'Greedy pig,' she said with a chuckle, and moved him again, giving him a bit more rope this time, and leaving his own share of grain and foraged weeds within reach. Like all his kind he was a clever beast; smarter than any horse save one Shin'a'in-bred. It was safe enough to give him plenty of lead; if he tangled himself he'd untangle himself just as readily. Nor would he eat to foundering, not that there was enough browse here to do that. A good, sturdy, gentle animal, and even-tempered, well suited to an inexperienced rider like Kethry. She'd been lucky to find him.
His tearing at the branches shook snow down on her; with a shiver she brushed it off as her thoughts turned back to the past. No, she would never have guessed at the changes wrought in her life-path by that Oath and her vow of vengeance.
'Jel'enedra, you think too much. It makes you melancholy.'
She recognized the faintly hollow-sounding tenor at the first word; it was her chief sword-teacher.
This was the first time he'd come to her since the last bandit had fallen beneath her sword. She had begun to wonder if her teachers would ever come back again.
All of them were unforgiving of mistakes, and quick to chastise -- this one more than all the rest put together. So though he had startled her, though she had hardly expected his appearance, she took care not to display it.
'Ah?' she replied, turning slowly to face him. Unfair that he had used his other-worldly powers to come on her unawares, but he himself would have been the first to tell her that life -- as she well knew -- was unfair. She would not reveal that she had not detected his presence until he spoke.
He had called her 'younger sister,' though, which was an indication that he was pleased with her for some reason. 'Mostly you tell me I don't think enough.'
Standing in a clear spot amid the bushes was a man, garbed in fighter's gear of deepest black, and veiled. The ice-blue eyes, the sable hair, and the cut of his close-wrapped clothing would have told most folk that he was, like Tarma, Shin'a'in. The color of the clothing would have told the more knowledgeable -- since most Shin'a'in preferred a carnival brightness in their garments -- that he, too, was Sword Sworn; Sword Sworn by custom wore only stark black or dark brown. But only one very sharp-eyed would have noticed that while he stood amid the snow, he made no imprint upon it. It seemed that he weighed hardly more than a shadow.
That was scarcely surprising since he had died long before Tarma was born.
'Thinking to plan is one case; thinking to brood is another,' he replied. 'You accomplish nothing but to increase your sadness. You should be devising a means of filling your bellies and those of your jel'suthro'edrin. You cannot reach the Plains if you do not eat.'
He had used the Shin'a'in term for riding beasts that meant 'forever-younger-Clanschildren.' Tarma was dead certain he had picked that term with utmost precision, to impress upon her that the welfare of Kessira and Kethry's mule Rodi were as important as her own -- more so, since they could not fend for themselves in this inhospitable place.
'With all respect, teacher, I am... at a loss. Once I had a purpose. Now?' She shook her head. 'Now I am certain of nothing. As you once told me -- '
'Li'sa'eer! Turn my own words against me, will you?' he chided gently. 'And have you nothing?'
'My she'enedra. But she is outClan, and strange to me, for all that the Goddess blessed our oathbinding with Her own fire. I know her but little. I -- only -- '
'What, bright blade?'
'I wish -- I wish to go home -- ' The longing she felt rose in her throat and made it hard to speak.
'And so? What is there to hinder you?'
'There is,' she replied, willing her eyes to stop stinging, 'the matter of money. Ours is nearly gone. It is a long way to the Plains.'
'So? Are you not now of the mercenary calling?'
'Well, unless there be some need for blades hereabouts -- the which I have seen no evidence for, the only way to reprovision ourselves will be if my she'enedra can turn her skill in magic to an honorable profit. For though I have masters of the best,' she bowed her head in the little nod of homage a Shin'a'in gave to a respected elder, 'sent by the Star-Eyed herself, what measure of attainment I have acquired matters not if there is no market for it.'
'Hai'she'li! You should market that silver tongue, jel'enedra!' he laughed. 'Well, and well. Three things I have come to tell you, which is why I arrive out-of-time and not at moonrise. First, that there will be storm tonight, and you should all shelter, mounts and riders together. Second, that because of the storm, we shall not teach you this night, though you may expect our coming from this day on, every night that you are not within walls.'
