Mercedes Lackey - Two-Edged Blade

“Be careful, or you’ll put out the candle,” he warned. “And I don’t have many. We really ought to make do with firelight. So, you want to know how I happened to be keeping company with Karsites? I’ll tell you what, you answer a question, and I’ll answer one. Fair enough?”

“Well—” she said cautiously.

“I’d like to know where you got such good training in your Gift if you never told anyone about it,” he interrupted eagerly. “Your control is absolutely amazing!”

“I told one other—person,” she admitted, reluctantly, “Actually, he came to me, because I was—uh—making it hard for him to sleep at night.” She ducked her head in the cold water, more than the chill of her bath making her shiver. Years of concealing her abilities had made a habit of secrecy that was just too much a part of her to break with any comfort. The silence between them lengthened. “Look,” she said, awkwardly, her hair full of soap. “I’d rather not talk about it. It—it just doesn’t seem right. I really don’t use it that much, and I’d rather forget I had it.”

He sighed, but didn’t insist. “I guess it’s my turn, hmm? Well, it’s stupid enough. Or rather, I was stupid enough. I was just across the Border, in a little village. Not spying, precisely, just picking up commonplace information, gossip, news, that kind of thing.”

She turned to stare at him. “Wearing that ? Blessed Agnira, what kind of an idiot are you?”

“Not that much of an idiot!” he snapped, then said, “Sorry. I wasn’t that stupid, no, I was wearing ordinary enough clothing, and I’d walked in; I’d left Ratha out in the woods, outside the village walls. I thought my disguise was perfect, and I thought my contacts were trustworthy, but obviously, something went wrong. I think someone betrayed me, but I’ll probably never know for sure. Anyway, when they first hauled me outside the walls, there were only a couple of the guards and no priestess; Ratha tried to get me loose, and they got one of my saddlebags even though they couldn’t catch him.”

“And when they found the uniform, they couldn’t resist dressing you in it.” She rinsed out her hair, and dried herself with the rag he handed her. With a smile of amusement, she recognized the rest of her ruined shirt. “I can see their reasoning. Makes it all the more evident to the priestess that they really had caught a Herald.”

He nodded, and she pulled the clean clothing on, dripping hair and all. “So, that’s it. Short and unadorned.”

Except for the reason you were over here. Just gathering “information,” hmm? With the ability to read thoughts? Not bloody likely. You were posted to that village to eavesdrop on everything you could, and you’re more of a fool than I think you are if you haven’t realized I’d figure that out. So you Heralds aren’t quite as noble—or as stupid—as you claim. There’s such a thing as morality, but there’s such a thing as expediency, too. I just hope you save your expediency for your enemies.

But she didn’t say anything, just strolled over the uneven surface of the cave floor to their fire.

“So how did you end up here?” he asked, handing her a roasted tuber and her water skin. “The closest fighting I know of is on the Menmellith border, and you’re leagues away from there.”

“Sheer bad luck,” she told him. “The worst run of luck I could have had except for one thing—nobody’s managed to kill me yet, that I know of.”

He smiled at that, and she described the rout, the flight, the dive into the river, and her continued flight deeper and deeper into enemy lands.

“—so I ended up here,” she finished. “Like I said, sheer bad luck.”

“Not for me,” he pointed out.

She snorted. “Well, if your chosen deity brought me all this way to save your hide, it’s going to cost you double. I may not be able to collect from a god, but I can certainly collect from you!”

He laughed. “If any outside forces had any part in bringing you up here, it wasn’t at my request,” he protested. “I mean, not that I wasn’t praying for rescue, but they caught me only yesterday, and you’ve been on the run for—what? Weeks?”

“At least,” she said glumly. “Seems like months. Sometimes I think I’m never going to make it back home alive.”

“You will,” he replied, softly.

She just shrugged. “So, are you going to introduce me to your friend? It hardly seems polite to keep acting like he’s no brighter than Hellsbane.”

Eldan brightened. “You mean, you—”

“My weaponsmaster told me about Companions,” she said, cutting him off. “They’re—s—s—”

And suddenly, she was tongue-tied. She literally could not say the word, “spirit.”

“Special,” she got out, sweating with the effort. “Absolutely the intellectual equals of you and me. Right?”

“Exactly.” He beamed. “Ratha, this is Kerowyn. Kerowyn, Companion Ratha.”

“Zha’hai’allav’a, Ratha,” she said politely, as the Companion left his self-appointed watch post at the entrance and paced gracefully toward her. “That’s Shin’a’in, the greeting of my adopted Clan,” she told both Ratha and his Herald. “It means, ‘wind beneath your wings.’ My Clan’s the Tale’sedrin, the Children of the Hawk.”

She didn’t know why the Shin’a’in greeting seemed appropriate; it just fit. Ratha nodded to her with grave courtesy; Eldan’s eyes widened.

“Shin’a’in?” he exclaimed, and turned to look at Hellsbane, dozing over her heap of fresh-pulled grass. “Then—surely that’s not—”

“She’s a warsteed, all right,” Kero said with pride. “And probably the only one you’ll ever see off the Plains. Her name’s Hellsbane. Smart as a cat, obedient as a dog, and death on four hooves if I ask it of her.”

“That much I saw.” He got up and walked over to the mare, who woke when he moved, and watched him cautiously.

“Hellsbane,” Kero called, catching the mare’s attention. “Kathal, dester’edre. “

Hellsbane relaxed, and permitted herself to be examined minutely. Eldan looked her over with all the care of a born horseman. Finally he left her to return to her doze and seated himself back by the fire. “Amazing,” he said in wonder. “Ugliest horse I’ve ever seen, but under that hide—if I were going to build a riding beast for warfare, starting from the bone out, that’s exactly what I’d build.”

“My weaponsmaster claims that’s what the Clans did do,” Kero said. “The gods alone know how they did it, or even if they did it, but that’s what she claims.”

“Amazing,” he repeated, shaking his head. Then he raised it. “So, tell me about this weaponsmaster of yours. And how in the Havens did you manage to get adopted into a Clan?”

She smiled. “It’s a long story. Are you comfortable?”

They were both a lot wearier than either of them thought. He told her to start at the beginning and she took him at his word. She told him about the “ride”—and to her embarrassment, discovered that the song had made it as far as Valdemar. Once past the decision to leave home and beg some kind of instructions from her grandmother, she caught him yawning.

“I’m not—oh—that boring, am I?” she asked, finding the yawns contagious.

“No,” he said, “It’s just that I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“Well, I don’t think any Karsites are going to creep up on us in the dark,” she admitted, “And it’s well after sundown. I never once noticed anyone moving around after dark except army patrols. And even they wouldn’t go off the roads.” She did not mention the strange and frightening instances when she’d felt as if she was being hunted; she had no proof, and anyway, nothing had ever come of it.