With no luck, at least they wouldn't be turned into Bard-shaped cinders. And they could retrace their path if they had to, until they met up with the road again.
The terrain was getting rockier; when she could see through the curtains of water, the streambed looked as if it had been carved through what looked like good, solid stone. And the banks were getting higher. If they couldn't find a house, maybe they could find a cave.
If they couldn't find either, maybe they could just walk out the storm.
It was awfully hard to think with rain beating her skull, and water tugging at her ankles, forcing her constantly off balance. She was so cold she couldn't remember being warm.
The thunder and lightning raged above their heads, but none of it was getting down to the ground anymore, not even the strikes that split whole trees in half. And the very worst of it seemed to be behind them, although the rain pounded them unabated. Her head was going to be sore when they were out of this. . . .
Maybe they were getting out of the elven-king's territory. How far could magic reach?
She found out, as there was a sudden slackening in the rain, a moment when the lightning and thunder stopped. Both she and Talaysen looked up as one, but Rune was not looking up with hope.
She felt only a shudder of fear. This did not have the feeling of a capitulation. It had the feeling of a summoning. The elven-king was bringing one final weapon to bear upon them.
That was when they saw the wall of wind and water rushing down on them, walking across the trees and bending them to the earth as it came. Not like a whirlwind-like a moving waterfall, a barrier of water too solid to see through.
Talaysen was nearer to shelter; he flung himself down in a gully carved into the side of the streambed. She looked about frantically for something big enough to hold her.
Too late.
The wind struck her, staggering her-she flailed her arms to keep her balance, then in a flash of lightning, saw what looked like half a tree heading straight for her-
Pain, and blackness.
Talaysen saw the tree limb, as thick around as he was, hit Rune and drop her like a stone into the water, pinning her in the stream beneath its weight.
He might have cried out; it didn't matter. In the next instant he had fought through the downpour and was clawing at the thing, trying to get it off her, as the wind screamed around him and battered him with other debris. She'd been knocked over a boulder, so at least her head was out of the water-but that was all that fortune had granted her. She was unconscious; she had a pulse, but it was weak and slow.
And he couldn't budge the limb.
Frantic now, he forced himself to calm, to think. Half-remembered hunter's lessons sprang to mind, and he recalled shifting a dead horse off another boy's leg with the help of a lever-
He searched until he found another piece of limb long and stout enough; wedged it under the one pinning Rune, and used another boulder for a fulcrum. There should have been two people doing this-he'd had the help of the huntsman before-
Heave. Kick a bit of flotsam under the limb to brace it. His arms screamed with pain. Heave. Another wedge of wood. His back joined the protest. Heave-
Finally, sweating and shaking, he had it balanced above her. It wouldn't hold for long; he'd have to be fast.
He let go of the lever, grabbed her ankle, and pulled.
He got her out from under the limb just as it came crunching back down, smashing to splinters one of the bits of wood he'd used to brace it up.
The wind died, and the rain was slackening, as if, with Rune's injury, the elven-king was satisfied. But the lightning continued, which now was a blessing; at least he had something to see by.
He bent down and heaved Rune, pack and all, over his shoulders, as if she was a sack of meal. Fear made a metallic taste in his mouth, but lent him strength he didn't know he had and mercifully blanked the pain of his over-burdened, aging body.
He looked about, frantically, for a bit of shelter, anything. Somehow he had to get her out of the rain, get her warm again. Her skin was as cold as the stones he'd pried her out of-if he couldn't get her warm, she might die-
Lightning flickered, just as his eyes passed over what he'd thought was a dark boulder.
Is that-
He staggered towards it, overbalanced by the burden he carried, and by the press of the rushing water against his legs. Lightning played across the sky overhead-he got another look at the dark blot in the stream wall. No, it wasn't a boulder. And it was bigger than he thought-
He climbed up onto the bank, peered at it in another flash of lightning-and nearly wept with relief. It was. It was a cave. A small one, but if it wasn't too shallow, it should hold them both with no difficulty. Pure luck had formed it from boulders caught in the roots of a tree so big two men couldn't have spanned the trunk with their arms.
And a pair of bright eyes looked out of it at him.
He didn't care. Whatever it was, it would have to share its shelter tonight. The eyes weren't far enough apart for a bear, and that was all he cared about.
Somehow he got himself up into the cave; somehow he dragged Rune up with him. Erratic lightning showed him what it was in the cave with him; an entire family of otters. They stared at him fearlessly, but made no aggressive moves towards him. He ignored them and began pawing through the packs for something warm and dry to put on her.
He encountered the instruments first. His lute-intact. Hers was cracked, but might be repaired later. Her penny-whistle was intact, and the tiny harp he'd given her. The bodhran drum was punctured; his larger harp needed new strings-
All this in mental asides as he pawed through the packs, pulling out soaked clothing and discarding it to the side.
Finally he reached the bottom of the packs. And in the very bottom, their bedding; somehow dry. Her fiddle wrapped in the middle of it, safe.
There wasn't much time, and he didn't hesitate; every moment she stayed chilled was more of a threat. He stripped her skin-bare and bundled her into both sets of bedding. Then he stripped himself and eased in with her, wrapping her in his arms and willing the heat of his body into her.
For a long time, nothing happened. The storm died to the same dull rain they'd coped with for the length of the Faire; the lightning faded away, leaving them in the dark. Rune breathed, but shallowly, and her body didn't warm in the least. Her breathing didn't change. She wasn't waking; she wasn't falling into normal sleep. If he couldn't get her warm-
Lady of the Gypsies, help me! You are the queen of the forests and wilds-help us both!
Finally he heard faint snuffling sounds, and felt the pressure of tiny feet on his leg and knee.
The otters' curiosity had overcome their fear.
They sniffed around the bundle of humans and blankets, poking their noses into his ear and sneezing into his face once. It would have been funny if he hadn't been sick with worry for Rune. She wasn't warming. She was hardly breathing-
One of the otters yawned; another. Before he realized what was happening, they were curling up on him, on Rune, everywhere there was a hollow in the blankets, there was an otter curling up into a lithe-warm!-ball and flowing over the sides of the hollows.
As they settled, he began to warm up from the heat of their six bodies. And as he warmed, so, at last, did Rune. Her breathing eased, and finally she sighed, moved a little-the otters chittered sleepily in complaint-and settled into his arms, truly asleep.
He tried to stay awake, but in a few moments, exhaustion and warmth stole his consciousness away, and he joined her and their strange bed-companions in dreams.
He woke once, just after dawn, when the otters stirred out of sleep and left them. But by then, they were not only warm, they were a bit too warm, and he bade the beasts a sleepy, but thankful, good-bye. One of the adults-the female, he thought-looked back at him and made a friendly chitter as if she understood him. Then she, too, was gone, leaving the cave to the humans.
Rune woke with an ache in her head, a leg thrown over hers, and arms about her. Behind her, someone breathed into her ear.
What happened? She closed her eyes, trying to remember. They weren't in the cottage they'd found; that much was for certain. . . .
Then she remembered. The elves, her one-sided fight with music and magic, then the flight through the storm. After that was a blur, but she must have gotten hurt, somehow-
She wormed one arm out of the blankets, reached up to touch the place on her head that hurt worst, and found a lump too tender to bear any pressure at all, with a bit of a gash across the middle of it.