Fyn tried to go to the aid of the injured bird but Galestorm stepped into his path, reaching for him. Without thinking, Fyn evaded the grab, caught Galestorm's arm and flipped him off his feet. The air left Galestorm's lungs with a satisfying whump as he hit the ice, then skidded across the lake on his back.
The other three monks protested.
Fyn ignored them, hurrying over to the bird. It was trying to rise with an injured leg, wings flapping unevenly. Taking off his cloak, Fyn threw the woolen mantle over the bird, then gathered it in his arms. The Affinity beast was trembling badly and he pressed it against his chest to reassure it. Nothing infuriated Fyn more than wanton cruelty.
Shouts from Galestorm and his companions told him they were coming up fast behind him. He could not protect himself, let alone the bird. What had possessed him to interfere? They would kill the bird and beat him black and blue.
Still, he turned to face his tormentors.
'What's going on here?' a deep voice called.
Fyn looked beyond them to see Oakstand, the weapons master, approaching with Sandbank, a third-year healer.
'Why aren't the sleds being loaded?' the weapons master demanded. Oakstand was short, with a deep chest and a scar that puckered one side of his forehead, creeping up into his hair which grew white along the scar's length. It must have been striking once but now the rest of his hair was iron-grey. For a man who knew how to disarm and kill an armed opponent in three swift moves, he was amazingly patient with the boys.
'I've got an injured bird.' Fyn indicated the bundle in his arms. One long clawed leg projected from it in an ungainly manner. The bird had calmed down.
'A grucrane?' Healer Sandbank asked. 'Give it to me. I'll take it back to the abbey.'
Fyn handed the bundle over. 'Careful, something's wrong with its wing and I think one of its legs broke when it hit the ice.'
'So the kingson is a healer now?' Galestorm asked.
The weapons master frowned. 'Enough, Galestorm. I want the sleds packed and ready to leave at first light. Fyn, get back to the abbey.'
For a heartbeat Fyn considered revealing how the bird had been hurt, but it was his word against four monks and they could cause trouble for him later, so he hurried off. Behind him, Fyn could hear the weapons master ordering Galestorm and the others about and knew they would regret failing in their duties.
Monk Sandbank was already three body lengths ahead of him, following the winding trail up the slope to Halcyon Abbey. As Fyn watched, the healer rounded a curve, disappearing behind snow-cloaked evergreens.
Taking to his heels, Fyn ran up the slope, rounded the corner and looked up. No sign of the healer, who must have been hurrying to pass the next bend so quickly. Head down, Fyn concentrated on where he put his feet, not wanting to slip on the icy snow. Already the chill of the night was settling in and he was without a cloak. He rounded the next bend and nearly ploughed into a snowdrift.
That was strange. He didn't remember stepping off the path.
Fyn spun around only to find himself eye to eye with an old woman wearing moth-eaten furs. Her lips pulled back in a gap-toothed leer that might have been a smile.
Startled, he took a step back, overbalancing into the snowdrift. The snow broke the impact of his fall but he was still a little winded. Gasping, he lay stretched out on his back. When he went to get up the old woman prodded him in the chest with her staff, effectively pinning him there.
'You struck a monk.'
'He tried to kill a grucrane.'
'What's that bird to you?'
What indeed? Fyn shook his head, not even sure why he had bothered to answer her the first time. She was obviously mad, god-touched in her own way.
'No idea, just like the other one.' She shook her head and laughed to herself. It wasn't a pleasant sound, ending in a raw hacking cough.
After the fit had passed, while she was labouring to regain her breath, Fyn gestured up the rise behind him. 'If you are ill, seek out the healing monks. They have a hot potion for a cough like that.'
She glanced up behind him. The light was fading rapidly and he could hardly see her face for the glow of the nacreous sky behind her. Here, under the pines, it was already twilight.
Alert black eyes fixed on him. 'Most surely they do, Fyn Kingson, but not for the likes of me. No, not them pure and mighty servants of Halcyon!'
He did not know what to say to that.
'Not much longer.' She hawked and spat to one side, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Obviously weary and ill, her eyes met his and held. 'Now, mark my words, Fyn Kingson.'
Her body jerked and her head tilted back until he could see the lines of dirt under her chin.
Fyn drew away in revulsion as an aura of power gathered around her frail form, making her seem larger. Even with his weak Affinity, Fyn could tell this was the untamed power of a Renegade.
'A seer!' He tried to scramble back, but the snowdrift held him. He should have been terrified. He should have denounced her to the mystics master, who would have ordered her immediate execution.
But he was fascinated, despite himself.
One clawed hand lifted to point at him, though from the angle of her head she could not see him. She was relying on Unseen sight.
'Unwanted youngest son, god-touched, nameless boy. I see you fleeing for your life. I see a day when the Goddess Halcyon's name is said only in whispers — '
Fyn laughed. He could not help it. The goddess was revered throughout Rolencia, served by seven hundred faithful monks in the abbey alone, all trained by the weapons master, sheltered behind defensive walls, built into the very mountain itself. Nothing could…
'Pah!' She shuddered and spat again, frowning down at him now that her vision had passed. 'None so blind as they who will not see! Very well, I wash my hands of you.'
She put her back to him, hobbling off between the snow-coated pines, their white skirts joining with the deep snowdrifts.
'Don't go that way. You're not following the path,' Fyn called after her.
She laughed softly and kept going. 'Follow me own path, boy, always have.'
He rolled over onto his stomach and came to his feet, determined to set her right, at the very least warn her off approaching the abbey, but when he turned around, she was gone.
'You there?' he called, brushing snow from his breeches.
'Is that you, Fyn?' the weapons master asked. The glow of his lantern gave the snow a golden cast as he weaved between the snow-shrouded pines. 'What are you doing off the path, lad? Don't you know it's not safe to be out alone so close to midwinter?'
At midwinter the cruel god, Sylion, reluctantly relinquished his hold on Rolencia, giving the kingdom over to the goddess's care. With a major change of power the barriers between the Seen and the Unseen world were dangerously weak. And to think, he'd been too surprised to use any of the wards to protect himself from renegade Affinity.
Fyn blinked, the after image of the master's light dancing in his sight. With the arrival of the lantern came full dark.
'Well?' the weapons master demanded. 'The others have all returned to the abbey.'
'I wasn't watching my feet, Master Oakstand,' Fyn said, knowing he sounded foolish. 'I…' He was about to mention the old woman, but was surprised to find that he could not speak of her. When he tried his tongue grew thick and clumsy in his mouth. He swallowed and the sensation passed, but he suspected it would return.
'Eh, well, come on then.' The burly master led him through the snow and Fyn found he was only a few steps off the path.
They trudged up the hill in silence for a bit, then the weapons master slowed, his heavy eyebrows drawing together.
Fyn waited expectantly. Their lantern failed to illuminate the great looming towers of the pine trees that stood silhouetted against the froth of sparkling stars. Twilight seemed to have passed abruptly, something to do with the seer, Fyn guessed. He wondered if she was out there even now, watching them. He should denounce her but he couldn't, not when she seemed so frail and sick, not when she had a ring of dirt under her neck. He had never visualised a renegade Power-worker like that. Evil, perhaps… but not vulnerable.