Fire Hawk (9 page)

Not that she knew the first thing about what it would take to please a man like Kane.

“We will start your new lessons now.”

Jenna gave a little start as he spoke the words she’d been expecting he would say every night since they’d struck their bargain. She shouldn’t have been surprised, she thought, but still she was caught too off guard to prevent the rush of color that flooded her face. At first she hoped he could not tell in the rapidly darkening dusk, but then remembered he had proven more than once he had vision to equal a panther’s at night.

She knew he had seen, when his brows lowered as he looked at her. Then, slowly, his expression shifted to his usual unreadable mask.

“We will begin shooting in the morning.”

Rarely in her life had she felt such a fool. The only thing that prevented her complete humiliation was that she had not spoken her thoughts.

“With the bow?” she managed to get out. “But I cannot even draw the bowstring.”

“A crossbow, I think. ’Twill give you more power. We will make a smaller one. You will need to learn that skill well.”

She nodded.

“You understand your only hope is defense?”

“I understand. We only wish for them to chose another route.”

“Then you must make the route they wish to take more trouble than it is worth.”

Jenna sat up straight, ignoring the many aches in her weary body; she sensed he was at last going to tell her something of real use to her. “How?”

“Your chosen defenders will have to leave the concealment of your glade,” he warned.

I . . . know,
Jenna thought. She would do as much as she could herself, but she knew she could not do it all herself. She hoped there would be some left willing to risk themselves when she returned.

She hoped there would be some left, at all.

“How?” she asked again.

He pulled the bird off the spit and divided it. Evenly, as he always did. And as she always did, she gave him part of hers back. He’d refused it the first time, but she’d insisted, saying the difference in their sizes was a fact, and she did not need as much food as he. It had become a small custom. To her it was merely logical, but she had the feeling that to him it was something more. She did not ask; she doubted she would like the answer.

“Small raids,” he said as they began to eat. “Keep them secret, if you can. Steal their food. Small things, daggers, boots, cooking pots.”

Jenna drew back, startled. “Boots and cooking pots?”

“Anything small enough to be stolen without the stealer being caught. And not always weapons so they suspect an enemy arming themselves with their own weapons.”

“Oh.”

She resumed chewing thoughtfully. Kane tore off a strip of meat and ate it more quickly, then spoke again.

“Harass them. Have they horses?” She nodded. “Send your most silent mover in to loose them. Do not steal them, their tracks will only lead the enemy to your glade.”

“We know little of horses.”

“Just loose them, and use a switch to send them running. ’Twill be enough.” He paused for another bite. “You have a healer?”

“Yes. Evelin. She is very learned.”

“I presume she can concoct potions to cause illness as well as curatives?”

Jenna blinked. “I . . . suppose.”

He lifted the battered metal cup from which he drank.

“Taint their water,” he said, gesturing with the cup. “Their ale, if their water supply is not separate from your own.”

Something about this puzzled her. “You do not suggest we simply poison them?”

Kane’s mouth twisted downward at one corner; the scar flexed in the firelight. “Have you become bloodthirsty simply by association, then?”

It took her a moment to realize he meant by association with him. It was very odd, she thought, that he seemed . . . disturbed by the idea. And odder still that although she knew who he was, knew his fierce reputation for ruthlessness, she could not picture him as a cruel, callous killer. She told herself she was a fool to think him anything other than how the legends painted him, and chose an answer she hoped would not disturb him further.

“No,” she said, “I simply wondered why a warrior trained to kill would say not to.”

After a moment he seemed to accept her explanation. “Any warlord who hopes to keep his men with him must avenge the death of any of them. But illness is something else again. A nuisance, with nothing to blame for it. If your healer is as clever as you say, she should be able to have them thinking the place is cursed before long.”

Jenna’s eyes widened. “This is how you would have us fight?”

“This,” Kane said coldly, “is the only way you will be able to fight. Even if I had the powers of the Kane of myth, I could not teach you enough battle skills in such a short time to enable you to give any experienced warlord a real fight.”

The bitter truth of his words turned Jenna’s voice sour. “Then why bother to teach me of the bow or any other weapons at all?”

“So your people can at least have some chance to save themselves if they are caught outside your . . . magical glade.”

She heard the scoffing tone of his voice, wondered at it, but was too caught up in what he’d been saying to pursue it. She’d never thought to hear that retreat, diversion, stalling, and minor harrying were as valid as weapons as were frontal attacks. Yet she could not deny that what he told her made sense; they were a small, untrained group; they could not hope to take on Druas’s force in normal ways.

She finished the last of the pheasant and tossed the bones into the fire. Kane had finished before her, as usual. He seemed to be through talking for the moment, so she merely sat in silence.

Absently she rubbed at her shoulder, wondering what Evelin would say when asked to concoct a potion to cause illness rather than cure it. Then she remembered the woman’s expression when they had buried her mate of decades, one of the first casualties, killed before they were even aware they were under siege, taken by an arrow in the back while gathering beans from the vines. Evelin was, perhaps above all of them, a peacemaker. But she would do this. For Buren, she would do this.

Kane had gotten to his feet, and Jenna had thought him ready for another of the long walks he took at night, often not returning until after she had fallen asleep. But instead he did something that nearly stopped her heart; he walked around and knelt behind her.

“You are sore,” he said quietly. So quietly her skin tingled as she wondered at the sound of it.

“Yes,” she managed to get out; she could hardly deny it when she knew it was obvious.

“You did well today.”

It was the first time he’d said such a thing, and she was astonished at the gratification she felt. “I . . . thank you.”

“Do not thank me. ’Tis simply the truth.”

“Then I thank you for saying so. I—”

Her words cut off abruptly as his hands came down on her shoulders. For a moment they were still, and in that instant all she could think of was the incredible heat of this man; the warmth of him spread through her like Evelin’s best balm.

She held her breath. So it was to begin at last. She supposed she should be grateful for the week’s reprieve he’d given her. Indeed, she was surprised he had the grace to have given her any time at all to get used to the idea of what was to come.

“Do not tense,” he said in that same quiet voice. “You will only make it worse.”

As if she could relax, she thought. He would take her now, and she would keep to her word, and allow him the freedom of her body without complaint. He would have his man’s pleasure, and she would endure. Her body tightened oddly, as if it knew of the coming violation. It was a strange sensation, an ache that was not quite pain and curiously hollow, a sensation she’d never felt before.

And then his hands began to move, slowly, rubbing her aching muscles with a firm but gentle touch, his fingers flexing with just enough pressure, working out the soreness and stopping before it became pain.

“Let it ease,” he murmured, letting his thumbs massage between her shoulder blades. “Drop your head forward.”

She was not sure what this had to do with mating, but she did as he asked; she had given her word. He paused in his actions for a moment, and she felt him gather the thick fall of her hair to move it out of the way. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, and she thought she felt a slight tension on the long strands of hair, as if he were running his hands through it.

She heard a sound oddly like a sigh, and then his hands came back to her shoulders, rubbing, kneading. It felt so very strange, this gentleness from such a powerful man, a man most would suspect incapable of it. It felt stranger still, the spreading, relaxing warmth that seemed generated by his fingers.

It felt
good.

The thought startled her, and she would have stiffened anew had it not been for the lulling, soothing motion of his hands seeming to steal her very strength from her. All she wanted was for him never to stop. That thought disturbed her in turn, and she struggled to rise from the languorous mist she seemed to be sinking into. While it might be more pleasant to be in this floating, golden haze when he took her, her mind rebelled at the idea.

“I will . . . keep my word. You do not have to do this.”

His hands went still. “What is it you think I’m doing?”

“Whatever you do . . . to bend women to your will.”

His laugh was short, sharp, and utterly without humor. And his fingers tightened convulsively on her shoulders.

“What makes you think I care about bending a woman I can simply take?”

“I . . . don’t know. I just know that . . . I’ve not felt anything like this before. This . . . heat, this lassitude.”

She heard him suck in a quick, harsh breath. “Damnation,” he muttered.

Then he got to his feet and strode off into the dark trees. She lifted her head with an effort, startled out of her languor by the abruptness of his action. The warmth faded, turned to chill as she stared after him.

And wondered why she felt so oddly bereft.

Chapter 8

HE WOULD NOT survive this.

He had survived the bloodiest battles ever seen on this earth, had survived the most brutal father conceivable, but he would buckle if he had to spend one more day in the company of this woman.

He walked along the familiar path beside the stream, staring at the rushing water, hearing the cheerful sound of it, yet thinking of only one thing, the one thing that had occupied his mind so completely for days now.

That his current state was his own fault only made it more impossible to bear.

I will . . . keep my word.

She’d said it, even as her body had gone soft and warm beneath his hands.

Whatever you do . . . to bend women to your will.

Innocent, he thought with a groan, was not the word for it. She truly did not know what she was feeling, thought he was casting some sort of spell over her. Was there no one in the world save he who did not believe in such nonsense? Or was it of comfort to her to believe this, when indeed it was her own untutored body betraying her, when it was her own response to his touch that had caused the heat and lassitude she spoke of?

Why this was suddenly more arousing to him than any skilled whore’s tricks, he did not know. He only knew that he regretted every second of every hour of every day since he’d agreed to this fool’s bargain with her.

So, he told himself, make her keep her part of it. Simple enough. Order her to lay down for you and take her. Forget your silly idea of forgoing the benefit this fool’s deal gives you, and hold her to her word. Better than walking half the night, most of the time like a hunchback because your rod is too damned hard to let you stand up straight.

It must be simply that he’d been so long without a woman. He’d ignored the urges with the same strength of will it had taken to walk away from his entire world. Eventually they had faded, until only occasionally did the old sensations rise within him, and even then they seemed a faint shadow of old needs. But now they were back, with a fierceness beyond anything he had ever felt, or even imagined, burning him alive and making his idea of simply teaching her what he could and letting her return to her precious people as untouched as when she’d left seem as impossible as storming a well-fortified fortress with his bare hands.

He did not understand it, did not understand his own body’s betrayal. He told himself it was simply that it had been so long, it was only natural that he react strongly to the first woman he’d been close to, the first he’d even seen in a very long time. That she was so lovely only made the reawakened need more intense.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t held her to her word yet anyway. While it was true that even at his worst, he’d never taken to raping virgins as the spoils of war, this would hardly be rape. She’d agreed to his terms, and she’d made it clear more than once she expected to have to fulfill them.

Maybe that was it, he thought wearily as he reached the sharp bend in the stream where the water pooled dark and deep. Maybe it was the way she kept looking at him, the question in her eyes, so clearly wondering if he would take her now. Maybe it was the irony of it, that in his mind her sacrifice of her body only proved her nobility; she would surrender her virtue yet remain virtuous, a pretty trick.

He climbed in two long strides to the top of the boulder that hung out over the pool. For days now, he’d been torn like a man on a rack, fighting a battle within himself, aroused beyond anything he’d ever imagined by her courage, determination, spirit, and beauty, yet finding himself reluctant to enforce his claim for those very reasons. Watching her as she accepted every challenge he threw at her, as she conquered every task, filled him with both admiration and desire, a combination he’d never felt before.

And somewhere, deep in his mind, was a voice telling him that the very things he admired were the things that made her far too worthy for such as he.

In sudden haste he pulled off his tunic. The heat he’d finally managed to walk off had begun to pool low and deep in him once more. The images were assailing him as no armed enemy ever had; Jenna, delicate jaw set with determination, hair flying like a wind-whipped flame, eyes sparking with that spirit he’d begun to think indomitable. And with each successive vision his body responded, fiercely, until he groaned aloud at the hot, pulsing ache.

He stripped off his leggings, freeing flesh that had hardened anew with a speed that made him wonder that there was any blood left anywhere else in his body. The chill night air was nothing to the heat building within him. Briefly he thought of using his own hands to ease his need, but the poorness of the substitute held little appeal.

Instead he did as he’d been doing every night; he dove into the icy mountain water. The shock of it was expected but no less jarring. It accomplished in seconds what he came here for; the heat faded as his body sent blood pumping elsewhere to ward off the sudden cold.

He stood there, water to his shoulders, until he was shivering, swimming only when his teeth began to chatter. The internal heat gone, he began to wonder if he was losing his mind. He’d never had an interest in a woman beyond the easing of his immediate needs. The only passions that had ever possessed him were those of a warrior; weapons, tactics, the battles themselves. Even the goals he had fought for, had risked his life for countless times, had been someone else’s. He’d never—

“You’re risking a fierce fever with these midnight swims, my friend.”

Kane slicked his wet hair out of his eyes as he jerked around in the water to look up at the man and the bird who had appeared noiselessly to sit upon the boulder he’d jumped from.

“I’m risking worse without them,” Kane muttered.

“The heat is truly so intense?”

“Easy to doubt for one who is not subject to such things,” Kane said, his tone sharper than he’d meant it to be.

Tal’s eyes went as cold as the water Kane stood in. Colder, indeed, they looked as icy as the snow from which the water came. “I once knew a heat that would put any other to shame,” he said in a tone to match his eyes. “I have not forgotten.”

Kane stared at his friend. Never had he heard such a tone from him, nor had he ever seen such a look in his eyes. And never had he heard Tal refer to his own past so specifically.

“Tal, I—”

“No.”
Tal shook his head sharply. And as quickly as that the ice was gone. “It is not important.”

“I did not know. I thought you had . . . always been as you are now.”

Tal’s mouth twisted wryly. “By most measures of time, I have.” He gave another shake of his head. “It no longer matters. It was a very long time ago, in another lifetime. An old memory that should be forgotten.”

But Tal had not forgotten, Kane thought. No matter how long ago it had been.

“So tell me of your guest. How does the training progress?”

“If you are so curious, you shouldn’t have disappeared like an accursed phantom this afternoon.”

Tal laughed. He reached out and stroked a hand over the raven’s gleaming feathers. “Maud was on the hunt,” he said, “and she had no wish to tarry.”

“That bird,” Kane said, moving at last toward the edge of the pool, “is more hawk than raven.”

For the first time since he’d known him, Tal looked genuinely startled. He stared at Kane as if trying to divine some hidden meaning in the observation Kane had meant merely as a joke.

“Can you deny it?” he asked. “She flies and hunts with a hawk’s ferocity and silent skill, not a raven’s trickery and noise.”

“Yes,” Tal said softly. “Yes, she does.”

Kane wondered at his odd tone, but abandoned the thought as he came out of the water and the night breeze struck his already chilled body. What had seemed essential before seemed overmuch now, and he fought down the shivering.

“Here.”

Tal held out something that Kane at first thought was his clothing, but now saw was a rough-textured cloth. Kane looked at him curiously.

“Dry off. Unless you’re fond of the battle of getting wet skin into leather leggings.”

Kane chuckled and took the cloth. He dried himself, making no effort to hide his scarred, battered body from Tal. The man had seen most of the marks he carried already and had wormed the grim stories behind them out of Kane, for what purpose Kane couldn’t guess; Tal had no fondness for warfare, yet he seemed intrigued by the tales. And he had to admit he’d felt oddly lightened himself by the telling.

“Is it truly the woman who has you seeking out icy baths in the middle of the night?”

“ ’Tis myself,” Kane said as he yanked his clothes back on. “I’ve become a raving idiot, nothing less.”

“Hmm,” Tal said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Kane grimaced with wry humor despite his inner turmoil.

“What has you so tormented?”

Kane hesitated. He did not wish Tal to know of the cold bargain he’d struck with Jenna. He’d tried to tell himself she’d forced it upon him with her refusal to give up, that she’d backed him into a corner by refusing to take off running as she should have at the very idea of letting herself be used by a man like him, but all his fine arguments came back to the simple fact that he hadn’t been able to withstand the pleas of one small woman, and had gotten himself into this muddle through his own weakness.

“What is it, Kane? She . . . refuses you?”

Kane made a choking sound that was half laugh, half groan. The words burst from him before he could stop them. “No. She simply waits, watching me like a frightened deer, waiting for me to take her as we agreed.”

Tal went very still. “Agreed?”

“Why else would I be so torn? The solution to my problem is within my grasp, yet I hesitate to take it.”

“The solution?”

“Jenna.”

“I . . . see.”

Tal sounded odd, disturbed. Kane finished tying the lacing of his tunic with sharp movements, not able to meet Tal’s eyes.

“I told you I was a bastard,” he said gruffly, reaching for his belt. “Now you know ’tis true in all senses of the word.”

“Yes, you told me.”

“I am Kane, the most ruthless warrior of them all, the coldest, most unfeeling bastard alive, just as the legends say. Was it not you who said most legends are built upon truth?”

He put the belt around his waist and jerked it tight, fastening it as if speed were imperative as he went on mercilessly.

“Well, that is the truth of Kane, Tal. He is as bad as the legends paint him, and he will never change. He is the kind of man who would lay waste to an entire land, wreak havoc on people who have done no more than get in his way, and leave the dead behind him to rot.” He settled his dagger in its sheath with a short, sharp, angry motion.

“Are you through scourging yourself yet?” Tal asked, his tone strangely mild.

“Not nearly.” Kane made himself face his friend now, thinking it quite likely it would be for the last time; Tal was not the kind of man who would approve of what he’d done. But perhaps it was time Tal knew just what kind of man he was dealing with. Tal was looking at him with that intensity that was so unnerving, nothing of his thoughts showing in his eyes.

“Kane is the kind of man who would demand of an innocent the one payment that should never be forced, who would trade lessons in war for the purity of her body, because he was too feeble willed to simply send her away as he should, and too feebleminded to realize she would call his bluff.”

Something changed in Tal’s eyes at those last words, and Kane could have sworn he saw a glint of that odd golden glow he’d seen the night Tal had found him in the stream.

“So that’s how it happened,” Tal murmured.

Kane answered only with a grunt of disgust as he bent to tug on his boots.

“It was a ruse, wasn’t it?” Tal said softly. “You offered her a trade—your lessons for . . . herself—that you believed she would refuse.”

“She should have,” Kane muttered. “She should have fled like a rabbit scenting a wolf.”

“But she did not.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Kane slammed his heel down into his right boot. “Because she is a fool. Because she is blind. Because she is too witless to take care of herself.”

“Because she loves others above herself? Because she sees too clearly what will happen to them? Because she is so desperate she cannot think of her own welfare?”

Tal countered his accusations one by one, in a voice barely above a whisper.

Kane straightened slowly, staring. “You speak as if you know her.”

“I do. As well as I once knew another, so like her . . .”

With a short, jerky motion unlike any Kane had ever seen him make before, Tal turned away. And Tal, who was always in such perfect control of his body, who never made a false move, was never in anything but perfect balance, nearly slipped as he jumped down from the rock.

He steadied himself, still looking away, but Kane sensed somehow that if he could see his friend’s eyes, he would see that same shadowed look he had seen before, the look of a deeply buried memory that brought great pain. ’Twas that Tal was thinking of, Kane thought, not Jenna herself. If the two had truly met, Tal would hardly be avoiding her now.

Maud, as if sensing something wrong, gave a quick flap of her wings and alighted on Tal’s left shoulder, something Kane had also never seen before. The bird pecked at Tal’s ear, so gently it was more of a nudge.