Oathblood

Kethry rose stiffly and began to scuff the circle into random piles of dirt with the toe of her boot. 'It's about what I expected,' she said. 'Someone-someone with 'a smell of magic about him' according to the khamsin-has organized what used to be several small bands of marauders into one large one of rather formidable proportions. They have no set camp, so we can't arrange for the camp to be attacked while they're ambushing us, I'm sorry to say. They have no favored ambush point, so we won't know when to expect them. And none of the women-girls, really- survived for more than a day.'

'Damn.' Tarma's eyes were shadowed. 'Well, we didn't really expect anything different.'

'No, but you know damn well we both hoped.' Kethry's voice was rough with weariness. 'It's up to you now, she'enedra. You're the tactician.'

'Then as the tactician, I counsel rest for you.' Tarma caught Kethry's shoulders to steady her as she stumbled a little from fatigue. The reaction to spell-casting was setting in fast now. Kethry had once described summoning as being 'like balancing on a rooftree while screaming an epic poem in a foreign language at the top of your lungs.' Small wonder she was exhausted afterward.

The sorceress leaned on Tarma's supporting shoulder with silent gratitude as her partner guided her up the stairs to their rented sleeping room.

'It's us, Warrl,' Tarma called softly at the door. A muted growl answered her, and they could hear the sound of the bolt being shoved back. Tarma pushed the door open with one foot, and picked up one of the unlit tallow candles that waited on a shelf just inside with her free hand. She lit it at the one in the bracket outside their door, and the light from it fell on the head and shoulders of a huge black wolf. He stood, tongue lolling out in a lupine grin, just inside the room. His shoulders were on a level with Tarma's waist. He sniffed inquisitively at them, making a questioning whine deep in his throat.

'Yes, we took the job-that's our employer you smell, so don't mangle him when he shows up tomorrow night. And Kethry's been summoning, of course, so as usual she's half dead. Close the door behind us while I put her to bed.'

By now Kethry was nearly asleep on her feet; after some summonings Tarma had seen her pass into unconsciousness while still walking. Tarma undressed her with the gentle and practiced hands of a nursemaid and got her safely into bed before she had the chance to fall over. The wolf, meanwhile, had butted the door shut with his head and pushed the bolt home with his nose. 'Any trouble?' Tarma asked him. He snorted with derision.

'Well, I didn't really expect any either. This is the quietest inn I've been in for a long time. The job is bandits, hairy one, and we're all going to have to go disguised. That includes you.' He whined in protest, ears down. 'I know you don't like it, but there's no choice. There isn't enough cover along the road to hide a bird, and I want you close at hand, within a few feet of us'at all times, not wandering out in the desert somewhere.'

The wolf sighed heavily, padded over to her, and laid his heavy head in her lap to be scratched.

'I know. I know,' she said, obliging him. 'I don't like it any more than you do. Just be grateful that all we'll be wearing is illusions, even if they do make the backs of our eyes itch. Poor Kethry's going to have to ride muffled head-to-toe like a fine lady.' Warrl obviously didn't care about poor Kethry. 'You're being very unfair to her, you know. And you're supposed to have been her familiar, not mine.' She and Kethry had gone deep into the Pelagir Hills, the site of ancient magical wars, and a place where traces of old magic had changed many of the animals living there into something more than dumb creatures. Kethry had intended to attract a familiar, and she'd done everything perfectly, had gone through a day and a night of complicated spellcast-ing-only to have Warrl appear, then choose Tarma instead. 'You're a magic beast; born out of magic. You belong with a spell-caster, not some clod with a sword.'

Warrl was not impressed with Tarma's logic.

:She doesn't need me,: he spoke mind-to-mind with the swordswoman. :She has the spirit-sword. You need me.: And that, so far as Warrl was concerned, was that.

'Well, I'm not going to argue with you. I never argue with anyone with as many sharp teeth as you've got. Maybe being Swordsworn counts as being magic.'

She pushed Warrl's head off her lap and went to open the shutters to the room's one window. Moonlight flooded the room; she seated herself on the floor where it would fall on her, just as she did every night when there was a moon and she wasn't ill or injured. Since they were within the walls of a town and not camped, she would not train this night-but the Moonpaths were there, as always, waiting to be walked. She closed her eyes and found them. Walking them was, as she'd often told Kethry, impossible to describe.

When she returned to her body, Warrl was lying patiently at her back, waiting for her. She ruffled his fur with a grin, stood, stretched stiffened muscles, then stripped to a shift and climbed in beside Kethry. Warrl sighed with gratitude and took his usual spot at her feet.

'Three things see no end- A flower blighted ere it bloomed, A message that was wasted And a journey that was doomed.'

The two mercenaries rode out of town in the morning, obviously eager to be gone. Grumio watched them leave, gazing sadly at the cloud of dust they raised, his houndlike face clearly displaying his disappointment. His fellow merchants were equally disappointed when he told them of his failure to persuade them; they had all hoped the women would have solved their problem.