The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  “Full moon tonight,” Jenna said to the horse. “If the clouds favor us, Skada and I will follow my child all the way to the place where she now sleeps.”

  In fact, the moon kept appearing and disappearing, making conversation with Skada difficult, and reading the road more difficult still.

  “Why is she heading due south?” Jenna asked, as much to herself as to her dark sister.

  When the moon slipped away from the clouds, Skada answered, “Either you are following a Garun, or …” and once more she was gone as the moon hid again behind a large cloud.

  “Or more likely,” Jenna finished for her, “Scillia has little sense of direction and no sunrise or sunset in the day’s mizzle to guide her. I should have taken time to teach her more about reading the woods. But there is always so much to do in the kingdom. And whenever I can stand the nattering of councillors no more …”

  The moon shone suddenly bright on the path and Skada, behind her, laughed. “Then you run off into the woods on your own.”

  “Not on my own, sister,” Jenna countered. “There is always you with me.”

  “And is that so bad, sister?”

  “On occasion.” Jenna turned around in the saddle to speak to Skada, but once again the moon was gone and Skada with it.

  Afraid to miss something each time the moon hid behind the clouds, Jenna made slow passage in the night. However, it soon became clear that the rider—Scillia she was sure—was not one to leave the road and strike off into the darker woods. Or even, when the road passed a wide expanse of meadow, to gallop across the brown wintered grass.

  So at last Jenna settled the mare into a steady walk until about an hour past midnight, when the horse stopped dead in the track. No amount of urging on Jenna’s part would move the animal forward.

  “Tired?” Jenna asked, already knowing the answer. She unsaddled the horse and let it find its own poor grazing while she climbed a tree. Settling with the ease of long practice into the crotch, she closed her eyes. It was much too dark beneath the sheltering upper limbs for the moon to reach her so Skada did not appear. That was just as well. There was not enough room there for the two of them.

  She slept alone till the first false dawn.

  Scillia’s clothes were still damp. Her hair, loose from the plaitings, was in dirty knots. Her teeth had a scummy feel and she could still taste the last three meals of old meat and journeycake. Every bit of her ached: her arm where the horse had pulled away from her; her thighs from riding three days; her back from sleeping rough; her hand from gathering firewood and pulling aside brush. The only thing that did not hurt her was the stump of her missing arm. And that was very odd, indeed.

  And yet she felt good.

  Felt great!

  In fact, she felt … free.

  For the first time she understood why her mother so frequently went woods-trekking on her own. Scillia had always resented the times Jenna had left them for days to the care of nursemaids and tutors; had always wondered how her father stood Jenna’s frequent absences from court. But now, the third day out, when fear was no longer a constant companion and she knew herself a competent traveler, Scillia felt a comradeship with her mother.

  “I see, mother,” she whispered. “At last I see.”

  Ahead there was a particularly difficult place in the road. A large ash tree had fallen straight across the path and only a narrow passage remained at the root end. She got off her horse and led it around, pushing with her back against the brush so the horse could get by. She was wondering why a tree still so alive should have come down when she heard a voice.

  “Girl!”

  Looking past her horse, she saw three men in the road ahead—two fairly young and one much older, with grey interleaving his scraggly beard. The older man’s hair, the color of old bowstring, was long, hanging well past his shoulders. They were a rather unsavory crew, but she did not let her unease show in her face. Instead she started to greet them companionably.

  But the older man spoke first. “Stand, girl. We will have what is in your packs.”

  For a moment she thought to reveal herself to them, to tell them she was the king’s own. In the same instant, she realized how foolish that would be, and reached instead to the knives in her belt. She drew the long one and stood still, the knife upraised. If worst comes to worst, she thought, I will let them have the horse and packs.

  “Come no closer,” she said.

  The older man laughed. “A kitchen wench with a kitchen knife! Think that will win you some time?”

  The two younger men laughed at his wit, the taller revealing a gap between his teeth.

  “Knife or no, we will have your packs, girl,” said the older man.

  “And you after,” Gap-tooth added.

  “There is nothing in my pack but journeycake and old meat,” Scillia said, lowering the knife a bit to show good faith.

  “But there is new meat in your counte,” Gap-tooth said, bringing his hand down to his privates and laughing. His companion laughed again with him.

  The old man came forward, though remaining a cautious distance from her knife, just in case. “And what of your horse, girl? It’s a fine-looking gelding. And what of that thing behind your saddle, shaped like a sword and wrapped in fine cloth? A present from your master? I doubt it. You have the look of a thief.”

  “Like you? I think not,” Scillia said. But for a moment she turned her head toward the horse, remembering her father’s sword with regret. And in that instant, the old man moved in and grabbed the knife from her. He reached at the same time for her other arm in order to immobilize it.

  “One-armed, by Cres! Not even a whole woman to share,” he shouted to the others. “But no doubt she’ll do.”

  “Do what?” The voice was soft, but with the full authority of a warrior behind it. Scillia knew that voice well though she had never heard it quite so throaty and stern.

  For once she was silent.

  Standing by her white horse, the sun behind her shining full in the villains’ eyes, Jenna was haloed by light. She had a sword in one hand, a wicked long knife in the other. “This is the Dales. We do not treat women so. By Alta, you shall pay the blood price!”

  “It is the Anna!” cried Gap-tooth. “See how she shines.”

  “Pah! It is just another poxy woman with the sun at her back,” said the old man. “Do not be unmanned by stories. There are three of us to her one.”

  “Two!” cried Scillia, wrenching from the older man and diving toward the horse which, for once, did not take fright but stood till Scillia had pulled the sword from behind the pack. Then it shied, sidestepping between the two younger men and splitting them apart.

  In that moment, Scillia had unwrapped the sword by the simple expedient of twirling it with her hand so that the cloth fell to the ground. The sword was heavier than she recalled, and it took an effort to keep it raised. Nevertheless she held it steadily, backing away from the men to stand by her mother’s side.

  “Get on my horse and ride from here,” Jenna said under her breath. “I will follow after.”

  “I will not leave you, mother,” Scillia whispered back.

  “You will be no help in a fight. And there are but three. I have handled more in the Wars.”

  “You are no longer a young warrior,” Scillia said. “How many years has it been since you fought in earnest?”

  “Do not remind me,” Jenna said.

  And then with no warning, she charged the three men. A quick downward stroke to the leg put the gap-toothed man out of commission. He fell screaming.

  The second young man had been knocked too far by Scillia’s horse for any such quick disabling stroke. He backed away further and to Jenna’s left.

  It was the older man who proved the fighter. He parried Jenna’s first two thrusts and then struck back. She missed stopping his stroke, and the tip of his sword sliced through her leggings, running a long, bloody line down her right thigh.

  “Ouf!” Jenna cried,
more in surprise than pain. With a quick upswing of her own sword, she caught his blade and sent it high in the air, sailing back behind the fallen tree.

  But the old man was fast. He drew a small knife from his boot top and flung it at her. She had but a second to raise her sword like a narrow shield, but it was enough. The knife clanged against the handguard and glanced aside. Still the force of his throw was so great that she could feel the sting of it in her hand for moments after.

  And then the younger man was behind her, his arm around her neck, choking her. She tried to flip him, but she did not have the strength. And just as she despaired of getting rid of him, he suddenly went limp, sliding to the ground behind her. She coughed twice, experimentally, then saw that the older man had chosen this moment to run. He was scrambling over the fallen tree.

  She flung her sword at his back and it hit him, point squarely between the shoulder blades. He lay, pinned to the tree, and did not move.

  Jenna turned to see what had happened to the one who had tried to choke her and had so nearly succeeded. He, too, lay still, face down in the path, a familiar-looking sword in the back of his neck. Scillia was standing over him, stunned, staring down.

  “Oh my sweetling,” Jenna said, going over to her. “My brave child.”

  Scillia looked up slowly. “It felt like a knife through venison, mother.”

  “So it should,” Jenna agreed, “for are we not also meat?” She did not put her arms around Scillia because suddenly her arms were so tired she could not raise them.

  “Then I shall never eat meat more,” Scillia said clearly, before turning her face away and being noisily sick.

  Only Gap-tooth was still alive. For a moment Jenna thought about finishing him with a knife stroke. But his eyes were frightened, beginning to glaze over with pain. Indeed he looked more like venison than man.

  “Know,” she said going over to him, “that the Anna spares you this time.” She thought he heard her, though it was not easy to tell.

  Then she turned back to her daughter. “Enough killing,” she said. “We will leave him to bury his mates and follow on, if he can. He is nothing on his own.” Taking a kerchief from her pack, her hands shaking with the effort, she poured a bit of water from her waterskin and wiped Scillia’s face as tenderly as if Scillia were still a small child, the old adage running through her mind—Kill once, mourn ever. She did not say it aloud.

  “Do you get used to it, mother?”

  “Get used to what?”

  “The killing.”

  “You saved my life, child,” Jenna said. “And your own. If any killing is worth the doing, it is for that.”

  Scillia stared at her. Then, remembering the feel of the sword through flesh, she was sick all over again.

  THE SONG:

  THE WARRIOR’S SONG

  Going our way on the warrior track,

  Shoulder to shoulder and belly to back,

  Riding one horse, a quite notable hack.

  We will win through to the morning.

  Swords are now red that were shiny and new,

  Arms that were white are now blackened and blue;

  Still we are sisters and always are true,

  And we will win through to the morning.

  You kill the man who is fast on our track.

  I kill the man who has you on your back.

  We parry and thrust and we sever and hack,

  We always win though to the morning.

  But when we grow old and our hands lose their guile,

  And we cannot kill with a casual smile,

  Pray turn on me straight with your usual style

  And I’ll run you through, too, in the morning.

  THE STORY:

  Jenna’s leg wound proved to be but a deep scratch, though by the moonless evening her leg ached enough to make climbing up a tree uncomfortable. So she sent Scillia up the tree alone, settling herself below with a horse hobbled on either side to serve as an early warning of any intruders.

  But the horses kept silent watch all night, and Jenna slept through until dawn like one dead. In the morning she awoke to the smell of a new fire and journeycake heating.

  Neither one of them spoke until they had eaten the warmed-up cake, washing it down with fresh water Scillia had drawn from a nearby stream. Then Jenna asked, in as casual a manner as she could, “Why have you been traveling south?”

  Scillia stared moodily into the fire a moment before answering. “Because I did not know the way, obviously.”

  “If your way is to M’dorah, then you should be going north. We will be many days getting there.”

  “We?” Scillia’s voice held the same forced casual tone.

  “You will not find it on your own.”

  “And you would go with me?”

  “I am your mother. And a goodly part of your mother road. Moder rood ist lang.”

  “What if I do not want you along?” Scillia asked quietly.

  Jenna was silent for a minute before answering. “Then I shall make you a map and send you on your way.”

  “Without trailing after me? You swear it?” Scillia looked straight on her.

  “I swear it,” Jenna said, putting out her hand to seal the oath. It was not an easy thing to swear, and her jaw ached saying the words.

  Scillia did not take the offered hand. “Company …” she said slowly, “would be nice. If you will be dark sister to my light, and not my mother. After all, I killed the man at your back. You owe me.”

  “I owe you,” Jenna said. “And I will try.”

  Scillia grasped her hand then, though she did not add: I shall try, too. But the phrase hung there, unspoken, between them like an apple ripe for the plucking.

  What does it mean to be dark sister to her light? Jenna asked herself as they rode along. My dark sister speaks hard, uncomfartable truths to me and holds my back against the foe. For all that Scillia had just killed an enemy at her back, Jenna did not know if her daughter wanted that kind of relationship. Any truth told her would still be coming from her mother’s mouth. Thirteen is not a year for listening.

  So Jenna said nothing, and the day stretched like a border between two countries, she on the one side and Scillia on the other, aware of possible incursions while crying all the while “Peace! Peace!” It was as if they were hostages to one another’s good intentions.

  Hostages! She thought at once of the two boys, her own Jem and young Gadwess, alone in foreign lands and at the will of masters who would try to mold them. She and Scillia were never such.

  And thinking this, Jenna turned in her saddle to speak to her daughter, now for the sake of a quiet journey her sister. “Can you let an old woman rest?” she asked. “My leg is hurting.”

  It was a lie when she spoke it, and a truth when they dismounted. She walked out the pain, and then walked longer than she intended because she saw in her daughter’s face relief, anger, and love mixed in equal measure. They shared a bit of cold journeycake and water.

  When they remounted, they rode on until evening and the road declared a real peace between them.

  A wide turning brought an inn to view, and Scillia said: “I need a bath and something sweet to wash out the taste of blood.”

  Skada would have spit back, “That is a taste that no amount of washing takes away.” But Jenna did not have the heart to tell Scillia such dark truths so early on her life’s journey; she herself had had many a nightmare about the first man she’d ever slain, a man who would have murdered Carum, then taken his rough pleasure with Jenna and Pynt. She had regrets about killing, but none about killing him. Instead, she said, “I could use a bath, too. Do we give them money here or work off our stay? It is not so rich a place as to refuse even small coin.”

  “I have money,” Scillia said. “For this time.” She did not thank her mother for letting her make the decision alone. And as Jenna knew Scillia would have an easier time complaining than offering up thanks, she let it be.

  The inn was not only ru
ndown, it was all but empty except for the keeper, his wife, and a daughter who looked quite simple and appeared to do all the hard work. Still, Jenna counted that to the good. She knew the roughness of the place meant she and Scillia would not have to explain the state of their clothes or their relationship to nosy travelers at dinner.

  “A room, a bath, a meal, in that order,” Scillia said, with such authority, it sounded as though she had a long acquaintance with such inns.

  The innkeeper was a sallow-faced man with lips that seemed permanently puckered, as if he had been raised on lemons or had a sour disposition. Or both. If he guessed who they were, he did not say. His wife and daughter were too obviously cowed by him to bother them with questions.

  The room they were shown was none too clean, but the bath water in the tin tub was kept hot by frequent infusions of heated rain water. The simple daughter was the one to do the carrying. She was more like a domesticated animal than a human, and Jenna felt sorry for her, and grateful, too.

  Scillia took the first bath, a long soaking, and Jenna helped soap her hair, afterward pouring fresh water over her to rinse it out. She did not ask Scillia’s permission, though it was clearly a mothering sort of thing to do. But Scillia did not complain of it.

  In turn, Scillia did the same for her, clucking over the long, reddened leg wound.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “It stings.”

  “Can you ride on?”

  “If you wish it.”

  Their conversations, Jenna thought, were more like Garunian fight songs: short, pithy, and full of unspoken antagonisms. But at least they were speaking.

  Scillia refused the beef pie at dinner, asking instead for a bowl of steamed vegetables which the innkeeper served grudgingly. Jenna did not show, even by so much as a conspiratorial shrug to the man, that she was aware it was an odd request. She ate her own hearty meal without comment, surprised at how good it was. If Scillia wished to give up meat because of killing a villain with a sword, then her hunger would be her own. Jenna knew there would be days on end when they would have no meat on their long riding. Or even any food at all. The rind end of winter could be a hard time to travel in the forest. But she did not say a word about it.