A Woman Warrior Born

  *****

  Breea woke with a hand over her mouth. It was so dark she couldn’t see who was there, but the hand was gentle. Taumea. He laid her hand on his, and signed, Enemy on the wind. Guard horse.

  Sitting up, she caught it, a sour note among sweet grass and bitter ash. It was the scent of a long-unwashed man. Rising to a knee, she belted on her daggers, and drew both.

  Taumea strapped on his shield, drew his sword, and moved away. The horses were awake, but very still. A chill mist was falling. She listened.

  Taumea was upwind, moving low and cautious through the grass. Breea pushed her awareness farther and nearly cried out. Quickly, she slid through the wet grass after him. He sensed her coming, and she felt him walk a fiddlehead pattern, curving back around to ambush whoever was on his trail.

  She stopped. She was supposed to be guarding the horses. There was nothing to do but call to him. She reversed her daggers to sheathe them, and stared.

  In the heart of each pommel stone, a small green star throbbed in time to her racing heart. Holding the pommels before her as a beacon, she moved toward Taumea. He slid into view, and pushed the stones out of sight with the edge of his shield. With the flat of his blade, he tried to turn her back to camp. Ignoring the signal, she sheathed the daggers, pried open his shield hand, and pushed the sign for ambush into his palm. Impatiently, he tried to sign something himself, but Breea gripped his hand in both of hers to silence him. He tensed, then kneeled, pulling her down. He slid his sword point into the ground, and laid his hand on hers. She signed that there were eight surrounding attackers closing in, the nearest only ten paces away.

  He asked where exactly, and she pointed.

  Mantis, he signed, and indicated the same direction, then, Clip and Devour. These tactics Breea knew from her guard training. First, flank the nearest, catching him between them like a fly in the spiked grip of a mantis. Then flee, return, take an enemy, and flee again.

  Breea acknowledged, and they each sidled quietly to a side, giving the attacker a path between them. The enemy crept closer, and the light in Breea’s daggers grew. With trembling fingers she covered the stones with her hands to shield their light.

  The man crept between them, and Taumea attacked, Breea following. Their opponent, crouched low, stood to fight, realized he was flanked, froze for an instant, and felt the bite of Taumea’s sword as it thrust into his chest from the armpit, piercing both lungs. He gurgled and collapsed.

  Total silence took the night, broken a moment later by a sighing of grass as the other attackers went into motion together, converging on the sound. Taumea shoved Breea hard, pushing her out toward the hills. In a few strides, her forest-running senses let her find sure footing, and Taumea kept pace behind her by using her footfalls as a guide for his own. They made reckless speed up a valley, then Taumea was no longer behind her. Breea whirled in the high grass, heart hammering. Understanding hit late, and she did a fiddlehead in the opposite direction, looping around, and nearly collided with a moving darkness.

  Surprised, each attacked and parried hard, the force of their connection knocking Breea back. The enemy stepped in, and they fought. He had but a single dagger to her pair, but was better than her with it, and in moments his sang a slash across her chainmail. Breea caught his weapon arm on the return, and he sucked a gasp as the point of her blade passed through armor, flesh, and bone. More dark figures appeared, and she leapt back, realizing she’d been flanked.

  Humming with fear and energy, she reversed her blades to Adder Posture, elbows bent, fangs ready. All motion stopped at the sight of her flickering emeralds. Her first opponent crouched out of reach, griping his wounded forearm. To either side, the others were immobile shadows behind a skein of grass stalks. Away to her right, a clash of steel was followed by a death rattle. The eyes of her opponents glittered green in her growing light. With instant consensus they faded back into the grass.

  Too wild to listen, she waited, trembling and ready. As nothing more happened, she cautiously returned to camp. The horses were unharmed.

  Wet, and chilled through, she put on her bear-fur cloak and, calming, waited for Taumea’s return, daggers in hand. When he emerged from the grass, she listened for pursuit. There was none. He checked the horses, then sat beside her.

  "They had horses staged northeast," he said. "Yasharn assassins. A full rill of them. I took another on the run."

  Pale light grew and both looked up to see the clouds parting to reveal a night sky almost white with stars. Taumea held up a long, narrow dagger. He sniffed its edge.

  "Poisoned."

  Coldness crept over Breea, and she felt along the score mark in her mail where she’d been slashed. How had she avoided being cut in that flurry of strikes? She felt Taumea gazing at her.

  "You knew where they were," he said.

  Breea swallowed. "Ajalay taught me. It is the first step for weaving. You can…feel things."

  He seemed to absorb this, then said, "Good skill."

  Taumea did not fear and hate her for her power. She embraced him. He felt her trembling, and held her until she relaxed.

  Breea listened, then asked, "Will they return?"

  "Not tonight, I think, but in the coming days. A rill means a major camp is near. Tonight they saw us as simple prey, each seeking a personal kill, dagger only. They did not expect Limtir warriors. Likely saw the flame light and came for some easy practice. When they come again, it will be with better weapons. Even we cannot stand against a rill if they act as one."

  By starlight, they packed camp, and then went to look at one of the bodies. A bit of tinder lit from her fire kit showed that their attackers were dressed in unadorned black. Beneath, they wore strange, segmented armor of boiled leather, each piece sewn over with cloth. This puzzled Breea until she realized that it would make them silent, no creaking leather. Their faces and hands were blackened with soot. Under the dark stain, tattooed patterns could be seen. Before they became images, she looked away.

  Valiena, fleeing Petrall, had escaped one such, and her only thirteen winters old.

  "They saw my blades," she said. "The stones."

  Taumea paused in his search of the body, looking up at her.

  "Five of them. They fled."

  Taumea grunted, and said under his breath, "Wise."

  As dawn broke, Breea watched their back trail. Theirs was a track a blindfolded child could follow. Considering how signs of her passage would sometimes vanish when she wished, she wondered if it were possible to do such things at will. Heat rose at the thought, then subsided as she bound it. With a shaky sigh, she put away such ideas. Study and understanding was her path now.

  They rode hard until the morning dew dried, then walked to rest the horses, keeping to valleys, crossing ranges only when necessary. As they mounted again, Breea patted Letet’s neck and crooned softly to her in Breowic. Evening settled on the land. They came across a road threading up a valley through the hills. The passage of thousands had churned the roadbed and margins to dust.

  After scanning the ground, Taumea said, "A Yash army on the road to Petrall."

  They watered the horses in a muddied stream, then pushed on through the night. The ride hurt. The worst were her arms, bruised to the bone in the fight. Shoulder and back muscles she had forgotten since Tomeguard training reminded her of their presence with fiery pain. How had she survived, in the dark, against a trained assassin with a poisoned blade? The thought bothered her. Her sense of the fight was vivid, but the details were a blur.

  Despite the agony in her arms, Breea gave extra attention to Letet at every pause, talking Breowic to her and brushing her with special care, being sure to get all the grass burrs out of her hide and tail. Letet sighed and leaned into the strokes like a cat, making Breea grin. Hardhoof fared less well. At his own pace he seemed inexhaustible, but he was suffering at the stride the warhorses could maintain. They transferred as much of his burden as they could to their mounts.

  After their eveni
ng meal, Breea stretched carefully, then tried a double-dagger fighting pattern, halting as pain lanced through her strained muscles. Unwrapping the white-cap mushroom, she cut it in half and ate the healing fungus. Changing her approach, she tried the pattern at deep practice speed, moving as a down feather falls. It still hurt, but after a few minutes she felt better. Taumea guided her through a set of knife-fighting moves she’d never seen. He seemed pleased to see her practicing.

  The land was rising further into higher hills, the grass shortening, clusters of low brush and small trees filling the deeper canyons and gullies. Some few held clear streams in their deeps. On the slopes, wild antelope were common in small herds. Once, Breea caught sight of a huge cat. They ate well after finding that the antelope had little fear of people.

  On the sixth day after the attack of the assassins, a fitful mist thickened to rain. As the day wore on, Breea pulled her hood low, and let Letet follow Taumea’s horse on her own. Lulled by the monotony of the hills and thinking no particular thoughts, Breea was wrenched to awareness by the appearance of a figure at Letet’s head.

  Valiena accepted Letet’s greeting nuzzle and smiled at her startled friends.

  "Seeds on the wind you two seem," she said.

  Breea called out in happiness. Taumea beat her to the dismount, and swept Valiena up in an embrace that lifted her into the air. Face above his, she bent and kissed him, holding his head in her hands. He lowered her, and they hugged.

  They stood still in the wind, Taumea’s eyes closed, rainwater dripping down his face, Valiena’s head on his chest.

  She stood away from him, holding both his hands, and said, "Never send me away."

  He clenched his jaw, and drew her back to him.

  Embracing Breea, Valiena said, "Opalah’s praise."

  When they stood apart, both their eyes were wet with more than rain. The plainswoman had changed. She seemed to stand more solidly on the ground, and her body moved with a confidence that Breea did not remember. At the same time, weariness was a veil over her face.

  "Messengers came to me this morning with word that you had crossed the Nataharn road," she said. "Lylvin Windriders have been looking for you at my behest. They sent word to Canlet as soon as you crossed. They said that if I were the wind itself I might catch you before you crossed the Ahanpaa." She punctuated her success with a proud toss of her hair. "What of you?"

  Neither would reply. She asked in a lower voice, "What of you?"

  "We are pursued," said Taumea.

  Valiena looked down their back trail, then said, "To make more west from here we must cross the Ahanpaa. She will be rising with this rain. There is a bridge at Canlet. The Town Master is a Lylvin, no friend of the Yasharn. We may cross and none will tell. Nightfall will be best."

  Taumea gazed at Valiena with eyes much like the ones Ston had been turning on Breea, but more possessive. All this, and she is mine, his eyes declared. Breea turned away, and adjusted Letet’s bridle. Had Ambard ever looked at her like that? She thought so, but Ston’s acceptance of her invoked strange thoughts. Ambard was ever surprised by her accomplishments and skills. Pleased, surely, but surprised. A compliment she’d felt, but after Ston’s straightforward appreciation, Ambard’s surprise begged a question—what did he expect of women, to be always amazed by her?

  Valiena retrieved Oletanan, then led them through the hills to a vantage overlooking a cart track beside a wide, reed-sided river. The water was dark, and patterns of wind and rain swept across it. The water fascinated Breea. Such a mellow, wide river was as foreign as the plains themselves.

  Leaving the horses in the grass, they stalked down to the track to examine the rain-worn ruts. Valiena peered at fresh horse prints.

  "Yasharn. Their cavalry shoes tang inward on the tips."

  Back in the hills, they went north at the fastest pace the horses could maintain. As light began to fade, the rain slackened, and they walked through the wet hills until Valiena said they were close. As darkness fell, Valiena used the light of the moon to slip into the town to discover what the crossing would entail. She returned quickly.

  "There are Yasharn guarding the bridge. Half a pa-hoc squat the village, and more expected on the morrow. Whole armies have passed in recent days, moving east, and the rumor is war against Limtir. There are Windriders in the grass. They will strike the moment Opalah has bedded in the west. We may cross then."

  They shared a meal of dried meat and apple and waited for Opalah to set.

  A thunder of hooves announced the raid. When the Yasharn at the near side of the bridge rode to engage the raiders, Breea and her friends urged their horses through the town and over the bridge. Sentries on the other side raised blades, but arrows from unseen allies wiped them from their mounts.

  To make good speed, they kept to the road until dawn, then plunged back into the broad, rolling wilderness. The horses were tired by evening, but after an hour of rest and browse, seemed refreshed. Other than her night ride to Limtir, Breea had never pushed Letet like this, but the horse seemed hardly to notice. It gave Breea some idea of what "sired by Strohnan" meant. Letet was handling the travel better than Breea.

  Halting only long enough to cook once each day, they crossed the western Timaret. Every third day they rested half a day. A three-person watch rotation made for a good rest, but the following two days were relentless travel. They had long since run out of food, but with all three of them hunting, they rarely went hungry. Valiena’s skill with wild herbs and a bag of hoarded salt made their meals a series of feasts. At the short meal breaks, Valiena cooked birds and rodents over grass fires while Breea slept or read in her tomes. When Breea took her turn at the fire, Valiena would open her book of tales and write.

  The land grew flat, riddled with dry gullies that cut across their route, forcing them to find ways around. When Breea commented on the lack of further sign of pursuit, Taumea pointed out that their enemy did not have Meric steeds.

  Twelve days from the crossing of the Ahanpaa, it was Breea’s turn to cook. Taumea slept while she worked out how to spit a snake she’d killed. Valiena set out her inkwell and prepared an eagle feather she’d found. After trimming the quill, she opened her storybook, glancing at Breea.

  Suppressing a sigh, Breea did what Valiena was afraid to ask, and began to tell the tale of the battle at Gell and all that had happened since they parted ways at Sitil Crossroads.

 

  Chapter 7

  Sherishin