The Steerswoman's Road (57 page)

She brought another down, and saw that nothing more stood between
her and the darkness of the veldt. She looked back.

Only Bel was still in action, backing constantly toward the
man, who walked slowly, matching her pace, watching all sides as he approached.
His left arm was pressed close against his body; there was blood. Then Bel
shouted once, and they both broke into a run.

Rowan led. Once she came upon one of the creatures, and
paused to kill it. Later, in deeper darkness, another rose suddenly from the
grass to clutch her around her arms, pinioning her. She cursed when its rasps
grazed her cheek, then felt its left arm give way to the stranger’s blade,
sensed its head fall back from a two-handed twist by Bel.

She stumbled over its body, took a few steps, then stumbled
again when something tried to pull her down. She almost struck out, then
realized that it was Bel.

“Sit.” Bel guided her into position and sat at an angle
beside her, one shoulder against Rowan’s. The stranger dropped to the ground
and completed the triangle, and the three of them sat facing out, gasping for
breath, watching the darkness. Rowan could feel Bel’s heartbeat, and the man’s,
against her back.

They were on a slight incline, Rowan facing up, away from
the distant fire. She tried to speak and found she had not enough breath. She listened
instead, for a sound like a man walking alone, for a rasp and a rattle.

When their breaths began to quieten, Bel spoke. “How badly
are you hurt?”

Rowan almost replied, then realized that the question was addressed
to the stranger.

“Averryl, Leahson, Chanly.” He paused for more air. “My left
arm is bad. I may cross the line on that one.” Cross the line, Rowan remembered:
become a mertutial.

“Ha. Not with a right arm like yours. Bel, Margasdotter, Chanly.”

There was a long pause before Rowan understood that it was
her turn. “Rowan. That’s my only name. Will those creatures come after us?”

“No. We’re too far away now. With the fire going, they’ll be
more interested in it than in us.”

“So it’s helping us now?”

“That’s right.”

Rowan paused for more air. She could hear the distant roar
and snap of the flames. The cries of the creatures were all squeals now,
freakishly ecstatic. Other than that, the night was quiet.

She found her pulse slowing. “That’s good.” Behind her, Averryl
was shaking. He swayed once. “We should see to your wounds, if we can in this
dark,” she said. “Does ‘Chanly’ mean you’re related to Bel?”

She felt Averryl half turn in surprise at the question, felt
him stiffen in pain at the movement. Bel supplied, “Yes, but likely far back,
at the beginning of the line. There are a lot of Chanlys.”

Averryl’s breathing had slowed, but Rowan was disturbed by
the way his heart was stumbling. He said to Bel, “Why doesn’t she know that?
She’s not a child. Though she fights like one.”

Rowan wondered how to react to the insult. “I’m from the Inner
Lands,” she told him, “and I know next to nothing about the Outskirts. I’ve
never fought a goblin before in my life.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Rowan, I beg your pardon.” He
spoke with sincerity. “Knowing that, I change my opinion.” His breaths came
more quickly, shallower. “You are very brave, and very clever.”

Rowan turned in time to catch him as he crumpled forward.

The steerswoman said, “His name is Averryl, Leahson, Chanly.
e’s one of yours, and he needs your help.” She stood in the lee of a small hill
among many small hills, on shreds of redgrass, which were cropped to the roots
and dying. A heavy wind drove across the sky, not touching her, but sweeping
and snapping the patchwork cloak of the warrior who stood on the crest above. Rowan’s
sword lay on the ground at her own feet, hilt to the right, as she waited for a
reply.

It was long in coming. The warrior shifted stance, paused as
if in great thought, shifted again, then studied Rowan with eyes narrowed. “Averryl
was lost four days ago,” she said. Rowan noticed her gaze flick to Rowan’s
right, and guessed the next words before they were spoken. “Warrior, at three
by you.”

It was a lie. From Averryl’s description of his war band’s
deployment, and its likely rearrangement after his disappearance, the nearest
warrior should arrive from the opposite side. Rowan quashed a brief rise of
anger; this woman knew nothing of the Steerswomen’s traditions, nor could she
recognize Rowan as a member of the order. Lies told under such circumstances
carried no ban. Instead, Rowan took the ruse as confirmation of her own
understanding of the war band’s configuration.

“He was sheltering in a stone field not far from the stream
southwest of here.” Rowan

“That’s a dangerous move.” And extremely unlikely, the warrior’s
attitude implied.

“So it seems. It almost didn’t work; the fire caught too
quickly, and the goblins converged too rapidly. He was trapped. My companion
and I were nearby and saw the light. We came to help.”

The woman considered the information with a show of suspicion
so extreme that it was obviously fabricated for effect. “It’s too late in the
year for mating mobs.” She had straight black brows, large eyes, and a wide
mouth. On such a face, emotions showed easily and were easily feigned.

“Perhaps that’s true; I wouldn’t know.” Rowan grew annoyed
again; providing Averryl’s names ought to have constituted her own credentials.
“But I have been told that the weather is much warmer this season than has
been the case in previous years.”

The suspicion grew further, into a parody of itself. “You’re
no Outskirter.”

“No.” The fact was obvious; but admitting to being an Inner
Lander might amount to requesting to be victimized. “But my companion is. She’s
traveling more slowly, with Averryl, perhaps a day or so behind me.”

“Because of his wounds.” Disbelief dripped from her voice.

“Yes. As I told you.” Averryl’s guide might be called upon
to fight for two people; Bel had decided that Rowan was the better choice to
send alone for help. The steerswoman dropped her attempt to control her emotions.
“And he told me that you yourself would be working this position. You’re Jann,
Linsdotter, Alace, and the man probably now sneaking up on my left should be Merryk,
Karinson, Gena. Unless he’s switched with the man at the inner point, who, I
believe, is your own son Jaffry.” She stood looking up at the woman, her feet
broadly planted and her chin uptilted. She realized that, unarmed as she was,
her pose made a proper Outskirterly show of defiance.

Jann broke her act with a lopsided grin. “Ha! Sneaking up on
your left, is he? Ho, Merryk!” She called across the distance. “Stop sneaking
up, there’s a good fellow! We’ve found Averryl!” She added wide-gestured
signals to clarify the information.

“About time,” came the shouted reply. An Outskirter seemed
to emerge from the ground and began working his way toward the pair.

Although he was not tall, he was the broadest person Rowan
had ever seen, and seemed to carry more weapons than he might reasonably be
expected to use in one lifetime. As he approached he added, “He was probably
sleeping. I’ve tried to break him of the habit, but it’s just no good. He
backslides. Generally at night.” Arriving, he studied Rowan a moment. “Good
disguise.”

Jann thumped him on the stomach. “That’s his rescuer. And he
fell asleep, true enough, in the middle of a mating mob.” She recounted Rowan’s
story for his benefit, as all irony dropped from his attitude.

At the end, he nodded decisively. “Good. Jann, you work your
way inward, and pass the word for a reinforcement for my point. And have them
double the middle line in this quarter. There might be a good number of loose
goblins wandering around that never reached the fire.”

“That’s an excellent plan, except for the personnel,” Jann told
him. “You work inward and have Orranyn send a replacement for my position, and—”
She turned back to Rowan. “In what direction did you leave them?”

“Southwest.”

“And for Jaffry’s point as well,” Jann said to Merryk, “and
double word out to him to intercept us.”

“Now, Jann, a sortie dragging train is bull work. I’d do better—”

“That’s wrong. If we’re going out to meet the odd goblin
with a wounded man in tow, we need people who are fast, and that’s me and
Jaffry. And if any of the beasts try to break to center, we need someone solid
working this point, and that’s you. Nothing gets past you.”

Merryk rocked on his heels musingly. “That’s true.”

“And it’s four for one if we should need to drag train. Do
we?” This to Rowan.

Rowan was following the conversation with a great deal of difficulty.
“I’m sorry, but you’re using words I don’t understand. Or using them
differently than I do.”

“Can Averryl walk?”

“Yes, but not easily, nor for long. He’s lost a good deal of
blood, and I believe he’s in more pain than he admits to.”

“We’ll manage.” Jann sheathed her sword and, with a jerk of
her chin, directed Rowan to recover her own weapon. Merryk set off at a flat
run to the northwest and vanished instantly among the little dells.

“Lead on,” Jann instructed. Rowan complied, the warrior falling
in on her left, one half step behind, Bel’s position in the Inner Lands. It
made Rowan feel a bit odd, as if the days had unrolled back to the time when
she had been the leader, and the answerer of questions, in the Inner Lands. Her
boot slogged into a puddle of goat muck, and the illusion vanished.

They traveled some time in silence. The whistling wind
across the denuded hilltops was a sound so constant that it vanished from her
awareness, even as it covered the sounds of their footsteps. Rowan found that
she missed the sound and sight of standing redgrass; she had learned to depend
on the information it communicated. But a tribe had passed through here, and
tribes laid behind them a trail of desolation.

For the sake of conversation, Rowan tried to frame a
question for Jann, one that might not be taken as a threat to her tribe’s security.
She was about to ask when a male voice spoke.

“Fletcher,” it said in a venomous tone, and Rowan could not
tell if the word was a name or a curse.

She just prevented herself from stopping short and turning
to face the newcomer, suspecting that it would merely advertise her inexperience.
This was Jaffry, she realized, Jann’s son, come to join them as planned. How
long he had been walking in their company, she had no idea.

Jann replied. “If Averryl dies, we’ll make it a blood duel.”
She was answered by a surly grunt, and Rowan took a moment to glance back.

Jaffry was a subdued young man just past boyhood, with his
mother’s dark features and a long, angular body. He had fastened his cloak down
the front, transforming himself into a loping piebald pillar with a human
head. Taking the opposite approach from Merryk, his only visible weapon was an
Outskirter sword, its hilt above his right shoulder, and he carried no pack or
supplies that Rowan could see. He had assumed a complementary position to Jann’s:
on Rowan’s right, two paces behind. The three of them made a lopsided flying
wedge, defending against no seen enemy.

“Shall I make the challenge, or do you want it?” Jann continued.
Her son was slow in replying. “Me. He’s beneath you. There’d be no contest.”

“Ha.” Jann grinned broadly. “A boy should be proud of his
mother. And you could use that sword of his. Now this one,” she said, indicating
the steerswoman, “she’s got a good sword, too. I’ll tell you now”—this to Rowan—“if
you stay around very long, I’ll win it from you. Just to give you fair warning.”

Rowan silently thanked Bel for the practice sessions. “I
think,” she said with a degree of pride and confidence, “that I’ll keep it.” A
black pit marked a burnt-out stand of tanglebrush, one of Rowan’s chosen
landmarks, and she adjusted her course. They trudged on across the rolling
landscape.