War Maid's choice wg-4

by David Weber

  “Yes,” Leeana admitted. “I’m worried about all of the others, too, really-especially Trianal and Brandark. But I’m discovering I’m more selfish than I thought I was.”

  ‹ That’s another two-foot attitude. It’s not selfish to worry about your other half, Leeana. And that’s what he is: your other two-foot half. Not worrying about what might happen to him would be like trying not to worry about what might happen to your right forehoof!›

  Gayrfressa was right, Leeana realized, yet it was difficult for her to admit it. War maid or not, she was the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of baronesses. Generations of her mothers and grandmothers had sent husbands and fathers and sons and brothers off to war, obedient to that drumbeat of responsibility and duty.

  And too many of us never saw them come home again, she thought. Maybe that’s my real problem. He’s so much larger than life-a god-touched champion, the most deadly man I’ve ever known…and the gentlest. He’s all of those things and more, even if he is a blanket-stealer in the middle of the night, grumpy in the morning, impossibly stubborn, and impossibly determined to do the “right thing” however maddening it may be for the people who love him! But despite all that, I know he’s not really immortal. I know he won’t necessarily be coming home again just because of how much I love him, how much I need that “other two-foot half” of mine. And the truth is, that terrifies me. The thought of losing him, of feeling some cold, empty hole where he used to be…I’m not sure I’d truly have the courage to face that. Not that I’ll ever admit it to him; not after he tried to use that very argument to convince me I was making a terrible mistake!

  She snorted in sudden amusement of her own, and felt Gayrfressa’s encouragement and affection in the back of her brain.

  “I think you’re good for me,” she told the mare, breathing the resinous air deep once again. “You help me ‘put things in perspective,’ as Mother always used to say. Usually,” she admitted with a thoughtful air, “about the time I started feeling most sorry for myself, now that I think about it.”

  ‹ So two-foot mothers do that, too, do they?›

  “Oh, yes!” Leeana said fervently.

  ‹ Good.›

  The ground sloped downward in front of them, and Leeana automatically adjusted her seat and balance as Gayrfressa started down the slope.

  ‹ I’m glad you spent so much time learning to ride the lesser cousins,› the mare remarked. ‹ Walsharno didn’t have that advantage when he climbed into the saddle the first time. I got to watch, you know.› The mare tossed her head again, this time with a whinny of laughing memory. ‹ He fell off a lot.›

  “He hadn’t had much opportunity to practice, you know,” Leeana said a bit primly.

  ‹ Of course he hadn’t! Which of the lesser cousins could have carried him?› Gayrfressa inquired pragmatically. ‹ Doesn’t change the fact that he looked like a bag of feed in the beginning…when he wasn’t bouncing along the ground behind Walsharno, at least.›

  “I suppose not,” Leeana agreed, lips twitching on the edge of a smile. “He’s made up for it since, though,” she added, remembering Bahzell’s graceful seat…and other things about him.

  ‹ Yes, he has.› Gayrfressa’s mental voice carried a possessive pride, and Leeana leaned forward to pat the courser’s shoulder. ‹ In fact,› the mare continued, her voice turning more serious, ‹ he’s learned quite a few things you’re going to have to learn.›

  “Such as?”

  There might have been the very thinnest edge of pique in Leeana’s two-word question. She was a Sothoii, after all. The suggestion that her equestrian skills might be wanting in any respect came perilously close to insult.

  ‹ How to fight from the saddle,› Gayrfressa replied with a tart snort. ‹ Nobody ever taught you a thing about that, now did they?›

  “Well, no,” Leeana admitted after a slightly huffy moment, then shrugged. “Properly reared young noblewomen aren’t supposed to even think about something as unladylike as actually fighting.” She grimaced as she remembered a long ago morning in Kalatha when Ravlahn Thregafressa had invited a very young Leeana Hanathafressa to “attack her” with a practice knife. It hadn’t been a very…impressive attack.

  “If I’d had the good taste to be born a boy, they would have taught me to fight mounted before I ever got to Kalatha,” she continued. “Except, of course, that if I’d had the good taste to be born a boy I wouldn’t ever ever have had to run away to Kalatha. Which I did. Have to run away to Kalatha I mean.” She paused, trying to straighten that out in her own mind, then shrugged again. “But after I got to Kalatha, there wasn’t anyone to teach me. War maids mostly fight on their own feet, you know. We’re not very cavalry oriented.”

  ‹ No, you’re not, › Gayrfressa agreed in a tone of distinct disapproval.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to expect anything else,” Leeana pointed out. “Not given where most of us come from. Garlahna, for example. Or Raythas. Or even Erlis. They may be Sothoii, but nobody was throwing them into a saddle when they were two years old, you know!”

  ‹ I suppose not,› Gayrfressa conceded. ‹ Not that that explains why they couldn’t have learned later!›

  “I suppose not.” Leeana used Gayrfressa’s own words deliberately, accompanied by a snort of purely human dimensions. “Although,” she continued more thoughtfully, “I really wouldn’t be too surprised to find out the war maids decided years and years ago that they weren’t going to put mounted troops into the field because of how much they expected all the menfolk would carry on if they did. They may have decided that was one toe they didn’t need to step on.”

  ‹ Well, you’re going to have to learn how to do it.› Gayrfressa said in a no-argument sort of way.

  “Fine,” Leeana replied, a bit surprised by the firmness of Gayrfressa’s tone.

  ‹ And you’re going to have to get rid of those silly short swords when you do it, too, › Gayrfressa continued. ‹ How do you expect to reach anyone with something like that from my saddle? And we have t o get you a bow. You do know how to shoot a bow, don’t you?›

  “From my own two feet, yes.” Leeana frowned down at Gayrfressa’s single ear. “That’s not the same as using a horse bow though, you know!”

  ‹ Oh, don’t I know? ” Gayrfressa shook her head in profound disgust. ‹ It took years for Walsharno to convince him to learn to use a bow properly. If you can call the way he uses one even today “properly,” that is!›

  “There are some advantages to that arbalest of his,” Leeana pointed out.

  ‹ Not from a courser’s saddle, there aren’t, and a wind rider doesn’t have any business fighting from anywhere else!›

  Something clicked in Leeana’s brain, and she cocked her head, still looking down at Gayrfressa’s ear.

  “I don’t think it’s going to be very easy for Balcartha to integrate a single wind rider into the Kalatha Guard,” she said slowly.

  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 ra
te-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 the words which might have captured it had never been forged. It was woven of beauty, joy, sor
row, celebration-of tears and terror, of memories lost and dreams never forgotten. It was freighted with welcome and burnished with farewell, and wrapped about it, flowing through it, were peace and completion.

  Leeana never remembered moving, but suddenly she was on her feet, standing at Gayrfressa’s shoulder, left hand raised against the mare’s warm, chestnut coat, and the woman smiled at them both.

  “Lady,” Leeana heard her own voice say, and inclined her head, for she knew the woman before her now.

  Isvaria Orfressa, firstborn of Orr and Kontifrio, goddess of death, completion, and memory and second only to Tomanak himself among Orr’s children in power. A quiet terror rippled through Leeana Hanathafressa as she found herself face-to-face with the very personification of death in a quiet, sunny pine wood she knew now was somehow outside the world in which she’d always lived. Yet there was no dread in that terror, no fear, only the awareness that she gazed upon the ending which must come to every living thing.

  “I haven’t come for you, Leeana,” that awesome, indescribable voice said gently. It sang in Leeana’s blood and bone, murmured from the roots of mountains and sent endless, quiet echoes rolling across the heavens. “Nor for you, Gayrfressa.” Isvaria smiled at both of them. “Not yet, not today. Someday I will, and gather you to me as I gather all my worthy dead, and, oh, but the two of you will be worthy when that day comes! I’ll know you, and I’ll come for you, and you will find a place prepared for you at my table.”

  Leeana inhaled deeply, feeling the power of life racing through her with the air filling her lungs, the blood pumping through her veins, and knew that in some strange way she had never been as alive as in this moment when she stood face-to-face with death Herself and saw in Isvaria’s face not terror or despair but only…welcome.

  “But that day is not today,” Isvaria told them. “No, today I’ve come for another purpose entirely.”