Authors: Victor Gischler
She’s going to throw me out. I was supposed to cook, not give fencing lessons. Women like her don’t put up with trouble like this
.
“Were any of the other girls hurt?” Mother asked.
“No, ma’am.”
A pause.
“Are they any good?”
Tosh blinked. “Ma’am?”
“The girls,” Mother said. “With the weapons.”
Tosh hadn’t been expecting the question, hadn’t even thought about the girls’ swordsmanship in those terms. It had become an activity to pass the time, exercise, nothing more. He had to think about it for an extra moment.
“They’re not bad, I suppose,” Tosh said. “Not like regular soldiers, mind you, but they’re coming along faster than I’d expected.”
“Why is that, do you think?”
Tosh wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. More dampened his armpits. “They’re better listeners, for one thing. Also, a lot of the men who join the army have already handled a weapon a little bit maybe, but they’ve learned wrong and picked up bad habits. So they need to be cured of that before they can learn the right way … which is to say the army way.”
“The girls are blank slates.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s a good way to put it.”
“And you’ve taught just those four?”
“Mostly them, but a couple of others too. But I
don’t
encourage it,” he added hastily. “Most of the girls don’t even know.”
She turned back to him, and Tosh saw that she fidgeted with a gold ring. It was thick and set with the seal of Klaar. A man’s ring. Mother rubbed it idly between a thumb and forefinger like some good luck charm.
Mother’s brow was knit, her face pulled down by a frown. “So they can be taught? They can get better?”
Tosh hesitated. “I … suppose. It’s not traditional in Klaar, but I’ve heard of plenty of places where women fight.”
Mother nodded, thoughts flickering behind her eyes. “Good.”
“Uh, ma’am?”
“What is it, Tosh?”
“Are you, uh, are you saying you want me to keep on teaching Tenni, Prinn and Darshia? After what happened to Freen, they might not be up for it anymore.”
“What I’m saying is that I want you to teach them
all
,” Mother said. “Every girl at the Wounded Bird. I want you to put swords in their hands and make them killers.”
Dawn bloomed on the horizon, washing the wide-open grasslands in pale orange light. Lonely and crooked trees a mile apart dotted the landscape like bent old men, their shadows stretching away from them in the burgeoning sun.
It was their third sunrise together since leaving the hidden gypsy valley. They were headed west and had camped the previous night in the waning tree line of the forest where it turned the landscape over to the rolling prairie ahead.
Alem squinted at the dawn as he looked back east. He stood with hands on hips, frowning back into the dark forest.
“Stop that.” Brasley slung his saddle onto his horse’s back, cinched it tight. “She says they aren’t following.”
Alem grunted, didn’t turn around.
“Tell him, Rina,” Brasley said.
Rina paused at her own horse where she’d been checking her saddlebags. She closed her eyes.
Alem turned his head slightly to look at her. He always watched her when she did the trick with the falcon, her face blank like she’d somehow frozen herself in time, existing apart from the rest of the world.
When Alem had first seen the tattoos around Rina’s eyes, he’d been mesmerized, had barely even heard Brasley’s jokes about Rina going native. He recalled the vision of her in the barn in Hammish, the tight lines of runes down her lithe back. Thinking about her this way made him light-headed. It was already too much and too ridiculous to find himself in love with a duchess. That she was also … what? A sorceress? It made the notion that she might ever return his feelings that much more farfetched.
Thicko. Idiot. Fool. Put it out of your mind. It’ll never happen
.
And yet, she didn’t treat him like a servant. It was clear she appreciated him, and more important, she trusted him. Two nights ago, when Brasley had gone to fetch water from the stream, she’d sat close to him by the fire, tilted her head toward his to speak in hushed tones.
“You saw the tattoo on my back,” she’d whispered. “In the barn back in Hammish. Didn’t you?”
He’d only nodded, afraid to speak, afraid that he’d seen something he shouldn’t have, that he possessed knowledge of which he wasn’t worthy. He felt oddly that he was being accused of something, but the feeling passed and was replaced with the peculiar honor one feels when trusted with a secret. Strange how honors and burdens are so often confused.
“The tattoos are magic,” she’d said simply. “Tell no one.”
“I won’t,” he’d said.
“That’s why I need to go to the Nomad Lands,” she’d explained. “To see a wizard.”
She’d paused, fixed him with eyes so sincere and needful that he’d thought he might weep. “Will you come with me?”
Alem had nodded. “Yes.”
And then their conversation had been cut short upon Brasley’s return.
Alem had not broached the subject again. But every time she closed her eyes to commune with the falcon, as she did now, Alem watched from the edge of his vision, hoping to glimpse a miracle, wanting to see what magic looked like.
Her eyes popped open, and she sucked in a deep breath of cold air the way she always did when coming back, like her body was starting up again.
“Klarissa’s people are still drawing them off to the south,” Rina said. “Even if they turned around right now and rode without stopping, it would take them three days to reach us.”
“See?” Brasley said. “Stop worrying like an old hen. Every time you look over your shoulder, you make me nervous.”
“Not nervous enough.” But Alem shrugged, tore his gaze away from the forest and mounted his own horse.
They rode at a slow gallop, a steady pace but nothing that would tire the horses too quickly. The land unfolded before them, rolling gently, hills not very high and valleys not too deep. The trees remained infrequent and far from one another as if each of the gnarled, rough-barked things had staked out its own territory. The sun rose, the sky stretching cloudless and startlingly blue in every direction.
They’d periodically slow the horses to a walk to let them rest, and it was during one of these periods that Alem reined in his mount suddenly and stopped. The others stopped too and looked back at him.
“She said they’ve been drawn off to the south by the gypsies,” Brasley reminded him. “I thought we’d put this particular worry to rest.”
“Just wait a minute, okay?”
Brasley looked to Rina, who shrugged. He sighed and slouched in his saddle.
They were in a wide, low area between two hills, the slopes very gradual. The three of them watched the prairie behind them for long minutes, and Alem was about to call it quits when a figure crested the hill in the distance, a lone rider on a large white horse.
Alem shot a glance back at Brasley. “See? I knew we were being followed.”
“Yes, your powers of clairvoyance are truly astounding. But that isn’t a Perranese column. It could be anyone. Or are we supposed to piss ourselves every time we see a lone rider in the distance?”
But there was little heat in Brasley’s sarcasm. The three of them continued to watch the rider with mild trepidation. He’d reined in his horse and sat atop the squat hill looking down at them. He was cloaked completely in black, hood pulled forward to obscure his face. His appearance seemed ominous for no other reason than his sudden materialization out in the middle of the wilderness, and after so many days of pursuit by the Perranese, nerves were on edge. The rider watched them for another brief moment, then wheeled his mount around, heading back the way he’d come and disappearing down the other side of the hill.
“Where’s he going?” Alem asked.
“Three of us and only one of him,” Brasley said. “Maybe we made him nervous.”
“We made
him
nervous?”
“There’s always the chance he’s just another traveler.”
“I’d feel better if we knew for sure,” Rina said.
“The falcon?” Alem suggested.
“He’s south, watching the Perranese,” Rina said. “I’ll call him back, but it will take time. I’m not sure I want to wait. That rider knows we’ve seen him now.”
“Then what do we do?” Brasley asked.
She turned her mount, kicked it lightly in the flanks and clicked her tongue, spurring the horse to a gallop. “We ride on.”
* * *
The sun sank, and the velvet night sky spread itself endlessly over the prairie, stars glittering bright, a tapestry cold and beautiful. In a dell near one of the gnarled trees, a small campfire glowed. Twenty yards away, another of the crooked trees grew uncharacteristically near the first.
The dark-cloaked rider on the white steed paused to watch the flickering scene. The semi-circle of horses blocked most of the rider’s view of the small camp, but a single silhouette could be seen moving in front of the fire, and likely the other two were close. It was a cold night.
The rider dismounted and left the horse behind. It was well-trained and wouldn’t wander. Sound traveled easily in the open grassland, and from beneath the dark overhanging limbs of the second tree it might be possible to overhear the conversation of the three travelers. This was the rider’s aim.
Approaching the camp called for stealth, and the rider didn’t hurry. Careful steps. Not a sound.
Once the rider was beneath the tree’s low limbs, Alem dropped from his hiding place, landing hard on the rider. He sensed Rina dropping from her spot a few feet away and Brasley running toward them from the campfire with a torch in his hand.
“I’ve got him,” Alem shouted.
He wrapped his arms around the rider, wrestling to get on top of him. He was slighter than he appeared within the billowing cloak, a small man. Alem climbed on top, and the figure beneath him uttered a high-pitched yelp.
That
didn’t sound right.
Alem threw back the rider’s hood just as Brasley arrived with the torch, illuminating the scene.
The rider was red haired, a light smattering of freckles across her nose, bright white skin and piercing green eyes.
“Maurizan!”
Maurizan sat hunched at the small fire, cupping a mug of weak herbal tea in both hands, cherishing the warmth.
She confessed she’d been following them since their hasty departure from the gypsy camp, shivering under a thin blanket every night because she’d worried a fire would give her away. Long days in the saddle. She admitted she hadn’t expected them to cover so many miles each day. When the gypsies traveled it was by slow-moving wagon caravan. Her meals had been cold jerky and hard biscuits.
“Following somebody without letting them see you is more difficult than I thought,” she said.
“Better we discovered you now than in a month when we’re halfway across Helva,” Brasley said. “It’s only three days back to your mother. You can start at first light.”
Alem frowned at Brasely but said nothing.
“I don’t want to go back,” Maurizan said.
Brasley shrugged. “Too bad.”
Maurizan’s fierce eyes stabbed at Brasley. “If you send me away, I’ll just come back. I’ll follow you to the other side of the world. You’ll have to kill me to stop me.”
Silence stretched into a long, awkward moment.
“Why?” Alem asked quietly.
“Because there’s nothing to go back to. My birthright was stolen.” Maurizan jerked her chin at Rina. “
She
knows what I’m talking about.”
All eyes went to Rina.
Rina’s head spun, eyes meeting Maurizan’s.
Maurizan didn’t flinch from Rina’s stare. “My grandmother was given the Prime. As was my mother. I was meant to have it as well. And now I can’t. It was meant for me, and now I’ll
never
have it. I’ll never be anything but a little, stupid gypsy girl.”
Alem and Brasley looked at one another, the question plain on their faces. The prime what?
Rina turned away. So that was it. It was completely wrong and unfair. The idea that Rina had deprived Maurizan of anything was ludicrous. And yet …
The wizard Weylan had died in the act of inking the Prime tattoo on Rina’s back. It would be easy for a young girl’s mind to twist this into an act of theft. If Maurizan had been set to receive the gift of the Prime from Weylan, and if Rina had suddenly appeared out of nowhere to snatch this gift out from under her … yes. It hadn’t been intentional; Rina hadn’t known … but she could understand how Maurizan might feel fate had betrayed her.
“What do you want?” Rina asked. “You know what’s happened can’t be undone.”
“I want to come with you.” There was something bold in Maurizan’s voice. “Change is coming to Helva. My mother says we stand on the edge of great events. I want to be part of them. I want to be important. I was
meant
to
do
something important. You took that away from me. Mostly. But I can at least be near what is happening, witness it. I can’t be as important as I’d hoped, but I can do … something.”
Rina looked away, crossed her arms.
“Nonsense,” Brasley said. “Rina only just laid eyes on you a few days ago. She’s stolen nothing. You’re a delusional, spoiled little girl and—”
“Brasley.” Alem’s voice was low but tight.
Brasley held up his hands and backed away. “Fine. No harsh words. No hurt feelings. But she goes. We have enough to worry about. She goes in the morning.”
“It’s not your decision,” Alem said.
“It’s not yours either!” shouted Brasley.
“It’s mine,” Rina said. “So everybody else shut up.”
Alem turned back to the campfire, absently poked at the embers with a stick. Brasley threw up his hands and turned away. Only Maurizan held firm, her eye’s never leaving Rina’s.
Rina held Maurizan’s gaze for a long moment. The campfire cracked and popped. Stars twinkled overhead.
“She stays,” Rina said. “As long as she wants. It’s her choice.”