“We?” asked the smith. “Aren’t you a Traveler?”
Tier shook his head. “No. My wife is, but I’m from Redern in the Sept of Leheigh over in the Ragged Mountains.”
There was a tug on his shirt, and Tier looked down to see that the girl had left her seat to get his attention. He smiled at her. “Yes?”
“What kind of magic did the cold man have?”
“Jes is a Guardian,” Tier explained. “His magic makes him a good guard against all kinds of evil. He can turn into animals or make it hard for others to see him if he wants to. The other man, my son Lehr, is a Hunter; he has a different magic. He can track things, and his magic helps him aim his arrows.”
“Traveler mages aren’t as good as ours,” said the boy. “Our mages can do anything.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Tier felt no guilt at revealing things the Travelers liked to keep secret. “They’re just different. My wife, Seraph, is closest to our wizards. Travelers call her Order either Mage or Raven—each of the Orders has a bird associated with it.”
“How many kinds do they have?” asked the boy.
The tension in the hut had dropped off. The girl was leaning against Tier’s arm instead of her brother’s, and the boy had quit hugging the post as if it were the only thing that could keep him safe. Partly, Tier knew, it was that he was a distraction from the thing they were afraid of. Partly it was Tier’s own magic, Bardic magic, easing their fears.
“Six.” Tier ticked them off on his finger. “You’ve met Guardian—that’s Eagle, and Hunter the Falcon. Then there’s Raven the Mage. Lark is for Healer—and you are lucky the Traveler clan we’re with has a Lark for your mother. Cormorant is Weather Witch, and Owl is Bard.”
“Why birds?” asked the girl. “Why not fish?”
The boy rolled his eyes. “Nona, don’t be stupid. Why would they name their powers after fish? How would you like to tell people that you were a garbagefish or a trout? That’s stupid.”
“I asked my wife why they used birds,” Tier said quickly, before they could start fighting. “She didn’t know.”
“You talk a lot for a Traveler,” said the smith, with a shade less hostility than before.
“But then, as I told you”—Tier smiled as he spoke—“I’m not a Traveler.” The smile had Aliven relaxing further. As Jes’s job was protection, Tier’s was winning over hostile strangers, and he would do it as he saw fit.
Not Traveler, but Owl and Bard, he thought as the smith eased enough to take a seat against the opposite wall. But there was no use confusing the issue.
It had taken Tier’s wife years to adjust to the idea that though there was not a drop of Traveler blood in him, he was still Bard. Order Bearers, it seemed, did not have to be Travelers.
Tier was in the middle of a fine story of a Traveler hero who saved children from a rampaging demon-wolf when they all heard hoofbeats.
Tier started to rise to his feet, but fell back with a grunt because his knees had stiffened up. A hand appeared in front of his face, and, after a brief hesitation he grasped it and let the smith haul him to his feet.
“Thanks,” he said.
“What’s wrong with your knees?” asked the smith.
Tier grinned at him. “A bunch of wizards took a club to them when I was trying to save the Emperor.”
It was the truth, but he wasn’t surprised to see the smith laugh. Tier had, after all, just spent the last few hours telling stories that sounded more probable.
“As if wizards would bother using a club,” the smith said, shaking his head as he let Tier brace himself until he was certain his knees would hold him upright.
“They said the club would hurt more,” said Tier lightly.
Days of hiding in the hut momentarily blinded Aliven as he stepped outside, with Tier leaning on his shoulder.
Looking down to save his eyes, all he saw at first was a confusing clutter of horses’ hooves. It caught his attention because he’d never yet seen so many Travelers mounted. They generally came afoot and left that way, too—curling their lips at people who let horses do all their traveling for them.
As his eyes adjusted he looked up, and the confusion sorted itself into a group of about ten men and three women. All except Tier’s son Jes were pale-haired, some yellow-blond, others the strange ash-grey blond that belonged only to the Travelers. One of the women was old, older than anyone the smith had ever seen. They all looked grim and cold as Travelers always did—a marked contrast to Tier’s warm good cheer.
Aliven, who had been slowly moving forward under the gentle pressure of Tier’s hand on his shoulder, stopped.
“Benroln,” said Tier, stopping beside him. “I didn’t expect you to come yourself. I didn’t know that mistwights were so dangerous as to require half the clan’s fighting men.”
In someone else’s voice, the words would have been sarcastic or biting, but Tier made them cheerfully teasing.
One of the younger of the men grinned and, evidently being the Benroln that Tier had addressed, said, “Our experts tell us mistwights who have a taste for human flesh are nasty dangerous: smart, with a few magic tricks up their a—” He gave a nervous glance to the old woman who sat beside him, mounted on the spotted horse Tier had sent back with his sons, and cleared his throat. “With a bit of magic, anyway. Your wife assured us that between Ravens and Falcon they could take care of it, but the rest of us decided not to let them have all the fun. There would have been more of the clan here if we had the horses.”
Tier stepped forward a little. “Benroln, may I present Aliven Smith? Aliven this is Benroln, Clan Chief and Cormorant of the Clan of Rongier the Librarian.”
Cormorant was one of those magical birds Tier had spoken of, Aliven remembered belatedly, though he didn’t remember which. He didn’t know how to respond to the introduction without giving offense, so he ducked his head and hoped it was sufficient.
Apparently it was. The young man slid off his horse and shook the smith’s limp hand briskly. “We’ve met,” he said. “Though we’ve not been formally introduced.”
It was possible, Aliven knew. But all those blond heads and subtly foreign features tended to look alike to him.
Tier gave the young Traveler a sharp look.
Benroln laughed and shrugged, flushing a little. “Just to trade for grain, Bard. Nothing more.”
The horses shuffled, and a man came to the side of the old woman. Aliven was almost certain it was Tier’s blond son, though it could have been some other Traveler—he hadn’t paid so much attention to Tier’s second son, not after the dark boy had come into the hut.
“I like this horse, Bard,” the old woman said to Tier. “Like me, he’s still kicking when his contemporaries have had the self-respect to die off.” Now that he looked, Aliven could see hollows above the horse’s eyes that told a different story than the sinewy hindquarters and alert stance.
Tier bowed to her, a low, sweeping bow that was court-polished. “The both of you are too stubborn to give in to time any more than you’d give in to anyone else. Brewydd, this is Aliven Smith. Aliven, this is our Lark, Brewydd.” With his face carefully turned so that only Aliven could see, Tier mouthed the word healer and winked.
“Lehr, get me off this poor creature’s back before we both fall down dead and are no use to anyone.” The old woman hadn’t acknowledged the introduction with so much as a glance.
Tier’s son—for the old woman had called him by the same name as Tier had called his son—reached up and held her steady as she swung one leg over the horse’s spotted rump with surprising grace. When she had both legs on one side, he caught her at waist and shoulder and set her gently on her feet.
She looked at Aliven for the first time and smiled gently. “Don’t let this mob worry you, my lad,” she said, taking the smith’s arm. “They just want to see the mistwight.”
It took Aliven a moment to realize that he was the “lad” she referred to. No one had called him “lad” since his da died some fifteen years ago.