Covenants

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COVENANTS

by

Lorna Freeman

TROOPER

A horse soldier, Rabbit is nothing but a grunt in the Royal Army of Iversterre. A lost grunt, seeing as how his unit can't seem to find its way out of the mountains. But help comes from an unexpected source: a Faena—or "magical"—from the Border kingdom.

NOBLE

The Faena, a mountain cat named Laurel, blows Rabbit's cover. Turns out he's not just some poor Border farm boy turned trooper, but the son of Iversterre nobility. And their chance meeting is nothing of the kind. Laurel needs Rabbit's help to stop a war.

MAGE

Smugglers from Iversterre have been making runs into the Border, killing its sacred beings. It's enough to make even the calmest Border-born angry. Especially Rabbit. For he's been keeping another secret about himself. And it's about to explode—in a big way....

The Border trounced Iversterre once. It will happen again. Unless Rabbit can keep his cool and learn the rules of a game he's never wanted to play...

To my mom and dad,

who would always buy me books

instead of candy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Just like giving birth, a project of this size and magnitude (not to mention blood, sweat and tears) is more of a joint effort man solo performance, and my gratitude to all who put up with me as I started my way through it. I especially want to thank Tod Goldberg, teacher, mentor, and writer, who not only opened all the right doors, but shoved me through them; and John Schimmel, Jody Heaston, Sara Robinson, and David Elliott, who were with me for the entire birthing process.

We were lost. We'd been on a routine patrol, just like hundreds of others, but this time, while making sure the mountains above the small town of Freston were bandit free, we had somehow mislaid the way back. I was scouting ahead of my troop, volunteered by my troop mates on account of me being from the Border—a child of the Earth or some nonsense that was always showing up in children's pantomimes and street dramas. Nonsense or not, after over a week wandering about without any sign of a familiar landmark, my captain was desperate enough to half believe that I could find a way home by smell and how leaves grew on trees. My tracking skills, though, were learned in low-lying forest, not above the timberline where the only thing that grew taller than grass was some feeble-looking scrub. I had no idea where we were and didn't know how to get one.

I headed up a trail that looked like one we had gone up a couple times the previous day, a few more times the day before, and at least once the day before that. My horse climbed it with easy familiarity, he and the path having become so well acquainted, and he needed no urging to stop once we reached the crest. I hunched my shoulders against the biting spring wind, turned my horse to reexplore the lea, and found myself staring at the Faena standing before me as he contemplated me back.

There were all sorts of holy folk and vicars in the Border, each with their own lore and ritual that were just different enough to cause fights whenever they came together. Once, when I was a child, I watched wide-eyed at a Solemn Assembly as the Witch Gless went flying by upside down, held by the ankles by invisible hands with his ceremonial robes down around his ears because he insisted on a pause in the invocation that Rises With The Dawn found blasphemous.

But nobody messed with the Faena.

Faena came from all the Border races. Part priest, part intercessor, part justicer, they were the warp that the wool of the Border was woven into. Faena went out before the Border's army during the last war with Iversterre, chanting and singing praises. They all came back. Most of Iversterre's Royal Army did not. The one who strode the Weald around my family's stead was an ash tree sprite who took on a nest of trappers after a wolf petitioned her on account of the pelts the trappers had who were once kin of his.

When she was finally through with them, the trappers were preaching piety, purity and the sanctity of the land. Did I say that no one messed with the Faena?

This one was a mountain cat.

He stood on two legs, a bit taller than me, with different-colored beads and feathers woven into his tawny head fur and attached to pointed ears. His amber eyes caught the sun and glowed as his tail twitched and played in the breeze. Seeing he had my attention, he reached under his coat into a side pouch and produced a napkin that he unwrapped, revealing a couple of honeycakes. I dismounted and smoothed the creases out of my tabard.

"Rabbit," I said, pressing my hands together.

"Laurel," he rumbled, pressing his paws.

"You stride this place?" I asked.

"For now," Laurel replied. He smiled, showing sharp teeth, and offered the honeycakes again. I reached out and took one; he took the other and sat down to eat.

I hunkered down beside him doing the same, keeping a tight hold on my horse's reins in case he took a notion to bolt. But he was unfazed by my eating companion and merely reached down for a mouth of grass. Finished with the honeycake, Laurel twisted to the side, produced a waterskin and drank a long swallow before offering it to me. I took it—the water was cool going down my throat and I sighed when I was done, wiping my mouth. Handing the skin back, I took a breath to to speak but then heard hooves against stone and solid earth. This time I twisted around to see my troop coming up the trail.

"There he is. Sir," Lieutenant Groskin said.

While the Border wasn't exactly a bastion of tolerance, most learned to leave alone what left you alone—and if someone was minded to share food and drink, you figured that you'd just been given a chance to strike one of many meal covenants. They could last anywhere from an hour to as long as both your bloodlines should live. Fiat. So it didn't bother me, a human, to be eating and drinking with someone who licked his claws clean with delicate swipes of a cat's tongue—but it did upset the troop. There was a lot of unbuckling, loosening and handling of weapons as they surrounded us.

Captain Suiden leaned forward in his saddle. "What's going on, Rabbit?”

I stood up and shook my pants legs down. Darn uniform never seemed to hang right.

"We're lost," I replied. I heard the snicks of helm visors being lowered and hurried up my explanation.

"And I figured that this person could help us find our way out of here, sir.”

The captain stared at me. "How do you know it won't lead us to its cooking pot?"

'Too right," Groskin muttered.

I opened my mouth but before I could say anything, Laurel Faena stood. His beads and feathers clacked, shifted and fluttered as he made a graceful bow to the captain, his tail balancing out behind him. He had acquired a tall, carved staff, also adorned with feathers, beads and knotted cloth, that he held in one paw. He gave a shorter bow to me, one paw touching his mouth, then chest. I knew it, food treaty. I did the same, feeling the weight of everyone's stares. Straightening from my bow, I watched Laurel walk up to and then through the barrier the troopers made with their horses, only to run into our lieutenant.

Lieutenant Groskin had been assigned to the mountain patrol because somewhere in his army past he had been a bully to the wrong people; so he was only being himself when he leaned on his pommel, hand on his sword hilt, a nasty smile on his face.

"And where do you think you're going—" The lieutenant broke off, surprised, as his horse Fiend (it fit) sort of side-hopped out of the way, gave a soft whicker and reached out to gently nip Laurel's ear as the cat passed.

"Well, now, that's famous," Trooper Jeffen whispered next to me.

I kept my face straight as we all turned and followed the Faena as if he pulled us on strings. He stopped at the edge of the same steep trail that I and later my mates had just come up, and pointed. A moan rose up from the troop and I lost all desire to laugh.

We had been up and down that pox-rotted path for several days, each time seeing nothing but mountain and more mountain, and now all of a sudden there was the trail leading to the road that flowed down the mountainside into the patchwork of farms, groves and estates that surrounded Freston as it nestled in its bowl-like valley. In the town itself we could see the green of gardens, squares and tree-lined avenues against the red roof tiles of homes, the blue of businesses, and the gold of government. We could make out the caravans traveling up the King's Road to the Kingsgate, which opened onto the main marketplace. We could even see the faded purple tiles of the Royal Garrison near the Westgate, and in the middle of the walled town, the silver and crystal spires of the church rose tall, blazing with the reflected light of the sun. All hard to miss. We stared, hearing the hoots and jeers that would greet us when we got back to the base.

Recovered from his encounter with the Faena, Groskin sidled his horse up to the captain's. "An ambush by a magical would go down much better than us saying we've been chasing our arses for the last week.

Sir. In plain view of home. Sir.”

Captain Suiden turned and looked long and hard at Laurel, who looked back at the captain, his face calm. Our captain then let out a sigh and kneed his horse.

"Tell the men to move it out, Lieutenant." He started down the trail, the wind blowing his horse's tail behind them like a streamer.

Groskin barely got the words out before the entire troop was behind the captain, fighting hard not to be in front of the captain. I let out my own breath, and mounted my horse. As I started to follow the troop, I felt a brush against my palm. I looked in my hand and saw a red feather, then turned and looked at Laurel Faena, who was looking straight back at me. He once more touched his mouth, then heart; then he reached up and touched the feathers remaining on his staff. I had just obligated me and any offspring I'd have forever and ever. Oh, hell. Fiat.

"Eyes forward, trooper," Lieutenant Groskin said from behind me.

I turned to the front again and Groskin pulled even.

"You're so sodding heedless, Rabbit," he began. "That thing—"

"Laurel Faena, sir," I said.

"—could have had you six ways from Feast Day without raising a sweat—if it sweated."

"We had pacted a meal covenant, sir.”

"Covenant. With a magical." Groskin looked over at me and saw the feather. "Is it serious?"

I nodded. "Yes, sir.”

"What have you gotten yourself into, Rabbit?" Lieutenant Groskin frowned. "Will it involve the troop?”

"Don't know, sir. All of us were lost and now all are going home.”

"Bloody poxy damnation," Lieutenant Groskin said, running his hand over his face. "We'll have to tell the captain—and the commander when we get back. After everyone stops laughing."

"Yes, sir," I said. I swore I heard the wind snickering.

It wasn't as bad as we thought it would be when we got back to the garrison that afternoon. It was worse.

A day or so late and Commander Ebner figured we just got held up by a bit of nature, like a rockslide or sudden storm. Three days late and he worried that we had injuries or somehow lost horses. Eight days late and he knew that there was an all-out war going on in the mountains and he was going to our rescue.

He was mounted, having just given the speech to the men about how they rode to avenge our massacre, when we came through the garrison gates into the horse yard. As soon as he saw us, he cried out, his mustache quivering with relief. It stopped vibrating, though, as he saw there were no bandages, bruises or any other sign of our epic struggle to win free so we could warn the town of the massed hordes sweeping down on it. We didn't even have a shaving nick.

"Captain Suiden," Commander Ebner said. His voice echoed in the yard.

"Sir!" our captain replied.

"Over a week late, Captain," the commander stated.

"Yes, sir!"

"Well?”

It was fascinating to see how the laughter started in the far corners of the yard and moved inward, sort of like the reverse of a stone's ripples in a pond. By the time Captain Suiden finished telling how we wandered the mountains, unable to find the trail home, our would-be rescuers were holding their sides as they gasped and wheezed and swayed in their saddles. The laughter stopped, though, as Suiden got to the part of meeting the Faena and I held my breath until I realized that he was going to leave out the meal covenant. Many of the more straight-laced lads already looked sideways at me because of my Border upbringing. I didn't want them to know that I'd made a pact with someone they wouldn't hesitate to call demonic. I curled my fingers around the feather I still held in my hand, praying hard that no one in my troop had overheard me tell Groskin. Or Groskin tell Suiden.