Firehand

by Andre Norton

  in the aftermath of a raid to permit such squandering of precious time.

  Now…

  He was just pulling on his boots when Gordon's knock announced his

  presence.

  Ross looked up at him a little crossly. "Have you spy-holed this place?"

  "Not at all," he replied cheerfully. "I was just glancing through the

  paperwork on your desk and heard you stirring."

  The war captain's eyes swept his quarters and then returned to his

  partner. Everything was in its usual place, his gear restored to battle

  condition, yet Ashe had ridden the same mission with him and had

  unquestionably spent most or all of last night with the wounded. His

  strength, or, rather, his staying power, seemed almost superhuman. Still,

  it could be abused. "It seems that I've managed to take advantage of you

  again."

  The other smiled and shook his head. "Not at all. I'd slept a little the

  previous night. You'd held the watch."

  The younger man steeled himself. Fear was a burning spear in his

  heart, although his friend's easy manner reassured him somewhat. Gordon

  would surely not be speaking so lightly now if death had claimed any more

  of the wounded or if its grim shadow lay on Eveleen Riordan. "Were there

  any fatalities during the night?"

  "No. There won't be now. Even Jorcan is past his crisis."

  "Eveleen?" he asked, unable to restrain himself any longer.

  His terror was apparent to the other. Gordon's fingers pressed into his

  shoulder. "She's all right, Ross. There's no more danger."

  Murdock's eyes closed. He had braced himself for disaster, but relief

  threatened to overwhelm him, and it was a moment before he could trust

  himself to speak. "Thanks, Gordon," he whispered.

  He drew a deep breath and collected himself. "She's conscious?"

  "Our Lieutenant has been awake over an hour already," Ashe informed

  him.

  "Why wasn't I called?" he demanded angrily.

  "Because, hard as this life can be, I'd prefer not to be severed from it for

  a while longer. Neither Ton Luroc nor our fair comrade would have looked

  kindly upon me had I roused you before you'd slept yourself out."

  "She can have visitors?"

  "Naturally." He eyed Ross critically. "Since this much time has lapsed

  already, you might want to take a little more to eat and polish yourself up

  a bit. If you show up looking like you do at the moment, she'll take it that

  she's definitely not long for the world, whatever my assurances to the

  contrary, or else she'll think that something awful's happened. Besides, she

  needs time herself. Marri's still helping her get fixed up."

  Murdock's fear returned in full force. "What do you mean helping her?

  What's wrong?"

  Gordon laughed. "Calm down! She's stiff and sore as hell. You'd be, too,

  if a springdeer had just crashed down on top of you."

  Ross flushed but accepted the rebuke with good grace. "After breakfast,

  then… Are the rest up?"

  "A few. Most're still sleeping, or were when I came in."

  "Anything to report?"

  The archeologist shook his head. "No. There was no other action while

  we were gone, and nothing of significance happened here. Everything on

  the desk can afford to stay there a while longer."

  The war captain waited until he felt a decent amount of time had

  elapsed before going at last to the cabin occupied by his chief officer.

  He paused for a moment in the door of the single room comprising the

  small dwelling, although Eveleen had been quick in granting him leave to

  enter.

  She was sitting up in her bed, her back supported by pillows, her

  magnificent hair spread out like a veil around her. Seen thus, she seemed

  more like the distant, royal daughter of some powerful Ton than the fiery

  and able partisan officer beside whom he had lived and fought these last

  fierce months. She also looked vulnerable and impossibly fragile.

  He willed himself to overcome that last feeling and moved into the

  chamber, all the while studying his Lieutenant intently.

  Her small face was still too pale, making the eyes seem even larger and

  more luminous, but it was quite unmarked.

  That was apparently not true of the rest of her body, for she wore the

  shirt serving as her bed robe fastened tightly to the throat, and even so, he

  could see a finger of dark brown extending up the right side of her neck

  from beneath the collar. He shuddered in his heart at the sight of it,

  knowing how easily such a bruise might have become a break.

  She read his thoughts and laughed. "I'm told I shall live, Firehand.

  Come here and sit down if you have the time."

  The man was quick to obey, drawing up the chair already placed by the

  bed so that she need not strain or turn to look at him. "How do you feel?"

  "Sore."

  Her hand went to her hair. The movement was oddly slow, as if it

  troubled her greatly to make it. "I couldn't even have managed this if it

  hadn't been for Marri's help."

  "That'll pass off soon."

  "I sincerely hope so!" she responded with no little feeling. "She'll give

  me no peace until it does."

  "You'll just have to court patience, Lieutenant," he told her

  unsympathetically.

  "I don't seem to have much choice in the matter."

  He smiled at her expression. "It won't be for long. I hadn't expected to

  find you looking so well. Or so pretty," he added, believing she would be

  pleased to hear that after having suffered what could all too easily have

  been at least a temporarily disfiguring accident. "You're quite beautiful,

  you know."

  The woman laughed. "From the neck up. The rest of me makes quite

  another vision!"

  Her expression softened suddenly, and she held out her hands to him.

  "There's no way for me to thank you for what you did, Ross."

  His fingers closed over hers. "Having you warm and alive before me is

  thanks enough, Eveleen Riordan." Murdock's grasp tightened. "I said I had

  no wish to see you in danger. Now I realize how much I meant it."

  He felt embarrassed and carefully lowered her hands, slowly, so as not

  to further jar already tormented muscles. He released her but kept his

  fingers close to hers. "Lieutenant Riordan, as a favor to your commanding

  officer, the next time you decide to fall off a springdeer, please don't insist

  on bringing him down on top of you."

  She responded, as he had intended, with a grimace and an exaggerated

  shudder. "No fear of that, Lady Fortune willing!"

  Her bright eyes fixed him. "Well, Captain Firehand, what did we gain

  for all our trouble?"

  He described the contents of the wagons.

  Eveleen smiled to hear that report. She was no less aware of the value

  and significance of those goods than he was and would have entered into a

  detailed discussion of their future course had her chief permitted.

  Murdock rose to his feet. He feared to tire her by remaining too long

  and already thought her face seemed a little more pinched than it had

  been when he had come in. "That'll hold. Rest for now. A few days will give

  us both time to consolidate our thoughts. We can talk about it t
hen."

  She had to content herself with that, and after learning the fate of their

  other comrades and exacting his promise to return as soon as his duties

  permitted, she bade the gray-eyed man farewell.

  17

  THE TERRAN WOMAN remained in her quarters that day and the

  next but after that felt sufficiently free of stiffness and discomfort to

  return to her normal duties, all save combat, which neither Murdock nor

  Ashe would permit this soon after her fall. Sapphirehold was not so

  desperate for warriors as to require or chance that.

  There would have been no need for her to ride even had the opposite

  been true. The days following the raid were quiet with no activity from

  Condor Hall and nothing to call the partisans away from their mountains

  save the seemingly endless patrols scouring the lowlands.

  They used the time well. There was work to be done in the camp which

  had been, if not neglected, at least not given its proper attention while the

  press of battle had been so heavy upon them. Both this place and the

  watch posts guarding the few passes were examined and refitted where

  necessary to meet the assaults of the fast-approaching winter, whose bite

  was now to be felt, at times keenly, in the sharp, high wind, and care was

  taken that those in the noncombatants' village lacked for nothing that

  might be provided to ensure their comfort and safety.

  The officers met frequently as well. Ross had not merely been offering

  Eveleen comfort when he had promised to speak with her within a matter

  of days. All knew that the closing weeks of this year and, to an even greater

  extent, the opening ones of that to come would be crucial to the war's

  outcome. As far as was possible, they wanted to anticipate their enemies'

  moves and lay their own plans for countering them.

  There was opportunity in plenty for rest, too, thrice welcome after the

  weeks of strain and almost constant effort just gone.

  The war captain was no less glad of those hours of ease than were the

  soldiers he commanded. He passed many of them with Ton Luroc, whose

  company he thoroughly enjoyed, and many more with Gordon and

  Eveleen.

  Especially with Eveleen. Once he had recognized and acknowledged his

  feelings for her, he had begun to look at her, to study her, with different

  eyes. What he found left him both amazed and not a little ashamed that he

  had remained oblivious to it all for so long.

  Eveleen Riordan had always been closely guarded about her deeper

  thoughts and feelings, he realized now. She had to make her way in a

  world quicker to challenge than to welcome her, and she had set her

  defenses early both to shield herself and to keep her strengths and plans

  concealed before those who might conceivably be prepared to use too

  intimate knowledge of her against her.

  Like everyone else willing to observe and judge her fairly, he had not

  been long in recognizing her competence, her courage, her good humor

  and ready wit, her gentleness both as a companion and a woman, but she

  had always before screened much of her inner life, most of what went on

  behind the facade she chose to present to the universe around her, and he

  had allowed himself to remain all but blind to its very existence.

  Now, she was drawing back some of those thick veils. He began to see a

  little and guess more of this hidden part of his comrade and chief officer,

  glimpses of a strange, bright spirit that ever more powerfully intrigued

  him. He wanted to delve its depths, even though instinct warned him that

  he would never be able to fathom them completely.

  Eveleen was helping him. Such was the trust that she was giving him

  that she who was so proud and independent acknowledged her need for

  closeness in this alien world and time. She went so far as to permit him to

  see when shadows occasionally weighed her heart, although of these

  shadows, she never spoke directly.

  Darkness seemed to grip the weapons expert almost openly on the

  afternoon she first took to the saddle again after her accident.

  Ross did not at first press her, but he began to worry as time went on

  without any brightening in her attitude. There was something troubling

  her, and he wondered if it might not be nervousness over traveling

  mounted again. A fall such as she had taken could readily have induced

  fear.

  By all appearances, Eveleen Riordan seemed quite free of any such

  difficulty. She sat Spark easily, with no sign of tension, but that might too

  easily be meaningless. The weapons expert's courage and iron control were

  sufficient to mask even stark panic.

  Perhaps it was not this at all, but whatever twisted in her heart and

  mind, he longed to bring her ease, if only that of companionship and

  sharing.

  "You're doing fine," the man began tentatively.

  "Yes. There's only a little soreness left."

  She looked at him suddenly. "You thought I might be afraid to ride? Is

  that why you just about ordered me to let you come with me?"

  He flushed. "The possibility had occurred to me," he confessed. "I didn't

  mean to insult you."

  "You haven't," she assured him quietly.

  The brown eyes remained on the war captain. Their expression was

  grave and also tender. "You're quite a man, Ross Murdock."

  She tossed her head then so that the long braid confining her hair

  danced upon her shoulders. "We've come a long way. Let's top that rise

  there and then rest a while."

  So saying, she put Spark into a quick canter that moved them well in

  front of her companion.

  He asked similar speed of Lady Gay, but the buck had a good lead on

  them and reached his goal before they again came up to him.

  The two riders dismounted, letting their reins hang down as a signal to

  their animals that they were free to browse but were not to stray from this

  area.

  It was a beautiful and rather unusual place. The crest of one of the

  lower peaks, it was unlike most of its fellows in the range in being quite

  narrow, no more than seven yards across at its crown.

  Murdock mounted the rise to its crest. His heart swelled when he gazed

  out over the incredible world below him.

  All that a wild and unutterably fair nature could create in such an area

  was there in front of him: mountains, hills, sharp, deep valleys, well nigh

  all thickly forested save where an odd patch of moorland or cliff or

  waterway broke the expanse of the trees.

  Lakes were a common feature of the region, small in surface area but

  incredibly deep and blue like liquid sapphires—it was from their

  abundance and startling color that the domain had taken its name. They

  were cold enough to give pain to anyone drinking their clear waters too

  quickly. The streams feeding them ran free and fast, frequently erupting

  into rapids or dropping suddenly into almost too beautiful falls.

  Beyond all this, framing it, were the higher spires of the range, many of

  them forever bearing brilliant, cruel crowns of ice.

  The Time Agent knew this place well. He had come here often since he

  had discovered it early la
st spring, had come to think through a difficult

  maneuver, had come when the need for peace or beauty or grandeur was

  on him, had come more rarely in happiness and in hope, and always, he

  had found what his spirit sought.

  He had never spoken of its existence and had never heard any other

  mention it, and although he realized his Sapphireholders must have

  known of it as well, he had always secretly hoped none of his comrades was

  touched by this mountain crest as he was.

  Now, however, he found he did not grudge the exquisite woman beside

  him even this, that, on the contrary, he wanted to lay it before her as one

  would lay a precious jewel at the feet of a goddess.

  He turned to her and then smiled. The same exaltation he experienced

  in this place was on her as well. What he wished to offer, Eveleen Riordan

  already knew.

  More than that. He realized with a start that in suggesting they rest

  here, she had been giving it to him.

  "You come here often?" he asked.

  Her nod did not surprise him. "You're no stranger to it yourself,

  Firehand?"

  "No."

  An air of quiet gravity settled over her, and she gave a little sigh. "This

  really will be our last winter up here?"

  "Very likely."

  He studied her intently. "Don't you want peace?"

  The surprise in her expression gave him her answer even before she

  spoke. "With all my heart! These people need to be able to live and work

  like they used to do. They're ordinary folk, you know, most of them,

  however good they are at this business fate's forced on them."

  "You're good at it, too."

  The woman nodded briskly. "I know the weapons, and Zanthor I Yoroc

  is an enemy easy to hate. Every blow I strike cuts into his heart's desire. I

  just wish they could slash into his heart itself."

  "Why, Eveleen?" he asked softly, startled by the vehemence with which

  she had spat that last out. "This isn't our war, not really."

  She looked at him, her eyes grave, measuring him, before she made her

  decision to respond with the truth. "I'm making up," she told him, "doing

  for these people what I can't do for my own."

  Eveleen walked a few steps away from him and fixed her eyes on the

  panaroma below. "Ever since I learned about the Project, that time travel

  is not only possible but accomplished fact, I've wanted to go back, undo

  the centuries of wrong my race has suffered."