Primal Quest Page 25

  Caidi rose early the morning after they had arrived home, but as usual Raven had already left the room. He was probably out helping with the hunting. As well as preparing the food that they had grown, it was also important that they stock as much as meat as possible, although they had been preparing for the winter since spring.

  Caidi started her day in the kitchen. She knew that they could always use a hand there at this time of year. Indeed, she was welcome there. She knew that her efforts to help with the preparations would be confined to what could be done within the Taivain this year. That she was being confined still struck a nerve in her, but she tried to remind herself that he knew she could take care of herself. It didn’t help much.

  As the day passed, she checked on the progress of work in the other areas which she knew would be busy to see if they would need help. Everything about the work was organized, but hectic as was usual. All of the women were accustomed to the work, but it was still tiring and the amount that still needed to be done was amazing.

  When Caidi went in for the midday meal, she had a better idea of just what still needed to be done. She went down to her room and found that the table was set for one, instead of two. Caidi ate her meal and then returned to work in the fields, going from one place when there were enough people to another where she could be of most help.

  Caidi decided that she really needed to talk with her mate about just going off and leaving without a word when just before the evening meal, she learned from his Terchal Gavin that he wouldn’t be coming to the meal or returning to the Taivain. She waited until after the evening meal had been finished and she was alone.

  Mostly, she picked at her food, but she ate what she could, because she had to feed herself to feed her cub. After the meal, she walked back to their room and sat on the bed and reached for him. Her day wasn’t done, but she wanted to talk with her absent chalon. She would return and help with the preparations for winter after their talk.

  Raven, where are you? Caidi asked without preamble as soon as she knew she had contact with his mind.

  I am on my way to Esden. Raven mentally cursed his forgetfulness. I meant to contact you before this, but I lost track of time as we were traveling and forgot. I didn’t mean to worry you, my sweet. One of Achan Cavor’s men found someone who knows something of the attacks on the Taivain. I will be back in around nineteen days.

  * * * * *

  Raven made the journey to Esden and found Achan Cavor’s man waiting in the common room at an inn as had been arranged. Raven walked to the table where he sat and took the seat across from him. The Zarain greeted him and then motioned to an unkempt older man in worn clothing who had been drinking at another table. The man stood and hobbled over to the table.

  “You the man who wants to know about the rogues sent to Carait?” The man dropped into a chair and slammed his mug onto the table.

  Raven merely nodded.

  “There was a man and woman who would come here and hire ‘em regular for a lot of years, but these past years, they have had trouble finding anyone willing to take their offer. Word spreads real quick when none of those men hired ever return to take another job. This time, no one wanted to work for ‘em.” The man leered at the woman who came to fill his tankard.

  “And this time, did they get any takers?” Raven’s eyes narrowed and anger boiled within him at the thought of anyone attacking his home.

  “I heard they were looking for a small group of warriors. The only takers were the roughest of the lot and that kind don’t accept the kind of terms they were offering.” The man grunted at the couple’s stupidity.

  “What conditions were they offering?” Raven watched the man for any signs of deception, but had seen nothing so far.

  “They wanted someone to simply fight their battle and leave after it was won. Not even the most simple of warriors will readily take that. They were having real trouble finding any takers.” The gray-haired unshaven man shook his head in disgust.

  Raven knew that that was true enough. Even with honest mercenaries, it was difficult to get them to leave if they had just taken a city or fortress. They had to be very well paid to do it. “Did they find any warriors willing to take their offer?” He doubted that these two had that kind of coin.

  “No.” The man shrugged. “Word on the streets has it that there are some new occupants in that place that they wanted, a large force of armed warriors, and none of the warriors here would go up against that large force for the money they were offering.”

  “What did the man and woman do after they discovered that they wouldn’t be finding any warriors here?” Raven leaned back in the chair. This was getting interesting.

  “They didn’t believe that there were warriors in that place. That woman started screeching that they were all liars. Then, she called the men fools and said that the only people in that old fortress were a bunch of women. She flat called all of the men cowards for being afraid of a group of women. Her man dragged her out of there before she could get any more insulting,” the man chuckled.

  “What did the man and woman do? Do you know?” Raven asked.

  “The woman was still screeching at everyone as the man dragged her away and one of the last things she said was that she would go there and see if there were truly warriors there, but she was certain that they were all lying cowards.” The scruffy man took a long drink from the mug he held and then belched.

  “Do you know if they actually went to Carait?” Raven sat forward, concerned.

  “They didn’t go immediately, but they did leave a day or so ago.”

  Raven tossed the man some coins for the information and thanked him. He stood, thanked Cavor’s man, and then left. It was time to return home. He would find and catch the people who had threatened his chalie, long before they reached the Taivain.

  The two people would be traveling on the same path that he would. They would find themselves trapped between a very well-manned fortress and a very angry Shadatai Achan. The woman should have given up her quest long ago when those she had sent couldn’t take the Taivain. This would be the last time she attacked this pack. He would ensure that she and her man didn’t continue to plague this pack. There was no way that he would allow her to remain a threat to his chalie.

  Back on Carait, Raven wasn’t surprised when he and his men found the two people’s trail heading straight for the Taivain. He had known that this had to be one of the older women from Caidi’s pack who knew exactly where it was. Raven and his men drew close enough to sight the two people but not close enough for them to sense that they were being followed. Although it was difficult to do with the trees of this forested area, he kept that distance until the two of them had an opportunity to see the well-manned walls.

  Raven and the eight men with him moved closer. They took the woman and the brawny Zarain man with her captive without much of a struggle. Both people seemed a little stunned to find such a force at the holding. Raven’s men disarmed and bound the man in short order.

  “You seem to want to see this Taivain. I insist that you see the inside of it as well.” Raven nudged the woman forward with a hand placed at her back.

  Raven had the prisoners taken to the large gathering hall. The hall was almost full with people who wanted to see the man and the woman who had been caught by the Achan. They knew that the woman was likely an old member of the pack, and some of them wanted to see if they recognized this woman who had caused so much trouble over the years. A low murmur spread among the women of the crowd.

  Raven left his men to stand guard over the man and woman in the space that had been cleared in front of the two large high-backed chairs near the end of the room. Raven walked to the larger chair and took a seat. With a glance around the room, Raven noticed that Caidi wasn’t here yet and he wondered what could be keeping her. She knew that he had captured the woman.

  “I have daughters, Achan. They are beautiful and unmated. Perhaps one of them is your chalie.” The woman flashed a bright
smile as she tried to move forward. A sword blocked her path. “We were coming here to visit old friends. I was under the impression that this Taivain was ruled by someone else.”

  “It is ruled by someone else, Avera.” Caidi paced slowly forward through the crowd. “Things change and I don’t think that you have any old friends here. All of the older women are gone.” At a gesture from Sera, she detoured from the straight path to Raven ostensibly to take a tray holding a large goblet, but actually to hear what Sera wanted to tell her.

  “They didn’t search her, Caidi, and you can see that she isn’t tied,” Sera warned in a soft hiss.

  “Her first mistake will be her last,” Caidi returned in a whisper-soft threat. “She won’t cause any further damage.”

  Caidi continued forward without any further comment. When she reached Raven’s side, she handed him the goblet and let the empty tray hang at her side. She made no move to take her seat.

  “Do you think that I would ever forget the face of the woman I strongly suspected of killing my mother, Avera?” Caidi’s voice rang through the hall as she stared at the woman.

  “I was loyal to your mother,” Avera sputtered in what was probably meant to be outrage, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

  “I am still the Acine in this Taivain. The only change here is that there is an Achan and more than enough strong, skilled warriors to protect the Taivain from attack. You won’t find any mercenaries to answer your call except the foolish or suicidal. Even then you would probably have to lie to them to get them to go against a well-manned Zarain holding.” Caidi’s eyes ran from the woman’s graying blonde hair to the worn boots on Avera’s feet.

  “I would never attack this holding. You are paranoid.” Avera drew herself to her full height and glared at Caidi.

  Caidi watched the woman’s every move as she moved in the space allowed by the warriors guarding her. Avera was treacherous and Caidi knew it.

  “You appeared to be loyal to her after she had pinned you when you challenged her all of those years ago, but you never really were. You forget that children were everywhere in the Taivain in those days. We heard you trying to stir discontent, making your plans while you tried to cause trouble for her.” Caidi smiled with relish as Avera’s face turned red.

  “I never did that, you little witch. You have everything. Why do you do this?” Avera looked at Raven pleadingly.

  He stared at her, expressionless.

  “My mother was almost to the point where she was going to banish you from the pack when she mysteriously died. We all knew that it wasn’t an accident,” Caidi informed the older woman with little emotion in her voice. Everything within her was focused on Avera’s body, her movements. She was watching for the move that she knew would come soon.

  “You were nothing but a child, a brat, when she died. I should have ruled the Taivain after your mother died, not you. There should have been no question of me having to challenge you. It was an insult to me, to all that I had done over the years.” Avera bared her teeth.

  “I was alpha. You weren’t.” Caidi saw no reason to debate fact.

  “You were nothing, a pup. You had no experience or knowledge about how things should be,” Avera stated bitterly with a toss of her head.

  “Even at fourteen, a pup, the Acine had you pinned and crying for mercy in only moments,” Senna called from the back of the room. “You would have done better over the years to thank the Goddess that Caidi had no experience with challenges. You should have been thankful that you escaped it with only a minor scar and your life than to spend all of your years plotting to take what you could never hold.”

  Feminine laughter rippled through the hall. Smiles were the only sign of amusement that crossed the men’s faces.

  “My daughters deserve the right to be Acine after me.” Avera pressed her hands against the blade barring her path. “I helped build this holding. It should be their home, their future.”

  “When you left the Taivain, your daughters chose to go with you, to give up their home. Other daughters chose to stay here when their mothers left. They chose to be loyal to the pack, in spite of the love they felt for their mothers. It hurt them to lose their mother as much as it hurt me to lose mine, maybe even more, because they knew that their mother was alive and they had hurt her by not leaving with her,” Caidi stated softly. She had seen the grief, the sadness and the hurt on their faces after their mothers had left.

  “You made me leave the Taivain. I had no choice,” Avera accused. “I have been without a real home since I left here, my daughters haven’t had a home. My mate is a mercenary in another warrior’s army. It is your fault that nothing is as it should be. I should rule here. You should be the outcast.”

  Caidi laughed at the woman’s accusations and her delusions. “Your mate isn’t even the alpha of the mercenary troop and you think that you would be able to hold the Taivain. If you had succeeded in somehow killing or scaring away every woman here before I found a mate, you still wouldn’t rule here. Your husband’s alpha would have taken it and probably put you two out again.”

  “My plan would have worked. I would have ruled the Taivain,” Avera insisted stubbornly, but she turned venomous eyes on Caidi. “I should have killed you first, before your mother, but you were forever with others, always into things. You were always so damned impetuous, leaping into things.”

  “I was inquisitive,” Caidi chuckled but there was no humor in her eyes.

  “That moacha should have killed you. It would have killed any other person, but you found it sleeping. You were always so lucky.” Avera blanched at what she had just revealed.

  “We always suspected that you were behind that.” Caidi merely nodded. It was nice to have the suspicions confirmed.

  Caidi watched fury wash over Avera and then she saw the woman’s eyes shift to Raven. Her eyes narrowed on the man sitting in the high-backed chair. “This is your fault. If you and your men weren’t here, this Taivain would be mine and she would be dead.”

  “You think that that Bavaok would have killed me if it hadn’t been for Raven?” Caidi arched an eyebrow as Avera gasped. “He was going to sell me to slavers. I would’ve gotten free and I would have been furious.”

  “I didn’t…” Avera shook her head.

  Caidi growled. “Don’t bother lying.” She flashed the woman a menacing smile. “I would have hunted and found you, Avera.”

  “I would have been Acine! I deserve to be Acine,” Avera yelled.

  “Where are your daughters, Avera? If you feel that you have such a right to the Taivain, why aren’t your daughters with you to see your victory?” Caidi put quiet emphasis on “your daughters” as she moved to the other side of Raven so that her left hand, the one holding the tray, was close to him, leaving her right hand free.

  “The foolish females don’t believe in me. They have never believed that I am the rightful Acine. They have even begged me to give up my quest. Only my Datar believes that I have a just cause. If he wasn’t here…” Avera stared maliciously at Raven.

  Caidi saw the other woman shift. With an unseen movement of her fingers, Caidi unhooked the strap on the knife hidden under the flowing sleeve of her dress, allowing the blade to slide with easy familiarity into her hand. She had come prepared. She waited and watched carefully. Caidi saw Avera’s move beginning.

  Avera’s blade had been concealed by a fold of her tunic and she drew and threw in an almost fluid motion. Caidi’s blade left her hand a moment before Avera’s blade left hers. Caidi had gauged Avera’s aim, knew her target and lifted the tray in front of Raven’s chest.

  The hate in her eyes when she had looked at Raven had told Caidi that Avera would go for him. She saw him as the one thing keeping her from her goal. Avera’s knife hit the metal tray with a loud clang and both the knife and the tray fell to the floor where they made even more noise.

  “She’s dead, Achan. The knife went cleanly into her heart,” Gavin called from where he knelt by Avera. He w
as looking at Caidi with new respect in his eyes.

  “Do you care to tell me what you were doing carrying a knife in the Taivain, Caidi?” Raven raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation. Horror and fear still pulsed through him. When he had seen that knife hurtling through the air, his only thoughts had been of Caidi, her safety. He couldn’t bear to lose her.

  Caidi wasn’t intimidated by either his demanding tone or his raised eyebrow. “I have had some experience with dealing with you big, tough Shadatai males. You are so sure of your own skill and superiority that you forget that females aren’t always the nice, sweet, innocent, defenseless creatures that you would like to think we are. You think that we couldn’t possibly hurt you.” She gave Raven a pointed look. “I wasn’t about to lose my chalon or my own life because of that misconception.”

  “That isn’t an answer,” Raven growled.

  “I was aware that your treatment of her would have been kinder, gentler than what I would have done. You didn’t even search her or secure her hands. I took measures to ensure our safety in the event that she did try something. It is my duty to care for you just as much as it is your duty to care for me.” Caidi smiled and shook her head. Men could be so arrogant sometimes.

  Raven fought the tide of red he knew was rushing over his face at her pointed reminders of his mistakes. He had discounted the woman as a threat simply because she was female, only binding her mate. “I will deal with her husband in private. Everyone may return to your duties. I will speak to you later, Caidi.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Caidi merely nodded, managing with effort to hold back the smile that threatened to spread widely across her face as she turned and left the hall. She went to the kitchens in the smaller of the living areas. They were using them to prepare some of the fruit for the winter, making jellies and syrups and storing the cooked fruit.