War Maid's choice

Chapter Thirty-Two

Boots moved steadily and sweetly, cantering across the parched, golden grass of late summer while Gayrfressa paced him with the peculiar, ground-eating gait of her kind. The gelding was well aware of the courser’s presence. In fact, he had a distinct tendency to act more like a friendly kitten than a warhorse of mature years in her presence, frisking around her as if he were a child’s pony, and she regarded his antics with a fond, sometimes exasperated patience.

‹ Of course I do,› Gayrfressa said now, turning her head slightly to better regard Leeana as she caught her rider’s amused thoughts. ‹ The lesser cousins have great hearts. It’s not their fault no wizards fooled about with their ancestors, now is it?›

“No, it’s not,” Leeana agreed. The coursers were remarkably comfortable with the notion that they-like the halflings-were the product of arcane meddling. Of course, in their case it had been a deliberate manipulation all of whose consequences, including the unintended ones, had been highly beneficial-one wrought by the White Council to make those ancestors stronger, more powerful, and far more intelligent. The halflings hadn’t enjoyed that deliberate design process. They represented an accident, a completely unintended consequence and byproduct of the most destructive war in Orfressa’s history, and neither they nor any of the other Races of Man were quite able to forget that.

‹ I don’t really know why they should, › Gayrfressa said reasonably. ‹ What is, is; trying to “forget it” can’t change it. And it’s not as if the halflings are the only “accident!” What about the magi? Or, for that matter, what about the hradani and the Rage? And if what Wencit once told him and Brandark is true, even the elves a re the result of “arcane meddling.” Although it was deliberate in their case, as well, I suppose.› The courser tossed her head in amusement. ‹ I don’t understand why you two-foots worry about it so much!›

“I didn’t say I do worry about it,” Leeana pointed out. “I think the halflings do mainly because of the way most of the other Races of Man are…prejudiced against them, I suppose. And I have to point out that what was done to the hradani wasn’t exactly ‘accidental.’ Or done by wizards who gave a single solitary damn about what happened to their victims, for that matter.” Her tone had darkened. “And they’ve paid for the Rage they have now with over twelve hundred years of pure, unmitigated hell.”

‹ True.› Gayrfressa sounded more subdued than usual for a moment, although Leeana doubted it would last. ‹ I didn’t mean to make light of what’s happened to other people, Sister.›

“I know you didn’t, dearheart.” Leeana smiled at her. “I think, though, that you coursers probably got the best deal out of all those…tinkered-with species. And I’m glad you did.”

‹ So am I.› Gayrfressa moved closer, the blue star of her restored right eye gleaming as she reached out to touch Leeana’s left shoulder ever so gently with her nose. ‹ If we hadn’t been “tinkered with,” then you and I would never have met, would we?›

“Not something I like to think about, either,” Leeana told her softly.

She looked into Gayrfressa’s glowing eye for a moment, then turned her head, surveying the endless sea of grass about them. The year had turned unexpectedly dry over the last several weeks, almost as if Chemalka had decided to send the normal rain away to somewhere else, and those tall, wind-nodding waves of grass were browner and dryer than was usual, even for this late in the summer. They shimmered and stirred endlessly under the gentle breeze, entrapping and bewildering the unwary eye.

The Wind Plain was always an easy place for the incautious to get lost, but Leeana knew the area about Kalatha even more intimately than she’d known the land around Balthar. She knew the swells of the ground, the scattered, individual colonies of aspens and birch, the greener lines of tiny streams and seasonal watercourses. She knew where the springs were, and where to find the best spots to camp in all that trackless vastness. And she knew her sky, where the sun was at any given time of day and how to find her way about by its guidance or by the clear, sparkling stars that blazed down through the Wind Plain’s thin, crystalline air like Silendros’ own diadem. She didn’t really have to think about it to know where she was in relationship to Kalatha…or to realize it was about time they turned for home.

She rather regretted that, and she knew Boots would, too. She made it a point to ride the gelding at least three times a week, and he spent his days in an open field, bounded by the river, with ready access to field shelter. Gayrfressa shared the same field with him, although unlike Boots she was as adroit at opening the gate in the fence around it as any two-foot and came and went as she willed. The manager of the city livery stable had helped erect the shelters in return for permission to put a half dozen other horses whose owners preferred to keep them at grass into the field with Boots, which gave him plenty of company. With the extra horses to play with, he was self-exercised enough to keep him fit, but Leeana didn’t ride him only to exercise him. He needed the time with her, just as she needed it with him, and in an odd sort of way, the hours she spent on Gayrfressa’s back only made riding him even more enjoyable. Her bond with Gayrfressa was so deep they truly were one creature; with Boots she had to work at that kind of fusion, and that made her appreciate it even more deeply.

“Time to head back,” she said more than a little regretfully. “I’ve got the duty tonight, and I owe him a good grooming.”

‹ Handy to have around, you two-foots, when it comes to things like that,› Gayrfressa observed with a deep, silent chuckle.

“‘Handy’ is it?” Leeana retorted, wincing at the deliberate pun, and Gayrfressa tossed her head in an equine shrug. “I’ll figure out a way to make you pay for that one.”

‹ I see why Brandark feels so unappreciated around him,› the courser said mournfully, and Leeana laughed.

“Well, either way, we need to be getting back to town,” she pointed out, and reined Boots around.

The gelding clearly understood what she had in mind…and equally clearly was in no hurry to get back to his field. Playing tag with the other horses was all very well, but he was enjoying himself too much to end his afternoon with his rider any sooner than he had to. Leeana smiled down at his ears as he tossed his head, sidestepping and expressing his reluctance with an eloquence which needed no words.

“Sorry, love,” she told him, reaching down to pat him on the shoulder. “Erlis is going to be irked if I don’t get back on time today.”

‹I think everybody in Kalatha is “irked” at the moment, › Gayrfressa put in. ‹ Or perhaps the word I really want is worried. On edge? Or is there another two-foot word that comes closer?›

“I think either of them comes close enough,” Leeana replied after a moment. “It would help if Shahana knew why she was here!”

Gayrfressa blew heavily in agreement. The arm had arrived in Kalatha the day before, accompanied by a twenty-man-and woman-mounted platoon from the rebuilt Quaysar Temple Guard. Their appearance had taken the entire town by surprise and sparked more than a little anxiety, especially when Shahana couldn’t explain why Lillinara had chosen to send them in the first place. Leeana’s husband had had rather more practice at being moved about in response to divine direction than most, and even she found the arm’s arrival…disconcerting. For those without her own secondhand experience, Gayrfressa’s “worried” probably came a lot closer than “disconcerted.”

“At least if it’s worrying us I’m sure it’s worrying Trisu even more,” she said with a slow grin. “And anything that worries him is worthwhile, as far as I’m concerned!”

‹ Isn’t that just a little petty of you?›

“Of course not! It’s a lot petty of me, and that only makes it even more enjoyable from my perspective. It’s a two-foot thing.”

‹ You wish,› Gayrfressa told her. ‹ The truth is — ›

She broke off suddenly and stopped in mid stride. Her head snapped up, her remaining ear pointing sharply as she turned to her left, and her nostrils flared.

“What?” Leeana demanded, halting Boots instantly.

‹ Smoke. Grass smoke.›

Gayrfressa’s mental voice was brittle with tension, and Leeana’s spine stiffened with matching alarm. The tall, browning grass was rustling tinder, more than dry enough to feed the rolling maelstrom of a prairie fire, and the breeze would push any fire directly towards Kalatha. Every child of the Wind Plain knew what that could mean, and while a courser might outrun the holocaust’s outriders, all too many of its creatures couldn’t.

“Where? Can you tell how far away?”

‹ Close… too close, › Gayrfressa replied, but there was a new note in her mental voice. The alarm was colored by another emotion-surprise. Or perhaps confusion.

“What is it?” Leeana asked, frowning as she tasted her four-footed sister’s perplexity.

‹ Why didn’t I scent it on the way out?› Gayrfressa asked, her ear shifting, and her head rose higher as she sniffed the breeze even more deeply.

“Probably because it hadn’t caught yet,” Leeana replied.

‹ And did you hear any thunderstorms or lightning strikes to set it after we passed?› Gayrfressa demanded.

“Well…no,” Leeana admitted.

‹ Neither did I. I think we’d better look into this, Sister.›

“So do I. You’re the one with the keen sense of smell, though.”

Gayrfressa snorted in agreement and took the lead, forging steadily through the grass that was shoulder-high on Boots.

They’d gone only a short distance before Leeana’s merely human nose began to catch the sharp, acrid scent. The gelding noticed it to, and he snorted uneasily. She felt the sudden tension in his muscles as he recognized the threat, and her own pulse quickened, yet there were only wisps of the odor, not the kind of overpowering wave that would have rolled along the breath of a true grass fire. That had to be a good thing, she told herself. Whatever had caused it, the burning or smoldering grass producing that hint of smoke was almost certainly limited enough that she and Gayrfressa could deal with it before it turned into the kind of fiery tempest that wreaked such havoc.

‹ There!›

Gayrfressa’s head rose again, her nose pointing sharply, and Leeana squinted, trying to see whatever the mare had seen.

“Where?” she asked after a moment.

‹ You can’t see it?›

Gayrfressa sounded astonished, and Leeana shook her head. The courser brought her head around to look at her for a moment, then turned back in the direction she’d been staring, and Leeana felt a fresh stab of surprise come from her.

‹I can’t see it, either…if I close my right eye,› Gayrfressa said slowly, and something tingled along Leeana’s nerves as she remembered Lillinara telling them both that Gayrfressa would see more clearly than most.

“What is it?” she asked after a moment, and Gayrfressa snorted softly.

‹ I have no idea,› she admitted. ‹ It’s like…almost like the kind of glow I saw when he healed the rest of the Warm Springs herd, but it’s…wrong. Like it’s been…broken or twisted somehow.›

For some reason, Gayrfressa’s “explanation” wasn’t making her feel any calmer, Leeana reflected.

“And where are you seeing it?” She was surprised by the levelness of her own tone.

‹ There’s a hollow up ahead.› Gayrfressa sounded as positive as if she’d actually seen that hollow before, Leeana noted. ‹ Whatever it is, it’s coming from something in the hollow.›

“Then let’s go see what it is.”

Gayrfressa tossed her head in agreement, and they moved ahead once again, more warily than before. They’d gone perhaps two hundred yards when Leeana saw thin, twisting tendrils of smoke rising ahead of them. She clucked to Boots, pressing gently with her heels to request more speed, and despite his own nervousness, the gelding moved quickly from a fast walk to a trot.

They crested one of the low, almost imperceptible swells of the Wind Plain and stopped suddenly.

An auburn-haired man lay facedown before them, and the grass around him was blackened char and powdery ash. Leeana couldn’t understand why whatever had consumed that ten or twelve-foot circle of grass hadn’t spread further, but she spared a moment to give silent thanks that it hadn’t. Yet even as she realized how lucky they’d been in at least that respect, her brain seemed to be racing off in a dozen directions at once as she tried to find some explanation for how he’d gotten there in the first place. There was no sign of a horse or anything else-the grass around the hollow stood straight and unbroken, with no trace of how he could have gotten here on foot, even if he’d had no horse. It was as if he’d fallen out of the heavens, and his clothing was almost as scorched looking as the grass upon which he lay. And then there was that “glow” only Gayrfressa seemed able to see…

Logic told her she wasn’t going to like the answers to all the questions ripping through her thoughts, but there’d be time to worry about them later. There were more urgent things to deal with at the moment, and she was out of the saddle, dropping the reins to leave Boots ground hitched, almost before the gelding had stopped. Gayrfressa delicately placed one huge forehoof on the reins to make certain he’d stay there, and Leeana gave the courser a brief smile of thanks as she passed her sister on her way down into the hollow.

Thank the Mother I’m wearing boots! she thought, feeling the heat radiating upward from the charred area around the unconscious man. There was a lot of that heat, enough to make the toughened soles of her feet tingle when she stepped out into it, even through her boots, underlining the mystery of why no fire had spread from it. Then she reached him and went down on one knee, extending her hand to touch the side of his neck.

A pulse fluttered against her fingertips. It was weak, racing, but at least it was there, and she exhaled a long breath of gratitude. Then she gritted her teeth and rolled him over onto his back as gently as she could.

His hands were badly seared, blistered everywhere and with deep, angry wounds burned into their tissue, and her stomach knotted as she saw the damage. Burned scraps of skin and flesh hung in tatters around those deeper wounds, weeping serum. It looked as if he’d closed his grip on a white-hot iron, she thought sickly, wondering if he’d ever be able to use those fingers again. His face was burned, as well, although not as badly, and she smelled singed, burned hair. But then her eyes widened as she saw the white scepter on the scorched shoulder of his dark blue tunic.

“A mage! ” she said sharply. “He’s a mage, Gayrfressa!”

‹ A mage? All the way out here? Where did he come from? How did he get here?›

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Leeana sat back on her heels, staring down at the brutally injured man, then looked back up at Gayrfressa.

“We need help, and I don’t want to move him without a healer. Mother only knows how badly hurt he may be inside!” She rose and reached into her belt pouch for the pad of paper an officer of the city guard carried everywhere. “I think I’m going to have to stay here to keep an eye on him, Gayrfressa.” She found her stubby pencil and began writing quickly. “You’re going to have to give this to Erlis or a Balcartha or- no! ”

She shook her head sharply, discarding the note she’d already started and scribbling a different one in its place.

“Give it to Arm Shahana,” she said instead, choosing not to think too deeply about the possible implications of their discovery and the arm’s mysterious arrival from Quaysar.

She felt Gayrfressa’s thoughts matching her own, but the courser said nothing as she finished her hasty note and tucked it into Gayrfressa’s ornamental halter. The huge mare took long enough to press her nose to Leeana’s raised hand and blow heavily. Then she turned, whirling away, and vanished with the blinding speed only a courser could produce.

Leeana watched her go, then got her canteen from Boots’ saddle and went back to her knees beside the injured mage. Perhaps she could get him to drink a little, and if she couldn’t, she could at least cleanse those hands of his.

Shahana Lillinarafressa stiffened shaky knees and straightened, looking down at the still unconscious man in the Kalatha infirmary. She felt as if she’d just completed a ten-mile run, but his breathing was stronger, and his hands looked far better than they had. Despite which, she was far from certain he’d ever be able to use them again, despite all she’d been able to do. It had always struck her as ironic, possibly even unfair, that champions of Tomanak, the God of War, could heal so much more completely than an arm of the Mother. Of course, not even Tomanak’s champions could heal the way one of Kontifrio’s priestesses could, but at the moment they didn’t have a priestess of Kontifrio.

No, you don’t. And try feeling grateful for the fact that the Mother’s at least allowed you to save this man’s life rather than whining over the fact that someone else got a shinier toy than you did!

“That’s the best I can do, at least for now,” she said.

“And it’s an awful lot better than anything I could have done,” the senior Kalathan healer told her fervently.

“Granted,” Five Hundred Balcartha agreed, standing out of the way to one side, frowning down at the injured man. “Granted, and I’m as grateful as the next woman we had you here to save him, Milady. But what in Lillinara’s name happened to him? And what was he doing out in the middle of the Wind Plain all by himself?”

“I have no idea,” Shahana said frankly, settling gratefully onto the stool the healer pulled over to the side of the bed for her. “Leeana’s obviously right that he’s a mage, so I’m going to make a wild guess here and suggest that whatever happened to him has to have had something to do with his mage talent. But I’ve never heard of anything the magi do that could have produced this.” She gestured at the still raw ruins of his terribly damaged hands and the fresh, livid scars of the lesser burns she had been able to heal completely, crawling up both of his forearms. “It’s like he was holding onto some kind of burning rope!”

Balcartha nodded unhappily. It was her job, as Kalatha’s senior military officer, to recognize and deal with potential threats, and all of her instincts were insisting that “potential threat” was exactly what this man represented. Yet she had no clue as to why that might be.

“I could wish-” she began, then closed her mouth with a click as the injured man’s eyelids fluttered. They rose, and his face twisted as muscles which had been slack in unconsciousness tightened in reaction to the pain of awareness. He sucked in a deep, hissing breath, and then, with startling suddenness, his slate-gray eyes snapped into focus.

He looked up at the five hundred for an instant, then tried to push himself up, only to gasp in anguish and fall back as his hands’ injured strength failed him.

“Gently, Master Mage!” Shahana said. “You’re safe now. I give you my word.”

His head turned, his gaze moving to the arm’s face. He stared at her for an instant, and something flickered in those gray eyes. He let himself settle fully back onto the mattress, yet the tension within him only seemed to grow.

“You’re in Kalatha,” Balcartha told him. “One of my officers found you out in the grass. We brought you back to the infirmary and the Arm here”-she touched Shahana’s shoulder-“did what she could for you. But what in the names of all the gods were you doing out there?”

The mage looked at her for a long moment, then licked cracked and blistered lips…and told her.

Trisu of Lorham swept into Thalar Keep’s great hall like a windstorm to greet his unexpected guests. There were three of them: Shahana Lillinarafressa, Balcartha Evahnalfressa, and the young woman he couldn’t-simply could not, however hard he tried-think of as anyone except Leeana Bowmaster. At least this time she was in trousers, shirt, and doublet instead of that scandalous attire she normally danced around in, flaunting her body at every male eye like the worst, cheapest sort of strumpet. Not that the sight of the wedding bracelet on her left wrist was much of an improvement, especially given the rumors about just who it was she was supposedly “married” to!

Still, he reminded himself, there were certain standards of courtesy, even with war maids. Although exactly how one went about politely greeting this particular covey of guests was beyond him. “Ladies” was out of the question, and most of the terms one normally applied to war maids scarcely came under the heading of polite at the best of times.

He opened his mouth to begin, but Arm Shahana raised her hand before he could speak.

“We apologize for breaking in on you so discourteously, My Lord,” she said quickly, and his eyes narrowed as he recognized the tension in her eyes and the harshness of her voice. “Unfortunately, what brings us here leaves little time for courtesy.”

“Indeed?” He looked back and forth between her and the other two women, and his stomach tightened as he saw the matching tension in the two war maids, the coiled tautness of their muscles. He thought about several things he might have said and discarded all of them.

“May I know what does bring you here, Milady?” he asked instead.

“Treason, Milord,” she said flatly, and his narrowed eyes widened abruptly. He darted a look at the older war maid’s face and saw the flat, hard agreement in her expression.

“In that case,” he said after a moment, “please join me in my office-all three of you-where we can speak freely.”

Leeana sat in the wooden chair beside the narrow, converted archer’s slit that formed one of Trisu’s office windows. She and Balcartha had let Shahana carry the burden of recounting Master Brayahs’ story to Trisu. In fact, she’d deliberately kept her mouth closed lest she put up the lord warden’s back, although she’d responded as concisely and completely as she could when he’d fired a half-dozen questions in her direction. And to his credit, they’d been clear, concise questions…and he’d completely ignored the fact that she was a war maid-and her father’s daughter-as he concentrated on her answers. She couldn’t help thinking it was a pity it took something like this to get past his automatic prejudices, but it was obvious his brain was working, and he’d wasted far less time grasping the essentials than she would have expected out of most people.

“So we don’t know for certain what’s happening,” he said now. “Except, of course,” his face tightened, “that we know for damned sure-pardon my language, Milady,” he glanced apologetically at Shahana, “-that sorcery’s involved in it somewhere!”

“Actually, Milord, we do know one other thing,” Shahana said. He raised an eyebrow invitingly, and she shrugged. “Whatever’s happening, and whoever’s behind it, they took steps to prevent Master Brayahs from reaching the King at Chergor when he learned of it.”

Trisu’s jaw tightened and he gave a jerky nod.

“Fair enough, Milady. And it follows from that that if they wanted to prevent him from reaching the King, presumably they don’t want anyone else doing it, either.”

“They don’t want anyone else doing it in time, Milord,” Leeana heard someone else say with her voice, and Trisu’s gray eyes flicked to her. She met them levelly, then shrugged. “There wouldn’t have been any point in stopping a single mage-or anyone else-if they don’t have a plan already in place and operating,” she said flatly. “I don’t know what that plan might be, but I do know we’re the only people in the entire Kingdom who know they’re planning anything.”

“An excellent point…Milady,” he replied after a moment. “And since we are, then clearly it’s our responsibility to do something about it. The question is what we can do.”

“How many armsmen could you ride with within the hour, Milord?” Shahana asked.

“Perhaps twenty-five-thirty, at the most,” Trisu said. “It would take several hours to summon more than that.”

“And I have twenty of the Temple Guard at Kalatha.” Shahana shook her head, her face tight with worry. “Fifty isn’t a huge force-especially when there may be wizardry involved.”

“But fifty is fifty better than none, Milady,” Trisu countered. “And Lorham’s the closest wardenship.”

“I have a suggestion,” Leeana said after a moment. All of them looked at her, and she shrugged again. “War maids weigh less than most armsmen, Milord, and as you say, it’s not a long trip from here to Chergor. Your armsmen’s horses could carry double that far, and Kalatha could probably provide another twenty or thirty mounts. They won’t be as good as the ones under your or the Arm’s armsmen, but they’ll be a lot better than none. Split the difference in numbers and call it twenty-five, and that gets you from fifty to a hundred and fifty.”

Trisu’s eyes hardened in instant, automatic rejection, and his mouth opened. But then he paused, mouth still open, looking at her. Silence hovered for at least ten seconds before he drew a deep breath and nodded.

“You’re right,” he said, and Leeana saw her own surprise at his response mirrored in Balcartha’s eyes. He obviously saw it, too, and he flashed his teeth in something which bore at least a passing resemblance to a genuine smile.

“At this moment, what I care about are swords and hands to wield them,” he said. “I’ll worry about whether or not they’re ‘proper’ hands later.”

“Good, Milord,” Shahana said. “But we’re going to need at least two other horses.” Trisu cocked his head at her. “We’ve got to send word to Balthar and to Sothofalas,” she said.

“Agreed.” He looked at her for another long moment, then inhaled sharply. “To Balthar and Sothofalas…but not to Toramos.” The silence crackled with sudden tension, and he smiled even more mirthlessly than before. “If I’m being unjust to Baron Cassan, I can always apologize later. For now, we all have more important things to worry about. And my loyalty and my oaths are to the Crown and”-he met Leeana’s eyes very levelly-“to the Baron of Balthar.”

“Well said,” Shahana said quietly. “But even if yours is the closest wardenship, it’s going to take time for us to get there.”

“True,” Trisu acknowledged. “And that’s why at least one of us won’t be riding with the rest of us.” Shahana frowned, and he raised his hand, pointing at Leeana. “If you have a wind rider, Milady, you don’t hold him-or her-back when speed is of the essence.”