by Ann Marston
He grinned and ignored the question. “You almost look as if you belong in those clothes now,” he said. “Are you ready to leave?”
I didn’t move. “Why are you doing this?” I repeated.
“We’ll talk as we ride,” he said, rising from his chair with fluid grace. “I have to be in Honandun very soon, and the day’s half gone already.”
Still, I didn’t move. “What language was that?” I asked. “When you came into the bedroom, you said something.” My voice rose. “What language was that?”
“We’ll talk on the road,” Cullin said again. He turned on his heel and strode out the door. I stood unmoving for a moment, then followed him quickly. I didn’t have much choice.
We rode hard for the first hour along the packed surface of the road leading north and west from the border. There was little chance for conversation. The sorrel, much livelier for good feed and expert care the stableboys at the inn had given it, was still no match for the bay stallion Cullin rode, but it struggled gamely to keep the pace Cullin set. When he finally drew off the road and dismounted by a small stream surrounded by trees and lush grass, I was more than ready for a rest, and so was the sorrel.
We let the horses drink a little. Cullin tossed me a cloth to rub down the sorrel. He looked at me across the withers of the stallion as he attended to it.
“Tell me about your parents,” he said. “Do you remember them?”
The question surprised me. I had never thought about who my parents might have been. No one had ever spoken to me about them. I shook my head. “I never knew them,” I replied. “My mother either died when I was very young, or she was sold away.”
“And your father?”
I gave a bitter grunt of laughter. “Who knows? It might have been the Lord Mendor for all I know. Nobody ever bothered to tell me. A slave’s parentage isn’t important.”
“You weren’t born into slavery,” Cullin said quietly.
I looked up at him, startled. Cullin stood with his forearms resting across his saddle, regarding me gravely. His eyes were brilliantly green. There was an expression in them I couldn’t quite read. I began to protest that I had never known anything else but slavery, but Cullin shook his head.
“No,” he said. “You don’t have that air about you. No man born to slavery would be as fiercely independent as you. No born slave could have killed that bounty hunter.”
“I remember nothing else but being a slave,” I muttered, ducking my head and paying meticulous attention to the task of rubbing down the sorrel. But his words had touched close to one of my persistent childhood fantasies—that I had been kidnapped as a child and forced into slavery. In my daydreaming, my father—usually a nobleman, sometimes even a prince—came to rescue me. I outgrew those hopeless fantasies quickly under the harsh reality of the lash of the Stablemaster’s tongue, and the very real sting of the short whip he used to discipline his slaves. I looked up to see Cullin regarding me with a curious expression on his face. Somewhere between speculation and hope. Even though he had not changed his stance, I thought I detected an overtone of tenseness, almost expectation. But even as I watched, it was gone as if it had never been and I wondered if I had really seen anything.
“What is your earliest memory?” he asked, his tone casual again.
It was a strange question. I frowned and studied the now glowing hide of the sorrel. Finally, I looked up at him. “Standing beside a horse, very much like this, with a curry comb,” I said. “I was almost as tall as the horse’s withers. I might have been seven.” I raised my hand to rub the long-healed ridge of scar tissue behind my ear, hidden beneath my hair. “And headaches. Blinding headaches. Sometimes so bad I couldn’t see because my vision was so blurred.”
“Do you still get headaches?”
I shook my head. “No. I learned how to ignore the pain.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. It was during the worst of one of those headaches with my temples throbbing and nausea coiling in my belly when I had found that quiet place inside myself where I could reach out and stop the pain, to correct and repair the damage.
“You remember nothing before you were seven?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Very odd,” he said quietly. “Most people remember quite a lot from when they were very young.” He grinned. “I remember falling from my father’s horse when I was hardly big enough to walk. And I remember my father laughing as he plucked me out of the mud. I was annoyed with myself for falling off, and even more annoyed with my father because he laughed at me, but he picked me up and set me back on the horse, mud and all. Made a terrible mess of the saddle. He made me clean it off by myself later.” He swung up into the saddle. “Time to go. The horses are rested enough now, I think.”
We progressed at a less arduous pace, keeping the horses to a brisk walk, only occasionally allowing them to break into a canter. Cullin rode easily, back straight, one hand on his hip. I watched him in mixed curiosity and puzzlement. The stories I had heard about Tyran clansmen did not lead me to believe they went around rescuing runaway slaves simply because they hated the idea of slavery. He was clearly in a hurry to get to Honandun on the coast of Isgard, but he had taken the time out from his journey to let me rest and recover a little from the exhaustion of running. I wondered why he bothered to bring me along with him, particularly why he offered me employment. I had no skill with a sword or a bow. In order to be of any use to him, someone was going to expend a lot of time and trouble to train me. He had to have a reason.
“You still haven’t told me why you rescued me,” I said, pulling the sorrel up closer to his stallion. “Or what language that was.”
“Tyran,” he said absently, scanning the low hills around us. “I was testing out a theory.”
“A theory?”
He turned and flashed a grin at me. “Your hair,” he said. “I thought you might very well be Tyran. I wondered if your mother was Tyran and taught it to you, or if you remembered it if she did.”
I stared at him for a moment. Finally, I said: “And I answered you.” I shook my head. “But I don’t know what you said, or what I said, either.”
He grinned again. “I asked if you’d slept well, and you said you had.”
He suddenly pulled his stallion to a halt and dismounted. He dropped to one knee to examine the dust of the road carefully, then rose and looked off toward the low hills in the east.
“Trouble,” he said quietly.
“Trouble?” I repeated.
“We’ve been following a troop of riders for the last league or so,” he said. “They met someone else here. Look at this.”
I got down beside him and looked at the marks on the road. It was obvious, even to me, that a scuffle had taken place here, and not that long ago, either. I bent and brushed my fingers across a dark stain in the dust of the track. Blood. Thick splashes of it were still sticky in the grass along the side of the road. But whoever shed the blood either rode off with the mounted troop and their captives, or was carried away because there was no sign of any bodies.
Cullin stood on the side of the road, looking first at the blood, then in the direction the tracks led. East. Not west toward Honandun and his business there. The sun glinted off the copper gleam of his hair and limned his beard with flame. His hand went to the hilt of the sword at his back in an automatic gesture, loosening the blade in its scabbard. One of his eyebrows quirked in speculative consideration.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Maeduni mercenaries, I think. They took three people here.” He caught the reins of his stallion and swung into the saddle. “Those Maeduni are becoming entirely too arrogant, I think,” he said softly. “It might be time someone taught them a few manners.”
Maeduni mercenaries, employed by the Royal House of Falinor, had made several visits to Lord Mendor’s Landholding. I watched them strut insolently around the yard, demanding and getting the best from the kitchens and wine cellars, and the best looking of the slave women to
warm their beds at night. Some of them preferred boys, and got them, too. In any large company of them, there was always one who stank of magic, a warlock whose job it was to ensure nobody dared attack them. I made myself as invisible as possible whenever they came. Just the thought of them made me shiver. I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with their kind of magic. With any kind of magic. Then or now.
“You’re going after them?” I asked. “Won’t it be dangerous?”
He laughed. “Aye, well, Tyra and Maedun have been uneasy neighbours for centuries,” he said. “We’ve learned a thing or two about them in that time. A few tricks here and there.”
In spite of myself, I grinned. “A fractious and vexatious lot, those Maeduni,” I said.
He laughed again. “A true clansman’s attitude, that,” he said. He gestured toward the blood stains and scuffed ground. “This wasn’t that long ago. Not much more than an hour or two. We should catch up to them by dusk.”
“What about your business in Honandun?”
“It can wait one day more if necessary.”
IV
We lay well hidden behind a low outcropping of rocks on the top of the hill and looked down at the encampment. We had left the horses back in a small copse of alders so they wouldn’t disturb the horses in the camp and betray our presence. Sunset was a little over an hour gone. The moon would not rise for several hours, and the darkness was almost complete. The faint glow of a campfire led us to this ridge overlooking the stream.
Eight men sat around the fire in the shelter of a wide bend in the little burn, their backs to the steep embankment. There were more men we couldn’t see outside the circle of light cast by the small fire, perhaps four or five more, judging by the tracks Cullin and I had followed.
“You were right,” I said softly, mindful of the still air and quiet night, and the propensity of sound to travel. “Maeduni mercenaries.”
“Aye,” Cullin replied. “Such a tedious lot, these Maeduni. Now, the question is, do they have a warlock with them?”
“I could tell you if I could get closer,” I said.
He glanced at me in the dusk. “Could you now?” he murmured.
I felt myself blush. “Aye, I could,” I said, unconsciously mimicking him. “Magic like theirs leaves a stench on a man.”
The look he gave me was decidedly brimming with thoughtful appraisal. “It does, does it?” he said. “Aye, well, I suppose it might at that. D’ye think you can get close enough to find out without them noticing you?”
I had spent all of my life practicing the art of invisibility. Surely creeping up on a camp would be little different from avoiding the quick and brutal hands of the Stablemaster or the guards at Lord Mendor’s Landholding. “Yes,” I said positively.
Cullin nodded. “Then give it a try, lad. But in a moment. We need to take a good look first.”
The troop was camped in a hollow formed by the wide bend of the stream. Low bushes of willow, alder and silverleaf grew thickly against the rocky outcropping behind them. The hillside below us was bare but for the coarse, dry brown grass and the occasional thorn bush. The air was thick with the smell of water, and the sharp, resinous scent of burning thornwood.
The Maeduni had not picked the best place to settle for the night. Although the steep embankment offered shelter from the winds that swept down from the mountains of the west and north, it turned the camp into a trap in the event of an attack. But it was typical of what I had heard of the Maeduni in high country. These hills were not mountains, but they were considerably higher than the coastal plain. The Maeduni disliked mountainous regions. Some say it’s because their own country is so featurelessly flat; others say it’s because the magic of their warlocks and wizards is weakened by the high country.
I moved slightly to ease myself away from a sharp rock that dug into my hip. Cullin pointed to something barely out of the circle of firelight. Following his pointing finger, I saw the prisoners. Two men and what looked like a young boy. They lay bound ankle to wrist, wrist to ankle, without struggling, still and quiet in the shadows.
“Isgardians, do you think?” I asked.
Cullin shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t see well enough. Well, whatever they are, they deserve better than ending up as Maeduni slaves.”
“Nobody deserves slavery,” I muttered, moving toward the camp. “I’ll be back.”
Cullin caught my arm. “Be careful.”
I grinned. “I will. I was thinking if there was no warlock with them, someone might slip down there and set up a small amount of tumult and confusion among the horses. Then it would be a simple matter for someone else to skulk through the shadows and cut the bonds on those prisoners.”
Cullin’s answering grin was quick. “Aye,” he agreed. “You think well for someone who says he was always a slave.” He reached over his shoulder and made sure the sword on his back moved easily in its scabbard. “Someone might even consider giving those Maeduni a lesson in good manners.” He pointed to a low mound of thornbush a few yards short of the stream. “I’ll wait there. Can you signal if it’s clear?”
“I do a fair imitation of a nightjar,” I said.
“Good. When you give the signal, we’ll move. I’ll meet you back where we left the horses. Be careful.” Without further word, he touched my shoulder, and melted into the shadows, moving to the left toward the horses. I made sure of my dagger in its boot sheath, then moved off to the right.
There wasn’t a lot of cover on the side of the hill, but I had the advantage of a moonless night. The men below were sitting around a fire and their eyes would not adjust quickly to see something moving in the dark beyond the firelight. But if they did have a warlock with them, he might be able to find me if I got too close.
The sound of their laughter became clear as I crept through the coarse grass. The ground beneath the grass was rocky and hard. I had to move slowly and cautiously so not to disturb the loose stones. I’d heard not so much as a rustle in the grass as Cullin slipped away.
When I reached the bank of the stream, I was less than a dozen yards from the nearest mercenary. I was downwind. I could smell the strong ale they were drinking, and the scent of cooking meat coming from the pot on the fire. But there was no stench of magic. No warlock. Nothing to prickle my skin or raise the hairs along the back of my neck, or my arms. I lay absolutely still for a long time, watching the mercenaries. Perhaps this band wasn’t large enough to warrant having a warlock assigned to it. This was only a small band. The troops who had come to Lord Mendor’s Landholding usually numbered more than thirty. And with thirty, there was only the one who raised the hackles on my neck.
Finally convinced there was no warlock with them, I cupped my hands around my mouth and gave the harsh, grating cry of a nightjar. Moments later, it was answered from somewhere downstream.
I began to move slowly. I had to stand up to leap across the narrow stream, but I made it in one jump. A burst of laughter from the men around the fire covered any sound I might have made on the loose gravel. My heart thudded in my chest hard enough to tear it loose, and I realized I was holding my breath. I forced myself to breathe normally, then dropped to my belly again and crept forward.
The three prisoners lay huddled together near the embankment. Only a yard or two from them, I sank down onto the gravel strand and unsheathed my dagger, then settled down to wait for Cullin to set up his diversion.
I didn’t have long to wait. The high, yodeling shriek of a clan war cry split the night. At the same instant, a dozen or more terrified horses burst away from the picket lines and galloped directly at the campfire. One of them sailed over the flames and went flying past the prisoners, narrowly missing one of them. It passed me running flat out, ears laid back, tail raised like a flag. I rolled quickly out of its way barely in time to miss getting trampled. The other horses, confused by the fire, bewildered by the terrifying howling behind them, churned about among the startled mercenaries for a second or two, then veered sharply a
nd thundered off downstream. I caught a glimpse of Cullin, plaid billowing behind him, leaping onto one of the horses and wheeling after the fleeing animals.
The reaction of the Maeduni was all I had wished for. They dived for their weapons, shouting orders to each other, and ran downstream after the horses. I scrambled forward and put my hand gently over the mouth of one of the prisoners.
“Don’t cry out,” I said softly as the man gave a hard start of shock. “I’m here to help.”
The man rolled over and stared at me, his eyes showing only as dark pools in his pale face. He nodded, and I cut the bonds on his wrists and ankles. The blood rushing back into feet and hands after being bound so tightly must have been painful, but he made no sound. Seconds later, all three were free, but the youngest, the one who lay between the two men, didn’t move.
“My daughter is badly hurt,” the first man said.
“Not dead?” the other man asked quickly.
The first man put a hand to the young girl’s throat, then shook his head. “She’s alive….”
“Can you carry her?” I asked. “We don’t have much time before those Maeduni come back to make sure you’re still here.”
“I can carry her,” the first man said. He scooped the girl up into his arms, cradling her gently against his chest, then nodded. “Where to?” he asked.
“This way,” I said. We didn’t bother with stealth as we splashed through the stream and scrambled up the bank on the other side. I could still hear the Maeduni shouting to one another as they tried to round up the panicked horses, but Cullin no longer warbled that strange war cry. I don’t know how far he chased the horses, but there was a lot of noise downstream. With luck, it would be a while before the Maeduni returned to check on their prisoners. We would be long gone by then.
The man rose straight up out of the ground itself just ahead of me, roaring in a language I didn’t know. The naked blade in his hand whistled as he swung it at my neck.