David Weber - War Maid's choice

“That’s the best I can do, at least for now,” she said.

“And it’s an awful lot better than anything I could have done,” the senior Kalathan healer told her fervently.

“Granted,” Five Hundred Balcartha agreed, standing out of the way to one side, frowning down at the injured man. “Granted, and I’m as grateful as the next woman we had you here to save him, Milady. But what in Lillinara’s name happened to him? And what was he doing out in the middle of the Wind Plain all by himself?”

“I have no idea,” Shahana said frankly, settling gratefully onto the stool the healer pulled over to the side of the bed for her. “Leeana’s obviously right that he’s a mage, so I’m going to make a wild guess here and suggest that whatever happened to him has to have had something to do with his mage talent. But I’ve never heard of anything the magi do that could have produced this.” She gestured at the still raw ruins of his terribly damaged hands and the fresh, livid scars of the lesser burns she had been able to heal completely, crawling up both of his forearms. “It’s like he was holding onto some kind of burning rope!”

Balcartha nodded unhappily. It was her job, as Kalatha’s senior military officer, to recognize and deal with potential threats, and all of her instincts were insisting that “potential threat” was exactly what this man represented. Yet she had no clue as to why that might be.

“I could wish-” she began, then closed her mouth with a click as the injured man’s eyelids fluttered. They rose, and his face twisted as muscles which had been slack in unconsciousness tightened in reaction to the pain of awareness. He sucked in a deep, hissing breath, and then, with startling suddenness, his slate-gray eyes snapped into focus.

He looked up at the five hundred for an instant, then tried to push himself up, only to gasp in anguish and fall back as his hands’ injured strength failed him.

“Gently, Master Mage!” Shahana said. “You’re safe now. I give you my word.”

His head turned, his gaze moving to the arm’s face. He stared at her for an instant, and something flickered in those gray eyes. He let himself settle fully back onto the mattress, yet the tension within him only seemed to grow.

“You’re in Kalatha,” Balcartha told him. “One of my officers found you out in the grass. We brought you back to the infirmary and the Arm here”-she touched Shahana’s shoulder-“did what she could for you. But what in the names of all the gods were you doing out there?”

The mage looked at her for a long moment, then licked cracked and blistered lips…and told her.

Trisu of Lorham swept into Thalar Keep’s great hall like a windstorm to greet his unexpected guests. There were three of them: Shahana Lillinarafressa, Balcartha Evahnalfressa, and the young woman he couldn’t-simply could not, however hard he tried-think of as anyone except Leeana Bowmaster. At least this time she was in trousers, shirt, and doublet instead of that scandalous attire she normally danced around in, flaunting her body at every male eye like the worst, cheapest sort of strumpet. Not that the sight of the wedding bracelet on her left wrist was much of an improvement, especially given the rumors about just who it was she was supposedly “married” to!

Still, he reminded himself, there were certain standards of courtesy, even with war maids. Although exactly how one went about politely greeting this particular covey of guests was beyond him. “Ladies” was out of the question, and most of the terms one normally applied to war maids scarcely came under the heading of polite at the best of times.

He opened his mouth to begin, but Arm Shahana raised her hand before he could speak.

“We apologize for breaking in on you so discourteously, My Lord,” she said quickly, and his eyes narrowed as he recognized the tension in her eyes and the harshness of her voice. “Unfortunately, what brings us here leaves little time for courtesy.”

“Indeed?” He looked back and forth between her and the other two women, and his stomach tightened as he saw the matching tension in the two war maids, the coiled tautness of their muscles. He thought about several things he might have said and discarded all of them.

“May I know what does bring you here, Milady?” he asked instead.

“Treason, Milord,” she said flatly, and his narrowed eyes widened abruptly. He darted a look at the older war maid’s face and saw the flat, hard agreement in her expression.

“In that case,” he said after a moment, “please join me in my office-all three of you-where we can speak freely.”

Leeana sat in the wooden chair beside the narrow, converted archer’s slit that formed one of Trisu’s office windows. She and Balcartha had let Shahana carry the burden of recounting Master Brayahs’ story to Trisu. In fact, she’d deliberately kept her mouth closed lest she put up the lord warden’s back, although she’d responded as concisely and completely as she could when he’d fired a half-dozen questions in her direction. And to his credit, they’d been clear, concise questions…and he’d completely ignored the fact that she was a war maid-and her father’s daughter-as he concentrated on her answers. She couldn’t help thinking it was a pity it took something like this to get past his automatic prejudices, but it was obvious his brain was working, and he’d wasted far less time grasping the essentials than she would have expected out of most people.

“So we don’t know for certain what’s happening,” he said now. “Except, of course,” his face tightened, “that we know for damned sure-pardon my language, Milady,” he glanced apologetically at Shahana, “-that sorcery’s involved in it somewhere!”

“Actually, Milord, we do know one other thing,” Shahana said. He raised an eyebrow invitingly, and she shrugged. “Whatever’s happening, and whoever’s behind it, they took steps to prevent Master Brayahs from reaching the King at Chergor when he learned of it.”

Trisu’s jaw tightened and he gave a jerky nod.

“Fair enough, Milady. And it follows from that that if they wanted to prevent him from reaching the King, presumably they don’t want anyone else doing it, either.”

“They don’t want anyone else doing it in time, Milord,” Leeana heard someone else say with her voice, and Trisu’s gray eyes flicked to her. She met them levelly, then shrugged. “There wouldn’t have been any point in stopping a single mage-or anyone else-if they don’t have a plan already in place and operating,” she said flatly. “I don’t know what that plan might be, but I do know we’re the only people in the entire Kingdom who know they’re planning anything.”

“An excellent point…Milady,” he replied after a moment. “And since we are, then clearly it’s our responsibility to do something about it. The question is what we can do.”

“How many armsmen could you ride with within the hour, Milord?” Shahana asked.

“Perhaps twenty-five-thirty, at the most,” Trisu said. “It would take several hours to summon more than that.”

“And I have twenty of the Temple Guard at Kalatha.” Shahana shook her head, her face tight with worry. “Fifty isn’t a huge force-especially when there may be wizardry involved.”

“But fifty is fifty better than none, Milady,” Trisu countered. “And Lorham’s the closest wardenship.”

“I have a suggestion,” Leeana said after a moment. All of them looked at her, and she shrugged again. “War maids weigh less than most armsmen, Milord, and as you say, it’s not a long trip from here to Chergor. Your armsmen’s horses could carry double that far, and Kalatha could probably provide another twenty or thirty mounts. They won’t be as good as the ones under your or the Arm’s armsmen, but they’ll be a lot better than none. Split the difference in numbers and call it twenty-five, and that gets you from fifty to a hundred and fifty.”