Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound

by The Oathbound [lit]

  Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound

  by Mercedes Lackey

  Introduction

  This is the tale of an unlikely partnership, that

  of the Shin'a'in swordswoman and celibate

  Kal'enedral, Tarma shena Tale'sedrin and the nobly-

  born sorceress Kethry, member of the White Winds

  school, whose devotees were sworn to wander the

  world using their talents for the greatest good. How

  these two met is told in the tale "Sword Sworn,"

  published in Marion Zimmer Bradley's anthology

  SWORD AND SORCERESS III. A second of the accounts

  of their wandering life will be seen in the fourth

  volume of that series. But this story begins where

  that first tale left off, when they have recovered

  from their ordeal and are making their way back to

  the Dhorisha Plains and Tarma's home.

  One

  The sky was overcast, a solid gray sheet that

  seemed to hang just barely above the treetops,

  with no sign of a break in the clouds anywhere.

  The sun was no more than a dimly glowing spot

  near the western horizon, framed by a lattice of

  bare black branches. Snow lay at least half a foot

  thick everywhere in the forest, muffling sound. A

  bird flying high on the winter wind took dim notice

  that the forest below him extended nearly as far as

  he could see no matter which way he looked, but

  was neatly bisected by the Trade Road immedi-

  ately below him. Had he flown a little higher (for

  the clouds were not as low as they looked), he

  might have seen the rooftops and smokes of a city

  at the southern end of the road, hard against the

  forest. Although the Trade Road had seen enough

  travelers of late that the snow covering it was packed

  hard, there were only two on it now. They had

  stopped in the clearing halfway through the forest

  that normally saw heavy use as an overnighting

  point. One was setting up camp under the shelter

  of a half-cave of rock and tree trunks piled together—

  partially the work of man, partially of nature. The

  other was a short distance away, in a growth-free

  pocket just off the main area, picketing their beasts.

  The bird circled for a moment, swooping lower,

  eyeing the pair with dim speculation. Humans some-

  times meant food—

  But there was no food in sight, at least not that

  the bird recognized as such. And as he came lower

  still, the one with the beasts looked up at him

  suddenly, and reached for something slung at her

  saddlebow.

  The bird had been the target of arrows often

  enough to recognize a bow when he saw one. With a

  squawk of dismay, he veered off, flapping his wings

  with all his might, and tracing a twisty, convoluted

  course out of range. He wanted to be the eater, not

  the eaten!

  Tarma sighed as the bird sped out of range, un-

  strung her bow, and stowed it back in the saddle-

  quiver. She hunched her shoulder a little beneath

  her heavy wool coat to keep her sword from shift-

  ing on her back, and went back to her task of scrap-

  ing the snow away from the grass buried beneath it

  with gloved hands. Somewhere off in the far dis-

  tance she could hear a pair of ravens calling to each

  other, but otherwise the only sounds were the sough

  of wind in branches and the blowing of her horse

  and Kethry's mule. The Shin'a'in place of eternal

  punishment was purported to be cold; now she had

  an idea why.

  She tried to ignore the ice-edged wind that seemed

  to cut right through the worn places in her nonde-

  script brown clothing. This was no place for a

  Shin'a'in of the Plains, this frozen northern forest.

  She had no business being here. Her garments, more

  than adequate to the milder winters in the south,

  were just not up to the rigors of the cold season

  here.

  Her eyes stung, and not from the icy wind.

  Home—Warrior Dark, she wanted to be home! Home,

  away from these alien forests with their unfriendly

  weather, away from outClansmen with no under-

  standing and no manners . .. home. ...

  Her little mare whickered at her, and strained

  against her lead rope, her breath steaming and her

  muzzle edged with frost. She was no fonder of this

  chilled wilderness than Tarma was. Even the

  Shin'a'in winter pastures never got this cold, and

  what little snow fell on them was soon melted. The

  mare's sense of what was "right" was deeply of-

  fended by all this frigid white stuff.

  "Kathal, dester'edra," Tarma said to the ears that

  pricked forward at the first sound of her harsh

  voice. "Gently, windborn-sister. I'm nearly finished

  here."

  Kessira snorted back at her, and Tarma's usually

  solemn expression lightened with an affectionate

  smile.

  "Li'ha'eer, it is ice-demons that dwell in this place,

  and nothing else."

  When she figured that she had enough of the

  grass cleared off to at least help to satisfy her mare's

  hunger, she heaped the rest of her foragings into

  the center of the area, topping the heap with a

  carefully measured portion of mixed grains and a

  little salt. What she'd managed to find was poor

  enough, and not at all what her training would

  have preferred—some dead seed grasses with the

  heads still on them, the tender tips from the

  branches of those trees and bushes she recognized

  as being nourishing, even some dormant cress and

  cattail roots from the stream. It was scarcely enough

  to keep the mare from starving, and not anywhere

  near enough to provide her with the energy she

  needed to carry Tarma on at the pace she and her

  partner Kethry had been making up until now.

  She loosed little Kessira from her tethering and

  picketed her in the middle of the space she'd cleared.

  It showed the measure of the mare's hunger that

  she tore eagerly into the fodder, poor as it was.

  There had been a time when Kessira would have

  turned up her nose in disdain at being offered such

  inferior provender.

  "Ai, we've come on strange times, haven't we,

  you and I," Tarma sighed. She tucked a stray lock

  of crow-wing-black hair back under her hood, and

  put her right arm over Kessira's shoulder, resting

  against the warm bulk of her. "Me with no Clan

  but one weirdling outlander, you so far from the

  Plains and your sibs."

  Not that long ago they'd been just as any other

  youngling of the nomadic Shin'a'in and her saddle

  mare; Tarma learning the mastery of sword, song,

  and steed, Kessira r
unning free except when the

  lessoning involved her. Both of them had been safe

  and contented in the heart of Clan Tale'sedrin—

  true, free Children of the Hawk.

  Tarma rubbed her cheek against Kessira's furry

  shoulder, breathing in the familiar smell of clean

  horse that was so much a part of what had been

  home. Oh, but they'd been happy; Tarma had been

  the pet of the Clan, with her flute-clear voice and

  her perfect memory for song and tale, and Kessira

  had been so well-matched for her rider that she

  almost seemed the "four-footed sister" that Tarma

  frequently named her. Their lives had been so close

  to perfect—in all ways. The king-stallion of the

  herd had begun courting Kessira that spring, and

  Tarma had had Dharin; nothing could have spoiled

  what seemed to be their secure future.

  Then the raiders had come upon the Clan; and

  all that carefree life was gone in an instant beneath

  their swords.

  Tarma's eyes stung again. Even full revenge

  couldn't take away the ache of losing them, all,

  all-

  In one candlemark all that Tarma had ever known

  or cared about had been wiped from the face of the

  earth.

  "What price your blood, my people? A few pounds

  of silver? Goddess, the dishonor that your people

  were counted so cheaply!"

  The slaughter of Tale'sedrin had been the more

  vicious because they'd taken the entire Clan un-

  awares and unarmed in the midst of celebration;

  totally unarmed, as Shin'a'in seldom were. They

  had trusted to the vigilance of their sentries.

  But the cleverest sentry cannot defeat foul magic

  that creeps upon him out of the dark and smothers

  the breath in his throat ere he can cry out.

  The brigands had not so much as a drop of honor-

  able blood among them; they knew had the Clan

  been alerted they'd have had stood the robbers off,

  even outnumbered as they were, so the bandit's

  hired mage had cloaked their approach and stifled

  the guards. And so the Clan had fought an unequal

  battle, and so they had died; adults, oldsters, chil-

  dren, all....

  "Goddess, hold them—" she whispered, as she

  did at least once each day. Every last member of

  Tale'sedrin had died; most had died horribly. Ex-

  cept Tarma. She should have died; and unaccount-

  ably been left alive.

  If you could call it living to have survived with

  everything gone that had made life worth having.

  Yes, she had been left alive—and utterly, utterly

  alone. Left to live with a ruined voice that had once

  been the pride of the Clans, with a ravaged body,

  and most of all, a shattered heart and mind. There

  had been nothing left to sustain her but a driving

  will to wreak vengeance on those who had left her

  Clanless.

  She pulled a brush from an inside pocket of her

  coat, and began needlessly grooming Kessira while

  the mare ate. The firm strokes across the familiar

  chestnut coat were soothing to both of them. She

  had been left Clanless, and a Shin'a'in Clanless is

  one without purpose in living. Clan is everything to

  a Shin'a'in. Only one thing kept her from seeking

  oblivion and death-willing herself, that burning need

  to revenge her people.

  But vengeance and blood-feud were denied the

  Shin'a'in—the ordinary Shin'a'in. Else too many of

  the people would have gone down on the knives of

  their own folk, and to little purpose, for the God-

  dess knew Her people and knew their tempers to

  be short. Hence, Her law. Only those who were the

  Kal'enedral of the Warrior—the Sword Sworn,

  outClansmen called them, although the name meant

  both "Children of Her Sword" and "Her Sword-

  Brothers"—could cry blood-feud and take the trail

  of vengeance. That was because of the nature of

  their Oath to Her—first to the service of the God-

  dess of the New Moon and South Wind, then to the

  Clans as a whole, and only after those two to their own

  particular Clan. Blood-feud did not serve the Clans

  if the feud was between Shin'a'in and Shin'a'in;

  keeping the privilege of calling for blood-price in

  the hands of those by their very nature devoted to

  the welfare of the Shin'a'in as a whole kept interClan

  strife to a minimum.

  "If it had been you, what would you have chosen,

  hmm?" she asked the mare. "Her Oath isn't a light

  one." Nor was it without cost—a cost some might

  think far too high. Once Sworn, the Kal'enedral

  became weapons in Her hand, and not unlike the

  sexless, cold steel they wore. Hard, somewhat aloof,

  and totally asexual were the Sword Sworn—and

  this, too, ensured that their interests remained Hers

  and kept them from becoming involved in interClan

  rivalry. So it was not the kind of Oath one involved

  in a simple feud was likely to even consider taking.

  But the slaughter of the Tale'sedrin was not a

  matter of private feud or Clan against Clan—this

  was a matter of more, even, than personal ven-

  geance. Had the brigands been allowed to escape

  unpunished, would that not have told other wolf-

  heads that the Clans were not invulnerable—would

  there not have been another repetition of the slaugh-

  ter? That may have been Her reasoning; Tarma

  had only known that she was able to find no other

  purpose in living, so she had offered her Oath to

  the Star-Eyed so that she could pledge her life to

  revenge her Clan. An insane plan—sprung out of a

  mind that might be going mad with grief.

  There were those who thought she was already

  mad, who were certain She would accept no such

  Oath given by one whose reason was gone. But

  much to the amazement of nearly everyone in the

  Clan Liha'irden who had succored, healed, and pro-

  tected her, that Oath had been accepted. Only the

  shamans had been unsurprised.

  She had never in her wildest dreaming guessed

  what would come of that Oath and that quest for

  justice.

  Kessira finished the pile of provender, and moved

  on to tear hungrily at the lank, sere grasses. Be-

  neath the thick coat of winter hair she had grown,

  her bones were beginning to show in a way that

  Tarma did not in the least like. She left off brush-

  ing, and stroked the warm shoulder, and the mare

  abandoned her feeding long enough to nuzzle her

  rider's arm affectionately.

  "Patient one, we shall do better by you, and soon,"

  Tarma pledged her. She left the mare to her graz-

  ing and went to check on Kethry's mule. That sturdy

  beast was capable of getting nourishment from much

  coarser material than Kessira, so Tarma had left

  him tethered amid a thicket of sweetbark bushes.

  He had stripped all within reach of last year's

  growth, and was straining against his hal
ter with

  his tongue stretched out as far as it would reach for

  a tasty morsel just out of his range.

  "Greedy pig," she said with a chuckle, and moved

  him again, giving him a bit more rope this time,

  and leaving his own share of grain and foraged

  weeds within reach. Like all his kind he was a

  clever beast; smarter than any horse save one

  Shin'a'in-bred. It was safe enough to give him plenty

  of lead; if he tangled himself he'd untangle himself

  just as readily. Nor would he eat to foundering, not

  that there was enough browse here to do that. A

  good, sturdy, gentle animal, and even-tempered, well

  suited to an inexperienced rider like Kethry. She'd

  been lucky to find him.

  His tearing at the branches shook snow down on

  her; with a shiver she brushed it off as her thoughts

  turned back to the past. No, she would never have

  guessed at the changes wrought in her life-path by

  that Oath and her vow of vengeance.

  "Jel'enedra, you think too much. It makes you

  melancholy."

  She recognized the faintly hollow-sounding tenor

  at the first word; it was her chief sword-teacher.

  This was the first time he'd come to her since the

  last bandit had fallen beneath her sword. She had

  begun to wonder if her teachers would ever come

  back again.

  All of them were unforgiving of mistakes, and

  quick to chastise—this one more than all the rest

  put together. So though he had startled her, though

  she had hardly expected his appearance, she took

  care not to display it.

  "Ah?" she replied, turning slowly to face him.

  Unfair that he had used his other-worldly powers

  to come on her unawares, but he himself would

  have been the first to tell her that life—as she well

  knew—was unfair. She would not reveal that she

  had not detected his presence until he spoke.