Steerswoman

by Kirstein, Rosemary

  Rowan looked up and spotted the bird, impaled flapping on the long arrow, lodged among the close branches. “You’re a good shot.”

  She carefully set his pack on the ground, and by climbing on her shoulders, Willam was able to reach the lowest branches. He clutched one and swung himself onto it, then continued up nimbly.

  Bel watched dubiously.

  “There aren’t any tall trees in the Outskirts,” Rowan said, remembering.

  “No. There are a lot nearby, where the Inner Lands meet the Outskirts.” Bel tilted her head for a better angle. “But I’ve never seen anyone go up one. He looks like one of those wood gnomes.”

  Far above, invisible among the leaves, the boy gave a cheerful whoop. “I can see past the next ridge from here! Wait . . .” Twigs rustled, and a few moments later the turkey fell to the ground at Bel’s feet, quiescent. She inspected it, very pleased, then found a leather thong to tie its feet to her belt. It was a good-sized bird, and Rowan found herself speculating about nothing more esoteric than the nearness of dinnertime.

  But shortly she looked up at the treetop again. There was no sound or sign from Willam. Disturbed, she called up to him.

  His voice came down. “Wait . . .”

  Beside Rowan, Bel was instantly alert.

  “Someone’s coming,” Will said, and his next words were masked by the sound of his rapid descent.

  “How many?” Rowan called as he came nearer. “What sort of people?”

  “It’s soldiers.” He hung from his hands and dropped to the ground. He was disheveled and panting, with bits of twig and leaves caught on his clothing.

  Bel had dropped her pack. She stood with one hand resting as if casually on the sword hilt by her right shoulder. Rowan unconsciously did the same. “How many were they?”

  “Six, lady,” Willam replied between gasps. “I counted six. And horses.”

  “The soldiers were mounted?”

  “No, only two horses, with packs.”

  Bel was grim. “There’s a blessing. We’d have no chance at all against six mounted soldiers.” The Outskirter took it for granted that the strangers represented some threat.

  “Have we a chance against six walking soldiers?” Rowan felt momentarily disoriented. Was it mere coincidence? Or would their peace be lost, so soon . . . “How were they dressed?” she asked Willam. “What were their weapons?”

  “Swords, all. No spears. And cuirasses.”

  “Did they wear signs?” Bel asked.

  “Too far to tell. But their surplices were red.”

  Rowan calculated. “Shammer and Dhree, or possibly Olin; it might be either.”

  Bel’s dark eyes glittered. “They’re coming for us.”

  “We can’t know until we see how they react.” But internally, she was certain.

  “That may be too late.”

  Rowan scanned the area: rocky land, gnarled underbrush, and the overhanging oaks. “How far away were they?”

  “Half a mile, I make it,” the boy told her.

  Bel nodded with satisfaction. “What’s our plan? It’ll be a job to fight them. We might do well to avoid them, this time, and act when we’re better prepared. We’re fewer, we’re forewarned, and we’re more mobile.” She caught Willam’s astonished look. “Sometimes,” she told him, “it’s wiser to run.”

  “I’ll follow whatever’s decided.” He turned to Rowan. “Lady? Are we going to run?”

  Abruptly Rowan discovered a strange fury in herself, and an undeniable call, something that had built unnoticed during these short days of peace. She inspected the anger as if it were a phenomenon of nature, amazed—and then not amazed but comprehending, and finally agreeing with it in both logic and emotion. She reached her decision.

  “No,” she said, then looked down the path, eyes narrowed. “Not this time. Not anymore.”

  18

  In the failing light, the smoky fire gave more heat than illumination, and a single thin black line stretched straight up from it, absolutely still in the unmoving air. The chart and papers spread before the gray-cloaked, hooded shape were barely visible in the shadows of the trees, the figure unmoving, as if lost in thought. Nearby, a little donkey was tethered; the curious swiveling of its ears was the only motion in the camp.

  Not a leaf rustled, not a sound was heard until a high voice shouted, “Now!”

  Three men ran forward past the camp, turned, and stood with swords drawn, blocking the way back up the path. More soldiers, two women and a man, jogged up to the fireside and ranged themselves behind the seated figure.

  There was a pause; no one moved or spoke. Eyes narrowed in suspicion, the squad sergeant stepped forward and prodded the figure gently with the point of her sword.

  Rowan pushed back her hood and turned to look up, back-lit by the fire, face shadowed. “Yes?”

  The sergeant struck an arrogant pose, her sword point on the ground, both hands braced on its hilt. “No good to resist us, lady. We’ve come to get you.”

  Rowan calmly glanced at the squad arranged around the clearing, then nodded. “I see.” Adjusting her cloak about her, she rose and faced them.

  “I think she has a weapon under there,” one soldier said.

  The sergeant gestured her squad members closer, one of them pausing to untie the donkey. “Pass it over, then, lady. You’ve got to come with us.”

  There was no fear in Rowan’s face, only the calm alertness of a steerswoman. She paused, then said carefully, “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”

  To the right, a tiny blaze flared, and the sergeant turned. Suddenly bright flame ran hissing along the ground, ran like a wild living thing, sped across the path, and twisted back behind Rowan. It shaped some image that burned in the eyes, a mystic diagram, a work of magic. They were surrounded by glowing, burning lines.

  The sergeant’s throat sprouted a bright wet shaft. She staggered, fell.

  The donkey brayed and twisted, and the soldier grasping its lead was tugged off-balance onto his knees. A second arrow appeared in the ground, inches from his foot. Regaining his feet, he drew his sword, turning just in time to see Rowan’s blade an instant before it struck across his eyes and drove into his brain.

  Bel ran from cover across the lines of fire, and her sword met another with a sharp ring. Her opponent was confused by the eerie fire, but at that familiar sound regained his reflexes and returned the attack with terrified fury. The Outskirter laughed.

  Rowan dodged an overhand blow and dashed to the far side of the hexagram. A female soldier, eyes bright with reflected flame, turned on her. Rowan parried once, then moved left to avoid a thrust coming from behind.

  Bel’s man took two steps back, and Will’s arrow caught him high inside the thigh. Bel moved forward and swung, striking at the same point. Her blade reached bone, then she twisted it out. He fell, wailing, trying to block the severed artery with one fist. She abandoned him.

  And suddenly the numbers were even.

  Rowan parried with all her strength, studying the woman’s style, searching for some weakness, some opening. She sensed the movement behind her again; the man was maneuvering, trying to keep her pinned between two opponents. She dove, then pulled to the right. She knew Willam was behind her in the shadows, and she heard him shifting to get clear of her. He tried for the soldier beyond Rowan’s pair and missed.

  That man was occupied with Bel. The Outskirter worked deftly, almost nonchalantly.

  Rowan scrambled back; heard Willam retreat. She feared that her male opponent would turn and attack Bel from behind, but the Outskirter found one spare instant and used the strategy herself. Her blade struck Rowan’s man across the back. He was shielded by leather, so no blood was drawn, but some bone broke and his right arm was disabled. He switched hands deftly and turned on his attacker.

  Rowan was alone again with the female soldier. She angled right, and Willam ignored her and ran to the left around the now-guttering hexagram.

  The woman was huge, muscu
lar, adept—and far too good. Rowan, over-matched, constantly retreated before her, trying to angle her motion to bring her foe around to Bel’s side.

  Will was staying out of the action, as instructed. But he watched desperately, looking for an opening.

  As the hexagram faded, there was a fizzing flare beyond Bel; the boy was providing more illumination. In the new light Bel shot a glance at Rowan, and they exchanged one mote of information: the steerswoman shook her head; the Outskirter nodded.

  Under the distraction of the flare, each turned, moved across five feet of open ground, and exchanged opponents.

  Willam wavered, confused. He had been told to spare the soldier Rowan fought, but now she was fighting two.

  The swordswoman towered over Bel like a giantess, and Bel had to double-step back to stay out of that long reach. She did not try to match force for force, but dodged and twisted, using her own heavy sword against her opponent’s as a fulcrum for her movement.

  Rowan tried to concentrate her attentions on the injured soldier, but found herself driven back by his partner. She had to prevent them from separating to attack from two sides, and so kept stepping back and to the left. When the injured man broke away to circle her, she recognized the moment and shouted, “Willam!” She did not hear or see the arrow’s flight; she heard the impact and a man’s cries, and saw him stagger back into her field of vision. He had been struck but did not fall, the shaft protruding from his chest. He clawed at it.

  Bel’s adversary was undone by her own advantage. An overhand blow at the length of her reach was met by Bel’s sword and left her the slightest bit off-balance for a mere instant. Bel pivoted forward, dropped down under the woman’s long arms and, with her back on the ground, drove her blade up beneath the edge of the cuirass and into the soldier’s stomach. The giantess writhed once, then toppled like a tree.

  Will’s victim had stumbled, dazed, to the edge of the clearing. He had three more shafts in him but stubbornly refused to die.

  Rowan fought a simple holding action on her man. The rhythms of movement came to her like a drill, and she doggedly followed it, while he followed his own, in a dance of reflex and training.

  But in a moment when she had circled right, he saw the whole of the clearing before him, and there was panic in his eyes as he realized that every one of his companions had fallen. He made half a dozen errors in his fear. Rowan took advantage of none of them.

  Willam finished his stubborn victim by simply stepping up and slashing his throat with a hunting knife.

  Bel pulled herself from beneath the body of the female soldier. She wiped the blood from her eyes with her fingers. “What a mess,” she commented in a mildly aggrieved tone.

  Will moved closer to Rowan and her opponent, not interfering but watching with interest. In the midst of parries, the soldier spared the boy a glance of terrified incomprehension. Rowan continued the drill.

  Bel retrieved her sword. Seeing her approach, the man turned to break and run, but Rowan dropped and clutched his right leg, then scrambled away from the wild sweep of his sword as he spun back.

  Bel swung at him without aggression, and he reflexively met the blow. Behind him, Rowan regained her feet, took careful aim, and struck the side of his head with the flat of her sword. He sank to the ground.

  She dropped her sword and leaned her hands against her knees, breathing heavily.

  A crashing and stumbling in the undergrowth told her where the donkey had fled. In the distance could be heard the frightened cry of one of the soldiers’ horses. Rowan gestured to Will, and he set off after the animals.

  Bel inspected the soldier. Between gulps of air Rowan called, “He’s not dead?” The plan had called for Rowan to identify and single out one member of the attacking squad, the one possibly most tractable. Rowan had frankly assumed that it would be a woman; fighting women tended to be smaller than men, and so relied more on intelligence. The steerswoman had hoped for someone more intelligent, more reasonable than the average soldier. But that huge swordswoman had been beyond Rowan’s ability to hold.

  “He’s alive.” The Outskirter rolled him over. “We’ll need some rope.”

  Rowan’s racing pulse recovered. “Yes. I believe we’ll find that one of those horses is carrying some.”

  When the soldier awoke he found himself bound, arms to his sides, ankles together. He was propped up against a boulder by the rising edge of the clearing.

  The scene of the ambush lay before him, his comrades lying in their blood—at Bel’s suggestion, they had not been moved, to create a stronger effect upon the mind of the captive. Black lines showed where the strange fire had run, and there was a thin acrid odor piercing the smell of blood and dust and sweat.

  Two women stood before him. One was small and sturdy, a brilliant swordswoman who had felled the best fighter in the squad, a woman twice her size. The second was unimpressive, mild-looking but for eyes that watched too closely, saw too clearly, and seemed to understand too much.

  The steerswoman squatted down beside him. “The first thing we need to know,” she said, “is who sent you.”

  He mustered a brave front. “You’re getting nothing from me.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” She rose and gestured to the carnage in the clearing. “None of this was our choice. We have no quarrel with you personally. Answer our questions and you can go on your way.” At that Bel glowered, but held her peace.

  “I’m not stupid, so I’m not talking.”

  “You’re stupid if you’d rather be dead than alive.”

  “Going to kill me if I don’t talk? Lot of good it’ll do you.”

  Rowan paused to consider the statement. “An interesting point.”

  Bel could contain herself no longer. “You can’t mean to let him go!”

  “No. Not after all this. He’d run straight for his master, and we’d have the whole situation repeating. We can’t hope to ambush the next lot.”

  “If we can get him to talk,” the Outskirter pointed out, “he won’t dare go back to his master.” She turned to the man. “Do you understand? You can live if you choose to.”

  He was a long time answering. “You don’t know wizards.”

  “You’ll have a chance.”

  He seemed about to reply, then stopped and shook his head.

  Rowan tried again. “If you won’t tell us who, will you tell us why?”

  He glanced at their faces, looked away, and said nothing.

  Willam arrived, leading two restive, wild-eyed horses. He took in the scene with his wide coppery gaze but did not interrupt.

  “And now we have a problem,” Rowan said dispiritedly.

  Bel crossed her arms and tilted her head at the man. “I think it’s obvious. If he won’t answer, we’ll have to make him answer.”

  It took Rowan a moment to get Bel’s meaning. “You mean we should force him to talk?” She felt her stomach twist. But the Outskirter was right; it was, in fact, obvious.

  Defending oneself against attack, attacking those who planned harm—those were easy to justify, as direct and clear as killing an animal for food, or protecting oneself from rain and cold.

  But, interrogation enforced by pain . . .

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Rowan said; but as soon as it was spoken, she realized it was not true. A smattering of knowledge; a few facts about anatomy arranged themselves of their own accord, and presented to her a framework for action. It would be very easy, she realized, to cause the man pain and damage, without endangering his life. She could do it. As a steerswoman, she felt a moment’s incongruous pleasure in recognizing a field of information she had already possessed, unknowing. But it was not information that she was happy to discover.

  Bel shrugged. “I know what to do.”

  The facts of the situation again ordered themselves before Rowan, doggedly presenting the same conclusion. “No. I can do it.” However much her friend might be involved, Rowan was the source and reason for the fight. It wa
s her responsibility. This dirty job was her own.

  It slowly dawned on the soldier how serious was their intent. He looked from one woman to the other in growing astonishment and finally fixed on Rowan in disbelief. She leaned forward, speaking reluctantly. “Your last chance, friend. Who sent you, and why?”

  He was pale. “What’re you going to do?”

  They altered his bonds, first freeing his left hand, bracing it against the top of Bel’s pack, then securing it in place, palm up. He struggled desperately and quieted only under the influence of a choking hold from Bel, held long enough to bring him to the edge of fainting.

  Rowan took a moment to regather her determination. She pulled out her knife and examined it reluctantly, testing its edge, wondering if she would ever be able to use it to eat again. It came to her that, quite sensibly, she would.

  Shaking his head to clear it, breathing in heavy gasps, the soldier spoke to her. “You, you’re a steerswoman.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s a bluff, right?” His voice quavered in desperation. “I mean, you lot, you’re not that sort, are you? You steerswomen, you’re supposed to be, supposed to be . . .” He ran down.

  “Supposed to be?” Rowan prompted.

  He swallowed. “Well . . . good.”

  She digested his words. “Last chance,” she said again, and felt on her own face a mirror of the panicked pleading that she saw in her victim’s. Bel watched her sidelong.

  Rowan looked at the knife, looked at the soldier, looked up at the sky. She drew one shaky breath and stepped forward.

  Bel’s hand was on her shoulder. “Wait.”

  “No.” A mote of anger sparked in her. She dared not interrupt herself, but knew she must act in the momentum of her decision.

  Bel grabbed one shoulder and pulled her around to face the other way. She spoke quietly. “Get out of sight.”

  “What? Why

  “Because you’re no good!” Bel hissed. Then she continued more calmly. “A torture victim’s mood is just as important as the pain. You’re sorry for him, and he knows it. You don’t want to hurt him.”