Shade of Honor: From the Federal Witch Series (Standard of Honor Series Book 1)
Page 4
When Zhanna opened her mouth to continue the argument, Stefan threw a hand up to close her off. He said, “It’s a meaningless point because we don’t field women in our mercenary groups. We would have to spend too much time protecting you. We are not willing to do that. So go back to your grandmother, girl, and figure out your options. Do what women have always done to survive, figure out what poor man that you’re going to marry.”
Zhanna was incandescent with fury. The pounding of her throat felt like it should be audible to the man standing six feet away from her. The rush of blood to her head felt like it was going to burst out of her ears and nose. She could tell even through the red-tinged vision that she had very little possibility of changing his mind. Taking a deep breath, Zhanna released the anger that his words and attitude had brought to her.
Spinning on her heel and heading off toward the village, she resolved not to speak with him or any of the men at the village on the subject again. They had made their decisions, she was still making hers.”
Still fuming Zhanna entered the small square of the village. She just didn’t know where to go, but she was determined to learn. Seeing a group of women sitting in a rough circle in the sun and doing some form of handwork, Zhanna made her way across the square, carefully avoiding running children and the fruit carts of the daily market.
“Zhanna, it’s nice to see you. We are also sorry about your brother,” a middle-aged woman called out.
It was Marina, the mother of one of Zhanna’s former schoolmates. A pleasant and calm woman, Marina had lost three sons to mercenary dangers and had two daughters that have been married out of the village. Her surviving two boys and the one daughter that still lived at home had become the whole focus of her life. Zhanna was pretty sure that Marina wouldn’t be able to provide her with the information she needed, but she was willing to try.
“I was just talking to Stefan, and he said that women can not be mercenaries. Marina, is that true?”
“Well, we haven’t had any female mercenaries for quite a few years. Although there were many in my grandfather’s day, there are so few jobs that the men get first rights.”
“Oh! I didn’t realize that Stefan would see another mercenary as competition for the jobs that he needs for his family. That puts a whole new complexion on it.”
Marina responded, “Yes. All of the men in the village will see that as competition. Plus which, mixed units are more expensive to field. Separate quarters, a different distribution of duties, and different views on what contracts are to be accepted.”
This last comment brought Zhanna up short. “What do you mean about the types of contracts accepted?”
One of the other women, a widow named Yana with two sons that were part of the mercenary group chimed in, “The mercenary groups have to agree on the contracts. Women have a different viewpoint and different expectations when it comes to what is or is not acceptable. This bothers some of the men, and so they don’t want to deal with the arguments that can ensue.”
Marina added, “Women have a different sense of honor. In some ways I think men never outgrow their sense of playing with toy soldiers. They don’t see most of the people in conflict as real. The lack of sympathy has changed the contracts that our men accept because it becomes a pure business deal. Like a merchant who sells you blue beads but not red beads. Like a storekeeper that sells you 1 pound of peas. This way they have a defined size of the engagement, and they agree on how much it will cost. They don’t let the needs of real people, even the practical sense of the situation, to intrude.”
Zhanna said musingly, “Oh, so without the ability to see the real people involved, contracts are enforced strictly, and no extra effort or service is ever done. It is a method, a way of working, that shows how far we have fallen. This seems to me to be a system without honor, without even common sense.”
“I don’t think that strictly true, Zhanna,” interjected Yana, “Say instead that all they have is a shade of honor.”
“Do you mean a shadow of honor, a reflection of what should be there?”
The older woman responded, sadly, “No, it is a shade of honor. To get a shadow, one must have a good understanding of what is going to cast a shadow. At this point, all we have is the ghosts, the shades of our previous life to go on. Less substantial than a shadow, a shade holds our best guess.”
“I know where you can find someone to train you!” one of the other women interjected. It was a former classmate of Zhanna’s, a young wife by the name of Kseniya. “One of the traders that came to the town six months ago was talking about this woman mercenary and how she got a huge bonus and bought a bunch of his goods. She was from the village of Kalizov, and that’s only 12 miles away.”
“That’s right! I’ve forgotten about that,” contributed Marina. “I had heard about several female mercenaries from that village. Perhaps, Zhanna, you can get one of them to train you. At least they know that women can be mercenaries.”
“Then I think that’s where I need to go. Thank you, thank you all.”
A chorus of idi s Bogom, or go with God, followed Zhanna as she hurried back to tell her grandmother what she had planned.
<<<>>>
Zhanna waited until the following morning before setting off for Kalizov. The 12-mile walk was tiring, but for village girl like Zhanna traveling a long distance by foot was nothing new. It would have been far more boring, and possibly more dangerous, but Dascha kept an animated discussion of strange details, animals and reminisces going the whole way. Despite a very early morning departure, it was almost noon when Zhanna arrived at Kalizov. Bolormaa had packed a lunch for Zhanna, and the weary woman sat down next to the fountain to eat it.
She had not even gotten through half of her food before a group of three came over to confront her. The slightly taller woman in the front was obviously the leader. She had that aura of self-assurance, the underlying attitude that everybody will listen to her, that Zhanna had seen in most of the people in authority in her life.
Glaring at Zhanna, the woman demanded, “Why are you here, witch? We have no room in our village for those such as you.”
Zhanna carefully put her food down next to her and managed a respectful nod of the head toward the woman. “A good day to you, headwoman, she started. “I am from Yarorbash village, and it was suggested that I come here to find if there might be one of your female mercenaries that would be willing to teach me.”
She was surprised to see not even a trace of welcome or interest in the woman’s face. Lashing out with her right foot, the woman sent Zhanna’s meager meal into the dirt. “I say to you again, we have no room for anyone like you here.”
Concealing her anger and upset at this treatment, Zhanna rose to her feet. Before she could do or say anything, the trio followed up with an unexpected set of magical attacks. Small darting arrows of heat and light peppered Zhanna with burning injuries, waves of exhaustion slammed into her as one of the women pushed sleep at her again and again. Intuitively, Zhanna raised magical hands in front of her, trying to protect her face and chest.
Zhanna was already tired, exhausted from the long walk to the village, disheartened by the antagonistic reception. The attacks did not seem to be letting up, and Zhanna could feel her muscles starting to tremble and her makeshift shield starting to thin out. The third woman was trying to maneuver to get to Zhanna’s back when Dascha appeared, hissing and snarling. The battle had now changed. Zhanna finally had an ally.
With the familiar at her side, Zhanna was holding her own. Still tired, still operating on intuition, Zhanna found that maintaining the protection was easier now that Dascha was close to her. There would be no help for Zhanna here. She had no idea what had caused the reaction in the village, but she didn’t like how they conducted their business. The bullying of the women and the unprovoked attack felt wrong. Leaving and going home was obviously the best choice she could make. However, when she tried to leave, the three witches increased their attacks. The le
vel was high enough that it was now difficult for even Dascha to protect her. In a moving battle, Zhanna was at a disadvantage. She had no way of protecting her back effectively, and she had to move to get out of the village. It seemed like she was stuck.
The air was rent by the screech of an unknown creature. The strange form of Petra was suddenly in the middle of the combatants. Reaching out unimaginably long arms, Petra grabbed two of the witches and slammed their heads together, dropping them onto the ground. Jumping over the top of Zhanna’s head to intersperse her body between the remaining attacker and Zhanna, Petra yelled back to Zhanna, “Go, go! I will take care of them here.”
That interruption was just the thing that Zhanna needed to turn and flee. The last glimpse that Zhanna had of the Kalizov Square was of Petra dunking the leader of her attackers head first into the fountain.
That amusing and satisfying site created the energy for speedy steps in a strategic withdrawal. Zhanna would go back home and figure out what to do next. If she couldn’t find somebody to train her, she would have to learn by herself.
Chapter 5
All that Zhanna could hear in the stunned silence was the dripping of water. Water dripping everywhere. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Her hair was plastered to her face, and she reached up a hand to clear her vision. The cavern was now decorated with dripping water, fragments of vegetation, and one very pissed off familiar.
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The usually elegant Russian Blue cat looked like a skinny black drowned rat. Her eyes seem to have doubled in size, glaring beams of green flame at the sodden witch. Slowly, ever so slowly, the cat raised first one front paw and shook it, and then the other. A sharp ripping sound started to emanate from its chest, and the familiar appeared to grow in size.
A nimbus of green flame had surrounded the form of the feline before a swirl of invisible wind encircled it. Instead of a 15 pound, normal-looking cat, the creature that stretched and arched its back before deliberately pacing over toward Zhanna was the size of a cat seen last on the Earth a millennium before.
If sabertooth tigers had come in black, this is what they would’ve looked like. Dascha had totally transformed into her alternate shape. Her dense coat had a subtle striping to it with blue, black, and dark gray forming stripes that ran along the body. Easily measuring 12 feet from her nose to the end of her tail, Dascha’s head now came up to Zhanna’s shoulder. What had been a very upset small cat now was a whole lot more infuriated feline.
At last, Dascha found her voice, producing a thundering roar in Zhanna’s head and an earsplitting caterwaul that echoed around the cavern.
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The cat looked around the cavern, noting broken stalactites, translocated fish that were gasping their last breath, and the continued dripping of water. Pinning her green-eyed gaze on her witch, the familiar summed up her opinion succinctly, <>
Softening both her mental tone and audible snarling, the familiar continued,<
<<<>>>
Zhanna had arrived back home, soaked, discouraged and tired. Expecting to see her grandmother waiting for her, the weary witch was concerned when the house had an unoccupied feeling. Re-galvanized, Zhanna hurried through the small rooms looking for her grandmother. She finally found her in the seldom-used parlor, bent over a luminous bowl of what appeared to be glass.
It was a bowl that Zhanna had never seen before. In a small home with people with few possessions that was unusual. There was a discarded wrapping sitting next to her grandmother. Zhanna could see that it appeared to be a soft plush fabric. That was probably what had concealed the bowl before now. Her grandmother appeared to be deep in thought, stirring at the bowl intently. The old woman’s hands sent the swirl of water around and around in a soothing and comforting motion. Zhanna leaned over to see what was holding her grandmother’s attention.
She saw a confusing kaleidoscope of different pictures in the reflective water in the bowl. Random isolated images of her doing things, of her brother as a baby, Zhanna as an old woman, a strange man, two large horses, and a building that showed up again and again with the glow of magic surrounding it.
Zhanna jerked her head back to dispel the images, frightened by the rapidity of them and some of the things she saw herself doing in a few. Where on earth did she have these thoughts coming from? How on earth could her subconscious have ever come up with some like that?
She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to clear her brain, but the images were stuck, refusing to go away. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes only to find her grandmother staring at her.
The old woman looked sad and proud all at the same time. Reaching her hand out, she gently pressed Zhanna to sit next to her. Paying no attention to Zhanna’s damp clothing or to those small pieces of dying vegetation that seemed to be stuck everywhere, below asked, “are you all right? I saw your difficulties, but I have also seen you overcome them.”
Zhanna looked at the woman who had loved her, raised her, untangled her hair, and nursed her through a variety of childhood illnesses. That woman was very different from the wise seer that gazed at her from ageless eyes right now. There were so many questions she wanted to ask her grandmother, but she did not know where to start. The younger witch decided to answer instead.
“I am making progress, Baba. It is hard work, but I think I’m doing well. I just wish that we had more teachers for me.”
“It will come, child. I have seen it, and I know it to be true.”
<<<>>>
Zhanna had sought her bed early exhausted from her attempts at controlling her magic and her aching grief. She had thought to sort through her dead brother’s items so that she and her grandmother could gift those still usable items that might benefit someone of the village but the more she had touched Igor’s things, the more she had cried. Finally, she put them away. As she placed them on the small chest of drawers in the room that used to be his, a small box had slipped out and hit the floor with a clatter. It was the box that Krava had tossed to her as he was leaving. The one that he said contained a gift for her that had arrived the day after her brother died.
She had forgotten all about it, but now she was filled with curiosity. What on earth would Igor have bought for her? When she opened the box, she saw a delicate and beautiful belt. It was exquisite. Zhanna’s tears started to flow again. Just before he left, Igor had been teasing her about her poor taste in belt accessories. When she had snapped that there was no money for such frivolous things, he had gotten serious and apologetic. That argument had seemed so important at the time and so unimportant now. How could she have let that be the last thing they had done before he went away?
She took the belt out of the box and put it around her waist. It was made from an extremely soft and unusual leather, with intricate, layered designs and beautiful colors. Gorgeous it was, but Zhanna felt a little strange wearing it. <>
Figuring it would feel more normal the more she wore it, Zhanna left it on for the rest of the evening. She even forgot about it and wore it to bed. She needed the comfort of her brother’s presence right now, and if that meant wearing a belt to bed, she could deal with it.
It seemed like just a few secon
ds, between when she lay down in her bed, and her presence on the spirit plane. Standing at those crossroads looking around, she thought, <
There were six paths that led from the position that Zhanna was standing. Fairly evenly divided, they radiated out into different directions. One of the paths seemed to have a subtle glow to it, a partially felt ‘welcome here’ message. She didn’t know whether that was a good thing or bad thing, but on the spur of the moment, she decided to take that path. As soon as she had walked on it for a few feet, all of the other paths disappeared. Spinning in place, she looked back at the way she had come. The path ended right behind where she was standing. There were no crossroads in the distance, nothing but the path that she was walking on. <> she thought to herself. Drawing a deep breath, she went to explore what this new lesson on the spirit plane was going to bring.
It felt like she had just walked a few minutes, but the terrain was very different around her. Instead of a flat, featureless plane, there were small rolling hills and what appeared to be trees on either side of the road. Just ahead, there was a building, huge double doors open and a welcome and comforting flickering illumination that shown out the doors and partially down the path. Zhanna walked into the temple, for that’s what it was. She could see to the left where a chamber for listening to speakers was located. Filled with rows of benches and perfumed with the smell of burnt spice, the room reminded her of every house of worship she’d ever seen.