Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The next morning, Pieter rose early. As he rolled out of bed, his eyes strayed toward the hearth. Last night’s log had long since been consumed, but even so, there was still a tiny flicker of fire dancing among the ashes. That blatant confirmation of Lathwi’s sorcerous abilities reinforced his decision to go to Compara. He frowned at the still-sleeping woman, then padded out of the cabin.
Outside, the ground was sodden: it squished and oozed beneath his boots as he strode across the clearing which he laughingly called his yard. No more rain was forthcoming, though—the dawning sky was as cloudless as a maiden’s conscience. He thanked The Dreamer for small favours, then went to fetch his mule.
“Come on, hay-burner,” he said, as he stepped into the shed, “it’s time for you to earn your keep.”
She was a homely creature: jug-headed and knobby-kneed, sway-backed, pot-bellied and slightly cross-eyed. But if The Dreamer had stinted her as far as looks were concerned, then it was most likely because She had been doubly generous with regard to brains. Buck was smarter than any horse, most dogs and even a few men he could name. Her ears flattened against the slope of her head as he approached with her gear, but she let him harness her with a minimum of resistance. When she was set to travel, he led her out of the shed and toward his workshop. There, he tethered her to a sapling and left her to graze.
Except for the faint yet lingering stench of old blood, mashed brains and tanning acids, his workshop seemed quite mundane: the racks on which he stretched and cured his hides were presently empty, his traps and knives were all carefully stowed away. He smiled, ever-pleased by its deceptive look, then strode over to a corner and scuffed at the layer of wood shavings and dirt which covered the floor. A grip appeared, then the outlines of a trap-door. As he tugged it open, a breath of cool air spiced with the scents of leather and fur caressed his face. His smile broadened. This secret cellar, designed to preserve his work from heat and thieves, hid two seasons’ worth of pelts. He had not planned to market these pelts so early in the year, but since he was going to Compara anyway, he might as well profit from the trip.
One by one, he carried his precious bundles out of the cellar and secured them to Buck’s back. When he was done, he restored the workshop to order and then headed for the door. On the way out, though, he remembered that Lathwi had not yet returned the dagger which he had thrown at her and so doubled back to raid his cache of work-blades. He strapped a hunting knife to his leg, then tucked a smaller blade into the top of his boot for good measure.
As he was leading Buck back toward the cabin, Lathwi appeared in the clearing. Without warning, her look of minor irritation turned to one of terrifying lust.
“Food!” she shrieked, and then came charging toward him with one of those obsidian-like knives of hers in hand. His heart slammed into his rib-cage. His hand darted toward his hunting knife. Then his mule went suddenly skittish, and he realized that Lathwi was referring to Buck and not him.
“No!” he shouted, throwing every ounce of authority that he owned into the word. “Not food! Definitely not food.”
She slowed to a trot, confusion stamped into the folds of her frown. Almost white-eyed with panic, Buck continued to shy away. Pieter tried to soothe the mule with calming noises, but when she refused to settle down, he clouted her on the nose.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded.
“It prey,” Lathwi said, coming to a stop alongside of him. “It know it need run or I eat.”
“This,” he grated, shaking Buck’s lead-rein in her face, “is a mule. A pack-beast, not a prey-beast. Not food. Do you understand?”
She eyed him dubiously, wondering if this was another of his tests. No, she decided then, convinced by the fierceness of his scowl. For some strange reason, he valued the beast’s presence. The notion affronted her superior sensibilities. She had expected Pieter to be more discriminating about the company he kept.
“Not food,” she said then, a sullen concession. But she was curious, too. “Why mule have furs on back?”
“We’re going to Compara,” he said, and then motioned her toward the cabin. As they walked, he watched her out of the corner of his eye, for he was still half-afraid that she was going to turn and pounce on Buck’s unprotected flank.
He need not have worried, though. As soon as he uttered that last unfamiliar word, she lost all interest in the mule.
“Who Compara?”
“Say
'
what’, not
'
who’,” he told her, tired of hearing that screech-owl sound all of the time.
“What Compara?”
“Compara’s a city.” He elaborated then, simply because he knew that she would badger him half-crazy with questions if he did not. “A city is a place where many people live—”
“What many?”
“Many is a crowd, like the stars in the evening sky.” An image of a cave overflowing with humans formed in her mind. She hissed her disapproval. “Not good,” she told him. “Why mothers not send olders away?”
He laughed—a short, fox-like yip that startled her but not the mule. “Some mothers do, some don’t. It doesn’t make that much difference overall. For every man who leaves, ten others arrive. They come from all over the continent in the hope of finding fortune or fame—”
She hissed again, this time to express her delight. For while she still had no clear idea as to what a city might be, she knew what fortune was! And if it could be found in this Compara, then that was where she wanted to go. How smart of Pieter. In spite of his peculiar short-comings, he was quite a clever man.
“How get fortune in city?” They were back at the cabin now. Pieter tied Buck to a hitching post, then grabbed a set of saddlebags and went inside. She followed on his heels. “How, Pieterzatrapper?”
“Lathwi,” he said, in a tone that reminded her of Taziem when she was in no mood for anything but meat, “if you don’t shut up and let me pack, we’re never going to see Compara.”
She clamped her mouth shut, then hunkered down by the hearth. As she watched, he began stuffing things into those hard leather pouches that he had carried in with him. This, she guessed, was packing, but its purpose eluded her. What need had he of a small, flattened kettle or fat, dried seeds; strips of wizened, foul-smelling flesh or a small wooden box that rattled from within?
He didn’t like her watching him, though. It made him nervous.
“Are you ready to go?” he demanded. She shrugged, then reached for her stone. He flinched as she went to pop it in her mouth. Dreamer only knew where it had been! “Wait,” he blurted. “I think I’ve got something for you.” He rummaged through his belongings, then tossed a soft leather purse at her. “Put it in there instead.”
She picked the purse up, but did not seem to understand how it worked.
“Like this,” he said, and bustled over to show her. He opened the drawstring with a flourish, then went to pluck the stone from her fingers. She hissed, an unmistakable warning. Quick as thought, he got out of her way.
“Suit yourself,” he snapped then, throwing the purse to the floor. “I was only trying to be nice.”
“Now get rid of that damn fire, would you? It’s making my skin creep.”
The hearth went dark. That gave him the creeps, too. He grabbed his saddlebags and bedroll, then stomped out of the cabin.
In the meantime, Lathwi retrieved the purse and dropped her stone into it. Now that she knew its purpose, she had to admit that it was a practical device-—especially for those who did so much talking with their mouths. She strode out of the cabin then. As she did so, the mule brayed a warning and tried to lurch free of the hitching post. Pieter yanked at her lead-rein, but Buck refused to calm down.
“Blessed Dreamer!” he grated. “We’ll never going to get to Compara at this rate!”
Alarmed by that prospect, Lathwi decided to take action. She flung herself to the ground, then rolled back and forth until she was thoroughly covered with mud. Then, because she could still smell traces of her dragon-scent, she hunted down a mound of fresh mule dung and rolled in that as well. When she stood up again, she flashed Pieter a feral grin.
“Mule go now,” she announced.
As if by magic, Buck stopped fidgeting and slowly raised her ears. And while her glances at Lathwi remained wary, her eyes no longer showed their whites. Pieter grabbed her lead and headed for the woods, too confounded for words. He knew that what he had just witnessed was only a trick and not true sorcery, but it was unsettling just the same. Lathwi had not only rolled in that dung, she had enjoyed herself while doing it! People—especially those of the so-called gentle sex—weren’t supposed to behave like that.
“How get fortune in city?” Lathwi asked then.
He sighed. This woman was like a bad tooth—no amount of wishing was going to make her go away. And since she was all but impossible to ignore, he decided to try and make the best of the situation.
“It depends on the person,” he told her. “Take me, for example. I have no need for the furs on Buck’s back, but there are people in the city who will pay handsomely—”
“What pay?”
“Pay is what one person gives another person in exchange for something that the first person wants but cannot get for himself.”
She understood most of the words that he was using, but even so, he was not making any sense. “Why not first person just take from second person?”
Pieter’s mouth stretched into a thin, disapproving line. “That’s called stealing, Lathwi. It’s wrong. Illegal. You can be hanged for it. Do you understand?” he went on, almost certain that she did not. “People will kill you for stealing from them.”
She shrugged. A thief who got caught should expect to be killed. That was what made the stealing so exciting. She fingered the little pouch that held Taziem’s stone and smiled to herself. Not getting caught had its thrills, too.
“Tell more about fortune,” she urged him. “How I get?”
“I know someone in Compara who is like you,” he said, although it was becoming painfully clear that she and his aunt were nothing alike except for their sex and vocation. “She might be able to answer that question better than me.”
Pleasure surged through Lathwi’s veins like dragon fire. She had gotten the impression that Compara was exclusively a man-place. To learn that it was home to her own kind as well was a reason to celebrate. Unable to take wing and dance her delight, she filled her lungs with air and bugled instead.
Buck bolted into the brush, dragging Pieter behind her. Lathwi thought he was having some new kind of fun until she caught up with him.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he snarled, and then stomped away with the mule firmly in tow. The stiff span of his back warned her to keep her distance.
Humans, she decided, were a very moody lot.
They walked in silence throughout the morning and well into the afternoon. Then, as the sun started to dip toward the horizon, their path intersected a deer run. The musky scent tweaked Lathwi’s salivary glands and tickled a grumble from her stomach. She caught up with Pieter, then tapped him on the back.
“I hunger,” she said, as he turned to face her.
His gaze flicked from her to the sky, then to their surroundings. After a moment’s thought, he pointed to the top of a nearby knoll. “That looks like a good place to make camp for the night.”
She did not know what ‘camp’ meant, but she obligingly followed him up the little hill. There, she waited patiently as he tied Buck to a sapling and began rummaging through his saddlebags. When he looked up from his puttering to find her standing idly by, the corners of his mouth twitched downward.
“Since you don’t seem to have anything better to do,” he said, “why don’t you go and find some firewood?”
“I hunger,” she iterated, more firmly this time.
“I know, I’m hungry too, but we’ll need a fire first, so go and get some wood.”
As she combed the area for dead fall, she wondered why he wanted fire. It was not edible, and he did not look as if he were cold. She exhumed a branch half-buried by leafy debris, then speared the beetle that went scuttling up her arm with a nail. An instant after she popped it into her mouth, though, she spit it out again. Vile tasting thing. She wanted meat. Fresh, warm meat. That thought boomed through her head again and again, ruining her patience. She returned to Pieter with a meagre armful of branches and dumped it at his feet.
“I hunger now,” she insisted.
He dismissed her complaint with a wave of his hand, then began to stack the wood into a complicated heap. When he was done, he opened the box that rattled from within and withdrew two small grey stones. These spat sparks when he tapped them together. One landed in a pile of dead, dry leaves and began to grow. Pieter blew on it until it sprouted a little yellow tongue.
“It won’t be long now,” he told Lathwi then. “Pan bread and beans sound good to you?”
“What that?” she demanded, suddenly suspicious.
“Food. You know, like stew, only with beans instead of venison.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, an accusation of duplicity. “Stew not food.”
He answered her scowl with one of his own. “See here, Lathwi. If you don’t like my cooking, feel free to go and forage for yourself.”
She needed no further encouragement. Without a backward glance, she went off in search of something tasty.
He lobbed a good riddance in her direction, then started the beans. There was nothing wrong with his cooking, he told himself. Lathwi was just ungrateful, a pig-headed barbarian. He went to groom Buck then, and as he ran the curry-comb over the mule’s hide, his list of grievances grew: she was selfish and lazy; a quick-tempered thief; and her persistence rivalled that of a starving tick’s. And Dreamer, her habit of hissing at everything was nerve-wracking!
He was so wrapped up in his spleen-venting, he did not hear the footsteps closing in on his back until Buck shifted nervously and laid her ears flat. By then, it was too late. He turned to find three men standing in his camp. They were a hard-looking lot: dirty and travel-worn, poorly dressed but well-armed. The reek of outlawry clung to them like a second shadow. One of them—a brown-bear of a man whose eyes were like tobacco-stained callouses—tossed him a cat-and-mouse grin.
“Greetings, neighbour,” he said, in a voice as deep as a river. “Mind if we share your fire?”
Pieter swallowed hard, trying to douse the clutch of hot rocks that had ignited in his stomach. Calm, he chattered to himself. He had to stay calm.
“Help yourself,” he replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m cooking up a batch of beans and pan-bread if you care to join me for supper.”
A pock-marked blond with a ragged black patch over his left eye rubbed his belly. “Mmm, beans. My favourite.”
“We appreciate your offer of hospitality,” the third man said, while absently stroking the tangles of his greasy red beard, “but don’t go to any trouble on our account. I think we pretty much found what we were looking for. True, Tebo?”
“True, Jasper.” The voice came from behind Pieter. As he pivoted toward the sound, a wiry, black-haired man slung a double bundle of furs onto Buck’s back.
“Nice work, trapper,” this Tebo drawled. “These ought to fetch a pretty sum in Compara.”
“My thought exactly,” Pieter said, although the effort to remain glib was straining his nerves to their limit. “I don’t suppose I could persuade you to leave them with me.”
“You suppose right,” the one named Jasper said, with an obscene sort of cheerfulness.
“Then how
'
bout I fair-fight one of you for
'
em?” Pieter asked, as Tebo led his fur-laden mule away.
“Mister, if we wanted to be fair about these sorts of things, we wouldn’t be travelling in a pack,” Jasper told him. “Besides, you might get hurt in a fight, and that would upset Drell.” He grinned at the bearish man with the tobacco-stain eyes. “He likes you, trapper. He thinks you’re pretty.”
By now, Pieter could not care less about losing his mule or those damn furs or even his dignity. All that mattered to him was staying alive. So as the outlaws started toward him, four against one, he drew his hunting knife and then howled a name.
G
The forest abounded with tempting game: birds, rodents, wild boar and deer. Lathwi toyed with the idea of lying in wait for one of the larger prey-beasts, but decided that she was much too hungry for that kind of hunting and so followed a rabbit’s tracks back to a clump of bramble-bushes instead. The plenitude of droppings in the area told her that there was a feast hiding within. She hid herself downwind from the warren, then withdrew a claw from her belt and waited.
A short time later, a fat buck poked his head into the clearing. His nose was twitching furiously, his ears were primed for the slightest sound of danger. She held herself completely still. The rabbit hopped past the brambles and toward her—closer, then closer yet. She was right on the verge of pouncing when a melting cry disrupted the forest’s silence.
“Lathwi!”
In spite of herself, she started. The slight movement was enough to send her prey bolting back into the warren.
Annoyance rippled through her. Why was Pieter shouting? Did he not understand that she was trying to hunt?
“Lathwi!”
The cry’s urgency roused her curiosity. There had to be a reason behind such vigorous squawking. Perhaps he was ready to resume her lessons. She eyed the warren, debating her appetites, then went bounding back toward the knoll and up its gentle slope.
As she neared the top of the hill, a string of strange noises snared her attention: scuffling feet, muffled grunts, a groan of pain or pleasure. Doubly curious now, she began to stalk the sounds. They led her straight to Pieter’s camp and a most peculiar sight. Three unfamiliar men were holding Pieter belly-down on the ground. A fourth was pawing at his trousers. Pieter was bucking and squirming in an attempt to get free, but the others would not let him go.
Her mouth curved into a grin. These strangers must be Pieter’s tanglemates, come to play with him. And Pieter must have called because he wanted her to join in on the fun. How clever of him! She liked games.
As she crept up on the cluster of bodies, she sized up her would-be opponents. The yellow-haired man was almost as scrawny as Pieter, and therefore no good match for her. Nor was she very impressed with the two men who were kneeling on Pieter’s arms. That left the big, brown-haired man. He was the largest of the tangle, and promised the best sport. She bugled a challenge and then launched herself at him. He went tumbling. So did she. An instant later, they were both back on their feet and brawling.
He smashed his ham-sized fist into her jaw. She blinked back a swarm of floating stars, then countered his punch with one of her own. It collided with his nose with a satisfying crack. As he sniffed back a trickle of his own blood, one of his tanglemates grabbed her from behind. She elbowed him in the ribs, then danced around and kicked him in the groin. As he doubled over, she squealed.
This was fun!
The big man had a knife in his hand now. He flipped it from hand to hand as he circled her. She grinned, delighted with the trick, then hauled the not-claw from her belt. But before she had a chance to try the manoeuvre for herself, her adversary rushed in and slashed at her. Her scales deflected the blow. He lashed out again, aiming at her eyes this time. With a derisive hiss, she side-stepped the clumsy attack and poked her not-claw into his side. It slid in all the way up to the hilt. He stumbled backward, then fell to the ground. He did not get up again.
Now there was a surprise! She had assumed that he was scaled beneath all of that stinking leather. Why else would he be playing with something as sharp as a not-claw? As she marvelled at such foolishness, a hairy forearm wrapped itself around her neck and tensed.
“Bitch,” a voice snarled in her ear. “You’re going to pay long and hard for that.”
The statement confused her. Why was he talking about pay? None of these men had anything that she wanted.
“Let go,” she told him. “Not want play with you.”
“Too bad,” Jasper said, giving her neck another squeeze, “because play-time’s just begun.”
His obtuseness irked her, but she did not bother to tell him that. Instead, she sank her teeth into his arm. With a screech, he released her. Then, as she quick-stepped out of his reach, he unsheathed a knife.
“I’m going to carve you up,” he informed her. “Then I’m going to feed the pieces to the birds.”
Her annoyance dissolved into a lethal composure. Such unswervingly stupid persistence could only mean one thing: a challenge. She did not comprehend his reasons for wanting to turn this into a real fight—she had no territory to claim, and no fortune beyond Taziem’s stone—but she did understand that he would not leave her alone now until she killed him.
So she bugled a formal acceptance of his challenge and then charged. Caught off-guard by her aggressiveness, Jasper hesitated. In that instant, she was on him, nails poised to rend. Her first swipe raked a set of bloody grooves in his beard; the second savaged his right eye. With a howl of pain and fury, he stabbed at her shoulder. The tip of his blade chipped as it struck her scales, leaving only a deep bruise behind. She kicked his legs out from under him then. An instant after he hit the ground, she leapt on top of him and began to bend his knife-hand toward the hairy wattle of flesh beneath his chin. He pitched and wriggled in a desperate attempt to unseat her, then abruptly shunted all of his strength into his arm.
The blade’s downward progress skidded to a halt, then trembled in the space between them like an accusing finger. He tried to twist it upward and into her face, but could not make it budge.
“What in hell are you?” he demanded then, in a tone rich with newfound fear.
Her contempt for him soared to new heights, for that was a question he should have asked before he made his challenge. Still, she could not quite resist the chance to let him know exactly how stupid he had really been.
“I woman,” she told him.
Then she pressed down on his knife-hand again; and this time, she used the strength she had developed while sporting with her own tanglemates. The blade trembled for a moment, then dipped downward. An instant later, it dipped again and plunged into his throat. The half-formed protest on his lips became a liquid sigh. Hearing that and nothing more, she got up and walked away.
Back at the camp, she spooked Pieter as he was pulling a knife from the blonde man’s chest. He spun around, ready to strike, then forced himself to relax. His harried expression turned to one of complicated relief.
“Did you get them both?” When she nodded, he managed a wan smile and said, “Thanks. I wouldn’t have stood a chance without you.”
“You brothers play stupid games,” she commented, as she glanced from one unmoving body to the next. “Not know when to stop.”
“Those bastards weren’t my brothers,” he grated. “And they weren’t playing games. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, they would’ve—” He paled, then flushed anew. “—they would’ve murdered me.”
He wiped his boot-knife off on the blonde man’s jersey. As he did so, Lathwi remembered her own not-claw and went to fetch it. Pieter caught up with her just as she was passing Jasper’s corpse.
“I thought you said you weren’t a warrior,” he said, as he admired her handiwork.
“I not,” she replied, completely serious. “Not-brothers be soft. Stupid, too.”
His grim chuckle slurred off into rigid silence as they drew to a stop alongside of Drell. Although the big man was bloody and his eyes were shut, his laboured breathing declared him to be very much alive. Pieter booted him in the head to get his attention.
“Get up,” he said. “Get up so we can hang you.”
With a bone-deep groan, the outlaw opened his eyes. He stared at Pieter, but did not seem to recognize his would-be victim. His face was slack and grey.
“Mercy,” he mumbled. “My innards are all on fire.” His whole body tensed then. His expression was one of pure pain. “It hurts. Ah, Dreamer, how it hurts!” He glanced at Pieter again. “Please, Mister, I’m begging you for mercy.”
With a scowl as vast as a storm-front, Pieter unsheathed his hunting knife, then crouched down and showed it to Drell. “Is this what you want?”
Drell managed a feeble nod.
“Bastard,” Pieter grated. “It’s more than you deserve.”
He cut the outlaw’s throat then. Lathwi added mercy to her list of man-words.
“Come on,” Pieter said afterward, “let’s get our stuff and get out of here. All of this meat is bound to attract wolves, and I don’t want to spoil their feast.”
Lathwi pulled her not-claw from Drell’s side and licked it clean. Because he had been a challenger rather than prey, she did not help herself to his flesh. And she had a feeling that it would not taste very good anyway.
G
Not far from their now-abandoned camp, they found Buck tied to a scrub pine. Her back was still mounded with furs. Pieter barely glanced at his own belongings, though; he was too busy gloating over the three horses which were picketed alongside of the mule.
“This one’s carrying jerky,” he announced, as he probed the splotchy brown and white beast’s packs. “And waybread.” A moment later, he moved on to the tan nag with the sagging back. “This one’s got jerky and a hunk of pipe tobacco.”
The last of the horses was a strapping bay stallion that snapped at Pieter as soon as he came within range. He batted its head away, then began to rifle through its saddlebags. A look of wonder crept across his face as he withdrew a leather purse and emptied its clinking contents into his hand.
“Lathwi!” he crooned then. “Come and see what I’ve found.”
She headed toward him, but she was far more interested in the horses than anything they might be carrying. She had never been this close to so much prey before—none that she had not been planning to eat leastways. There was something exciting, almost indecent about it. Shoq would never believe her when she told him. He’d think she was playing a trick on him. She touched the bay’s flank in passing. It flicked her fingers away with an annoyed twitch of its tail.
“Look,” Pieter said, and then thrust his palm under her nose. It was mounded with flat, round discs which glimmered in the waning sunlight like Taziem’s eyes. “We’ve inherited twenty, maybe thirty lucs.”
She pinched one of the discs between her fingers, then raised it to her nose. Its smell was faint but unattractive: a combination of leather, human sweat and old dirt. It did not taste any better than it smelled. Unimpressed, she gave it back to him.
“What is?”
“It’s gold,” he replied, in a tone both reverent and smug. “Better still, it’s our gold.”
There must be something about this gold that she was not seeing, she decided. Otherwise, he would not be so excited.
“What gold do?”
“You don’t know?” When she shook her head, he laughed. “Ah, Lathwi, you are a strange one. I’ve never met anybody who didn’t know about gold.”
“What do?” she demanded, even more curious now.
“It can buy things,” he replied. “Furs. Horses. Land. The more gold a body has, the more he can buy. And the more he can buy, the more important he becomes.”
Now his attitude toward the discs made perfect sense, for gold was obviously a form of power. And power was the essence of fortune. She glanced at the shimmering mound in his hands again, this time with a speculative eye.
“That many gold?”
“We’re not rich,” he admitted cheerfully, “but what we have here will buy a fair measure of comforts. And if gold is what you want, then we can always sell one of the horses when we get to Compara.”
“Buy? Sell? What that?”
“It’s a simple matter of gold changing hands,” he said. “Those who have extra, sell. Those who want extra, buy. For example: we only need two of these horses. Someone who wants the third will pay us in gold to own it. We’re selling, the other person is buying. Understand?”
“Why not other person just take extra?”
“That’s stealing, Lathwi. And like I told you before, that’s wrong.”
“We take these horses from not-brothers.”
“True,” he quipped, “but they don’t need them anymore. They’re dead.”
“So someone who want our horses need kill us to take.”
“No, no, no!” he said, vehemently regretting his former glibness. “We didn’t kill those bandits for their horses, we killed them because they were trying to kill us. The horses are a sort of by-blow, an act of providence. Understand?”
She rolled her shoulders. All she knew was that they had been stronger than those not-brothers, and as a result, the horses were now theirs. Everything else was a jumble of empty words.
He answered her shrug with one of his own, then started to pocket the pouch which held the discs. With a hiss, she stayed his hand. Although she did not know how to use gold yet, she was fully prepared to challenge him for its power.
“Mine,” she said firmly.
A flush scalded the flats of his cheeks. Inwardly, he was steaming as well. She had no right to all of the gold! Half of it was rightfully his as a wereguild from the men who had tried to kill him.
Who would have killed him if she had not intervened.
The unbidden thought shamed him out of his greedy rage. He swallowed hard, then gave her the pouch. She took it from him without a word of thanks and then casually tucked it into her girdle alongside of her other purse. Such carelessness rekindled his resentment. She was going to lose it, he just knew it. And when she did, she was going to turn to him for more—unless he put his foot down now.
“That’s all you’re getting from me, you hear?” he told her. “Any gold that I get for my furs and the extra horse is mine to keep.”
She shrugged, refusing to commit herself. Dragons did not make promises if they could avoid them.
“What horse do?” she asked instead.
A protest swelled within him. Was there no end to this woman’s nerve? But even as he opened his mouth to give her a piece of his mind, he remembered again that she had saved his life, and that a little forbearance if not outright gratitude was due. So he wrung his hard words into a resigned sigh and then answered her question.
“Horses can do a lot of things. Some are used as pack animals; others pull plow, wagons and various other things. But mostly, they’re used for riding.”
“What ‘riding’?”
“It involves getting up on a horse’s back and making it carry you where you want to go.”
That sounded like fun! “I do riding, too.”
“Oh?” he asked, arching an amused look at her. “Have you ever ridden before?”
“No,” she replied, seemingly unconcerned by such a minor detail. “You teach.”
“I suppose I could do that.” It would, he thought, make the journey go faster. His gaze twitched from her to each of the horses and back to her. “Here,” he said then, trying to hand her the tan horse’s reins. “This one should do right by you.”
“Not want,” she told him. “It pack-beast.”
“Since when did you become such a discriminating judge of horseflesh?”
“Say again?”
“Never mind. You’re right—this mare’s as tame as they come. And that’s exactly why you should take your first ride on her.”
“Not want,” she insisted. That beast was ill-made and obviously stupid, an affront to her dignity. The big brown one seemed more like a creature worthy of a dragon’s company. “I ride this one.”
“Lathwi, you don’t know what you’re saying,” he argued, although he was not surprised that she had taken a fancy to a beast that liked to bite. “That bastard’s mean—he’d throw you off and stomp you the first chance he got. Give this old mare a chance. She’s got a better temperament.”
She resisted his advice. After all, she had flown the skies and skimmed the treetops. How difficult could it be to sit on a beast’s back? Furthermore, the bay possessed a lot of good meat. If this riding proved to be a disappointment, she could always console herself with a feast.
“I ride bastard,” she said.
“Fine, have it your way,” he said, tired of arguing with her. “But don’t you dare try to blame me when all your bones are broken.”
“How bones break?”
“You’ll see,” he said, and tossed her the bay’s reins.
“Now?”
“No, not now. It’s getting dark, and we’ve got to find another campsite. But don’t worry,” he said, smirking at the protest that cropped up on her brow, “tomorrow will come soon enough.”
Lathwi opened her eyes to find herself curled up among the roots of a gnarled pine. The discovery confused her—she was certain that she had been drowsing in Taziem’s caves a moment ago. Then she heard Pieter’s bull-froggy snoring in the background, and realized that she had been dreaming. For some reason, that annoyed her.
Her stomach grumbled then, demanding food. She got up and went in search of prey.
When she returned, Pieter was pacing restless circles around the campsite. The scowl on his face was all for her.
“Where have you been?” he barked. “I’ve been packed and ready to go for an hour now.”
“Went hunting,” she said, undaunted by his snarly tone. She licked a last fleck of tasty yellow yolk from her lips, then burped. “We ride now?”
His scowl deepened. He had not slept well last night—the wolves that he’d wished on the outlaws’ corpses had kept him up with their howling. And his first thought upon waking and finding Lathwi gone was that the dog pack had gotten her, too. Now here she was, well-fed and ready to go, thinking of no one but herself. She probably hadn’t even heard the damn wolves last night.
Dreamer, but she could rub a man the wrong way!
“No,” he replied, and was spitefully pleased to note her look of disappointment. “You have to learn how to saddle before you learn how to ride.” Before she could digest that mouthful of words, he pointed to the stallion’s tack. “Bring that stuff with you.”
She gathered the pile of odd-looking gear into her arms then followed him over to the spot where the horses had been tethered. There, he ordered her to watch as he ‘saddled’ the splotchy beast. As he worked, he named the various pieces of equipment. She wondered why humans had to make everything so complicated. Why could they not simply get up on the horses’ backs and go?
“Any questions?” he asked afterward.
She shook her head.
“So be it,” he said, adding overconfidence to her list of sins. “Go and saddle the bay.”
Then, fully expecting that vile-tempered bastard to deal a healthy dose of humility, he stepped back to watch the fun.
The stallion flattened its ears and then bared its teeth as she approached. Regardless of those subtle warnings, she drew to a stop alongside of him and slung the saddle onto his back. As she stooped to fasten the belly cinch, he swung his head around and snapped at her ear. She batted him away. He tried again. This time, he clipped her shoulder and caught a whiff of dragon. With a snort, he recoiled, then tossed his head back and forth as if trying to shake the smell from his nose. Meanwhile, she girded his saddle into place, adjusted the stirrups and began to bridle him. Still troubled by the disturbing scent, he accepted the bit without a fight. When the headstall was securely in place, she turned to Pieter and grinned.
“What now?”
“We walk until we find a meadow,” he replied. For while he ached to see that smirk wiped from her face, he was not so malicious as to want to see it done by a low-hanging branch.
He started through the forest then, trailing a line of horseflesh behind him. Lathwi followed with the bay in tow, but she was far from satisfied with the situation. This was not riding as he had described it, this was walking; and she could do that without some beast at her back. She scowled at the row of swishing tails and swaying buttocks ahead of her. They did not need any of these animals, she thought, not even the mule. Pieter could have carried those furs on his own back. Indeed, it would’ve been better if he had, for then he wouldn’t have brought so much other useless clutter with him. Men who kept beasts were like snails, she decided. When they went somewhere, they brought their houses with them.
Furthermore, she thought, glimpsing at Pieter’s scrawny backside, a man who relied on a mule’s muscles instead of his own grew weak. That was why those not-brothers had been able to best him so easily. She sniffed, scorning his feebleness.
At that moment, he happened to glance over his shoulder. Even from a distance, he perceived the contempt in her eyes, perceived too that it was all for him. His still smoldering resentments flared to new life. He could hardly wait for the chance to whittle her down to size.
That opportunity came in the guise of a sunlit meadow. It was small and flat and full of hidden potential. He tied Buck and the mare to a handy sapling, then slung himself into the pinto’s saddle when Lathwi wasn’t looking.
“This looks like a good spot for your first ride,” he said then.
The sound of Pieter’s voice startled Lathwi out of a daydream. She looked up to find him already perched on top of the mottled beast. The sight thrilled her. He looked far more powerful and self-assured on that animal’s back than he ever did on foot. Perhaps this beast-keeping was not so bad after all.
“How you do that?” she asked.
He smiled at her—a tight, humourless bend of the mouth. “What? You don’t know? I thought you knew everything.”
“Not know how you do that,” she replied. “You teach.”
“Of course,” he said, although the lesson he meant to teach her was quite different from the one she had in mind. “You can start by flipping the reins over the bay’s head.”
The stallion was feeding greedily now, and did not so much as twitch an ear as Lathwi did as she was told. Pieter was happy to see that, for it meant that the beast would not be so quick to cooperate with her this time.
“Now go around to his left side,” he told her, when she looked to him for further instruction. “No, not that side, the other one. Don’t you know your left from your right?”
She shrugged. Left, right—the words had no meaning to her. And besides, what did it matter, one side or the other? They both belonged to the same horse.
“Good,” Pieter said, when she was where she ought to be. “Now stick your left foot in the stirrup.” As she did this, the stallion strolled forward a few steps, forcing her to hop along with it like some great, black, one-legged wading bird. Pieter stifled an urge to snicker. “Now lift yourself up and swing the other leg over his rump.”
She wound up on the ground on the other side of the bay. Pieter’s smirk broadened, diagramming his spite.
“Try again. It’s more of a climb than a jump.”
This time, she landed in the saddle. It was as hard as a rock, and not very comfortable; but the view from here was excellent. She felt bigger suddenly. Stronger. She wanted to roar with pleasure, but decided to wait until this lesson had run its full course.
“What now?” she called instead.
“Use the reins to pull the bay’s head up,” he advised. “He won’t want to give up his breakfast, so you’ll have to pull hard.”
His prediction proved to be correct. The first time she tugged on the reins, the bay tugged back and then resumed his grazing. The second time, he swung his head around and tried to bite her calf. She clouted him between the ears and tried again. This time, he grudgingly lifted his head.
“Now nudge him in the ribs with your heels. Gently—”
As intended, the qualifier came too late. The stallion started, then broke into a sudden gallop. As Lathwi lurched backward, remaining in the saddle only by sheer luck, Pieter roared with laughter.
A moment later, though, his mirth soured in his mouth. For the bay was racing across the meadow now, and Lathwi was nowhere close to being in control. She squealed once as her mount veered toward the trees, then again as it redoubled its pace. The poor woman, he thought, as he went charging to the rescue. She must be terrified.
Meanwhile, Lathwi continued to squeal. Although jarred and jolted and horribly off-balance, she was ecstatic. This riding was like nothing she’d ever experienced: breath-taking and violent, a blur of chaotic motion. It recalled the wind to her face and the thrill of speed to her blood. It was not as swift or grandiose as flight, but it would serve admirably for the moment—if she could figure out a way to communicate her wants to the beast.
“Turn him, Lathwi!” came Pieter’s shout, from somewhere behind her. “Pull back on the reins!”
The reins? How curious. She had gotten the impression that those were meant to regulate the beast’s appetite. She gave the straps an experimental tug. Without warning or loss of speed, the horse veered sharply to the left. She grinned, then yanked on the reins again. The horse veered again, this time directly into the path of Pieter’s oncoming pinto.
The bay’s first change of course sent relief gushing through Pieter’s veins. The second took him completely by surprise. He hauled back hard on his reins, desperate to avoid a collision. The pinto skidded to a sudden stop and then reared, spilling him onto the grass. An instant later, the bay sped by. In passing, he heard Lathwi shout.
“That only way to get down?”
Although he could scarcely believe his ears, he was sure that there was light-hearted laughter in her voice.
G
Another hour or so passed before Lathwi could handle the bay with any degree of competence, and during that time, she took enough falls to mollify any remaining grudge that Pieter held against her. When they finally took their leave of that meadow, the meanness that had dogged them throughout the morning was gone.
They rode in companionable silence for a long time, each of them immersed in private thoughts. Pieter was thinking of his aunt, and the sort of welcome he was apt to get from her. On the one hand, she did not like surprises, good or bad; and this visit could definitely be viewed as a mixed bag. On the other hand, she was always glad for another chance to try and talk him into taking up life in the city again. She had been vehemently opposed to his moving away from Compara; at times, that was still a sore point between them.
And then there was Lathwi to consider.
She came riding up to him just then, as if she knew that he had been thinking of her. Although she still sat somewhat awkwardly in the saddle, she seemed very much at ease.
“I’ll admit it,” he said, flashing her an affable smile. “I’m amazed. I was sure that this demon-in-disguise would’ve killed you a thousand times by now. Instead, he almost seems to have taken a liking to you.” He paused, debating whether to ask or not, then forced himself to be bold. “Did you use sorcery on him?”
“What ‘sorcery’?” The tinge of fear which shadowed his tone implied that it was a thing of power. If so, then she wanted to know how it might apply to her.
He chewed on the fringes of his mustache, unsure of what to say. He knew all too well what sorcery was, yet now that he had been asked, he was hard-pressed to define it. Magic, witchcraft, wizardry: these were only variations of the same thought. Lathwi required words that explained themselves.
“Sorcery is a kind of secret knowledge,” he told her at last. “A sorcerer—or sorceress, in your case—uses that knowledge to manipulate nature and other forces.”
At that, her thoughts began to cycle at a furious pace. Taziem had taught her much that was secret. Did that qualify her as a sorceress?
“Tell more,” she urged.
“I can’t, I’m not an expert on the subject,” he said. “All I can say is that sorcerers control things that ordinary men cannot—fire, wind, weather.”
“I Call fire. Wind, too.”
“I know,” he replied, with a dry half-smile. “I, on the other hand, cannot. That’s why you’re a sorceress and I’m a trapper.”
She hissed, venting her excitement. He had said it, so it must be true: she was not only a woman, but a sorceress as well. The distinction pleased her. Yet there was still much more that she wanted to know.
“Why you fear this sorcery?”
Once again, she rendered him speechless. It was only natural for a man to fear things that he could not control, he wanted to tell her, but that wasn’t quite true. He could not control lightning, and yet he never went running when it crackled across the sky. Perhaps that was because lightning could only kill a man, he thought then. When sorcery struck, the results were often worse than death.
He glanced at her. She was still patiently waiting for an answer. A feeble curse died on his lips. He should have known better than to hope that she’d forget or let the matter slide.
“I’m afraid,” he said, digging deep for an honest bone, “because I don’t trust sorcerers to leave me alone.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Too much of any kind of power perverts a body’s outlook on life.” When she continued to stare at him, obviously expecting him to elaborate, he sputtered. “Could you trust someone who could summon wolves to eat his enemies or conjure fire to burn an unfaithful mistress in her bed or turn some unlucky trapper into a lizard simply because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time?”
As far as she could tell, trust was another human quirk. And because it did not apply to her, it did not interest her.
“Why this sorcerer not eat enemies hisself?” she asked. “He not have teeth?”
“It doesn’t matter if he has teeth or not,” he said, too agitated to quibble about details like cannibalism just now. “If he’s like most folks, he’ll only manage for himself until he’s powerful enough to coerce someone else into doing the job for him.”
There was nothing wrong with that, she thought. Every living thing strove to make life easier for itself. Did he not make his mule carry his things? Had he not claimed the horses so he would not have to walk anymore?
He was weak, she concluded again, this time with more clemency than scorn. He was afraid of power simply because he did not have enough of his own. But she did not say that aloud—it would serve no useful purpose. Instead, she began a lazy review of the conversation’s other aspects. The part about playing tricks with fire interested her. She would not have thought to use her knowledge of Names in such a manner. She started to consider possible applications, mostly tricks on Shoq, but was distracted by a loud growl from her stomach.
“I hunger,” she told Pieter.
“You’re always hungry,” he commented good-naturedly, and then squinted at the sky. The sun was still a fair distance from the horizon. “Can you wait a few hours? I want to make up for the time we lost in the meadow.”
Her stomach growled again, loud enough for him to hear. The beginnings of a frown lined his brow, then abruptly gave way to inspiration. He swivelled around in his saddle, then began rummaging through one of his satchels. A moment later, he swivelled back around with two strips of what seemed like old leather in his hand. He stuffed one of these strips into his mouth, then offered her the other.
“Here, try this.”
“What is?” she asked warily. He ate the most unlikely things. Stranger still, he seemed to enjoy them.
“It’s jerky—preserved deer flesh,” he appended, and then grinned at her instant look of revulsion. “I know it’s not exactly your kind of food, but at least it’ll keep your belly quiet until we’re ready to make camp for the night.
“Do you want it?” When she hesitated, he added, “You did want to get to Compara sometime soon, didn’t you?”
With a grudging rumble, she accepted the strip. It had a hard, greasy feel, and reeked of wood smoke and vague decay. If she had not watched him stick a similar piece into his own mouth, she would never have guessed that this was food. But because she had priorities, and Compara was one of them, she choked the jerky down—bite by galling bite. Her gorge rose and fell several times.
“Not bad, huh?” Pieter asked, as she swallowed a last mouthful of bile.
“No hunger no more,” she replied, and then fell into a queasy silence.
G
The sun was close to setting by the time he deemed them ready to make camp. He steered his horse into a cozy little clearing among the trees and dismounted.
“Dreamer!” he groaned then. “I had forgotten what a day in the saddle can do to a body.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about until she went to get down from the stallion’s back; and then it became all too clear. Her legs buckled as soon as they hit the ground. An instant later, her body turned into one long, excruciating cramp. She hissed, expressing consternation as well as pain. She had not hurt like this since the last time she had tried to fly on her own.
Pieter knew what her problem was. Indeed, he felt as if he were partially responsible for it. If he had stopped when she had first asked him, she might not be in such sorry shape now. Goaded by guilt, he rushed over to her with his bedroll and eased it under her head.
“Try to relax,” he told her. “I’ll be back to help you as soon as I can.”
She groaned. He hurried off.
When he returned, he had an armful of wood. He dumped it onto the ground in front of her, then built a hasty pyre. “Get it burning,” he said, and then hurried off again.
While she did not understand this obsession of his, she was in too much pain to argue. She pulled fire’s secret Name from her sweat-soaked memory. The pile of wood ignited. The ensuing waves of smoky heat made her feel light-headed.
The next time the trapper came hustling back into view, he was toting a kettle of water. His thoughtless mobility filled her with respect. Never again would she accuse him of being weak!
“How are you feeling?” he asked, as he set the pot over the fire. “Has the cramping subsided yet?”
“No,” she replied. Then, just so he understood that she did not intend to endure this same sort of unpleasantness on a daily basis, she added, “I not ride again.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure you hurt like hell now, but after some broth and a good night’s sleep, you’ll be as good as new. And the more you ride, the easier it gets.”
She grunted, a summation of doubts. He chuckled again, then settled down beside her and began to massage her scaled legs. She tensed and hissed a warning.
“Take it easy,” he told her, refusing to retreat. “The broth is going to take a while to brew. Meanwhile, this will loosen up your muscles.”
Although still dubious, she relaxed a notch and allowed him to continue.
He worked with dispassionate skill, more interested in her mail than the flesh which spanned beneath it. Like the rest of her, it was peculiar—as tight a mesh as he had ever seen, yet more supple than the lightest chain-mail. The few seams that he could feel did not come undone when he pressed on them.
“Where did you get this stuff, Lathwi?” he asked. “It’s wonderful.”
“Mother give,” she told him, in a tone that matched her growing languor, “so I not bleed so much. She say smell make her hunger.”
He snorted. This mother of hers sounded like one tough old bitch. “Do you know what it’s made of?”
“She take hide from broke-back brother.”
“Right.” He knew she was spinning yarns at him now, but he didn’t take her to task for that. The tales a person told could be as revealing as the outright truth, and he wanted to get to know her better for his aunt’s sake, if no other. “Do you come from a large family?”
She smiled at the image which expanded in her mind—a tangle of well-fed dragons, each of them twice her size and still growing.
“Is big. Mother biggest. Smartest, too.” In a wistful tone, she added, “She make me leave when chosen come back.”
Ah, so that’s what had happened to her, he thought then. She’d been outcast. Many peasant families did that to their daughters when there were too many mouths to feed. No wonder she was so fierce and uncivilized. No wonder her skills with the common language were so crude. She must have been on her own for years and years now.
Lathwi did not notice the pity that came crept into his eyes then. Her thoughts were still snuggled amidst a crowd of dragons. An ache swelled in her heart, displacing the one in her limbs. She pushed his hands away.
“No more rub,” she said, as he started to protest. “No more talk.”
He did not blame her for cutting the conversation short. Some things were just too painful to discuss.