Kaelyn balled her hands into fits, but remained where she was. She didn’t want to just stand there and watch Mac and Talar fight. She wanted to help. But without training and no weapon, she’d likely be more of a liability than anything else. In fact, just standing in the middle of the road probably made her a liability. In the very least, everyone always took cover in the Mac Theselon tales. Perhaps she should follow that advice. She inched over to the side of the road, trying not to draw anyone’s attention.
The men stared at each other, weapons drawn. A shift of a foot here, a creak of leather there. Tension crackled between them.
Talar’s muscles flexed beneath his shirt and he looked even more beautiful, all fierce and dangerous. She dragged her gaze away from him. Those thoughts were trouble and she wasn’t going to go down that path, not now, not any time. With women like the Lady of Newalden around, he’d never see comely Kaelyn.
The only man who seemed calm was Mac, his solid girth relaxed. But from the scars on his body, he’d likely seen this kind of situation before.
One of the bandits yelled and they charged toward Mac and Talar. Kaelyn’s heart thudded and steel screeched against steel. It was horrible and mesmerizing. Clangs and screams and grunts. Her pulse raced. Talar fought with ferocity and energy, quickly disarming a bandit and taking his sword. While Mac moved like a dancer, each step precise, never a wasted move.
A branch cracked behind her and she whirled around. Two bandits leered at her.
“Come here, sweetie,” said the one on the left. A ragged scar cut across his check, pulling the flesh into an unnatural smile.
“He said kill her, not play with her,” said the other, his gaze darting around nervously.
Scar grinned, revealing broken yellow teeth. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun first.”
She glanced back at Mac and Talar. They’d moved further down the road and somehow there were now six bandits even though one lay dead in the dirt.
With a crash, Cat bounded out of the underbrush, hissing and spitting, puffed up to twice his size. The bandits jumped back and Kaelyn turned and ran. A part of her wanted to fight, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d win. She scrambled across the road and back into the underbrush, through the bushes and around trees. The sounds of the battle disappeared, blotted out by distance and the pounding of her heart. She’d just have to catch up with Mac and Talar later–if they survived. More likely, if she survived.
She broke into a clearing. Sunlight blinded her and birds scattered into the sky. The men still smashed through the forest behind her. Half blind, she raced into the long grass. But the sound of pounding hooves to her right her made her freeze. She turned in time to see a horse and rider bearing down on her.
The rider swung his blade and she ducked. He yanked his horse around as Scar and Nervous ran toward her.
The rider swung again. She leapt out of the way.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of sunlight on metal. She jerked aside and let Nervous’s sword pass in front of her. Without thinking, she grabbed his wrist and twisted.
He screamed and his hand went limp. She snagged his weapon before it hit the ground and slashed at him. Blood spurted hot on her face. She gasped and tasted its metallic tang.
But her body didn’t stop moving.
She spun, swinging at the rider behind her–knowing it wouldn’t hit him only force him back–while ducking, somehow knowing where Scar was going to strike.
Scar’s blade whooshed over her head. She whirled around and nicked his gut.
Damn. She’d thought the sword was longer than that. Maybe she just wanted the sword to be longer.
What was she thinking? She didn’t want the sword to be anything, she just wanted to run away.
But that hadn’t worked.
She blocked another overhead strike from Scar, his greater strength forcing her arm down. Her muscles screamed and she jerked away, letting his blade swoosh past her. The rider attacked again and she twisted, dodging his blade and cutting deep into his thigh. He screamed and his horse reared, distracting Scar. She jumped at the opening, sliced his arm, and rammed her blade into his throat before he could cry out. More blood showered her, but she didn’t care. She just wanted this to end and now only the rider remained.
#
Mac hacked at a bandit then blocked a strike from another, desperate to leave the fray and follow Kaelyn. But every time he knocked one down another popped out of the forest and took his place, filling the hole in the circle that surrounded him and Talar.
He stabbed at the closest thug. Metal flashed near his waist. He twisted away and severed the tendons in the bandit’s hand. Without pause, he brought his sword around and swung at another one’s head. That man blocked and staggered under the force of the blow.
Kicking out the knee of the bandit, Mac impaled him on his blade. Beside him, Talar gutted another bandit, who scampered back, holding his gut, screaming. The remaining bandits turned and fled.
Without pause, Mac spun on his heel and raced in the direction he’d seen Kaelyn go. His muscles screamed and his breath heaved in his chest. He was supposed to have kept her safe. She was just a girl; she didn’t even have her memories. His blood roared in his ears and then everything jerked into sharp focus: every tree, every rustle of leaf and twig. Shadows stood in stark contrast to sunlight, dark bark against bright foliage. Talar crashed behind him, his breath also rasping, and in the distance a flurry of birds took flight.
Mac sprinted into a clearing and froze. A horse and rider fled into the trees, leaving Kaelyn alone. At her feet lay two bodies. Her face, neck, and shoulders were awash with blood, and she clutched the sleeve of her right arm, wrapping herself in a strange embrace. In her other hand she held a bloody sword.
Talar raced past him and Mac grabbed the back of his shirt, jerking him to a stop. He didn’t want to scare her.
“Do you have clean clothes?”
Talar nodded and jogged back into the forest.
Mac inched toward her. She didn’t appear hurt, at least she wasn’t behaving as if she was hurt–and he had more than enough experience to know when someone was seriously hurt.
The men at her feet were dead, their throats cut. Efficient strokes. Kaelyn’s gaze lifted from the bodies and met his.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She brushed her free hand down the front of her shirt, leaving a red smear.
“Are you hurt?” Mac had seen soldiers in shock before–been one of those soldiers once. It sometimes took two or three times before they realized someone was talking to them.
She blinked and looked at the sword in her hand.
“Are you–?”
“No.”
A pressure in his chest that he hadn’t realized was there released, and he sucked in a quick breath. Thank the Ancient Father and the clansmen’s Goddess. “Want to tell me what happened?”
She wiped the blood from the grip of her sword and her other hand with the front of her shirt. “No.”
Talar ran into sight with their bags slung over his shoulder. “There’s a stream a little ways from here.”
“Let’s go get clean up,” said Mac.
Kaelyn nodded. Mac wasn’t sure if it was good that she didn’t want to talk about her experience or not. For her to have killed two armed bandits, to have even disarmed one and used his sword, was astounding.
Without a word, they walked to the stream. Mac and Talar waited in the bushes, their backs turned, while Kaelyn cleaned up. It made Mac uncomfortable in so many ways. He didn’t want to leave her alone but it wasn’t appropriate for him to see her bathing. Instead, he strained to hear even the slightest indication that she was in trouble. Talar must have had similar thoughts, as he remained quiet until she announced she was done.
Mac glanced around the tree. She sat by the water’s edge, her wet hair dripping onto Talar’s shirt and pants. They were too big for her, but given that the only other option was her bloody clothes . . . they’d do.
Talar followed him to the stream’s edge and they pulled off their shirts, scrubbing at the gore as best they could. To Mac’s surprise everyone had survived the fiasco with no more than a few scratches. He didn’t think he’d ever been so lucky. Of course, maybe they’d had a little divine help. Not only did Talar have the binding tattoos, but the markings of a full shaman. Which, Mac supposed, made him all the more a curiosity. A shaman traveling as a minstrel. Certainly there was a story here.
“Who did your Tree of Life?” asked Mac, waving at the tattoo running from the nape of Talar’s neck, down the left side of his chest.
“Delwyn, of the Raven Clan.”
“I haven’t heard of her.”
Talar wrung out his shirt and put it on, still wet. “She was young when she became a Dedicator.”
“She does amazing work.”
“Yes,” said Talar.
He didn’t elaborate.
Mac shrugged. Guess that conversation was over. He turned his attention to Kaelyn, although he couldn’t think of even the shallowest things to say to her. He had too many questions, but knew it was too soon after the incident to ask and she likely didn’t have answers to any of them. She seemed so relaxed, normal, but Mac could still see the ghost of shock haunting her eyes. Had he been that young when he’d killed his first man?
He amended that thought: first man in battle. She’d already killed one man when they’d first been attacked by the bandits. But they had run away then and she hadn’t been forced to face the magnitude of her actions.
Had he been that young? Had he ever been that young? He supposed it didn’t really matter how old a person was, it still left a scar.
#
Talar shuffled a few feet from Mac and Kaelyn and stared into the forest. His wrists burned. And they had been burning since he’d dragged Kaelyn from the river. Of all the times for his Goddess to speak to him–
And he still had no idea what She wanted. There was only a consuming compulsion to travel with Kaelyn and that could be attributed entirely to the memory of her lithe body pressed tight against his.
He couldn’t believe she’d agreed to let him travel with her. He was sure, from the look on her face, she’d turn him away or tell Mac to run him through. As it was, all he could think about was her. Even when the Lady of Newalden and her maid were fawning over him, his mind kept jumping to Kaelyn with a sudden heat in his tattoos.
Now he’d committed to traveling north. Which was the last place he wanted to go. And to make it worse, Mac had knowledge of clansmen. It wasn’t surprising, the warrior looked old enough to have fought in the Great Clan War. But to accuse him of not knowing what his tattoos meant. . . .
He supposed he was just going to have to live with that, since he wasn’t inclined to discuss his past with Mac or anyone.
#
Kaelyn wrung the water from her hair and braided it. Her borrowed shirt and breeches were too big, but at least they weren’t covered in blood. She swallowed back the panic that threatened to engulf her. Those men had tried to kill her. And she was sure the one on horseback was still going to. She had no idea why he rode off. She bit back a hysterical giggle. Bet he hadn’t expected her to fight back.
Heck, she hadn’t even been expecting to fight back. Now she really didn’t know who she was. Mac hadn’t taught her anything like what she’d done and her body seemed to know exactly what it was doing.
She dragged her thoughts away from the fight. She’d break down if she kept thinking about it, and she wasn’t sure how Mac or Talar would handle that.
At that thought, she let her gaze wander to the minstrel. He’d put his shirt back on, but she could still see the hint of black tattoo tracing down his body through the wet fabric. It teased her, drawing her eye to his breeches, making her wonder how far the marks traveled. His shirt clung to his body and his chest looked as good as it had felt under her hands when he’d pulled her from the river last night.
Heat flooded her face. Watching Talar was just as dangerous as thinking about the fight. She didn’t want him around, didn’t want to be reminded that she longed for him to notice her and knew that he’d barely give her a passing glance. But she’d been right to agree to his company. They’d been out-numbered to begin with, and without him, Mac likely wouldn’t have survived the encounter.
Which brought her back to the fight–again. She couldn’t get rid of the memory of all that blood, or how she just seemed to know what to do. If she knew how to fight, maybe she was involved in dangerous things and maybe those men had something to do with it. That sense that she was in danger, that something terrible was going to happen, flooded her, like it had back in Norwell. She needed to do something, remember something, and lives–possibly her life–depended on it.
