Kerowyn's Ride

For a moment, no more than a breath, writing blazed up on the blade itself, as fiery and white-hot as if the sword had just come from the heart of a forge. Kero gasped, but Kethry only nodded, unsurprised.

“She wants you all right, child. You’re the only one of my daughters or granddaughters she’s spoken for. She’s yours now—or you’re hers.” Kethry slid the sheath back over the now perfectly ordinary looking blade. “Take your pick. When she speaks, I don’t think anybody denies her.”

“What did it say?” Kero asked, aware of—something—in the back of her mind. A testing—but distracted by what her grandmother had just said. Granddaughters? Daughters? I thought Mother—

“Woman’s Need calls me, as Woman’s Need made me. Her Need will I answer as my maker bade me.” Kethry tilted her head sideways to fix Kero with a penetrating stare. “This is my sword Need, Granddaughter—the sword I wore for most of my life. Your sword, now; for well or ill, you’re bound to her like you’ll never be bound to another living thing, man or woman. But I don’t think you’ll rue the bargain.”

Kerowyn almost dropped the sword in her surprise. This was Kethry’s famous blade? Even she had heard stories about this sword. “B-b-but I don’t know how to —”

“You won’t have to,” Kethry said confidently. “She’ll take care of you. At least in this instance she will—well, you’ll see.”

Kero managed to stop gaping and slid the sheath onto her belt, removing the old blade she’d taken from Lordan’s armory. “Grandmother,” she said slowly, looking from the sword to Kethry and back again. “A few moments ago you wanted me to go back home. Now you’ve given me this—and you’re all but throwing me after those raiders. Why?”

Kethry clasped her hands behind her, and stepped back a few paces, looking Kero up and down with a distinctly satisfied expression. “I was testing you,” she said calmly. “What you’re about to do is going to change your life forever. Oh, don’t look so skeptical; I know what I’m talking about. It will. And the road you’re about to take is not for the fainthearted. But you seem to be made of stronger stuff than poor Lenore.” Kethry nodded, slowly. “Yes indeed. I think you’ll do.”

What happened?

One moment, Kero was standing in the middle of Kethry’s Tower, staring at her grandmother. Then there was a moment of dizziness, as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her, and she found herself here, at the foot of the stairs.

She blinked, and the moonlit meadow wavered a little in front of her eyes. Dizzy—blessed Trine—She staggered two steps forward, her hand outstretched in front of her, stopping herself on Verenna’s shoulder. The mare snorted in alarm and jumped, as if she hadn’t known Kero was there until that moment.

The dizziness vanished. She looked up suddenly, only to see the light in the Tower blink out, leaving it entirely dark.

“Gods.” She stared up at the Tower, but could make nothing out in the shadows—and something told her that if she climbed all the way back up again, she could pound her fists bloody on that door and never raise a soul. She’d gotten all the answer she was going to get, at least for now.

She looked back down at the sword hanging from her belt. It was not the one she’d gotten from the Keep. It was the one she remembered her grandmother giving her.

She stroked the mare’s neck to calm her. “I think I’ve been dismissed, Verenna,” she said quietly. “I didn’t get the answer I came for—”

But maybe I got a better one, she thought slowly. And at any rate, it’s the only one I’m going to get.

She clenched her jaw, and mounted before she could turn coward. “Come on, girl,” she said to the mare, turning her back down the trail, the way they had come. “We’ve got a hard ride in front of us.”

Tarma shena Tale’sedrin, Kal’enedral warrior of the Shin’a’in Clan of the Hawk, urged her tall gray warsteed a little faster up the backtrail to Kethry’s Tower. The mare snorted an objection as she moved from an amble into a running walk; she didn’t like taking the back way at night, and she didn’t like to be rushed at the end of a journey.

“You’re going to like what’s coming up even less, old girl,” Tarma told the mare, patting her coarse-coated neck. “You only think you’re getting a warm stable and a rest. I’m afraid we’re going to be turning right back around as soon as we find out what my partner’s planning.”

:So you’re going to follow the girl?: asked a rough voice as familiar to her as her own in the back of her mind, a voice carrying overtones of approval. :Good. I like her; I’d have followed