David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Baron Poll asked Averan. “Teaching her to kill people?”

“I’m not teaching her to kill,” Averan said. “I just don’t want her to feel guilty about what she did. She saved us. She didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Right, and because she’s got the blood lust out of her system, I’m sure she’ll be of cheery temperament all day,” Baron Poll said. “But of course, next time she’s hungry, she’ll just grab someone by the roadside.”

“No she won’t,” Averan said. “She’s very smart. I’m sure she, knows more than you think.” She reached out and scratched the green woman’s head, as if she were a dog.

“Oh, she’s smart all right,” Baron Poll said. “And the next time the High King levies taxes, I’ll have her right over to figure my dues.”

Averan glared at the Baron. “Baron Globbet, have you ever thought that maybe she could be of use to us? What if she killed this man because she knew he was trouble? What if there are more assassins on the road? She could kill them for us. She seems to have a strong nose, and they all smell like ginger and curry. She might smell them out. Don’t you think so, Roland?”

Roland merely shrugged

“I like a bit of curry myself,” Baron Poll argued. “And I don’t fancy the notion of having my innards ripped out because some inn chooses to serve it for dinner.

“Besides, she’s not smart,” Baron Poll continued. “I’ve seen crows that mimic your words as well as she does!”

Averan’s belief in the green woman seemed far-fetched, Roland thought, but the green woman had learned a lot of words this morning. Given a day or two, they might teach her to hunt.

More to the point, he wasn’t quite sure what they could do about her. He hadn’t had any luck at killing her yesterday.

They’d tried to outrun her, leave her after last night, and the green woman had merely loped after their mounts, shouting for blood.

No, the green woman was a problem, maybe one that only the King and his counselors could fathom. She was Averan’s charge for the moment, and Roland didn’t have any fancy notions about how to handle her.

Dawn found Sir Borenson far from Heredon. He’d spent most of the night riding south to Fleeds, and then to the Raven’s Pass.

Now he was racing Gaborn’s dun-colored mare through the red foothills above Deyazz, heading down roads that Jureem had named, but still unsure of his destination. The name Obran was a contraction of two Indhopalese words: obir , to age, and ran , city of the king. It was best translated as “City of the Ancient King.” It sounded like the name for the capital of a province. But Borenson had never heard of the damned place, and Jureem’s directions would lead him only to the northern borders of the Great Salt Desert, a home to Muttayin nomads. It seemed an unlikely place to find a palace.

Jureem assured him that he would need a guide to show him the palace’s location; the guide would have to be a minor lord himself. Borenson carried a standard in his left hand—the green pennant of truce above the Sylvarresta boar.

The morning air was bracing, invigorating. His steed ran long and far between each stop for rest. The breath came cold from Borenson’s mouth, and his armor rang with each hoofbeat of his mount. The horse worked its lungs like a bellows. The roads hereabout were narrow and treacherous. Rocks sometimes rolled downhill from above.

Despite the danger, Borenson raced his mount at speeds of up to fifty miles per hour.

The landscape below him was a vast savanna dotted with drab olive-green trees. The grasses were the color of sand where the red clay did not show through. A single broad river silvered the landscape on the edge of the horizon, and cities of tents and adobe glittered at its border, with fields of wheat and orchards of oranges and almonds all along the watercourse. He had not yet passed a village. The citizens of Deyazz lived only along its great rivers.

He’d passed through the mountains during the night with surprisingly little resistance. Several times he’d met small caravans filled with merchants heading north. Yet it was too late in the season for them to be coming for trade. He could think of only one reason they would trek north: They were refugees fleeing Indhopal, eager to see the Earth King.

Once he’d circled a large army bivouacked in a mountain pass. Though he’d borne a torch on the pole of his standard, so that, all might see that he flew the colors of truce, three assassins had chased him.

But Borenson rode a kingly mount, one that this week had been given two more endowments of metabolism and two of sight, so that it would run swiftly and with clear vision, even by starlight. He’d outraced his pursuers with nothing more than an arrow that snapped off in his mail to show for the trouble.

Yet even Borenson could not outrace the doubts that nagged him.

He worried that he had been too harsh when he’d said goodbye to Myrrima. She may have been right when she said that he punished both himself and her for his murders.

The road ahead to Inkarra and his mission in Obran were also cause for apprehension.

He worried most of all for Gaborn. The lad was naive to think that he could sue for peace or seek to bribe Raj Ahten. King Orwynne had been right. Gaborn could have better spent his time using his forcibles to prepare for war.

Borenson had always imagined that when an Earth King appeared, he would be a stately fellow with the wisdom of the ages on his brow. He’d be as strong as the hills, with muscles as gnarled and as powerful as tree roots. He’d have the respect of all, and a certain implacable demeanor.

The Earth King he’d always imagined bore absolutely no resemblance to Gaborn.

Gaborn had no great skill in battle, no vast stores of wisdom. He was but an unskilled lad who loved his people.

But he had an asset that Borenson had seldom considered. He recalled the words of Gaborn’s father in discussing what would happen if he ever went to battle with a certain duke in Beldinook who was giving him trouble. He’d said, “Duke Trevorsworthy I can handle. It’s his wife and that damned Sergeant Arrants who terrify me.”

Borenson had laughed at the idea of a king being terrified of a woman and a mere sergeant, but the King had-cut him short. “The wife is a brilliant tactician, and Sergeant Arrants is perhaps the most inspired artilleryman I’ve ever seen. He could build a catapult out of a butter churn that would knock down a castle wall or put an iron ball between your eyes at four hundred yards.”

Then he’d taught Borenson this lesson: “Remember, a lord is never a single man. He is the sum of all the men in his retinue. When you fight a lord, you must consider the strengths of each man that he commands before you can get a true measure of his stature.”

Borenson therefore had to consider Gaborn’s human assets. There were thousands of gentlemen of various rank and title in Mystarria:, everything from petty lords to Gaborn’s wise great-uncle Paladane. Some were sailors or builders, men who commanded great hordes of peasants in the field, men who trained horses or hammered shields. A nation’s strength had to be measured by more than its warriors.

And if one measured a lord by the strengths of the men that he commanded, the Earth could have done no better than to choose Gaborn. Mystarria was the largest, wealthiest nation in Rofehavan.

Perhaps the Earth had chosen Gaborn, in part, because of the strength of his people.

If that was true, then the Earth had not merely chosen Gaborn to be Earth King on his own merits, it had chosen Gaborn because it knew that Borenson could be counted on to be the Earth King’s protector.