The Steerswoman's Road

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Throwing one hand against the door, Rowan oriented herself, her internal map twisting in her mind. She exulted. “We don’t need it. This is better.” She guided Bel’s hand to her shoulder. “Slowly.”

  “We can’t see where to go.”

  “I know the route.” She led the way, keeping measured stride, desperately matching her movement with the vivid image in her mind. One of the terrified residents stumbled against her, and she shoved him away roughly.

  Pausing, she shuffled sideways, groping with her left foot to find the edge of the stairway she knew would be there. “Down.”

  A handful of people pushed past them, their voices a chaos of panic. Some took the stairs, stumbling, crying, and they broke around Rowan and Bel like a swirl of water. Rowan clutched the banister and stepped carefully, Bel still gripping her shoulder.

  Reaching the bottom, Rowan saw a moving light in the distance, bouncing weirdly, approaching amidst the sounds of many feet. It was another squad of soldiers, their leader carrying a brilliant glowing object: a magic lamp like the wall sconces, but mobile. The beam played across the small crowd, swept once across Rowan, then returned to her. Thinking quickly, she turned her back to them and clung to Bel as if afraid, hiding her sword with her body, letting the light catch Liane’s silver-blue cloak.

  “The wizards’ dolly,” Bel shouted above the noise of panic-stricken civilians. She waved them on. “I’ll take care of her.”

  The light swung away. Someone shouted to the growing crowd in an authoritative voice, “Stay where you are. Stay out of the way. It’s being dealt with. Stay where you are.” Protests and begging questions were ignored as the squad hurried on.

  In a sea of babbling voices, Rowan thought furiously. Her dead reckoning had brought them but a few turns from the front gate, but that gate was guarded at the inside. How could they get past?

  She could hear the now-buried nervousness in the people’s voices, the panic lying just below the surface. None of them knew what was happening, and all were afraid. She briefly felt pity for them, and then an idea came to her.

  Drawing a deep breath, she let out a long wailing shriek, feeling Bel startle beside her. “We have to get out!” Rowan screamed. She stepped into the crowd, clutching, and found someone. She shook him wildly, shouting into his face, “It’s magic, something’s happening! We’ll all be trapped!” He tried to twist away in panic, and Rowan heard those nearby begin to echo her words, voices rising.

  She shoved her unwilling assistant forward brutally. “That way! The front gate is that way!” Her hands found more people, and she pushed them, shouting, emitting the most bloodcurdling screams she could manufacture.

  Panic spread. Rowan quieted herself and pulled back against the wall, out of the way. Someone took up the shout “This way!” and ran staggering, calling others after him. With a goal for their fear, the people fell into loose organization, helping each other as they stumbled toward escape.

  Rowan felt sudden fear. “Bel?”

  “Here.” The Outskirter’s voice came from nearby, to Rowan’s left. Relief. “We stay at the back.” She found Bel’s hand and reoriented herself. “Come on.”

  The group found its own stumbling way to the gate, and Rowan and Bel followed, more by tracking the sounds than by the steers-woman’s skill. A burst of starlight ahead, and a babble of voices, and the crowd met the four startled guards at the gate.

  The sergeant had a torch of real fire and grim presence of mind. “Calm down. No one’s leaving.”

  There was a chorus of protests, and Bel shouted wildly, “It’s magic, something magic’s got loose! It’s killed the wizards!”

  Rowan took it up. “It’s out of control!” She thought that might even be true.

  “It isn’t,” the man replied against the cries of the people, but his face showed that he doubted. His men tried to herd the crowd back, but a woman broke through suddenly and ran down the causeway, one of the guards following, cursing. She threw herself against the spell-locked iron bars at the end, and he gripped her brutally and dragged her away.

  A streak of fire flew toward the magic gate and lodged there, spitting sparks. There was a burst of light, a loud crack, and the stone and iron flew apart in a hundred pieces. The woman collapsed in a bizarre cloud of cloth and blood, and the soldier clutched at his face and fell, screaming. A shadowed shape ran to the gate from the road.

  “Now!” Bel shouted, pushing through the stunned crowd. Following, Rowan broke through in time the see the sergeant’s head fall from his body, and Bel’s swing, out of control, ending in a bystander’s chest. Rowan stabbed her blade in a disbelieving guard’s face, wrenched it free, then turned to see the last guard stepping back, stiff-legged, briefly unmanned by surprise. The crowd fell back.

  Rowan and Bel ran along the causeway. Halfway across, they were met by Willam; he carried his bow and three arrows, their heads aflame. Stopping, he gave two arrows to Bel. “Hold these.”

  Rowan pulled at him. “Are you mad? They won’t be distracted forever—they may be coming now.”

  Bel wrenched her away from him with furious strength. “Shut up.” Abruptly, Rowan’s mind reorganized itself, and she turned to look back at the fortress.

  She saw Will’s first arrow end in the last guard’s chest, and the man clutched at it, shrieking.

  The dark towers were outlined by a glow of fire in the north quarter. Ordered shouts and chaotic cries came to her ears. With a look of desperate concentration, Willam set his feet carefully and lifted his head toward the overhang of the main entrance. His burning arrow flew high, slowed, arched, and fell. By its light, Rowan had seen its goal: the window of an observation post, now unmanned. He’ll never make that shot, she thought, then knew with certainty that he would.

  The last arrow lofted, painfully slow at the top of its flight, then clattered against the sill and rolled in. There was a pause, then flickering light as something inside caught fire.

  “Now run!” the boy screamed, and the three ran madly, staggering past the pile of hones and raw meat, clambering over the remains of the ruined gate. Just as they reached the road, Rowan felt something like a huge invisible hand smash against her hack, pick her up, fling her forward in a crowd of flying rock, and flail her body once against a wall of stone.

  She came to with a dark shape crouched over her: the Outskirter. Bel looked over her shoulder. “She’s alive.” There was no response from Willam.

  Rowan sat up and found that parts of her body were numb: her left arm and hand, the left side of her chest, the inside of her right forearm. Her right knee throbbed; her back stung as if scored. As she pulled herself to her feet with the Outskirter’s help, the grip of her left hand failed, seemingly because some of the fingers bent backward.

  She limped over to where Willam stood silent, at the end of a road that now stopped abruptly at the edge of a cliff. Rowan looked out at the fortress.

  The causeway was gone, along with the front entrance and the entire front face. Beyond stood a maze of half-ruined walls, and then standing walls, open rooms clinging to their sides like barnacles, all seen by the glow of fire in the ruins of the west quarter, where horses screamed.

  As she watched, two of the distant suspended rooms collapsed to the ground like silent sighs.

  An immeasurable force, set loose by a boy. A giant fist that smashed, a giant hand that flung stone through the air ... “Did you know it would do this?”

  He stood silent, expressionless, looking at his work; then he nodded minutely.

  Bel came up behind them. “It’s a good job, don’t you think?” She grinned whitely in a face blackened with dirt and soot.

  Rowan touched the silent boy’s shoulder and for a moment was amazed that he was mere flesh and blood, merely human. There was no magic to he seen in him. He was only a boy of the common folk, but he had done what seemed impossible. “Willam ... will you stay with us?”

  He turned to her, copper eyes blankly reflecting distant
fire. “For a while. Where are we going?”

  In this flickering quiet, in the silence after the shock, the world seemed vague, and her mind slowed. She groped for an answer. “To the Outskirts?” Bel asked.

  Of its own accord, information ordered itself in the steerswoman’s mind and gave her replies without conscious effort. “I told Shammer and Dhree I was going there. They may have passed it on.”

  “To the Archives?” Willam suggested.

  “I need to get my information to them, but I won’t do it in person. If the wizards think I’ve gone there, they might harm it.” Clinging to the framework of her ordered knowledge, her thoughts took shape again, and she knew what to do. “We need a defended position. Arms, and someone to direct them, someone who won’t fail to stand by me.”

  “Where do we find that?”

  “Wulfshaven. Artos.”

  25

  The city of Wulfshaven held its breath.

  One week earlier, Artos had unexpectedly ordered his soldiers to battle-readiness. Word was sent to those on leave, and they came into town from their furloughs, faces wary and perplexed. The citizens they passed questioned them, but they had no answers to give.

  Two days later, Artos called his reserves to active duty, and those men and women kissed their spouses, children, and parents, and set up their encampments on the lawns of his mansion and in open fields around the city limits. The sentries on the perimeter were not concentrated in any one direction.

  The day after that, a troop of cavalry was sent north, followed by another of foot soldiers. Their destination was not known, but message-runners sent to their position returned only a day later.

  And the next day, word came that Artos was no longer in his mansion but kept residence in the small fort that barracked his regulars.

  Daily business proceeded, but with many glances over the shoulder and much speculation in taverns and in private.

  In the Trap and Net, as everywhere, speculation was very active and very quiet. Wary glances were directed at the door as each new customer arrived, and when at last it was a steerswoman who entered, one of the drinkers hailed her with a gesture, saying to his companions, “Now we’ll learn something, I reckon.”

  But Rowan ignored the summons and stepped quietly to a corner table overlooking the harbor, where two men with tankards before them sat alone in friendly conversation. She stood without speaking until one of them looked up at her. “I’ve been waiting,” she said then.

  The wizard Corvus examined her with a mild gaze. “I rather thought you might be,” he admitted. “It must be very boring.”

  There was a long pause. “Hardly.”

  He laughed. “Then you are easily amused. Why don’t you join me?” He spoke to his companion, whom Rowan recognized as a local fisherman. “Selras, would you excuse us? I believe I have some business with the steerswoman.”

  The fisherman absented himself politely, but with a perplexed expression. He would have a tale to tell that night, Rowan thought, of a wizard and a steerswoman who against all custom and expectation had business with each other. She wondered to whom he would tell it, and what the ending might be.

  She seated herself, sitting carefully on the edge of the chair, one hand before her on the table. The other hand was in a sling, its fingers stiffly splinted, and her face showed the marks of old bruises. She said nothing, but watched Corvus patiently, and he returned her gaze with an identical expression.

  The wizard was a man of striking appearance, all darkness, dressed in black and silver. He was tall, lean, and broad of shoulder. His hair was a cap of gleaming black curls, his short black beard silvered to either side. His skin was dark, as dark as was ever seen in people, nearly true black.

  Among the folk of the Inner Lands, any shade of skin was likely to be seen, any color of hair, seemingly without rhyme or reason; but that pure combination of darkness was rare enough to be noticed—and to be prized. Women of such appearance tended to cultivate an air of depth and mystery. Such men, being conspicuous, found that high courage and intelligence were expected of them, and so often actually acquired those traits.

  Corvus’s manner contradicted none of those expectations, and the only lightness in his appearance was the pale sky-blue of his eyes.

  The two sat for some time. At last Corvus gave a slight smile. “You’re forbidden to answer my questions. I’m forbidden to answer the very questions you are most likely to ask. I find myself wondering how this problem can be circumvented.”

  “I volunteer information, without the necessity of your asking for it,” Rowan said quickly. “I ask only questions I believe you’re free to answer.” Then she waited for his reaction; the entire conversation depended on his acceptance of the conditions. And the conversation had to take place.

  He made a small sound of amusement, but his eyes were speculative. “It’s an odd technique.”

  “I’ve used something similar in the past.”

  “With Shammer and Dhree, I assume.”

  She was startled, but managed a grim smile. “You’ve heard. No one else here seems to have. I thought perhaps I might have outrun my own news.”

  “My means of acquiring news is, shall we say, less bound by time and distance.” He leaned back, and the veneer of casual friendliness he habitually affected seemed to falter somewhat. “Very well. Since the privilege of asking questions is yours, you should begin.”

  “Are Artos’s military preparations necessary?” She was in Corvus’s home city, and if the wizards planned to attack her, he would certainly have been told, and possibly would serve as the agent.

  “I’d answer if I could, but I don’t know what he’s expecting.”

  Despite her tension, Rowan appreciated his ability to adapt to the limitations of the conversation. “The duke expects attack. From what direction, he doesn’t know. The source is likely to be one or more wizards.”

  Corvus seemed to consider. “I know of no wizard who might hold a grudge against Artos.”

  He was being willfully obtuse, and Rowan frowned, anger and frustration battling within her. “The grudge, as you call it, is not against him, but a dear friend of his. That is to say, myself.”

  “You seem to have many friends. Powerful friends, I should say.” And again he was amused.

  Rowan sensed a clue in his words, but could not identify it. She believed she was missing something. Suspecting that a direct question would be refused, she tried an oblique approach. “Power is usually seen as the power that commands others. Of my friends, only Artos has such power.”

  “Wizards also have that power, and in addition, the power to command nature itself.”

  She was definitely missing something, something important. “Are any wizards likely to use this against me?”

  “We have more immediate concerns.”

  Her confusion became complete. In the midst of this business directed at herself, was it possible that they would be distracted by other matters? Could she be so wildly fortunate? “If I asked what those concerns were, would you be able to answer me?”

  He smiled at the careful logic of her question. “It would depend on the depth of the answer required.”

  It was a dead end; there was no way to sidle around that response, no way to guess what question he might not refuse. She needed his answers, had to discover whether or not a steerswoman’s curiosity would call down battle on an innocent town, cause her friends to die for her, and end her own life by the hand of magic.

  She changed direction with one desperate risk. “Has Slado lost interest in me?”

  His smile vanished. In the midst of the homely, familiar tavern, he seemed a living shadow of gleaming metal and blackness, and she was sharply aware that the power she feared was present in his person. “No one should know that name.”

  “Shammer and Dhree were indiscreet.”

  “Stupid children,” he said spitefully. “I was against them from the first.”

  “Then you’re wiser than Sl
ado.”

  He watched her, all friendliness vanished from his demeanor. “They died, you know.” He tilted up his chin and waited for her reaction.

  Maintaining her calm, she replied, “Yes, I thought they might have. I’m sorry. They were pitiful, in their way.”

  “And everyone is wondering who’s responsible. We know you didn’t do it.”

  “No, I didn’t kill them. But I am responsible.”

  “Only a wizard could have destroyed that fortress. Whoever it was will give himself away soon enough.”

  His meaning came to her at last. “You believe that one of your number is a traitor.”

  “We know it. You’d save us a lot of trouble if you revealed his name.”

  Rowan was stunned.

  Corvus continued. “We now know that all your dangerous cleverness was an illusion, and everything you know about those jewels was fed to you. You were told to look for them.” He tapped the tabletop to stress his point, then spoke tightly. “You’re serving someone, steers-woman, and it’s only a matter of time before we discover who, and deal with him in our own way.”

  She could not believe her luck. To confirm it, she observed, “So you’re watching each other, and I’m simply beneath your notice.”

  Wrapping his hand around his tankard, he relaxed. She was no danger to him; the threat came from her wizardly master. He regained a measure of his former manner, watching her a bit wryly.

  She needed more. “You know about the jewels. Shammer and Dhree didn’t. Are you in Slado’s confidence?”

  He seemed indifferent. “I have my own sources.”

  “Do you know what the jewels are? Why they’re so important?” His expression grew dissatisfied.

  “I doubt your sources will help you there, if Slado chooses to keep the information to himself.”

  “It’s a matter of time,” he said again, patiently.