Kerowyn's Ride

:Fascinating. We are somewhere near the bandits’ camp. I can scent smoke and many humans, and weary horses. And old blood, and I think, Dierna. Which means the girl Kerowyn somehow knew they were nearby... :

He put nose to ground again. :The sword, I presume, alerted her. Or possibly is guiding her.:

Or controlling her, Tarma thought sardonically, thinking of times past.

:Perhaps. I think she led her horse off—there—:

Tarma dropped Hellsbane’s reins, ground-tethering her, and carefully moved off in the direction Warrl’s nose pointed. Within a few feet of the trail, behind a low rise, she found a creekbed with a trickle of water running through it, trees on both sides of it. Where the trees were thickest, she found Kero’s mare tethered with enough rein that she could eat and drink.

Satisfied—and pleased that the girl had thought to provide for her horse—she tethered Hellsbane there beside the girl’s riding mare, and returned to Warrl.

If it’s controlling her, she’s at least holding her own. Now what? she asked him.

He moved forward a few feet at a time. :Ah. Here she dropped to hands and knees. A crawling stalk.: He raised his head to look at her. :I would advise the same, based on the strength of the scents :

Tarma shook her head in admiration. Brightest Goddess—the damned blade is finally doing something right. All right, Furface, let’s see what you and I can do about cutting around to the other side of the camp.

Kerowyn halted her horse; she could just barely make out the dirt road ahead, and the fact that this was a crossroads. She stared at the trail and tried to remember what the stories she’d heard had said about her grandmother’s geas-blade. There was something about Kethry fighting as if she were a master swordswoman even though she was entirely untrained—which might mean the thing gave her unusual abilities. Could it make one a master tracker, perhaps?

She touched her hand to the hilt, and felt a kind of tingle, as if her hand had a mild case of “pins and needles.” There was something there, all right, even if she didn’t know what it was.

On the other hand, she wasn’t too certain she wanted to find out while she had other options available.

She settled herself carefully in her saddle and opened the protections on her mind. Slowly, this time. The last thing she wanted was to let that slimy thing know she was behind them. She caught a lot of stray thoughts, full of violence and not very clear or coherent; and when she opened her eyes, she found she was facing westward. Very well, then, west it would be.

Each time she lost the trail, she found it again by cautiously lowering her protections, and “listening.” But then the road she followed turned into a path, and the path itself dwindled away to nothing, and it was too dark to try and track the bandits by ordinary means.

Now she had no choice. Reluctantly, she eased the blade halfway out of its sheath, and relaxed.

The darkness about her began to lighten, and soon she could see as well as if it was near dawn. For a moment, as she looked around herself in astonishment, she thought she might be having some kind of fit—there were little sparkles of sullen light leading off over the hills. Then she pulled her hand away from the hilt of the sword, and she realized that the little sparkles vanished, as did her ability to see so clearly, the moment her hand left the sword.

So this means, what? She dismounted and put her hand back on the sword. The sullen light reappeared, and as she examined the hard ground, she saw the faint traces of hoofmarks there. This, then, was the direction the bandits had taken.

And the moment she found their trail, the light disappeared, although she could still see as well as before.

It’s letting me do what I can do. It’s—playing tutor, I guess. But the moment I’m in a position where my own abilities can handle things—then it just sort of steps back and makes me take care of myself.

She took the blade in her right hand, the mare’s reins in her left, and followed the trail until—something—told her to stop. It just didn’t seem right to go on farther.

Maybe it’s about time to see what they’re up to. She opened her mind, leaning against Verenna’s warm, sweaty neck and closing her eyes to do so, and went “looking” for bandits.