The Song of Andiene - By Elisa Blaisdell Page 0,83

me why I should not destroy you?”

Her voice was clear and childish. But this was no child. He struggled to speak. The discipline of many years came to his aid. At last the iron grip let loose of his throat. He was able to speak calmly. “I tried to save you, long ago.”

Andiene nodded. “‘The maimed one, the mute one.’ I remember. Traitor!” The dagger bit a little deeper.

“I never swore to your father.” It was a shabby excuse, one he had never made, not till now. “I joined his court, true enough, the same as any other man, but that binds no man’s honor.”

“He trusted you!”

“He should not have. There are spies in every court, up and down the land.”

“If he had known what you were, your death would not have been so easy!”

“I know,” Kallan said.

“Who killed him?”

That was a deadly question. If she had eyes to see, she could read the answer on his face. Kallan answered the best he could. “Nahil gave the orders.”

He spoke desperately. “The one I served had saved my life and bound me with the straitest of vows.” She glanced toward the man who lay in the corner, and his heart beat faster, with a touch of hope. “Is he your liegeman?” She nodded. He had won no victory, but he had a chance she would understand. He pressed on.

“You know the meaning of that, then. I was to serve him utterly, or else fall on my sword, in token of what I would have been without his aid. I loved life more when I was young, and Nahil needed soldiers, to get him a kingdom.”

He did not dare to meet her eyes. There was little more that could be said, he thought. He looked down at his hand, holding the dagger steady, close to his heart. So little distance. A man’s life runs close to the surface. Indeed, I have loved my life more than I should.

“What are you doing so far to the south?” she asked, and the change in her voice gave him new hope.

“Exiled, my lady. Blood-price and shelter-death, like so many others. All who saw you win your way to freedom, he feared us all. A terror seized him that hour that has not left him yet. And so we died to ease his fear. And so all vows were broken at last. But I won free.”

He was speaking almost randomly, hoping that she would not strike while he was speaking. “I found the fisherman and his daughter in the forest to the north. I may have saved their lives,” he said quietly, trying not to show that he had clung to the words as his last desperate chance.

“I see,” Andiene said. She stepped forward, pulled the dagger from his hand, and tossed it to the floor between them. The grip that had held his hand and mind was gone, shockingly gone. He sagged, loose-jointed like a puppet set free from its strings. Stepping backwards, she gave him room to fall, and waited quietly, unsmiling, while he scraped together the shreds of his dignity and strength, and stood to face her again.

“You came to our aid when you could have rested safe in shelter,” she said, and it was almost a question.

“I heard the sobbing of the grievers,” Kallan answered. “They can be fought with swords. I was taught that men are not enemies in the forest, that we have enough to fight here. I went, and my companion followed me.”

“Then let us call truce … ” Andiene hesitated, seeming much younger. “But I do not want you thinking that I was afraid of you.”

He laughed at that, and could not stop himself, full of the foolishness of sudden relief. “My lady, I think you should be afraid of no one and nothing.” He looked at her in awe. That powerful child whom he remembered had grown to be a woman as beautiful as a winter morning.

He spoke his thoughts as simply as a child. “If you could do that—such power—why could you not protect your comrades from the red ones?”

“You are magicless.” She spoke deliberately. “It was as simple to hold you as it would be to send swordsmen against children.” She did not seem to realize what she had said. Then her voice shook. “The grievers? They may die like beasts of this world, but they are born of sorcery.”

Unbelievably, her hands were trembling; she was shivering. “I thought I was so powerful, and I