Destiny: Child of the Sky

31

Rhapsody could no longer feel her feet; the stinging snow had numbed them into oblivion. How many days and nights she had been out here she no longer knew, only that her strength was ebbing and her goal was nowhere in sight. She no longer had any idea where she was.

All around her the wind shrieked, and the forest spread forth in a vast, unending pattern; copses of trees and brush melded into identical copses of more trees and brush, until the landscape around her blurred into a white whirl of sickening confusion. Rhapsody was exhausted, and she was lost.

She tried to navigate by the stars, as her grandfather had taught her, but the stars here were foreign to her, even if she could have seen them through the building storm, which blotted out all visibility. The gladiator no longer even tried to awaken; she expended all of her diminishing fire lore keeping him from freezing across the back of the horse.

Finally she could go no farther. She sank onto her knees in the snow, the sharp ice crust jabbing her legs as she fell. Her hair whipped around in the wind, and she watched it dance before her eyes, like branches of a golden tree bowing before the same gale that commanded the flailing arms of the forest. The wind bit at her ears, its howl a fluctuating musical note that spoke of sleep and dark dreams. And something more—there was power in the wind, power she should remember.

Then it came back to her—the Kinsman call Oelendra had taught her.

- S

Rhapsody curled up, resting her head on her thighs, and tried to block out the insistent shrieking all around her. Her breath no longer provided her any warmth, and she tucked her hands under her arms so that she could concentrate, searching in the howling roar for the single note that would carry her cry of help to the brethren of the wind. Finally she found it; the clear, quiet tone ringing under the tumult, humming steadily as the wind raged and ebbed.

“By the Star,” she whispered, her voice cracking from the cold, “I will wait, I will watch, I will call and will be heard.” Around her the storm diminished, almost imperceptibly, and the quiet tone rang truer. Rhapsody summoned her strength.

“By the Star,” she sang again, in the words of her birthplace, the language of her childhood, her volume increasing steadily, “I will wait, I will watch, I will call and be heard.” The tone sounded, clear and bright, then whistled down into a humming breath and wrapped itself in the wind, disappearing into the night.

Rhapsody listened as it left, praying that help would come, but her heart reminded her that the star she swore by now lighted the sky over the sea a world away; the place where lived the wind that had answered the call of Kinsmen was long gone beneath the waves. Still, perhaps Oelendra would hear. Just to be sure, she sang her mentor’s name, sending messages of love to her, to the children, to her friends. She did not mention Ashe, for fear he might come.

Time passed, unhurried and unmarkable. The horse shivered and began to walk, trying to stay warm. She made a grab for the bridle and missed, toppling chest-first onto the icy ground. As she pushed herself upright again on her hands she thought she saw the figure of another horse at the edge of her vision, slipping in and out of the black trees at the horizon; then it was gone.

The snow began to harden as the temperature dropped even more, the soft flakes changing to crystals of ice, spraying as gusts of wind kicked up. They stung her face and blinded her; now she could not even see where she was. Rhapsody tried to press forward, walking on her knees, coming alongside the horse. Her father’s face danced before her, calling her name, and warmth began to descend; she knew she was freezing to death.

In the distance she could make out the silhouette of a dark figure standing erect in the changing patterns of swirling iceflakes and, even further at the edge of her disappearing vision, what was probably the horse she had imagined she’d seen. With great effort she raised up onto her knees on the hard crust of the snow, and strained to see better.

The figure seemed to move toward her. It appeared to be a large man and wide, with billowing edges that flapped in the screaming wind. It pressed forward with none of the difficulty she was having. The figure seemed to undulate as it moved; Rhapsody realized this was a result of the violent shivers that had taken over her body. She fought to stay alert, but her mind had already progressed to a stage of fogginess that she could not overcome. She reached a trembling arm up to touch the horse beside her and felt for the leg of the gladiator; it was still warm beneath its shroud of blanket and cloaks. She blinked repeatedly to stay focused. If the approaching man threatened them, with her last ounce of fire and Naming lore she would spur the horse with heat and order it home. Rhapsody patted the muscular leg in apology, knowing she had failed in her attempt to rescue him, and praying as the darkness began to set in that she had not put him in even a worse place than he had been.

“Rhapsody?” The darkness deepened and ebbed as she struggled for consciousness. She thought she could hear the wind calling her name. Then the snow began to crunch loudly as the figure sped its approach, and she heard her name again as the biting breeze whipped around her ears and echoed throughout her head.

“Rhapsody? Gods, is that you?” The voice was clearer now, and deep; in her diminishing awareness she felt she recognized it, but was unsure from where. It reverberated and expanded, making her head spin. She tried to rise but found she had no dominion over her legs anymore, and, in fact, no feeling in them. She grabbed the horse’s girth and held on, her hip scraping the ground as the animal danced in place at the change in weight.

Then he was upon her, dragging her to her feet and out of the snow. Through the haze of her vision that remained she saw that she was facing a mail shirt of black rings interwoven with silver beneath a flowing black cloak that again seemed familiar, though she was still unable to place it, or even to determine if she was in danger or not. Her perspective swayed again as one of his hands released her upper arm and in a gyration of white snow and black wool she felt his cloak encircle her, touching her numb body with the warmth that a moment before was his own.

“Criton! By the Kin, it is you. What in the name of all that is good are you doing out here? And all but naked? I knew you were dim-witted, but I hadn’t realized you were insane. Or are you suicidal?”

Rhapsody tried to see through her ice-caked lashes, but she couldn’t get a fix on his face. There were patches of light and dark alternating, as if he wore a beard, and his eyes were the same shade of blue as Ashe’s, but without the vertical pupils. He was holding her off the ground in front of him, with arms strong enough to keep her suspended thus without a hint of effort.

She concentrated as best she could on the vibration emanating from him, until a hazy picture formed in her mind of the last time she had seen him. It was in this same place, or very near it; at least, in the place she thought this was. Finally, as the image took shape: Llauron’s brother. Anwyn and Gwylliam’s youngest son. Ashe’s uncle. The soldier who had almost run her down on a forest road the year before. She thought she recalled his name.

“Anborn? Anborn ap Gwylliam?” In her daze she didn’t recognize her own voice, cracked and raspy as a crone’s and shaking audibly.

“Yes,” he said, putting his arm under her knees and drawing her frozen feet under the cloak. “It was you that called on the wind? Gods, if I had known you were like this I would have summoned others—healers.”

“No,” she gasped, her voice resisting being discharged from her throat. “Can’t. No one—must know. Please.”

“What’s that?” Anborn asked tersely, nodding toward her horse.

Rhapsody’s teeth were chattering so violently she could barely get the word out. “Gladiator.”

Anborn wrapped the edge of his cloak tighter around her feet and pulled her against his chest, trying to warm her with the heat from his upper body. “You stole a gladiator? From where—Sorbold?” She nodded. “I hope you had a good reason—he’s not for your private entertainment, is he?”

Rhapsody started to shiver uncontrollably as her frozen limbs began to absorb the heat, and her head shook with the rest of her.

“You went into Sorbold, alone, to kidnap a gladiator, dressed like that? Whose brilliant idea was this?” He made a whistling click, and his horse immediately began to canter toward them.

She tucked her hands under her arms again, trying to warm them and keep from jerking with the convulsive spasms that were beginning to take over her body. “Llauron.”

As the horse came up alongside him, Anborn pulled a small saddle blanket that had protected its neck from in front of the saddle. He lifted her onto the horse sidesaddle, and set about wrapping her legs in the saddle blanket. “When you lose both feet to this little venture, please remind me and I’ll go thrash him for you, the fool. What happened? Why are you here?”

Rhapsody’s ears began to ache in the stinging wind as feeling returned to the rims of her lobes. “Reinforcements—never came.”

Anborn looked up at her, regarding her with a thunderous frown on his broad face. From his saddlebag he brought forth a metal flask and held it out to her. “Drink this.” She tried to reach out for it, but her arm trembled so furiously that Anborn reconsidered and held the flask to her lips, bracing her back with his hand. The burning liquid made her choke, and as she coughed some of it spilled over her lips, leaving them even more vulnerable to the bite of the air.

Anborn wiped the spillage off with the edge of his cloak. “Are you awake?” he demanded, grabbing her chin in a firm grip. “If you’re not, wake up now, or you will die. Do you hear me? You are closer than you may know. How long have you been out here, exposed like this?”

Rhapsody struggled to remember, fighting off the fuzzy edges of unconsciousness that were trying to close in. “Seven days, eight? Maybe more,” she whispered, the effort to speak threatening to shut her down.

Anborn said nothing, but the grim look on his face turned even more forbidding. He took a rope from the saddlebag and lashed her to the saddle, knowing she did not have the strength to hold herself up on the horse, and led the animal back to her mount. Rhapsody huddled under his cloak, motionless, as he examined the unconscious form of the gladiator.

She watched as he made a few adjustments and poured some of the liquid from the flask down the fighter’s throat, belting Constantin into senselessness again as he stirred with a single blow. Then he returned and mounted behind her, tying her horse’s bridle to the reins.

“You really are an idiot,” he said, scowling down at her. “The brute is warm, and wrapped, and you have been feeding him at your own expense. You are lucky you are not under my command—I would have you whipped for jeopardizing a valuable life in favor of rubbish.” He looked into her eyes and saw they were not responding, a glazed look within them, and took her face in his hands.

Anborn touched her lips with his own and began to breathe heat into her mouth. Passionlessly he exhaled, filling her lungs with warmth that spilled over onto her face. After a few breaths he waited, watching for signs of response. When he saw none he returned to the technique, trying to warm her internally.

After a moment Rhapsody’s eyes fluttered open, and Anborn watched in amusement as a look of surprise weakly crossed her face at finding herself lip to lip with him. “Now, stay awake or I shall have to do that again,” he said, pulling the cloak up over her head and holding her against his chest as he set out with both horses for shelter from the storm.