Carol Berg - THE SOUL WEAVER

“You wore it very long before they cut it.”

I couldn’t tell whether that was a statement or a question. “It had been cut off so short only once before, when I was six and Tomas stuck tar in it.”

Gerick didn’t laugh, nor did he ask any more questions that day. He pulled his cloak around his shoulders and rode in tight silence, jerking himself awake whenever his head nodded. Radele rode just behind us, his eyes fixed on Gerick’s back.

Eight days into our journey, our road crested the Cerran Brae. The climb, though not horribly steep, was long and steady, wandering alongside a marshy riverbank between enclosing ridges. Grumbling that the pleasant early days of the journey had left us laggard, the drovers pushed the party hard, as we would find no ground suitable for making camp until we reached the drier Leiran side of the pass. But the failing light forced them to call a halt soon after we’d crossed, rather than farther down the Leiran side as was usual.

We camped in a long, narrow meadow, hemmed in by steep ridges on two sides, and by the pass behind us. The little valley necked down tightly, the lower end of the road and a dribbling stream crowding between the encroaching ridges before passing into the thickly treed forest of Tennebar. Early summer was cold so high on the mountain, and a blustering wind funneled through the pass and the valley, setting shirts and cloaks billowing wildly.

“Pull up there in that hollow,” said Sanger, the principal drover, whose neck was as wide as his head. He sat his horse across the road while directing each of the groups of travelers to follow his wagons into the meadow. “The vintner and the trappers will set up between you and my wagons tonight.”

Gerick nodded and clucked to the pony, heading for the grassy depression the drover had indicated, just off the road. I wondered why the change in procedure. On other nights Sanger had allowed everyone to set up wherever they pleased.

“You’ll be north picket on third watch,” the drover said to Radele as the trap jounced across the short, dry tufts of grass. “We’ll need your boy, as well. He’s not stepped up as yet, but we’re using everyone tonight. I’ve a bad feeling about this place. Too high. Too many notches in them rocks.”

“Third watch,” said Radele nodding. “I’ll try to persuade the boy… my student… to do his share.”

Gerick slapped the reins harder than required to move the pony along.

One by one, the traveling parties passed by us. By the time Paulo and his string of horses scuffed up the dust, following the vintner’s wagons and the trappers’ mule train toward the center of the camp as Sanger directed him, Gerick and Radele had unhitched the trap. While I unloaded our packs, Gerick rubbed down the pony, and Radele strolled over to the scraggly stand of pine across the road to hunt for firewood. He emerged a short time later dragging a dead sapling.

As I rummaged through our supplies, wishing I had something to cook that was more savory than the barley porridge we’d eaten for three nights running, Radele suddenly dropped his tree in the middle of the road and came racing across the meadow through the dusk, shouting, “Riders!” His tone left no question as to his opinion of the intentions of those approaching.

The word flew through the camp like leaves blown on the chilly gusts. Men shouted harsh commands and grabbed the halters of horses left to graze. Women snatched their pails from the spring and ran back to their parties. A few people like me stood stupidly peering at the road where nothing was visible as yet.

“Get back to the wagons, my lady,” said Radele, pelting into our grassy depression. “You’ll not be safe out here.”

From the back of our little cart he snatched a long canvas bundle that he threw to the ground at Gerick’s feet. “You’ve trained with the masters, eh? Time to put your skills to some decent use.”

At the same time, Sanger barreled up on his big sorrel. “What’s going on?”

“Riders on the lower road,” said Radele, already buckling the saddle girth under his bay. “At least twenty, coming fast enough they’re up to no good. If we get your soldiers and the vintner’s men down there where the road narrows, we can stop them before they come up this far.”

“How could you - ?”

“I’ve exceptional hearing,” snapped Radele.

Shouts and pointing fingers told me that the sudden rumbling in my belly was not growing anxiety, but the drumming of hoofbeats. Radele was in the saddle before I could blink. He drew his sword and motioned to three of the Vallorean magistrates and the stonemason and his assistant, who had ridden up behind Sanger. “Muster your riders!” shouted Radele. “These fellows and I will hold until you get there!” And he and the five travelers took off for the neck of the valley.

Sanger rode back toward the center of camp, but instead of dispatching riders to follow Radele, he shouted and waved at his soldiers, the vintner’s men, and the trappers to stay right where they were. Now I understood his placement of the camp. Sanger wanted his back to the solid cliffs on the southwest and his left flank protected by the little bogs and springs that dotted the heart of the meadow. And he wanted the most interesting prey such as wine casks and pelts - and their sturdy defenders - in between his levy wagons and any assault from the road. Parties like ours and the Valloreans and the Leiran man and wife were left on the outskirts of the camp. Expendable distractions.

For a moment Gerick stared at the bundle Radele had thrown at his feet, making no move to open it. Then, he snapped his head from me to Radele and his riders, streaking down the road, to Sanger and his soldiers, taking up their positions about the heart of the camp.

“Come on,” he said, touching my arm. “We need to find Paulo.” Before I could question or object or think of what else to do, he took off running for the flat grassy area near a spring where Paulo had hobbled his horses and left them to graze.

I followed. Paulo caught sight of us before we were halfway to the spring. My feet slowed when my boots squelched in a mud hole. My heart slowed when I saw Paulo leading Gerick’s Jasyr and his own Molly, already saddled. “Wait,” I said. “We need to consider - ”

“Take care of my mother,” said Gerick, grabbing my arm and shoving it into Paulo’s grasp, while snatching Jasyr’s bridle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I said. I wasn’t used to being handed about by striplings.

“You and Paulo need to get behind the soldiers’ line.” Gerick was already in Jasyr’s saddle. “It’s the safest place. If the Dar’Nethi can’t hold the neck of the valley, then anyone outside that line is dead.”

Faint cries and a rising dust cloud from the eastern end of the road told us that the fight was engaged.

“We’d best warn the rest of the folk, then,” said Paulo.

“Just take care of my mother.”

A knot of terror caught in my throat as Gerick wheeled the gray and kicked him to a gallop across the meadow. But when he reached the road, he turned, not toward the battle raging at the lower end of the valley, but the opposite way, back toward the pass. My skin flushed with relief that my son was not riding into harm’s way, yet at the same time another, more uncomfortable, feeling swelled within me. What was he doing?

“My lady, come along with me.” Paulo yanked his quarterstaff from the straps that lashed it alongside Molly’s saddle, then whispered in the mare’s ear and slapped her flank, sending her back toward the open pasture. He whistled after her, and she whinnied cheerfully. Then he took my arm and tugged gently. “We’d best hurry.”

The two of us herded the Leiran man and wife, the fourth Vallorean magistrate - a gaping, big-bellied man - and the other Vallorean travelers toward Sanger and his levy wagons. The granite ramparts that flanked the meadows eerily amplified the clash of weapons, and the shouts and screams of men and horses from down the valley.