Fall of Angels (The Saga of Recluce #6)(76)

"Not your kind, Weapons. You're as direct as that crowbar you carry. That's hard on a woman." Istril stood and walked toward the steps to reclaim the composite bow.

Relyn, sitting beside Ayrlyn, watched the slender marine. He pursed his lips, opened his mouth, then closed it. "How . . . ? No man would accept that in Lornth."

"This isn't Lornth, Relyn," said Ayrlyn. "This is Westwind, and the women make the rules. Gerlich crossed the marshal once; she took him apart. She used her bare hands and feet to kill a marine who crossed her."

The young noble glanced at Nylan. "What about you, Mage?"

"Gerlich is better at the martial valors than I am, I suspect."

"You're better with a blade," said Ryba, "for all of his words about his great sword."

Gerlich's eyes hardened, but he turned and smiled to Selitra, then rose and bowed to Ryba. "It has been a long day, Ryba, and we will be hunting early tomorrow."

Ryba returned the gesture with one even more curt. "May you sleep well."

Gerlich smiled, and Nylan tried not to frown. He liked the man less and less as the seasons passed.

"You are a strange one, Mage," said Relyn slowly. "You are better with a blade than most, yet you dislike using it. You can wield the fire of order, and yet you defer to others."

"Too much killing leaves me unable to function very well."

"But you are good at it."

"Unfortunately," Nylan said. "Unfortunately."

Later, in the darkness, Nylan and Ryba walked up from the great hall, slowly, the four sets of steps that led to their space on the sixth level.

"Some nights, I get so tired," said Nylan. "It's easier to chop wood and do heavy labor than to use the laser these days. It's beginning to fail."

"Can you do any more of the bows?"

"I did six. I might be able to do some more, but I haven't cut all the stone troughs for the bathhouse and showers. I did get the heater sections done."

"A heater?" asked Ryba.

"It's not really a water heater, but I figured that I could put a storage tank with one side on the back of the chimney for the heating stove, because not many people will bathe in ice water in a room without heat. It probably won't get the water really hot, but it might make it bearable, and the back stone wall is strong enough to hold a small tank."

"You're amazing."

He shrugged in the gloom of the third-level landing, almost embarrassed. "I just try to make things work."

"You won't always be able to, Nylan."

"Probably not, but I have to try."

"I know." She reached out and squeezed his hand, briefly, then started up the steps again.

When they reached the top level, Nylan paused. Framed in the right-hand window, the unglazed one, was Freyja, the ice-needle peak faintly luminescent under the clear stars and the black-purple sky. Nylan studied the ice, marveling at the knife-sharpness of the mountain.

Ryba kicked off her boots and eased out of the shipsuit. Nylan turned and swallowed. Lately, Ryba had been distant, oh - so - distant. He just looked.

"You don't just have to look," she said in a low voice. "Today is all that is certain."

He took a step forward, and so did Ryba, and her fingers were deft on the closures of his tattered shipsuit.

"You need leathers," she whispered before her lips touched his. "Leathers fit for the greatest engineer."

"I'm not-"

"Hush ... we need what is certain."

Nylan agreed with that as his arms went around her satin-skinned form, still slender, with only the slightest rounding in her waist, the slightest hint of greater fullness in her breasts.

Later, much later, as they lay on the joined couches that they still shared, Nylan held her hand and looked at Freyja, wondering if the peak had a fiery center like Ryba.

"I'll be back," Ryba whispered as she sat up and pulled her shipsuit over her naked form. She padded down the stairs barefoot, after picking up an object Nylan could not make out, night vision or not, from beneath the couch.

As the cold breeze sifted through the open windows- both the single window with the armaglass and the one with shutters alone were open-the engineer pulled the thin blanket up to his chest, and waited . .. and waited.

His eyes had closed when he heard bare feet, and he turned and asked sleepily, "What took so long?"

"I ran into Istril, and she wanted something," Ryba said. "I'm never off-duty anymore, it seems. I was able to help her, but it took a bit longer than I'd thought. She thinks a lot of you."

"She's a good person," Nylan said, stifling a yawn and reaching out to touch Ryba's silken skin, skin so smooth that no one would have believed that it belonged to an avenging angel, to the angel.

"Yes. All of the marines are good. That's one reason why I do what I do." Ryba let Nylan move to her, but the engineer felt the reserve there, the holding back that seemed so often present, even at the most intimate times.

And he held back a sigh, only agreeing with her words. "They all are good, and I do the best I can."

"I know." Those two words were softer, much softer, and sadder. "I know." But she said nothing more as they lay there in the cool night that foreshadowed a far, far colder winter-as they lay there and Ryba shuddered once, twice, and was silent.