him, and letting your memory supply an acceptable
face. He could very well look like a different person
to everyone in the caravan, but since he always
looks familiar, any of them would be willing to
vouch for him."
"Which is how he keeps sneaking into the pack-
trains. He looks different each time, since no one is
likely to 'see' a man they know is dead. Very clever.
You say this isn't a spell?"
"Mind-magic depends on inborn abilities to work;
if you haven't got them, you can't learn it. It's
unlike my magic, where it's useful to have the Gift,
but not necessary. Was he the same one you were
watching?"
"He is, indeed. So your True Sight spell works on
this 'mind-magic' too?"
"Yes, thank the gods. I'm glad now I didn't rely
on mage-sight; he would have fooled that. What
tipped you off to him?"
"Nothing terribly obvious, just a lot of little things
that weren't quite right for the ordinary guard he's
pretending to be. His sword is a shade too expen-
sive. His horse has been badly misused, but he's a
gelding of very good lines; he's of much better
breeding than a common guard should own. And
lastly, he's wearing jewelry he can't afford."
Kethry looked puzzled. "Several of the other
guards are wearing just as much. I thought most
hired swords wore their savings."
"So they do. Thing is, of the others, the only ones
with as much or more are either the guard-chief, or
ones wearing mostly brass and glass; showy, meant
to impress village tarts, but worthless. His is all
real, and the quality is high. Too damned high for
the likes of him."
"Now that we know who to watch, what do we
do?"
"We wait," Tarma replied with a certain grim
satisfaction. "He'll have to signal the rest of his
troupe to attack us sooner or later, and one of us
should be able to spot him at it. With luck and the
Warrior on our side, we'll have enough warning to
be ready for them."
"I hope it's sooner." Kethry sipped at the well-
watered wine which was all she'd allow herself
when holding spells in place. Her eyes were heavy,
dry, and sore. "I'm not sure how much longer I can
hold up my end."
"Then go to sleep, dearling," Tarma's voice held
an unusual gentleness, a gentleness only Kethry,
Warrl, and small children ever saw. "Fur-face and
I can take turns on night watch; you needn't take a
turn at all."
Kethry did not need further urging, but wrapped
herself up in her cloak and a blanket, pillowed her
head on her arm and fell asleep with the sudden-
ness of a tired puppy. The illusions she'd woven
would remain intact even while she slept. Only
three things could cause them to fail. They'd break
if she broke them herself, if the pressure of spells
from a greater sorcerer than she were brought to
bear on them, or if she died. Her training had been
arduous, and quite thorough; as complete in its
way as Tarma's sword training had been.
Seeing her shiver in her sleep, Tarma built up
the fire with a bit more dried dung (the leavings of
previous caravans were all the fuel to be found out
here) and covered her with the rest of the spare
blankets. The illusions were draining energy from
Kethry, and she got easily chilled; Tarma didn't
expect to need the other coverings. She knew she'd
be quite comfortable with one blanket and her cloak;
and if that didn't suffice, Warrl made an excellent
"bedwarmer."
Warrior, guard her back, she prayed, as she had
every night lately. I can guard my own—but keep her
safe.
But the night passed uneventfully, despite Tarma's
vague worries.
Morning saw them riding deeper into the stony
hills that ringed the desert basin they'd spent the
day before passing through. The road was consider-
ably less dusty now, but the air held more of a
chill. Both Tarma and Kethry tried to keep an eye
on their suspect guard, and shortly before noon
their vigilance was rewarded. Both of them saw
him flashing the sunlight off his armband in what
could only be a deliberate series of signals.
"From ambush, bandits screaming
Charge the packtrain and its prize
And all but four within the train
Are taken by surprise
And all but four are cut down
Like a woodsman fells a log
The guardsman, and the lady,
And the maiden and the dog.
Three things know a secret—
First; the lady in a dream;
The dog that barks no warning
And the maid that does not scream."
Even with advance warning, they hadn't much
time to ready themselves.
Bandits charged the packtrain from both sides of
the road, screaming at the tops of their lungs. The
guards were taken completely by surprise. The three
apprentice traders accompanying the train flung
themselves down on their faces as their master
Grumio had ordered them to do in hopes that they'd
be overlooked. To the bandit master at the rear of
the train, it seemed that once again all had gone
completely according to plan.
Until Kethry broke her illusions.
"Then off the lady pulls her cloak—
In armor she is clad
Her sword is out and ready
And her eyes are fierce and glad
The maiden gestures briefly
And the dog's a cur no more.
A wolf, sword-maid, and sorceress
Now face the bandit corps!
Three things never anger,
Or you will not live for long—
A wolf with cubs, a man with power,
And a woman's sense of wrong."
The brigands at the forefront of the pack found
themselves facing something they hadn't remotely
expected. Gone were the helpless, frightened women
on high-bred steeds too fearful to run. In their
place sat a pair of well-armed, grim-faced merce-
naries on schooled warbeasts. With them was an
oversized and very hungry-looking kyree.
The pack of bandits milled, brought to a halt by
this unexpected development.
Finally one of the bigger ones growled a chal-
lenge at Tarma, who only grinned evilly at him.
Kethry saluted them with mocking gallantry—and
the pair moved into action explosively.
They split up and charged the marauders, giving
them no time to adjust to the altered situation. The
bandits had hardly expected the fight to be carried
to them, and reacted too late to stop them. Their
momentum carried them through the pack and up
onto the hillsides on either side of the road. Now
they had the high ground.
* * *
Kethry had drawn Need, whose magic was ena-
bling her to keep herself intact long enough to fi
nd
a massive boulder to put her back against. The long
odds were actually favoring the two of them for the
moment, since the bandits were mostly succeeding
only in getting in each other's way. Obviously they
had not been trained to fight together, and had
done well so far largely because of the surprise
with which they'd attacked and their sheer num-
bers. Once Kethry had gained her chosen spot, she
slid off her horse, and sent it off with a slap to its
rump. The mottled, huge-headed beast was as ugly
as a piece of rough granite, and twice as tough, but
she was a Shin'a'in-bred and trained warsteed, and
worth the weight in silver of the high-bred mare
she'd been spelled to resemble. Now that Kethry
was on the ground, she'd attack anything whose
scent she didn't recognize—and quite probably kill
it.
Warrl came to her side long enough to give her
the time she needed to transfer her sword to her
left hand and begin calling up her more arcane
offensive weaponry.
In the meantime, Tarma was in her element,
cutting a bloody swath through the bandit horde
with a fiercely joyous gleam in her eyes. She
clenched her mare's belly with viselike legs; only
one trained in Shin'a'in-style horse-warfare from
childhood could possibly have stayed with the beast.
The mare was laying all about her with iron-shod
hooves and enormous yellow teeth; neither animal
nor man was likely to escape her once she'd tar-
geted him. She had an uncanny sense for anyone
trying to get to her rider by disabling her; once she
twisted and bucked like a cat on hot metal to simul-
taneously crush the bandit in front of her while
kicking in the teeth of the one that had thought to
hamstring her from the rear. She accounted for at
least as many of the bandits as Tarma did.
Tarma saw Kethry's mare rear and slash out of
the corner of her eye; the saddle was empty—
She sent a brief, worried thought at Warrl.
Guard yourself, foolish child; she's doing better than
you are! came the mental rebuke. Tarma grimaced,
realizing she should have known better. The bond
of she'enedran made them bound by spirit, and she'd
have known if anything was wrong. Since the mare
was fighting on her own, Kethry must have found
someplace high enough to see over the heads of
those around her.
As if to confirm this, things like ball-lightning
began appearing and exploding, knocking bandits
from their horses, clouds of red mist began to wreath
the heads of others (who clutched their throats and
turned interesting colors), and oddly formed creatures
joined Warrl at harrying and biting at those on foot.
When that began, especially after one spectacular
fireball left a pile of smoking ash in place of the
bandit's second-in-command, it was more than the
remainder of the band could stand up to. Their
easy prey had turned into hellspawn, and there
was nothing that could make them stay to face any-
thing more. The ones that were still mounted turned
their horses out of the melee and fled for their
lives. Tarma and the three surviving guards took
care of the rest.
As for the bandit chief, who had sat his horse in
stupefied amazement from the moment the fight
turned against them, he suddenly realized his own
peril and tried to escape with the rest. Kethry,
however, had never once forgotten him. Her bolt of
power—intended this time to stun, not kill—took
him squarely in the back of the head.
"The bandits growl a challenge,
But the lady only grins.
The sorceress bows mockingly,
And then the fight begins
When it ends there are but four
Left standing from that horde—
The witch, the wolf, the traitor,
And the woman with the sword.
Three things never trust in—
The maiden sworn as pure,
The vows a king has given
And the ambush that is 'sure.' "
By late afternoon the heads of the bandits had
been piled in a grisly cairn by the side of the road
as a mute reminder to their fellows of the eventual
reward of banditry. Their bodies had been dragged
off into the hills for the scavengers to quarrel over.
Tarma had supervised the cleanup, the three ap-
prentices serving as her workforce. There had been
a good deal of stomach-purging on their part at
first—especially after the way Tarma had casually
lopped off the heads of the dead or wounded
bandits—but they'd obeyed her without question.
Tarma had had to hide her snickering behind her
hand, for they looked at her whenever she gave
them a command as though they feared that their
heads might well adorn the cairn if they lagged or
slacked.
She herself had seen to the wounds of the surviv-
ing guards, and the burial of the two dead ones.
One of the guards could still ride; the other two
were loaded into the now-useless cart after the
empty boxes had been thrown out of it. Tarma
ordered the whole caravan back to town; she and
Kethry planned to catch up with them later, after
some unfinished business had been taken care of.
Part of that unfinished business was the filling
and marking of the dead guards' graves.
Kethry brought her a rag to wipe her hands with
when she'd finished. "Damn. I wish—oh, hellspawn;
they were just honest hired swords," she said, look-
ing at the stone cairns she'd built with remote
regret. "It wasn't their fault we didn't have a
chance to warn them. Maybe they shouldn't have let
themselves be surprised like that, not with what's
been happening to the packtrains lately—but still,
your life's a pretty heavy price to pay for a little
carelessness...."
Kethry, her energy back to normal now that she
was no longer being drained by her illusions, slipped
a sympathetic arm around Tarma's shoulders. "Come
on, she'enedra. 1 want to show you something that
might make you feel a little better."
While Tarma had gone to direct the cleanup,
Kethry had been engaged in stripping the bandit
chief down to his skin and readying his uncon-
scious body for some sort of involved sorcery. Tarma
knew she'd had some sort of specific punishment
in mind from the time she'd heard about the stolen
girls, but she'd had no idea of what it was.
"They've stripped the traitor naked
And they've whipped him on his way
Into the barren hillsides,
Like the folk he used to slay.
They take a thorough vengeance
For the women he's cut down
And then they mount their horses
And they journey back to town.
Three things trust and cherish well—
The horse on
which you ride,
The beast that guards and watches
And your sister at your side!"
Now before her was a bizarre sight. Tied to the
back of one of the bandit's abandoned horses was—
apparently—the unconscious body of the highborn
lady Kethry had spelled herself to resemble. She
was clad only in a few rags, and had a bruise on one
temple, but otherwise looked to be unharmed.
Tarma circled the tableau slowly. There was no
flaw in the illusion, if indeed it was an illusion.
"Unbelievable," she said at last. "That is him,
isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. One of my best pieces of work."
"Will it hold without you around to maintain
it?"
"It'll hold all right," Kethry replied with deep
satisfaction. "That's part of the beauty and the
justice of the thing. The illusion is irretrievably
melded with his own mind-magic. He'll never be
able to break it himself, and no reputable sorcerer
will break it for him. And I promise you, the only
sorcerers for weeks in any direction are quite
reputable."
"Why wouldn't he be able to get one to break it
for him?"
"Because I've signed it." Kethry made a small
gesture, and two symbols appeared for a moment
above the bandit's head. One was the symbol Tarma
knew to be Kethry's sigil, the other was the glyph
for "Justice." "Any attempt to probe the spell will
make those appear. I doubt that anyone will ignore
the judgment sign, and even if they were inclined
to, I think my reputation is good enough to make
most sorcerers think twice about undoing what I've
done."
"You really didn't change him, did you?" Tarma
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