Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(63)

"Safe now," she said at last, panting a little. "The plague cannot kill you or pass from you to anyone else. Best I could do. When you leave. Close the gates. Two weeks before this town will be safe to enter. Make certain. Keep people out."

"I remember how," Lehr promised. "I can keep people out for two weeks."

"Careful."

"Always, grandmother," he said.

She squeezed his hand, but didn't speak again. After a moment he felt her relax into sleep.

Jes cleaned out the karis while Lehr held the old woman. He found fresh bedding from somewhere - Lehr didn't ask where. Then Lehr put her in her karis and sat with her.

Jes put a hand on his shoulder, then left them.

When the light headed toward evening, Lehr bestirred himself to look after Cornsilk, but he found her unsaddled, brushed, and fed in a smallish corral that had, from the height of the fences, served to keep goats rather than horses. Jes was nowhere to be seen, so Lehr went back to Brewydd.

She had saved him when he'd been wounded to the soul.

He'd killed men. He snuck up on them under the cover of night and sliced their throats from behind before they had even known he was there. He'd killed them coldly, planning out each of his moves ahead of time. No honest, fair fight because he could not afford it at the price of his mother's life.

Brewydd had taken him under her wing afterward and taught him about being Hunter and human - and he was almost certain she'd practiced some of her healing art on his soul. Under her overbearing manner and sharp tongue lurked a soft heart.

"Here," Jes said.

Lehr looked up and took the dry flatbread Jes handed him. It was from their packs, not from this town. Lehr took a small bite and swallowed. "Where have you been?"

"Checking for the living," Jes said, his gaze sliding away from Lehr's. "We couldn't leave anyone. But everything is dead here. Human and animal."

"I won't leave her here," Lehr said. He didn't say that she was dying or that moving her would be senselessly cruel. Jes would know.

"I'll wait with you," said his brother, and sat down on the ground to do so.

She didn't awake again, but drifted off sometime in the night while Lehr was dozing.

Jes found a shovel and helped Lehr dig a proper grave near the maple tree. He buried her wrapped tightly in the bedclothes.

Jes stood beside him when he was finished. "Somewhere," he said, "a new lark flies." He squeezed the back of Lehr's neck with gentle affection, though he released him quickly. "We need to leave before others come."

Lehr saddled Cornsilk and walked beside her and Jes until they came to the gates. Then he sent Jes out with the mare while he shut the gates and barred them. Climbing over the top from the town side was easier than from the outside, and he dropped to the ground near Jes.

He put both hands against the wall and did the easy part first. Walls are built to keep people out, and he reinforced that with power. No one would be able to get over them or through them until the energy he left here wore away. That would probably take a month or more, he thought. Those walls had been stoutly built: they wanted to keep people out.

The gate was more difficult. By the time he finished, both the mare and Jes were getting impatient.

"At least there's only the one gate," Lehr said, when he was finally satisfied. The wall had shown him that much.

"Walls and gates," said Jes. "Why, Falcon?"

"Because Hunters set traps." Interpreting Jes's aborted speech without much trouble, Lehr climbed tiredly into the saddle. He patted an apology on Cornsilk's neck for his awkward mount. "Brewydd told me that fences, walls, doors, locks, and gates listen to me because they keep things in, so they fall under my Order."

"Hunters trap or cage their prey," said Jes thoughtfully.

Lehr set Cornsilk on the trail toward home and concentrated on staying on. He'd not slept much last night, and the magic he'd worked had drained him.

"The bag," he said suddenly worried. "Did you get the bag Brewydd wanted us to give mother?"

"Yes," Jes said. "It holds mermori. Rongier the Librarian's and the others that Benroln had. There were five of them. Mother won't be happy. She already has too many of them."

The sun was warm, and Lehr found himself fighting to keep his eyes open. His eyelids burned, and his throat hurt.

"Go ahead and doze," said the Guardian at Cornsilk's shoulder. "Jes and I'll keep you safe. There's nothing more you have to do."

"I'm sick," said Lehr in surprise.

"Yes," said the Guardian. "Rest."

Chapter 10

"You should have gone out fishing with the children," Tier observed mildly, without looking up from his carving.

That of the "children" - Hennea, Phoran, his guardsmen, and Rinnie - only Rinnie really still qualified - didn't make them any less his children, Seraph knew. Everyone Tier cared about, he took under his wing, up to and including Ciro, who was a contemporary of Tier's grandfather.

"You're as anxious as I am," she told him, turning to pace the other direction. "That's the only time you ever carve."

Tier held up the unrecognizable object he'd spent the better part of the morning shaping with his knife. "Obviously a good decision on my part," he said.