Bitter Moon Saga Read online

  A deep breath of cold fury, and another, and the icy film of cold resolution faded from Torrant’s vision, and he was left feeling weak and drained in its wake.

  “He threatened to hurt me,” he said calmly. “And he’s the—”

  Lane’s eyes widened, and with surprising strength he managed to haul Torrant through the inner circle and melt like snow through the crowd.

  “Don’t finish that thought, boy,” he murmured until they got outside and found a secluded corner of the building to talk in. The corner was in shadows, with two feet of snow built up in its crevice, and when they stopped to catch their breath, Torrant found his teeth chattering with cold and reaction.

  “He’s the one who killed the old woman?” Lane finished, when he was sure Torrant was fine.

  Torrant nodded. “He’s one of Rath’s guardsmen. He was sent here, supposedly, to make sure the refugees arrived in one piece.”

  Lane shuddered. “I think what he was really sent to do was make sure they ended up in a handy ice pit, and Goddess be glad it didn’t happen. But as it stands, he’s another King’s man. He’s got a certain amount of immunity. If we charge him and kill him, we’ll get Rath’s fury coming down on us like an anvil from heaven.”

  “But he’s dangerous….” Torrant’s ears were still ringing with the man’s threats, and he could have smacked his head against the wall for the wail in his voice.

  “I know it.” Lane rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We know who he is, and I saw a partner back there behind him. We can tell the constable and the mayor to watch out for him. But other than that…. Torrant, we’re going to have to wait and see.”

  Torrant nodded unhappily. “We can’t let anybody out of the house alone, Uncle Lane,” he said at last. “He threatened Yarri… and Aldam. He killed the old woman just to send us into a spin. He’ll hurt all of us.”

  Lane nodded. “Well, if my weather sense is right, we’ve got about two days of right awful snow to keep us inside while we think things through.” He looked out at the iron-gray sky and the wide, brittle snow slivering through the air and did his own shivering. “Let’s talk to Donis and go back to our own fires. It’s time to do a little Goddess thinking of our own.”

  Torrant shivered for the entire walk back, abruptly feeling the weakness from his two illnesses assaulting the muscles in his legs and the stalwartness of his chin. They drew near the little, two-story log house with its twinkling merry lights from the paned glass windows, and the warmth and the haven gave him strength. He and Lane clattered up the front porch and into the equally merry chaos inside.

  Torrant had just a moment to reflect on how much larger the Moon hold had been in Clough, before he was ear deep in people who wanted to be his family.

  Aldam was in the kitchen, where he and Roes were contending for the official title of Master of Dinner.

  “You need to steam the vegetables!” Roes was saying defiantly, dissecting an unresisting carrot as she spoke.

  “Not if you stir them in the skillet with a little butter. Make them thinner, Roes, unless you want them to crunch.” Aldam’s voice was patient. Aldam was always patient, but Torrant noticed his goodwill was especially apparent in the face of Yarri’s prickly cousin.

  “But, Mum, I already told Dad this—why do I have to write it down?” Stanny was sitting at the kitchen table amid a pile of books. Roes attended the public schooling offered in the little house near the barracks, but Stanny had graduated to helping his father in trade. Lane, ever progressive, was having his son decide on what the next big import into the city would be.

  “Right then, smart arse,” Bethen returned with a touch of asperity. “What’s the next big import then?”

  “Yarn,” Stanny shot back smugly. “We import it from the foothills and sell it to Otham. That way, you don’t have to wait until the festival in the spring. There will always be a basic stock in every store. Everyone here knits, Mum. We can’t lose.”

  Bethen blinked, her eyes losing focus as they did so. She adjusted the fussy baby against her shoulder as she kept up the mama-dance that was keeping her quiet. “Yarn,” she said, bemusedly. “You’re right, Stanny—it’s a good idea. Now write up that justification for your father, and I may stop having to fill the house with a year’s supply every spring.”

  “I like the yarn,” Yarri said from the living room. She and Cwyn were playing hide-and-seek in the multiple wicker laundry baskets that were usually stashed in the rooms about the house. There was laundry—dirty and clean—in every corner of the room. As soon as Yarri was done saying the word “yarn,” Cwyn started shrieking “yarn, yarn, yarn, yarn, yarn…” and went tearing for another corner of the family room, where he ripped open a closet door and started throwing balls of yarn out by the score.

  “Cwyn!” Bethen’s voice rose in a wail, and she started for the closet so quickly she disturbed Starry on her chest. That’s when Torrant and Lane stepped in.

  “Come here, you little terror!” Lane commanded, scooping the boy into a squealing bundle and nodding at Yarri to start cleaning up the yarn.

  “Here, give her to me and sit down, Aunt Beth,” Torrant murmured, taking the baby from her and nodding to the table.

  Bethen did as she was told. “I bet there wasn’t this kind of chaos in Owen’s hold, was there?” She sounded depressed.

  “No,” Torrant replied, innocently honest. “But there were workers to help. You’ve only got family, Aunt Beth—it’s harder.” The baby started to fuss and gurgle. Torrant cooed to it, wandering off into the family room and beginning Yarri’s favorite nursery song.

  “That’s my song!” Yarri protested, and Torrant patted her head.

  “Then share with the baby a bit, and sit and listen,” he told her, rocking his body unconsciously. His whole air screamed of protection, both for Yarri and the little girl in his arms.

  Bethen watched him with surprised eyes.

  LANE CAME to sit down next to her, and Cwyn stayed on his lap, sending clever little fingers into his shirt pockets looking for goodies. He found a small, carved horse that Lane had picked up from the warehouse earlier that day and went scampering off to the back room to show Yarri. Lane put a hand on his wife’s knee and smiled kindly.

  “You’re tired—you should go sleep.”

  Bethen nodded, her eyes still on Torrant. “Listen to him. He’s got a beautiful voice.”

  “That he does.”

  “What did you two find out?” she asked, one eye still on the little ones in the living room.

  Lane sighed. “I’d hoped to wait until you had some sleep.”

  She smiled tiredly. “Tell me now, and then I can sleep.”

  And so he did. When he was done, she let out a little moan and set her chin on her clasped hands that were resting on the table. “Nobody leaves the house until this is resolved, right?”

  “Absolutely,” he reassured.

  “Good.” She sighed a little, and he could see her pushing it around in her head. “He’s still hiding something,” she said after a moment. Lane had told her about the icy blue of his eyes.

  “That he is.”

  “He’s awfully young to hold all this in his chest.” She yawned. “That’s twice he’s had his family snatched away from him. I think Yarri just became his three moons….” She trailed off, her eyes wandering along with her voice.

  “Go nap, Bethie,” he said at last, “and I’ll wake you when Starry needs food.”

  “We need to keep them safe.”

  “I promise.” He made the vow solemnly and then shooed her off to nap.

  Consigned to the Cold Wet Dark

  AFTER DINNER, when Torrant and Stanny were doing dishes and Lane had gone down the hall to their bedroom to give Bethie a moment to feed the baby, Stanny squinted out the kitchen window against the swirling snow out in the dark and said, “Who’s that on the porch?”

  Before Torrant could answer, Roes had launched herself at the door with all her self-importance and Yarri
at her heels, answering the brutal knock almost before it ended.

  “Moon residence… Torrant!” Roes protested when Torrant shoved past her.

  Torrant had recognized one of the two men and pushed his way through the door, calling, “Stanny, get your father—now!” before confronting the two men on the porch.

  “You’re not welcome here,” he said staunchly, his heart thundering in his ears. They had threatened him, they had threatened Aldam, they had threatened Yarri, and now they were here, their very presence a danger to the family who had taken him in without reservation or debt.

  The beefy, dark-bearded man from the barracks grinned at his companion, a thin, starveling man with sparse, blond hair, pocked cheeks, and a mouthful of teeth stained with the tobacco chew that drooled into his thin beard. “That’s not very friendly of you, boy. Now come along and grab your sister. Your king’s waiting back at home to give a welcome to the surviving Moons.”

  “I said go away,” Torrant barked, feeling his face drain at the thought of Consort Rath waiting for Yarri. “This isn’t Clough, and he’s no longer our ruler. You have no power here.” As he said it, he felt the world go icy and clear around him, and his eyes changed their focus. The two men stood before him, glowing the cold red of warm blood and prey.

  The dark-bearded man leaned forward, grabbed Torrant’s shirt, and hauled him up to snarl in his face. “You’re going to want to come with us, boy. You’ve got a nice family here. You wouldn’t want to go and watch another one get killed, now would you?”

  “Torrant?” Roes said from the porch. “Who are they?” Her voice had taken on a quaver, and Stanny came up behind her.

  “Get inside, Roes!” Torrant ordered, his voice gravelly.

  “Torrant—Dad’s coming. He said not to….” Stanny’s voice trailed off too, and he put his hand on Roes’s shoulder.

  “I said get inside!” Torrant’s voice was getting lower and rougher, and he heard the snarl of the cat in it, but the two men were oblivious.

  Yarri, not to be left out, hurtled out the door next to him, joined by Aldam with Cwyn in his arms. Torrant was suddenly, acutely aware that every child and young person he wanted to protect was standing, cold and vulnerable, on the porch in the snow.

  “Who are they?” Yarri asked, pulling at his shirt, and Torrant took his attention off the men in front of him long enough to risk a look at Aldam.

  “Get them inside!” he rasped, and Aldam saw his eyes.

  “Now, Yarri!” Aldam took one of her hands in his own just as the dark-bearded man spoke.

  “No, no, dummy—don’t take that one—that one’s coming with us, ain’t she?” He turned to his companion, who grinned back, and then reached for Yarri’s other hand. Roes stepped forward, pushing Yarri behind her, and the man’s hardened palm and hard fingers grasped her, leaving bruises she would dare anybody to mention for days. With one jerk he had her sturdy, not-yet-blossoming body up against his. He gave an evil chuckle.

  “We could take this one, though—she looks like more fun than the little one. You never know.”

  Several things happened at once.

  The first was that Roes kicked the man in the shin. The second was that Torrant grabbed the man’s shirt front and shoved him back, practically pitching Roes to the side with his other hand, where she thunked heavily on her hands and knees. Rath’s lieutenant growled, lunging in Roes’s direction, his hand outstretched. Before the filthy hand could make contact with the girl’s skin again, Torrant became the snowcat.

  Aldam snatched Yarri and hauled her through the door, squirming, even as Cwyn hollered from his other arm, and the giant snowcat leapt.

  Torrant had become efficient during his time in the mountains. It took two movements: his teeth ripping out the dark man’s throat and his paw swiping at the blond man’s windpipe, and both men were down, dead and bleeding in the snow before Roes could scream. As she opened her mouth, Stanny clapped his hand over it and pulled her, struggling, inside, just as Lane rushed past them out onto the porch, trying to avert disaster.

  “Gods!” he swore and met the eyes of the giant snowcat.

  ABRUPTLY, THE snowcat dropped to its stomach, emitting a submissive whine-growl that took Lane by surprise. It inched forward, keeping up the whine, while simultaneously licking the snow in an obvious effort to get rid of the blood that had coated its muzzle and throat from the bodies of the men behind it.

  Lane stood in shock, staring at the evidence of murder in front of him, when Yarri and Roes both struggled free and rushed over to Torrant, fell to their knees in the snow, threw their arms around his neck and buried their faces in his thick fur. The whine-growl turned into a purr, and a rough, pink tongue lapped out to Yarri, making a mess of her short, fuzzy hair.

  “Tor….” Lane’s voice cracked, and he cleared it, trying again. “Torrant?” he said questioningly.

  “That man tried to grab Roes,” Yarri murmured, rubbing her face in the snowcat’s fur.

  Lane got a little closer to the cat, and instead of zooming in on the really big, pointy teeth, he focused his vision on the eyes instead.

  “I recognize those eyes,” he murmured softly. “Those were your eyes when you were defending yourself today. Those are the same eyes I saw when you were defending Aldam that first night here, aren’t they? How long have you had those eyes, Torrant?” Lane kept his voice sweet and nonthreatening as he reached out and rubbed the cat’s massive head between the tufted white ears.

  “He had them when he killed the horse trader,” Yarri said suddenly, clearly into the night.

  “The horse trader?” This was more of the story that Lane hadn’t heard. He kept the question casual, freezing there in the snow and thinking hard about what he was going to do with the two bodies in front of his home.

  “He was”—Yarri’s voice dropped—“bad,” she finished just as Aldam said harshly, “Evil.”

  Lane looked behind him. “Evil?”

  Aldam closed his eyes and shivered with his whole body, like a horse forced to confront a beast like Torrant. “He was a very evil man. He tried to… to hurt Yarri…. Torrant stopped him, and then he and my aunt hid the body in the trash heap outside of town.”

  Lane nodded. “I want to hear all of this—all of this, mind you”—he looked particularly into the icy-blue eyes of the snowcat—“later. Right now, Yarri, Roes, go inside and change into dry clothes. Keep Cwyn occupied, and get the baby if she cries—she shouldn’t. I think your mother has her down for the night. Aldam, Stanny—go get snow gear on, and bring my heavy coat, hat, and gloves.” He looked down at the snowcat, who had disengaged himself from the girls and moved to the largest attacker, sinking his teeth into the shoulder and pulling backward until the body started to move in the snow. “You, stay just as you are,” he instructed dryly. “I have the feeling you’ll be pretty useless when you change back, and we’ll need all the help we can get.”

  He looked around at his family, frozen to stillness in the night snow. “Move!” he barked. “I think we’re going to take a lesson from Torrant, and go find Eiran’s trash heap.”

  “But Da’,” Stanny muttered. “What we don’t reuse or compost, we flush into the river.” The river currents bore their organic waste out to the ocean, far enough away that Otham had never reported so much as a stray pig bone washed up on its shores.

  “That we do, my boy,” Lane agreed, his teeth starting to chatter. “And by the time these two pieces of waste find a home, they’ll be bleached pebbles on a faraway beach. Now I’m freezing my arse off out here, so move!”

  It was as sharp as Lane ever got with the children, and within moments, the girls were inside with the little ones, and the young men were outside, dressing hastily in snow gear with Lane. Silently, and with purpose, the three humans and one snowcat began dragging the bodies through the snow.

  The river ran about half a mile behind the Moon house, which was on the street farthest back from the main town road. Getting rid of the me
n was a matter of dragging the bodies behind the house and trekking through the deepening snow until they heard the roaring sound, then pitching them off the short cliff into the frigid, roiling waters below.

  “And to think,” Lane puffed, grabbing a set of feet and swinging, “I wanted to have a fence put in to keep children from wandering into the water.” The body reached its sandbag-heavy arc, and he and Aldam let go then grunted when they heard the splash.

  “A fence is a very good idea,” Aldam agreed solemnly, “but not tonight.”

  Lane looked at Aldam in surprise, not sure if the boy had meant to be funny or not, and he caught Torrant, who had put considerable feline muscle into helping Stanny haul his victim to the outcropping’s edge, whuffling into the snow in what was definitely a cat-style laugh. With another grunt, he and Aldam took victim number two by the hands and the heels and pitched him into the rushing, wet dark.

  “Not tonight,” he agreed grimly. “Tonight we’re going back home for a pot of boiled water and a cup of cold truth.”

  The boiled water was to melt the bloodied snow—after a couple of pots of it, the blizzard would effectively hide the last of the diluted blood until spring, and then Lane could innocently wonder what rabbit had been killed on his front lawn.

  The cup of cold truth was harder to dish out.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Lane asked when they had returned, Torrant shifted back, and everyone was in bed but Aldam. Yarri had begged to stay awake—pleaded, in fact, in tears—until Lane had finally snapped, “What, girl, do you think I’m going to kick him out in the snow now? He’s family, same as you, but if you don’t let him talk to me man-to-man, I may just ship you off to a boarding school in Triannon and keep him here to help.”

  Yarri had surprised him with a toothy grin. “You already love us, don’t you, Uncle Lane?”

  “Like my own, poppet,” he’d replied with a bemused smile. “Now sleep—Torrant and I need to talk, that’s all.”