Tarma rubbed her cheek against Kessira's furry shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of clean horse that was so much a part of what had been home. Oh, but they'd been happy; Tarma had been the pet of the Clan, with her flute-clear voice and her perfect memory for song and tale, and Kessira had been so well-matched for her rider that she almost seemed the 'four-footed sister' that Tarma frequently named her. Their lives had been so close to perfect -- in all ways. The king-stallion of the herd had begun courting Kessira that spring, and Tarma had had Dharin; nothing could have spoiled what seemed to be their secure future.
Then the raiders had come upon the Clan; and all that carefree life was gone in an instant beneath their swords.
Tarma's eyes stung again. Even full revenge couldn't take away the ache of losing them, all, all In one candlemark all that Tarma had ever known or cared about had been wiped from the face of the earth.
'What price your blood, my people? A few pounds of silver? Goddess, the dishonor that your people were counted so cheaply!'
The slaughter of Tale'sedrin had been the more vicious because they'd taken the entire Clan unawares and unarmed in the midst of celebration; totally unarmed, as Shin'a'in seldom were. They had trusted to the vigilance of their sentries.
But the cleverest sentry cannot defeat foul magic that creeps upon him out of the dark and smothers the breath in his throat ere he can cry out.
The brigands had not so much as a drop of honorable blood among them; they knew had the Clan been alerted they'd have had stood the robbers off, even outnumbered as they were, so the bandit's hired mage had cloaked their approach and stifled the guards. And so the Clan had fought an unequal battle, and so they had died; adults, oldsters, children, all....
'Goddess, hold them -- ' she whispered, as she did at least once each day. Every last member of Tale'sedrin had died; most had died horribly. Except Tarma. She should have died; and unaccountably been left alive.
If you could call it living to have survived with everything gone that had made life worth having. Yes, she had been left alive -- and utterly, utterly alone. Left to live with a ruined voice that had once been the pride of the Clans, with a ravaged body, and most of all, a shattered heart and mind. There had been nothing left to sustain her but a driving will to wreak vengeance on those who had left her Clanless.
She pulled a brush from an inside pocket of her coat, and began needlessly grooming Kessira while the mare ate. The firm strokes across the familiar chestnut coat were soothing to both of them. She had been left Clanless, and a Shin'a'in Clanless is one without purpose in living. Clan is everything to a Shin'a'in. Only one thing kept her from seeking oblivion and death-willing herself, that burning need to revenge her people.
But vengeance and blood-feud were denied the Shin'a'in -- the ordinary Shin'a'in. Else too many of the people would have gone down on the knives of their own folk, and to little purpose, for the Goddess knew Her people and knew their tempers to be short. Hence, Her law. Only those who were the Kal'enedral of the Warrior -- the Sword Sworn, outClansmen called them, although the name meant both 'Children of Her Sword' and 'Her SwordBrothers' -- could cry blood-feud and take the trail of vengeance. That was because of the nature of their Oath to Her -- first to the service of the Goddess of the New Moon and South Wind, then to the Clans as a whole, and only after those two to their own particular Clan. Blood-feud did not serve the Clans if the feud was between Shin'a'in and Shin'a'in; keeping the privilege of calling for blood-price in the hands of those by their very nature devoted to the welfare of the Shin'a'in as a whole kept interClan strife to a minimum.
'If it had been you, what would you have chosen, hmm?' she asked the mare. 'Her Oath isn't a light one.' Nor was it without cost -- a cost some might think far too high. Once Sworn, the Kal'enedral became weapons in Her hand, and not unlike the sexless, cold steel they wore. Hard, somewhat aloof, and totally asexual were the Sword Sworn -- and this, too, ensured that their interests remained Hers and kept them from becoming involved in interClan rivalry. So it was not the kind of Oath one involved in a simple feud was likely to even consider taking.
But the slaughter of the Tale'sedrin was not a matter of private feud or Clan against Clan -- this was a matter of more, even, than personal vengeance. Had the brigands been allowed to escape unpunished, would that not have told other wolfheads that the Clans were not invulnerable -- would there not have been another repetition of the slaughter? That may have been Her reasoning; Tarma had only known that she was able to find no other purpose in living, so she had offered her Oath to the Star-Eyed so that she could pledge her life to revenge her Clan. An insane plan -- sprung out of a mind that might be going mad with grief.
There were those who thought she was already mad, who were certain She would accept no such Oath given by one whose reason was gone. But much to the amazement of nearly everyone in the Clan Liha'irden who had succored, healed, and protected her, that Oath had been accepted. Only the shamans had been unsurprised.
She had never in her wildest dreaming guessed what would come of that Oath and that quest for justice.
Kessira finished the pile of provender, and moved on to tear hungrily at the lank, sere grasses. Beneath the thick coat of winter hair she had grown, her bones were beginning to show in a way that Tarma did not in the least like. She left off brushing, and stroked the warm shoulder, and the mare abandoned her feeding long enough to nuzzle her rider's arm affectionately.
'Patient one, we shall do better by you, and soon,' Tarma pledged her. She left the mare to her grazing and went to check on Kethry's mule. That sturdy beast was capable of getting nourishment from much coarser material than Kessira, so Tarma had left him tethered amid a thicket of sweetbark bushes. He had stripped all within reach of last year's growth, and was straining against his halter with his tongue stretched out as far as it would reach for a tasty morsel just out of his range.
