Fire in the Mist Read online

  FIRE IN THE MIST

  by Holly Lisle

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright (c) 1992 by Holly Lisle

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

  ISBN: 0-671-72132-1

  Cover art by Stephen Hickman

  Map by Ellen Kostyk

  First printing, August 1992

  Distributed by

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to my Mom and Dad,

  who told me I could do anything I wanted—

  and who meant it.

  MAGE IN SHEPHERD'S CLOTHES

  The attack was not wolf madness, but wolf boldness. They had come, had taken what they wanted without challenge, and they had grown confident. Now they wanted her sheep.

  Now they wanted her.

  The pack leader, silver-tipped-black and immense, faced Faia and strode stiff-legged forward; head down, ears flat back, pale, cold eyes gleaming. His lips drew back from yellowed teeth. He rumbled a warning growl as he advanced.

  She clutched her staff, and her belly tightened with fear. There was no time to reach for the slingshot and the studded wolfshot. She made a quick thrust at the beast with her walking stick that caught him in the teeth. He danced back, and crouched for a leap, his eyes fixed on her throat.

  Lady, help me!

  Faia drew the earth's energy, thinking it into her staff, thinking, Give the staff strength!

  And somehow, she was outside of herself, and staring down at the massive black wolf and the tall, rangy girl who faced him off with nothing but a brass-tipped walking stick.

  At the same instant, she was inside herself, and the strength was there—earth-strength, Lady-strength, confidence. Faia, stilled inside, deadly calm, swung the staff up as the wolf lunged and caught him across the chest; the impact of his great weight flung her backward a staggered step. But light flowed from the staff around the wolf, blazing green fire. The wolf screamed, its voice for a moment disconcertingly human. Then he crumpled to the ground and was still—unmarked, stone dead.

  At the scream, the other wolves vanished into the forest, disappearing like the memories of shadows.

  Chapter 1: A POX ON BRIGHT

  IN front of a fieldstone cottage, on a crisp spring morning, Risse Leyeadote and her leggy, dark-eyed daughter, Faia, hugged each other goodbye.

  Faia pulled away first and grinned. "I love you, Mama. I will see you soon."

  "Such a hurry. My youngest daughter cannot wait to abandon me for the flocks and the fields."

  "Oh, Mama—!"

  Risse laughed, then held out a wrapped packet and a necklace. "Take these, Faiachin. I have more than enough jerky here to get you to the first of the stay-stations, and I have finished the work on a special amulet—added protection against wolves. And I am sending my love. You have your erda?"

  Faia nodded.

  "Wolfwards?"

  Another nod.

  "Knife? Herb bag? Matches? Needles?..."

  Faia nodded at each item on her mother's list until finally she burst out laughing. "Mama! How many years have I been taking the flock upland? I have everything I need. I will be fine, the sheep will be fine, the dogs will be fine, and I will see you in late summer with a nice bunch of healthy lambs and fat ewes."

  Her mother smiled wistfully. "I know, love. But it is a mother's job to worry. If I did not, who would? Besides, I miss you when you are not here."

  Faia's face grew serious for a minute. "I always miss you, too, Mama—but it will not be forever."

  Her mother nodded. "Have you said your goodbyes to Rorin or Baward yet?"

  Faia caught the conspiratorial inflection and winked. "To Rorin, yes. Last night. Baward is going to meet me at the Haddar Pass pasture in about a month, and we are going to—ah, graze the flocks together for a few days."

  "Are you, now?" Her mother smiled a bit wistfully, remembering long summers in her own youth spent "grazing the flocks" with one young shepherd or another. "Remember to use the alsinthe, then. Well, I'm glad you aren't going to be up there alone the whole time. Really, Faia, there seem more wolves than usual this year. Do not forget to set the wolfwards. Not even once. Remember, Faljon says, 'Wolves need not knock/at the door that's open.' "

  Faia hugged her mother again, then whistled for the dogs. "I know, Mama. I know." She hung the brightly colored chain of the silver-and-wolf-tooth amulet around her neck and tucked the jerky into one of the pockets of her heavy green felt erda. "Love you, mama."

  "Love you, too, Faiachin," she heard her mother call when she was halfway down the slope to the pasture.

  Faiachin, Faia thought, and winced. Sometimes she still thinks I am five years old instead of nineteen.

  Chirp and Huss, black-and-white streaks of barking energy, were under the fence and hard at work before she could even get across the stile. They needed little direction from her to pack the sheep into a nice tight bunch and get them moving to the gate. Diana, the old yellow-eyed lead goat, knew the routine too. She trotted up to Faia and stopped. Faia put the supply harness on her, and checked to make sure the bags on either side were securely attached. The bags held emergency rations for Faia and the dogs and coins for the stay-stations. They also made Faia's pack lighter, and she was grateful for that.

  Faia scratched the goat behind the ears and tapped her once on the rump with her staff to hurry her to her place at the front of the flock. That done, the flock, the dogs, and she moved onto the narrow two-rut cart-path that would dwindle to a dent in the grass by the time they got to the highlands.

  The sheep, their bellies already starting to swell with lambs, looked oddly naked after the shearing. They trotted after Diana while Chirp and Huss ran vigorously at their heels, nipping and barking and otherwise trying to demonstrate to Faia that they were the only reason the sheep were going anywhere. Faia suspected a fair amount of the show at this point was just because the dogs were so damned glad to be heading for the highlands again.

  And as for her—

  She started whistling. The tune was "Lady Send the Sunshine," but she thought up some words for the chorus, and switched abruptly from whistling to raucous singing.

  "No damned shearing

  No more carding,

  No more spinning

  And no dyeing!

  No more weaving

  And no sewing—

  Flocks must to the uplands go."

  She liked it enough that she trilled it a few more times, getting louder and louder with each rendition, until with her last chorus, she threw in some silly dance steps with her brass-tipped staff as her partner.

  The trees that lined the lane arched over her head, blossoming or barely greening; spring smelled fresh and earthy and new; and, Lady, it is good to be on my way and free! was the thought foremost in her mind.

  At the top of the first hill, the trees were cleared and she turned to look back at Bright nestled below her. At her own house, which lay nearest her point of view, a wisp of smoke rose from the chimney. Further back, the smith's forge was already going at full blast, and she could just catch the steady "clink, clink" of the smith's hammer on the anvil as it drifted across the distance. The littlest children played tag in the cobblestoned street; their older sibs helped mothers and fathers with the serious work of readying the pl
ows and harnesses for ground-breaking and planting. She could see Nesta shoving round loaves of bread into the tall stacks of ovens—an older relative of those loaves rested in her pack, along with some cheese from Nesta's sister Gredla.

  She smiled. Home, wonderful, home—where just at the moment, unfortunately, everybody was busy as birds with nestlings. Thank the Lady for giving her the gift of tending; if it were not for that, she'd be home doing the dull labor, like tilling or planting or pulling weeds, and some other lucky soul would be heading for the hills for the summer. For, thanks to her magic with flocks and dogs, ahead for her lay the upland pastures. There she could dally about and play her rede-flute and watch the stars and admire the newborn lambs when they came. And cloudgaze nearly to her heart's content.

  The flock trotted onward, and she blew Bright a smug little kiss and hurried after them.

  * * *

  Risse watched her youngest child depart and felt a special pang of maternal longing. Nineteen years old, tall, strong, and beautiful, Faia was everything she could have hoped for in a daughter, and more. In spite of Faia's heated arguments to the contrary, Risse was sure there would be special young men soon; not the current casual lovers, but men Faia would want to have children with. And Faia's life would change, as she had to accept responsibility for babies. She would have less time to wander in the hills, less time to play with her dogs. Risse tired to imagine her daughter with children, and came up with a mental picture of Faia with beautiful babies swaddled on her back as she bounded across an upland pasture after her sheep. The older woman grinned. It was actually the only way she could imagine her youngest with children.

  She will be such a boon to the village—when she grows up and gets her father's wayfaring ways out of her system.

  There was more to Faia than stubbornness and independence and wanderlust, though, and Risse worried about that, too.

  She has more of the Lady's power than I have ever sensed before—even if it has not surfaced yet. She's like a river—deep and quiet and unbelievably strong. I just wish she had more interest in exploring her talent—the Lady does not give gifts in order for them to be wasted.

  Risse shrugged her anxieties off. She was having plain old mother-worries compounded by the fact that this was the last of her four children to grow up. Those worries, added to her "wolf-worries," were giving her the worst case of jitters she'd ever had. Still, life was dangerous. She carried memories of packs of wolves, sudden snow-squalls, avalanches, big mountain cats, and crumbling mountain paths from her own summers spent with the sheep. The highlands posed threats even to smart, cautious, experienced shepherds like her daughter. She hoped Faia did not run into more trouble than she could handle.

  The amulet should help. I spent enough time and energy on it. If she finds out what it really does, though... Faia's mother shook her head ruefully. Faia's independence was legendary in Bright. Faia asked help from no one—never had, even as a tiny child, and, Risse figured, probably never would. So Risse had done a thing she considered slightly sneaky. She made a link between her and her daughter, which would let her know if Faia needed help without having to wait for Faia to ask.

  The amulet would do exactly what she'd told her daughter it would do. It would ward off all but the boldest or most crazed of wolves, two- or four-legged. But it would also carry a distress message from Faia to her mother, who could then summon help. There's a chance Faia will sense the link, Risse thought. It wasn't likely. Faia rarely heard—or felt—anything that she didn't want to hear. Besides, it was a chance Risse had to take. Her nerves screamed with the possibilities of disaster—wolves, her dreams said—and the signs of wolves were heavier this year than they had been in a decade. She had an uneasy feeling about them.

  Risse had learned to trust her feelings.

  Half an hour's walking made Faia think that the jerky in her pocket might be getting lonely for the company of her stomach, so she pulled one of the leathery strips of meat out of her mother's packet and began to introduce them. Diana had taken goatish interest in the tender, juicy leaves on the trees and refused to lead the flock along the road, the sheep were already doing their mindless best to wander everywhere but where Faia wanted them, and the dogs acted as if they suddenly remembered that these trips to the uplands were not all play. Faia wanted to laugh, but Huss and Chirp would have thought that she was laughing at them, and they would have acted hurt and betrayed for the rest of the day.

  Lady forbid! Faia thought. They try to make me feel guilty often enough without me giving them a reason. She decided to help them out a little. After all, Huss had just finished weaning a batch of puppies—Not a one that went for less than ten-and-a-half, Faia thought cheerfully—and the girl figured her dogs deserved a break.

  She grounded herself and mentally reached into her center. Then she closed her eyes and visualized a tunnel with high, blank walls to either side and a huge pasture of deep, luxuriant clover straight ahead. She drew energy from the earth, and sent the verdant image to Diana and into the lentil-sized minds of the sheep. They abruptly left off their munching and moved down the road, their purpose in life—the filling of their insatiable bellies—given a new direction.

  But in the time that her eyes had been closed, a stranger had appeared over the crest of the next hill, riding toward her. His beast was a solid-looking bay with an excellent gait, well-formed and beautiful, but white-footed. Faia spat surreptitiously to one side to avert the bad luck associated with white-footed horses and studied the strange rider from under the brim of her hat.

  The ill-fortune was all with the horse, she decided when she got a closer look at the odd pair. That was the only way she could explain to her own satisfaction how such a scabby bit of human flesh could own such an otherwise excellent animal.

  For the rider was no match for his horse. The man was pale as skimmed milk, with gaunt cheeks so pimpled Faia's face hurt in sympathy. His jerkin was well cut from expensive cloth, but flapped around his skinny frame as if it were dressing up a stick man.

  The man and horse edged along one side of the flock while Faia kept to the other.

  "Care you—" he began to shout, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing. When it passed, he tried again. "Care you to see the merchandise in my packs?"

  Faia considered only an instant. His packs flapped almost as slackly as his jerkin—there was not likely to be much of interest in either. "Thanks, no."

  "The village—?"

  "You have almost arrived."

  "My gratitude, then," he said as he drew even with her.

  She stepped up the embankment to be out of the way of his horse, thinking uncharitably that such homeliness really ought to stay at home, where innocent bystanders wouldn't have to see it.

  She was glad when the dull thudding of horse's hooves on packed dirt faded into the distance. She went back to her intervals of whistling and singing and jerky-munching.

  Near twilight, she stopped again to water the flock and to rest and get a drink for herself. By her best guess, she still had a torchmark of hard pushing to get to the first of the stay-stations. She was tired, and sank gratefully to the grass by the side of the stream. Huss and Chirp, tongues lolling, flopped at her feet as the sheep and Diana lined the stream. Both dogs grinned up at her, grateful for the break. They trotted to her side and nuzzled her, and she split a piece of her jerky with them.

  "We have gotten soft and lazy from too much sitting around the cottage during the winter, hey, kids?" she asked them.

  Their eyes seemed to assure her that this was truth.

  She knelt on the bank upstream from the flock and cupped her hands to draw out some of the icy water, when suddenly a low, mournful howl took up, echoed and reverberated down from higher ground. It was followed by another, and yet another.

  Wolves! Faia froze and concentrated, trying to determine their number and location. Wolves should not be this close in, she worried.

  They were not right around her, she decided after ca
reful listening, but they were within half a daywalk—definitely too close for complacency. And there were a lot of them—maybe fifteen. The howls were not their hunting cry—at least, not for the time being. They were merely talking, entertaining themselves, engaging in evening wolfsong. That could easily change if they were hungry, and if they knew there was a flock of sheep within striking distance.

  To Faia's animals, it did not matter whether the wolves were presently hunting or not. The sheep were already spooked, and the dogs stood rigid with hackles raised. Faia loosened her sling in her belt and made sure her special spiked shot was ready in its pouch, just in case. She admired wolves, and would not willingly harm one—but if it came to a contest between the wolves and her sheep or her dogs, she would do her best to make sure the wolves were the ones who got hurt.

  Mama was right about wolves being plentiful this year, I guess.

  It began to seem that the trip would be less cloudgazing and more work than she had hoped.

  She whistled the dogs back to work. Making the fork as soon as possible had become suddenly not a matter of personal comfort but a matter of safety for herself and her beasts.

  So much for making good time to the first stay-station, Faia grumped. What with the skittish sheep bolting off the main trail into the scrub with every branch-crack and owl-hoot, she and her flock had hiked long past the arrival of full dark before the familiar clearing finally appeared. Muscles whose existence she had forgotten throbbed, and a blister on her right heel reminded her that new boots were best saved for short trips. As she and the flock made their way toward the corral, she noted sadly that the windows of the stay-station were dark, which meant that she would have no human companionship that night—and also that no earlier arrival would have the wolfwards already set. She and Chirp and Huss struggled to get all the sheep packed into the grassy pen. Then, so bone-tired she wished she could drop on the stones to sleep, she began to set the wolfwards.