She was small and slight, barely taller than Raki, but she was perfectly proportioned. She wore snug black pants—very snug—and her tunic was as tight. She carried her cloak over her arm. Her hair, a deep chestnut color, hung loose down to the middle of her back and floated as she moved, glistening in the firelight. Aeden realized he was staring at her, his mug halfway to his mouth. How did she put on pants that tight?
As the woman glided across the room—her stride was much too graceful and sophisticated to be called a walk—the movement did wondrous things to the curves and lines of her body. When she reached the door, she glanced back over her shoulder and her brown eyes met Aeden’s. She quirked her eyebrows slightly, gave him a small smile, and then was gone.
Aeden took the first breath he had taken all night. At least, that’s how it seemed. Fahtin was snapping her fingers in front of his face.
“Aeden,” she said. “Aeden. Hello. Can you hear me?”
“What?” He shook his head but held onto the image of the woman for as long as he possibly could.
“We are going to get some sleep. Will you go to your room now or do you want to continue to stare at the door where she left the room?”
“Oh.” The heat of his blush rose from his neck up his face and to his scalp. “Yes. Yes, I’ll go to bed, too.”
As they got up and left the table, Aeden looked back toward the door. Who was that woman? Did he know her? He thought that maybe he wanted to.
Chapter 39
Tere Chizzit lay on his bed in the room the innkeeper had given him, unable to sleep. What was he doing here? He told the boy that he would get him through the Grundenwald. Well, he had done that. Why was he still with them?
He liked his new friends, and to be honest, he did miss traveling with others. Missed traveling at all, surprisingly. He had been so long in the forest by himself, so long without another person to talk to. Well, except Urun. He had visited with the young priest on occasion, but it wasn’t the same. He suspected the man was half mad, not handling his solitude well. Forced isolation will do that to a man.
Tere, on the other hand, had chosen to leave people behind. Nothing but trouble, were people.
Still, he did like the boy, this Aeden. The old tracker chuckled. He reminded Tere of himself when he was young. It was hard to think of himself that way after all these years. He felt like he had always been old. Sure, he had a few good years left in him; he could still take care of himself and beat any of the youngsters out there, but sometimes he just wanted to give up, lie down in the forest and let it swallow him whole.
Was this truly the end times, when the prophecies would come together and be fulfilled? He wasn’t sure if Aeden was this Malatirsay, but it seemed likely. Too many signs were coming true for it not to be the case. Maybe he’d stick around a little while longer and see what happened. What could it hurt? These three young people would need the guidance of an old grizzled veteran like him. Hells, even Urun was not too far from the apron strings. Maybe Tere could do one last thing of importance before he let the forest take him.
He got up from his bed and draped his cloak about him. He wouldn’t be getting any sleep anytime soon, so he might as well go out exploring. He’d only been to Drugancairn once before, long ago, and much had changed. Some fresh air, a little exercise, and he’d settle right down to sleep.
Tere opened up the window and looked outside. The moon was at a quarter, a waning crescent, its light barely outshining the stars. There was no one about, and it was an easy drop from the second story window to the ground. As he was halfway out of the opening, he stopped, thought twice, and reached back in for his quiver and bow. One never knew what he might meet while out exploring at night, especially in these times.
It didn’t take much effort to reach the outskirts of the town. He hesitated even to use the word town. It was more like a haphazard collection of buildings that happened to be situated near each other. That much had not changed since he was in the area last. He crossed a space with long grass, went up a small hill, and then into a stand of trees to the south of the town itself.
An owl hooted softly from a tree nearby and then took off in silent flight, no doubt going to where it could hunt in peace. Tere made his way into the copse, moving silently through the foliage. Yes, this was what he needed. The serenity of nature called to him and for a moment, he understood Urun’s devotion to the goddess who represented the natural world.
Trees felt different at night. For those unfamiliar with them, they became scary silhouettes, poised in the darkness and waiting to pounce. For Tere, they were old friends, resting after a day of sunlight and observation of the activity of woodland creatures. He patted an old oak as he went by. Yes, trees were good. They never talked back, were never ill-mannered, and not once in the history of the world had they betrayed their friends. He wished more people were like trees.
A voice pierced the silence and brought his thoughts up short. Who would be out in the forest at this time of night, and speaking at that? He softly padded to where he thought the sound came from, then stopped and waited, listening for it to come again. It did.
There, to his right, further into the trees. There was more than one voice now, he recognized as he got closer. They didn’t sound like friendly words, not like a sociable discussion at all. He moved closer.
“You cheated us,” a man said. “We had a deal. You took our money and were trying to leave without holding up your end of the bargain.”
“Yes,” another man said. “We should have known better than to deal with you. My gut told me you would try to steal from us. ‘Come on, Tousin,’ they said, ‘No one who looks like that could get away with swindling people. That’s not the kind of woman any man would forget.’ Well, now we know I’m right, don’t we?”
Tere Chizzit moved closer to a small clearing where the voices were. Still unable to see the speakers, he climbed a gnarled tree and sat in the hip between two branches. Five dark figures surrounded a smaller one. The one in the middle was wrapped in a cloak, so he couldn’t tell who it was. The other five had their cloaks drawn back to show swords and cudgels with iron banding around their ends.
“We would have given you a chance to give the money back,” another of the five said, “if you hadn’t run like you did. Now, regretfully, the only thing we can do is take the money from your corpse and allow the animals of the forest to strip the flesh from your bones.”
“Let’s have a little fun with her first,” the first man said. “I think the least she could do is to provide a little entertainment for the problems she has caused us.”
There were grunts from some of the others that sounded like agreement. Her? Tere focused on the figure in the center of the circle and realized that it was true. It was a woman they had surrounded. He could tell by the way she stood, if not by the slender form described by the cloak.
“No,” the man Tousin said. “We will kill her because we have to, but we will not act like animals.” There was grumbling from the others, but he swiveled his head toward each of them and their mutterings settled down to murmurs.
“Surely we can come to an agreement,” the woman in the middle of the circle said. “Something that will be advantageous to all of us? There’s no need for death here.”
“Time’s up,” their leader said. “Let’s get this done, boys.” The men drew out their weapons and prepared to attack her.
Tere Chizzit wasn’t sure if he should get involved. It wasn’t his business after all, and he didn’t know the situation well enough to choose sides. On the other hand, a woman was going to be killed in front of him, and that was unacceptable. Even if she had stolen from them, he didn’t believe in the death penalty for that. He hesitated, his hand on an arrow in his quiver.
The decision was taken out of his hands. With a movement almost too quick for even his senses to pick up, the woman spun, flinging her cloak out like a fan.
One of the men lunged in with his sword. There was a sharp ringing so
und as the woman slipped to the side of the weapon and struck it with something. She made a few rapid movements and the attacker dropped to the ground, the sword falling from his limp hand.
She moved on to the next closest assailant, a man with a club. He swung it with enough force that if he struck the woman, he would break bones, but she was not where his weapon landed. She slipped under and around the overhand strike and jabbed at him twice with each hand. Before he finished his swing, he grunted, bent double, and dropped alongside his companion. That quickly, she had incapacitated two of the attackers.
Two of the remaining men closed on her at the same time, both with swords. The woman bent over backward, folding almost completely in half, to dodge one horizontal slice, allowing it to pass just above her torso. At the same time, she kicked out with her right foot, somehow maneuvering it around the lunge from the other man’s sword and landing a blow solidly on his chin. The momentum of her body caused the kick to generate enough power that there was a loud cracking sound as the man was driven off his feet, his jaw or several teeth broken.
Coming back upright, the woman snapped her hand out, striking the other man while pushing the sword aside with another metallic ring. Tere realized that she had something in her hands, something metal. She struck the hapless swordsman several times rapidly, and he plummeted to the ground and did not get back up.
The last of the men had taken a more cautious approach. He held back, watching her and waiting for his opportunity. He took it now, choosing the exact right time to swing his massive, iron-banded club at the woman’s head before she could turn around and notice he was there. With the force of his blow, he would crush her skull, killing her instantly. Tere wasn’t ready to watch that happen.
In the blink of an eye, he drew, nocked, and loosed two arrows. The first struck the club midway up the shaft, the force of it deflecting the weapon from its path. The second arrow went cleanly through the hand holding the cudgel. The man screamed and stumbled forward, the momentum for his strike lost. The woman turned around and jabbed at his throat with whatever it was she held, causing him to crumple to the ground in a heap.
The woman was the only one left standing in the clearing. She made a gesture as if to salute Tere, having figured out that someone helped her from the shadows. She looked around at her attackers, all of them on the ground and motionless. Tere wondered if they were all dead.
After she had determined that there were no more dangers, she turned toward where Tere was sitting in his tree.
“I thank you for your help,” she said. “Who are you?” As she spoke, she rifled through the bodies at her feet, relieving them of their purses and whatever else she found of value on them.
The tracker jumped down from the tree and walked into the pale moonlight illuminating the clearing. “Just someone who saw another person facing odds that were not even,” he said, eyeing her as she checked the last body.
She cocked her head as he spoke, listening to his voice. “You are one of those who came earlier today, the heroes who saved the town. The one with white eyes?”
He came up to her. “Yes,” he said. “I am Tere Chizzit.”
“Well met, Tere Chizzit. I am Aila Ven. How do you see with eyes like that?” she asked as they walked. Tere noticed that she made very little noise, even in the thick vegetation.
“There are ways to see other than with one’s eyes,” he said cryptically.
“Magic, then? You have magic that allows you to see things?”
“What is magic but something someone else does not understand? Some might think that the use of whatever small weapons you have in your hands to deflect sword blades was magic.”
She laughed. It was a pleasant sound, a rolling giggling kind of laugh, full of amusement and as attractive as she herself was. It made Tere Chizzit smile. He could not really see features as others would with their eyesight, but he could sense the charisma, the aura, of a person. He had no doubt that most would consider this woman beautiful. “Fair enough, old man. We all have our little secrets. Some more than others.”
“And what are your secrets, Aila Ven?”
“My own, as yours are your own.” She looked at the road going south. “I am afraid I must take my leave of you, Tere Chizzit. It’s not safe for me to be here with the…ah, recent events and all.”
“I understand,” the old tracker said. “Safe travels to you, then. Try not to get into any more uncomfortable situations.”
She smiled at him. “I will do my best, but no promises. The world is an uncomfortable place, after all.” She waved at him once and headed toward the road. She was soon out of sight.
Tere came back through the window to his room and set down his weapons. His night time stroll was just the thing to relax him and relieve him of the energy that was trapped within him. He closed the window, undressed, and climbed into bed. He was asleep in moments.
Chapter 40
The party got up soon after dawn, rested and in good spirits, and had breakfast in the common room. A mere handful of people gathered there so early in the morning. They ate at a leisurely pace, which made Aeden feel a bit guilty. They had a journey to complete, and lives could be lost if they dallied. Still, it was good to be able to eat real food for a change, while sitting in a real chair.
“We’ll need to head westward, either taking one of the smaller roads ten miles or so off or going cross-country,” Tere Chizzit told them.
“I think avoiding the roads would be wiser,” Aeden said. “We have seen that the animaru are now on this side of the forest. I’d not like to meet up with any more of them if we can avoid it. The groups seem to be getting bigger.”
“I agree,” Tere Chizzit said. “However, we can only avoid the roads for so long. Once we get to the Heaven’s Teeth, we’ll have to take the path through the Cleft of Surus. There are other passes through those mountains, but they might just prove more dangerous than fighting with the animaru.”
So, after thanking Master Orden for his hospitality, and being thanked again for saving the village in return, the party headed out with full packs—care of Dred Hauf, the provisioner—toward the west. Toward Sitor-Kanda.
As they passed through, the stands of trees that were so plentiful near to the Grundenwald dissipated into a few clumps of them and then into sparse groups of bushes and scrub brush. The land went from sharp inclines to rolling hills covered in long grass. Aeden wished they had horses. The terrain was perfect for mounts, and they could have made much better time.
Still, they didn’t see any trace of the animaru chasing them, so Aeden considered it good.
The second day brought more change in the terrain. Mountains loomed in the distance, much bigger than the ones he was accustomed to back home in the highlands. These were massive things, the range crossing the entire horizon. The land started to become choppy, looking as if pressed from both sides by giants to bunch in the middle. When they stopped to rest, Aeden caught sight of Urun Chinowa looking at the mountains and frowning. His brow furrowed, and it struck Aeden as funny that the skin on the priest’s forehead looked a model of the land he was staring at with such contempt.
Toward the evening, after a hard day’s travel, Aeden caught sight of someone up ahead of them, sitting on a large rock directly in their path. He pulled up short, trying to figure out what a lone person was doing out in the wilderness.
“Hello, Tere Chizzit,” the woman said as she waved.
“Good evening, Aila Ven,” Tere said. Aeden couldn’t place the emotion in his voice. Was it long-suffering, disappointment, or something else?
She hopped off the rock and made her way toward them as they advanced. Aeden froze again in his tracks when he recognized who she was. He could not mistake that distinctive walk. It was the woman from the tavern. As if to confirm his discovery, she left her cloak on the rock so he could see the black clothing she wore. He gulped.
The brown-haired woman walked sinuously toward them, drawing every male eye. Aeden look
ed at Fahtin and saw that even she had her gaze fixed on Aila Ven. They stopped when she was ten feet away.
“Oh,” she purred. “I remember you.” She looked right at Aeden. “You’re the one who was staring at my ass in the common room the other night.” She turned and tilted her hip, giving him a clear view of that part of her anatomy, wrapped in those snug pants of hers.
“Everyone was staring at your ass,” Fahtin said, exasperation clear in her voice.
“Well, maybe,” Aila Ven said without missing a beat, “but he’s the only one I wanted to stare.”
“Enough, Aila,” Tere Chizzit said, stepping between them and her. “Why are you here?”
“I thought about how you saved me the other night and decided I owe you something. True, I might have taken that last one down without being injured, but we’ll just assume that you saved my life. I want to join you in whatever it is that you are doing. Some kind of heroing, no doubt.”
“No,” Aeden said, surprising everyone, including himself. “We have no need of others. Thank you, but go on along your way now.”
“Ooh,” Aila said, pursing her lips. “Is that any way to talk to someone who needs your help, someone who offers you hers?”
“I’m sorry, but we are on an important mission, a dangerous one. I wouldn’t want you to be put into danger.”
Aila tossed her dark hair, and it settled onto her as if it weighed nothing, floating downward to rest on the taut muscles of her shoulders and back. Her lower lip jutted out just a little as her half-lidded eyes became liquid. “Can I at least share a meal with you before you force me away from you into the wilderness?”
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