Kerowyn's Ride

She found them all right. An entire encampment of them, with sentries posted all around the little valley they’d taken for their own. Drunk, most of them. Wild, disconnected thoughts. Dierna was there, and still alive—and relatively unharmed. But with her was—

Kero slammed her protections shut, convulsively. He was there with her, that cold, slimy, evil presence she’d felt before. This time he hadn’t sensed her presence, but that was because he was preoccupied. But she had inadvertently come a lot closer to being detected than she really wanted to think about.

She looked around, assessing the possibilities; there was a tiny creek not far from where she was standing, with trees lining both sides. It wasn’t much cover, but to all eyes other than hers the night was deep and dark enough to hide just about anything. With the cover provided by the bushes, Verenna would be just about invisible. Now if she could just do something to keep her from making a fuss—Well, the mare probably hadn’t fed terribly well, what with all the confusion for the feast, and then the upset of the raid. If she left Verenna tethered loosely so that she could get at browse and water, that might keep her occupied and quiet.

She led her mare into the copse, right up to the waterside, and tethered her in a tiny clearing right next to the creek. The clearing was surrounded by bushes and trees, and may itself have been part of the creekbed until something changed its path.

Verenna should be safe—and if I don’t get back, she’ll probably be able to free herself.

She left the little mare tearing up grass hungrily, and proceeded cautiously, afoot at first, then on her hands and knees; opening her mind for brief glimpses of her enemies, until she knew that the farthest sentries were little more than a hill away. She dropped down beneath the bushes, and crawled forward in their shelter.

All this time her sight had been dimming; was the sword taking away her advantage, or losing its power? Or was it that too much profligate use of magic might be somehow visible to the unknown mage? Now her vision was about equivalent to what she’d have under a full moon.

Well, that’ll do—she thought just as she heard the careless footsteps of one of the bandit-sentries, and the rattle of the bushes as he pushed through them. She flattened herself under the cover of the brush with her sword still in her hand, face pressed into the gritty dirt, her heart pounding with sudden fear, and waited for him to pass.

He did; making no attempt at quiet. He stalked within an arm’s length of her, armor creaking and jingling, and never knew she was there.

She didn’t start breathing again until he was well out of hearing distance; didn’t get her nose out of the sand and wipe it on the back of her hand until long after that.

All right, I know where the sentries are, she thought, her right hand toying nervously with the hilt of the sword as she peered out from under the branches. So how do I avoid them? They seem to be stationed pretty closely together. Maybe I shouldn’t avoid them.

It was hard to recall the stories—the tales the old mercenaries told when she was supposed to be out of earshot, not the bardic lays. The recollections of old battles, ambushes, things that would be useful to her now.

Dent—he told Lordan once, about how he had to get into an enemy camp. He said the sentries were posted all around, but they weren’t used to working together and weren’t checking in with each other, so they wouldn’t know if one of them had been taken out until his replacement came looking for him. So he got rid of one, and brought his entire company in through the hole in the lines....

Somehow all the fear and grief was behind her now, now that she was confronting her own life—or death. It was easier to think; the pain was far away and nothing was important but the next moment, and the strange excitement that sharpened all her senses.

If I slip past them, they’ll still be at my back, and dangerous. I could forget that they’re there, and one of them could get me from behind. I can’t just slip past them. I’ll have to get rid of one.

No sooner had she made the decision than she was crawling forward after the sentry that had just passed her. She had no real plan, it was just that this particular man seemed the most careless. She followed him with the sword still in her hand, able to move with relative silence through brush that she could see and he could not.

Maybe if I can come up on him from behind, I can hit him in the back of the head with the pommel like Dent showed me—

She was within a length of him; half a length. He started to turn—

And suddenly she was no longer in control of her body.

As if she was a passenger behind her own eyes, a puppet in the hands of an unseen manipulator, she felt her muscles tense as the man started to peer through the dark toward her. She found herself ducking down and crouching behind the cover of a bush. She hadn’t even noticed the bush beside her, much less that it was big enough to hide behind. He even moved a couple of steps in her direction, but couldn’t see anything, and she stayed as still as the disembodied puppeteer could hold her. Then, when he turned away, she sprang up, sword-hilt clasped in both hands; and as a wild excitement filled her, drove the blade through his body,