Sentinelspire by SEHESTEDT MARK

Author:SEHESTEDT, MARK [SEHESTEDT, MARK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786949373
Published: 2008-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

What was the little fool doing? Sauk wondered.

He’d found a good spot—a ways uphill from the boy, well-shaded by a large larch, but still with a good view of where Lewan sat next to the pool. Taaki was off to Sauk’s left, settled and comfortable in a patch of soft sand beneath an overhang of the mountainside that offered her a wide view of the entire stretch of wood. Sauk couldn’t see her, but through the bond he shared with her as a zuwar, he knew right where she was. He could’ve pointed to her like a man with his eyes closed could point to the noonday sun.

Afternoon was turning to evening, and the air up on the mountain had turned cool. Still, the boy hadn’t moved in a long while. After Sauk had left him and settled in to watch, Lewan had stripped off his boots and clothes and bathed in the pool. The way the boy moved in the pool and ladled water over his torso with his cupped palms had more the look of ceremony than a true washing. This struck Sauk as nothing unusual. Most faiths had rites of ceremonial cleansing—his included, though the Beastlord’s worshipers slathered themselves in blood more often than water.

Sauk knew that earlier that morning, Talieth had ordered servants into the gardens with a list of things to gather— acorns, mistletoe and holly leaves, a sprig of oak leaves. So early in the season, the acorns had been the most difficult, but

they had found them at last in the tangled maze of greenery that grew round the base of the Tower of the Sun. Since the old druid had taken up residence there, all sorts of odd things grew in and out of season.

Sauk watched as Lewan sat, still naked, at the water’s edge and used a stone from the stream to crush the acorns and some of the leaves. He then dipped three fingers of his right hand into the greenish-brown concoction and painted a series of symbols on his forehead, the backs of his eyelids, across both lips, round his heart, and the patch of skin between his navel and groin. Sauk scowled and muttered, “Damned leaf-lovers.”

Lewan then piled a small cushion of young larch needles at the base of the nearest tree, sat on it with his legs crossed and his hands on his knees, leaned his head back against the bole of the tree, closed his eyes—and didn’t move for a long while. Sauk sometimes thought he could see the boy’s lips moving, but he was too far away to be sure.

And there Lewan sat as the shadows in the wood turned a deeper shade of blue and the cool of evening began to whisper down the mountain. Although he couldn’t see them through the trees, Sauk knew that the first stars were skirting the eastern horizon.

A jolt, almost like a muscle spasm, struck Sauk. But this was in his mind, in his heart of hearts, that deep part of his soul entwined with the tiger.

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