The Callindra Chronicles Book One - First Quest (4 page)

“
Because they are expendable
and because sacrificing them allows me to see possible strategies
you might use.” Glarian said, taking her bishop with a
rook.

Callindra smiled, countering his move by
taking the rook with her knight, threatening his king again. He
paused, looking at the board and realized she had set a clever
trap. There was only one move he could make to keep his king safe
and it was only a temporary reprieve.

“
You’ve been reading haven’t
you?” He asked, “This is a well-planned coup.”

She smiled wider, “I’ve finally outwitted you
old man. That is the Shin strategy. According to General Delanous
she designed it to defeat an opponent who was willing to throw away
troops to win battles. I guess he was right.”

“
Nicely done.” Glarian sat
back from the table, packing his pipe with tac and reaching for a
taper to light it with. Once it was burning to his satisfaction, he
looked across the table at her. “Your reading has improved
substantially; you’ve read every book in the house at least
twice.”

“
Four times; you need to
expand your library.” She said, eyes twinkling with mischief. Until
she met him, she hadn’t known books other than holy texts
existed.

“
Once this storm lets up and
I can dig myself out of the house I’ll see what I can do.” He
replied, they were running low on a few essentials and it was about
time for him to go replenish their supplies.

-

Glarian was getting ready to go hunting; the
deer should have been back in their spring territory for weeks now
but he hadn’t been able to kill one yet this spring. Gods send it
so; he didn’t know if he could withstand another tirade of
ridicule.

His young charge was getting restless. She
was finally able to get around on her own using a rude pair of
crutches he had managed to cobble together but this tiny bit of
freedom only showed her just how far she still needed to go before
she was able to strike out on her own again.

He shouldered his bow and he heard Callindra
calling from her bed room. “I fixed your leathers, make sure to
wear them. You might be just an old man but you’re still my meal
ticket!”

With a sigh, he removed his bow and quiver,
took the leather jerkin from the hook and put it on. The repairs
were actually very well done; tight lines of stitching that were
well waxed, a replacement strap that was perfectly sized and
properly oiled, she had even polished the buckle. Her actions spoke
differently than her words; the girl obviously cared about his
well-being even if she was taking her anger at the imprisonment
imposed on her by her injury out on him.

“
Thank you Callindra. I’ll
be back early afternoon.” On his way past the lean-to he hesitated.
The forest seemed strange today. He couldn’t quite put his finger
on it, but something seemed off. It had been a long time since he
had dared wear his sword openly but the stillness of the air and
the feeling of waiting that the forest seemed to have convinced him
to strap on the baldric before beginning his hunt.

Glarian took a familiar trail into the woods.
It had been a game trail until he started using it regularly to go
fetch water from the stream. Now only the occasional deer used it
and never this close to the house. He was not really paying
attention and it was only by sheer luck that he happened to look up
right as the puma was leaping from the tree above.

He dove to one side, the cat’s claws scoring
his newly repaired leather jerkin and tearing the bow from his
back, the string snapping with a loud report. The cat gathered
itself for another leap but Glarian was ready now. He rolled to his
feet, Sakar in his hands. Power rolled into his body through the
blade without his bidding and a blast of wind shook the new leaves
on the trees.

The Weave seemed to be fractious and
unstable, Glarian brought it to heel but lost any advantage the six
foot sword blade would have given him as the cat closed the space
between them in a stalking pose. The puma sprang again, Glarian
side stepped its charge and swung Sakar to neatly intercept the
neck as it passed. The shock of his blade passing through flesh and
bone was one he had all but forgotten. It brought back memories he
had hidden from himself, thoughts of friends, foes and adversaries
of his former life.

Glarian sat by the trail and tried to slow
his hammering heart. What the hell had happened to the Weave back
there? He had never felt it surge like that before; it was as
though it wanted to be harnessed. At least he knew it wasn’t his
skill as a hunter that had been causing him to miss the deer; the
presence of a large cat would keep them far away.

The animal had stopped twitching; Glarian had
respect for those razor sharp claws. He poked it with his unstrung
bow to make sure it didn’t have any nerve reflex left and then
lifted it to his shoulders. At least he could bring the girl a
project. If she was anywhere near as good skinning and tanning a
hide as she was working with leather that had been cured she might
be able to make something amazing with this skin. If not at least
she would be occupied for a few days.

When he emerged into the clearing around the
house, Glarian could feel the presence of another magic user.
Cursing his luck, he backed carefully into the shelter of the trees
and considered. This was likely a spring visit from The Order;
however the Inquisitors weren’t often this careless with
broadcasting their abilities. There hadn’t been a challenger for
three or four years now, most people had forgotten he existed after
he had taken down his Tokens of Challenge. Glarian was betting on
an Inquisitor.

He stowed his sword behind a tree, set the
headless cat down and crawled up to the open window on his belly.
Voices from within were easy to hear from his vantage point beneath
the window.

“
I’ve been here for almost
five months now.” Callindra was saying, her voice the peculiar
monotone of one who had been charmed.

“
During these five months
tell me anything you have seen that seems strange.” Glarian knew
that voice; he was Shojin, one of the most tenacious and
ill-tempered Inquisitors the Order had ever produced. He was using
some sort of compulsion spell to wring information from her
brain.

“
Glarian is a mystery. How
the he has managed to survive this long on his own baffles me. He
can’t hunt, he can’t sew he is worthless in the kitchen and I even
beat him at chess on occasion.”

Shojin laughed, “At least we can agree on
that.”

“
There is a hidden side of
him. I cannot see what it is, but he has something inside himself.
It gleams like the sun behind the leaf of a tree.” Her voice
dropped to a whisper, “It fascinates me.”

“
Is that why has the Weave
been misbehaving around here lately? Even as we speak it spikes and
flares. What in the world is he doing?”

“
I do not know. He does not
seem to do anything.”

Shojin snorted, “I think I’ve learned all I
can. As always Callindra, forget I was ever here.”

There was a brief rumble of thunder and
Glarian let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He
quickly walked back to where his blade and the dead puma were. He
risked Callindra seeing him carrying the sword, something that
could be dangerous if Shojin was poking around, but it was
necessary unless he wanted to leave Sakar out in the damp until
after she went to bed.

He stowed the sword and poked his head
through the doorway between the lean-to and the kitchen.
“Callindra, I’m back. No venison but I have something you might be
interested in.” The thump and scrape of her crutches reached his
ears and she rounded the corner from her bedroom.

“
Still no fresh meat? How in
the six hells have you survived all this time old man, on twigs and
grass?” Her tone was as harsh as ever he noted with a sigh,
although the edge seemed to be dulled a touch.

“
I thought you might be able
to make some more durable clothes for yourself out of this.”
Glarian said, lifting the puma onto his makeshift skinning hooks.
“You’ll need them once you heal up.”

“
How did you cut off the
head?” She was looking at the perfectly clean slice. “You even cut
through a vertebra, what kind of knife could possibly do such a
thing?” Her eyes traveled to the long knife at his belt and then up
to his eyes, a cautious look of respect on her face.

“
The best news is this
fellow here explains why the deer have been hard to come by.”
Glarian said, avoiding her question, “Thanks for fixing my jerkin;
he might have had me if I hadn’t been wearing it.” He set his
unstrung bow on the rack and took off the freshly ruined leather
vest.

Callindra wasn’t paying attention to him; her
eyes were on the puma. She took his skinning knife from its place
on the wall and thumbed the edge. Nodding idly in satisfaction, she
began making small, precise cuts around the legs of the animal,
leaning with on one crutch while balancing on her unbroken leg.

“
Pull here, I can’t use both
hands.” She said and with his muscle and her expertise the skin was
quickly separated from the body. With her instruction, he was able
to stretch the skin out so she could properly scrape it.

“
While I’m scraping this
hide, you need to go back and get the head.” She said, “Since I’m
sure you don’t have a supply of tanning chemicals I’ll need the
brain to properly cure it.”

“
The brain? That’s how it’s
done then?” Glarian was surprised, he usually just sold pelts to a
furrier on the outskirts of the Lord’s holding.

“
Well only if you don’t have
another choice. Brain tanning is pretty disgusting.”

He left her tending to the hide while he
ventured back down the trail to retrieve the cat’s head. What, he
wondered should he do about Shojin, what should he do about the
Weave, and what in the name of the Gods was he going to about
Callindra?

There was a change about her; the more she
began to recover the stronger her affinity with the Weave was. He
was certain this fact had not eluded Shojin, or if it had the man
was losing his edge; not a likely scenario. Still Callindra had not
given him information which would indicate that he, Glarian had
broken his oath to The Order.

Shojin would not act without a broken oath.
While he might be a spiteful whoreson, he followed the laws of the
Inquisitors laid down without fail. At least Glarian had some
amount of leeway as long as he did not break his oath. Now all he
had to do was figure out a way of keeping Callindra from killing
them both without teaching her anything.

-

Callindra awoke, her leg throbbing with yet
another muscle spasm. There was something else too; a whistling
sound that she could only just hear but that played at the edge of
her hearing like a mosquito at night.

“
Glarian, what the hell are
you doing out there?” When he didn’t answer, she levered herself
awkwardly out of bed, her splinted leg making every movement
difficult. The sun had not quite risen, but the pre-dawn glow
illuminated the room enough for her to be able to see. Grabbing her
crutches she hobbled out into the main room of the house, but
Glarian was nowhere to be seen.

She made her way to the window, where the
whistling sound seemed to be coming from. What she saw upon looking
out was the man she thought of as a wizened old fossil reborn.
Glarian was stripped to the waist, every muscle in his torso
clearly defined as though carved from stone. He had six feet of
polished steel in his hands; it moved as though it weighed less
than a feather.

He slid through the motions of a battle with
many enemies; his movements exaggerated and slow but precise.
Callindra could almost hear the screams of the wounded and the
harsh clang of metal on metal. An undercurrent, almost like a
drumbeat thudded through her body and she could hear the whistle of
his sword tip cutting the air, cleaving it in twain, almost as
though sundering the air itself in passage. It was beautiful. He
was less practicing with the sword than dancing with it.

“
I don’t believe it, he’s a
sword master. He has to be, nobody else could move like that.” She
tore her eyes from Glarian’s sword dancing and looked around the
room. There had to be something she could do to ingratiate herself
to him. It wasn’t precisely her fault but she knew she hadn’t been
very respectful.

She shuffled to the fire and inexpertly poked
it into life, then laid a couple more pieces of wood on it. Dipping
water from the barrel by the stove, she put the tea kettle on and
dipped more into a pot to heat water for porridge. Awkwardly using
one crutch she managed to make it from the cupboard to the table
with a pair of bowls and spoons. There was a loaf of hard black
bread on the counter that made delicious toast.

By the time Glarian came back in the house,
his hair wet from a dip in the stream the house smelled like
breakfast. Callindra didn’t say anything; she just poured the tea
and served the food. If Glarian was surprised or pleased he showed
no sign of it. When he had finished eating he rose and left by the
side door, collecting his bow and quiver on the way out.

“
I’ll be back this
afternoon. I’m hoping the deer are back in the area now that I
killed the puma.” With that he left, not looking back.

Letting out a breath she’d been holding,
Callindra attended to cleaning the house as best she could. This
was the kind of ‘woman’s work’ that she hated, but she would do
whatever might win her some favor. This had to be divine
providence, but she was leaving nothing to chance, fate or the whim
of the Gods if she could help it.