Nyara slicked back her sweat-soaked hair, hardly feeling the cold as the chill breeze dried her scalp. She licked salt from her lips and crouched in the shelter of the bushes for a moment, surveying the open expanse of cracked and crazed pavement that kept the forest from encroaching on the foot of her tower. Though the stones were fragmented, even melted in places, they must have been incredibly thick, for nothing but grass grew in the cracks. It looked similar in construction to the ruins around the gryphons’ home, though the tower’s age and makers were unknown to her.
There was no sign of anything waiting for her, but she had learned to leave subtle telltales, things easily disturbed by interlopers. The “random” lines of gravel, for instance; not so random, and placed so that one or more of them would be scuffed by anyone crossing the paving. The faint threads of shields that would vanish if breached - or, just as importantly, if even touched by a mage’s probing. With her feeble command of magic, she could scarcely hope to build a shield that would hide her presence from a greater mage, so she didn’t even try. Instead, she concentrated on things that would let her know if she had been discovered, so that she had the time to run and hide somewhere else.
But once again, her refuge seemed secure; the threads were still in place, the pavement clear. Nevertheless, she stayed in the shelter of the evergreen bushes, and sent a careful probe up into the heart of her shelter.
:Well?: That was all she Mindsent. Anything more could reveal her location to lurkers. There were creatures - some of them her father’s - that were nothing more than compasses for the thoughts of those who could Mindspeak. Normally only the one Spoken to could Hear, but these creatures could Hear everything, and could follow the thoughts of a Mindspeaker from leagues away.
:All’s clear,: came the gravelly reply. :Come on up, kitten. I trust you had good hunting. :
Now she relaxed; nothing got past her teacher. :Quite good,: she replied shortly. :No visitors?:
:None,: came the answer. :Unless you count our daily cleanup committee.:
She would have worried if they hadn’t shown up. Anything bad enough to frighten off a vulture was a serious threat indeed. :I’m coming up,: she Sent, and only then arose from her shelter, pushing through the bushes and trotting out into the open - as always, with a thrill of fear at leaving her back exposed to the forest, where someone else could be lurking.
She padded quickly across the paving, taking care to avoid her own traps. The less she had to redo in the morning, the sooner she would be able to get out to hunt. The sooner she got out to hunt, the more practice she would have. She was under no illusions about her hunting successes; the colder the weather grew, the scarcer the game would become, and the harder it would be for her to catch it. She had never truly hunted for her meals before this, and was no expert. She was lucky; lucky that game was so abundant here, and lucky that she was getting practice now, while it was abundant, and a miss was not nearly so serious as it would be later in the winter.
The wall of her tower loomed up before her, the mellowed gray of weathered granite. The tower had that look about it of something intended to defend against all comers. She took the neck of the pheasant she had caught in her teeth, and set her finger- and toe-claws into the stone, and began climbing. The scent of the fresh-killed bird just under her nose made her mouth water. Just as well there had been no blood, or she would have been in a frenzy of hunger.
As she climbed, it occurred to her that it was not going to be pleasant, if indeed possible, to make the climb in winter. Ice, snow, or sleet would make the rock slippery; cold would numb her hands and feet. The prospect daunted her.
Well, no point in worrying about it now; truly dismal weather was still a few weeks off, and anyway, there was nothing she could do about it at the moment. Not while she was clinging to sheer stone, three stories above the pavement, with another to go.
Perhaps a ladder, like the Tayledras outside the Vale use for their treehouses. True, she did not have a bird to let the ladder down for her, or to hide the line that pulled it up, but she had magic. Not much, but she was learning to use every bit of what she had, and use it cleverly. A bit of magic could take the end of such a ladder up, and drop it down again when she returned.
So many trips up and down that stone had taught her where all the holds were, and now she didn’t even need to think about where she was putting her hands and feet. This was the most vulnerable moment in her day - this, and the opposite trip in the morning. There was a staircase up the inside of the tower, but although it looked sound, appearance was very deceptive. It was, in fact, one more of her traps and defenses, and anyone chancing it would find himself taking a two- or three-story drop to the ground, depending on how far he got before the weakened stone gave way beneath him.
But then, she privately thought that anyone trusting his weight to an unproven stair - in a ruined tower, no less - probably deserved what he found.
Her mind wandered off on its own, planning lightweight ladders and imagining what she might use to make them, discarding idea after idea. She came to the conclusion that she might be trying to make things a little too elaborate; after all, by virtue of her breeding she was a much better climber than the best of the Tayledras. A simple, knotted rope might serve her better.
At that point, her hand encountered the open space of her window, and she grasped the sill with both hands, and hauled herself up and over the stone slab. She swung her legs inside and dropped down to the floor, crouching there for a moment. She took the pheasant out of her mouth and grinned, as her teacher and weapon growled in her mind :I hate it when you do that. You look like a cat that’s just caught someone’s pet bird.:
“But it is not a pet bird, Need,” she replied pertly. “It is my dinner.”
:So is the pet bird for the cat,: the sword said, :But nobody ever asks the bird how it feels about the situation.:
She sat down cross-legged on the bare stone of the floor, and began industriously plucking her catch. “If it gets caught, it deserves to get eaten,” she told the sword.
:You stole that from the Hawkbrothers.: Need accused.
She shrugged. “So? That does not make it less true. And like all Hawkbrother sayings, it is double-edged. If it gets caught, it deserves to be eaten - to be appreciated, used entirely and with respect, and not robbed of something stupid, like a tail-feather, and discarded as useless. I honor my kill, and I am grateful that I caught it. If it has a soul, I hope that soul finds a welcome reward.”
Need had nothing to say in reply to that. Nyara smiled, knowing that “no comment” was usually a compliment of sorts.
She put the best of the feathers aside; the large, well-formed ones she would use to fletch arrows, the rest would go to stuff her carefully-tanned rabbit hides. Need had been teaching her a great deal; she had come to this tower with nothing but a knife she had filched from Skif and the sword. Now she had clothing made from the hides of animals she had caught; a bed of furs from the same source, with pillows of fur stuffed with feathers on a thick pallet of cured grasses. And that was not all; over in the corner were the bow and arrows Need had taught her to make and was teaching her to use. Need had already taught her the skills of the sling she had used to take this pheasant.
The sword had also unbent enough to conjure - or steal by magic - a few other things for her, things she couldn’t make herself. Not many, but they were important possessions; a firestarter, four pots, three waterskins and a bucket, one spoon, a second knife, and a coil of rope. The latter was precious and irreplaceable; she had used it only to haul heavy game and her water up the side of her tower.
:Are you going to eat that raw?: Need demanded. She licked her lips thoughtfully; she was very hungry and had been considering doing just that. But the way the question had been phrased - and the fact that her teacher had asked the question at all - made her pause.
“Why?” she asked. “Is there something wrong with that?”
If the sword could have moved, it would have shrugged. :Not intrinsically,: Need replied. :But it gives the impression that you are more beast than human. That is not the impression we are trying to give.:
Nyara did not trouble to ask just who would be there to observe her. True, there was no one except herself and her mentor at the moment, but she sensed that Need did not intend either of them to be hidden away in the wilderness forever.
She doesn‘t want me to seem more beast than human. Need had been trying to reverse the physical changes Nyara’s father had made to her; now she had an inkling of why. Need wanted to make her look. . . .
Less like an animal. Perhaps she should have been offended when that thought occurred to her, and she was, in a way, but rather than making her angry with Need, it made her angry at her father. He was the one who had made so many changes to her body and mind that Need had been incoherent with rage for days upon discovering them. He was the “father” that had made her into a warped slave, completely in thrall to him, often unable even to act in her own defense.
Need had done her best to reverse those changes; some she had, but they were all internal. There was no mistaking her origin; the slitted eyes alone shouted “Changechild.”
If the world saw a beast - the world would kill the beast. It was not fair, but very little in Nyara’s life had ever been fair. At least this was understandable. Predictable.
Mornelithe Falconsbane had never been that, ever.
No one was here to see her now except Need, but when she finished plucking the pheasant, instead of tearing off a limb and devouring it raw as her stomach demanded, she gutted and cleaned it as neatly as any Tayledras hunter or hertasi cook, and set it aside.
She tried not to think about how loud her stomach was complaining as she uncovered the coals in her firepit and fed them twigs until she had a real flame. Once she had a fire, she spitted her catch, and made a token effort to sear it.
Once the outer skin had been crisped, she lost all patience; she seized the spit and the bird, and began gnawing.
Need made an odd little mental sound, and Nyara had the impression that she had winced, but the sword said nothing, and Nyara ignored her in favor of satisfying her hunger.
But when she had finished, sucking each bone clean and neatly licking her fingers dry, the blade sighed. :Tell me how the hunt went,: she said. :And show me.:
“I saw the cock-pheasant break cover beside the stream,” she said, picturing it clearly, as she had been taught. “I knew that the flock would be somewhere behind him...”
The stalk had taken some time, but the end of the hunt came as swiftly as even Need could have wanted. She had lost only one of her carefully rounded shot, which splintered on a rock, and took one of the juvenile males with the second. She felt rather proud of herself, actually, for Need was no longer guiding her movements in hunting, or even offering advice. Although the blade could still follow her mentally if she chose, it was no longer necessary for her to be in physical contact with her bearer to remain in mental contact.
When Nyara had fled from the Tayledras as well as her father, she had no clear notion of where she was going or what she would do. She had only known that too many things were happening at once, and too many people wanted her. Their reasons ran from well-intentioned to darkly sinister, and she had no real way of telling which from which. So she ran, and only after she had slipped out of Darkwind’s ken had she discovered herself in possession of Elspeth’s sword. She honestly had no memory of taking it; the blade later confessed to having influenced her to bear it off, making her forget she had done so.
At first she had been angry and afraid, expecting pursuit; the blade was valuable enough that her father had wanted it very badly. But pursuit never came, and she realized that Elspeth was actually going to relinquish the blade to her. Such unexpected generosity left her puzzled. It would not be the last time that she was to be confused over matters in which Need was involved.
Nyara had found the tower after a great deal of searching for a defensible lair. Need had rebuilt the upper story with her magic, strengthening it and making it habitable. It still looked deserted, and both of them had been very careful to leave no signs of occupancy. Any refuse was taken up to the flat roof and left there; vultures carried off bones and anything else edible, and the rest was bleached by the sun and weathered by wind and rain. Eventually the wind would carry it away, and it would be scattered below with the dead leaves.
:You’re doing well,: the sword said, finally. :Even if you do eat like a barbarian. I don‘t suppose table deportment is going to matter anytime soon, though.:
Nyara was silent for a moment; now that her stomach was full and the little chamber warmed by the fire, she had leisure to consider the blade’s remarks, and feel a bit of resentment. Nyara appreciated all that Need had done for her, attempting to counter the effects of twenty years of twisting and abuse, teaching her what she needed to survive. Still, sometimes the sword’s thoughtless comments hurt.
“I’m not a barbarian,” she said aloud, a little resentfully. “I’ve seen Darkwind bolt his meals just like I did.”
:Darkwind is fully human. You are not. You are clever, intelligent, resourceful, but you are not human. Therefore you must appear to be better than humans.:
Once again, Nyara was struck by the injustice of the situation, but this time she voiced her protest. “That’s not fair,” she complained. “There’s no reason why I should have to act like some kind of - of trained beast to prove that I’m just as human as anyone else!”
:You were a trained animal, Nyara,: Need replied evenly. :You aren‘t any longer. And we both know why.:
Nyara shuddered, but did not reply. Instead, she cleaned up the remains of her meal, saving a few scraps to use as fishing bait on the morrow, and took everything up to the roof. As Need had mentioned, the vultures had been there already; there was little sign of yesterday’s meal.
Although the wind was cold, Nyara lingered to watch the sunset, huddled inside her crude fur tunic with her feet tucked under her. Need was right. She had been little more than a trained animal. Her father had controlled her completely, by such clever use of mingled mind-magic, pain and pleasure that a hint of punishment would throw her into uncontrollable, mindless lust, a state in which she was incapable of thinking.
Need had freed her from that; Need had worked on her for hours, days, spending her magic recklessly in that single area, to heal her and release her from that pain-pleasure bondage. Need had watched the nomad Healer working on the Tayledras Starblade from afar, studying all that the woman did and applying the knowledge to Nyara.
In this much, she was free; she would no longer be subject to animal rut. Although Need had not been able to “cure” her tufted ears, pointed canines, or slit-pupiled eyes, the blade had put her in control of her emotional and physical responses.
Must I really be more than they are to be accepted as an equal? Nothing less would do, according to Need, and as she watched the stars emerge, she came to the reluctant conclusion that the blade was right. She had to be accepted as at least an equal to claim alliance with the Hawkbrothers. She needed them, and knew it, although they did not yet know how much they needed her. She had information that would be very useful to them, even if some of it was information they might have to get at using Need’s mind-probing tactics. She would gladly submit to that, to have their protection.
But to earn that, did she have to give up what she was, to take on some kind of mask of what they considered civilized? That simply wasn’t fair, not after everything she had already been through! What Falconsbane had done - she didn’t want to think about. And under Need’s tutelage, she had not only undergone the pain that preceded Healing, but nightly - and sometimes daily - vision-quests. She had to admit there was one positive result of that; her real dreams were no longer haunted, and her nightmares had vanished completely. The sword was as hard a teacher as she could have imagined; driving her without allowance for weakness. Not only did she take Nyara through trials in her dreams, and teach her the skills that helped her survive on her own, but she launched Nyara like an arrow against whatever target she deemed suitable, giving her lessons in real combat as well as practice. Nyara had already defeated a wandering bandit and a half-mad hedge-wizard. Both had been left for the vultures when they had seen only a female alone, and attempted to take her. In both cases, Need had ultimately taken command of her body, as soon as she reckoned that Nyara had gone to the very edge of her abilities, and moved her with a skill she did not, herself, possess. There would, doubtless, be more such in the future. So why must she prove that she was something other than she was to be accepted?
No, she decided as she watched the moon rise above the horizon. It was not fair. Need wanted too much of her.
She descended to her tower-top chamber only to find the fire burning down to coals and the sword silent. She watched it for a moment, then shrugged philosophically and heated just enough water for a sketchy sort of bath. One advantage of her breeding, besides her owl-keen nightsight, was that the pelt of very short, very fine fur that covered her body made bathing less of a chore than it was for full humans. And one had to be very, very close to her to learn that it was for, and not just smooth skin. She wasn’t entirely certain that either Skif or Darkwind had figured it out. Well - perhaps Skif had. He hadn’t seemed to mind.
Morning would arrive far too early. Although she intended to fish and not hunt, it would still be better to do so in the early morning when the fish were hungry. So as soon as she had cleaned herself, she banked the fire, and crawled into her bed of furs.
Only then did Need speak, just as she was falling asleep.
:Let’s explore that business of “fair,“: the sword said, with deceptive mildness. :Shall we?:
Nyara was no longer Nyara; no longer a Changechild. In fact, she was no longer in the world or the body she knew.
Except that she was Nyara; she was herself and someone else, too. She relaxed; this was something she had experienced in Need’s dream-quests many times, although this was someone she’d never been before. Then she realized that this was different; strange, in a way she could not quite describe. This life - was ancient, heavy with years, and faded. She felt the experience as if through a series of muffling veils, each of which was a century.
Her name was Vena; she was once a novice of the Sisterhood of Spell and Sword. Now she was alone, except for the sword that had once been her teacher, the Mage-Smith Sister Lashan - and ahead of her was an impossible task.
A mage that Lashan identified as Wizard Heshain had come to the enclave of the Sisterhood with an army of men and lesser mages, capturing the Sisterhood’s mage-novices and slaughtering everyone else. Vena had escaped mostly by luck, and by hiding in the forest surrounding the enclave until they all left. She had thought she was completely alone until Sister Lashan had come riding up, returning from her yearly trip to the trade-markets where she sold her bespelled blades to weapons’ brokers to profit the Sisterhood.
When she saw her teacher, she’d had no thought but to escape with her to somewhere safe. But Lashan had other ideas.
She had questioned Vena very carefully, probing past the girl’s hysteria to extract every possible detail from her. Then she had sat in silence for a long, long time.
Her decision had not been the one that Vena had expected; to make their way to some other temple of the Twins, and seek shelter there, since it was plainly impossible for anyone to rescue the captured novices from such a powerful mage-lord. Sister Lashan had told her stunned apprentice that they - the two of them - were going to rescue their captive Sisters. She admitted that she did not know what he planned to do with the novices exactly - mostly because there were so many things he could do with a collection of variously mage-talented, untrained, mostly virginal young women. But all of the fates she outlined to her apprentice were horrible. Eventually, even Vena had to agree. They could not leave their Sisters in Heshain’s hands.
Rescue was possible. Especially if rescue could come before the caravan reached Heshain’s stronghold. But there was no time to gather another small army to rescue them, assuming that anyone could be found willing to commit themselves and their troops against a mage like Heshain.
That had left only Vena and Sister Lashan, who had decided, unbeknownst to her bewildered apprentice, that her old, worn-out human body was just not going to be up to the task. So instead, she had chosen a new one; a body of tempered steel. A sword, to be precise; a bespelled blade, the kind she had been teaching Vena to make.
Vena was still not certain how Sister Lashan, who had ordered her to forget that name and call her “Need” now, had ensorceled herself into the blade. She wasn’t certain that she wanted to know. It had certainly involved the death of the mage herself, for she had found the Sister spitted on her own sword. She had thought that despair had overcome her mentor, and had been overwhelmed with grief - when the sword spoke into her mind.
Now she was on the trail of Heshain and his minions, armed with a blade she scarcely knew how to use, ill-provisioned, and without the faintest idea of what she was doing. And winter was coming on. In fact, since the trail led northward, she would be walking straight into the very teeth of winter.
But if she did not try to do something, no one would. She had no choice.
No choice at all.
All this, she knew in an instant, as if she had always known it. And then, she was no longer aware of Nyara - only of Vena. Only of a moment that was dim and distant, and yet, Now.
Vena crouched above the road, belly-down in the snow, and tried to think of nothing. There was no sign that Heshain had any Thought-seekers among his men - but no sign that he didn‘t, either. Despite her wool and fur-lined clothing, she was aching with cold. It had been a very long time since she ‘d last dared to light a fire, and she couldn‘t remember when she‘d last been warm.
She was hungry, too. The handful of nuts and dried berries she‘d eaten had only sharpened her appetite. And down below her was everything she craved. Shelter, a roaring fire, hot food -
Trouble was, it was all in the hands of the enemy.
And the enemy wasn‘t likely to share.
She Felt Sister Lashan - or rather, Need - studying the situation through her eyes. She wasn’t certain how Need felt about it, but it looked pretty hopeless from here. The group that had captured the novices seemed to have divided up. This was the hindmost bunch, and the girls they guarded seemed to be the ones in the worst shape. Most were in deep shock; some were comatose, and carried on wagons. The rest hardly seemed aware of their surroundings. None of them were going to be of any help at all - at least, not until Vena could physically get Need into their hands, for contact-Healing was one of Need’s abilities. But that could only happen after they were rescued, and not before,
So just how was one half-trained Mage-Smith apprentice going to successfully take on twenty or more well-trained fighters?
:Cleverly, of course,: Need’s voice grated in her mind.
:There are twenty or more tired, bored, careless males down there. What do you think would distract them the most?:
“Women?” she whispered tentatively, thinking of conjuring an illusion of scantily-clad girls, and getting into tht camp under the cover of the excitement. But then what? Tht illusion wouldn t hold past the first attempt to touch one of the girls, unless Need could somehow make it more than mere illusion -
Her teacher made a mental sound of contempt. :And a troupe of dancing girls rides up out of nowhere. I don’t think so, dear. These are also seasoned fighters; they’re suspicious of anything and everything. Try to think like one of them. Look at their camp; what are they doing?:
As if she hadn‘t been doing just that, ever since they cleared a space for the first tent, and freezing her rear of, too. ‘”They‘re eating,” she offered tentatively.
:Closer. What are they eating?:
Vena’s mouth watered as she stared down at the fire. “Looks like winter-rations. Beans and bread, I think”’ Oh, she would gladly have killed for some of those hot spiced beans and a piece of bread. . . . “I don’t see - “
:Meat, Vena. They don’t have any. They’re on winter-rations, and they haven’t been allowed time to hunt, so they don’t have any meat. And these are fighters; they’re used to having it. They don’t seem to have any wine, either, but I can’t think of a way to get that to them without making them suspicious of their good fortune. Back down the ridge, slowly. I’m going to try calling in an elk. I used to be good at this.:
In the end, it was a deer Need managed to attract, and not an elk, but in all other ways it was precisely what wanted. Old, with broken antlers, already looking thin this early in the winter, the aged animal would not have outlasted the snows. Vena followed her directions carefully, as they poisoned the poor beast by means of counter-Healing hamstrung one leg, as if it had just escaped from a wolf, and drove it over the ridge and down into the enemy cany,
The men there fell on the weakened beast, seeing only their good luck, and never thinking that there might be something wrong with it other than exhaustion and injury, The toxin Need had infused into the deer’s blood and flesh was only slightly weakened by cooking. A clever poison, there was little or no warning to the victims of their fate; most ate, fell asleep, and never woke. By daybreak, all twenty men were dead or dying - and Vena came down into the camp to dispatch the dying, and found herself in charge of eleven of her fellow novices.
Not one of whom could be trusted even to look after the others, much less find her own way back to safety.
Confidently, she turned to Need for advice.
:Damned if I know what to do with them,: the blade replied. :I can Heal their injuries, but the rest is up to you. Demonsbane, girl, I only made blades before I made myself into one! You’re the one with the hands and feet, and they know you, they probably never even met me! I’m fresh out of clever ideas. Time for you to come up with one or two.:
So it was up to Vena to deal with the girls; to try to rouse some of them from their apathy, and to figure out what to do with the rest. And to drag the bodies of the poisoned fighters out of the camp, to get her eleven charges fed and sheltered, to make sure the horses were tended to.
It was nothing less than hard labor, although she gave herself a selfish moment to build the fire back up, and warm herself by that fire until her bones no longer ached. Then she took a little more time to stuff herself on the bread and oat porridge (not beans, after all) that was cooking over the fire - avoiding the charred venison and the pot of venison stew.
She freed the novices from their cages in the four prison wagons, but most of them didn‘t recognize her, and the ones that did reacted to her as if they‘d seen a ghost - terrified and huddling speechless in the corners. She tried not to look too closely at them after the first encounter; the girl wasn‘t one she had known, but her eyes were so wild, and yet so terrified, that she hardly seemed human anymore.
She led the girl, coaxingly, away from there, across the snow, and into the only wagon without bars and chains; the one that held the provisions. When she offered the girl a blanket, taken as an afterthought from one of the bedrolls beside the fire, the poor child snatched it from her, and went to hide in the darkest comer of the wagon.
She repeated the process until she got them all herded into the wagon, where they huddled together like terrified rabbits, their eyes glinting round and panic-stricken from the darkness of the back.
During the long process of getting her former fellow students into the provision wagon, she ‘d tossed out everything else that had been in there. Now, in the last of the daylight, she sat on a sack of beans and went through everything she had thrown on the ground, and all the personal belongings that were still in the camp. She felt very strange, rifling through other peoples’ possessions, at least at first. But soon sheer exhaustion caught up with her and she no longer saw them as anything other than objects to be kept or discarded in the snow. Blankets went straight into the wagon behind her; hopefully, the girls still had enough wit left to take them. The best blankets she kept for herself, as well enough food for the girls for a few days more, and in a separate pack, provisions for herself.
Finally, the unpleasant job she had been avoiding could be put off no longer. She tethered all the horses next to the wagon, then harnessed up one, the gentlest, the one she had marked for her own. Trying not to look at the bodies of her former enemies, she threw a hitch of rope around their stiffening feet, and towed them one by one to a point far beyond the camp, leaving them scattered around a tiny cup of a valley like dolls left by a careless child.
Then she returned to the shelter of the wagon, and the non-company of her charges. All of that work had taken another precious day. She got the girls fed and bundled up in blankets as best she could, spending a sleepless night listening to the screams of scavengers when they found the bodies, and making sure none of the eleven wandered off somewhere on her own. It was, possibly, worse even than the nights she had spent waiting for the raiders to return.
In the end, it was the horses that gave her the idea of how to move them, and what to do afterward. Vena was a country girl; where she came from, a horse was a decent dowry for any girl. A pair of horses apiece ought to be enough to pay for their care until someone could come get them, later.
She roused six of the girls to enough self-awareness and energy that they could cling to the saddle-bow of a horse - even if half the time they stared in apathy, and the other half, wept without ceasing. The other five she put in one wagon, with the rest of the horses following behind, tethered in a long string. Then she coaxed Need into using her magic to find the nearest farm. It proved to be a sheep-farmer’s holding rather than a true farm; hidden away in a tiny pocket-valley, she would never have found it if not for Need.
To the landowner she told the truth - but cautioned him to tell any other inquirers a tale she and Need concocted, about a plague that caused death and feeble-mindedness, killing all the men of a village where she had relatives, and leaving only the healthiest of the girls alive. She offered him the entire herd of horses (save only the one she had chosen for herself) to tend to the novices. Her only other condition was that as soon as possible he was to send a message to the nearest temple of the Twins, telling what had happened and asking for their aid for the girls.
As she had expected, the offer was more than he could possibly refuse, and when Need read his thoughts to be certain he would keep the bargain, she found no dishonesty. Winter was an idle time for farmers and herders; he had a houseful of daughters and servants to help tend the girls. And sons to find wives for. . . it would be no bad thing to have a mage-talented girl for a bride for one of his boys. Such things tended to breed true even if shock made the girl lose her own talent, and a man could do much worse than have a wife who could work bits of magic to help protect herself and her home, and to enrich the family, if she was able to keep practicing. Hedge-wizardry and kitchen-witchery was easy to learn; it was having the power to make it work that was granted to only a few.
She agreed on their behalf that if any of them chose to stay with him and his boys, there would be no demands for reparations from the Sisterhood. Then she saddled and mounted her horse, and turned back to the hunt.
They were now weeks, not days, behind the enemy, but he was burdened with wagons and hysterical girls, and Vena was alone, and now a-horse. As she turned her mare’s head back along the trail, Need finally spoke.
:Demonsbane, girl! Why didn’t you put that fatuous sheep-brain in his place? Brides for his sons - what did he think you were, some kind of marriage-broker? And where did he ever get the idea any of them would want to live out their lives making hero-charms and tending brats and lambs?: The sword grumbled on, for a while, and Vena let her. The novice had plenty of other things to think about; most notably, finding the now-cold trail of the rest of the captives. It wasn‘t easy, not with two weeks’ worth of wind and weather eating at the signs.
But she had the right gear for the job, at last. Sheepskin boots and coat, woolen leggings, sweater and cotton un-dertunic. And all the provisions and equipment she needed.
Or at least, all that she needed until the next encounter.
But she told herself she wasn‘t going to think about that until it happened.
Finally she found the track, half-melted prints of hooves and wagon-wheels in the snow, and Need finally finished venting her spleen.
Vena waited for a moment, both to be sure she had the trail and to be certain Need was talked out. “Look,” she pointed out, “After everything those girls have been through, one or more of them are bound to change their minds about a life dedicated to High Magery and the Sisterhood. That farmer was trustworthy and kindhearted; not a bad thing in a father-in-law. And the boys were a little rough around the edges, but no worse than the lads in my home village. You and I can never give back what those girls - our Sisters - have lost, but we can at least give them options.“
Need stayed silent for a moment. :You could be right,: she finally said, grudgingly. :I don’t like it, but you could be right.:
Vena decided not to tell her that she was having second thoughts, herself. . . she doubted she‘d survive long enough to consider being a farmer’s wife. Right now, despite this early success, she wasn’t going to give herself odds on that.
Nyara woke with the sun in her eyes, and for a moment, her arms and legs still ached with that long-ago cold; her hands expected to encounter those heavy blankets instead of furs, and she was exhausted with a phantom weariness that vanished as soon as she realized who she was, and where.
Phantom weariness was replaced by real weariness. She lay where she was for a moment, despite her resolution of the night before to get up early to fish. Dream-quests did not, as a rule, leave her tired. Nor did they leave her feeling a weight of years. . . .
:That’s because I never took you back so far before,: Need said, and it seemed as if the sword was just as tired as her student. :I’ve granted you what I seldom grant my bearers; now you know the name I had forgotten, my name as a human.:
But that wasn’t what mattered to Nyara; suddenly she sat bolt upright and stared at the sword leaning against the wall with a feeling of anger and betrayal. “You didn’t help her!” she accused. “You didn’t help her at all!”
:I did what I could,: the blade replied, calmly. :I was new to my form and my limitations. I had as much to learn as she did, but I didn‘t dare let her know that, or her confidence would have been badly undermined. I’ve had a long, long time to learn more of magic, Nyara. I didn’t know a fraction then of what I know now.:
Nyara stared at the sword propped in the corner, aghast. “You mean - you did not know what you were doing?”
:Oh, I knew what I was doing. I was herding us both into trouble. But what else was I going to do? There were all those youngsters in danger, and if Vena and I didn’t do something about it, nobody would.:
Nyara blinked, and started to say, “But that’s not f - ”
:Fair? No, it wasn’t. Not to Vena, not to me, and certainly not to the novices.: The blade’s matter-of-fact attitude took Nyara aback.
She climbed out of her bed of furs as her thoughts circled around something she could not yet grasp. Need was not cruel - not on purpose, at any rate. She was driven by expediency, and by a dedication to the longer view. But she wasn’t cruel. ...
So what was she trying to say?
She had sacrificed herself for the bare chance of saving the novices through Vena. The girl herself had done the same. And it was all so unf -
It was unfair. But so was what Father did to me, what he did to the Hawkbrothers, what happened to the gryphons. . . .
Life was unfair. She knew that, and so did Need. But she’d been complaining about that unfairness a great deal lately.
:Very good, kitten,: Need said in her mind. :You’ve figured that part out. I find it a wonder that you can even grasp “unfairness”, knowing so little else in your life besides it. I am still working on that; it seems inconsistent with what your thrice-damned father taught you. Know this, though: oftentimes the concept of fairness can be a wall to accomplishing what must be done. Worrying over fairness can sometimes impede justice, and that in itself is not fair.:
Nyara nodded, as more awareness of Need’s teaching came to her.
:Now let me show you what real unfairness is. . . . :
Vena clung with her fingers and toes to the side of the cliff, and prayed that Heshain‘s Thought-seekers would not find her. . . .