Two-Edged Blade

That vigilance paid off shortly before dawn, when she thought she heard hoofbeats ahead of her. The sound faded after only an instant, but she found a gap in the brush and dismounted to lead the mare into its concealment. There she waited.

And waited.

She began to feel like a fool, but not even that would send her out onto the road again before she knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was no one else on it.

Then—she felt that searching again, and froze. Once again it passed over her, but she felt as helpless as a mouse stuck in an open field, knowing there’s a hawk overhead ready to stoop the moment it moves.

The feeling passed, but before she could take Hellsbane out onto the road, she heard hoofbeats, the same as before, but much nearer—practically on top of her position. Some quirk of the hills echoed them up in time to warn me, she realized numbly. Blessed Agnira! If I hadn’t heard them—

It was a long time before she could convince herself to move.

East and north, a little west, then north again; never any closer to her goal, never any idea of where she really was. She was in sheep country now—there were fewer priests, which was a blessing, but shepherds are lonely and inquisitive folk, the kind she wanted to avoid at all costs.

Twice she dropped all caution and used her Gift to help her raid farms for food. Each time she felt that searching “eye” pass over her some time later, as if she had inadvertently set off some kind of alarm by her use of Thoughtsensing. After the second time, she resolved to tighten her belt further. Nothing was worth feeling that presence out there, looking for her.

Hellsbane was a hardy soul, and could live quite happily on grass alone since she wasn’t seeing heavy activity. In fact, fully half the time Kero walked and led her instead of riding, especially at night.

She slept by day, whenever she could find cover enough to hide the mare. She dreamed almost every night; vague, odd dreams involving Need, Need and an old woman, and a very young girl barely into her teens. They weren’t very coherent dreams, and they involved things that seemed to be right out of the wildest of legends, so far in the past that they bordered on incomprehensible.

It was after the first of those dreams that she encountered the first priestess— as opposed to priest—of Vkandis.

She had slept most of the day, knowing that there was another village to pass that night, and at sundown had worked her way down toward that village to keep watch until everyone was safely tucked up for the night. Right on schedule, a cowled and robed figure appeared from the rock-walled temple and assembled the villagers. She wondered idly if this village’s sunset service was going to be as dull as the other ones she’d overseen when the figure threw back its cowl to reveal a head of wild, scarlet curls and an unmistakably feminine face.

Shock held her in place; further shock kept her frozen for a moment, as the priestess raised her head and stared directly at the place where she lay concealed.

Only the sun saved her; there was a service to conduct, and Kero was under the impression that if there was an earthquake, battle-charge or erupting volcano in progress at sunset, the followers of Vkandis would still conduct their devotions to the last ray of light.

Halfway into the service, Kero managed to shake off her paralysis, and crawl back to where she’d left Hellsbane tethered. This time she did not wait until sunset; she mounted Hellsbane and rode farther eastward, giving the village a wide berth, and pulling every trick Tarma had ever taught her to confuse and conceal her trail.

Thereafter, following every one of those dreams, she’d encounter a female devotee of Vkandis. And every single one of them seemed able to detect either her, or the sword.

It was unnerving, not the least because she hadn’t known—nor had anyone else to her knowledge—that there were women placed so highly in Vkandis’ priesthood. Up until this time everyone she’d ever talked to had spoken of the cult as being exclusively male, and certainly the little anyone outside of Karse knew of it painted the credo as being thoroughly misogynistic.

Certainly the Karsites had very little use for women in general, and positively despised fighting women like the ones in the ranks of the Skybolts, reserving particularly gruesome treatment for them when caught.

And yet—the order of Vkandis was a militant order. Every one of the women Kero had seen had worn a sword. The order of Vkandis deplored the use of magic—yet she had felt magic searching for her, and these women seemed perfectly willing to employ something like enough to magic as to make no difference.

It appeared that whatever the outside world knew of Karse and the state religion, there were things going on within it that were not to be discovered until one penetrated into the country itself. What those things meant, Kero had no idea, except that she had better keep her head down and her behind well-hidden, or she wasn’t going to be telling anyone of her discoveries. Except, perhaps, an inquisitor.