This time, the clever cat stalked in.
Brynn stabbed at it, but it ducked back, then came forward, up on its hind legs, forelegs swatting.
Brynn worked her sword back and forth, batting the claws, stinging the cat with fire. But then it leaped, suddenly, and Brynn had to dive aside, and she felt a burn in her shoulder as one claw raked past. Her roll interrupted,
he lay on her back and clutched at the wound reflexively, but had to let go nd punch out, and try to bring her sword to bear as the great cat fell over her, all muscle and tearing claws and biting teeth.
She fended frantically, got in a hit or two, then just rested the flat of her fierv blade against the neck and head of the cat, holding it back, pushing it out to arm’s length so that those powerful claws could not get a firm hold, and she worked her pulsing shield all about, fending them further.
With a growl of protest, the cat retreated, and Brynn threw herself right over backward, moving lightly back to her feet.
The great cat circled to her right, seeming unsure, and stung, though not badly wounded.
Brynn went on the offensive, seizing the moment to rush forward, working her sword in an overhand slash rather than her customary straightforward stab to accentuate the flames and perhaps chase the cat off.
It did skitter back, dropping low on its front legs, ears flat, mouth open in a winding screech of protest and outrage.
Then the cat came forward and Brynn leaped back, and then she charged again, and the cat, after a moment, reversed its charge, retreating one stride, then turning back toward her.
Neither dared follow through, each respecting the other’s formidable weapons.
Brynn had no idea of how this might end. She couldn’t try to run away, obviously, for the cat was far too swift. And apparently she couldn’t scare the beast off.
The cat came on again, this time more forcefully, and Brynn had to continue her retreat, step after step, her sword slashing back and forth before her to keep the determined beast at bay. It roared all the while, and in the tumult, Brynn was caught completely by surprise as another form, the largest of all, entered the fray.
The small pinto pony cut between the combatants, head lowered and forelegs kicking at the surprised mountain cat. The cat leaped away and the pony reared and whinnied mightily.
As it came down to all fours, Brynn, hardly thinking, wasted not a second, grabbing its mane and leaping astride its strong back, and the pony jumped away.
On came the mountain cat, springing and roaring.
Brynn didn’t have her seat well enough to control her mount, but the pony needed no guidance. Ducking its head low in a full gallop, it went left and then right, then left again, putting a bit of ground between it and the pursuing cat, and then it ran full out and straight on, angling for an area of fallen logs and boulders. Instinctively, Brynn started to tug the horse to the side, to avoid the rough ground, but the pony would not be deterred. In it charged, and Brynn found her balance just in time before the pony leaped the first boulder, gave two quick strides, and soared over a log that was propped up by stones on one end. There weren’t two strides before the next hurdle, though, and the footing was bad, and so the pony came down and went right back up on its hind legs, not quite releasing into the jump, but rather, giving a short hop and then a second to clear the way.
Like a rabbit, Brynn thought. Looking back, she saw that the pony’s choice had proven correct, for the mountain cat had gone around the first boulder and had then lost ground ducking under the log. Now, coming past the last obstacle, the cat bolted, but the pony had already gained its momentum and was in full stride. The mountain cat kept up with it for a few more strides, even managing a swipe at the pony’s hind leg, but it could not hold the pace.
Brynn and the pony came out the other side of the canyon at a full gallop, and when the woman finally managed to look back, she saw the mountain cat standing there, staring back in obvious frustration.
The pair rode on for some time, and Brynn did little to guide the pony. She sat comfortably, her legs hardly pressing its strong sides and her hands gentle on its snowy mane, for she knew instinctively that the pony would not throw her. As a child, Brynn had seen many horses taken in and broken for riding, and so she understood just how extraordinary this entire encounter had been. For the pony to come back anywhere near the mountain cat was amazing, and for it to stop and then allow Brynn to climb atop its back was even more so.
Still, there were many stories about such encounters, such immediate bonding between rider and mount, scattered among the legends of the To-gai-ru, a people intimately tied to the marvelous horses of the steppes.
Finally, convinced that the mountain cat was long gone, Brynn shifted her weight back a bit and gave a gentle tug on the pony’s mane, whispering into its ear, „Ho.“
The pony eased down to a stop and Brynn slid off. She came around the front, scratching the side of the pony’s face, looking into its smooth blue eyes, and seeing intelligence there. „Thank you,“ she said, and she kissed the pony on the nose. When she backed up a bit, the young stallion tossed his head a few times, up and down.
Brynn smiled and scratched its ears again. „Where are your friends?“ she asked quietly. „Did they send you back to defend the rear?“
The pony nickered and lowered its head to the grass, munching contentedly. Truly, it seemed in no hurry to be off to rejoin the others.
Brynn knew that she couldn’t push this budding relationship, though she dearly hoped that the pony would remain with her. She didn’t have a rope, and even if she did, she wouldn’t use it on the pony after it had just saved her from that difficult battle!
No, she wanted the pony to become her mount, her friend and ally - even more so, she understood, because she now felt so alone, with Belli’mar
T raviel and Cazzira gone. But it would have to be a friendship of mutual agreement, and on that note, it was all up to the pony.
Brynn petted the pony again for a few moments, then sighed and turned about and began deliberately - if not too swiftly - walking away.
Her smile could not be contained when she realized that the little pony was walking behind her.
An hour later, Brynn came upon a small lea, sheltered by rocks and by trees and decided to make camp under the boughs of some thick pines, with plenty of grass about for the pony.
„Well, what am I to name you?“ she asked, and the pinto looked at her as if it understood her every word. „So clever and such a hero, and here I thought that you were the runt of the herd!“
She smiled as she finished and looked into the pinto’s blue eyes knowingly. When she was a young girl, she and her mother used to play many word games, nonsensical and simple fun, and one song in particular stood out to her as she looked upon the beautiful pony, a rhyme that she and her mother had made up about another smallish horse, the runt of the clan’s herd. Brynn could not completely remember the rhyme, but she did remember the word, „runtly,“ that her mother had used to both describe the horse and fit lyrically into the song.
„Runtly, then,“ Brynn announced to the pony. „I will call you Runtly!“
The pony threw its head up and down, several times.
Brynn knew that it had understood, and she couldn’t have been more delighted.
The young ranger and her pony spent the next several days together, sometimes riding the lower trails, but more often just walking, with Brynn leading the way and Runtly plodding along, seemingly contentedly, behind. The weather remained mostly clear and chilly, for though they were moving lower in the foothills, the season was pushing on.
All the while, Brynn tried to get her bearings, looking for some landmark - the jagged, peculiar face of a mountain, perhaps, or a winding stream - that would jog her childhood memories and give her some idea of where a tribe of To-gai-ru might be encamped. She knew that the season was somewhat late for any of the tribes to be so close to the mountains, and so she was relieved inde
ed when she saw a line of thin smoke, marking a camp.
She climbed onto Runtly’s strong back and urged the willing pony along at a swift pace. Goose bumps showed on her bare arms, and her mouth went dry, her hands damp, at the thought of seeing her people again for the nrst time in more than a decade, for the first time since becoming an adult. She grew more nervous with each passing stride and had to remind herself over and over again that she was well prepared for the meeting. The louel’alfar had trained her in many of the arts that her people held dear, and had gone out of their way to tutor her, often using her own language and not their singsong tongue.
It occurred to her, then, that the elves had not similarly treated Aydrian concerning language. Brynn never recalled Lady Dasslerond, nor any of the others, speaking to Aydrian in the tongue common to the folk of Honce-the-Bear, but only in the elven tongue. That struck her as odd indeed and, for some reason she did not understand, set the hairs at the back of her neck on edge, but she couldn’t pause and ponder it just then. Aydrian’s road out of Andur’Blough Inninness was years away, she believed - not knowing that the young man, barely more than a boy, was even then in fast retreat from Dasslerond’s captivity - while hers lay right before her, right under that line of gray smoke, perhaps.
She bent lower and urged Runtly along, soon cresting a ridge and pulling the pony up to a stop, her smile wide.
And fast disappearing. For there below her was not a To-gai-ru encampment as Brynn remembered them, with deerskin tents set about in a rough circle around a large cooking pit, with horses running free in the fields all about and watchers guarding those fields from high vantage points, protecting the herd that was so vital to the To-gai-ru survival. Brynn had even suspected that she might encounter a watcher up there on the northern ridge.
There was no watcher. There were no horses running in the fields, as far as Brynn could tell. And no tents! The settlement below her was not the temporary encampment of To-gai-ru, but a true settlement, with permanent structures, and even a trench-and-wall barrier surrounding the whole of it. There were houses fashioned of wood and clay, with sod roofs. They were connected by cleared pathways, roads, all centered around a wide town square. Directly across that square from Brynn stood the largest structure in the town, a long and tall building with a sloping roof constructed of interlocking beams that formed a row of X’s, front to back, and with small towers, minarets, at each of the four corners.
It was a distinctive design, and one that Brynn would come to mark well and despise in the days ahead.
Her eyes scanned the structure for a bit, but were drawn away, to the side, to the second-largest structure in the settlement, long and wide and low, and with several fenced-in areas about it. A stable, she knew, for more than a dozen horses milled about those corrals, and even from that distance, she could hear more whinnying from within.
Her mouth open now, with shock and with anger, Brynn just shook her head helplessly.
It took her a long, long while to muster up the strength to prod Runtly down the slope to the settlement. As she neared the gate, Brynn noted that there were many Behrenese about, wearing their typical light-colored robes and turbans, and more than a few suspicious expressions turned her way.
The To-gai-ru who saw her looked on with equal curiosity, but with expressions that showed less sinister undertones.
Brynn feared that wearing her surcoat and her armor, and particularly the beret and that fabulous sword hanging at Runtly’s side, might have been a mistake. Perhaps she should have stripped off the pilfered items and bagged them, coming in as a simple To-gai-ru wanderer.
„Too late now,“ the young woman said with a shrug of her shoulders, and she pushed Runtly forward at an easy, unthreatening pace.
„Halt!“ came the expected cry from one of the four guards standing about the gate area.
Brynn shifted back and gave a slight tug on the pony’s mane.
The four guards, Behrenese all and with one of them, a woman, wearing the distinctive overlapping scale armor of the Chezhou-Lei, came forward. The three common Behrenese soldiers looked a bit nervous at first, but quickly settled beside their mighty Chezhou-Lei companion.
The female warrior regarded Brynn gravely, then grunted at one of her companions.
„Who are you?“ the man said immediately, and obediently, Brynn thought.
„I am Brynn Dharielle,“ she answered honestly, for she could think of no reason to hide the name she was best known by, though it was not her true name.
„From where have you come?“
Brynn shrugged and looked back over her shoulder at the mountains. „From there, the foothills.“
The To-gai-ru quickly translated to the Chezhou-Lei, and the mighty warrior regarded Brynn even more closely, her dark eyes narrowing. She said something in the Behrenese tongue, which Brynn did not understand.
„What village do you call home?“ the translator asked. „And what tribe?“
„I was of Kayleen Kek,“ Brynn answered, again honestly. „But that was many years ago.“
„And now?“
„Now, a wanderer.“
The man tilted his head, as if not understanding.
„A wanderer,“ Brynn said again. „Surely you have encountered To-gai-ru wanderers, in this season, in this region near to the mountains.“ The man still didn’t seem to catch on, and Brynn worked hard to suppress her smile. In Behren, there were nomads, mostly desert bandits riding from oasis to oasis, and in To-gai, wanderers - as they were called, for they were even more nomadic than the tribes - were even more common, and much respected among the tribes. Wanderers were the information bearers, informing the tribes of news from other encampments and often guiding the hunters to areas with better game signs. Brynn remembered well the excitement among her friends whenever a wanderer approached Kayleen Kek.
„You are young.“
„Not so young,“ she answered. „But I am tired and desire a warm bed this night, and a fine, cooked meal.“
The Behrenese translated to the Chezhou-Lei woman, and she paused for a long moment, then nodded at the man.
„Dee’dahk would not turn you away, Brynn Dharielle,“ the man explained. „If the Ru will have you, then enter. But be warned,“ he added grimly, staring hard at Brynn, „Champion Dee’dahk will tolerate no insolence from any under her watchful eye.“
Keeping her face devoid of expression, revealing nothing that could be viewed as threatening or mocking, Brynn slipped down from Runtly and straightened her clothing, then pointedly untied the sword and strapped it about her slender waist. Dee’dahk was watching her every movement, she knew, and so she tried to appear a bit clumsy, at least.
„You can stable your horse inside,“ the Behrenese soldier continued. „Bargain the price as you desire. For your lodging, you will have to seek out among the other Ru, but expect that my master, Yatol Daek Gin Gin Yan, will wish to speak with you.“
Brynn held her ground for a long moment, digesting the names and the tone, trying to make some sense out of the obviously huge changes that had come over her homeland. So, there was a Yatol here, and a Chezhou-Lei? Was every „village“ like this, under close scrutiny?
She started forward, Runtly stepping easily behind her, but she stopped suddenly and turned to her pony. She scratched his face and neck and pulled his ears and whispered to him comfortingly, then she turned him about and gave him a smack on the rump, and the pinto trotted off for greener grasses.
Dee’dahk immediately exploded with a stream of agitated words.
„That is not allowed!“ the Behrenese translator shouted at her. „The horse will be brought in!“
„This is their land as much as ours,“ Brynn explained.
„This is the land of Yatol Daek Gin Gin Yan!“ the man screamed at her. „The horse will be brought in!“
Brynn considered it for a moment, telling herself repeatedly that this was not the time to start a fight. She understood that the Behrene
se would in no way harm Runtly - a To-gai pony as fine as he would be far too valuable for that! She gave a short whistle and the pony stopped and looked back to regard her. A second whistle turned Runtly around, walking back at his own leisurely pace.
„Then I expect that I shall not be staying here for long,“ Brynn explained when the pony reached her, and she started toward the open gates, Runtly right behind. She didn’t bother to return the glare that Dee’dahk was casting her way.
She reminded herself again, many times, that her duty to her people now jo gain information, to learn all that she could about the present state of affairs in To-gai
The time for fighting would come soon enough, she knew.
„You are a bit young to be a true wanderer, are you not?“ an old woman, Tsolona, said to Brynn that same night, when she joined most of the village adults in a common room set off the village square, in full view of the distinctive and huge Yatol Temple.
„Not so young. And older than I appear in experience, if not in years.“
„Ah „ said Balachuk, the woman’s companion, a wrinkled and leathery old man whose eyes remained as bright and sharp as those of any twenty-year-old. „And where is it that you’ve been wandering?“
Brynn smiled as she considered the depth of her forthcoming answer. She wanted this discussion to go completely the other way around, with her asking the questions about To-gai, and not the To-gai-ru interrogating her. She had found no trouble in getting lodgings; several To-gai-ru families had offered to take her in at the cost of a few tales, and she had accepted the invitation of this very couple. One Behrenese man had offered, as well, and Brynn had almost accepted, thinking that she might garner much information about her enemies by becoming a confidant of one of them. But then she had looked into the man’s eyes and had seen the truth of his intent, though his wife would be in the same house.
„Along the mountains, mostly,“ Brynn answered slowly, very conscious of the fact that a pair of Behrenese men were sitting at a table not too far away and were listening somewhat more than casually. She knew that she was being watched wherever she went, as the leaders of the town tried to learn as much as they could about this strange woman and her unusual equipment. Brynn looked at the two men out of the corner of her eye, and added, loudly enough for them to hear, „And under the mountains.“
Transcendence Page 19
