Oathblood

by Mercedes Lackey

  As if to confirm this, things like ball-lightning began appearing and exploding, knocking bandits from their horses, clouds of red mist began to wreathe the heads of others (who clutched their throats and turned interesting colors), and oddly formed creatures joined Warrl at harrying and biting at those on foot.

  When that began, especially after one spectacular fireball left a pile of smoking ash in place of the bandit’s second-in-command, it was more than the remainder of the band could stand up to. Their easy prey had turned into Hellspawn, and there was nothing that could make them stay to face anything more. The ones that were still mounted turned their horses out of the melee and fled for their lives. Tarma and the three surviving guards took care of the rest.

  As for the bandit chief, who had sat his horse in stupefied amazement from the moment the fight turned against them, he suddenly realized his own peril and tried to escape with the rest. Kethry, however, had never once forgotten him. Her bolt of power—intended this time to stun, not kill—took him squarely in the back of the head.

  “The bandits growl a challenge,

  But the lady only grins.

  The sorceress bows mockingly,

  And then the fight begins.

  When it ends, there are but four

  Left standing from that horde—

  The witch, the wolf, the traitor,

  And the woman with the sword.

  Three things never trust in—

  The maiden sworn as pure,

  The vows a king has given

  And the ambush that is ‘sure.’ ”

  By late afternoon the heads of the bandits had been piled in a grisly cairn by the side of the road as a mute reminder to their fellows of the eventual reward of banditry. Their bodies had been dragged off into the hills for the scavengers to quarrel over. Tarma had supervised the cleanup, the three apprentices serving as her work force. There had been a good deal of stomach purging on their part at first—especially after the way Tarma had casually lopped off the heads of the dead or wounded bandits—but they’d obeyed her without question. Tarma had had to hide her snickering behind her hand, for they looked at her whenever she gave them a command as though they feared that their heads might well adorn the cairn if they lagged or slacked.

  She herself had seen to the wounds of the surviving guards, and the burial of the two dead ones.

  One of the guards could still ride; the other two were loaded into the now-useless cart after the empty boxes had been thrown out of it. Tarma ordered the whole caravan back to town; she and Kethry planned to catch up with them later, after some unfinished business had been taken care of.

  Part of that unfinished business was the filling and marking of the dead guards’ graves.

  Kethry brought her a rag to wipe her hands with when she’d finished. “Damn. I wish—Hellspawn, they were just honest hire-swords,” she said, looking at the stone cairns she’d built with remote regret. “It wasn’t their fault we didn’t have a chance to warn them. Maybe they shouldn’t have let themselves be surprised like that, not with what’s been happening to the packtrains lately—but still, your life’s a pretty heavy price to pay for a little carelessness....”

  Kethry, her energy back to normal now that she was no longer being drained by her illusions, slipped a sympathetic arm around Tarma’s shoulders. “Come on, she‘enedra. I want to show you something that might make you feel a little better.”

  When Tarma had gone to direct the cleanup, Kethry had been engaged in stripping the bandit chief down to his skin and readying his unconscious body for some sort of involved sorcery. Tarma knew she’d had some sort of specific punishment in mind from the time she’d heard about the stolen girls, but she’d had no idea of what it was.

  “They’ve stripped the traitor naked

  And they’ve whipped him on his way

  Into the barren hillsides,

  Like the folk he used to slay.

  They take a thorough vengeance

  For the women he’s cut down,

  And then they mount their horses

  And they journey back to town.

  Three things trust and cherish well—

  The horse on which you ride,

  The beast that guards and watches

  And your shield-mate at your side!”

  Now before her was a bizarre sight. Tied to the back of one of the bandit’s abandoned horses was—apparently—the unconscious body of the high-born lady Kethry had spelled herself to resemble. She was clad only in a few rags, and had a bruise on one temple, but otherwise looked to be unharmed.

  Tarma circled the tableau slowly. There was no flaw in the illusion—if indeed it was an illusion.

  “Unbelievable,” she said at last. “That is him, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. One of my best pieces of work.”

  “Will it hold without you around to maintain it?”

  “It’ll hold, all right,” Kethry replied with deep satisfaction. “That’s part of the beauty and the justice of the thing. The illusion is irretrievably melded with his own mind-magic. He’ll never be able to break it himself, and no reputable sorcerer will break it for him. And I promise you, the only sorcerers for weeks in any direction are quite reputable.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be able to get one to break it for him?”

  “Because I’ve signed it.” Kethry made a small gesture, and two symbols appeared for a moment above the bandit’s head. One was the symbol Tarma knew to be Kethry’s sigil, the other was the glyph for “Justice.” “Any attempt to probe the spell will make those appear. I doubt that anyone will ignore the judgment sign, and even if they were inclined to, I think my reputation is good enough to make most sorcerers think twice about undoing what I’ve done.”

  “You really didn’t change him, did you?” Tarma asked, a horrible thought occurring to her. “I mean, if he’s really a woman now—”

  “Bright Lady, what an awful paradox we’d have!” Kethry laughed, easing Tarma’s mind considerably. “We punish him for what he’s done to women by turning him into a woman—but as a woman, we’d now be honor-bound to protect him! No, don’t worry. Under the illusion—and it’s a very complete illusion, by the way, it extends to all senses—he’s still quite male.”

  She gave the horse’s rump a whack, breaking the light enchantment that had held it quiet, and it bucked a little, scrabbling off into the barren hills.

  “The last of the band went that way,” she said, pointing after the beast, “And the horse he’s on will follow their scent back to where they’ve made their camp. Of course, none of his former followers will have any notion that he’s anything other than what he appears to be.”

  A wicked smile crept across Tarma’s face. It matched the one already curving Kethry’s lips.

  “I wish I could be there when he arrives,” Tarma said with a note of viciousness in her harsh voice. “It’s bound to be interesting.”

  “He’ll certainly get exactly what he deserves.” Kethry watched the horse vanish over the crest of the hill. “I wonder how he’ll like being on the receiving end?”

  “I know somebody who will like this—and I can’t wait to see his face when you tell him.”

  “Grumio?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “You know—” Kethry replied thoughtfully, “—this was almost worth doing for free.”

  “She‘enedra!” Tarma exclaimed in mock horror. “Your misplaced honor will have us starving yet! We’re supposed to be mercenaries!”

  “I said almost.” Kethry joined in her partner’s gravelly laughter. “Come on. We’ve got pay to collect. You know—this just might end up as some bard’s song.”

  “It might at that,” Tarma chuckled. “And what will you bet me that he gets the tale all wrong?”

  THE MANING OF A LEGEND

  Speaking of Leslac, here he is, in his debut, making life miserable for the ladies. It’s kind of interesting that the more I write about Tarma and Kethry, the more often t
here’s humor in the stories. The first one was rather grim, but they’ve gradually lightened up.

  By the way, if you’ve noticed that the ladies often swtich horses, it’s not a mistake. As explained in By the Sword, since they are partners, the battlesteeds are trained to accept either rider, so they often switch off just to keep the mares in training, just as one can have a guard dog that accepts more than one handler, but eats anyone who isn’t a designated handler. It would be a real problem if Tarma happened to need a horse that was all the way across a battlefield, and Kethry’s happened to be right at hand but wouldn’t let her mount....

  Brown-gray and green-brown landscape, and a coating of dust all over everything, a haze of dust in the air, a cloud of dust hanging behind them where Tarma and Kethry’s tired mares had kicked it up. Fields, farmholdings, trees. More fields, more farmholdings, more trees. Not wild trees either; trees tamed, planted in neat little orchards or windbreaks, as orderly and homebound as the farmers who husbanded them. A tidy land this; carefully ruled. No calling here for outland mercenaries.

  All the more reason to get through it as fast as Hellsbane and Ironheart could manage.

  On the other hand, the White Winds sorceress Kethry reflected, there was no use in night-long riding when they were in civilized lands. No telling when they might see a real bed once they got into territory that did need their spells and swords.

  Kethry wiped her forehead with her sleeve, adjusted the geas-blade Need on her back, and blinked the road dust out of her sore eyes. The sun sat on the horizon like a fat red tomato, seemingly as complacent as the farmers it shone down on. “How far to the next town?” she asked over the dull clopping of hooves on flint-hard earth.

  “Huh?” Her companion, the Shin‘a’in Swordsworn Tarma, started up out of a doze, blinking sleepy, ice-blue eyes. Her granite-gray mare snorted and sneezed as the thin swordswoman jerked alert.

  “I asked you how far it was to the next town,” Kethry repeated, raking sweat-damp amber hair with her fingers, trying to get it tucked behind her ears. In high-summer heat like this, she envied Tarma’s chosen arrangement of tiny, tight-bound braids. It may not have been cooler, but it looked cooler. And Tarma’s coarse black hair wasn’t always coming loose and getting into her eyes and mouth, or making the back of her neck hot.

  “Must’ve nodded off; sorry about that, Greeneyes,” Tarma said sheepishly, extracting the map from the waterproof pocket on the saddle skirting in front of her. “Hmm—next town’s Viden; we’ll hit there just about dusk.”

  “Viden? Oh, hell—” Kethry replied in disgust, rolling the sleeves of her buff sorcerer’s robe a little higher. “It would be Viden. I was hoping for a bath and a bed.”

  “What’s wrong with Viden?” Tarma asked. To Kethry’s further disgust she didn’t even look warm; there was no sheen of sweat on that dark-gold skin, and that despite the leather tunic and breeches she wore. Granted, she was from the Dhorisha Plains where it got a lot hotter than it was here, but—

  Well, it wasn’t fair.

  “Viden’s overlord is what’s wrong,” she answered. “A petty despot, Lord Gorley; hired a gang of prison scum to enforce things for him.” She made a sour face. “He manages to stay just on the right side of tolerable for the Viden merchants, so they pay his fees and ignore him. But outsiders find themselves a lot lighter in the pocket if they overnight there. Doesn’t even call it a tax, just sends his boys after you to shake you down. Hellfire.”

  “Oh, well,” Tarma shrugged philosophically. “At least we were warned. Figure we’d better skirt the place altogether, or is it safe enough to stop for a meal?”

  :For a short stop I misdoubt a great deal of trouble with me at your side,: the lupine kyree trotting at Ironheart’s side mindspoke to both of them. Kethry grinned despite her disappointment. Seeing as Warrl’s shoulders came as high as Tarma’s waist, and he had a head the size of a large melon with teeth of a length to match, it was extremely doubtful that any one—or even three—of the Viden-lord’s toughs would care to chance seeing what the kyree was capable of.

  “Safe enough for that,” Kethry acknowledged. “From all I heard they don’t bestir themselves more than they can help. By the time they manage to get themselves organized into a party big enough to give us trouble, we’ll have paid for our meal and gone.”

  The dark, stone-walled common room of the inn was much cooler than the street outside. Bard Leslac lounged in the coolest, darkest corner, sipped his tepid ale, and congratulated himself smugly on his foresight. There was only one inn—his quarry would have to come here to eat and drink. He’d beaten them by nearly half a day; he’d had plenty of time to choose a comfortable, out-of-the-way corner to observe what must come.

  For nearly two years now, he had been following the careers of a pair of freelance mercenaries, both of them women (which was unusual enough), one a sorceress, the other one of the mysterious Shin‘a’in out of the Dhorisha Plains (which was unheard of). He had created one truly masterful ballad out of the stories he’d collected about them—masterful enough that he was no longer being pelted with refuse in village squares, and was now actually welcome in taverns.

  But he wanted more such ballads. And there was one cloud on his success.

  Not once in all that time had he ever managed to actually catch sight of the women.

  Oh, he’d tried, right enough—but they kept making unexpected and unexplained detours—and by the time he found out where they’d gone, it was too late to do anything but take notes from the witnesses and curse his luck for not being on the scene. No bard worth his strings would ever take secondhand accounts for the whole truth. Especially not when those secondhand accounts were so—unembellished. No impassioned speeches, no fountains of blood—in fact, by the way these stupid peasants kept telling the tales, the women seemed to go out of their way to avoid fights. And that was plainly not possible.

  But this time he had them. There was no place for them to go now except Viden—and Viden boasted a wicked overlord.

  Leslac was certain they’d head here. How could they not? Hadn’t they made a career out of righting the wrongs done to helpless women? Surely some of the women in Viden had been abused by Lord Gorley. Surely Gorley’s Lady was in dire need of rescue. He could just imagine it—Tarma facing down a round dozen of Gorley’s men, then dispatching them easily with a triumphant laugh. Kethry taking on Lord Gorley’s sorcerer (surely he had one) in a mage duel of titanic proportions. The possibilities were endless....

  And Leslac would be on hand to record everything.

  Tarma sagged down onto the smooth wooden bench with a sigh. Damn, but I wish we could overnight it. One more day in this heat and folks’ll smell us coming a furlong away. Wish I just dared to take my damned boots off. My feet feel broiled.

  She propped both elbows on the wooden table and knuckled the dust out of her eyes.

  Footsteps approaching. Then, “What’ll it be, miladies?”

  The deep voice to her right sounded just a shade apprehensive. Tarma blinked up at the burly innkeeper standing a respectful distance away.

  Apron’s clean—hands’re clean. Table’s clean. Good enough. We can at least have a meal before we hie out.

  “No ladies here, Keeper,” she replied, her hoarse voice even more grating than usual because of all the dust she’d eaten today. “Just a couple of tired mercs wanting a meal and a quiet drink.”

  The slightly worried look did not leave the innkeeper’s shiny, round face. “And that?” he asked, nodding at Warrl, sprawled beside her on the stone floor, panting.

  “All he wants is about two tradeweight of meat scraps and bones—more meat than bone, please, and no bird bones. A big bowl of cool water. And half a loaf of barley bread.”

  :With honey,: prompted the voice in her head.

  You want honey in this heat?

  :Yes,: Warrl said with finality.

  “With honey,” she amended. “Split the loaf and pour it down the middle.”
>
  You’re going to get it in your fur, and who’s going to have to help you get it out?

  :I will not!: Warrl gave her an offended glance from the floor.

  The innkeeper smiled a little. Tarma grinned back. “Damn beast’s got a sweet tooth. What’s on the board tonight?”

  “Mutton stew, chicken fried or stewed, egg‘n’onion pie. Cheese bread or barley bread. Ale or wine.”

  “Which’s cooler?”

  The innkeeper smiled a little more. “Wine. More expensive and goes bad quicker, so we keep it deeper in cellar.”

  “Egg pie, cheese bread, and wine.” Tarma looked across the tiny table at Kethry, who was trying to knot her amber hair up off her neck and having no great success. Kethry nodded shortly. “White wine, if you’ve got it. For two.”

  “You be staying?” The apprehensive look was back.

  “No,” Tarma raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t like to slander a man’s homeplace, but your town’s got a bad name for travelers, Keeper. I don’t doubt we could take care of anyone thinking to shake us down, but it would make an almighty mess in your clean inn.”

  The innkeeper heaved a visible sigh of relief. “My mind exactly, swordlady. I seen a few mercs in my time—and you two look handier than most. But you dealin’ with Gorley’s bullyboys would leave me out of pocket for things broke—more than losin’ your night’s lodging is gonna cost me.”

  Tarma looked around the common room, and was mildly surprised to see that they were the only occupants other than a scruffy, curly-pated minstrel-type tucked up in one corner. She dismissed that one without a second thought. Too skinny to be any kind of fighter, so he wasn’t one of Gorley’s enforcers; dark of hair and dusky of skin, so he wasn’t local. And he blinked in a way that told her he was just a tad shortsighted. No threat.