all of them—fit for no one but fools and little children.

  Maura did not reply, but the raft gave a slight lurch.

  “Whatever you said—” Rath jammed the pole deeper and strained until he feared his joints might pop “—say it again!”

  At his urgent bidding, Maura gasped the strange words, louder this time.

  Perhaps they had nothing to do with it. Perhaps the pony sensed his only way out of that cold water was to make for the far bank with all speed.

  Between the animal’s efforts and Rath’s, the crude barge began to ease away from the shore. Just when he’d decided he could not muster another jot of effort, even if the whole Hanish army had been arrayed along the riverbank bellowing for his blood, the raft slid far enough for the current to catch.

  It pitched forward, throwing Rath off balance. The pole slipped from his grasp.

  He lunged for it. If it remained sticking up out of the water, it might tell the wrong people more than he wanted them to know about where he and Maura were going. Besides, it might be his only means of nudging the raft to the far bank before the Windle carried them toward the Winding Rapids.

  Flailing to recover his balance, Rath braced to slam into the relentless cold and deadly swiftness of the river. Then Maura caught a fistful of his robe and pulled him back. With a sucking, scraping noise, the pole came free of the riverbed and Rath tumbled backward onto the packs.

  “Hang on!” He only had breath enough to gasp those two words, though he hardly needed to.

  If Maura Woodbury had any sense, she’d grab something solid and cling to it for dear life.

  Once the little barge finally scraped free of the shallows, it soon made up for lost time, racing downstream, propelled by the river’s turbulent springtime flow. The pony no longer had to worry about pulling the raft. The poor beast was now being dragged behind.

  Its terrified whinnies stirred Rath to action. If they drifted too many more miles east, they would tumble over the Winding Rapids. He doubted they would reach the other side undrowned... Maura’s especially.

  “I wish I had taken my chances with the Han.” Her voice was tight with fear.

  Had she never been on the water before?

  “Just hold tight,” Rath tried to reassure her, though he was far from confident, himself. “We will be across and back on dry land soon.”

  “Not soon enough for me!” Maura gave a squeal as the raft bobbed high then fell again, flinging up a great spray of cold water.

  Rath braced the pole between their two packs, using it as a crude rudder to edge their barge toward the far shore. At least, that’s what he hoped it was doing.

  “We are slowing,” said Maura after a few moments. “What does that mean?”

  “It may mean your pony has found a foothold,” Rath answered between clenched teeth. His arms felt ready to fall off, and he would be happily rid of the pain they were causing him. “Perhaps you should ask him and find out.”

  He thought he heard her mutter something about being vastly amusing for a man whose corpse might soon be fish food, but he had more important things to do at the moment than trade quips. “Grab onto my robe in case I start to slip.”

  One thing he could say for her, she was quick to follow orders.

  Rath pushed the long stick deep into the water. A surge of relief buoyed him when it struck solid bottom. Giving a quick push, he lifted the pole free again and sought a fresh bit of leverage for his next thrust. Each time he lowered the pole, more and more of it reared above the surface of the water until the bottom of the barge finally struck ground.

  “Untether the pony and lead it ashore,” he bid Maura. “I will get the packs. Quickly, before the raft works free again.”

  Once they had unloaded, he pushed the raft back out until the current caught it. Now the Winding Rapids could dash the thing to pieces, with his blessing.

  Rath gazed eastward. The first tentative light of dawn was beginning to glimmer in the distance. When he scrambled ashore, he could see Maura rubbing the pony down with her cloak.

  He tossed their packs over the beast’s back.

  “Come on.” He took Maura’s arm. “Let us find somewhere we can hide and sleep until nightfall.”

  “Sleep,” she murmured, listing against him until her head rested on his arm.

  Perhaps it was only the giddiness of exhaustion, but a bewildering sense of satisfaction engulfed him. Not only because he had wriggled out of yet another tight spot. But because he had helped Maura out of one, too.

  Waking overwhelmed Maura like a vicious attack. She started up from the pile of straw where she had been sleeping. For the first time in her life, she woke somewhere other than her own cozy little chamber in Langbard’s cottage.

  She had never seen this place before. It looked like a small barn, with a rough-hewn wooden frame and shafts of sunlight piercing narrow gaps between the wall boards.

  Where was she? Her heart pounded and she struggled for breath as the memories assailed her.

  Her room was gone. The cottage was gone. Langbard was gone. Everything familiar and beloved had been violently ripped from her life. And her heart along with them.

  Grief gnawed at her, its teeth sharpened by guilt because she had let herself sleep and forget.

  A ragged sob escaped her... followed by a gasp as Rath Talward sprang to his feet, sword in hand, between her and the half-open barn door.

  When the attack he clearly expected did not come, he whirled around to confront her. “What is it? I heard you cry out.”

  Maura averted her face to hide her tears. She felt far too vulnerable around this man at the best of times. “W-wh
en I woke up, I did not know where I was.”

  She heard Rath sheath his sword. “I don’t wonder at that. Your feet were still moving when we reached here this morning, but you were not awake.”

  The direction of his voice changed slightly. When Maura stole a glance at him, she found him crouched near her, balancing on the balls of his feet. “It is good you were able to sleep.”

  “I wish I hadn’t.” With the back of her hand, Maura dashed away the tears that blurred her vision. Tears a man like Rath Talward must surely despise. “Last night, I had gotten used to it all... in a way. When I woke, it hit me all over again.”

  “Weep, then, if you want to.” He looked rather awkward suggesting it. Endearingly awkward. “You have cause enough and we cannot go anywhere until it gets darker.”

  “Are feelings something you pack away when they are inconvenient, then bring out later to air when you have time for them?” she demanded.

  “You make that sound like a bad thing.” The outlaw pulled a droll face, then immediately grew serious again. “When you live as I have, that is what you must do to survive. If it helps, I know how you are feeling.”

  A strange softness in his voice and his dark eyes made her crave his sympathy with an intensity to which she dared not surrender.

  “How?” she asked. “Was the person you cared for most in the world murdered? And the only home you ever knew put to the torch?” It made her gorge rise to speak of what had happened to her in such bald terms.

  “No.”

  She had thought not.

  “It was a fever took Ganny, not the Xenoth. She was too humble a soul for them to bother with. Either way, she was just as dead.”

  Rath’s features remained impassive as he spoke, but Maura sensed the turbulence in his heart. “Her little hovel may still be standing for all I know. Without her there, it might as well have burned to the ground, for I could not stay. You would have found that too, I daresay, if Langbard’s cottage had been spared and we had not needed to be off.”

  He was right. Maura did not have to stretch her imagination far to recognize it. She wondered if Rath Talward had ever known the luxury of peace to unpack those feelings and air them properly. Or had he buried them too deep for that?

  “Your grandmother?” she asked.

  Strangely it did ease her mind to know he had endured something similar and survived. Thinking about his situation provided her with a welcome distraction.

  “Maybe.” Rath jumped to his feet. “Or maybe just some daft old woman who took in an orphan babe.”

  He headed to where the packs lay in the straw. Nearby, the pony stood, looking as if it would be content never to budge again.

  “Hungry?” Rath pulled one of Sorsha’s hard boiled eggs from the pack and handed it to Maura before she could answer.

  He took another for himself, crushing the shell in his fist, then peeling it off. Tossing the peeled egg up in the air, he caught it in his mouth and wolfed it down in three bites.

  Maura glanced down at the egg in her hand. She and Rath had walked far and crossed the river after Sorsha’s late supper of soup and bread. Now hunger gnawed at her belly. But so did grief, making her feel too queasy to eat.

  “Bread to go with that?” Rath took out a small loaf, more bounty from Hoghill Farm. He broke it in half, then offered one of the pieces to her.

  “How did you come to be with Langbard?” he asked. “I know you called him uncle, but he said you were his ward.”

  “He took my mother in, before I was born. After she died, he looked after me.”

  Maura forced herself to peel her egg. No doubt she and Rath would have another long walk tonight, and many more in the days and nights to come. Part of her understood what he meant about putting feelings aside to survive. You could carry them in your heart, just not let them hinder you from eating or sleeping. Not let tears blind you when you needed to see, or regrets distract you when you needed to concentrate on staying alive.

  And if such actions made you seem hard or unfeeling, that might not be a bad thing.

  “This Ganny of yours, was she anything like Langbard?”

  “No.” Rath gave a grunt of laughter at the notion, then seemed to think again. “And yes, in an odd way. She was not learned, like him. Never set foot a mile from home in her life. Hadn’t power of any kind. Just a poor, simple, harmless, ignorant old woman...”

  He turned his back on Maura, gazing toward the door of the little barn as if he expected to see someone entering. “One who would give an ungrateful beggar the bread out of her own mouth.”

  The ache in his voice made a morsel of egg catch in Maura’s throat.

  Abruptly he spun around to face her again, his tone as hard and sharp as the blade he wielded. “Do that once too often, you sicken and die. And the world’s still just as full of ungrateful beggars.”

  Maura understood. “She followed the Elderways, you mean? She believed in the Giver?”

  “Aye.” Rath spat in the straw. “The Giver and the Waiting King and every other fool’s tale you ever heard! Mumbling daft blessings over food so foul it did not deserve to be blessed.”

  Part of Maura bristled at Rath’s dismissal of the Giver and the Waiting King. But another part saw past his anger and bitterness to the hurt and regret beneath. Her belief in all things good and magical had grown easily, nurtured by Langbard’s steadfast, loving presence, free from the kind of fear and want Rath Talward had known from too early an age.

  “I am sorry.”

  “For me?” Rath stabbed his thumb toward his chest and forced his features into a look of derisive amusement that did not fool Maura for an instant. “You need not be, my lady. I learned early to fend for myself, and those lessons have served me well ever since.”

  He glanced toward the door, clearly eager to cut short their talk about his past. “I wonder what hour of the day it is? I should go check the sun.” With that he swung about and strode to the barn door.

  “Would you like me to turn you invisible?” Maura called after him.

  “Save your feathers.” Rath did not look back. “I heard Langbard say they are hard to come by. We may need them worse before we reach Prum. Besides, I have a few tricks of my own for keeping out of sight that do not require magic. I would sooner rely on my own skills. I know they will not let me down.”

  With that, he slipped out of the barn, leaving Maura to choke down her food and to digest what he had told her about his past. She did not trust this peculiar feeling of sympathy for him that was taking root in her heart, any more than he trusted magic or the Elderways. Wariness and antagonism were a good deal safer.

  He had not thought about old Ganny in years, Rath mused as he and Maura and the pony continued their journey that night.

  At least, not often. And he had never spoken of her to another person. He had not meant to tell Maura about her. The words had just tumbled out. He had better learn to curb his tongue.

  What had stirred up all those old, useless memories? he asked himself. Until they felt as raw as when he was ten years old and turned out on the streets to fend for himself?

  The wizard and his ward, no doubt, with all their gabble about the Elderways and all the daft little rituals he had done his best to forget. Langbard’s death, too, perhaps, and watching Maura grieve in a way he had never been able to let himself do.

  Rath glanced sidelong at her moonlit shadow, wrapped in a pensive hush as she walked. He had to admit a grudging respect for how she carried on, doing what needed to be done, yet not denying the deep sorrow of her loss.

  One moment she stirred his sympathy, the next moment she vexed him. Either way, she claimed far too much of his attention. This was too dangerous a time for distractions.

  As if to reinforce that notion, something stirred in a clump of bushes ahead of them. If he had been as alert as usual, rather than wrapped in disturbing thoughts, he might have had an earlier warning of possible danger.

  Cursing his inattention, Rath fro
ze, jerking the pony to a halt.

  “What is it?” Maura whispered.

  Had she not heard? If not for him, she might have blundered into peril.

  “Wait here.” He handed her the pony’s rope halter.

  His blade slid free of its scabbard with a soft hiss.

  Maura let loose her own soft hiss of reproach. “Is that how you meet every situation—with force of arms?”

  “Yes!” How else? his tone demanded.

  Every situation was a potential threat. The only way to counter a threat was with a more dire one. This sheltered flower had better learn both those harsh truths soon unless she wanted to end up dead or worse.

  Though he knew he should keep his attention fixed on the possible threat ahead of them, Rath could not resist calling softly over his shoulder, “If it will make you feel better, you can dig something out of that sash of yours.”

  Another rustle from the bushes roused his caution back to its proper height. He approached with slow, wary steps, senses alert for the slightest sound or movement.

  When he was within striking distance, he tensed his knees and leaped into the air, crying, “Who goes there?”

  Immediately he dropped into a crouch and swung his blade, expecting to hear his enemy’s whistling above his head. This trick had worked well for him before in darkness.

  His blade whipped through the thin branches, but failed to make the solid contact he had expected. At the same instant, something broke from the bushes, traveling low and fast. It struck one of his legs with enough force to topple him onto his backside, cursing.

  The pony gave a frightened whinny and skittered back until Maura spoke to it in a tone of firm but gentle reassurance.

  The next thing Rath heard was a soft chuckle and quiet footsteps approaching.

  “Well done.” Maura’s hand groped for his to help him up. “You saved us from an attack by that vicious creature. A woodhare, I guess, by its size and the speed it was running.”

  Rath scrambled up, letting go of her hand the instant he got his feet under him. “I would rather flush a hare by mistake than risk strolling into an ambush!”