Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(19)

Gradually the discipline of redrawing the wards absorbed her. Mathematical and artistic at the same time, they required enough of her attention that the part of her that desired the rush of power was reduced to murmurs she could ignore.

She became aware of him gradually, a pale form grazing quietly beside her. The pattering of the light rain was accompanied by the grinding of teeth and grass. The familiar, peaceful sound helped somehow, and she became aware of a deep inner contentment.

She was home.

She finished the link she was working and sat back, fisting her hands against her lower back as she stretched.

"You don't look well," she said.

"One of the tainted creatures attacked the priest," replied the pale horse who was Jes's forest king. His voice was velvety and very deep. "I saved him, but it was a near-run thing. Karadoc's not young by Rederni standards, and he's ill even yet. Without a priest, fighting the shadow-tainted has been draining, even with the help of your daughter."

She absorbed what he said and sorted through questions. The slowness of her thoughts told her that she was far from free of power-sickness yet.

"The troll wasn't the first of the shadow-tainted creatures to come here?" she asked. She didn't need Lehr or Jes to tell her that the troll had been tainted. Unlike the mistwight, trolls were shadow-born, creatures whose only purpose was to destroy and kill.

"No, there were other things, too, things I haven't seen since the Fall, though none as dangerous as the troll. They come to destroy and feed the Shadowed."

Seraph stilled. "I had hoped that we were wrong. You are sure there is another Shadowed? That Volis couldn't have set up a summoning spell?"

The horse snorted. "Creatures like that troll would only come to the call of a Shadowed." He rubbed his nose on his knee.

"You mean the Shadowed is here?" asked Seraph, then shook with the rebellion of her magic as her control of her emotions wavered. She took in deep, even breaths until everything settled down.

The forest king waited until she was through before he said, "Not now, I don't think. But he has been here. He left behind a rune in the old temple that was triggered a few weeks ago." He lifted his head to scent the air, then shook his mane and turned his attention back to her. "I don't pay enough attention to the town. If Karadoc hadn't called me when the first of the creatures appeared, it might have taken me too long to find the rune on my own. As it was, other than destroying the rune, I could do little for them in the stone of the town, so I called them here, where your wards could do some of the work while I took care of the tainted things. I wasn't expecting the troll, so I used myself up healing the priest and driving away the little things. A troll..." He sighed. "A normal troll would not have been too difficult, but that one... Your wards kept him mostly away from the villagers until today."

"There was a rune in the temple," Seraph said.

"To awaken and draw those things that bear the collar of the Shadowed," the forest king explained. "The priest took me to the temple, and we destroyed the rune. Not soon enough."

Runes were solsenti wizardry mostly. Seraph was only marginally familiar with the theory behind them - though there were a few useful ones that she used sometimes. She did know that they could be drawn and set to wait until something triggered them. The temple had only been built this past winter, though, so the Shadowed had been in Redern sometime since then.

A number of the Path's wizards had come with Volis, the wizard-priest she'd killed in the new temple in the village. The other wizards kidnaped Tier, then left for Taela. The Shadowed could have been among them.

Perhaps the mistwight that killed the smith's daughter had been drawn from whatever place it had been hidden and was traveling toward Redern. After the forest king stopped the call it settled in the smith's well. Unhappily, she wondered how many other creatures were even now preying upon defenseless villages - maybe that was what Benroln had been called to fight.

The burn of power slowed Seraph's thoughts, and she returned to her wardings. The forest king followed her when she moved, grazing while she worked.

Darkness fell under the trees, though she could see patches of light where the trees were thin. The birds quieted as they settled in for sleep, but there was music coming from the farm. She smiled; let more than two Rederni get together, and there would be music.

She examined the progress of her magicweaving critically and was satisfied. Her thoughts were a little clearer than they'd been, and the wards were strong and tightly woven.

"Tier told me once that he thought Jes's forest king shared a number of traits with Ellevanal," she told the horse casually.

Ellevanal was the god worshiped by the mountain peoples, including the Rederni. Though today was only the second time Seraph had seen him, Jes had spent his summers exploring the woods with a creature he'd called the forest king since he was old enough to run.

"Bards see things that others do not," agreed the forest king, taking another bite of grass.

"What would the Rederni say if they saw their god of forests eating grass?" asked Seraph.

"They are not Travelers," replied the god after he'd finished chewing. "They would not see what you do."

She laughed despite herself. "Now that's a properly mystical answer."

"I thought so," he said. "But it is true for all of that."