David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

Then she heard a snapping sound, and all the air went out of Sir Hoswell. He rolled from atop her. Someone had kicked him—kicked him hard enough to break ribs.

Myrrima gasped for fresh air, felt her lungs fill and fill again, yet still she could not get, enough air.

“Here now, what’s going on?” a voice asked. It was a woman’s voice, and the accent was so thick that at first Myrrima did not recognize that the woman spoke Rofehavanish.

Myrrima looked up. The woman standing over her had blue eyes and wavy black hair that fell in ringlets about her shoulders. She looked to be twenty years old. Her broad shoulders hinted of more strength than even a working drudge might have. She wore a plain brown robe over a shirt of stout ring mail, and she had a heavy axe in her hand. Behind her stood a mousy woman in scholar’s robes, a Days.

Myrrima glanced over at Sir Hoswell, and she half-wondered if the woman had dealt him a deathblow with the axe. This was no commoner. She was a Horsewoman of Fleeds, a warrior with enough endowments of brawn and grace that she’d likely be a match even for Hoswell.

But Sir Hoswell was still alive, holding his ribs, hunched over like a whipped cur. Blood flowed down his face. Yet he snarled, “Stay out of this, you Fleeds bitch.”

“Och, I would not be addressing a girl so harsh like, especially when she’s wielding an axe and you’ve had no proper introduction.” The woman smiled in mockery of a lady’s courtly manners. Yet her smile was full of malice.

She studied him for half a moment, then frowned. “Och, if Heredon doesn’t breed better warriors than this,” she mused, “I’ll never get bedded.”

Myrrima was gasping, terrified by all that had happened.

The woman’s words barely registered, but Myrrima understood it as a joke. The Horselords of Fleeds had bred horses for a thousand generations, bred them for strength and beauty and intelligence.

In the same way, noblewomen of Fleeds bred themselves to get children. A highborn woman might ask a dozen worthy men to sire children on her during her lifetime, she might even marry a man, but a husband would never rule her. Women alone carried the right to title, since in Fleeds it was believed that “No child can know its father.” The women of Fleeds laughed at the queer notion that men should rule. Thus, in Fleeds a “king” was only a man who had married a queen. And if she chose to dispose of him and choose another mate, then he would lose his title.

“I—ah,” Myrrima stammered. Hoswell held his bleeding forehead, then half-dropped, as if weary.

“You ah, what?” the woman asked.

“I’m sorry,” Myrrima said. “I only asked him to teach me to use a bow.”

The woman spat at Hoswell. “You’d think your northern lords would want to teach women to fight, what with Raj Ahten knocking down your castles.”

Myrrima couldn’t argue. She knelt over Hoswell. He coughed and began feebly trying to crawl to his knees. She tried to help him up, but Hoswell slapped her hands away. “Leave me, you Mystarrian whore! I should have known you’d be trouble.”

He made it to his knees, then got up and lurched away, swaying from side to side.

Myrrima didn’t know quite how to feel. She was stung by his words: “Mystarrian whore.” She’d been born and raised here in Heredon. Hoswell knew her. Did he dare call her a whore for marrying a man from Mystarria?

The woman of Fleeds said, “Don’t make any sad faces for that one. I know his kind. At dinner, he’ll be telling them all that he had his way with you, then tripped and hit his face on a rock.”

“We should go get a physic,” Myrrima said. “I’m not sure he can make it back to camp.”

“It will just lead to a fight,” the horsewoman said. “If you want to avenge your honor, just put an arrow into the fellow’s back now.”

“No,” Myrrima said. “Then leave him.”

Myrrima frowned. She didn’t think herself a paragon of virtue, but she’d never thought she’d leave a wounded man to fend for himself.

I should be mad as hell at that blackguard, not feeling sympathy for him, she thought.

Myrrima hardened her jaw. If she were going to go to war, she’d see worse than some man staggering around with a knot above his nose.

“Thank you,” Myrrima said to the horsewoman. “I’m lucky that you happened by.”

“Oh, I didn’t happen by,” the Fleeds woman said. “I was around the spur of that hill, and the Earth King said someone here needed help.”

“Oh,” Myrrima said, surprised.

The horsewoman studied Myrrima frankly. “You’re a pretty thing. What endowments do you have?”

“Two of glamour, one of wit,” Myrrima said.

“What are you? Highborn, or a wealthy whore? Though I don’t see much difference between the two.”

“Highborn...” Myrrima said, then hesitated, for it was a lie. “Sort of. My name is Myrrima. My husband is in the King’s Guard.”

“Have him teach you the bow,” the woman said, not hiding her disgust at northerners and their dullards ways. She turned as if to march up into the trees.

“Wait!” Myrrima begged.

The woman turned.

“Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?” Myrrima thought her manners sounded far too dainty, too refined for such a rough woman.

“Erin, Erin of Clan Connal.”

She was a princess, daughter of the High Queen Herin the Red.

“I’m sorry for your father,” Myrrima said, for she could think of nothing else to say. Word had reached Heredon several days past that Raj Ahten had captured the High King Connal, and fed him alive to frowth giants.

Lady Connal merely nodded, her blue eyes flashing. She could have said something deprecatory about her father, demeaned his prowess in war. Such deprecations passed for humility in her land. She could have given some sign that she loved him. A child’s love for her father was also a worthy emotion. She did neither. “Many warriors died,” was all she said. “Men and women. The dead ones are the lucky ones. Some things are worse than death.”

Erin reached down and picked up Myrrima’s bow and quiver. She nocked an arrow and drew the shaft full, then let it fly. The arrow struck the center of the target on the haycock.

She’s showing off, Myrrima realized. She wants me to respect her.

Raj Ahten had impelled thirty thousand warriors of Fleeds to join his army. The Wolf Lord had so many endowments of glamour and of Voice that few could withstand his persuasive powers.

Myrrima suddenly understood Erin Connal. She was proud of her father, proud to have him dead rather than converted.

Half a moment before, Myrrima would have been afraid to beg a boon from this lady. But on seeing Erin’s own embarrassment, Myrrima could also see the woman’s humanity. We are no different, she realized.

“Princess Connal, can you teach me?” Myrrima asked.

“If you can learn,” Connal said. “But the first thing you’ll have to learn is not to call me ‘Princess, or ‘Lady, or any of your courtly titles. I’ll not be spoken to as if I was some man’s pet. And in my own land, a woman becomes High Lord of the Clans by working for it, not being born to it, so I’ve little right to your titles. You’ll call me Connal, or if you want a title, call me ‘horsesister, or just ‘sister, for short.”

Myrrima nodded numbly.

Sir Hoswell had just rounded the bend, passing through a screen of trees. Sister Connal said, “Let’s get out of here, before that weasel finds some friends and comes back.”

Myrrima took her bow and arrows, and Sister Connal led her up through the woods, with Connal’s Days walking discreetly behind. The grass in the fields felt dry to the touch,, but once they got under the trees, the rains from two nights past had softened the grass stalks and the fallen leaves, so that it felt as if they walked upon a soggy carpet.