After putting the leather, four-post saddle on the horse, I scratched behind her ears. “Sorry about the saddle. But who knows, maybe you like it. In that case, thanks.” These guys were still using the old saddles, the one without stirrups. Great for controlling horses with your knees, not so great for stability during battle. It made miss my own army. We’d tear through these troops with ease. I sighed. And the nuns!
In the morning light, the grey stones of the dining hall ruins were brown and black and, where lichen grew on them, yellow splotches, blue radiating circles, and little, white mosses reaching outward. The ground was filled with dead leaves, fallen branches, dirt and errant rocks here and there, and now charred spheres where last night’s fires lay.
A cross Cresida’s voice behind , “Sarah, morning tea is ready.” Without looking, I could hear her eyebrows furrow.
Speaking over my shoulder, I said to her, “Thanks. Be there in a mont.” I checked the belts again, tightening them a little. Clever horse. She’d breathed out as I put them on, to keep them loose. Not great for if I’d gotten on, unless I wanted to fall right back off. “I guess you don’t like saddles after all.”
“You know you’re supposed to be the one making morning tea, not the other way around.”
My back still to her, “Your arms are crossed, aren’t they?”
“Lady Sarah, I am annoyed.”
“You weren’t awake when I got up.”
“Then you should have prepared it!”
Patting the horse one last ti, I turned around, heading over to the waiting, foot-tapping lady. “I’m not your servant, Cresida.”
A scowl on her face. “As long as you’re enjoying our hospitality, I think pitching in is the least you can offer.”
“I thought,” I snuck my arm into hers, directing us toward our campfire, “I did you a service last night, by making your husband as angry at as he could be.” Sunlight shone through the doors, and just the top edges of the open stone walls, not yet high enough to fill the structure.
“He did pout mightily, long into the night.”
“Good. Didn’t those monsters keep you awake? Their last scream or wail or whatever awful noise they make happened just before dawn. Not a hint since.”
“I spent a lot of my youth being around animals. Raising goats and chickens for the mage’s army. Plenty of noises to ignore if you want to sleep in.”
“A privileged farm, then.”
“Of course. What exactly did you say to my husband last night that so set him off?”
Feeling mischievous, I squeezed her arm, “I said, or more properly, gave the implication that, I would never be interested in him as a man.”
“Ah. Well, good.”
“Also, I told him that I didn’t know anything about the monsters or the army that attacked us.” And that was more or less true. I certainly had my suspicions, but no evidence, that they’d co for either or the mage. Best to lay the bla on the other guy.
“He thinks they’re hiding away from the light. We can therefore safely leave this place.”
Refraining from telling her that I explained all that to him that last night, I instead said, “The worry now is whether they follow us. We won’t have walls for our next camp. Unless there are more ruins to be found ahead?”
“You’re right. We’ll be camping with only the protection of the soldiers.”
“That’s not comforting. Our weapons don’t seem to do much against them. Maybe we can set up a bunch of tiki torches to chase them off.”
“Tiki torches?”
“Uh, just regular torches, but held in a very, very angry way. And we’ll say an words, loudly.”
“Right. They’ve probably moved on. With luck, off toward the other army.”
I smiled at that, “How nice that would be!” I was certainly up for so horrifying monsters charging down a bunch of evil nuns. But that seed unlikely. It would be too positive an outco for this world. I resigned myself to eating breakfast, getting on the road, and figuring things out as I went along. Might be a good day to kidnap a mage.
Or, convince a grown man who was now welcod by his fellows to follow a crazy girl into danger.
***
We were shortly on the road, or more accurately, an overgrown path, and I’d caught up to Talaren, the mage. “It seems you’ve found yourself a new set of friends.” I put up my hand to ward off an errant brush away from my face. Not a great path to ride horses side by side.
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He, of course, didn’t guide his horse further to the side to give more room. “I wouldn’t say new. But, yes, they have co around to accepting . I suppose that’s on account of being their last wizard.”
“A position I thought you were trying to avoid.”
He brushed hair away from his eyes, “Sotis, a man has no choice in his friends.”
I wondered if I could make my offer now, whisk him away with , but probably not. Why would he trust ? He thought I was sent to kill him, after all. I decided to take a different approach. “I suppose that ans you are no longer under my watch.”
“Because of your, shall we say, unusual skills, I think I’m safer with you than the others. Though, I have to say, your youthful appearance is disturbing.”
“Oh?”
“Given that you’ve lived a life before becoming a girl again and retain the prowess of a skilled fighter, I’m talking to an old lady. Dare I say, you’d be mistaken for a virgin.”
“Uhm.” I hoped and hoped we’d find no unicorns to betray that about – for I could see them and only virgins could – and said, “Pay my outer appearance no attention.”
“Hmm. I can’t imagine most will.”
“Are you trying to complint ?”
“And failing, apparently.”
“Don’t let your failures trouble you.” Oh, I cringed, shoulders curling inward. “I an, ah, yeah, that ca out all wrong.”
“You even sound like the young girl you appear to be.”
I had no coback, so I rely gave him a glare. Struggled with the urge to stick my tongue out at him. Then ducked under another branch, while his course was free of natural impedints. To avoid envy, I patted the horse’s neck, scratching a little behind its ears. Its muscles moving rhythmically beneath my legs, walking us along.
“Captain Gyges thinks you know more about these monsters, perhaps more about that army, too, then you’re letting on.”
I couldn’t help but glance backwards, to see if anyone was within earshot. Nope, we had our space. “I think those monsters are going to follow us. I’m trying to work out how we can kill them. It’d be easier if you could use your magic, but that’s like saying, it’d be easier if we had a . . .” catching myself just before saying, ‘machine gun,’ I said, “a, uhm, war rhino.”
He stared at for a while, considering, while I had to duck under another low-hanging branch, then said, “You’re from Laemacia?”
“Did the purple eyes give it away? But, no, I was born on the road between Breadamont and the forr Bechalle Duchy, now the Hafthon Duchy. During a war. Because there’s nothing else between the two except a road. So, ah, you’d need a war and a war camp to be born there. Yes. That’s .” Why oh why was I telling him this??? “What, ah, what about you?”
“A war? Who was fighting?”
“The good guys and the bad.”
“Then, you’re from Nevarrelund?”
I let my head drop down, mumbling, “Let no one call you overly slow.” A scraggly branch scraped across the back of my head, leaves brushing against my hair.
“I don’t rember where I was born. The mages stole when I was three. I rember chickens. Tall grass, but everything’s tall at that age. I don’t know.”
“That’s why you’re so angry at them, the mages.”
“One reason, I suppose. But, no, I’d been their charge for my entire life. The mages give people like power, or teach us how to control it, I don’t know which, yet it’s slavery of a kind.”
“You don’t know which?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes! Yes, it does matter! Which is it?”
“I have it, either way. Without these irons on. What does it matter to you?”
“Well,” I stumbled then. Might as well just say it. Hopefully, he wouldn’t figure out why I’d think such a thing. But, planning on hopeful outcos didn’t often end well for . It was like relying on your opponent to make mistakes for your benefit. “If you were rely taught how to control it and not born with magic, that ans anyone can be trained.”
“Not anyone. All of my childhood friends died in the process.”
“And what is the process?”
He looked ahead. “Of learning to use magic. More than that, I cannot say. Nevertheless, it’s a deadly art.”
“Your classrooms must suck.”
“Suck?”
“Be bad.”
“Ah. We have no classrooms.”
“Then, how did you have childhood friends?”
“It’s a ntor system.”
Thinking about ntorships in antiquity between adults and young boys, I gave him a sideways glance, “That can’t make for a good childhood.”
“There’s other children at the Conclave. We ate together. Sotis had free ti together.”
“How is it that a ntor system resulted in most of your cohort dying off? You’d think they’d protect their wards.”
“For a person intimately familiar with mages, a person who hunted them down, you sure seem to have a lot of basic questions about us.”
“Ah. Yeah.” Whoops! And now is when I get caught. Scrambling, I said, “None of the other mages would answer my questions. You don’t really talk back to the grand magister, you know, let alone question him.”
“I see. You were mainly about the killing.”
“And imprisoning! Mostly imprisoning. So light spanking, maybe.” I turned beet-red at that, not believing my own mouth, but I’d almost made a quip about torture and had to cover for it sohow.
“Huh. The grand magister liked that sort of thing?” The mage looked back at , a smile across his face.
I waved off his question with my right hand, “No, no, that’s not, uh, no. He was an arrogant bastard.”
“On this we agree. Alright, your turn. What aren’t you telling the captain?”
“All kinds of stuff. Why would I tell that low-ranking officer anything?”
He nodded, slowly. “I think I’m beginning to see. Will you tell , then, Lady Sarah?”
“No. Not just yet. Not a chance! Perhaps never. We shall see.”
“We shall see, then.”
My horse bent down to tear up so grass and began chewing. Barely got my elbow up to shield my face in ti to avoid rough bushes, which bent against my arm and pushed my hair away from my face. “Gosh, it’s nice riding through the forests in sumr.”
“I prefer spring.”
“Yeah. My spring was definitely nicer than my sumr, let tell you.”
“We have a long ride ahead of us. Please do tell.”
I gave him a glance, “Looks like the path narrows even further. I’m going to fall back in line.” Slowing my horse down, he moved ahead of , and I rode into the middle of the path, finally, finally, I could avoid all that foliage reaching for .
The sumr held mories I didn’t want to revisit, let alone things I could tell him, for it would reveal who I was all too plainly. And the more I spoke, the more I revealed. Breathing in the deep green scents of the forest, listening to the bees buzz by, searching for flowers amongst the undergrowth, I focused on enjoying the scenery.
***
The night was undramatic. Talaren ignored and drank with the boys. Cresida and I scowled at each other, traded barbs, laughed at her husband, ate and drank together. Captain Gyges spent his ti with the man ranked above him, the Major, whatever his na was.
Probably, they were discussing strategy. But possibly, the Major was rely lecturing him. Pulling rank on him and boring him to tears. The thought made happy.
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