THE SOUL WEAVER

by Carol Berg

  The air grew cooler as we moved slowly upward, and for the first time in weeks no storm broke in the afternoon. A breeze rippled the leagues of grass to either side of the road like an emerald sea. Gerick took over driving the cart, and despite the constant jolting, I fell into a drowsy reminiscence of Windham. Telling Gerick about those days had made the memories incredibly vivid. I could almost hear Karon’s robust baritone harmonizing with Martin’s off-key bass on a particularly bawdy song at a Long Night fete. When I laughed aloud at the memory of it, I felt Gerick’s eyes on me. My skin grew hot. Certain that he would ask what amused me so, I tried to decide if telling him the words to the song would be at all proper for a mother to a youthful son.

  But his question, when it came, was very odd. “Why do you wear your hair so short?” He was gazing at me with the strangest expression - part curiosity, part wonder, part terror - and had let the reins go slack. The cart was rolling to a stop.

  “Here, you’d best keep us moving or the others will pull their wagons around, and we’ll have to eat dust.” I snatched the reins from his still hands and gave the pony a flick so that we started moving again.

  He continued to stare at me, his question hanging in the air like an annoying bee.

  “On the day they executed your father, they cut off all my hair,” I said at last, trying to shove aside the accompanying images of fire and horror. “It’s the Leiran custom for public penance. By the time it grew back again, I was living in circumstances that left me no leisure to take care of it. It was easier to keep it short.” I had never let it grow past my shoulders again.

  “You wore it very long before they cut it.”

  I couldn’t tell whether that was a statement or a question. “It had been cut off so short only once before, when I was six and Tomas stuck tar in it.”

  Gerick didn’t laugh, nor did he ask any more questions that day. He pulled his cloak around his shoulders and rode in tight silence, jerking himself awake whenever his head nodded. Radele rode just behind us, his eyes fixed on Gerick’s back.

  Eight days into our journey, our road crested the Cerran Brae. The climb, though not horribly steep, was long and steady, wandering alongside a marshy riverbank between enclosing ridges. Grumbling that the pleasant early days of the journey had left us laggard, the drovers pushed the party hard, as we would find no ground suitable for making camp until we reached the drier Leiran side of the pass. But the failing light forced them to call a halt soon after we’d crossed, rather than farther down the Leiran side as was usual.

  We camped in a long, narrow meadow, hemmed in by steep ridges on two sides, and by the pass behind us. The little valley necked down tightly, the lower end of the road and a dribbling stream crowding between the encroaching ridges before passing into the thickly treed forest of Tennebar. Early summer was cold so high on the mountain, and a blustering wind funneled through the pass and the valley, setting shirts and cloaks billowing wildly.

  “Pull up there in that hollow,” said Sanger, the principal drover, whose neck was as wide as his head. He sat his horse across the road while directing each of the groups of travelers to follow his wagons into the meadow. “The vintner and the trappers will set up between you and my wagons tonight.”

  Gerick nodded and clucked to the pony, heading for the grassy depression the drover had indicated, just off the road. I wondered why the change in procedure. On other nights Sanger had allowed everyone to set up wherever they pleased.

  “You’ll be north picket on third watch,” the drover said to Radele as the trap jounced across the short, dry tufts of grass. “We’ll need your boy, as well. He’s not stepped up as yet, but we’re using everyone tonight. I’ve a bad feeling about this place. Too high. Too many notches in them rocks.”

  “Third watch,” said Radele nodding. “I’ll try to persuade the boy… my student… to do his share.”

  Gerick slapped the reins harder than required to move the pony along.

  One by one, the traveling parties passed by us. By the time Paulo and his string of horses scuffed up the dust, following the vintner’s wagons and the trappers’ mule train toward the center of the camp as Sanger directed him, Gerick and Radele had unhitched the trap. While I unloaded our packs, Gerick rubbed down the pony, and Radele strolled over to the scraggly stand of pine across the road to hunt for firewood. He emerged a short time later dragging a dead sapling.

  As I rummaged through our supplies, wishing I had something to cook that was more savory than the barley porridge we’d eaten for three nights running, Radele suddenly dropped his tree in the middle of the road and came racing across the meadow through the dusk, shouting, “Riders!” His tone left no question as to his opinion of the intentions of those approaching.

  The word flew through the camp like leaves blown on the chilly gusts. Men shouted harsh commands and grabbed the halters of horses left to graze. Women snatched their pails from the spring and ran back to their parties. A few people like me stood stupidly peering at the road where nothing was visible as yet.

  “Get back to the wagons, my lady,” said Radele, pelting into our grassy depression. “You’ll not be safe out here.”

  From the back of our little cart he snatched a long canvas bundle that he threw to the ground at Gerick’s feet. “You’ve trained with the masters, eh? Time to put your skills to some decent use.”

  At the same time, Sanger barreled up on his big sorrel. “What’s going on?”

  “Riders on the lower road,” said Radele, already buckling the saddle girth under his bay. “At least twenty, coming fast enough they’re up to no good. If we get your soldiers and the vintner’s men down there where the road narrows, we can stop them before they come up this far.”

  “How could you - ?”

  “I’ve exceptional hearing,” snapped Radele.

  Shouts and pointing fingers told me that the sudden rumbling in my belly was not growing anxiety, but the drumming of hoofbeats. Radele was in the saddle before I could blink. He drew his sword and motioned to three of the Vallorean magistrates and the stonemason and his assistant, who had ridden up behind Sanger. “Muster your riders!” shouted Radele. “These fellows and I will hold until you get there!” And he and the five travelers took off for the neck of the valley.

  Sanger rode back toward the center of camp, but instead of dispatching riders to follow Radele, he shouted and waved at his soldiers, the vintner’s men, and the trappers to stay right where they were. Now I understood his placement of the camp. Sanger wanted his back to the solid cliffs on the southwest and his left flank protected by the little bogs and springs that dotted the heart of the meadow. And he wanted the most interesting prey such as wine casks and pelts - and their sturdy defenders - in between his levy wagons and any assault from the road. Parties like ours and the Valloreans and the Leiran man and wife were left on the outskirts of the camp. Expendable distractions.

  For a moment Gerick stared at the bundle Radele had thrown at his feet, making no move to open it. Then, he snapped his head from me to Radele and his riders, streaking down the road, to Sanger and his soldiers, taking up their positions about the heart of the camp.

  “Come on,” he said, touching my arm. “We need to find Paulo.” Before I could question or object or think of what else to do, he took off running for the flat grassy area near a spring where Paulo had hobbled his horses and left them to graze.

  I followed. Paulo caught sight of us before we were halfway to the spring. My feet slowed when my boots squelched in a mud hole. My heart slowed when I saw Paulo leading Gerick’s Jasyr and his own Molly, already saddled. “Wait,” I said. “We need to consider - ”

  “Take care of my mother,” said Gerick, grabbing my arm and shoving it into Paulo’s grasp, while snatching Jasyr’s bridle.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I said. I wasn’t used to being handed about by striplings.

  “You and Paulo need to get behind the soldiers’ line.” Gerick was already in Jasyr’s
saddle. “It’s the safest place. If the Dar’Nethi can’t hold the neck of the valley, then anyone outside that line is dead.”

  Faint cries and a rising dust cloud from the eastern end of the road told us that the fight was engaged.

  “We’d best warn the rest of the folk, then,” said Paulo.

  “Just take care of my mother.”

  A knot of terror caught in my throat as Gerick wheeled the gray and kicked him to a gallop across the meadow. But when he reached the road, he turned, not toward the battle raging at the lower end of the valley, but the opposite way, back toward the pass. My skin flushed with relief that my son was not riding into harm’s way, yet at the same time another, more uncomfortable, feeling swelled within me. What was he doing?

  “My lady, come along with me.” Paulo yanked his quarterstaff from the straps that lashed it alongside Molly’s saddle, then whispered in the mare’s ear and slapped her flank, sending her back toward the open pasture. He whistled after her, and she whinnied cheerfully. Then he took my arm and tugged gently. “We’d best hurry.”

  The two of us herded the Leiran man and wife, the fourth Vallorean magistrate - a gaping, big-bellied man - and the other Vallorean travelers toward Sanger and his levy wagons. The granite ramparts that flanked the meadows eerily amplified the clash of weapons, and the shouts and screams of men and horses from down the valley.

  Though the soldiers and guards allowed us to pass through their line, they made no move to aid the panicked travelers. Those travelers unarmed or unfit we situated under the wagons, while setting the better equipped to stand in front of them. I refused to crouch underneath, but climbed atop the roped pyramid of vintner’s casks where I could see what was going on. My knife was in my hand.

  I was a Leiran warrior’s daughter, and I had been taught that refusal to fight was cowardice. After Karon’s arrest, when he had invoked the principles of a lifetime and refused to harm another person to save his own life or the lives of his child or his friends, my instincts and upbringing had named him a coward. After long and painful years, I believed that I had come to terms with Karon’s convictions. But now it seemed that Gerick, too, had run away, leaving his companions to defend themselves.

  As I tried to devise some other explanation - he’d detected some other threat or he was circling around to take the bandits by stealth - Radele and a single rider raced up the valley road, hotly pursued by at least twenty mounted raiders, whooping and yelling. The battle quickly engulfed us. The frenzied bandits on their squat ponies swarmed through the camp, raising a horrific din: thudding boots, pounding hooves, roars and screams of men, grunts and squeals of beasts, the clangor of weapons.

  An ax-wielding man on a shaggy, thick-chested pony charged from the choking dust and noise straight toward our position, a ragged green scarf flapping about his head. Paulo stiffened and gripped his staff with both hands. I crouched low just behind him, clutching my knife. But before the outlaw could reach us, a passing soldier in pursuit of another bandit slashed at the charging beast’s legs with his greatsword. The pony squealed and skidded. The rider leaped free, twisting in the air, and crashed to the dirt just in front of Paulo.

  But the now-vanished soldier had only postponed the assault, for the snarling bandit scrambled away from the fallen beast and leaped to his feet. With a blood-chilling cry, he raised his ax over Paulo’s head. Paulo lifted his staff and braced for the blow. Yet in a sudden onslaught of man and horse and flashing silver, the bandit pitched forward before he could strike, his face thudding into the ground as Radele severed his spine with a sweeping blow. Radele’s mount reared, and the Dar’Nethi raised his bloody sword in salute before vanishing again into the fray. The bandit’s green scarf had been torn away by the trampling hooves.

  That was as close as Paulo and I came to harm. Paulo did not stir from my side, and though his staff remained ready, he did not have to wield it in my defense.

  The raid faltered quickly. Radele seemed to be everywhere at once, appearing out of the gloom wherever the press was hardest, his fair hair gleaming, his blade shining silver in the torchlight, brighter by far than any other. One after another, he took the bandits down, while the drover and his stolid men held their line.

  Night swallowed the ragged remnant of the bandit horde. As the fighters drew harsh breaths and the wounded moaned, travelers crawled slowly out from under the wagons and wandered off through the trampled grass, searching for their companions, picking up scattered belongings, lighting fires and torches. The soldiers invited Radele to join them at their fire, any disagreement about tactics seemingly soothed by victory.

  “I’d be better occupied to scout the valley perimeter, I think,” said Radele, patting the neck of his panting horse. “And I need to cool this fellow down.”

  I dressed the slashed hand of the stonemason as he wept for his dead assistant, his sister’s only son, while Paulo bandaged the arm of the fat Vallorean magistrate, who sat rigid with shock and uncertain how to proceed. His three companions had died at the neck of the valley. Only Radele and the stonemason had survived their venture. But everyone agreed that their efforts had weakened the bandits so they could be finished easily.

  Sanger set up the watch and appointed parties to bury the dead: two Vallorean travelers and one of the vintner’s men in addition to the four lost with Radele. Nineteen dead bandits were left on the rocks for the wolves to find. Two prisoners were bound to the sides of the levy wagons and would remain there until we reached Montevial - if they stayed alive so long.

  “Where’s the young Lord?” said Radele, slipping from his saddle as I set a pot over the hot little fire Paulo had built for me. Our own camp had remained relatively undisturbed in the raid. I had collected our few ripped and dirty blankets and dented pots scattered as the raiders fled.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “He had something needed doing,” said Paulo, giving a last poke to the coals and standing up. Though anxious to see to his stock, he had refused to leave me until Gerick or Radele returned. “He’ll be back.”

  Radele’s gray tunic was splattered with blood, but his face was impassive as he looked around the campsite, his eyes settling on the canvas bundle that lay untouched beside the cart where he had thrown it. The young sorcerer picked up the bundle and unfolded the flaps of cloth, revealing a plain steel hilt protruding from a worn leather sheath. “I noticed he doesn’t wear a blade. Evidently my spare sword wasn’t suitable.”

  Paulo bristled. “He don’t have to - ”

  “That’s enough, Paulo,” I said sharply. I didn’t need them arguing. Not tonight. “We’ve a long journey still to go.”

  Paulo snatched his quarterstaff from the ground and strode out of the camp.

  Radele unsaddled his horse and rubbed him down before allowing him to graze, soothing him with soft words as he worked. When the horse was calmly crunching the dry grass alongside our unrattled pony, he joined me at the fire, a waterskin in his hand. He sat heavily on the ground, downed half the contents of his waterskin, and poured another good measure over his matted hair, rubbing his face and head vigorously.

  “Will you eat something?” I had made up our barley porridge, but thrown in a precious lump of sugar, a handful of currents, and a thick glob of butter to make it more appetizing.

  He flashed a grin. “I’ll eat my boots if there be naught else, but this smells far better.”

  He took the bowl, devouring its contents before I’d set the pot back on the fire. As we talked of the dead and injured travelers and prospects for the journey ahead, he ate all that was left.

  “You fought bravely tonight,” I said later, as I cleaned the pot and bowls and packed them away. “You’ll likely gain no glory in either world from this battle, but your Prince will hear of your deeds.”

  Radele was cleaning his sword. “To be honest, my lady, for a Dar’Nethi to brawl with such as we met tonight takes little courage. The only enemies that measure a man are those that come out of Zhev
’Na.” He ran his oily rag the length of his gleaming blade and did not look up.

  Slowly the camp settled into exhausted quiet, the soft voices of men as they traded off the watch joining the shrieks of hunting birds and the distant howls of wolves. Though weary to the bone, I could not sleep. Sometime after the watch changed, I heard the creak of heavy-laden wheels and the slow scuff of boots on the hard road down from the pass. After a quiet exchange with the watch, the smith and his family moved to a patch of open ground a short distance from us. They must have dropped to the bare ground to sleep.

  Blanket around my shoulders, I sat up and squinted into the darkness, hoping to see one more rider. Though I waited as long as I could hold my eyes open, he did not come.

  When I woke to the drowsy bustle of breaking camp, Gerick was hitching the pony to the cart. Jasyr was nowhere in sight, back in Paulo’s string I guessed.

  “So, you’re back,” I said, throwing my bundled blanket in the cart. “It’s jack and ale for breakfast.”

  “Hmm.” He yanked at the buckles on the wither straps and girth. He didn’t look at me.

  I kicked dirt over the glowing ashes of our fire, and then gathered up the rest of our belongings and tucked them under the seat, leaving the bag of dried meat and a flask of ale where Gerick could get them when he was ready. I didn’t know what to say to him. Fear, shame, and frustration had me ready to shake him until his teeth rattled. And so I decided that until I was in better control of my own feelings, I’d best avoid a confrontation. I climbed into the cart.

  Radele hurried into camp from the direction of the stream, his hair dripping and face clean, wishing us a good morning as he swung himself into his saddle. For Gerick’s part, the Dar’Nethi might not have existed. My son jumped up beside me; I clucked to the pony, and we rolled out.