Juliet McKenna - The Swordsman's Oath

“I know I’ll be glad when we make a landfall and we can get on with the business of setting up the colony. You’ll have plenty to do then, Vahil.”

“True enough,” groaned Vahil with mock dread. “Look, there’s a trail heading through that dip; with any luck the noise of the camp won’t have spooked the game through there.”

“You’d better go in the middle.” Temar gestured to Guinalle. “I don’t suppose there are beasts of any size on a place like this but we might as well be careful.”

“Thank you, Esquire,” she said demurely, pushing carefully through the bushes after Vahil who was showing just how quietly he could move when he chose to.

Temar followed, his shirt soon damp from the moisture on the leaves and with sweat from the warmth of the day. They passed through the dip and began a careful descent into a shallow valley, rich with strange, glossy-leafed plants in a myriad shades of green and dotted with a few spicily scented blooms.

“There’s a clearing ahead.” Vahil paused to speak softly to Guinalle, who passed the word back.

Temar had to restrain an impulse to brush a sticky tendril from her damp forehead but happily answered Guinalle’s smile of frank enjoyment with one of his own.

“There!” Guinalle froze and sank down, taking an arrow from her quiver and nocking it carefully.

Temar and Vahil followed her gaze and saw a scatter of furry creatures grazing peaceably on the long grass in the center of the clearing. They exchanged a nod and moved stealthily to take up positions for themselves. Temar glanced across to Guinalle and, when she gave the nod, let fly. His second arrow found its target as well, but by then all the animals had vanished into the concealing forest, a few shaking leaves the only sign of their panicked flight. They rose and crossed to see what quarry they had taken.

‘What do you suppose these are?“ Vahil shook his head in mystification as he expertly removed his quarrel from the expiring creature.

Temar used his knife to open the mouth of his kill, cautious in case it was not quite dead. “It’s got teeth for grass and fruit, I’d say, so it should be good eating.”

“It’s certainly heavy enough, for the size of it.” Guinalle had pulled back the blunt-nosed, squarish head to slit the throat of the one that Temar’s second arrow had not quite killed clean. “I’d say it’s a hare that has ambitions to be a deer.”

Temar laughed. “That sounds about right.”

“Let’s find somewhere else to gut them,” Vahil suggested. “We could try waiting for the rest of them again tomorrow, if we don’t leave too much blood.”

Five of the densely muscled beasts between them was no slight burden and Temar was glad to let the two he carried slide from his shoulders when Guinalle sat down on a scatter of rocks a little way above the stream running through the base of the valley.

“I’ll cut some poles.” Vahil headed for a stand of springy young growth and Temar began gutting his animals, pleasantly surprised to see Guinalle doing the same with reasonable skill, if not the speed of any long practice. They worked in companionable silence until all the prey was cleaned, the entrails buried to baffle the flies and Vahil had uncorked the wineskin he had thoughtfully picked up before leaving the camp. Temar coughed at the smell of blood clogging his nostrils and picked some sprigs of a low growing, purple-tinged thyme. He handed one to Guinalle, who accepted it with a composed smile, faint color kissing her cheeks.

“Den Fellaemion said he’ll be looking to set up a permanent anchorage on these islands, you know, when the colony’s established,” Temar observed, looking idly around to stop himself gazing too obviously at Guinalle.

“I can think of worse places to live,” commented Vahil. “Nice climate, plenty of timber, game for hunting and room for farming.”

“You won’t be the first, if you do settle here,” said Guinalle unexpectedly.

“No, there are no people here.” Vahil shook his head. “Den Fellaemion told me; they checked all five of the islands when they first found them and they’ve been back several times since. There’s been no sign of anyone living here; he wouldn’t have let us go off like this, if he wasn’t certain.”

“Yes, I know.” Guinalle’s tone betrayed a certain irritation. “I spent most of yesterday using Artifice to make absolutely sure. What I’m saying is that there were people here once.”

Vahil opened his mouth to argue but Temar waved him down. “How do you know?”

“Look around you.” Guinalle rose from her seat on a boulder and swept round, arm outstretched. “There were huts here; can’t you see the circles, where the hearths were?”

Temar looked but with the best will in the world couldn’t see what she was indicating.

“Here.” Guinalle paced around a wide circle and suddenly Temar saw it, an almost invisible depression in the rough grasses with a clump of spite-nettle in the center.

“Yes, I see.” He looked at her, a little daunted but still impressed. “You have good eyes!”

Guinalle shook her head with a deprecating smile. “Well, I did get a clue from this.”

She held up a shard of crude pottery and tossed it to Temar. He turned it in his hands; black on one side from use in a fire, it was coarse and gritty stuff, still bearing the thumbprints of its maker.

“They were an uncultured people, I think. They hunted in the forests, gathered fruit in season, that kind of thing, not farmers in any real sense, as we understand it. They had music though, pipes and drums and storytellers; they weren’t complete savages.”

“A bit of broken pot can’t tell you that much, surely.” Vahil was trying politely to hide his skepticism, Temar could tell, but merely sounded patronizing.

“Artifice can.” Guinalle’s eyes were distant as she turned another potsherd over and over in her hands. “I can pick up echoes, sort of, from things like this. It was a long time ago, though.”

“What happened to them?” Temar was fascinated.

“I can’t tell.” Guinalle frowned slightly. “There are flames in the destruction of this pot, distress too.”

“That could just mean some woman dropped it in the fire and ruined the dinner,” laughed Vahil. “Either that or she threw it at her husband and missed!”

“It’s more than that.” Guinalle looked more than a little piqued but Vahil seemed oblivious as he finished the wine.

“Just what sort of things can you tell from something like this?” Temar held out a hand and tried to fit the two pieces of weathered crock together without success.

“It depends on many different factors—on how old something is, how valued it was by its owner, the strength of emotions involved.” Guinalle’s tone became slightly didactic. “Of course Artifice can be used to deliberately instill memories in an item as well, visions that an Adept can retrieve.”

“Saedrin’s stones,” said Temar without thinking, wondering what possible use that sort of thing could have.

Guinalle didn’t seem to notice the vulgarism. “It’s a difficult thing to achieve, and it’s something that has been subject to misuse in the past. It can have rather unexpected effects on some people,” she sighed. “I’m afraid certain Masters of Artifice haven’t always been as scrupulous about the use they have made of their talents.”

“I bet they haven’t!” Vahil grinned with inappropriate humor as he reached for the carrying pole. “Come on, let’s get this meat back to camp in time for dinner. Even if there’s no time to hang it properly, no one will thank us for it if it gets flyblown.”

Guinalle followed closely behind Temar as they followed the narrow game trail back down to the shore, but carrying the laden pole made it impossible for him to talk to her.