Glimpses: A Collection of Nightrunner Short Stories

by Lynn Flewelling

  “Stop that!” he shouted angrily. “Show yourself like a man! I don’t mean you any harm.”

  Silence followed, then his invisible adversary called out from behind the boulder, “Leave this place!”

  It was a woman’s voice with a strange accent. Amasa was a stubborn young man and no bitch throwing snowballs was going to drive him off. He’d worked too long following those cats and he’d find them again even if it meant going through the pass, danger be damned.

  “Leave!” she shouted again.

  Ignoring the order, he made a run for where she was hiding. He was within twenty feet when the woman stepped out from behind it with a bow drawn, a nasty looking steel broadhead leveled at his chest. A long knife hung at her side. Amasa put his hands up to show that he wasn’t going to attack her.

  She was young, and dressed in an odd fashion in a long white tunic that was split from hem to belt on either side, and worn over breeches under her white cloak. A blue-and-white striped cloth was wrapped around her head in a sort of cap with long tails. The long hair under it was dark, almost black, but her eyes were light grey. And even as he read death in those eyes, he decided that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  Her bow arm was as steady as she held her stance. “Leave this place. Not your place, tear man!”

  Tear man? What was that supposed to mean. He wasn’t crying, and wasn’t about to.

  “Who are you?” he asked, still holding his hands out. She hadn’t shot him yet, and her arm must be getting tired.

  She shouted something else at him, but he didn’t understand a word of it, except that she seemed angry, and perhaps a little frightened for all her bravado. Only then did it occur to him that maybe the stories of the Elder Folk were more than pipe talk. But they were supposed to have magic. This woman hadn’t worked any on him yet.

  Slowly, he knelt in the snow and reached inside his thick coat for a bag of rabbit jerky. He took out a piece and ate it, then tossed the bag to her. She regarded it suspiciously for a moment, then kicked it back in his direction. “Leave, tear man! My fay tast.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying, except for the leave part,” he told her. “What’s your name?”

  Her bow was beginning to shake a little. She released the string slowly, but kept the arrow ready on the string. “Nham?”

  He touched his chest. “Amasa.” Then he pointed to her. “You?”

  She regarded him a moment longer. “Ireya.”

  It sounded like a name. “Ireya, I mean you no harm.” He picked up the jerky bag, took another piece, and tossed it back to her, smiling. “Eat. It’s good.” Sharing food was a sign of goodwill where he came from. He hoped it meant the same to her.

  Still clearly suspicious, she nonetheless set the bow aside and drew her knife. Squatting down, she fished out a piece of jerky and nibbled at it, then popped the whole piece in her mouth. “Tank you.”

  “So you know a little of my language. That’s good.” He pointed at the quickly setting sun. “Night’s coming. I think we’re stuck with each other ‘til morning.”

  She glanced at the sun, then cocked her head, as if trying to puzzle out his meaning.

  “Fire?” He rubbed his hands together and held them out as if over a campfire.

  She hesitated again, then motioned him closer, though she kept out of arm’s reach. He could see beyond the boulder now; a single line of snowshoe prints disappeared into the nearby forest. She motioned with her knife for him to go that way and to take the lead. The skin between his shoulder blades prickled as he heard her fall in behind him.

  The footprints led to a camp just inside the line of trees. There was a bedroll of furs and blankets spread on packed snow beside a fire pit and a pile of scavenged firewood. Clearly she’d planned to stay the night.

  She skirted the fire pit and regarded him sharply. At closer range he saw that silver earrings shaped like crescent moons hung from her earlobes. What was a rich woman doing out here by herself?

  She made no objection when he dropped his pack near hers and untied his bedroll. She built a fire and produced a loaf of bread and some dried fish from a leather bag. Tearing off pieces, she offered them to him.

  The bread was a little stale, but made with honey and fine flour. The fish was rubbed with some sort of herb and salt.

  “Good!” he said, chewing. “Thank you, Ireya.” She’d accepted his hospitable gestures, and now offered her own.

  She pushed the long tails of her head cloth back over her shoulder and gave him the hint of a smile. By the Maker, but she was beautiful!

  “Are you Elder Folk?” he asked, holding his hands out to the fire.

  She seemed to consider the question, but did not answer. Given that she knew only a few words of his language and he knew none of hers, conversation was beyond reach for now.

  The sun went down behind the peaks and the stars came out, sparkling sharply through the trees. It was going to be a cold night.

  Ireya sat across the fire from him, feeding the small blaze from the woodpile, but never letting go of her knife. It didn’t look like she trusted him yet, but he felt no threat from her. He tried to stay awake, but it had been a long day and sleep overtook him. When he woke at dawn the next morning, Ireya was gone, but the fire was burning and there was more bread and fish set out for him.

  ***

  Amasa and Alec were stringing the muskrat pelts together a few days later when the man heard a familiar whistle in the distance. If the breeze had been blowing the other way, he probably would have missed it. The riders were no more than a mile away.

  “Get your pack, Alec.”

  The boy was used to the terse order and asked no questions as they took up their gear and hurried down to the riverbank. Amasa picked Alec up and waded out into the current, pelts and all.

  “Is the bear coming again, Papa?” Alec whispered, arms tight around his father’s neck as the man stumbled downstream over the slippery stones.

  “Yes, child.”

  Alec looked back over his father’s shoulder, no doubt hoping for a sight of the bear Amasa had invented to explain these sudden departures.

  ***

  Alec wished he could at least see the bad bear. Whenever it came around, his father took him to a town and left him there while he went to hunt it.

  His father carried him a long way down the river, until they came to the waterfall. Alec knew this place well. There was a little cave behind the waterfall, a good place to hide from a bear. His father carried him under the torrent and into the cave, then went back for their things. Alec sat very still and quiet, so the bear wouldn’t hear him.

  They spent the whole day there. Alec slept for a while in the afternoon with his head on his father’s leg and woke hungry and damp. They stayed there all night, too. His father went out into the woods to check for the bear a few times. That was always frightening, but Alec knew better than to say so. Papa said you should never be afraid because it made you weak and foolish.

  ***

  Amasa was tracking the spotted cats higher up the snowfield the next day when he happened to look back and saw that Ireya was back. She was running in his direction and waving her arms, trying to scare off the cats again.

  “Damn woman,” he growled under his breath. One of the kits almost within bow shot, clearly visible in front of a rock face up the slope. He inched forward, gauging the wind. Close enough at last, he set his feet firmly in the snow and shot. The arrow struck the cat just behind the shoulder blade—a heart shot—The kit tumbled down the slope toward him until the arrow shaft caught in the snow. Shouldering his bow, Amasa began the short climb to fetch it. He could almost feel the money in his hand. Looking back again, he saw that Ireya had stopped some distance off, but was still waving her arms, frantically motioning for him to come to her.

  Not without the valuable kill. Amasa was nearly to the kit when suddenly a section of glistening snow gave way beneath his feet and carried him down the slope
like a wave. But waves of snow were hard as walls, and filled with rocks. It tumbled him down the slope like a man drowning in white water. Pain shot through his left forearm as he felt the sickening snap of a bone breaking. Then he and the snow were falling, falling, falling ...

  ***

  Just after dawn Alec’s father came back to the cave. “Come, child, we have to move on.”

  “Did you see the bear, Papa?” Alec asked, shivering in his damp clothes.

  “Yes. He’s a big one, and mean, but he’s gone now. You were a good boy, keeping quiet for so long.”

  His father carried him and their gear out from under the falls and led Alec down the riverbed for a long time before they stopped to eat. Even though the bear was gone, his father was keeping a sharp eye out. Alec stayed quiet so he could listen. His father was a great hunter; a woman who took care of Alec sometimes told him so. Alec knew it must be a very tricky bear, not to get killed. And smart too, to always find them again.

  “Are we going to the town now, Papa?” Alec whispered as he ate his cold muskrat meat.

  “Yes. You’ll have to stay there awhile.”

  “While you hunt the bear?”

  “Yes, child.”

  “What’s a bear skin worth, Papa?”

  His father smiled in that tight, strange way he sometimes did. “This bear? More than you can imagine.”

  When they got to the town that night his father traded the pelts for silver and a few weeks of food. Then they went to the inn where they’d stayed a few nights when they came up here this spring. It was called the Coney and there was a sign shaped like a hare over the door, with painted eyes and whiskers.

  The woman who ran it was kind enough, and Alec didn’t mind being left here, except for the worry of having his father go away again. But Papa always came back.

  ***

  Pain woke Amasa. His chest, head, and left arm ached badly, even worse than the rest of him. He felt like he’d been beaten from head to toe. He started fully awake as the memory of the avalanche came back. But he wasn’t buried; he was lying wrapped in blankets and furs by a fire. It wasn’t the campsite he’d shared with Ireya, but a shallow cave, the mouth of it half-filled with snow. Pushing back the furs with his good arm, he found that his left had been set and splinted with thick branches and blue-and-white rags, the same as the head cloth Ireya had worn. The rags near the middle of his forearm were stained with blood, where a sharp end of bone had broken through the skin. He had a few cracked ribs, too.

  He heard the squeak of snow under boots and a moment later Ireya appeared in the mouth of the cave, carrying pair of skinned rabbits. She didn’t look at him or smile as she knelt by the fire and began cutting up the meat.

  “Ireya, did you bring me here?” he asked, though speaking made his chest hurt worse.

  Again she didn’t look at him, or answer. She was angry.

  Still muddled, he lay there watching her as she cooked rabbit over the fire on a green stick. Without the head cloth, he could see how her dark brown hair shone in the firelight. Even angry, she was beautiful.

  She stayed angry as they ate the rabbit and some dried apples. She had a flask of beer and grudgingly shared it with him.

  She’s an odd one, but must have a kind heart to dig me out of an avalanche drag me here, he thought, laying there in a nest of furs and blankets. Her furs and blankets. No doubt his were gone for good, swept away with all the rest of his gear.

  “Thank you,” he said at last. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  She seemed to understand, but it only made her madder. She spoke sharply to him in that language of hers as if she expected him to understand.” When it was clear he didn’t she said, “Autasa!”

  “I don’t understand, Ireya.”

  She snatched up the charred spit and with a few deft strokes drew the outline of a cat with spots in the dirt. “Autasa.”

  “The lynx kit! You’re angry at me for killing it?” That was why she’d interrupted his hunt the other day. She was protecting the lynx.

  “I killed your autasa. I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were yours.”

  She just wiped out the drawing and went back to her side of the fire, but perhaps she’d understood; she now looked more sad than angry.

  “Thank you for this.” He held up his splinted arm, grimacing with pain.

  She passed him the beer flask again, motioning for him to drink. “Turab.”

  He took a long swallow and felt warmth spread through him. It was strong stuff, this turab, and as good a beer as he’d ever tasted.

  That night she surprised him considerably when she took off her heavy cloak and spread it over him, then got in under the bedding with him, nudging at him to give her room. Muttering something, she turned her back to him and pulled the cloak and furs up to her chin.

  Amasa was in too much pain to feel any lust. Instead, he took stock of what he’d lost. Bed roll, knife, bow, extra clothing, flints, trap lines—everything that kept him alive. If it wasn’t for Ireya, he’d be dead already.

  She cared for him for three days, feeding him and tending his throbbing arm with snow and some sort of smelly herb he didn’t recognize. She had a pouch of it and mixed up a fresh poultice each day.

  On the fourth morning she brought in several loads of firewood, half a dozen skinned rabbits, and left.

  She didn’t come back that day, or the next, or the next and though he ate sparingly, the food was soon dwindling and the beer was gone. She’d left a cup behind and he used it over the fire to melt snow for water.

  His chest and arm still ached badly, but he was well enough now to move around the cave a little. Whatever had been in those poultices had kept away fever and rot. The skin was already healing, but he knew it would take a month or more for the bones to knit, and longer before his arm was strong enough for him to draw a bow.

  Just when he’d begun to give up hope of living that long, she came back, laden with a heavy pack of food and clean clothing similar to what she wore, though the tunic was shorter. There was also a knife, enough twine to make snares, and a pouch with flint, steel, and tinder shavings.

  She gave him bread and slices of a hard, sharp cheese, and a sip from a flask of turab, then checked his arm, pressing here and there and sniffing the wound.

  “Good,” she said at last.

  “Yes.” The pain was down to a dull ache today.

  She stayed and began teaching him words in her language. Though not enough for a real conversation, he began to get a sense of the person she was. Her folk were called Hâzadriëlfaie, and she lived on a farm somewhere beyond the peaks. Apparently it wasn’t unusual for the women of her people to go off hunting.

  She smiled often and sat beside him to scratch pictures in the dirt for words. He did the same with his good arm and often found himself laughing with her over his clumsy efforts. Now and then he’d catch her watching him and there was sometimes a look in her eyes that made his heart beat a little faster. He’d been with enough women to know when one fancied him. When she slept beside him again that night, Amasa was healed enough to wonder if she was doing more than keeping warm. The question was soon answered when she turned over and kissed him on the mouth, the ran her fingers down his bearded cheek and laughed softly. “Good?”

  “Good.” He kissed her back.

  Eyes half closed, she knelt and pulled her tunic over her head. Amasa stared up at her in wonder. Her smooth skin and small round breasts looked golden in the firelight. Her nipples were like tiny wild strawberries.

  It had been a long time since he’d had a woman and his breath caught in his throat as she brought his right hand up to cover her breast. They needed no common language for this. She stood to pull off her trousers, revealing slender legs and a dark triangle of hair marking her sex. She helped him out of his trouser, laughing a little at the awkwardness of it, then lay down beside him again, stroking his thigh. He ran the fingers of his good hand through her long soft hair, then down the smoo
th skin of her neck to cup her breast again. She sighed and kissed him, then drew a sharp breath as he gently pinched her nipple. He chuckled, then ran his hand down to her waist, her hip, her buttock. She made no complaint, but instead caressed his stiffened cock and balls, making him grow harder under her touch.

  “Good!” he whispered.

  She parted her thighs for him and he explored the moist lips of her cunny. She was hot and slick there already, and moaned as he took her right nipple between his lips and his fingers found that tiny, hard bud between her legs that gave women so much pleasure, gently rubbing it. A widow in Silver Bridge had shown him that spot when he was hardly more than a lad and he’d never left a woman wanting since. Ireya moaned again, rolling her hips under his hand and tightening her grip on his shaft. The musky fragrance of her cunny rose to his nostrils and he nearly came just from the smell of it. Before he could, however, Ireya threw her head back and reached her climax with a long, ragged keen, surging under his fingers. Never had he wished more for two good arms to hold her properly. Then the keen trailed off to laughter. Ireya moved his hand from between her legs and kissed him deeply as she pushed him flat on his back and straddled his hips. Holding his erection at the base, she slowly lowered herself onto it, taking him inside, into the dark tight heat of her body. Amasa groaned at the pleasure of it as she rode him. Reaching between them, he found that little bud again and played with it as she thrust herself up and down on his cock. She soon cried out again as she came and the pure joy he saw on her face pushed him over the edge into a climax of his own so intense that he could hardly catch his breath.

  As they lay gasping and laughing together afterwards, Amasa held her close with his right arm and knew he felt something more than simple lust toward this woman.