Gayrfressa didn’t reply, but she turned her head far enough she could look back at her rider, and the set of her ear was not encouraging.
“I am a member of the Guard,” Leeana told her firmly. “And my current term of enlistment won’t be up for another two years.”
Still nothing…aside from a slightly flatter ear.
“ I’m a seventy-five, Gayrfressa. I can’t just walk away from the rest of my platoon, you know, and none of them are wind riders!”
‹ And none of them are my wind-sister, either, › Gayrfressa pointed out stubbornly. ‹ Your place is in my saddle when you have to fight-not down there running around on those two ridiculous little feet of yours where I can’t keep an eye on you!›
“But-” Leeana began a bit hotly, then clamped her teeth tightly on what she’d been about to say as she tasted the anxiety behind Gayrfressa’s obstinacy. And the mare had a point, she admitted to herself a moment later. She was the daughter of one wind rider and the wife, now, of another. She’d always known-or thought she had, at any rate-how completely and intimately a wind rider and his courser merged, both in and out of combat. It had been natural enough for her to think she understood, at any rate, beginning from the standpoint of the many years she’d spent learning to become one with a horse like Boots. Yet she’d already realized she’d never truly grasped the totality of a wind rider’s bond before Gayrfressa had entered her life. Not even a marvelous horse like Boots could have taught her that…or what would happen to a rider who lost his courser.
Or to a courser who lost his-or her — rider.
It wasn’t something any Sothoii liked to think about, and the coursers’ longer lives meant it didn’t happen as often as a rider lost a horse, but it did happen. More often, it was the rider who survived, if only because human lives were a bit longer, on average, even than a courser’s. But it also happened because coursers were bigger targets…and because they couldn’t be armored as well as a human. Leeana had met a handful of wind riders who’d lost their coursers, and she’d sensed the gaping wounds which had been left at the heart of them, but not until now-not until she’d felt the richness of Gayrfressa’s mind and voice in the depths of her own mind-did she truly grasp how terrible those wounds had actually been.
It wasn’t unusual for a rider to end his own life if he lost his courser, despite the Sothoii’s cultural prohibition on suicide…and coursers had no such prohibition.
“Dear heart,” she said quietly, after a moment, “I don’t know how we’re going to deal with this. We’re going to have to-I understand that now-but I don’t have any idea how.” She leaned forward in the saddle, running her hand gently over the scar reaching to Gayrfressa’s shoulder, feeling the hard, ridged line of it under the mare’s chestnut coat and shivering deep in her bones as she remembered how Gayrfress had received it. “That’s one reason you were talking about islands, wasn’t it?”
‹ Partly,› Gayrfressa admitted after a moment, her voice as quiet as Leeana’s own. ‹ I’m not sure I realized that when I started, though.› She snorted again, more gently than before. ‹ I was actually thinking about how silly it was of you to feel like you were “leaving him behind” when he rides with you in your heart every moment, no matter where you are.› Leeana felt her eyes prickle afresh and stroked Gayrfressa’s shoulder again. ‹ Still, I think you’re right-I was thinking about this, too. I understand you have obligations to the other two-foots, Sister. I know you assumed them before we’d ever even met, and I don’t expect you to shirk them. But surely the war maids can understand how our bond changes things?›
“War maids certainly ought to understand changes if anyone can,” Leeana agreed feelingly. “Unfortunately, they haven’t had any experience with war maid wind riders. No one has!”
‹ I know war maids fight on their own feet, but you can be far more dangerous on my back than on foot,› Gayrfressa said in an almost hopeful tone. ‹ Think how much faster you can move! That alone would be a huge advantage, wouldn’t it?›
“Sometimes, at least. On the other hand, you’re not exactly built for creeping about in the grass, now are you?” Leeana teased gently. “That’s where war maids spend a lot of their time, you know,” she added more seriously. “And however effective a wind rider might be, one wind rider by herself is hardly going to constitute what you might call a concentrated striking force, is she?”
‹ No, but — ›
It was Gayrfressa’s turn to cut herself off, and Leeana nodded.
“I understand,” she repeated. “Now I really do understand, dearheart. And we will work it out somehow, I promise. I don’t have a clue how yet, but I’m sure something will come to me.” She chuckled a bit sourly. “I already knew I was going to have to explain the wedding bracelet, given the Charter’s position on war maid marriages. I don’t suppose there’s any good reason why we can’t go ahead and add this to the situation, as well.” Her chuckle turned into a laugh. “By this time, Balcartha and Mayor Yalith ought to be used to my making problems for them. If they aren’t, it’s not for lack of trying on my part, anyway!”
She felt Gayrfressa’s silent chortle of agreement meld with her own, and her heart eased. They would find a way to work it out. She didn’t know how, but she was certain something would come to her, and Gayrfressa turned a bend and came to a sudden halt as the trail which would become a proper road-and an Axeman road, at that- someday soon abruptly disappeared. It didn’t peter out, or fade. It didn’t even end, really. It simply… stopped, cut off as if by a blade, and the thick carpet of pine needles from years past spread out before them unmarred and unmarked.
Leeana stiffened in the saddle, her head coming up and her eyes widening as her own astonishment merged with Gayrfressa’s. She opened her mouth, although she didn’t actually know what she intended to say. But before she could begin on whatever she might have been going to say, she saw the redhaired woman seated on that carpet of needles, leaning back against the tallest, thickest pine tree she’d ever seen in her life. And that was just as strange as the disappearance of the trail, because the woman hadn’t been there when Gayrfressa stopped. For that matter, Leeana felt certain-or thought she did, at any rate-that not even the tree had been there when Gayrfressa stopped.
She shook her head, but the surprises weren’t quite finished yet.
The woman at the base of the pine tree wore plate armor. Reflected light curtsied across its burnished surface like rippling water as the cool breeze tossed the pine trees and let shafts of sunlight burn golden through the canopy. She wore a surcoat over it, and for some reason, Leeana wasn’t certain of the surcoat’s color. It seemed to be black, but perhaps it was actually only the darkest cobalt blue she’d ever seen or imagined. Or perhaps it was a blend of colors from a midnight summer sky no mortal eye had ever beheld or envisioned. Leeana didn’t know about that, but the device on the breast of that surcoat was a white scroll. It was picked out in gold bullion and tiny, brilliant sapphires and rubies, that scroll, with silver skulls for winding knobs, and bound with a spray of periwinkle, the five-lobed flowers wrought in showers of dark amethyst. The woman wasn’t especially tall by Sothoii standards. Indeed, she was several inches shorter than Leeana…which meant she was also shorter than the huge, double-bitted axe leaning against the same pine tree.
The woman seemed unaware of their presence, her attention concentrated on the mountain lynx stretched across her lap. It lay on its back, totally limp, all four paws in the air as she rubbed its belly and smiled down at it. A helmet sat beside her, and her hair-a darker and even more glorious red than Leeana’s-was bound with a diadem of woven gold and silver badged with more of those amethyst-leaved blossoms of periwinkle.
Courser and rider stood motionless, frozen, trying to understand why the world about them seemed so different, and then the woman looked up, and Leeana’s throat tightened as midnight-blue eyes looked straight into her soul.
The woman gazed at them for several endless seconds, then clucked her tongue gently at the lynx across her lap. The cat-it was enormous, probably close to seventy pounds-yawned and stretched, then gave itself a shake, rolled off her lap, and stood. It looked up at her, then butted her right vambrace gently and affectionately before it glanced at Leeana. It regarded her for a moment, supremely unimpressed by her or even by Gayrfressa, then gathered its haunches under it, leapt lightly away from the redhaired woman…and vanished into thin air in mid- leap.
Leeana blinked, but before she could speak or otherwise react, the woman had risen, coming to her feet as if the armor she wore was no more encumbering than a war maid’s chari and yathu. She stood gazing up at Leeana, and somehow, despite Gayrfressa’s towering height, it seemed as if Leeana was gazing up at her.
“Give you good morning, daughters,” the woman said, and a strange shiver, like a flicker of lightning touched with ice and silver, went through Leeana. She knew she would never be able to describe that voice to anyone, for
