City of Gods [Book 3 of the Teadai Prophecies] Read online

  The stout Elder actually grinned. “I look forward to assisting, Ved’nuri.”

  “Very well. Take care, my children. And safe travel. May the Goddess shine Her Light upon you.”

  Ved’nuri disappeared without waiting for the proper response, though many said it anyway. Snowy let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he held.

  “All right,” Finlor said after he conferred with Siri a heartbeat. “You heard Ved’nuri. More pressing things await us.” He gazed at the sun that seemed much lower than it should be in the western sky then at Snowy. “Can we make it to the mountains before nightfall?”

  “Not with this many, Elder. And we can’t take the wagons or horses across.” He, Taniras, Camlys, Birek and Greges had traveled the mountains at night with a full moon to aid them when they left Maricar over a year ago, but they had only small packs of supplies and no children or animals.

  “Very well, then. We stay here tonight. There are plenty of homes to accommodate us. Get those wagons unloaded. We’ll take the horses as far as the mountains and release them. I want everyone ready to go by sunup.”

  * * * *

  The next day, they moved quickly and arrived at the mountain pass long before midday, despite protests of the children in their group. The youngest had to be carried once they left the horses and began up the mountain trail, and Raith, with his ruddy complexion and seemingly tough exterior, seemed quite gentle with the little ones. Snowy and Taniras led the way, as Camlys, Birek and Greges scattered throughout the long line of kin. The trail looked wholly different in the daylight than what Snowy remembered, and though he never forgot directions once they were given to him, there were so many depending on him now.

  The wolves weren’t far ahead. The Maricari villagers had passed this way, according to Dar. Perhaps the kin would meet up with them after all. Unless the Maricari headed straight for Hunter forest, which Snowy thought an even greater desperate act, since they didn’t like Hunters. They referred to the forest people as savages, though Snowy didn’t know why. Several Hunters were Gypsy kin and he thought them quite honorable.

  The mountain trail had all but washed away from snowmelt and they would have had a very difficult, if not impossible, task crossing without the wolves. Dar kept in contact with Snowy and Taniras and used images of surrounding rock and foliage to guide them. As it was, several kin, mainly women and children, tripped and fell. Skirts weren’t made for this arduous trek and Taniras kept hers tucked in the waistband of her underbreeches. Some of the women refused to do that, stating it was undignified, until Siri ordered them to.

  Many of the men, Bankari especially, seemed amused by their modesty, and Finlor had to call a few down for whistling and making lewd sounds. Snowy kept his eyes on the trail as best he could with Dar’s images swimming around in his head, and they finally made it to the other side just as the sun crossed zenith. Children complained of hunger and fatigue and Snowy looked forward to getting them all to the Land of the Goddess. The quicker they became functioning adults, the better, even though their minds would take moons to catch up to their new grown bodies.

  As the last of the long line of kin stepped off the mountain trail and headed toward the cave that housed the life circle Taniras had led them to just over a year ago, Dar’s low growl filled Snowy’s mind, along with a warning hum from the other wolves.

  “What’s wrong?” he said aloud, along with his thoughts to the pack.

  The images that met his mind were of many people crammed into the cave. Several guards stood outside with bows and nocked arrows, as though waiting for an attack. Snowy couldn’t make out faces in the images. Wolves went more on scent than looks to distinguish one person from another, but he would wager his boots these folks were from Maricar.

  A nod from Taniras confirmed what he suspected. “They stink of fear, Snowy. They’ll kill us if we don’t identify ourselves quickly enough.”

  Before he could answer, whistling filled the air around them and an excruciating pain gripped his right leg just above the knee. He cried out and fell to the ground as blood seeped from an arrow wound. The yellow-feathered end stuck out and he stared at it, wondering why it had struck him.

  Taniras cried out his name and suddenly kin arrows whistled through the air, along with battle cries from some of the guards. Moans from several nearby kin told Snowy that others had been wounded. He could hear Dar’s voice in his head, crooning to keep him calm just before blazing red images of an incensed wolf filled his mind.

  Suddenly, everything quieted except for several moans, and Snowy lay dazed as Thad hovered over him. He saw Taniras’s skirts as she moved next to him. Thad reached down to heal him but he waved the younger man off. “Not yet.” His senses slowly returned, somewhat anyway.

  The healer helped him sit and he fought the urge to pass out as the arrow moved inside the wound and created even more unforgiving pain. There was blood but he didn’t think it caused too much damage. A yellow-feathered arrow was meant for small game. The Maricari intended this attack as a warning only. Otherwise, he would have taken a red-feathered arrow right through the heart.

  “What in blazes do you think you’re doing!” his mate cried. “Stop sending those bloody arrows!”

  “Taniras! Is that you?” Snowy recognized his mate’s root mother. “It’s my daughter. Let me through. Move!”

  The dark-skinned woman pushed through several Maricari bowmen, men Snowy recognized from his own training, and stopped abruptly, eyes wide. That’s when he realized the pack had taken up a defensive stance between the kin and the Maricari. No wonder the arrows had ceased.

  “Stay where you are,” Taniras ordered. “My wolves will attack anyone who makes another move against us.”

  “Taniras.” Her root mother’s voice sounded frightened above the crows that circled the area in search of food. “What’s going on? Who are these people? And why do you accompany wolves?”

  “We’ll ask the questions.” Taniras glanced at Snowy with a pained look on her face and he could feel her conflicted senses through the wolves.

  The root life they had left behind didn’t seem so distant after all, and Taniras’s emotions tore at her. She wanted to run to this woman, embrace her, not as a daughter, but as a protector and friend. Snowy’s own emotions began to settle toward sympathy for these people, these middlings. He gave Taniras a reassuring smile and sent comfort and strength through the link.

  She pulled her back straight, smoothed her face and glanced at Finlor, who nodded. “First,” she said. “Where is the seer?”

  Old man Fetter hobbled forward. “She died. Several nights ago after she told us to cross the mountains.”

  “Then where is the new seer?” Taniras sounded exasperated but Snowy felt a pang of loss, both hers and his, as it waved through the link. Dar sent her own consolation to both of them.

  “We have no seer now.”

  That was unusual, frightening even, for the Maricari always had a seer. A seer knew when she would die and trained another in her wake. But Snowy didn’t remember any apprentice to the last. Perhaps the new seer was still a babe or hadn’t been born yet. Maricar had never been without one, though, at least not in all the history Snowy had studied in youth lessons.

  “Taniras. Please, let me come to you.” Her root mother sounded distraught.

  “Not yet.” Taniras fought that urge with every movement. “We are Gypsies. Sent here by the Great Mother Goddess. Please put down your weapons. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  At that, many Maricari began to shuffle about, murmuring among themselves. The wolves growled, low and dangerous, but stayed put at Taniras’s silent orders. Even Dar obeyed without a snide comment. The murmurs stopped and the Maricari guards placed their bows on the ground, quivers next.

  Taniras’s root mother held her palms out. “I don’t understand, Taniras. You’re not a Gypsy.”

  “I am a Gypsy. I was called the night we left.” At that, she motioned Camlys, Birek and Greges t
o her. We’re all Gypsy kin now. And you’ve wounded Devin, my husband and mate.

  “Snowy?” The woman stepped closer but stopped well away from the wolves and gazed at him. “You’re injured. We need Mag. Where is Healer Mag?”

  An elderly woman with a cane stepped through the taller men and women. She looked older than Snowy remembered. She had another with her, a girl, probably her new apprentice. He couldn’t place the girl, but she favored one of his root cousins.

  “We have our own healers,” Taniras said in a kinder voice. Relief at seeing Mag settled in her gut. Taniras had spent many moons under the old healer’s tutelage. “But we need to get home and the way is through this cave.”

  Many Maricari squeezed through the small cave opening and gathered outside at her words, frightened at the prospect of being assaulted from behind most likely, and Taniras had to order the wolves not to attack. “Keep still! You’re in no danger from the cave. But we need to get through.”

  Finlor stepped to her and placed a hand on her shoulder and focused on old man Fetter. “Why did your seer tell you to leave Maricar?”

  The middling man’s dog cowered behind nearby brush, along with the other animals the Maricari had brought. The mutt was actually quiet for once.

  “She saw our destruction if we stayed in Maricar, said that we would be saved in the mountains, that this was our destiny now. Since we lost our gardens and orchards and the weather had killed so many of us, we decided to follow her warnings.”

  Taniras spoke something in Finlor’s ear and he conferred with the other Elders.

  “Taniras?” her root mother pleaded again. “Please, let me come to you.”

  Finlor nodded. “All right. Let her through.”

  The woman smiled and tears fled down her dark cheeks as she stepped through and embraced Snowy’s mate. “I’ve missed you so much. I thought maybe you’d been killed.” The two looked very much alike, except that Taniras was nearly a head taller and had no gray in her hair.

  “I’m well. We’re all well.” Welcoming relief waved through the link.

  “Why did you run away, Taniras?” Her tone took on a familiar maternal edge. “What’s this calling you spoke of?”

  “That’ll take a while to explain. Just know that it was our destiny.”

  “That’s what the seer told me.” The woman wiped her face with a crying cloth from her sleeve. “I went to her when the searchers couldn’t find you. Your father and I—” She sniffed.

  “Where is he?”

  The older woman shook her head.

  “I’m sorry.” Snowy felt Taniras’s grief through the link, but it didn’t last, thankfully. “And the babe?”

  “Your brother is well. Looks a lot like your father. And you.”

  Taniras smiled and the wolves visibly relaxed as relief waved through the link again. “I’m glad of that.”

  Elder Finlor, who’d been conferring with the other Elders, crossed back to Taniras and faced the Maricari crowd. “We believe your seer meant us, Gypsy kin, when she spoke of your destiny.”

  Before his words finished ringing in Snowy’s ears, Thad gazed straight ahead, eyes distant, body swaying. “Wait, Elder!” Snowy called. “Thad’s getting a vision.”

  He and the others waited patiently as Thad slowly returned to his senses. The Maricari seer had looked much the same way whenever she got a dreamsight, as she called it. Perhaps she’d been an errant, after all. One the Gypsies missed.

  Thad glanced around. “I saw them. The Maricari. In battle with us against—” The wolf war chant echoed in Snowy’s head. “Against—”

  Thad still couldn’t seem to complete his thought and Snowy studied him. He wanted to stand but was afraid his leg wouldn’t hold him just now. That is wise, singer’s mate. Dar’s voice had a hint of humor to it.

  Suddenly, Thad clutched his head and fell to his knees. Snowy moved with animal instinct to catch the man’s head just before it slammed against a particularly jagged rock. He cried out at the white-hot pain that shot through his injured leg and heard someone call out for Predula just before he passed out.

  * * * *

  When he came to, he hadn’t been healed. His leg still hurt but the arrow was gone, along with a good amount of his breeches, and bandages wrapped his thigh. He lay tied to a litter with Thad on an adjacent one, and Taniras held his hands in her chilled ones. She smiled down at him and he offered a grin. One arm swiped at her wet cheek and she chuckled. He realized, through his link with Dar, just how worried his wife had been and squeezed her hands.

  Thad looked pale as Predula leaned over him. She glanced at Snowy and gave him a weary smile then turned to Finlor. “I can do nothing more for him, Elder. We must go through now. He needs Ved’mana’s attentions.”

  Snowy couldn’t imagine what had happened to the new-oathed man. Visions had never brought him down before.

  Predula leaned over to Snowy. “We’ll heal you once we’re through the Means. Do you need herbs for the pain?”

  “No. The pain is tolerable.” He smiled. “And besides, it just might keep me from falling asleep on duty.”

  Taniras and several kin laughed at his joke but he winced when the litter jerked into motion. Muroth, with his lumbering body and large hands, dragged Snowy along behind him, while his twin, Murel, took care of Thad’s litter. Taniras walked directly behind him, or in front since he moved backwards, his head and shoulders elevated quite a bit from Muroth’s great height, and she kept pace with the litter.

  Maricari filed in with servants. Snowy had a great desire to ask what had happened while he was out. They must have recognized Thad’s vision as that of a seer. Otherwise, he doubted they would have followed so easily, especially through the Means. Maricari elders must have decided that would be best, given their limited options. And the Gypsy Elders most likely promised pay for their servitude, something Snowy knew they needed with the ruined gardens and orchards he saw back there. Perhaps they thought of Thad as a seer for them all. The wolves confirmed his suspicions and he relaxed.

  The Means would create yet another problem though. Some Maricari, mainly the elderly, were superstitious enough that they might think the mist an omen of doom. Like when Faint Mountains were obscured by fog beyond midday meal. Those who’d seen the War of the Betweens, stayed close to their huts during the rainy season and claimed the fog meant ill will to Maricar. Of course, every rainy season there were outbreaks of colds, footrot and such, which only enhanced the omen beliefs. Healer Mag had tried to tell them the weather, not the fog on the mountains, was the cause of such illnesses. Though they accepted her words, Snowy doubted they believed the old woman entirely.

  Thankfully, the younger generations didn’t hold onto those omens. They hadn’t witnessed the War of the Betweens. Then again, they were now about to travel through the Means to fight a war of their own. Perhaps there was something to the omens after all.

  His thoughts were interrupted by sounds of disbelief when Elder Siri activated the life circle, opening the doorway to the tunnel. Finlor ordered them through. An elderly Maricari woman refused to cross through the doorway, holding up the line of kin, until Healer Mag administered a potion to calm her. After that, things went smoothly. Once the doorway closed behind them, Snowy realized he could still hear Dar and the hum of the pack.

  We’ll be with you always, Dar’s silky voice said. No matter where you trek.

  Do you wish to come with us?

  Amusement filled his mind. We don’t need to see the Great Moon Mother’s den to gain knowledge of it.

  Snowy relaxed when Taniras touched his shoulder and smiled. She had heard. The wolves began their familiar war chant as the kin and the new recruits made their way through the gray, dim tunnel and into the mist of the Means.

  Chapter 20

  The trip through the Means kept Lyssinya’s heart at a steady race. It was all she could do to keep from shouting with glee that Tapnut would soon be in her arms again. The Energy here was pure and s
trong, which added to her delight, and she had to focus or lose her thoughts in the Energy. It wouldn’t harm her here in the Means like when they were in the tunnel—the Elders had promised that—but she fought the urge to take in too much. Otherwise, she thought she might even be able to fly. And she didn’t intend to appear silly in front of her kin, especially Haranda.

  The newest youngling, Mwerynde Va’sith, walked between her and Predula. The girl had caused no trouble whatsoever, which also lifted Lyssinya’s spirits. Usually younglings couldn’t wait to get into mischief but this one kept a reserved sentiment. She didn’t know whether the girl’s days with Lombreeth had broken her spirit or if her temperament was just soft. The girl was a cousin to Zarenia and obeyed without argument, something that Lyssinya thoroughly savored.

  Another thing lifted her spirits. She would soon see her personal servant Naru and her younglings, girls who’d been temporarily bonded to other mothers in her absence. Those still at youngling status would be re-bonded with her once she arrived. Tapnut had kept her apprised of the younglings from his dreams, but she needed to see them, hold them, make certain they hadn’t been harmed. She missed them as one would miss family, even Daphnen, who seemed to always find trouble with her transference Energy. Perhaps Cass could assist in Daphnen’s training. That new-oathed had done very well transferring water buckets for the fires back in the hamlet.

  A commotion brought her attention to the rear of their entourage and she stopped with the others to look back. As tall as she was, she had to lift to her toes to see over a Bankari man’s shoulder. She heard babbling in Guana tongue. Har’guana barely spoke to anyone and his language was so difficult to translate no one had learned more than a few words. Instead, he’d learned to communicate in the common trade tongue that many provinces had adopted over the past century. That misshapen head gave strangers cause to study him, and Lyssinya didn’t think she would ever get used to it. The healers could do nothing to reshape the boy’s head, since it had grown that way in infancy. Those from Beir Lake didn’t travel far and outsiders didn’t usually go to them by choice. Though Keive produced a youngling on occasion, mainly through intermarriage with Hunters, she couldn’t remember the last time one came from Guana or Zark.