Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  Pain exploded across Dherran den'Lhust’s face as he slipped a punch and was anticipated. Blood from his lip spattered the yellow earth of the summer-ring. It was the only blow that had landed upon him this fight. Cheers rang from the crowd, fists pumped in exuberance for some violence in the match at last. Eyeing the big man before him from between raised hands, Dherran allowed no more punches to land. Flowing out of the way of the next five swings, he moved with unfettered ease in the scalding summer heat. His opponent's massive fists pummeled nothing but air, as Dherran moved by a hair’s breadth each time. Light on his feet, he avoided his opponent by a slight twist of the hips here, a minute shift of his feet there.

  In the center of the dirt ring surrounded by spears, time seemed to pause. An eternity of noise flooded Dherran’s ears, even as he focused on his breathing. Rhaventia’s main square was packed for its annual summer celebrations, and the prize fights were the top attraction for the week. Pennants flew in the breeze from every gable and doorway. Awnings had been refreshed with gay stripes, reds and hot yellows that reflected the high-noon sunshine. Coarse farmers and laborers crowded around the ring of tall spears, the week one of idleness for the lower classes. Pressing in, their eyes shone rabid for blood. Swigging bottles of ale, their attention was upon Dherran and his hulking red opponent, both shirtless for the spectacle as they fought for the final title today.

  But just as Dherran was taking the measure of the big man with the shockingly red hair opposite him in the ring of spears, he found his measure being equally taken. There was little to no weight behind each of the big man’s swings. The brute was biding his time in the sweat-drunk heat of the day. And so was Dherran.

  A trickle of perspiration beaded down to Dherran's eyelashes. He blinked it away.

  “Come on! Hit the Blackmark! Get him again!” Someone in the crowd screamed.

  “Rorouk!! Rorouk!!”

  “Knock the treasonous whoresson on his ass, Rorouk!”

  Shirtless in the spear-circled summer-ring, everyone could see Dherran’s black Inkings upon his broad chest. Everyone knew his training, Kingsman, a supposed traitor to the crown. And everyone hated him for it. It enraged his opponents, making them come at him furious and fast. Which was always a mistake.

  Dherran's solid bulk was loose in the high noon humidity, relaxed in his quick, small movements. His opponent already glistened with runnels of sweat, breathing hard with all his seeking punches. And still, Dherran slipped effortlessly from each punch, counting on exhausting his adversary. Dherran could hit the man and hit him hard, but it was far more satisfying to watch the lout's fury mount, watch the veins in his temples bulge, see his face become blister-red with effort and embarrassment.

  A satisfied smirk lifted Dherran's lips. A soft snarl of pleasure as he did his best to ignore the vicious jeers of the crowd. This is what Dherran was good at. This is what he lived for. The pleasure of a fight, of working off his steam, of sweating it all out beneath the high summer sun in the clinging dust. This was where he belonged. A sense of rightness filled him as Big Red threw a stretch of punches that hit nothing but the breeze. Once upon a time, those sour jeers towards Kingsmen would have been enough to make Dherran livid like a raging boar in the ring, forgetting everything of his training. Once, they would have pushed him to cataclysmic destruction, to his own detriment. Once, such slurs would have been enough to give his opponent opportunity.

  But time had taught him lessons. That rage got you hit, and hit hard. And so Dherran tuned out the slurs, the curses, letting himself enjoy the fury of the moment, the pleasure of knowing he was superior to his massive opponent. That he was a better man than all these louts who leered and jeered, spit and drank. That he was better, and he would show them all this day, right here, right this very moment and in every summer-ring all season.

  Because he was a Kingsman.

  His snarling smile of well-earned patience increased.

  But suddenly, his opponent backed off a pace in frustration. Wrapped fists still up, his seething blue gaze fixed upon Dherran’s Inkings. “Come at me, you cocksucking Blackmark!” Big Red bellowed. “Come at me or I'll tie you to a post and fuck your mother in front of you!! Royal Kingswhore!”

  The man made a gesture that was hard to misinterpret.

  And just like that, Dherran's easy flow was gone. He felt his rage rise, until his ears rang with it. He felt it flash, seething and hot. Just as it had when he was young among his comrades on the training field, Elohl and Olea, Suchinne and Ghrenna. Back then, he would have been taken by that rage, and lithe Elohl would have gotten the best of him. But now, even in the grips of the red that washed his vision, he was able to find solace, a kind of peace in the middle of the burning. Rather than let it sweep over him like he once had, Dherran held his anger, cherished it, nourished it.

  Fed it.

  And now, the swing Dherran had been waiting for came. Big Red threw his weight behind a right hook. Dherran gave a quick twist of the hips, allowing the punch to flow past his chin. And then he put power behind his tight thrust to the man’s neck. True power. Rageful power. The power of the charging boar that knows no right and knows no wrong.

  Only the sensation of charging with tusks raised, roaring.

  Big Red crumpled, blue eyes rolling up in his head. He fell to the scuffed and bloody yellow dirt in a heap of thick flesh, out cold. Roars of irate disappointment filled the square. The quick, uneventful match had soured the crowd. Glass slit the dusty afternoon sunlight as thrown bottles of ale smashed near the center of the ring. Men shook fists at the margin of black-tipped spears. More bottles tossed in anger shattered off the spears behind Dherran in showers of glass.

  “You Blackmark shit!”

  “Bloody Kingsman!”

  Dherran spat blood to the dirt, signifying his disdain for the men around him. Callous men, lowborn men, men who had never learned about honor. Fighting filled him, battle filled him, ferocious and livid.

  “Have you gotten no pleasure from this fight today?!” He roared above the clamor of the crowd. Spreading his arms wide, Dherran let himself be taken by the grips of the red rage, buzzing filling his ears, red shrouding his vision. “Then I am pleased! You should have no pleasure for your bigotry!! Fuck you and fuck this whole fucking town!! May it burn!!”

  Dherran turned with a florid growl of rage. His opponent still hadn’t moved upon the sand, and was being slapped to no avail by his support-team. The large bronze gong reverberated through the dirty heat of Rhaventia’s main square as Dherran strode from the ring. Red ecstasy took him as he strode along the spear-lined passage through the pushing and cussing throng to his ready-tent. With a roar, Dherran batted aside the heavy canvas flap, tearing at his handwraps as he strode into the stifling gloom. He heard the whisk of canvas behind him, the light, flitting steps of Grump, who raced forward to finish unwinding Dherran's wraps with nimble fingers.

  “Dherran, my lad, they’re piss-mad! Your first punch! You could have at least given Rorouk a chance. Fastest Final Match in Rhaventian history! And unfortunately, the most uneventful.” The lithe little old man chuckled cheerily, his rapid speech unconcerned as his clever fingers scuttled over the cloth strips. Dherran growled, resisting the urge to punch the little grey forestmouse of a man, which wouldn't help anything, though his blood boiled.

  “Fucking cunt had it coming! Did you hear what he said?! Did you?!”

  Loosing his vicious rage at last, Dherran swung a fist, which Grump ducked nimbly. The punch connected with a stout beam of the ready-tent. The whole pavilion trembled. And when he pulled his fist away, it came bloody, a great dent left in the solid barreloak. Grump blinked, clucked his tongue in reproach, then fetched the water bucket, rinsing Dherran’s damaged knuckles and giving him the dipper. Dherran drank deeply, then dunked his head, simmering under the cool trickles of water.

  “I heard, I saw,” Grump quipped, his breezy manner at contrast to his nickname, and to the increasing shouting beyond th
e pavilion. “Called you a royal Kingswhore. Then mimed fucking your face. What more do you want, Dherran? You’re talented, but no one likes you for it. Notorious.” Grump winked, then thumped him on the shoulder, a butterfly’s brush upon Dherran’s solid bulk.

  But suddenly, his manner changed. Frighteningly alert like a sharper-hawk, Grump sucked his teeth, cocking his head. And in the ebbing rage from his ringing ears, Dherran heard the rising roar beyond the tent. Too much shouting. Too much volume. A sudden whiff of pitch and lamp-oil touched his nostrils in the heat of the afternoon.

  Dherran ran both hands through his hair as a cold fear hit him, though it only sharpened his rage, honing it like a lance. “We have to get out of here, don't we?”

  “Well, my boy... you don't exactly play the crowd.” Grump had gone still, listening. And then grinned with a shrewd, hard amusement. “It's time for our little trio to move on, I think. Shall we make an unforgettable exit?”

  Grump was suddenly in action, flitting towards Dherran's gear upon the straw bales and wooden benches. Sinewed hands aflutter, Grump stuffed gear into saddlebags. Dherran erupted into motion also, his heart racing but not from the fight anymore. Rage fed him like a swift stream, adding fluidity to his motions. Quickly gathering his shirt, jerkin, sword belt, gauntlets, he cinched everything on with a speed that didn't match his bulk. Alert to the sounds of a mob, Dherran heard a mass of people moving beyond his tent. Spears clacked outside, their vile lengths pulled from the dirt of the summer-ring, men banging them together in violence. A clamoring surge of voices boiled in drunken recklessness, though their words were indistinct through the heavy canvas.

  And then he smelled something that made his rage focus, hard. Acrid pith-resin lanced Dherran's nostrils as torches were lit. The mob was coming.

  “Horses? Khenria?” Dherran’s gaze flicked to Grump.

  “Through that panel.” Lithe Grump gave a flourishing bow, saddlebags slung over his lean frame.

  “Let’s go.”

  Dherran ducked out the rear flap of the long canvas tent, his rage deepened into a solid flow of wrathful lava towards the populace of Rhaventia. Their horses were tied close to the stout pilings of the pavilion's rear entryway. Skinny Khenria was there, her homespun cowl up despite the mid-afternoon heat, in her usual men's leather jerkin and pants with boots. Her fingers were flying to pull the lead-lines as Grump lashed saddlebags in place. Away from the ring, their escape was yet-hidden from the mob by the bulk of the tent. But just as Dherran was about to take his bay from Khenria's nervous fingers, the first edge of the mob broke around the side of the tent.

  “There's the Blackmark!”

  “Grab him, don't let him leave!”

  Dherran turned to face the mob. Grump was mounted on his grey gelding, and Khenria was up on Dherran's bay. The horses snorted and paced as the crowd advanced. Hatred burned in the mob, hot summer sweat glistened upon their faces. Torches were hefted in a number of hands, despite the heat, and spears. Without pause, Dherran advanced. He dodged a wild spear-thrust from one untrained drunkard, hitting the fellow just below the ribs with his elbow, huffing him over in the dirt and taking his spear.

  “You've seen me in the ring with fists!” Dherran bellowed, letting the rage in his hot green eyes be felt by the mob as he brandished the black-tipped spear. “Who will be the first to see what I can do with a weapon?!”

  Fear took the faces of those at the front. They drew up short. Townsfolk, traders, farmers, none actually wanted to face their death. They saw Dherran’s lack of mercy. They saw how he held the spear, a weapon known practically since birth, a fact of Kingsman lore that even the most hateful people knew by heart. But those behind were pushing, pressing forward, unable to see. Frightened men backed up, colliding with drunken, rageful fellows in the back, who shoved those in front.

  A punch was thrown.

  And that was all it took.

  Brother turned on brother like a forest fire jumping a dug trench. The melee gave Dherran his moment. With a running leap, he launched himself from a step-stump by the picket line, up over the rump of his stout bay behind Khenria. The horse whinnied in alarm at the perverse treatment, but it was used to Dherran's getaways. Still with his spear in hand, Dherran reached around Khenria to grab the saddle-horn as he kicked the bay into motion.

  Grump wheeled, kicking his stout grey into a gallop, taking the lead as he yelled back over his shoulder. “Harrow’s Road!”

  Dherran roared like a lion, venting his fury, intimidating the populace as they galloped across the expanse of the broad flagstone square. Beneath the fluttering pennants by the trader’s stalls, merchants and townsfolk shied back from the pounding of horses’ hooves and Dherran's death-roar. Dherran twisted in the saddle, hurling the black-tipped spear. It soared towards the raging townsfolk, skewering the ground right in front of the pursuing mob. Men flooded to the sides of it, pulled up short in sudden surprise. And like some great beast, the mob roared behind them, furious at their escape.

  Gaining the dusty tracks of Harrow’s Road, they raced out of Rhaventia just as the late afternoon sun dipped below the tops of the mountains to the west. They ran the horses hard before Dherran felt the lather on his bay's withers far too slick beneath his hand. He reined up to a walk, letting horses and riders catch their breath. His stout bay, Muk, was tired, but Muk and Merrow were not daunted by a quick getaway, and neither were Dherran’s traveling companions.

  Dherran angled Muk off the road and into the forest, feeling Merrow follow, heavy footfalls turning into dull thumps as they reached the thick carpet of forest loam. Grump took the lead once they hit the forest and walked them away from the road a league, his sense of direction and distance unerring as always. Grump stopped their trio at a likely ring of balewick trees, with high, thick foliage to keep off summer thunderstorms, and slipped out of the saddle. Khenria dismounted, Dherran after her, tying his bay to a tree with enough lead for grazing.

  Dherran turned, listening for any sounds of pursuit. But the forest was silent around them other than the usual. The chirp of hedge-sparrows, a scathing chatter of obscenities from a grey squirrel, whispers of wind through the leathery balewick leaves. Still wound tight from their getaway, Dherran’s insides could have strung a lute, but his tune was jangled and bitter in the ease of the forest.

  “Doubt they have six horses between the whole lot of them,” Grump chattered, starting to gather fallen branches from beneath the trees. “We’ll be all right here, Khenria, mark my words! Uncle Grump has got us a fine fat purse, and we’ll be in the money for months yet! You want kipper-flisk, child? Uncle Grump will get it for you, next town we come to!”

  “Assuming there are any towns left open to us. Bigoted assholes.” Dherran murmured hotly, unbuckling saddlebags and hauling them off the exhausted mounts, setting them at the edge of the flat, mossy camp.

  “Now, now.” Grump piled his sticks by a balewick tree. “Plenty of places. Let's see... we've got the entire swath of eastern provinces to visit yet. Vennet, Quelsis, Arodantia, Pleinne... plenty of places left to incite riots, my boy! The summer is still young.”

  “They'll remember me from last year,” Dherran mumbled, bitter. “They'll keep us out. Because of the riots that followed my wins last summer.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Grump dismissed, piling his sticks. “You'd be surprised how people forget certain things. And the faces that accomplished them. Memory is a fleeting thing, Dherran.”

  “They didn't remember you in Nevarre.” Khenria’s grey eyes were earnest as she bent to help Grump. Her short blue-black brush of curls was whipped into a crest from riding, her well-worn jerkin, shirt, and breeches allowing all movement of her skinny frame as she gathered. “And you didn't cause a riot there. Your fighting doesn't cause riots in every town.”

  “Just most of them.” Dherran snarled. “That's three riots already this summer. And it was only my fifth series of fights!”

  “Last year was worse,” Khenr
ia countered, not backing down from his temper. “You had five riots by midsummer. Maybe you're losing your edge.” She looked up with a sly grin.

  “My edge?” It took Dherran a moment of blistering anger to realize that her comment had been a joke. And suddenly, it broke him. Like water pouring over hot stones, his rage fizzled out into steam. Dherran’s exhalation came out as a soft laugh. Humor had always dissipated his heat, but it had to be the right kind. A subtle, caring sort of humor. And Khenria had it, just like Suchinne once had.

  But his demeanor cooled further, remembering Suchinne. Thinking about how she’d lived always turned into thoughts of how she died. Of how Dherran’s regiment, the Stone Valley Guard, had been summoned to the Valenghian front, engaging a vicious battle in the foothills near Quelsis. He’d found Suchinne there, in the Quelsis Foreguard. Found her only hours too late as he picked through the dead, looking for the wounded. Speared. Raped. It was obvious in what order things had been done. The spear through her middle had been Valenghian, but when Dherran found a Menderian Lieutenant’s pin on the ground beside her, he’d snatched it up in a blinding, terrible wrath.

  He’d found the Menderian soldiers who’d done it. Oh yes, he surely had.

  “Dherran?” Khenria’s voice was small at his side. Dherran blinked, surfacing from red memories.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where did you go?”

  He shook his head, banishing the past. “Nowhere. Don’t worry about it. I’ll get some more sticks for the fire.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No!” Dherran took a breath, let it out. “Not just now.”

  Khenria blinked at his rebuff, but something in her understood. She cocked her head, birdlike. Her slight hand settled to his forearm. Dherran looked down at it. Her bones were small and fine, just like Suchinne’s had been.

  With a wry twist of his lips, he pulled away. “Be back soon.” Striding out from the ring of trees, Dherran made for a massive boulder hunkering beyond the clump of trees, a great elongated swath of stone bigger than ten barns. He approached the mass of hulking rock, taking deep breaths to cool his memories.

  Taller than he, the behemoth of stone was covered in moss and last years' leaf litter. Dherran’s inner turmoil eased as he considered it; its cool groundedness, its solidity. Shadows smoothed across the bluegrey stone from the balewick trees. The sun’s rays picked out emerald highlights in the moss that grew over shady patches like living hair. As he stared at those winking green glimmers, his vision began to expand from its hot, narrow spear. And at last, it opened up all together. Dherran inhaled fully, a breath without the constriction of his rage at last.

  It had been Suchinne who had shown him how to study objects to cool his temper, especially out in nature. But this object was actually something of interest. Walking the near perimeter, Dherran found it had a peculiar shape, like a hand palm-down in the earth with five elongated fingers, knuckles slightly crooked. Laying as it was with massive fingers splayed out into the ground, the overgrowth of vegetation suggested it had clearly had been there for centuries, even a few trees now brazenly growing out of the top of the thing.

  “Grump!” Dherran called. “Come look at this!”

  Grump flitted over, a half-bundle of sticks under his skinny arm. His head cocked to one side as he sucked his teeth, grey brows knitting as Khenria danced up behind him. “Well, you’ve found something, boyo! Yes, indeed!”

  “Looks like a piece of one of those monoliths we saw last year when we tracked along the Aphellian Way.” Dherran murmured, intrigued by the stone.

  “It looks like a hand!” Khenria exclaimed. “A hand extended in warding!”

  “Not from the Aphellian Way,” Grump murmured, reaching out to smooth one gnarled hand over the rough-bitten stone. “Those are all protected by a magic long lost. Some have been toppled by time but not broken. No, this probably came from far up in the mountains. See how big it is! Must be nearly fifty paces long!”

  “The statue it came from must be around here somewhere,” Khenria chirruped.

  Grump shook his head. “Believe me, I know these woods. No, stones like these are found stranded sometimes, left down in this valley from glaciers long receded. The mountains further up are riddled with broken pieces of ancient lore. Someone was here upon this continent, long ago. Long before us, at least. And they weren’t shy about leaving their mark upon this land.”

  “Fantastic...” Dherran murmured, smoothing his hand over the mossy stone. Feeling the immensity of it, he imagined how tall the original monolith would have been. The thought cooled him further, the perspective of his woes and turmoil suddenly seeming small next to something wrought by such an ancient people.

  “Look here, boyo!” Grump suddenly turned upon him, sharp. “You don’t get out of making camp just because you fought today and have a head for mysteries! Idle hands make an idle future! That’s what…”

  “… Gramma den’Aldriye always used to say. Yeah, yeah.” Dherran murmured, stepping away from the enormous stone, brushing moss off his hands.

  “Get to work, Dherran!” Khenria bent to pluck firewood from a clump of telmenberry vines in the shadow of the stone. “You don’t look so hurt from your fight that you can’t help. You only got punched once today!” She threw a stick at him, hitting him in the knee.

  “Argh! Right in the knee. I can't walk! Guess I’ll just have to sit here on this stone while you make camp.” Dherran faked a limp, grinning, letting levity take him at last. It always did, once his rage was gone.

  “Hup, hup! The faster you gather, the faster you sup!” Khenria threw another stick, a bigger one. Dherran let it hit him in the chest. He saw how it pleased her even though she knew how fast he could have dodged it. Dherran grinned again, then ambled back to camp to unpack saddlebags and untie bedrolls from the horses. Laying out their cooking pots and utensils upon the moss, he suddenly remembered something.

  “Grump. How much did we win today?”

  Making a fire in the center of camp, Grump piled medium sticks into a cone with small tinder, grinning and secretive. “Guess.”

  “Ten and thirty!” Khenria chimed in, lining a space for the fire with stones.

  “Not even close! Up near twenty.” Grump chortled, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes betraying how obviously proud he was of his betting skills.

  “Gods above, Grump!” Dherran glanced over, incredulous. “What were the odds against me? I already won five bouts in that town over the past week.”

  “The odds were eleven to one, boyo, despite your winning. There are plenty who dislike a Kingsman and bet with their hatred rather than their brains. Blind men run themselves into deep wells. I put in everything we had and took a cut for the trades I arranged besides. But really, your opponent was a champion in three regions of Alrou-Mendera this year! Had a nasty right hook and sixty pounds on you. He was anticipated to knock you flat. Though I daresay I knew better.”

  “He was fat and slow,” Dherran dismissed, embarrassed that the odds against him had been so bad.

  “He was thick and fast,” Grump challenged. “You were faster. And because of it, I got us nineteen and eighty-two Rou. Best that, kiddos.” Grump was smug, striking flint and steel into his bundle of tinder and blowing on the flame.

  Khenria laughed, jostling Grump by the shoulders. “Do I get a horse now?”

  Grump waved her off, still blowing on his smoking bundle. “Anything you want, dear heart.” He came to all fours as he tucked his small flame into the tinder of the cone, blowing gently to get the fire licking upwards. “We have plenty now for a third horse, and a number of months room and board to boot. We won't have to live out here in the woods over the winter.”

  “Good thing everyone hates a Kingsman.” Dherran growled, pouring water from one of their bladders into a pot to make their evening tea. Something of his rage rekindled, thinking about all those hateful faces in Rhaventia.

  “Not everyone hates a Kings
man. Don’t you ever say that.” Khenria’s voice cracked like a whip through the forest.

  Dherran looked up, catching her dark look, feeling her intense stillness. They stared at each other, aware of each other’s simmering anger. Khenria had plenty of it, a match to Dherran’s in every way. Ferocity was always there in her set lips, in the defiant angle of her sharp chin, a hawk-eyed woman beneath her lanky youth. More and more, Dherran saw the steely strength of the Alrashemni in Khenria. And something in it cooled him. She was beautiful, in a vicious, young sort of way, very much like Suchinne had once been. Khenria's dark grey eyes held his in the fading light of the forest, glinting now that the fire had begun to burn high and bright. Her brush-cut black hair caught the fire’s light, blazing with blue highlights, and Dherran mused for a moment on how utterly Alrashemni she looked, like Olea at that age.

  “Not everyone hates you, Dherran.”

  “I know,” Dherran murmured softly, his heart softening, something about her words causing him to ache.

  “But sometimes you're a git for getting us kicked out of nice lodgings.” Khenria's lips quirked. And though the ache flushed deeper in Dherran’s chest, it was a calm kind of sadness, of delicate things lost and a safe way of living forgotten.

  “I owe you a soft feather mattress, don't I?” Dherran murmured, his joke more than half-true. He owed Khenria a lot more than that. Dherran himself didn’t look Alrashemni. He had his mother’s coloring, the straw-blonde hair with green eyes that was gradually drowning out the elegant darkness of the Alrashemni. But Dherran had Inkings, and Khenria had recognized them when she and Dherran had had their encounter at the stream two years ago. He was naked, soaking clean in the river. She had been hiding in the forest’s fringe, watching him.

  But she had approached him because of those marks, because of the trust she put in them, the life she remembered. And from a solo journey of misery he’d lived since he’d defected from the Stone Valley Guard after Suchinne’s death, Dherran had suddenly acquired a family.

  He owed Khenria everything because of it.

  Especially the training she had been denied.

  But Khenria took on a thoughtful cast at his comment, rather than laughing. And suddenly, Dherran thought he had said something wrong. Unlike Suchinne had been, Khenria was moody, sometimes ferocious as a keshar, sometimes playful, sometimes distant. She'd had a hard life after the Summons, a childhood of abuse and desperate living. Dherran felt distinctly uncomfortable now, as if he'd triggered something for her. His gaze broke from her hawkish steel, flicking around to find Grump.

  But as usual, Grump had melted away once the fire had been started, to fetch the bounty of the forest. Dherran made himself busy in the awkward silence by pouring herbs for tea into the pot and watching it boil. Khenria was silent, organizing their bedrolls, erecting a lean-to of oiled canvas between the trees in case of rain.

  At last, Dherran heard the tripping gait of Grump’s light feet returning. Grump could move without a sound in the forest, and only made his presence known for their sake. Dherran turned, noting that Grump’s gather-pouches were full to bursting as he stepped into the fire's light from the evening gloom, two fat rabbits slung over his shoulder.

  “Summer bunnies are out!” Grump shed the rabbits to the moss.

  Finished with the lean-to, Khenria snatched them up, using her belt-knife to skin and eviscerate them with stunning alacrity. Dherran forgot, sometimes, that she had been starving and wild when Grump had found her at age ten, adopting her to his nomadic ways. She had escaped an abusive miller’s family and managed to stay alive a number of months on her own, but had been close to death as autumn had turned to winter. Grump had taught her woodscraft and kindness, and his sweet chatter had re-socialized her.

  Somewhat.

  “Soon it will be all bunny-stew,” Grump was picking through his gatherings, a number of wide leaves and a pouch full of yellow chandria mushrooms. “Bunny-jerky, bunny-pies, now that we have money for flour, and salted bunny-crunch wraps! Gotta wait for the dragon-snaps at the end of summer for that, though.”

  Grump mumbled to himself now as he tended to the cooking, and Dherran smiled to hear it, helping slice up the mushrooms Grump had foraged, as Khenria tore up the bitter greens. They hardly ever needed supplies from town when they lived rough with Grump. Dherran was an adept hunter and occasionally went out with his bow, and Khenria had learned Grump's foraging and edible identification. In a little while, a fragrant stew was bubbling heartily in the pot.

  Khenria sat near the fire, honing her knife when at last Dherran motioned her up. She sprang to her feet with a brisk litheness, and Dherran tossed her the extra practice sword from his bedroll, which she snatched from the air like a cat. Dherran lunged, and their regular evening bout began.

  Even in his youth, he had been an expert swordsman, a capable teacher of his peers when he wasn't busy getting pissed off. He took Khenria through combinations to get her heated, until she was breathing hard and damp with sweat. At last, she gave him a wide opening from her fatigue, and Dherran moved in. One fist to her chest, he knocked out her wind, his blade sliding to her throat. But the little hawk was handy with steel, and even as she doubled over coughing, Dherran felt her well-honed boot-knife prick his ribs.

  He laughed, stepping back. Khenria glowered, rage heated in her fine-boned features. Womanly and feral, it made Dherran’s chuckle falter. She continued to glower, cheeks hot with wrath until he inclined his head.

  “Fair enough. It was a dirty blow. But you have to expect your opponent to fight filthy sometimes, Khenria. You did just right. When someone begins to fight like a caged keshar, you do the same. And if you really feel your life is in danger,” his hand whipped to a fly-blade in his leather jerkin, throwing it faster than a viper. Khenria reacted, slipping to one side as the knife brushed past her cheek and buried itself in the tree behind her.

  Her lips dropped open, realizing what he’d just done. “You could have killed me!”

  “But you felt it. Good job.” Dherran inclined his head. “We’re done here.”

  He turned, making for the fire. But something, like a breath upon the wind suddenly, raised his hackles and honed him to lance-sharp readiness. Dherran spun, catching Khenria’s unseen attack upon his blade, sliding past her in a two-handed upward parry that left her spinning to an uneven seat upon the moss. Dherran whipped the tip of his blade to her throat.

  Khenria’s eyes glittered coal-dark in the firelight. “I almost got you.”

  Dherran’s sword-tip didn’t waver. “Test me, Khenria, and find out what I’m really made of.”

  “I’ll test you,” she breathed. “Just you wait.” Her eyes had changed to a dark smolder that left Dherran rattled. He pulled his sword up and thrust it back in its scabbard. He didn’t offer Khenria a hand up, merely gazed at her a long moment.

  “Stew's ready! Come and eat.” Grump suddenly chimed in.

  Dherran moved away and sat upon a spread hide on the moss before the fire. Khenria sat at his side, fetching her bowl and fishing for the ladle, portioning her fill. They ate in silence. Dherran suppressed the urge to glance at Grump and see if the man had noticed anything odd in Khenria's demeanor. But Grump prattled on about nonsense, apparently oblivious of the sudden tension in their camp.

  Dherran felt Khenria staring at him, venomous, and he felt like a rabbit beneath the gaze of a hawk. Suchinne’s gaze had pierced him like that, like talons. And now there was another hawk in Dherran’s life, a tempestuous one that was far less predictable. Dherran hunched his shoulders in the deepening night, and hunkered closer to the fire, draining the dregs of his bowl.

  CHAPTER 6 – OLEA