by R. K. Thorne
Her senses caught a tendril of earth magic. How strange. Was there a mage here? A potential ally? How had the Devoted looking for her not captured that mage then?
The footsteps grew louder. Heavy, hulking, a large man’s boots. They went over the bridge and stopped just above her. If this was a mage, a potential ally, should she get out? Should she show herself?
The boots strode across to the other side of the bridge and down the path. She scampered out of the hole, clearing the last of the dirt in silence. At the very least, she’d like to get a look at this one who carried earth magic as he headed toward the main road. She took a few steps, straightening herself and brushing pointlessly at the half of her covered in dried mud from her fall on the bank. She started to coax the mud from her clothes with a spell when she felt eyes on her.
She glanced up and froze. On the opposite side of the bank, the boots had not continued on toward the main road, but they had instead turned around and come down to the stream. And they were facing her.
For a split second, she wanted to bolt—run—she hadn’t expected to actually come face to face with anyone. But it was too late for that, wasn’t it?
Her eyes locked with the man in the heavy boots. Heavily muscled and broad shouldered, covered with soot and ash, he wore a tawny leather apron over a commoner’s work clothes. For once, a man that was taller than she was. A blacksmith?
Had he seen her limp? His brown eyes flicked down to her ankle, then back to her face. He had the rosy, pale complexion of Kavanar and black hair braided at the back of his neck. The black locks were broken up by several streaks of white that caught in the rising moonlight and swept from over his left eye back into the braid.
He studied her. “You’re hurt,” he said simply. “Do you need help?”
She only stared for a moment, struggling to calculate how to respond. She must have stared too long because he asked the same thing again in another language. Did he think she might be Takaran? Silly. Takarans were not as dark as she. He tried a third. Was that Farsai? Not that she knew it. What kind of blacksmith knew three languages?
“Sorry, you startled me,” she managed quickly. “No, no, it’s all right. I’m—just passing through.” She wanted to wince at her words but managed to stifle it. That sounded ridiculous. Clearly she had not inherited her father’s talent for smooth talking. Aye, just passing through, hiding under a bridge covered in mud and not anywhere near the path, but I’m just a traveler passing through. She took a step back toward the path but only succeeded in emphasizing her horrid limp. She failed to hide her wince and closed her eyes to the pain for a moment. She’d either momentarily forgotten the agony, or it was getting worse.
“Your leg—let me help,” he said, starting forward. Only the stream he needed to cross made him hesitate. It was not even an arm’s length across but must run heavier in the spring for the bridge to be there. She gave him a wary look, hopping a few shambling steps away from the stream. What if he had heard they were looking for a mage? Could this be a trick?
He regarded her steadily for a moment, eyes locked with hers, but calm. Indeed, there was an unusual openness to his eyes, as if he hoped she could see his worth in his gaze. Not so guarded, not so squinting, nor so narrowed as most strangers’ were. At least, not at the moment.
“Where are you headed?”
Donkey balls, she hadn’t made up a story to cover her tracks. All day sitting in a damned hole, and she’d spent it plotting spells and traps and no backstory at all. What had she been thinking?
“I’m sorry, I forget myself. I don’t talk to many lovely women.”
She glanced down at her mud-covered leather tunic and formerly white tunic. At least the leggings had already been brown. She gave him a dubious look.
He was undeterred by her expression and took a quick leap across the small stream. He held out a hand. An optimist. She grudgingly shook it and managed a weak smile, mostly out of relief. “Mostly farmers come to visit my smithy. We’re all dirt covered here. I’m Tharomar.”
He seemed to trust her readily. Too readily, really. She could be a bandit, or a trickster. Have companions hiding in the grain, waiting to pounce. A woman looking to seduce him and then thoroughly rob him blind. Although she did mean him no harm, he had no real way of knowing that. Then again, his bicep was probably the width of her head. He probably had little to fear from anyone, if he knew anything much about the arts of defending himself.
“I was walking to Anonil, on the border,” she managed. Hey, that was the truth. Now for the lie. Perhaps she could pretend to be a merchant. That had always been the plan, the hope. “Meeting my brother there to pick up some items—goods—to trade back at home.”
Tharomar nodded gravely, pressing his lips together as his brow creased handsomely. “Well, my fine lady, I do make a fair number of excellent items in my smithy for passing traders to peruse. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t know as you’ll be making it much farther tonight with that ankle. There’s no inn in this village, such as it is, but I’m sure you could board with someone. It’s nearly sunset anyway, and you’ll not do much better finding inns to the east. Especially at the pace you’ll be going. You should probably rest. Are you sure I can’t help? You could rest it, check my trade goods in the morning, and be on your way. How did you hurt it?”
She hesitated. Oh, just falling down a hill while not paying attention and probably costing me my life eventually, that’s all! Those Devoted bastards are scary, though. Can you blame me? She said nothing.
“Are you sure I can’t get you some wine to dull the pain, at least?” he said with a crooked smile. Damn, he was handsome for a smith.
A smile betrayed her true feelings on her lips.
“Beer? You don’t look like the type. I have an excellent mead. Could I tempt you with that? Oh, I know. Brandy?”
She snorted. “Are you trying to get me drunk?” She laughed because she meant it and also to warn him that she was not entirely naïve. “Is this a good method for parting trade customers from their coin?” Not that she had any.
He sobered quickly. “Oh, no, no—not at all. I just get injured myself often enough. Something to ease pain is a necessity in my craft.”
“You said you’re a smith?”
“Yes. Come, there’s no healer in this town, but I’ve got a few salves. They won’t speed the healing, but they’ll dull the ache. I swear on Nefrana’s blooms in the spring, I mean nothing but to help you.” He scratched the stubble on his chin and gave her a soft, friendly smile as he waited for her reply.
She hesitated. What was a smith doing out here on the path anyway, that he could just abandon it and turn around and head home again? “I’d hate to keep you from whatever errand had you on this path,” she said warily, taking another step away from him.
“Oh, I was just going to check on my neighbor Nemin. Supposed to carry a package for me into the city tomorrow. But he’ll be by in the morning anyway. Was nothing important.”
Could she afford to shelter here? What if the Devoted searched the buildings? Then again, could she afford to limp along in the darkness, especially if she couldn’t even easily run and hide now? Could she afford to be out in the open if she was such a slow target? Perhaps by morning the ankle would be improved.
“Besides, did you hear those riders coming through?” he added. “They said there’s a renegade mage escaped around here. Told us to be careful and to kill him right away if we saw him. You don’t want to be caught out here alone in the dark with that ankle and some crazed mage on the loose, do you?”
She swallowed. “I—uh… No. I don’t.” Smooth, Jaena, real smooth. Still, Tharomar was either very trusting, very dense, or pretending not to notice her awkwardness. If he took note of it, he showed no sign. Perhaps she was just so prevailingly awkward that this stuttering seemed typical. “All right,” she said, breezily now. “When you put it that way, it would be best to stay somewhere. At least until the morning.”
“Right. My home is just down that way,” he said, pointing. They began limping forward.
“So you’re the blacksmith for these surrounding farms?”
“Indeed. Smithy is right over there.”
Even at the sight of the smithy, hunched and billowing smoke near a small home, she could feel the energy radiating from it. Why did his smithy have so much magic swirling around it? Why did he have these bits of earth magic swirling about him? He seemed completely unaware that she was a mage. He was clearly afraid of this renegade who could certainly only be out to do him harm. A typical Kavanarian point of view. Where was the magic coming from? Could it just be the concentration of metal and earth in the smithy? Natural energies? No. As they moved closer, she could feel even more clearly that it went beyond raw, natural energy. There were spells, although none she readily recognized. Strange.
He led her to his home, a small wattle and daub cottage. More spells stirred, foreign and indeterminate. He helped her remove her pack. Gripping his arm, she eased gingerly into the seat by the fireplace. The warmth of the cottage alone felt better already. He knelt on one knee to stoke the low-burning coals and readily revived the flame with a log and a few flicks. His sleeveless tunic revealed rippling arms and shoulders, his strength handsome and well earned by honest labor. He would make a fine warrior. But perhaps blacksmiths were even more important than warriors to armies. What was a warrior without a blade or shield?
“So what’ll it be?” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow.
“Beer, mead, brandy?” He grinned. “I suppose I also have tea, although that won’t take the edge off.” He had an angular jaw and intelligent, fiery eyes. Too intelligent for a smith in this small of a town. And how many smiths in these sorts of places knew three languages? Or more, even?
“What do you recommend? You’re the injury expert.”
Instead of replying, he moved forward to examine her ankle. Since he was still down on one knee, her foot was close at hand. She must have twitched and revealed her fear, because he stopped quickly. “May I?” he said, very gently, as if inviting her to stop him.
She finally nodded. He took her boot gingerly, and only now did she notice her foot had begun to swell. Oh, gods, this was all a mistake. Why had she ever taken that damn brand? She could have escaped in the darkness of night, and no one would have known any better.
No. The triumph of taking away their most powerful weapon was not something she was going to regret. She would find a way out of this. She had to. She would be free of that niggling voice burrowing into her shoulder, and she would make sure they never did to another what they had done to her. What they had done to her sister. But she couldn’t focus on that now—she couldn’t explain tears at this moment to this smith, this Tharomar. Instead, she focused on her freedom.
She savored it for a moment, cherishing it in case she lost it, in case they recaptured her.
Silence in her mind.
Beautiful.
His fingers drew her back to reality as they unlaced her boot, surprisingly gentle and dexterous. Almost… intimate. Was that heat in her cheeks a blush? She had always assumed peasant smiths like him would be rough brutes. Most mage smiths she knew were, and they were far more bookish than the average smith. How many smiths were so quick to go from pounding metal to untying intricate laces?
Perhaps he wanted to unlace more than just her boot. Perhaps she wanted him to as well.
He glanced up at her, only concern in his eyes. She felt abruptly disappointed. You do not have time for this, she told herself. Get it together.
His fingers gently pulled her legging up her calf a hand’s width, revealing a swollen ankle that was already turning colors. She swore.
“You did a number on it, all right. Mead, perhaps? I think it’s the strongest I’ve got.”
“Mead it is. And any salve you have would be much appreciated. I can repay you in the form of work, or I can return with coin from my brother’s sales, if you wish,” she lied.
He nodded. “I’m sure we can find some mutually beneficial arrangement. Or I have heard the gods bless those who help strangers in need. So I’m sure the balance will come due, one way or another.” He grinned at her.
She returned his smile, but her own faded as soon as he turned away. She was not so sure about any of that. She stared at her ankle, feeling disgusted with herself. How long would it take to heal? How long till they came back through the town, searching for her? She had likely failed before she’d even really begun. And she had no way to contact Miara or Menaha or any of the others. Or to get help.
Damn the Masters. And the Devoted. And all of them, damn them straight to hell.
He stood and went to a nearby cupboard. Only then did she notice the interior of his home beyond him, the seat, and the fire. A cupboard, a small table with another chair, a wide bed on the far wall. Just one room. The bed looked inviting. Easily wide enough for two. But there were no signs of a woman in the cottage, unless she was perhaps even more brusque and burly than Tharomar. Thick, heavy tomes lined one of the shelves of the cupboard, but she could not see them well enough to guess their purpose.
“Here you go,” he said, turning and handing her an earthenware mug. He set a kettle of more mead over the fire to warm.
The fired clay and mud of the mug was almost as rejuvenating as the mead. She held the drink in both hands and took a deep, slow drink.
“And now this,” he added, returning to one knee by her ankle. He held up a small jar for her inspection. The label read: Mountain Daisy.
She considered quizzing him on what was in it or what a mountain daisy was, but really she had nothing to judge it by. Mages had healed her in Mage Hall, and before that, her mother had hired apothecaries. She knew nothing about what people used for injuries like this or what would be effective. She simply nodded, feigning confidence and understanding.
He took a glob and smoothed the slightly cold cream across her skin. Indeed, a flowery scent caught her nose. She was intensely aware of each movement of each finger and the exquisitely lovely sensation on her skin above the pain. How strange that she reacted so much to his touch.
Or was it his kindness she was reacting to? All the world hunted her. But not him, it seemed. At least, not yet. She glanced at the pendant but tore her eyes away. He had no way of knowing that she was a mage, it seemed. Here, for the moment, she was mostly safe.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, wiping off his hands and closing the jar. He pushed over a small stool and helped her rest her foot on top of it. “Keeping it up should help. I’ve got to make sure the hearth has cooled in the smithy, perhaps rinse off so you don’t suffocate from my stench in this tiny hut. And prayer, of course. You enjoy that mead. I’m sure the goddess won’t mind if you pray from a chair. I’ll be back.” He grinned, and she nodded, taking a drink.
She felt the sudden urge to tell him no, to leave the scent of the earth darkening his skin. How bizarre. Why should she even care about such a thing? She must be tired. Or there was something very, very unusual about this Tharomar.
Once he was gone, she tried to search the room as best she could, hobbling and hopping on one leg. She found nothing suspicious. He had an immense book collection, mostly religious texts. Three shelves held leather-bound tomes of various types, some in other languages. How s
trange. The only ones she recognized were The Book of the Vigilant and Kyaeer’s Verses, not that she really knew much about either beyond that they often belonged to acolytes of Nefrana. A small ceramic pot contained a dozen more golden wheat pendants on chains like the one he wore around his neck. Why so many, she wondered? A strange vibration came from the pendants, not exactly magical and not something she understood. All of this made some of her uneasiness return. Tharomar did not seem like he could be a Devoted Knight, but he was clearly very concerned with matters of the soul. This safety was only temporary.
Unless he was off getting the Devoted Knights right now. She swallowed and hoped that was not the case. Limping lamely toward Anonil all night did not seem like a better plan, but it did not ease her mind to simply hope he wasn’t betraying her. Perhaps she could at least find a knife or something to defend herself if need be.
The home was otherwise well stocked. Should she swipe something to put in her very empty pack? Well, she still had the few loaves of bread and those three knots to get through. The idea of taking something twisted her stomach, though, and she abandoned it. He had been nothing but kind to her, and theft from him, especially so quickly, was also probably a sure way to end that. Perhaps she could simply ask him for a few things or offer to repay him for a few ordinary things with trade? That seemed best. And who knew how long she might rely on his hospitality. It was best not to test it prematurely.
Her search for a weapon of some sort did not turn up much. No serious weapons were hung anywhere, or even anything that could be particularly dangerous, unless some of those salves and herbs were poisonous, which she was entirely unable to recognize. If he was armed, he kept implements of war in the smithy, it seemed. He was probably the most dangerous thing in the cottage, from her perspective. She settled for a butter knife that she tucked underneath but not inside the pack. Perhaps if he found it he would simply wonder how he’d managed to drop it there.