Brian McClellan - Forsworn

The forest filled with the dry bone sound of fallen leaves swirling in the wind as Erika drew back on her bow. She pulled until the feather tickled her cheek, sighting down the shaft, then let out a breath as she released, accomplishing the entire act in one swift motion.

The arrow glanced off a tree root forty feet away and careened into the underbrush. The squirrel she’d been aiming at raced up the tree, chattering angrily at her. She pulled an arrow from her quiver, set it to the string, drew back and fired again.

The second shot thumped into the branch just below the squirrel’s bushy tail. Erika reached for another arrow, but the rodent had already retreated to the safety of its nest.

“Your form is fantastic,” a stern voice commented. “Your speed is admirable and your movements precise. Only one thing lacking; you missed.”

Erika glared over her shoulder at the Leora family mistress-at-arms. Santiole was a sharp-eyed woman in her late forties with weather-worn skin and more than a few gray strands in her brown hair. She was roughly the same height as Erika, but her stiff posture made her seem far taller. She had a way of looking down her pinched nose that might seem genuinely imposing to anyone else. Erika just found it annoying. Fifteen years as Erika’s tutor had done little to sweeten Santiole’s sour humor and she always knew exactly what to say to get under Erika’s skin.

“I might have hit it,” Erika said, “if you weren’t sitting back there creaking in your saddle, scaring off my targets.”

Santiole’s horse tossed its head impatiently and the mistress-at-arms shifted her weight on the roan’s back, eliciting yet another loud creak. “You need to learn to shoot with distractions.”

Erika’s eyes rested first on the flintlock musket laid across Santiole’s saddle horn and then on the pistol tucked into the mistress-at-arm’s belt. Her fingers itched to go hunting with one of those . In all her nineteen years she’d never been allowed to do so. Handling a black powder weapon, even an unloaded one, was forbidden to her.

After all, that would be illegal.

“Go fetch your arrows,” Santiole said. “We should head back soon.”

They were an hour’s ride from the Leora manor and would be back in time to wash up for dinner if they hurried. Erika slung her bow over one shoulder and set off into the trees.

She rooted around in the brambles to find the first arrow, tearing a hole in her hunting doublet that would doubtlessly be noticed by grandmother, before returning to the offending tree and working her way fifteen feet in the air to dislodge the second arrow from its home in a thick branch.

Mother would have a fit if she saw me here , Erika reflected as she shimmied her way out to the arrow. Mother would lecture Santiole, and Santiole would weather the tirade only to tell her a Kez duchess needs to learn to fend for herself. And then father would interfere, telling mother to leave the poor old mistress-at-arms alone and….

Erika’s train of thought was interrupted as her eyes focused on something further in the forest: a subtle movement amongst the reds and browns of fallen autumn leaves.

She retrieved her arrow and returned to the ground, where Santiole waited with a look of impatience. She opened her mouth to say something, but Erika interrupted.

“Tie the horses and come with me.”

The mistress-at-arms hesitated for a moment, but she dismounted and quickly tied up both their horses. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Erika said. “I saw something. Someone.”

“Let me go first.” Musket at the ready, Santiole crept into the underbrush, barely stirring the leaves as she advanced. Erika followed her forward, an arrow nocked. They worked their way across a dry stream bed and came into a clearing some forty yards from the road. Santiole shouldered her musket.

“It’s a child.”

The girl couldn’t have been more than twelve, with hair a shade lighter than Erika’s dark blonde. She huddled next to a hollow tree, knees clutched to her chest, wearing a woolen summer dress soiled with mud. Strips from the hem of her dress had been tied around her bare feet and the makeshift bandages were soaked through with blood.

“Mistress,” Santiole started, but Erika was already crossing the clearing toward the girl.

“Don’t come a step closer.” The child’s voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper, but the words-and her expression-were deadly serious. The girl wiped her small, round nose with the back of her hand, blinking tears from brown eyes. There were cuts on her left cheek, no more than a day old, and bramble scratches covering both arms. She brandished a penknife in one hand.

“What are you doing out here?” Erika asked.

“Go away,” the girl answered.

“Do you need help?”

“I said to go away.”

“Look at her feet,” Erika whispered to Santiole.

The mistress-at-arms regarded the girl warily. “She’s come a long way. There isn’t a town for thirty miles except for Bedland. She’s not local. We would recognize her.”

“Visiting a relative?” Erika asked Santiole. “Perhaps got lost?” These were Erika’s grandparents’ lands and she knew them well, but Santiole knew them better than anyone.

“No,” Santiole said. “Couldn’t be.”

“Don’t talk about me like I can’t hear you,” the girl said. The point of her penknife didn’t waver. “I’m right here.”

“Where are you from?” Erika asked.

“Go away.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. None of your business.”

Erika drew herself up, her patience already wearing thin. These were her family’s lands and so it was her damned business and she would get answers.

Santiole touched her on the arm and leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Look above her right shoulder.”

Partially concealed by the girl’s hair and a thick smear of mud, Erika could make out a dark, angry scar. It was about the length of a man’s finger and in the shape of a flintlock musket.

“By Kresimir,” Erika swore.

Not a natural scar. A brand. The brand of a powder mage who had been sentenced to hang by royal decree.

“We have to turn her in,” Santiole said mildly.

Erika whirled on her tutor and stared , feeling a bitter mixture of anger and resentment.

“No,” Santiole said, “I didn’t think you’d allow that.” The mistress-at-arms cursed under her breath. “They’ll be hunting her.”

Erika knew that. She also knew that the royal mage hunters-or the king’s Longdogs, as they were known unofficially-wouldn’t care that this was just a child. A powder mage was a powder mage, after all. They would pursue this girl from one end of Kez to the other and no one would help her. In fact, most people would turn the girl over, expecting a fat reward.

“I’m not leaving her out here,” Erika said. She’d gotten lost in these woods once, when she was just a little younger than this girl. She still woke sometimes in the middle of the night sometimes, covered with a cold sweat, haunted by the memory of a labyrinth of trees and the terrifying approach of darkness.

Santiole’s voice held a note of pity. “We don’t have a choice. If we’re caught….”

“She escaped the Longdogs once. She’s traveled Kresimir knows how many miles to get here and she’s obviously heading north. If this girl has the courage to try the northern mountains on her own in hopes of escaping to Adro, I will damn well help her.”

Santiole sighed. “This is bloody stupid.”

“What are you talking about?” the girl demanded, edging away slowly. “Leave me be. I’m armed!”