Perhaps she was only imagining it.
Yet as she stood, peering futilely into the distance, she felt another chill, a different one, this time at her back. The tiny hairs at the nape of her neck bristled and beads of sweat appeared, cooling a moment later in the morning breeze. Rhapsody turned quickly, staring over the battlements of Haguefort eastward, toward the ever-reaching expanse of the Krevensfield Plain, but the sensation was gone. Nothing met her eyes but endless swimming fields of highgrass.
She put her palm to her temple, seeking to dispel the throbbing that had arisen from deep within her brain; as she did, to the south she felt yet another quiver, like a tremor in the ground. She bent quickly and touched the earth beneath her feet, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
And then, as quickly as it had come, it too was gone.
“Aria?”
Rhapsody looked up to see Ashe, on the roadway below, watching her along with the guards, the soldiers, and Gerald Owen. She mustered a smile and shook her head, a gesture that sent everyone back to his appointed task except Ashe, who handed the chest he was carrying to one of the escort troops, then headed up the grade to her side.
“Is something wrong?” he asked as she stood and brushed the dirt from her hands.
“I’m not certain,” she replied, shielding her eyes again and looking around. Whatever had disrupted her thoughts, had given her pause, was gone now, if it had even been anything to begin with.
“I don’t think so,” she said finally.
“We can still send an avian message to Achmed if you wish to stay home,” Ashe said, running a finger through a loose strand of her hair. “He won’t be leaving Ylorc for another day or more; Yarim is so much shorter a trek for him.”
Rhapsody took his hand and pulled him back toward the wagons. “Not at all. I am very much looking forward to this journey,” she said as they walked to the caravan. She stopped as a carriage marked with the royal standard plodded into the line, drawn by a team of bays. “What is that?”
Ashe bowed deeply. “M’lady’s coach.”
“Surely you jest.”
The Lord Cymrian blinked. “No. Why?”
“You want me to ride in a carriage?”
“Why not?”
“Coaches are for—for, well—”
A wry look of amusement came into Ashe’s blue eyes. “For what, my dear?”
“For—well, for nobility and the like.”
“You are nobility, Rhapsody. You’re royalty now, as much as it pains you.”
She cuffed him playfully. “You’re right, it does, but that’s not the problem. Coaches are for the pampered, or the old, or the ill. I don’t wish to be any of those things, not yet at least.”
“Are we never to overcome your distaste for royal amenities? It might afford us a private place to sleep.”
“I’m sure the regiment will appreciate that. No.”
Ashe gave a mock sigh of annoyance. “Very well,” he said, and gestured to the quartermaster. “We don’t need the coach, Phillip. Thank you.”
“It would just slow us down anyway,” Rhapsody said, going to her roan mare and patting her affectionately. “And Twilla would be jealous.”
“Let it be noted that I attempted, indulgent husband that I am, to spare your hindquarters from the saddle, and you rebuffed my efforts,” Ashe said, attempting an injured air.
“Well, my hindquarters thank you, and please do not comment further on that statement,” Rhapsody said, patting the roan again. “Are we almost ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps we should find Melisande and Gwydion Navarne. And I wanted to be certain to bid farewell to Anborn.”
Ashe nodded in the direction of the crest of a hill. “He’s over there,” he said. “I’ll gather the children if you want to go say goodbye.”
Rhapsody kissed him appreciatively. “Thank you.”
She waited until he had ascended the steps of Haguefort before heading toward the hill he had indicated. She stopped halfway up, listening to the moan of the wind again, but there was nothing in it out of the ordinary that she could discern. Finally she sighed and hurried up the hill face to the summit.
At the top of the hill Anborn sat, alone in his wheeled chair. His back was to her, but as she approached he spoke.
“It’s coming from the west, I believe,” he said.
Rhapsody stopped where she stood. “What is it?” she asked apprehensively.
The ancient soldier didn’t move. “I don’t know,” he said.
Rhapsody slowly came forward until she was beside him. Even standing upright she was only slightly taller than the Lord Marshal was when seated. She waited, not wanting to disrupt whatever he was listening for. Together they stared out over the endless meadow to the horizon, brightening now with the full ascent of the sun. Finally the general spoke.
“I thought I heard the call,” he said.
“You had said. On the Skeleton Coast.”
Anborn turned his azure gaze on her. “No; again, last night.”
The chill returned, prickling her flesh, but this time Rhapsody knew that the source was the general’s words. “Where?”
Anborn looked away again. “If I knew, I would be there.” He rolled his shoulders, the massive muscles rippling beneath his shirt, then straightened his useless legs with his hands.
“I heard nothing, though I sense a change in the air,” Rhapsody said, brushing the hair from her eyes as the breeze blew through again. “I have never heard the call of the Kinsmen on the wind, Anborn; I’ve only been the one to cry for help, and you answered. I thought that if a Kinsman called, and there was one within the hearing of that call, he would come; that the elements themselves would aid in bringing him.”
The general nodded. “That was my understanding as well.”
“So then how could this be?”
Anborn shrugged. “I have lived more than a thousand years, Rhapsody. If I live a thousand more, I will still not know the answer to every question you would have.”
Rhapsody smiled slightly. “Indeed that is true,” she said, putting her arm across his shoulder. “And even if you knew, I doubt you’d share the information. You cannot even deign to tell the buttery cooks what you want for supper.”
“Your new one is wretched, by the way. I’ve had better swill and hardtack in the belly of a cargo ship.”
The light words dissipated on the wind, leaving an image ringing in Rhapsody’s mind.
“Could the call have come from the sea?” she asked. She felt Anborn’s muscles tense slightly beneath her arm. “Llauron used to say that the wind over the sea sometimes caught sounds and spun them, like raveling wool, keeping them flying about forever, battered by the vibrations of the endless waves. Is it possible you are hearing a call that came from someone on the sea, maybe yesterday, maybe a hundred years ago?”
Anborn scowled. “If we are to debate all of what is possible, you will not arrive in Yarim in time to meet the Bolg king,” he said gruffly, though the affection was unmistakable in his voice.
“Perhaps that is why you are hearing it and I am not,” Rhapsody said. “Perhaps it came from a time before I was even here, before I became a Kinsman.” Her face colored slightly in the morning sun. “It is still so hard for me to believe that I am one; I haven’t the lifetime of soldiering service that most have.”
Anborn shook his head. “Many lies are put on the wind, but the wind itself never lies. You called and I heard you, so whatever you did to obtain the status must have been worthy. Hard as it sometimes is to imagine it.” He pinched her hip playfully.
“What do we do, then?” she asked, slapping his hand and trying to keep the desperation she felt at bay.
Anborn shrugged again. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” The lines in the general’s face crinkled as he squinted into the sun, then turned his gaze to the fields again. “You cannot save the entirety of the world, Rhapsody; no one can. If it is to be, if there is a Kinsman in distress, and he is able to be saved, the wind will see to it that he will be. I stand ready—well, all right, I sit ready.” He chuckled and patted her face gently, allowing his hand to linger on her cheek for a moment. “And I know you do as well. So we will wait and see what is to pass. In the meantime, go and live your life. Go to that dry red brick of a city and flood it; drown it, for all I care. It’s a place of dry rot, and deserves to blow away in the wind, as far as I’m concerned, but if this is what you seek to do, by all means go do it. You cannot wait on destiny; it comes to you, usually when you are least ready for it.”