Free Raven's Strike by Patricia Briggs Page B

he has been here. He left behind a rune in the old temple that was triggered a few weeks ago.” He lifted his head to scent the air, then shook his mane and turned his attention back to her. “I don’t pay enough attention to the town. If Karadoc hadn’t called me when the first of the creatures appeared, it might have taken me too long to find the rune on my own. As it was, other than destroying the rune, I could do little for them in the stone of the town, so I called them here, where your wards could do some of the work while I took care of the tainted things. I wasn’t expecting the troll, so I used myself up healing the priest and driving away the little things. A troll . . .” He sighed. “A normal troll would not have been too difficult, but that one . . . Your wards kept him mostly away from the villagers until today.”
    â€œThere was a rune in the temple,” Seraph said.
    â€œTo awaken and draw those things that bear the collar of the Shadowed,” the forest king explained. “The priest took me to the temple, and we destroyed the rune. Not soon enough.”
    Runes were solsenti wizardry mostly. Seraph was only marginally familiar with the theory behind them—though there were a few useful ones that she used sometimes. She did know that they could be drawn and set to wait until something triggered them. The temple had only been built this past winter, though, so the Shadowed had been in Redern sometime since then.
    A number of the Path’s wizards had come with Volis, the wizard-priest she’d killed in the new temple in the village. The other wizards kidnaped Tier, then left for Taela. The Shadowed could have been among them.
    Perhaps the mistwight that killed the smith’s daughter had been drawn from whatever place it had been hidden and was traveling toward Redern. After the forest king stopped the call it settled in the smith’s well. Unhappily, she wondered how many other creatures were even now preying upon defenseless villages—maybe that was what Benroln had been called to fight.
    The burn of power slowed Seraph’s thoughts, and she returned to her wardings. The forest king followed her when she moved, grazing while she worked.
    Darkness fell under the trees, though she could see patches of light where the trees were thin. The birds quieted as they settled in for sleep, but there was music coming from the farm. She smiled; let more than two Rederni get together, and there would be music.
    She examined the progress of her magicweaving critically and was satisfied. Her thoughts were a little clearer than they’d been, and the wards were strong and tightly woven.
    â€œTier told me once that he thought Jes’s forest king shared a number of traits with Ellevanal,” she told the horse casually.
    Ellevanal was the god worshiped by the mountain peoples, including the Rederni. Though today was only the second time Seraph had seen him, Jes had spent his summers exploring the woods with a creature he’d called the forest king since he was old enough to run.
    â€œBards see things that others do not,” agreed the forest king, taking another bite of grass.
    â€œWhat would the Rederni say if they saw their god of forests eating grass?” asked Seraph.
    â€œThey are not Travelers,” replied the god after he’d finished chewing. “They would not see what you do.”
    She laughed despite herself. “Now that’s a properly mystical answer.”
    â€œI thought so,” he said. “But it is true for all of that.”
    â€œGods do not look haggard and sick to their worshipers?”
    â€œYou don’t believe in the gods,” Ellevanal said. “How would you know what they do or don’t do?” The teasing note fell from his voice. “They say that the Travelers don’t believe in the gods because they killed theirs and ate them.”
    â€œI’ve never