I urged Nekia away, digging my heels into her sides as much for balance as to urge speed, for the man’s body was a heavy weight. Sudden pain lanced into my hand. Turning, I saw Obred’s teeth locked tight over my left thumb and forefinger, their whiteness swiftly eclipsed in red as blood flowed. Agonized, I tightened my grip, praying to any Powers that might listen to let me sustain my hold until we won free of the well’s influence.
A few strides further on, Obred’s jaws parted, and he slumped in both our holds, limp.
Tightening both knees, I signaled Nekia to halt. Obred slid from my numbed grasp onto the plain, facedown.
Take care of him,” I told Guret, turning the mare back toward the rest of the Kioga, only to see one—two—three—then a fourth rider slip from their saddles, heading for the deadly trap. I raced past them.
“Stop!” I turned Nekia to face them, drawing steel, resolving that any who would not heed would die cleanly by my sword, rather than be trapped by the Shadow.
One or two hesitated as the blade swept from my scabbard, then stopped, blinking. Acting on a half-remembered tale, I drew the steel through the air between the group and the well, and the cold iron did indeed break their fixed gaze. “Back—get back!” I crowded Nekia closer to them, still swinging my sword, keeping the blade ever between their eyes and the well. Several mounts took a hesitant step back, in response to their riders’ signals. One by one, gradually, all the Kioga retreated, until when we were perhaps twoscore feet from the structure, the compulsion abruptly ceased. The Kioga milled in confusion, one rider falling from his saddle in a faint, several others clutching their heads and crying out.
Guret came forward, half supporting a shaken Obred. I dismounted, warning, “Do not look toward it. It may be that once nearly caught, one is more susceptible the next time.”
Obred shuddered. “I do not believe most would have a second time, Lord. That—that foulness—” He spat, looking for a second as though nausea would overcome him at the very mention of the well.
I turned to look at the rock—and-mortar trap, surrounded by those huge, unnaturally brilliant blossoms. Cautioning Obred and Guret to remain where they were, I moved closer, sword held between me and the well, my wristband flaring. With great care I circled it, studying the rocks, the blossoms. Wherein lay its threat? Would its victims cast themselves in? As I stepped, something crunched underfoot, and looking down, I saw the skull of a deer, bits of hide still clinging to the bone-whiteness. A little farther on, a pronghorn’s bones lay bleaching—then something that looked like a small wildcat’s. On impulse, I lowered the sword from between me and the well—
At once I felt its lure, though that call was muted, no doubt by the wristband I wore. The trickle of water was in my ears, water of life, water of eternity. To drink of that water would make me immortal… invulnerable… give me the wisdom of the ages…
It was not until I staggered a half step forward that I realized how close I had come to being ensnared. I jumped back, bringing my sword up once more, only to see movement around the base of those rocks. The flowers—
I blinked. Had it only been my imagination, or had those blossoms actually moved away from the steel? I lowered the sword again, watched the blossoms strain toward me, writhing, rippling—their petals moving, opening like hungry mouths, entrancingly lovely…
Hastily I raised the sword again, and they were only flowers once more. Guardedly I completed my circuit, noticing many more bones nearly hidden among the tall grass, as though cast aside after a feasting.
As I approached Obred and Guret from the other side of the well, the Kioga leader led Nekia to me. “Mount, Kerovan. Let us get hence from that thing, before it lures us again. I thought for a moment it had you.”
I shook my head, refusing the proffered reins. “I cannot go, yet.” I cast a look back at that Shadowed trap, and fear tightened my voice. “I must do what I can to seal that thing. It shall not be left to draw others—animal or human.”
Guret’s hand closed on my arm. “But Kerovan, you said yourself you had no lessoning in use of Power! How can you do such a thing?”
“I don’t know.” My words were forced from me, honesty compelling that admission. “But I do know I cannot ride away free, leaving that thing also free, to kill again.”
Turning, I pulled away from his grasp, walking back toward the well.
5
Joisan
Barely a fortnight after my lord’s departure with the Kioga scouting party, I began to wonder if I might be with child. My woman’s cycles had always been extremely predictable, but this time the moon had waned into darkness and still—nothing. Also, my midwife’s training made me alert to other small signs that could mean my body was preparing to shelter another life than my own.
Not truly knowing myself whether I hoped for or feared confirmation of my suspicions, I reminded myself that the strain of the past few weeks—leaving Anakue, Kerovan’s erratic behavior in the face of that drawing from the mountains—could well have disordered my body’s rhythms. Each morning I told myself that this day could well lay to rest all my doubts… while those days slipped by, each like unto the other, leaving me to question—with only-time to provide firm answer.
My days in the Kioga camp left me with too much time for such solitary speculation. As an honored guest I had no assigned duties, and those I could assist with, such as weaving the coarse linen thread spun from the wild flax growing along the riverbanks, were tasks that give one much time for thought. I spent long hours in conversation with Jonka, learning about the Kioga, how they had come to the plains, and was chilled to discover what had driven them from their mountain home—the same creature (or (me like unto it if one were to imagine the doubled horror dl two such) that Kerovan and I had seen that night on the hillside.
For some reason (perhaps to turn my speculations in any other direction—even an unpleasant one), thoughts of that mountain terror returned again and again to haunt me. I found myself wondering if it had always existed, a wrongness blighting the land since time itself was new, or if it had been created by some perverse follower of the Dark…
Sometimes at night I dreamed of it while lying alone in the guesting-tent, waking shaken and chilled, missing Kerovan’s warmth and strength more each time. We had always looked to each other for all companionship and happiness, as though we moved within a circle drawn by love—as a wand draws a pentagram for protection in a spelling. As the days passed, I wondered if, supposing that the drawing from the mountains was finally broken, we could extend that encircling warmth to include another, welcome a child…
With such hopeful speculation I barricaded myself against doubt and fear, for as the days passed, my certainty grew. At times I lay wakeful, hands pressed to my belly (though it would be long before any movement fluttered there), striving to ward off misgivings with reason.
Every woman fears a little when she first discovers she is bearing—I perhaps more than some, for I had presided at many birthings in past years. Fear of pain… fear of that ultimate aloneness that is labor… fear of change . . fear of the possibility—however remote—of death, nationally, I knew that I was well suited physically for childbearing, healthy, with a strong yet supple frame.
Women of my mother’s family for generations had been given to easy labors and birthings. Still I feared—a little.
But growing even more quickly, nigh eclipsing fear as the moon began to wax full again, was my eagerness to hold, touch, see my son or daughter. As I moved about the Kioga camp, my eyes were drawn naturally to the babies and young children, and I grew to know several of the young mothers—though my secret remained mine alone.