Chapter 3
Beginnings-beginnings are easy. Any fool with a sword or a shout or a moment’s witlessness can start something. ’Tis finishing such matters alive, and getting home again whole-that takes bold heroism. And the luck of the gods.
Gornrel Murtarren
One Merchant’s Musings published in the Year of the Turret
F lorin came to a cautious halt, his heart pounding. Was she-?
Cautiously, he circled the huddled shape, his own breathing hard and fast. Gods, she’d run like the wind! He bent closer, very cautiously…
Was that a hiss of breath?
He was a fool, a reckless young fool! She’d been leaving bloody footprints this last while, racing terrified and blind into a forest where unseen branches could serve her as eye-gouging, throat-piercing blades-through tangles where even wise foresters could turn ankles or break legs.
And now she’d collapsed, and if she were dead, he and Delbossan were worse.
Grimly Florin sheathed his sword. “Lady of the Forest, forgive me,” he breathed, feeling an icy breeze rising to ghost past his cheek. Gods, if she were dead…
’Twas too dark here, in the shadow of a gnarled forest giant, for moonlight to tell him what he needed to know. The ranger’s fingers ran along the carved wooden catches of his belt pouches until he found the right two shapes, got them open, and rubbed together a fingerdaub of moss and a particular mushroom. A faint, ghostly radiance arose from their mingling, and he thrust his glowing fingers at her still, white face.
The Lady Narantha’s eyes were closed, and her mouth was slack. He put his other hand to her mouth and nose, and felt a faint warmth. She was breathing.
Mielikki deliver me!
Florin bowed his head and muttered a silent prayer of thanks, feeling almost weak. Seeing a long stone amid the rotting leaves and fallen twigs, he smeared the glow-mix on one end of it, wiping away the last of it on some protruding bark that he then carefully tore away and thrust into his jerkin-pouch.
Going around behind the noblewoman, he hauled off his jerkin, did off the rough tunic he wore beneath it-and bound its homespun over her eyes, letting the loose end cover her face. He hoped she didn’t mind the smell.
Her breathing deepened, but she didn’t rouse, thanks be to Mielikki. Florin rolled the Lady Narantha onto her back and ran his fingertips lightly along her limbs. No weapons, nothing hidden-just the double-layered robe, all slippery silk and shimmerweave. Over bone-white skin, all soft curves and… well, enough of that. Seeing her displayed thus in the pale glow was unsettling, but somehow-the thaerefoil, of course-aroused nothing in him beyond a sort of restless, wistful hunger.
He rolled his catch onto her side, very much as he turned large game for skinning, and knelt astride her hip, feeling at his belt for the right pouch again-the one wherein rode the rawhide thongs every ranger carried when in the forest. Swiftly, now, in case his handling awakened her…
Five hard, fast breaths later Florin had bound two noble thumbs together, and served Narantha’s big toes the same way. The next two thongs did her little fingers and her elbows, pulling her arms forward in front of her. She hissed and made as if to pull away as he finished tying them. Ah, just in time.
Plucking her off her feet and up over his shoulder-whoa, she was tall; this might prove tricky-Florin drew his sword and set off deeper into the forest, seeking the gentle glimmer and chuckle of the Dathyl.
Not striving overmuch for stealth, he hacked aside clawing branches as he went.
His noble catch was weightier than he’d expected, but not staggeringly so, yet apt to tip if he didn’t stride carefully. He was a foolhead, and this venture not such a glorious thing as it had seemed in his fancy. Yet he was in it now, up to his neck…
His neck, indeed.
Florin swallowed and walked on. As he shouldered through the trees, Narantha heavy on his shoulders-and squirming now, definitely awake-small crashings in the night marked the flight of small animals, disturbed by his approaching boots.
The Dathyl seemed farther away than it should have been, but eventually he stumbled down a leaf-strewn bank onto its sandy shore, nearly blind in the deep gloom where moonlight could not reach.
The stream rushed merrily past, chuckling over stones, and Florin stood for a moment in thought. He must be a good ways south of the foresters’ cache he needed, where there were boots, packs, bandages, and weathercloaks. It was back toward the road, and he thought he remembered the tangle where he’d have to turn away from the Dathyl. A big tree had fallen over in a winter windstorm, years ago, and left its roots standing up like so many bristling spears, aye…
Yet the stream was shallower hereabouts; he’d best cross right over. Decisions, decisions, decisions-so this was adventure. Huh.
He hefted the shapely burden on his shoulder and balanced himself, lifting first one boot then the other to make sure his heels hadn’t sunk into the wet sand deep enough to throw him into a fall the moment he tried to spring forward. They hadn’t, but one step told him there’d be no leaping the Dathyl dryshod here. He was going to have to wade hip-deep, or more, and that meant he’d best reach a hand down to lift the lady’s head. Blindfolded or not, Crownsilver blood wouldn’t keep the lass from drowning if he trailed her head underwater all the while he was trudging through the chill flow. Not quite the facing-what’s-real training her parents had intended. And dragon, haughty foolhead or not, he’d brought her here.
His tunic was still in place over Narantha’s eyes, though her upside-down dangle had bared her chin and throat. Cupping his hand around a trembling, hard-corded white neck so as to be ready to lift her head in mid- stream, he stepped carefully forward into the cold, cold water, slowly and deliberately finding footing.
One stride, two-then he gasped and almost fell at a sudden, unexpected pain in the fleshy heel of his hand. She’d bitten him!
Florin shook his hand free, wincing, heard her hiss a very unladylike word after it, and fought to keep his balance. He was going to fall, he was going to Shrug, spread his hands for balance, and drop the fair flower of the Crownsilvers head-first into the Dathyl, with a satisfyingly solid splash.
She screamed, of course, or tried to-he could hear the shrill bubbling from beneath the water, faint amid her thrashings. Which meant she was now choking on Dathyl-water, and-Florin grabbed firm hold of one bound arm above the elbow, got a grip on a bare leg just above the knee, and hauled, hard.
She came up spluttering and sobbing, choking and spewing water, and squealing in rising alarm as he half- swung, half-hurled her ahead of him, onto the sandy far shore of the Dathyl, where an invitingly large clump of ferns awaited.
They crashed down into crushed ruin under her weight, uncomplainingly perishing under her retching, twisting arrival-and Florin plucked her up, made sure his now-sopping tunic was still serving as a blindfold, and dropped her down again, snarling, “There he is! Get him! ”
He rushed a few strides up the bank, making as much noise as any dozen foresters, and drew his sword and dagger. Clinking them against each other, he snarled in the lowest growling voice he could muster, and rushed a few strides this way and then that in the damp underbrush. Twigs snapped merrily.
“I see him!” he cried then, in a much higher voice, as he raced side-wise between two trees and crashed to his knees, clashing his blades together again. “ Die, outlaw!”
Growling, he rolled over and over amid dead saplings, old leaves, and more ferns, back toward where the helpless Lady Narantha lay. “The king’s justice upon you!” he roared as he went.
A swift roll over a rotten log, and he was amid the ferns, where his captive was moaning softly now, sucking in air rather than water.
Rolling past her close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek, Florin shouted suddenly nigh a noble ear, in as rough a voice as he could manage, “Ha! Creep away, king’s man? Die! ”
He sprang up, stamping his sodden boots hard and clanging his sword and dagger together like angry bells.
