Nancy Berberick - The Inheritance

"I'm not going alone," she'd said to Brand when it was decided it was her tum to go above and hunt. "And I'm not taking any of those damn men with me."

Over this dark season she'd grown a dislike for most of them, hungry-handed men who now and then tried their luck with her. Luckless hungry-handed men, but Elansa saw that the half-elf was getting tired of making her point. Tianna was, Elansa thought, getting tired of them all. It had been a while since she'd shared the sleeping furs with Brand. She spoke to no one but her father, sometimes to Char, but only if she was of a mind to flatter him for a drink. She looked beyond the fire a lot, like someone who was thinking about moving on.

Brand had said he didn't care who Tianna hunted with. All he cared about was that she come back with supper. And so she'd looked around for Dell, who could not be found. Neither could Arawn be found, and that answered that. Tianna announced she was taking Elansa and no one was to worry about her escaping.

"If she tries, I'm just in the mood to shoot her."

Tianna tested her bow’s string, liking the tension. She slipped an arrow from the quiver. Fletched all in white but for a green cock-feather, it was a beautiful shaft-straight, with sunlight gleaming on the golden wood.

"Not a bad day, either, when you feel the wind on your face."

Her words caught Elansa by the throat, like grief. How long it had been since she'd seen the sun or tasted the wind! How long? She didn't know. Greedy, her eyes took in all she saw, and that was not much. Stonelands stretched as far as the eye could reach, a dun earth brushed here and there with shadow. On the shaded side of the hill, little crevices and cracks between rocks held dusty snow, but the air was warmer than she remembered it being the last time she'd felt it moving on her skin. No matter where she looked, she saw no sign of her forest. It was as though the horizon had forgotten the green and the gray and the way the lines of trees could soften its line.

She had lived below ground with the outlaws for a time she didn't know how to reckon. In the sky the two moons hung, faint and weary from the night. A trick of the light made it easier to discern red Lunitari. She hung full, and so must her brother Full, but how many times had the moons turned since Elansa had been taken? Her body had twice missed its cycle, two months. A month later, she had lost the child. She'd not caught her rhythm back yet, and she hadn't been able to discern the patterns of the other women. As best she could estimate, all the winter had passed since Brand had taken her away.

The wind shifted, coming down from the warmer north. She thought she caught the scent of green things growing. Tears welled and dried at once. She did not weep now, or ever. It was a sign of weakness, and she could not afford that, not in the day, not in the night.

Why didn't Keth let me die?

Came the accusatory reply: Why did you stop him?

Across the sky, a raven went winging, its cry like a curse in the silence. Another followed, and then move. Tianna nudged Elansa and went leaping down the stony slope. Elansa followed, springing down the hillside with the same confidence as the half-elf. She had been walking inside the mountain for months, and the way was no easier on the inside than out. Lately, since he'd decided he wasn't going to kill her out of hand, Brand had seen to it that she fared better with food. She ate before the hounds did now, and that almost doubled her fare. She grew strong with the food and the hard walking. She did not take this as reprieve from the threat of killing, though. It was just that she had to be able to move as quickly and strongly as anyone else.

The wind, the sweet wind, did indeed smell of green. Tianna stopped at the foot of the slope. She looked back, marked the dark slit in the side of the mountain that was the way back, and then watched the ravens, the dark flock growing thicker.

She jerked her head at Elansa. "Come on. They're following something minded to do a killing-goblins maybe. No place we want to be."

So saying, she turned in the direction opposite from where the ravens were going.

Elansa followed, but once when "Tianna wasn't looking, she cast a glance at the sky, then along the dun land behind. She saw nothing, but the birds flew high and they saw more. For a moment, her heart rose, and she thought, Do they see searchers? Do they see Keth?

Or does he think I'm dead?

Wind moaned lonely in the empty land, sounding like lost things. Elansa ran to catch up with Tianna, and she walked beside her around the base of the hill and north into the warmer wind. They went that way for a while. She was not a hunter, this stolen princess, but she had become a watcher. She knew, almost before Tianna stopped, that she would. Something in the way the half-elf’s shoulders squared, a thing about the way she moved to settle the quiver on her hip.

"Wait," Tianna said, not whispering, but low.

Elansa had already halted, and she was already smelling what had warned Tianna. Blood and smoke, and something so foul she could not name it. Bleating, like the cries of goats, sounded against the hill, echoing.

"Ogre," Tianna said. She looked around. Nothing in her countenance seemed like panic, but Elansa felt the urgency as though it were a spark leaping from one of them to the other. "Tianna grabbed her shoulder and turned her around, pointing uphill to where tumbled stones made a pile as high as the women were tall. "Up there! Go!"

Goats cried again, then one made a terrible screaming and fell silent. Laughter, harsh as daggers, bounded around the stone as two more death cries cut the air. Someone-or something-shouted in a language Elansa couldn't identify, neither Dwarvish nor Elvish nor Common. All the words of it-if words there were-sounded like calls to murder. She ran, scrambling, her heart thundering in her breast and her mouth dried up with fear. She fell once, pushed herself up again, and bent her back to run. She ducked behind the stone and had no time to catch her breath before Tianna pulled her to her knees. Long elven eyes widening, she mouthed one word: Quiet!

She need not have warned, and yet it seemed to Elansa that her own breathing sounded like stormwind. She forced herself to take small silent breaths.

The ogres, three of them, came up the defile, and each carried a dead goat slung across its shoulders. Sunlight gleamed on scabrous, yellow skin. Tiny, mean eyes darted here and there. Thick ropes of saliva hung and dripped from keen fangs. Taller than any elf Elansa had ever seen, taller than any human in Brand's band, they covered the rough ground as easily as ever Elansa had strode through a marble hall.

Tianna mouthed a curse, eyes glancing this way and that, looking to see if more of the horrible creatures would follow or if these would meet with others. The three came closer,’ and the stench of them made Elansa’s gorge rise. She clapped her hand to her mouth and willed the bile burning up from her belly to stay behind her teeth. Her eyes watered from the pain, from the stink, and the three walked by, goat's blood dripping down their backs. They shouted back and forth to each other, not caring who heard them.

One stopped, adjusted the load of the goat round its shoulders. It lifted its head, sniffed the wind, and went suddenly still. It shouted something, and the others stopped.

Tianna mouthed, Do not move .

Elansa could not have. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and sweat broke on her brow. She became aware of her own smell-sweat and skin and hair not washed, the leather of her broken boots, the wool of her cloak. Please, gods, don't let the wind shift!

One ogre shouted to the lingerer, who moved on.

When they were gone, the two women breathed again. Tianna slapped her shoulder, as she might have the shoulder of one of her fellows, a half-friendly gesture assumed to be understood.