Lara

by Bertrice Small

  “Have just a little bit of it. We have no way of knowing how long our stores must last.”

  When they had finished eating, Lara said, “I will keep watch for part of the night, and you will keep watch the rest of it.” She walked over to Dasras, and pulled a heavy cloak from behind her saddle. “There’s one for you with Sakari,” she told Noss. “The early watch, or the late watch?” she asked her companion.

  “The early,” Noss said. “When shall I awaken you?”

  Lara looked up into the sky above them to see the Triad, risen perhaps an hour now. She pointed it out to Noss. “When it reaches the midheavens wake me, unless of course you need me before then.”

  “I will,” Noss replied, and watched as Lara lay down near their little fire and rolled herself in her cloak. Lara was soon asleep, and Noss sitting by the fire thought how peaceful the night was. Too peaceful. Not the sound of an insect, or a night bird. Getting up, she walked to where Verica stood guard. “It is so quiet,” she said to him.

  “Yes,” he said, “nothing stirs, neither man nor beast. Do not fear, Noss, for my eyes can see through the darkness, and for now there is nothing dangerous to be seen.”

  Noss walked back to the fire. The horses were grazing peacefully within her sight. She sighed. Traveling with Rolf Fairplay had been very different than this. Then on the horizon a new moon rose, the pale blue of the Midlands. Shortly thereafter a second moon in its first quarter stage arose, and it was the light green Forest moon. It was followed by the full copper moon of the Desert, and lastly a butter-yellow waning moon. Noss was astounded. She considered waking Lara, but then she realized that Lara would see it when she awoke her shortly. With the light of all four moons most of the stars had disappeared, but the Triad still shone brightly, to Noss’s relief. She could have never imagined the adventures she was going to have, and they had only just begun.

  Noss roused Lara at the appointed time, now sleepy, but remembering to point out the four moons of Hetar. Lara was refreshed from the several hours of sleep she had had. She went into the shelter of the trees to relieve herself. Then she sought out Dasras, and took a water bag from her saddle. She drank, replaced the bag, gave the stallion a pat and went to sit by the fire. Master Bashkar had told her that in the Outlands the four moons of Hetar could all be seen. Three of them she knew, of course, but the butter-yellow quarter moon was new to her. This then would be the moon that shone over the Coastal Province. Once all four moons were risen completely, their colors faded gradually away, and they turned silvery white. The third moon was setting on its horizon as the skies brightened in shades of pink both deep and light, pale lavender, orange and gold. Above the vibrant colors the sky grew bright blue. The birds began to twitter, and then the blazing red sun burst over the horizon. Lara stood, stretched and then went to wake Noss.

  They ate their faerie bread and drank from the clear stream, refilling the little they had taken from the water bags the day before. Lara drew Verica from the earth, thanking him for his night watch. She brushed the dirt from the bottom of the staff, replacing it in its holder on her saddle. Lara ordered the fire out, and they departed the grove that had served as their shelter.

  The vast rolling plain stretched on ahead of them. They rode at a leisurely pace, not wanting to tire the horses when they had no idea where they were going. At midmorning they heard, first faintly, and then more distinctly, the sound of many horses behind them. Lara turned. She could see a group of riders in the distance behind them.

  “What will we do?” Noss half sobbed. “We have no place to hide.”

  “Calm yourself,” Lara chided the girl. “If we run, these riders will think we have something of value, or something to conceal. We will continue on as we have been. They will either pass us by, or inquire to our destination. I will speak for us. Do you understand?”

  “You are so brave,” Noss said. “I should be, but I am not.”

  Lara laughed to herself. Right now I am terrified, she thought, yet I must appear calm and in control of myself and the situation. I must remember what Kaliq said. I have a destiny. If that destiny were to be killed easily and at a young age, the Forest Lords would have done it. I have not come into the Outlands to be murdered.

  They pressed onward, and eventually the riders behind them caught up to them, and they found themselves surrounded. Lara and Noss sat straight in their saddles, eyes ahead. They rode for a time within the group of horsemen. All were silent, and then the horse next to Lara’s reached out to bite Dasras.

  “Control your mount!” she snapped at the animal’s rider.

  “You ride a stallion as do I,” was the reply.

  “Yes,” Lara said.

  “It is unusual for a woman to ride a stallion,” her companion remarked. “And particularly, so little a woman.”

  “Dasras and I suit each other,” Lara answered him boldly. The man next to her laughed. “I am Vartan of Clan Fiacre,” he said, “and you are very beautiful as well as very brave. You did not flee my riders, though you knew we were behind you.”

  “I am Lara, daughter of Swiftsword, and why would I run? This is Noss, my companion.” She turned her head to look at him. He was a big man, and tall. His long black hair was pulled back and held by a leather thong. His face was oval in shape; his cheekbones high; his mouth long and narrow. His gaze engaged her most directly, clear and light blue, and filled with both amusement and frank curiosity.

  “You are two little girls on rather good horses all alone on the plain,” he said. “Should you not be afraid?”

  Lara’s green eyes never left his as she spoke. “The sword on my back is Andraste. It is not there for decoration. I know well how to use it, and we have killed before, Andraste and I. Noss and I are travelers from the City. We carry nothing of value in our packs. You are free to search them.”

  He laughed again. “Where are you bound for, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword?”

  “I don’t know,” she told him. “We have never been in the Outlands before, and all we know of it is that it is uncivilized, or so we have been told.”

  “Hetar,” he sneered, “so smug in the assurance of its civilized ways.”

  “It is all Hetar,” she told him.

  “The High Council doesn’t consider it so,” he said. “For them Hetar is the four neat and tidy provinces of the Midlands, the Forest, the Desert and the Coastal Regions. We are the Outlands, filled with ignorant savages, unable to live by the rule of law. I curse their law!”

  “It has nothing to do with me,” Lara replied. “I departed the City over two years ago. I cannot go back.”

  “Why?”

  “Where are you going?” she asked him, ignoring his question.

  “Our encampment,” he answered her, “and then to the village of Camdene,” he told her. “Would you like to travel with us? Not all those you meet out here on the plain will be friendly, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword.”

  “I should appreciate your company,” Lara answered him, “but you need not be friendly, my lord Vartan. Just companionable.”

  He nodded. “And tonight you will tell me how you came to be in the Outlands.”

  “Around the fire,” she agreed. “And perhaps you will tell me what you do out here on this lonely land. We rode all day yesterday without seeing man nor beast.”

  “You camped in the grove of Drem. We stopped to water our horses there earlier. You were fortunate to find it for there is not another like it for miles,” he told her.

  “I have never seen so much open land,” Lara told him. “It is beautiful and frightening all at once.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. “Your High Council would like to annex some of these lands if they dared. The Outlands are rich in land and other resources they are greedy to possess. The provinces grow more and more crowded.”

  “What do you do here?” she asked him.

  “We live free,” he said, and then he amended it. “Some farm. Many tend to their herds. Our villages are like villages everywh
ere. The Fiacre have more villages than any other clan in the Outlands. I rule the Fiacre.”

  “Will we reach your village today?” Lara asked him.

  “Nay, not until tomorrow,” he said. “We were told strangers had entered our lands, and came out several days ago to find them. You are the only ones we have found so far,” he said.

  “We cannot be those you seek,” Lara said. “We only entered the Outlands yesterday from the Desert Kingdom.”

  “That cannot be,” he said. “The border between us and the Shadow Princes is at least three days away.”

  “We came through a tunnel in the cliffs,” Lara said.

  “What cliffs?” he asked, puzzled.

  She laughed softly. “They have made some magic, I suspect,” she told him. “In the Desert where the great cliffs rise the Shadow Princes have their palaces. If you are a guest in these palaces you will discover a wonderful valley between the cliffs where the princes raise their horses. Yesterday Noss and I were led across that valley from Prince Kaliq’s palace. We entered a tunnel and traveled for several hours before we reached its end, which opened out onto your plain. After we had ridden for a time across your land I looked back, but the cliffs from which we had exited were gone.”

  “Why have you come here?” Vartan wondered.

  “I don’t know yet. I just know that given the choice of the Coastal Province or the Outlands, my instinct told me to come here,” Lara explained.

  “Have you magic?” he asked her.

  “Some,” she said lightly, “but nothing powerful of which I am aware. I can light a fire without flint and stone.” She gave him a small smile.

  “A very useful magic for a traveler,” he told her, returning the smile.

  “Have you magic?” she asked him.

  “Some,” he said, not elucidating further, and then Vartan chuckled at her delicately raised eyebrow. “I shape-shift,” he said. “Fiacre is a word for eagle, and I take the form of my clan’s badge sometimes. Each leader of the Fiacre is given this gift. It is generally useful.”

  “Indeed,” she said dryly, but did not reveal her own proclivities to him. Not yet. “Why did you simply not seek for these intruders as the eagle?” Lara asked him.

  “I had no chance. Most do not know of the ability I possess. They would be afraid,” Vartan told her. “Shall we keep it our little secret, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword? You appear to be a girl who can keep secrets.”

  Now it was Lara who laughed. “I can, and I do,” she agreed.

  Noss pushed her mare closer to Lara’s stallion. “There is a man who keeps looking at me as if I am his next meal,” she murmured.

  Vartan heard her, and looked quickly about him. “’Tis Liam, little girl, and I will tell him he is frightening you. He is a good fellow with a soft heart who would not harm a flea. But he is obviously taken with you.” The lord of the Fiacre chuckled and dropped back a few paces to speak with the red-haired man who gazed so intently at Noss. When he rejoined Lara and her companion he said, “Liam would like to know if you are married, young Noss? ’Tis not a question a man of the Fiacre asks casually.”

  “Noss is only thirteen and a half,” Lara said quietly. “She is a virgin. She is too young for any man, and she must want the man who weds her one day.”

  Vartan nodded. “I will explain all of this to Liam. But Noss,” he directed his question to her, “might you allow him to become a friend? He will not, I swear to you, harm a hair of your head.”

  Noss looked to Lara questioningly. “Should I?”

  “If you wish it I see no reason to deny yourself the company of a fine young man,” Lara replied. “But he must treat you with respect,” she warned.

  “I will see he does,” Vartan replied, and then dropped back again to speak with the red-haired Liam, who listened, and then grinned happily.

  Noss blushed when the young man looked to her again, lowering her head shyly as Liam moved his horse up next to Sakari.

  Vartan rejoined Lara, and the two rode ahead a ways. “How old are you?” he demanded of her, “and are you a virgin, too?”

  “I am sixteen, and I have experienced the giving and taking of pleasures,” she told him. “How old are you, and are you experienced?” she countered.

  “I have lived twenty-eight years, and I am considered experienced by those with whom I share a bed,” he replied, and his blue eyes met her gaze.

  “You should know I am half faerie,” Lara told him. “If your people fear magic, then they fear my mother’s people. You would not be wise to involve yourself with a woman like me. I have, I am told, a destiny to live out, my lord Vartan.”

  “Perhaps I am that destiny,” he suggested.

  Lara laughed. “An interesting excuse for attempted seduction,” she remarked.

  He grinned engagingly at her. “I think I am falling in love with you, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword,” he told her.

  “You are a fraud, my lord Vartan, for we have only just met,” Lara reminded him.

  “Have you never heard of love at first sight?” he asked her.

  “I do not believe in love, my lord,” Lara answered him. “You do not have to cajole me with sweet words, my lord Vartan. If I remain among the Fiacre long enough, and we become friends, then I will gladly share my body with you,” Lara promised him. “But be warned that even half faerie women do not give children to those they do not love.”

  “Now,” he said, “I am even more curious to learn your story, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword,” he told her.

  “Tonight,” she promised. “We will speak together as the Triad blazes overhead.”

  They rode the day long, stopping only briefly to water their horses. Lara dug into her pouch, and pulled out a piece of faerie bread to share with Noss, who was all rosy with blushes from her ride with the Fiacre Liam.

  “You are too young to be seduced,” Lara warned Noss. “Do not let his sweet words or stolen kisses overcome your innate common sense.”

  “He is very polite,” Noss half whispered.

  “Then he is indeed a dangerous man,” Lara cautioned. “Remember that unlike me you can conceive a child in your belly, Noss. Do you desire to be a mother at your young age? Think carefully before you let him insinuate himself between your legs. I should have to leave you behind, and we do not know these people. They are considered savages by those in the City.”

  “They do not seem very savage to me,” Noss noted.

  “Nay, and I do not believe they are. They simply wish to live their lives in a different manner than those who call themselves Hetarians,” Lara said.

  “I like this freedom that they have,” Noss said softly.

  “So do I,” Lara agreed, “but I want to know more about the Outlanders, and sheltering with Lord Vartan for a short while is a good way to learn about them.”

  They reached the encampment, a small circle of tents. In the center of the circle a fire was prepared, and ready to light. When Vartan looked to Lara she shook her head in the negative. There was no reason to reveal her skills to others right now. She dismounted, noting that her buttocks felt sorer today than they had yesterday.

  “How I would love a hot bath,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Tomorrow in my house we will bathe together,” Vartan said, coming up next to her. “Come, and I will show you and Noss to my tent. You will sleep there tonight while I sleep outside keeping watch.”

  “You need not keep watch,” Lara told him. “I will set Verica, my staff, at the entrance of your tent and he will watch over us.”

  “The sword has magic. The staff has magic,” Vartan noted. “What else about you is magic, Lara, daughter of Swiftsword?”

  “The horses talk,” she told him, her green eyes dancing with mirth. “None of this is my doing, my lord Vartan, I swear it. These things were given to me by Prince Kaliq and his people to help keep me safe,” Lara finished, almost laughing.

  Vartan of the Fiacre did laugh at these admissions. He had not
lied when he told her he was falling in love with her. He knew it in his heart from the moment he had laid eyes on her, but he also knew this was a strong woman. But could the lord of the Fiacre follow in the wake of a half faerie woman, even if he loved her? He did not know the answer to these questions. Yet.

  They remained the night at the encampment. They did not eat faerie bread, but rather feasted on broiled rabbits the Fiacre clansmen had caught along the way. There was real bread, and cheese, and even wine. And after the others had all gone to bed, Lara and Vartan sat by the fire beneath the Triad and the four silvery moons of Hetar as she told him her tale. He was fascinated, repelled and angered by her recitation.

  “How could your father…?” he began, but she hushed him.

  “A man must be worthy to be a Crusader Knight,” she said. “I was my father’s only asset.”

  “His assets should have been his battle skills, his honesty and his loyalty,” Vartan said.

  “It is not the way of Hetar. A man’s appearance is all-important, my lord,” Lara replied. “If he could not look the part, what good his skills and ethics?”

  Vartan shrugged. “Indeed,” was all he could think of to reply. He listened again, scorning the foolish futility of the Forest Lords at paying thirty thousand pieces of gold for Lara in the belief she could remove the curse placed upon them by Maeve. “And then they came to Shunnar to reclaim you with a false document? What kind of a magistrate would give them such a parchment?”

  “One whom they paid well,” Lara replied. “Commerce is the way of Hetar. If a man does not line his pockets when he can, he will die poor.”

  Vartan shook his head. “Wealth is better, I will agree, but a man’s wealth should be gained honestly, not through schemes and trickery.”

  “A man thought too honest will be considered a fool,” she replied. And yet his words were giving her pause for thought. Were there other ways than those she had been taught? She suspected she would learn them in her journeying.

  Lara finally found her bed, curling up next to Noss, who was sleeping soundly. But her sleep was a restless one, and the dawn came swiftly. She found herself dozing in her saddle as they rode along the next day. When they stopped to water the horses, Dasras scolded her softly in his deep voice.