The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

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       EIGHT

      She rose and went to Vandien, steadied his head against her body as she gently pushed his face back together. The cut was ragged. It would not close smoothly. She took his hand in hers, forced his fingers to open to hold the torn flesh in place. She left him sitting in the snow, staring at the body. She made her way back to the mounds of snow that marked their buried supplies. She found the brown tunic he had brought along for her, tore it into strips. It made coarse bandages. But it was not the type of wound that could be bandaged tightly shut. Ki had to be content with trying to stop the bleeding. When she was finished, one of his eyes was covered by the makeshift bandage, and he could barely open his jaws to speak. It did not not matter. There was nothing to say.

      Ki’s familiar whistle and curses brought the horses back. Sigmund was steady as Ki loaded Vandien haphazardly onto his back. Vandien pulled himself up into a slump. His hands tangled in the thick mane. Ki did not bother to reload the supplies on the horses. They would pick them up with the wagon when they brought it this way.

      She went to take a final look at the Harpy. She let the crumpled blue image burn itself into her mind. There were no more Harpies stalking Ki now. And no more Sven, and no more children, a small voice in her mind whispered. Ki ignored it.

      A glint of silver caught her eyes. She squatted down by the body. She leaned forward, sucking her breath in harshly.

      It was loose on the Harpy’s skinny forearm. A twisted bolt of lightning. Ki freed it gently from the hard blue flesh. The cunningly worked silver was smooth and cold in her hands. She knew with a sick feeling that the good folk of Harper’s Ford had found their scapegoat. The silver caught the sun as it whirled out over the deep valley, sparkled once more as it tumbled endlessly down, its flight lost in the shining white of the snow below it. She let Haftor go with it. She trudged dispiritedly over to where Vandien slumped on the horse, oblivious.

      ‘We are going back to the wagon,’ she told him gently. ‘There are things in the wagon I can use to make a better bandage for you.’

      Vandien gave the barest nod. ‘I’ve never killed a sentient being before,’ he explained. Ki nodded.

      Ki mounted Sigurd, and Sigmund fell in behind her. The grip of the cold was cracking the land. Ki felt the membranes of her nose stick together with the cold, felt the skin of her face stiffen with it. It leaked into her body where the Harpy had ripped her cloak. Ki felt oddly untouched by it. Cold was, after all, only cold. It could kill you, but that was all. And there were times when dying or living did not seem to be all that different from one another.

      Last night’s winds had swept away the horses’ tracks, but it was easy enough to keep them on the ridge of ice. It ran down the center of the trail. Ki tried to think of it only as an easier way to get back to her wagon. She would think of it as an obstacle to her wagon when she had to face it. For now, she had Vandien to worry about. She reined her mind away from the Harpy images of the morning. They were dead, a long time dead, she reminded herself. Even Haftor – ugly, crazy Haftor. She could not change it. She forced her eyes to Vandien. Blood had reddened the bandages and was beginning to drip sluggishly from the side of his jaw. The tunic strips were saturated with it. His color was ghastly, his eyes too deep. Damn the man! Why had he chosen her to steal horses from?

      The light burdens of Ki and Vandien did not trouble the horses. They trudged willingly through the snow. Ki’s head still gave her a jab of pain whenever she moved too suddenly. She kept the grays to a walk, for Vandien’s sake as much as her own. They made good time. Vandien had been right about that. A person on horseback would have had little trouble with this pass. Ki smiled bitterly.

      A bend in the trail brought her wagon into view. Ki had never approached it from such a distance. The blue panes of the cuddy were sparkling with a layer of hoarfrost. The winds of the night had swept a light layer of snow over and around it. It looked as if it had been abandoned for centuries. As they drew nearer, she saw that the snow close to the wagon had been disturbed, and recently. A dim foreboding overshadowing her, she tried to think of ways to approach the wagon cautiously. But there was no shelter to take cover behind, no way to hide from the Sisters that loomed above them, or from whatever might be inside the wagon. A glance at Vandien made her want to hurry. He swayed visibly at every stride Sigmund made. Ki reined in her impatience. To hurry the horses now would only make it worse for him.

      He seemed to feel her eyes on him. He gave her a one-eyed glance. ‘It is only the pain, and the horror,’ he explained. ‘The wound itself is not that grievous.’

      Ki looked long at the red stain that began at Sigmund’s withers and crept partway down his dappled shoulder. Another slow drip fell, to deepen the color and enlarge the patch.

      A short distance from the wagon Ki halted and slid from Sigurd’s back. ‘Wait here,’ she commanded him needlessly. ‘I want to check the wagon first.’

      ‘It has stood long in the shadow of the Sisters,’ Vandien replied gravely.

      ‘I don’t think they made the tracks around it,’ Ki snorted and set off through the snow. The wind seemed more chill away from the moving warmth of the horse. She was awakened to how the huge body had warmed her legs and thighs, of how she had profited from his rising body heat. It was as if she had shed another cloak. She pulled her own cloak closer together where it had torn.

      The wagon was dead. The frost was thick on its panels. Swept snow had covered the singletree and heavy harness straps that were stretched out before it. The tops of the tall wheels were frosted with snow. Lines of snow clung to the wagon wherever it had found the tiniest purchase. Nothing alive waited in that wagon, Ki felt sure. She stopped by the first impressions in the snow and felt relief at her own foolishness. The Harpy had called here first, only to find his prey had fled. With a pang, Ki realized that but for the team’s presence the Harpy might easily have passed them by where they slept under the snow. She smiled hopelessly at the thought. It made as much sense to her as any other reaction.

      The cuddy door was frozen shut. Ki hammered it loose with repeated blows of her fist, until suddenly it slid a small distance, and then scraped all the way open. She whistled to the team, and the horses came on at their usual methodical pace, bringing Vandien only incidentally.

      She was rummaging within her cupboard for supplies when she felt the wagon give. Vandien’s bandaged face appeared at СКАЧАТЬ