The bear screamed again, and Kethry hid her face in her hands. When she looked again, the bear was down, its eyes glazing in death, a half-dozen arrows neatly targeting every vulnerable spot.
'Next time you take a walk in the woods, lady,' Tarma said harshly, grabbing her by her shoulder and hauling her to her feet, 'don't go alone. I take it this isn't what it looks like?'
'It's Mara,' Kethry replied, trying to control her shaking limbs. 'She learned to shape-change--'
The Shin'a'in nodded. 'Uh-huh; what I thought. Especially when you didn't give her the business-end of Need. Hanging about with a magicker taught me enough to put two and two together once in a while on my own.' She prodded the stiffening carcass with the tip of her bow. 'She going to change back? I'd hate to get strung up for murder.'
Kethry held back tears and shook her head. 'No. She froze herself into that shape -- Goddess, how did you manage to get here in time?'
'I got Egon's deer almost before I left cleared lands; came back, and found you gone.' The Shin'a'in poked at the medallion around the bear's neck. 'What's this? Is this--'
'No,' Kethry said bitterly. 'It's just a bit of trash she found. She was so busy looking for 'secrets' that she never learned the secrets in her own mind. That's what killed her, not your arrows.'
'That could be said about an awful lot of people.' Tarma cocked an eye up at the sun. 'What say we make a polite farewell and get the hell out of here?'
'Expediency?' Kethry asked, trying not to sound harsh.
Tarma shrugged.
The sorceress looked down at the corpse. She'd offered Mara her help; it had been refused. Staying to be accused of murder -- or worse -- wouldn't bring her back.
Expediency.
'Let's go,' Kethry said.
A TALE OF HEROES
(Based on an idea by Robert Chilson)
Rob Chilson and I were in a discussion at a convention about fantasy cliches; he wondered why no one ever bothered to point out the viewpoint of the poor chambermaid in all of the stories about iron-thewed, rock-headed Barbarian Swordsmen. That was an idea I couldn't pass up. And who better to help with the concept than Tarma and Kethry?
As for this particular chambermaid's happy ending - well, I wouldn't be particularly suited to Tarma's life either. I hate camping, bugs, cold, and wet; I don't much care for half-burned food cooked over a campfire, and if I didn't have some form of vision correction, I'd be legally blind. My personal idea of 'the way things should be' is that all people be allowed the same opportunity for a life that suits them, period. If that happens to be becoming a mother or being an astronaut, both are important.
And if those same people don't make the most of the opportunities that are given them, that's their own problem.
'Miles out of our way, and still not a sign of anything out of the ordinary,' Tarma grumbled, her harsh voice carrying easily above the clopping of their horses' hooves. 'For certain no sign of any women in distress. Are you - '
'Absolutely certain,' Kethry, the swordswoman's partner, replied firmly, eyes scanning the fields to either side of them. Her calf-length buff-colored robe, mark of the traveling sorceress, was covered in road dust, and she squinted in an attempt to keep that dust out of her eyes. The chilly air was full of the scent of dead leaves and dried grass. 'It's not something I can ignore, you know. If my blade Need says there are women in trouble in this direction, there's no chance of doubt: they exist. Surely you know that by now.'
It had been two days since they diverted from the main road onto this one, scarcely wider than a cart track. The autumn rains were sure to start before long; cold rains Tarma had hoped to avoid by getting them on the way to their next commission well ahead of time. Since they'd turned off the caravan road, they'd seen little sign of habitation, only rolling, grassy hills and a few scattered patches of forest, all of them brown and sere. The bright colors of fall were not to be found in this region. When frost came, the vegetation here muted into shades more like those of Tarma's worn leathers and Kethry's traveling robes than the carnival-bright colors of the farther north. In short, the trip thus far had been uneventful and deadly dull.
'I swear, sometimes that sword of yours causes more grief than she saves us from,' Tanna snorted. 'Magicians!'
