Kerowyn's Ride

there—someone with a grievance and a bow.

But she had no chance to think about it, because the mage caught her attention again. Something—a cloud of smoke, or blood-colored mist—rose up out of the stone. It was the height of a man, and as broad as two men, and it was lit fitfully from within, like the clouds on a summer night flickering with heat lightning. The mage stepped back, releasing the girl; it gathered itself, coiling and rearing up exactly like a snake about to strike. Then it lunged forward and fastened itself on the blood-dripping cut on Dierna’s cheek.

Dierna screamed—high, shrill, the way a rabbit screams when it is about to die.

Kero couldn’t move; now she was as paralyzed with fear as Dierna. But she didn’t need to, for the moment she stopped fighting it, the sword took over.

It flung her out of the bushes, rolling down the bluff in a controlled tumble that somehow brought her up onto her feet just as she reached the bottom. The fire was still exploding, though fitfully; a handful of horses were still trampling anything in their way as they circled wildly through the camp, and there was more than enough confusion for her to get halfway across the campsite before anyone even noticed her.

And even then, the bandits had troubles of their own, for that unknown ally out in the dark was letting fly with arrow after carefully placed arrow, picking off raiders with impressive regularity. There were at least three down on the ground that weren’t moving, and two more clutching their sides and screaming. One of the bandits saw her, and charged right at her—

And stopped dead, as Kero raised her own sword against him, without pausing in her headlong charge. Whatever he saw turned his face as pale as milk; he turned, and ran out into the darkness.

That happened twice more as she half ran, half stumbled across the bandit camp, dodging fear-maddened horses and the fires set by the explosions in the campfire. A few unfortunates managed to get in Kero’s way. The sword did not grant them a second chance. By now Kero wasn’t even trying to fight the sword; she was still wild with fear, but there was a kind of heady exhilaration about this, too; she hardly noticed the men getting in her way except as targets to be dealt with, as impersonal as Dent’s set of pells in the armory.

She dodged around the now-blazing campfire, vaulted a body, cut down a fool who tried to bar her way with nothing but a short-bladed knife, taking him out with one of those unstoppable two-handed strokes—and found herself jerking abruptly to a halt at the edge of the glowing circle.

She couldn’t get across it. There was a real, physical barrier demarcated by that scarlet line. The thin band of crimson might as well have been a wall of iron.

She looked up—and saw the thing still fastened on Dierna’s cheek, the light within it growing stronger and more regular, pulsing like a heartbeat. And beyond it the mage smiled thinly at her, and gestured, making a throwing motion.

Yellow-green light in the shape of a dagger left his hands; she tried to duck, but the sword wouldn’t release her. So she braced herself instinctively, and cold fear froze her from head to toe.

But nothing happened. The dagger of light vanished as it came within an arm’s length of her.

She blinked, trying to comprehend what had just happened. He threw a magic thing at me. It never touched me. And he expected it to kill me—

The mage stared in utter disbelief, and backed up a half-dozen steps. That was enough for the sword.

Kero backed up a step under its direction, and it slashed down across the circle of light, as if it were carving a doorway. A portion of the crimson barrier blacked out immediately.

The blade sent Kero leaping across that blacked-out section like a maiden leaping the Solstice fires.

Her jump ended two paces in front of the flat rock, Dierna, and the thing fastened leechlike to Dierna’s cheek. Dierna was no longer screaming; she was sprawled across the rock, moaning weakly, as if this creature was stealing all her strength. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed utterly unaware of Kero’s presence.

The sword slashed down again, but it was not aimed at the leech-thing. For one horrible moment, Kero thought it was trying to kill Dierna—but the hilt twisted in her hands and cut between the girl and the leech-cloud, shaving so close to Dierna’s face that the blade flicked away a couple of drops of blood from her wounded cheek.

The mage shouted, something incomprehensible, but angry. The cloud reared back as Dierna came to life and rolled weakly off the rock and out of its way, the strange thing looking more like a leech than ever. Before it could lunge at her and refasten itself to her cheek, Kero had leapt up onto the rock, positioning herself between it and the girl. She slashed at it, cutting nothing, but forcing it to retreat. It glowed an angry sanguine, and seethed at her, the roiling movements within it somehow conveying a cold and deadly rage.

Behind it, the mage chanted furiously, in some language Kero didn’t recognize. She somehow knew that the sword did, though; for the first time she felt something from it—a strange, slow anger, hot as a forge, and heavy as iron.

Her left hand dropped from the hilt and reached for her dagger at her belt, and threw it.