Spellbreakers (24 page)

He had had other women over the years, many in fact,
for a night, or a week, or a month, but never for long. He had always been a
solitary hunter, since Naya had left him forever, and he had never let anyone
get close to his heart again.

These two girls’ inexperience was, in fact, curiously
stirring, something he had to keep strictly to himself, because he had no wish
to make them even more nervous than they were already. They brought him back to
a simpler time of his life where the shadow had not yet descended on his world,
and it had been so much easier to believe in love and happiness. All that, and
Naya’s memory, was a bittersweet torment, as they made their way north and west
towards Elverhjem.

He had become accustomed to solitude, but he was no
monk. Sleeping chastely alone close to two beautiful, openly admiring young
women was not something he wished on any man.

He didn’t know what scared him more. How much he
desired their company, or how much they threatened his solitude.

****

The fourth day since her fall, Daria got up early and
said she was ready to walk all the way to Elverhjem in one
go
.

Leal hoped that Ljung would quietly arrange another
short march, because she was scared that Daria would overwork herself in her
eagerness to make up for the delay that she had unwittingly caused. Sometime in
the early afternoon, perhaps a couple of hours after midday, she was almost
tempted to ask him to stop, but as it turned out it was unnecessary. They came
on the edge of a narrow valley and gazed down over a river of dark green. Over
the thick forest, somewhat to the north of them, rose a plume of white mist.

Ljung pointed at it with his bow.

“That is where we will spend the night. We are perhaps
a couple of miles off, so we can have a pause here before going on.”

“What is that place?” asked Daria, shading her eyes
from the westering sun and trying to make out anything under the mist.

“Surprise.
You
will like it. It’s a favorite spot for tired, cold, way-worn hunters,
especially in winter. But it’s a nice camp in all seasons, you’ll see. Come on,
have some lunch. We’ll be in Elverhjem tomorrow night, so you need not skimp
and spare.”

It was a welcome suggestion. Despite Ljung’s hunting
they had been careful of their provisions, and it was a relief to have a hearty
midday snack for once. It felt like a holiday. After lunch, perhaps to show how
thoroughly recovered she was, Daria asked Ljung if she could try his bow.

“Why, sure, all right. Why not? Have you ever used a
bow before?”

“Nope.
It is
the traditional weapon of Escarra, but girls are not supposed to mess around
with weapons in our country. Can I
really
try it?”

“Yes. There is nothing strange about it. Elvren women
can hunt and fight, if they fancy it.”

“I wish I was born in Elverhjem, then.”

Ljung made a face, as if to express some opinion, but
finally didn’t. He untied his old leather bracer and gently tied it around
Daria’s right forearm. It had been a beautiful bracer once, with a delicate
embossed design, but use, and Tuula’s talons, had scratched and scraped the
pattern almost to nothing.

“Do I really need this?” asked Daria, surprised.

“Oh, yes. It’s a bit long, but it will do, for trying
things out. The finger guard, however...”

He let Daria try out the three fingered, palm-less
glove he used for shooting, but the fingertips were ludicrously loose. Daria
laughed, wiggling her fingers.

“That won’t do. Give it here. You’ll have to do
without for now. It’ll smart a bit. Now this is how you string this bow. I’ll
do it for you this time.”

He flexed his bow lightly between his right foot, left
knee and left hand and strung it. Then he gave it to Daria and pointed her
towards a bank of soft earth, the first slope of the valley where they would
spend the night.

“See that dark patch of bare soil between the tree and
the mossy log? That’s your target.”

Daria nodded with a concentrated look. Leal, watching
them as they stood side by side, absorbed in their target, thought that they
were the two most beautiful people she had ever seen.

****

Even if King Guillem had always been extremely lenient
towards Leal, and in consequence Daria, he had put his foot firmly down on the
archery issue. Daria had begged to be allowed to learn to shoot, and Leal had
soon joined in the request, but no amount of pleading, goodness, tantrums, or
pouting had served any purpose. Still, both girls were familiar enough with the
traditional Escarran weapon, and they were both quite puzzled by the make of
Ljung’s elvren bow.

It was like nothing that Daria had ever seen. It had
flat limbs made of layer upon layer of pale wood and dark horn. She could not
tell what sort of glue fastened them together. Over all was a binding of fine
strong sinews, in a pattern that effortlessly combined functionality and
beauty. Unlike the plain, straight, leather-bound handle of an Escarran
longbow, Ljung’s recurve bow had a chunky wooden riser, bare but beautifully
carved to sit easily and securely in the archer’s hand. It was as sweet in the
palm as the curve of a woman’s cheek. The wood had been polished by use into a
silky sheen. It was still warm from Ljung’s grip.

“Oh, oh, I love how this feels in the hand.
Smooth and shapely, and perfectly right.”

“Mh, mh,” said Ljung, giving her a frowning sideway look.

He pulled and pushed her around gently until she was
in something like a proper shooting position.

Daria thought she might faint with happiness when his
hands rested for the briefest moment on her arms, shoulders, sides.

“All right,” said Ljung. He looked slightly flustered
himself.

Am I behaving like a goose? Can he see that I am
having the flurries all over? I’d better get a grip, or ...
 
oh dear, I’m blushing again!

She gripped the bow feverishly.

“Don’t strangle the bow, Daria. Just make it part of
you; feel it in your hand.
Gently.
Ahem.”

“Ah-ha?
Better?
Like this?”

“Yes.
All right.
This is the
arrow rest. Here’s an arrow, and this nick here, is where the string goes. You
nock it like this, here, and here, with the fletching like this. Forget the bow
now. It’s the arrow that matters. The bow is just a tool. Pull.”

Seeing how easily Ljung strung and pulled the bow, and
how delicate its flat limbs looked, Daria was positively astonished by how
bloody hard it was to pull the string back without making the arrow shake like
a leaf in the wind. The fact that her right shoulder still hurt from her fall
at the fords did not help either.

“Damn, it’s so hard!”

“Yes, it might be, I fear. Eh, what? No, I mean. Well,
perhaps you might want to try a softer bow next time. We can surely find one
for you in Elverhjem. Ahem. I mean. I mean.”

“No, no. Hard is good, I am not a wuss. I just didn’t
expect it, is all.
As I said, first time.”

Ljung gave a sound between a snort of laughter and a
strangled whimper.

Daria watched him curiously. He looked somewhat
distraught. Perhaps she was doing something wrong. She tried not to think about
his lips and hands and voice, and the way his short beard rippled in the curve
of his throat. She concentrated as hard as she could on the arrow, glaring
along its shaft very purposefully. She pulled the string as far back as she
could and let go. Her eyes followed the arrow’s flight even as her fingertips
registered the burning scrape of the snapping string.

“Ow!”

The arrow stuck in the mossy log.

“Not bad for a first shot. We’ll make an archer out of
you yet. Here’s another. Don’t look at the arrow now, look at the target. You
don’t look at your horse’s ears when you ride, do you? You look at the road
ahead.”

He clearly regretted the words as soon as they were
out of his lips, but she nodded decidedly and nocked the second arrow. Ljung
delicately adjusted her fingers around the string.

“Don’t pinch the arrow. You must hold the string. Just
hold here, firmly, like this. Pinching is bad. It’s hard on your fingers and
makes the release messy...”

He cleared his throat, took a step back, and waved a
hand towards the target.

“Well, just give it a whirl, all right? Look, I’ll be
right back.”

He made a quick exit towards a patch of thick
greenery, and Daria gave a worried look to Leal.

“Perhaps he ate something,” said Leal, shrugging.
After living outdoors for so many weeks they were not bothered by this sort of
things at all.

“Perhaps he did. Poor dear,” said Daria. She pulled
the string, aimed and shot. She hit the target fully and whooped, jumping up
and down.

“We don’t need
no
freaking
hero, princess! I’ll win the Challenge for you, woo-hoo!”

Leal laughed and cheered.

****

Ljung heard the whooping and laughter and cringed.
Secrecy had saved his skin for so long that he had made a habit of going
through a forest unseen, unheard and unremarked as a matter of course, at all
times, whether or not he feared any ambush, even in the heavily guarded
homewoods of Elverhjem. He’d need to talk with the girls about the din. Yet,
even as he cringed, he smiled. It was good to hear them cheering. What use is a
girl as solemn as an owl? And, to be wholly honest, nothing bad could happen so
close to Elverhjem, right?

He was standing perfectly motionless against a tree,
breathing slowly, trying to decide whether to have a very quick business-like
meeting with his right hand or try to get a more metaphorical and dignified
grip on
himself
, and behave like a rational being.

Those girls! Either I have been too long in the forest
on my own, or they have done something magical to me. They say you can buy
potions in Nevraan for this sort of tricks. But more likely it’s just me. Hell,
I can’t remember when
was the last time I felt so damn silly
around a woman
. It’s like being sixteen years old again.
Which is good, mind.
Not complaining. I might get used to
it, after all the darkness.

He gave a long, deep, shuddering sigh, turned round
and walked back into the clearing.

“You all right, hunter?” asked Daria giving him a questioning
look.

“Perfectly all right, thank you. Let me see how you
are doing, champion. I hear you want to take on this Challenge.”

She had the same natural, intuitive talent as Naya,
and Naya had been the quickest archer he had ever met. He still carried the
visible proof of that.

Even bruised and scraped from her fall, with a bow way
too hard for her build, Daria got the hang of it within minutes. Sure, she’d
have to train and learn a lot before becoming a proficient archer, but she
would take to it like a duck to water, as soon as she had a lighter, shorter
weapon in her hands and a fitting finger guard and bracer. Battered as she was,
she was understandably shy of the string, and yet she shot arrow after arrow
with a look of murderous concentration on her face.

It stirred the darkest memories of his life, and also
the sweetest. He had taught Naya to shoot, too. She had glared along the
arrow’s shaft and laughed in exactly the same way.

 
Ljung bit down the dread and contemplated Daria with almost painful
hunger.

Later, Leal gave it a try, too. She was a more
cautious, restrained pupil, less instinctive and more focused on
technicalities. She was not as strong as her friend, but she was not bruised
and sore from a horse fall, so, all in all, she did just as well. She did not
whoop, but shot arrow after arrow, quietly and carefully, with increasing
precision. Ljung thought that she might make a fearsome scout or hunter one
day, patient and unhurried, as quiet as a cat.

It was easy to overlook Leal when Daria was around,
thought Ljung as they walked down the side of the valley, later in the
afternoon. Daria was the one who spoke and laughed louder, the one who rushed
headlong into things. Leal was the one who watched in silence and made her mind
up calmly, but Ljung perceived that there was more strength of will in her than
in anybody he had ever met. He was almost a bit shy of her.

Her royal birth meant very little to him. There were
no sovereigns in the Itaanvaelta’a, and even in Elverhjem the Elders were chosen
by the whole community. The daughter of a king of some little country in the
south of the western kingdoms was nothing very awful to an elver. Birth didn’t
confer any special distinction in the northern wilderness. Everybody was born
from some parents or others.
Nothing special there.
Skill,
intelligence, courage, honor, integrity, those were were the things that
mattered. What was more impressive about Leal was a sort of fateful
determination she had. Under her quiet gentleness there was something more
solid than a rock.