A Woman Warrior Born

by Alexander Edlund

Etrya’s cousin was a tall, blond nobleman with deep-brown eyes who lived on the north flank of the city’s main hill. He took a look at the ring and grinned. Stepping back with one leg, he bowed with a flourish. "Charlthon Kespeardin, my honor to you all." Straightening, he said to Kolley, "Your service is noted." She curtsied and left.

  "This way." He led them into his house. The walls were paneled with pale wood and hung with portraits of noble ancestors. In a well-lit room decorated with tapestry, he bade them sit. Servants brought food and hot, spiced wine.

  "May I?" asked Charlthon, indicating Taumea’s wounded shoulder. "I have a touch of the healer’s gift."

  Taumea nodded.

  Charlthon began to unwrap the wound.

  Idly watching the servants, Breea’s breath caught. All were men that moved with the dangerous grace of trained warriors, and with little of the deference she’d seen from servants of nobles visiting Limtir. She let her shoulders relax, and pretending to study a wall hanging, listened.

  Behind the walls, she felt the warmth of four hidden people.

  Charlthon asked, "Ballista?"

  Taumea gave a curt nod.

  A servant brought fresh bandages.

  "It is well. No fever. No stitches, and the bones well set. Limtir healing has improved yet." Rewrapping the shoulder himself with real skill, he asked Taumea, "A month ago?"

  "Less than that," said Taumea.

  Charlthon paused, then shrugged and said, "Well, I am but an amateur. My teacher was a student of Scholar Bruman." To Breea he said, "You knew him, perhaps?"

  Breea shook her head.

  A serving man entered, bowed, and said, "Lord, all is prepared."

  The noble guided the three friends into a carriage house, where a large travel carriage was hitched to a six-horse team.

  A man opened the gear box on the back. Charlthon inspected it and said, "It is padded, and you will not need to remain within for more than a few hours." He motioned apologetically toward the box.

  Valiena helped Taumea toward the box, but Breea stood her ground, staring at Charlthon. He looked at her with a pleasant expression while servants closed in, bringing bags, offering Taumea and Valiena a helping hand.

  At the carriage, Taumea began to cough, and sagged against the carriage for support. Concerned, Breea looked at him. One of his hands flicked the sign, At your signal.

  Taumea knew! Her heart began truly to beat, and she turned her gaze back to Charlthon, who was now flanked by two servants and staring at Breea with displeasure.

  "You doubt me, girl?"

  Breea tried to control herself, tried not to show the wildness within, fear and battle ready to erupt, but her face betrayed her, she knew. She considered what to reply, and said finally, "I do not know you." She let her eyes flick to the servants.

  Charlthon smiled a disarming grin. "You are observant as well as beautiful. I wish you no ill. We must get you out of the city. I have no desire to have Etrya angry with me. The moon will rise soon. We must depart now so that we may take certain roads unseen."

  Breea said, "We will ride in the carriage."

  "That would not be wise. If we should meet with soldier-priests whom we cannot bribe, they will know your dress and look."

  Valiena said, "How?"

  "They know you because the Iplock Temple Pontiff and the Sherishin Temple Pontiff can pass messages over the sea in a single day. They have enchanted pigeons that fly at their will. The Sherishin Temple wants you, so the pontiff here does as well. I can provide you with escape. Will you enter?" He indicated the box.

  "I will ride."

  "You must be Etrya’s kin," he said, and studied Breea as though she were a favorite cat who was spitting and hissing at him. "She has trusted you to me, girl. You will get into this box if I am forced to put you there myself."

  Defiance and fear lit a fire in Breea’s heart. Charlthon’s gaze dropped to Breea’s sides, and one of his servants made a sign to ward evil, stepping back.

  In the hilt stones of Breea’s daggers, a sparkling green light flickered in time with her racing heart. Charlthon looked from the daggers to her face and said, "Etrya’s kin, indeed."

  Everyone was watching her. If Charlthon knew of Etrya’s ability, he should probably be trusted. Etrya did send them here. Walking forward, Breea stepped up onto the back of the carriage and looked into the box. It would hold all three of them, though tightly. Giving Charlthon a stern look, she stepped in, and reached for Taumea’s hand.

  The ride was cramped and uncomfortable. When they finally stopped, and the lid of the box opened, Taumea was pale in the lamplight. Night air was cool and welcome. Charlthon offered Breea his hand to help her down. She accepted it, then helped Taumea. They walked into a well-furnished cottage, where Charlthon presented them with a meal and soft beds.

  Sleep would not come for Breea. She took her cloak and walked outside. Through the trees, moonlight littered the ground in pieces. An owl hooted in the distance, and Breea felt herself back on the side of Limtir Mountain, running for her life, taking comfort in the sound of an owl’s call. But this call was not that one and she was not there. She shivered, pulled her cloak tight around, and breathed in the night scents.

  Westward, mountains loomed in the moonlight, a paler dark against the night sky. Beyond them lay the heart of the Yasharn realm. Over dinner, Charlthon had described the routes to the capital. South through Meirlesh was the usual path, though the most patrolled, and yet the easiest way to get lost among the travelers. When Breea asked about the mountains, he’d been surprised and said no one traveled the mountains, and if there were good routes over them, they were long forgotten. Besides, the Haunted Lands lay beyond, a place of ruin and tragedy.

  Breea asked no more about the mountains, for they would be her path. It would be better as well, now that she and her friends were hunted. She never should have let Taumea and Valiena follow her on this quest. If Taumea had died…Breea shied from the thought. She would put them in no more danger.

  In the stable she found a hardy-looking pony, and a saddle that would fit his broad back. Beside her bed, she left a small stack of gold coins, packed her saddlebags, and walked to Valiena and Taumea’s room.

  Valiena was at the room’s table, writing in her Lr’icune volume by the light of a candle. She looked up, saw the bags, and the set of Breea’s face. Valiena rose and embraced her. Neither shed tears. Breea looked at Taumea sleeping on the bed. She went to him, and took his warm hand into her cold one. He woke, looked up at the two women; Valiena still in a simple robe, and Breea dressed for travel.

  Breea said, "Return to Limtir."

  Taumea raised his good arm, and Breea gripped forearms with him.

  Breea rode into the night and through the morning without a halt. The scholar necklace she hid beneath her blouse. At midday, after leagues of rolling hills, she reached a village nestled in the heart of broad orchards. There she bought another set of bags, and enough food to fill them. Ignoring the curious and sometimes disapproving looks of the townspeople, she rode on. There were soldiers here as well, looking bored and well fed. They eyed her speculatively. A few made lewd suggestions, but took no other action. The villagefolk gave the soldiers careful deference, which Breea imitated.

  At the edge of town, she was surprised to find a troop of children following her, trying their best to be quiet. She turned to look at them, and they scattered into the orchards with cries of fright and glee.

  Breea pulled out a waxed-cloth package of fruit juice candy and dropped it onto the road. As she went on, she heard the children shouting; and when she turned, they were racing back into the town in a cloud of dust, one holding the package high. Except two. Two girls in sack dresses stood side by side in the road, one a hand taller than the other, and stared at Breea. She reached into her satchel and took out her other package of the soft candy and extended it toward them. They did not move, but she could see their interest in the angle of their chins and the brightness of their eyes, like
rabbits sensing a favorite leaf. She bent in the saddle and dropped it on the road.

  When Breea turned after riding farther, she glimpsed the pair scampering into the trees, the package clutched to the taller one’s breast. With heart lifted, Breea urged the pony toward the mountains.

  By nightfall she was on the flanks of the mountains and walked to rest the pony. The road had dwindled to a one-cart track. Below her was spread a tapestry of dark. The sea beyond glimmered gray, and she hoped with all her heart that Etrya was well, and sailing Halisheen to freedom.

  Was it right, this running into the unknown? What could Yash give her? What if the priest did not remember her Calling, or was dead now? Would she ever see Etrya again? Valiena? Or any of her friends? Was Etrya right to say the answers were within?

  All the questions did not matter somehow. Some subtle sense told her what roads to take. The feeling disturbed her, though she followed it. It was the same sense that had led her to take the mountain path.

  Most peoples believed in spirits, both good and not good. Her own father had been a religious man, pious and devoted to his god, whom he believed guided the fate of the world, but most Limtirians were less certain. Though she could not remember what her mother’s beliefs were, in Breea’s memory her mother was a spirit herself, the source of Breea’s own strength. This sense of what path to walk did not feel like the memories of her mother, nor was it cold like Lupazg. Breea remembered Valiena’s sayings about a moonbeam’s path, and pushed into the night, taking the next trail that felt right.

  Morning brought birdsong completely unfamiliar to her. The sun was rose through clouds, turning them pink. She looked at the bay and saw rows of something in the water that she had never noticed before. She studied them and wished for a longviewer. It was difficult to see so far away with the sun on the water. Her chest hurt with the need to be with her friends, to be home. More than anything, she wanted to lie in Ambard’s arms, his scent and guardianship surrounding her. What would he do when he next visited the library and found her gone? She knew the answer: He would return to the mountains as he always did; but how he would feel, she did not know.

  The path dwindled to a narrow track winding up the slopes, and Breea spent the hours gazing over the sea as she rode. There was only one thing she could think of to explain the rows of ships. They had to be galleys. Hundreds of them all tied together. And the men filling the taverns of Iplock were the sailors to man them.

  While gazing, she saw dots on the road far below—horses. The longer she stared at them, the more certain she became that it was pursuit. Stomach tight, she urged the pony on.

  The track she followed met a milky-green river and followed its course upward. Here and there were flocks of sheep on the dry slopes. At one point, Breea found herself surrounded by baaing, fluffy bodies. She smiled at their antics. Finally free, she waved at the shepherd who was staring at her with open mouth. Her mood fell. His reaction was of one who wouldn’t wait to tell others of the woman he’d seen.

  Out of his sight, following instinct, she took an even fainter track off the trail. A few hundred feet up, she dismounted, ran back, and carefully erased signs of her passage. If trackers were the burrs in her tail, it was a waste of time, but others might be fooled.

  All day, the trail wound up a narrow, dry valley. With daggers at hand, she slept under a boulder and was grateful for the shelter when rain started in the predawn morning.

  The track met a wide but disused and eroded road. A very old wayhut lay in ruins at the junction. The rain had stopped, but everything remained cloaked in gray. Mist boiled up the valley and made seeing more than fifty feet impossible. She sat back to enjoy the smell of rain in the mountains. Here it was a dusty-moist smell, rare in her wet home range, and she wondered how it could be so dry next to the sea.

  In the late evening, she found the next wayhut also in shambles. In darkness, she led the pony onward through the fog. In a few hours, sight became easier when Opalah rose. Breea pressed on until Opalah’s light faded behind western peaks. After tying the pony to a bush, she curled up on the ground in her bear-fur cloak.

  The fog was gone when she woke, and gold morning light shone clear upon the peaks that surrounded the valley. In wonder, Breea turned circles looking at the spires and ragged rock walls of the valley rim. The stone was tan and reddish, with browns and black smeared in streaks, or sometimes gray like granite. In any place that was difficult for people to climb grew stands of pine and an odd twisted tree Breea had never seen. She treated the pony to an apple and set out.

  Rodents sat on rocks and chirped at her as she passed, or ran wildly when eagles soared overhead. Without pausing, the pony crossed rocky, dry creek beds, most of which had washed out the track. In these places were signs that the track had once been a road paved with hexagonal stone. The road rose high above the river until Breea could see the head of the valley and what looked to be a pass. Far below, the river roared faintly and Breea wondered what its source was, for her water bag was almost empty.

  The road climbed in tight turns to a dry meadow at the base of the pass. The valley turned south and slashed up the side of a towering, sharp-peaked mountain where white-blue glaciers sprawled in the sun.

  A shelter of gnarled logs, weathered to a pale gray, sat on the wide spot and had a lived-in look. Horse dung littered the ground, and a massive dog tied to the shelter started barking as she approached. A spring dripped off the rock behind the building, but the dog would not let Breea approach. She dismounted and dug some dried meat from her bags. The dog, a dirty, gaunt creature, ignored what she tossed to it. The frayed rope that held it gave the beast range enough to guard both water and cabin. The rope looked ready to break at any moment. Breea hailed the cabin. There was no response.

  After a careful look around, she opened herself to the essence. She felt no people about, only the dog. Its fear and anger touched her heart, and she pitied it in a way she had never pitied dogs in her homeland. Walking toward it prompted it to snarl with terrible intent, eyes wild. Breea felt it was a sham, and her heart went out to the frightened puppy deep within the animal. As she walked up to it, it retreated, growling and snarling ferociously, tail tucked, hair bristling.

  Breea sat on a flat rock cross-legged, and smiled at the dog. "Bristle-Fur the Terrible. You don’t fool me," she said in Breowic.

  The dog stopped snarling and looked at her in surprise.

  Still listening, Breea called to him silently. Stiff legged, he approached, staring at her face, ready to attack or retreat at need, but her gentle call continued. When he was near enough, Breea touched him. He yelped and leapt back as though he’d been stung. But the ferocity was gone, and he approached quicker a second time.

  She rubbed his head, and all at once he was trying to climb into her lap and lick her face, trembling with happiness. Knocked over backward, Breea laughed and scratched his ears. He was grimy and stank mightily, and Breea stood, realizing that she was collecting fleas.

  She fed him dried meat, then washed her hands and filled her water bottles at the spring. After letting her pony drink, she gave the dog a final pat and scratch behind the ears, then mounted and rode away. Strangely, he showed no inclination to follow her, but barked once. She waved in response. The sun was bright and warm, and she relaxed in the saddle, soaking in the view of the surrounding mountains.

  A few hours later, she heard voices. Her calm vanished, and she found a wide place in the trail to let whomever it was pass. A man in filthy, sweat-stained clothing turned the bend riding a mule, followed by a pack mule laden with large sacks. Two more men came after, each with a mule similarly laden. The man in front wiped his weathered forehead. His fellows looked as tired as he and even dirtier. They stared at the trail in front of them with enduring disinterest. Not until the first was nearly past did he notice Breea. He jerked back on the reins hard enough to make the mule stumble and roll its eyes. The man behind him looked up and swore as his mule stopped abruptly to keep from bump
ing into the pack animal before it.

  "Yah, slit breath! Son of a Dauthaz! Move—" He saw Breea. His mouth hung open, but no more words emerged.

  The first man smiled a smile that made Breea feel alone and vulnerable.

  The third in line whispered loudly, "Cut her off, Higg."

  The first in line moved so that his animals blocked any retreat back down the trail. His smile writhed on his face like a shriveled leech, and Breea could feel his desire to possess her, to consume her.

  Breea clenched her jaw, and drawing both daggers looked him straight in the eye.

  Higg discovered that it was not a helpless sheep but a mountain cat he had cornered, and his faced twisted into panic. Looking around for escape as though he’d forgotten where he was, he discovered the trail and kicked his mules down it.

  "Wha?" said the second man, watching Higg flee down the track. He looked at Breea and his head rose backward on his neck. Trying to back up his mule nearly sent the pack animal behind him down the slope.

  Breea extended her left arm to point down the track with a dagger.

  After blinking two or three times, the man chanced it and kicked his mule into passing her. The third glanced at her and urged his mule to follow, hunched over, keeping his eyes fixed on the back of the man in front of him.

  She let out the breath she had been holding and, with a careful look down then up the trail, urged her pony onward. It was not until sometime later that her heart slowed.

  Stroking the pony’s neck, Breea said, "There are other beasts than Oregule in the world, pony. What shall I call you? I’ve all but named you Pony, and you’ve not done anything but what a pony would do, so it matches, I suppose. I trust you will do something to define yourself from other ponies soon enough."

  Thinking back on the encounter, Breea wondered at her fear. She knew she could have killed the three men; it was not a fear of being taken. It was the fear of being alone against such as they. Alone.

  Breea raised her voice to the mountains and asked, "Then why am I here alone?"

  Etrya’s voice seemed to echo back, You seek the source of your power.

  Breea touched her chest where the Lupazg’s medallion had marked her. "God’s Breath," Etrya called it. But what god? She sighed, and urged the pony onward.

  Nightfall found her at the summit of the pass looking down a valley that stretched and curved to the very sunset. She ate watching the orange light of the sun creep up the peaks around her, then urged the pony onward. It was late into the night before she spread her blanket on top of a defensible rock high above the next ruined wayhut.

  At first light, before beginning the descent to the trail, she looked back. There was no sign of pursuit. She raised her eyes to the distant east, but the mountains blocked her view of Iplock and the Leuvat Sea, but she was looking farther than they.

  For most of a day, she descended toward a valley far greener than the seaward side of the mountains. The trail traversed below the crest of a ridge above a deep valley. When the valley bottom began to level, the ancient road came down from the ridge, and by nightfall, Breea was at the tree line. The smell of sap brought out by the day’s sun was thick on the air. After some study of Abitalen and the healing tome, she slept better than she had for weeks.

  Riding in shadow as the sun lit the peaks along the ridges above, she entered a forest of small fir trees and tall pine. The trail vanished in the forest as the land leveled out. A clear river tumbled and talked over round rocks in the heart of the valley. Keeping to the easiest ways, she found sign of the once finely paved road many times.

  For two days she traveled down the widening valley, wondering why there were no people living in such a beautiful place. Were these the Haunted Lands? There were signs that people had once been here—old field walls, house foundations, even a place that might once have been a village. The pony enjoyed fresh grass, and Breea took easy rabbits with her sling. Listening, she found, greatly improved her hunting. She found as well that she felt each little death, and listened no more while hunting.

  The winds that blew through the valley were cool, and Breea felt summer closing. There would already be snow on the peaks around Limtir. Today, it did not fill her with longing to think of Limtir. These mountains were not home, yet she felt the thrill of exploration. Everything was new, the plants, birds, rabbits, smells, scenery; it excited her senses and filled each morning with anticipation. She found bear sign, but never the animal, for which she was grateful. Deer were plentiful, watching her ride past with curious stares. The mountain ridges turned to hills, and tall broad-leafed trees began to dominate.

  Toward afternoon on the fourth day, she saw a castle ruin on a high hill in the center of the valley. Urging the pony, she reached the place by nightfall and camped in the alders beside the river where its clear water split to encircle the hill and make it an island.

  In the morning, Breea crossed the river and climbed up into the massive ruin. The walls of the two baileys were tumbled and most of the towers were piles of rubble, but still, it held a majesty that no architecture since the Legend Time could match. She crawled over the rubble and explored rooms of the intact sections.

  Opening herself to the essence awed her. Something besides mortar held the stones together and bound them to the ground. It was the whisper of an ancient weave, she was sure. Walking out through a hole in one wall, she followed the whisper down the hill, and in fording the river, she lost it.

  She retraced her steps and listened. The feeling in the stones reminded her somewhat of the Nesua Oduuhn forest. Standing on rubble in the center of the castle, she could feel the power through the soles of her boots.

  Breea knelt and put her palms to the jumbled stones. Warmth caressed them. She began tossing pieces of stone aside. For the rest of the day, she worked until she reached the original flagstones. When she touched them, warmth enveloped her hands. Thirst and hunger drove her down to her pony, but she carried the food back, along with a candle.

  Trying to pry the flagstones up was futile. Frustrated, she sat back and looked at the stars. Warmth flowed from the stone on which she sat. She leaned against the dirt and stone of the pit she had dug and rested her head in her dirty hands.

  Power hummed up through the stone, warming, touching her core. Feeling her boundaries going, Breea touched the center of the castle. It felt like sliding fingers over warm oiled metal, except that it was her soul doing the touching.

  It felt as though a sphere were cupped in the power of herself. Warm, it hummed with a strength she could feel but not manipulate. Her own power flowed freely without pain. Relaxing completely, Breea was overwhelmed as the entire valley became known to her. In a vast, confusing sense image, every living thing and inanimate structure was revealed to her. Something died violently, the wind caressed the leaves of the trees, water moved, rocks were, and she felt thousands of beating hearts and simple emotions. She pulled away, and it left her—left her feeling empty. Again, she cupped the sphere with herself, and listened to the valley.

  When the dawn came, Breea could feel it. Tears slid down her face as the night changed to day. Birds waking, the warmth on the leaves, on the ground, shifts of the air, death of prey, victory of the hunter, she knew it all.

  All through the day, she lay at the bottom of the pit she had dug and listened to the forest, the stones, and the animals.

  As night fell, she tried to push her awareness farther, but it fractured and dispersed, drawing her power without end. Panicking, she withdrew.

  Weariness rushed in and she collapsed.

  Breea rolled over and looked at the stars. It was hard to focus, but she finally read them enough to know it was long after midnight.

  A ferocious hunger gnawed her, and she shivered. Instinctively, she felt for the sphere, but withdrew at the first touch. She had to eat and drink something. Stumbling and bruising herself, she struggled out of the castle and down the hillside.

  Face down at the river’s edge, she drew in dee
p gulps of cold water. Refreshed, she forded the river, only to find her pony gone. Breea wandered aimlessly, fearing what had happened. Then she stopped abruptly, sighed at her own foolishness, and listened.

  The animal was bedded down in the trees beside a nearby clearing. She woke as Breea approached.

  "I’m so sorry. I abandoned you. You do not care what I found. Forgive me?"

  Breea gave her two apples and some oats, and the pony perked up her ears and seemed happy once more; but when Breea went to tie her to a tree, she balked and pulled the reins from Breea’s grip.

  "I understand," said Breea, stroking the pony’s neck.

  Breea ate cold food and fell instantly asleep in her cloak.

  It was midday before she woke. Pony was in the sun in the middle of the clearing munching on grass. Breea walked back to the center of the ruin and gazed down at the stones there.

  Wrapping herself around the orb was easy, but she held back from extending her awareness, and simply held it. Slowly, the castle appeared to her mind’s eye; the castle as it had once been, as it should be. Breea pressed through the image and tried to examine the sphere itself. If only she were closer to the source.

  Flagstones grated and broke apart as something pushed them up from below.

  Breea’s mouth opened as a fist-sized orb pushed aside the rocks and floated up to her. It moved smoothly through the air until it touched Breea’s chest between the curved scars of Lupazg’s medallion.

  She took it in her hand and felt its weight. Warmth hummed up through her arm and she knew how easily her own power could flow down that humming path and into the round stone.

  Breea held it to the sun. The orb was translucent green, cracked in its heart.

  Breea walked down the slope, refraining from making any power contact with the orb. A rumble and crash came from behind, and Breea jerked around. A cloud of dust rose from within the castle where the inner towers had stood. Breea found and mounted her pony. More rumbling sounded, and she let Pony follow the old road track as she turned in the saddle to watch the collapsing structure through the trees, holding the orb in her hand.

  The valley opened only a few leagues from the castle. She rode to the rim of the valley, now a low hill, and climbed a rock outcrop to get above the trees. The jagged peaks she knew from the pass were small and pale with distance. Valleys coming down out of the mountains in long sweeps seemed to lose their momentum and settle into rolling green foothills. The castle was a pile of gray stone. Guilt touched Breea, and she turned her back on the valley. On the western horizon, she saw a smudge in the sky that she read as sign of a city, or forest fire, possibly a burning city. Bad signs. She went down the hill unhappy with the prospect of returning to populated lands.

  In two days the forest began to give way to farms and cleared land. Small herds of curl-horned cattle roamed the fields and patches of woods. Breea kept away from the farms. Every night she studied Abitalen and the healing tome, but the orb frightened her, and she let it lie in the bottom of her bags. The memory of her awareness shattering to dissipate across the landscape haunted her.

  Another day brought her within smelling distance of the city she had seen from the ridge. She skirted the place across fields, and climbed into the hills that lay beyond. Curiosity led her to check the road that ran west out of the city.

  From a hilltop, she lay in the grass and watched the people below. Most were going west, and she wondered if such movement was usual. She had been watching only a short while when heavy hoofbeats and the jingle of armor caused everyone on the road to move aside. Cart drivers put one wheel of their carts into the ditch. Five hundred horsemen, two by two, rode along the road led by a man in a black robe trimmed with silver. The soldiers were dressed in armor of metal squares, and armed with long, curved swords. All wore a red sash. She shivered and pulled her cloak tight around her. People began moving back onto the road, and Breea crawled back from her vantage.

  After three more days of furtive travel, most of it at night, a cold rain swept through. The weather never warmed after the rain, and Breea wore her cloak most of the time. There were fewer patches of forest now, and rolling, monotonous land. The rain fell thick, pushed by chill winds. Every morning, after she found a place to bed down, she read in her books and practiced with her daggers.

  For an entire tenday, she avoided major roads, cities, and villages. Wildlife was rare and wary, and her supplies were gone. She decided to chance a tavern in the next town. She was tired of wet nights under bushes, and craved a hot bath more than anything. Few people traveled now that the rain had made the roads such a mess.

  She entered a village in late evening. Nothing stirred, not even dogs. Breea tied Pony to the stable post, walked to the front door, and entered. The room was smoky and dark. Every face turned to look at her. She avoided their gazes and walked to a girl giving tankards to a table of men.

  "I’d like a room," Breea told her quietly.

  The girl looked past her to the door. Breea looked over her shoulder, but there was only the door. The girl’s face twisted. She turned away without answering. A man in clean clothes and a bearing of authority came from the back, and gave Breea a cursory glance then checked the door as the girl had done.

  Raising his chin, he asked in provincial Yasharn, "Where’s your husband?"

  Breea puzzled this, then answered, "I travel alone."

  There were snickers around the room.

  Anger flashed through Breea, but she controlled it and turned to leave.

  A man beside the fireplace whispered, "It’s her."

  Fear flashed, and she strode quickly to the door. How could she be known?

  The man of small authority said loudly, "We don’t serve whores!"

  She shoved open the door and strode onto the street. On her pony, she rode away as quickly as the mired street would let her. Lonely and angry, Breea went far from the village road, and wondered sadly about people who assumed a lone woman could only sell herself. Perhaps it had only been an insult. Did they know she was a scholar? Had the pursuers in the mountains above Iplock passed her on the main south road while she traveled haunted lands? Was she wanted so badly that word was spread to every tiny village? It was not a good thought, and she sighed under the weight of her soggy cloak.

  The wind changed before long, and Breea could smell snow. Around midnight, it began. As dawn paled the clouds, it pleased her to see the familiar white, and she hugged the pony. The animal seemed happier as well. She found an abandoned barn and slept the day away.

  Traveling by night, Breea was enthralled with the white hills and snow-coated branches of the few trees in Opalah’s waning light. At dawn, she found a place to sleep in a dense stand of young conifers, and watched the snow falling beyond them. She put her blanket over the pony, laid down saddlebags as a pillow, and curled in her bear-fur cloak. Cold seeped into her, and she debated the wisdom of a fire. Smiling, she reached into a bag and took the orb into her hand. Cradling it to her chest, she fell into warm sleep.

  The storm put a hand-span of snow on the ground during the day, turning to rain by evening. Breea rose rested and comfortable. Rather than relinquishing the orb, she rode with it in her hands, feeling the land about her. The range she could sense was far diminished from what it had been in the castle, and she did not make any attempt to reach farther.

  The night was cold, but with the orb it seemed wonderful. In the morning, ice cracked under the pony’s hooves. They rode toward a high bluff and found a river along its foot. There were no houses about, but also no good places to bed down. There were not enough trees or brush to hide the pony from sight. For most of the day, Breea followed a wagon road along the sluggish river. Sleepy and hungry by afternoon, she began to look for any place to camp.

  Around a broad bend of the river there appeared a square tower of bluish stone. Breea halted. A thin red flag whipped in the wind, and she could see dark figures standing on the parapet. The figures moved to the side of the tower faci
ng her. They had seen her.

  They probably had horses, and without Letet she would not be able to outrun them. It was a slim chance, but if she was simply known as a lone traveling-woman, even one who sold herself, she might pass. She reached back and put the orb in a bag. Wind gusted around her, and she reluctantly urged the pony forward. Further on, it became clear that the tower was the near side of a fortified bridge that arched to another on the far shore. From a corner of the far tower, a palisade ran to encircle a cluster of tall buildings. There were no windows, only arrow slits. A fort. Breea found that she was biting her lip, quit, and sat straighter in the saddle. She counted six men on the tower now. Two horses galloped to the bridge and over, emerging from the tower. They rode out and stopped two hundred paces from the river, ready if she chose to flee. This was a trap, but there was no choice except to continue.

  As she drew near, two more figures showed themselves on the tower top. The horsemen rode in slowly. An unpleasant realization sank through her. The door at the base of the tower was open and a soldier at the top shouted, "Enter!"

  Breea could see that the door on the other side of this tower was open, but the arch of the bridge blocked her view of doors on the other side. Dread sank cold teeth into her as she rode through the tower and onto the bridge. When she reached midspan, she could see that the doors ahead were closed.

  A man said, "Halt."

  So much for one woman? This would not end well. She turned the pony to face the tower. Crossbows were aimed at her.

  The two horsemen rode slowly up to her and flanked her. The tower doors closed behind them. Each wore a black riding cloak, open in front to allow easy access to their sabers. Their armor was of leather, lacquered shiny black and new-looking. Turning her gaze from one to the other, Breea watched them look her up and down.

  "She don’t look like a scholar," said one to the other.

  Breea flinched. They knew.

  "Looks like a whore," said the other.

  The first said in a casual tone, "I heard they flayed the one in Lapec. Said she screamed louder than any Dauthaz before."

  Breea’s heart missed a beat as the flame roared within her. She forced her body to remain still, and glanced at the crossbows in the tower. Only two were actually aimed at her, the others aimed in her general direction. If she moved they would miss.

  "Take yer cloak off, bitch," said the first.

  Breea reached up and unfastened the clasp. As it fell, she pulled her feet from the stirrups and slid off the pony to the left, ducked under the belly of the soldier’s horse, and dove over the low stone rail. Falling, she took a deep breath.

  The water was chill but without the bone-cracking cold of the streams of her homeland. She let herself sink a ways then struck downstream with strong strokes. Her lungs began to burn. The flame within warmed her flesh, but it could do nothing for air. Very soon, it was unbearable. She stopped swimming and let the current push her along, using her arms only enough to keep the bright surface and dark depths in the right places.

  When she felt herself fading, she pushed wildly for the surface, gasped once, and ducked down again. A moment later something thumped hard into her back, but her chainmail held, and the pain was slight compared to the ache in her lungs, and she had to rise to the surface once more. Something splashed into the water next to her face and she ducked again, but couldn’t stay under.

  Arrows sliced the water. A glance behind amazed her with how far she’d come. She pulled herself down with her arms as a volley of bolts and arrows arced toward her.

  Underwater, she swam for the nearer bank, fighting the weight of her chainmail. When she surfaced, she cried out as pain ripped into her right thigh. She crawled onto a submerged sandbar behind a fallen tree. Arrows splashed all about and embedded themselves in the tree. Hoofbeats thudded on the bank above her.

  Gritting her teeth, she released all boundaries, and in the wash of hot pain, yanked out the arrow in her leg. After the initial stab of agony, essence heat burned away the pain, but it felt like a white-hot coal was lodged deep in her chest, and it was growing. She executed a boundary before something terrible happened, and physical pain came flooding back.

  A soldier looked down from the bank above, and called, "The bitch is down!"

  She looked up at him, and said, "Please don’t hurt me."

  He smiled savagely. Breea held herself still as he clambered down the bank. Stepping into the water, he grabbed her hair to make her stand. She drew a dagger and gutted him with one stroke.

  Struggling up the bank against the pain in her leg, Breea saw two more horsemen arriving. She ducked down, and listened to the approach of their boots. When they were close enough to see their comrade struggling feebly in the water with his own intestines, she stood, drawing both blades, and hamstrung the closest. As he fell, she hauled herself over the edge and charged the other. He leapt back and drew his sword.

  Breea parried his swing with one dagger and stabbed his throat with the other, ripping her blade out the side of his neck in a spray of blood, whirling in the same motion to face the first man, but he was crying for help from the riverside where he had fallen down the bank.

  Choosing the best horse, Breea mounted and set it galloping downriver. Pursuers were hard upon her, yelling at their mounts and each other. Looking back, Breea saw them split into two groups, one to follow her through the trees at riverside and the other to outstrip and flank her in the fields.

  The fire within burned, broken free of the boundary, and she let the essence flow into her mount. He spasmed and stumbled, then surged forward with such strength that Breea nearly tumbled off. Ducking to the horse’s neck, she turned him from the trees and burst into the grain fields. The horsemen were soon far behind.

  Forcing herself to relax her grip on the reins, she noticed she was riding toward buildings, the outskirts of a village. She turned the horse, and rode for a distant set of hills.

  Deep into the rocky terrain, she reined back her mount. The sun had reached its midpoint, and the flame within her was pouring out so that her clothing steamed. She dismounted and executed a pair of boundaries.

  Pain and weariness rushed in. Her steed’s legs gave way, and he collapsed to his knees. For both of them, she released a boundary. Her pain faded, and she touched the steed’s neck. His flesh shuddered under her hand, and he stood with a loud whinny.

  Keeping a hand on the stallion’s lathered hide, she searched the bags on the saddle. In addition to the crossbow hanging from it, she found a riding cloak, two leather boxes of crossbow bolts, a hunk of moldy cheese wrapped in cloth, which she ate, a tin cask of grain alcohol, fire-starting items, an old eating dagger, and a palm-sized book called Wisdom of the One.

  Thirsty, Breea led the horse into a swale in the hills where a pond lay surrounded by reeds. The horse nuzzled her affectionately. Breea petted the animal and talked softly. The power flowing out of her was beginning to burn again. With force of will, she pressed the fire down, and removed her hand from the horse. He shuddered, and walked toward the water. Breea wove a full boundary.

  Exhaustion swept through her, and she felt dizzy. The wound in her leg burned and the air felt sharply cold. She limped forward and caught the horse before he could drink. Despite the chill, she undressed, and tended her thigh with the alcohol. There was blood everywhere down her leg. After she dressed, her breeches stuck coldly to her around the wound.

  Ignoring pain, she put on the riding cloak and unsaddled the horse. With a dagger, she started cutting reeds. Using the first handfuls, she brushed down the horse, crooning in Breowic. He seemed to enjoy the attention, keeping an ear cocked to her voice. She let him drink a little, then started collecting for her bedding. When she had a pile as high as her knees, she climbed up out of the swale and scouted its rim, keeping low. There was no sign of people. She sat with her back against a tree that she knew to be an oak, but one whose name she had never learned, if it even had a name.

  Angry with herself,
and those men, and Yash in general, she remembered her books and stood, but there was nothing she could do to retrieve them, not unless she was willing to fight and kill every man at the bridge.

  She could slay them all. It was a strange and dark thought. She sat back down, and wrapped the cloak around her legs.

  With the blade was not the same as killing with sling or bow from a distance. Her dagger had cut through leather armor with only the barest resistance. She recalled the look of surprised agony on the gutted soldier’s face, then the fear, the loss. No, she did not want to do that again. It had not been like the priest in Sherishin. She would find another way, and began to plan the recovery of her books and the orb. If there were any with tracker’s skill in the fort, she would need to act this night, without rest.

  Taking a different route back to thwart pursuers, she loosened her boundaries for strength as the night wore on. Rounding the village to the east, she rode back to the bluff and river, following them to the place above where she’d first seen the tower. Breea tied the horse to a bush, but not so well that he wouldn’t be able to free himself with a little tug, then with the riding cloak rolled and held on her head with one hand, she slipped into the water. Shivering, she swam to the far bank, then went downstream with the current. As she went, she dreamed herself a part of the river, a swirl of current. A hundred feet above the bridge, she crept through reeds to the bank. The corner of the fort was only a few feet away.

  Listening, Breea moved along a low piece of ground filled with dirty, icy snow until she reached the corner; then, dreaming herself a shadow of the wall, followed its base out of sight of the bridge towers.

  Despite the unbound flame, her fingers ached from cold, and she spent a minute warming them under her arms. After donning the riding cloak, she felt a presence approach, and slow footsteps clumped past on the parapet above. Breea began counting. When the footsteps passed again, she started over and counted until the next pass. While she waited, she investigated the workmanship of the logs forming the palisade. As she hoped, it was poor and left enough room for her to thrust her fingers between the logs in many places. When the sentry passed, she began counting again. At a quarter of his interval, she began climbing. She reached the sharpened top of the logs midway through her count and, holding herself in place, carefully eased out to look up and down the parapet. Light from torches along the wall showed him turning at the near corner and walking back.

  Breea pulled back and considered the interior yard of the fort. Barracks lay to her right along the river, stables along the left wall. Storehouses and other buildings were scattered elsewhere. The place was well lit by torches spaced around the wall and at the landings of most doors. She let herself hang as the sentry approached and passed.

  If only there were more wind, she thought, those torches would go out. A breath of air touched her cheek, startling her. If Etrya could call the wind, why not her? Reaching out, she felt for the wind, and found it moving through her awareness like sand through her fingers. She urged it past her, at a near torch.

  The flame bent in the breeze, retreating to the far side of the torch head. Breea asked the wind to swirl. The torch winked out, smoke whirling away into the darkness. Breea closed her eyes and called to the wind. It sighed across the snowy fields behind her and wiped out every torch on her wall.

  The sentry passed again, and Breea counted a quarter of his interval, then pulled herself over the wall. Without pausing, she slid across the parapet walkway and swung down, hanging from her fingers. Dreaming silence, she let herself fall.

  There was no sound as she hit, though she felt the icy snow crunch under her boots. Shocked but pleased, she crouched in the dark and considered her next move.

  The barracks, three stories tall, rose a good twenty feet above the parapet along the river. Officer’s quarters were likely on the top floor. Hopefully her books and gear were there as well.

  Keeping to deep shadow, dreaming of silence, Breea moved along the near wall of the barracks, hiding beneath a rough stair leading to the palisade walkway. The sentry was relighting the torches above, and Breea waited below.

  Boots crunched through muddy frozen snow. Two pairs of soldiers came around the corner of the barracks and climbed the stair. Above, watchwords were exchanged.

  "Flay a bitch," said the first one coming up the ladder.

  "For Het," replied another at the top.

  Breea shivered, and her hands went to cover her dagger hilts.

  One of the men leaving duty said, "Bitch nothing, did ye see what the primad did to that pony? Flaying would a been a mercy!" He laughed.

  The first man coming down the stair spat to the side, and Breea saw his face. He was disgusted, and growled in an undertone, "I never heard of a demon pony. Cardonhane’s got thorn vines round his balls if he thinks killing a good animal’s gonna help catch Dauthaz."

  The soldier above him said, "Wait till we catch her, Olas. Didja see that face? And the titties under them robes? Hoi!"

  This second soldier clattered down the stairs, and Breea made a decision. In this place, a threat of rape and death were as much the same thing as their direct attempt. She pulled up the hood of her soldier’s cloak, and took the man from behind with a dagger through his heart from the back.

  Guiding his fall in silence, she stepped forward and, laying a sparkling dagger to the throat of the first, hissed, "For your kind words of my pony, you live, Olas. Do as I say and you will be able to tell your children how a scholar of the Library of Limtir spared your life."

  The man nodded carefully in respect for the position of Breea’s dagger.

  Breea lowered and sheathed the blade, fearful that men on the palisade would see the green light, and whispered, "Move that body underneath the palisade. If you begin to have ideas of warning others, think on what just happened, and know that I can do far more terrible things. You have no chance against me."

  The man stood for exactly one breath, then dragged the body under the ladder. Breea followed him closely, keeping always behind.

  "Now take me to my bags. Behave as you always do."

  Tight faced, the man stepped around the corner up to the barracks door, and knocked a quick pattern on the wood planks. Two other pairs of soldiers were approaching from across the yard. A metal shutter snapped open and closed, bars were removed.

  Pushing the door open violently, the soldier in front of Breea shoved back the skinny fellow behind the portal, and strode down the hall.

  Breea followed, keeping her face hidden in the cloak’s hood. Up a flight of stairs and past two more guarded doors, they entered a well-furnished room where a fire burned. Thin windows overlooked the river.

  From behind her hostage, Breea saw a large, wolfish man, white-haired and lean, sitting in a tall-backed chair behind a desk, the contents of Breea’s bags spread before him. The room itself was littered with things, but not randomly. Swords, statues, daggers, shields, books, spears, bowls, and locks of hair were everywhere on display. Her gaze stuck on a long string of shriveled ears hanging along the mantelpiece. The ears on one end of the string were not old.

  The man she assumed to be Cardonhane wore a black uniform in fine wool with red satin trim, and was studying the translation of the healing weave. A suit of black plate mail hung behind him. He ordered in an absent voice without looking up, "Report."

  The soldier looked as though he fully expected to die in the next instant, but wasn’t sure whether it would come from Breea or Cardonhane. His body trembled, but he maintained his composure, jaw clenched, eyes straight ahead, and said, "The demon wants her things."

  Cardonhane’s gaze pinned the soldier, then snapped to Breea’s hooded figure behind him.

  Cardonhane moved with the speed of a snake, standing and drawing a long-sword that hung on his chair. Breea kicked out the legs of her guide, and leapt to meet Cardonhane. She parried his lightning thrust and struck at his extended arm with her other blade, but his free hand caught her wrist. She kicked
him in the groin. He grunted as his sword flashed around for another strike. She stepped inside the stroke, and stabbed his sword arm at the elbow, her dagger piercing through flesh and bone, sinking to the hilt. He groaned as his blade clattered to the floor. Breea yanked her other arm free of his grip, and put a dagger through his eye.

  He sagged into a heap. Olas had been about to attack, but was now frozen in midstride by her gaze and the sight of her bloody, shimmering blades.

  "You live, remember?" she said to him.

  He let the sword and dagger in his hands fall. Questioning shouts came from the hall. Breea rushed over to the door, slammed it, and dropped its lock bar into place. Bellows came from the other side, then pounding. After a pause, the sharp thud of an ax shook the door.

  Breea returned to Cardonhane’s body, wiped off and sheathed her daggers, then swept her things off the desk into her bags. She tore off the soldier cloak she wore, pulling on her own, along with her gloves. At one of the narrow windows, she used her daggers to carve it large enough for her to squeeze through. Putting a foot on the rim, she paused, then walked up to Olas.

  He stepped back.

  Breea said, "I am not going to kill you, but they will, if they think you did this."

  She saw his eyes light with understanding, and he did not flinch when she pulled back her fist. Breea struck him hard in the jaw.

  She leapt out through the window, she landed badly on the parapet walkway as her wounded leg gave way. Groaning, she clambered over the palisade, fell to the ground, and nearly rolled into the river. She could hear an alarm bell tolling as she limped around the palisade.

  Gripping the orb, she called a howling wind, and snuffed out all the torches on the palisade walls. Orb in hand, she ran across the near fields and up the slope of the bluff beyond.

  At the top she looked back, panting, and said softly, "Good-bye, Pony."