A Woman Warrior Born

by Alexander Edlund



  A Woman Warrior-Born

  by

  ALEXANDER EDLUND

  The Book of Banea

  Volume 1

  Copyright © 2013 by Alexander Edlund

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permission of the publisher. Thank you for respecting the rights of this author.

  V2.2

  ISBN: 1493729950

  ISBN-13: 978-1493729951

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1—Lupazg

  Chapter 2—SaKlu

  Chapter 3—Leaving Home

  Chapter 4—B’feu

  Chapter 5—The Outer World

  Chapter 6—Seeds on the Wind

  Chapter 7—Sherishin

  Chapter 8—Open Water

  Chapter 9—You Live, Remember?

  Chapter 10—Rautukana

  Chapter 11—A Woman in Need

  Chapter 12—Prophecy

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Lupazg

  Breea wove a path through the forest, leaping the spreading roots of giant trees, skipping rock to rock over tumbled boulders, and sweeping through banks of broad-leaved ferns, leaving a cloud of fern spores drifting hazily in shafts of sun. Sprinting, she shot into an expanse of meadow cut by a broad stream. Without breaking stride she leapt the water, hair swirling. Both feet thudded in the grass on the far shore, and falling forward she rolled into a somersault that unfolded into a high leap. Too soon, the ground pulled her back, and she landed.

  Breathing hard, she turned back to the water and saw a rabbit bolting away. It dashed upstream and vanished into deeper grass. Breea untied a braided wool sling from her waist, fit one of her hunting stones into the sling’s pouch, then stood still. The rabbit sat up to look back at her. It dropped down, and Breea watched the grass wiggle as it moved. The animal pushed out of the deep grass, paused, and began sniffing its way along the border. Her sling whirled once, and the rabbit’s ears twitched at the hum of the stone an instant before the rock took its life.

  Before retrieving her meal, she dropped to her belly at the water’s edge to drink. Sitting back, she tied the sling around her waist, then pulled a cloth from a belt-pouch, wet it, and bathed her face and neck. In the glassy water beside her, a young trout, wriggling to maintain its place, emerged from the undercut hummocks of moss along the bank. A pine lark trilled as a butterfly dipped on the breeze to flutter around her.

  Smiling, Breea tightened the laces of her boots, and thought of places to look for mint and pepper-leaf for the rabbit. As she rose, her gaze caught on the crags of Limtir Mountain where it reared above the trees to the north. Midmorning light etched a strange pattern on the fastness of jagged stone and fissured ice. Eyes of gray shadow seemed to glower at her under a brow of frowning stone. She took a step back. The mountain looked like Ajalay when she was angry.

  Ajalay was the Tetr-Sanis of the Library of Limtir, an adviser to kings. In song she was called Speaker, for she had yet to meet a man whose language she did not know. Library peers recognized her as the only Fourth Sanis Scholar living, a rank achieved by being the first ever to have read the histories of every people recorded in the library’s vast halls.

  Breea knew her simply as Aja, powerful in ways no soul other than Breea could guess. Yet Aja knew less of the deep forest than Breea had at eight winters. The Tetr-Sanis did not love the wilds, those surrounding the library or those within Breea, and thus misunderstood deep truths of both.

  In two days the sanis testing of high summer would begin. Hundreds of scholars would speak, experiment, draw, and sweat for five days to earn their first sanis or prove worthy of higher place. There were none called scholar in Limtir who were not sanis. Nineteen winters made her the youngest female applicant in a thousand years, and the entire library would be watching to see what mettle of mind she had.

  Aja would rage if she knew how Breea chose to spend the day. But the Tetr-Sanis was not here. The books could wait. She lay back in the grass and stretched like a forestcat, arms way out over her head.

  There was one in the world who cared nothing if she attained sanis. Let Ambard be near, she wished. Let him see her lying in the grass, and appear suddenly at her side, smelling of leather and the chase. A breeze lightly touched her, caressing, bringing with it the spice of the Gamanthea-Dur trees.

  The wind died and birdsong cut abruptly. Breea went still. Her father had taught her to hear it when the mountains spoke, and now, seven years later, in spite of all he had taught her, she was discovering how little he had understood. She let out her breath, and did what her father never knew.

  She listened.

  The stream was a ripple of cool essence, and all about her was the flutter of small life. On the edge of her senses the Gamanthea-Dur trees were a strength, quiet but active.

  A rhythm touched her. Scattered footfalls. A deer galloping. Stumbling. Wounded? Breea rolled and came to her feet. She ran to the far edge of the meadow where a bank of tall ferns dominated the forest margin. Careful not to break stems, she ducked among them, turned around, and lay on her belly, rising up on her elbows to look back across the meadow.

  Bushes thrashed and a stag burst into the clearing, antlers shedding bits of leaf and vine. He bounded to the stream and plunged in. One foreleg twisted on the rocks, and he fell headlong into the water. The current shoved him downstream as he heaved himself up and out. On wobbling legs, he staggered toward Breea. On the eighth step, his foreleg failed, and he crumpled to the earth.

  Breea had seen this before. Dogs drove deer so, and she spat a curse at village men who let their animals run free. She rose up, reaching for her sling. Though she had only one more handmade hunting stone, there were rocks in plenty in the streambed that would serve to discourage village dogs.

  She hesitated. The forest was quiet—silence where there should have been braying, yipping barks. Foreboding flowed over her like cold oil. Backing into the ferns, she whipped off her sling and fit her single stone into its pouch. Going down to one knee, she freed the guard strap on her dagger.

  A low howl ripped through the forest. Breea ducked, going flat. The howl sang through her like a horn blast, dark and dreadful, and…something else. It reached its peak, and a chill flooded her, shot through with slivers of heat. As the howl faded, she found her fists clawed full of leaf mold. She looked up to see the deer pawing at the grass, craning its neck to look back.

  Following its gaze, Breea felt her belly knot. Something hurtled through the trees, its approach like a sword thrust seen but impossible to parry. It burst from the forest, cold white, with a presence that filled the meadow. Crossing, it leapt the stream in a smooth arc, landing solidly behind the deer.

  Breea couldn’t breathe. Instinctual need to flee warred with powerful intuition telling her not to move. Forcing a breath deep into her lungs, she willed herself still, like a rabbit. To flee was to die. Carefully, she released the leaf mold she still held. Pressing her hands to the ground, she dreamed herself a stone, the roots of trees, a leaf of fern. Through this, she had found she could remain unseen. Her tracks to the ferns were obvious, and she willed the grass to unbend and lose her scent, hoping desperately that it would obey.

  Taught wondrous ways to know the world, and to never discount the truth of what was before her eyes, she knew that this thing which stood before her was no imagining, no fable. It was a beast, eons old, from the Legend Time. Breea had no name for it, but her mentor would, for Aja knew the names of all old things.

  To keep herself steady, Breea did what her mother had taught her, what she used to calm herself w
hen attacked by fear—she studied the source.

  It was wolf-like, eighteen or twenty hands to the shoulder, and a third of that across the chest, with muscles rippling beneath a shaggy coat of pure white fur. Not white like snow; this was a twisting absence of color. Its eyes, white as well, radiated a piercing essence.

  The wolf-thing watched as the stag thrashed, the deer's brown eyes staring ahead at the forest, at Breea.

  Wind caught in the trees above, then swirled down to brush the meadow grasses. The white wolf’s gaze swung about the glade, nose sensing. As it slid over her ferns, Breea stifled a gasp. Ravening fear thrashed in her. Against it, she brought to bear all the discipline of mind and body drilled into her over a life of intense study and martial training. Even as she mastered her body, she felt the fear lodge a certainty into her heart; this creature was beyond her, beyond hope to combat, beyond hope even of escape.

  The deer whined, and the wolf turned back to its victim. Lowering its head, the beast nipped the stag’s rump. The deer screamed, kicking at the grass. The white beast watched as the deer stood and began hobbling for the trees where Breea hid.

  The wolf-beast followed close. When the stag was a few paces from Breea, the wolf leapt beside it, grabbed the back of its neck in its jaws, and bore the deer to the ground, cracking bones.

  In Breea, rage stirred. Wind sighed through the trees on its way up the mountain, a breath of resin-scented warmth that bent the grass and waved the ferns concealing her. The white creature raised its head, blood-splattered nostrils tasting the new breeze. It seemed to find nothing of interest and settled onto its belly. Bracing the stag with a forepaw, it fed.

  When satisfied, it stood. The white eyes closed, and Breea felt as though a veil had been drawn over the worst of the beast’s hope-piercing essence. As she relaxed, cold bloomed from the creature, searing across her as it passed. She tasted carrion, and her gut heaved. The creature’s form dissolved into a seething whiteness. Even without listening, she could feel the warp of its essence weaving. It was bitter cold, worse than winter winds off the mountain. Power twisted, rotating about it. Tendrils of foulness brushed past, and she recoiled.

  The air crackled with cold as the weave pulled in warmth and life. Breea cowered, holding desperately to her own warmth, an agonized cry rising in her throat as she felt the creature’s power overwhelm her.