'No, no. Short swords it is. Would you object if I brought some of my younger students?'
'Not at all.'
'They can carry his body back,' said Dace.
Tarantio turned away. Brune handed back the crossbow and hurried after him. 'What is happening?' he asked.
'Let's find this magicker, Brune,' said Tarantio. 'I can't teach the bow to a half-blind archer.'
'Why is that man going to fight you?'
'It is what he does,' Tarantio told him.
Karis was not easily shocked. Her early life of pain, betrayal and brutality at the hands of her father had birthed in her a cynicism that allowed her to accept the outrageous as if it were commonplace. But when she crested the last rise before the Great Northern Desert, she was stunned. Expecting a vista of bare rock and drifting sand, she was met by a landscape of verdant green dotted with woods and streams.
She knew this area well, having fought two skirmishes here last year. There was no way she could have lost her bearings. To her left, the sun was low in the sky. Ahead, therefore, was north. No question of it.
Guiding the great grey gelding down the slope, she rode to the grasslands and into a grove of trees beside a rippling stream. Dismounting, she loosened Warain's saddle-girth, but did not remove the saddle. Then she let him wander and graze. Warain was well trained, and would come to her fast at a single whistle. Sitting beside the stream, Karis drank deeply, then emptied her water canteen and refilled it.
Perhaps the Eldarin have come back, she thought. What had happened here was the very opposite of the disaster that had struck Eldarin lands during the short-lived war. But the instant the thought came she dismissed it, recalling the words of the Eldarin spirit which had appeared in her room. 'A long time ago the Eldarin faced another evil,' he said. 'We contained it, removed it from the world. The Pearl holds that evil at bay.'
This place does not feel evil, thought Karis. The water is sweet and good, the grass rich and green. What evil, then?
Karis was tired. She had been riding for three days, and had eaten little. Yesterday all she had found was a bush of sweet berries, but these had given her a sour stomach. The day before that she had brought down a pheasant, and cooked it in clay. But there was little meat on the bird.
Allowing Warain to graze for an hour she slept briefly, then summoned the gelding, tightened the saddle and rode back into the dry hills. Ordinarily she would have camped by the stream, but her mind was troubled.
She built a small fire and lay down beside it. It was not cold enough to require a camp-fire, but the flames comforted her, inducing a feeling of safety.
What was the evil the Eldarin had contained?
Karis wished she remembered more of her mother's stories. The flesh-eating tribes of giants had a name, but she could not recall it. She awoke in the night as Warain's front hoof pawed at the ground. Rising, she pulled her bow from the back of the saddle and strung it. 'What is it you hear, grey one?' she whispered, notching an arrow to the bow. In the distance a wolf howled. Warain's head swung towards the sound.
In the bright moonlight Karis scanned the area. There was no sign of movement. 'The wolves will not trouble us, my friend,' she said, moving to the horse and patting its long, sleek neck. Warain nuzzled her shoulder.
'You are the most beautiful male in my life,' she whispered. 'Strong, and true. When we get to Corduin, I'll winter you with Chase. You remember Chase, don't you? The crippled rider.' She scratched the grey's broad brow. 'Now settle down and rest.'
The fire had died and she lay down beside the embers, wrapping her cloak about her.
Just before dawn she woke, and sat up, hungry and irritable. Yesterday she had spotted a deer, but had not killed it. It seemed a great waste of life and beauty to slay such a magnificent beast for the sake of a meal or two. Now she regretted it. Drinking deeply from the canteen, she rose and saddled the gelding. 'If we see a deer today,' she told the horse, 'it dies. I swear my stomach has wrapped itself around my backbone.'
Stepping into the saddle, she rode down once more into the new grassland, heading for Corduin.
The memory of the guard back at the gate was beginning to irritate her. She remembered he was a ten-heartbeat lover - grunt, thrust, sweat and collapse. But where? What had he said - fight like a tiger, live like a whore, look like an angel? He meant it as a compliment, but the word whore did not sit right with Karis.
She used men as she used food: to satisfy a hunger, a need she could not -would not - rationalize. Unlike food, however, the men rarely satisfied her.
Even as the thought came to her she remembered Vint, the pale-eyed swordsman. He knew how to satisfy a woman's hunger. His body was lean and hard, his caresses soft and gentle. And, as an added bonus, there was no emotion in him - no fear of love, or jealousy. She had heard that he became the Duke of Corduin's Champion after Tarantio had refused the post. So far he had killed five men in duels. If he was still in Corduin . ..
The sun was high, the sky cloudless as she rode through the green hills. To her right she saw a red hawk swoop down on a luckless rabbit. Hauling on the reins, she scanned the area for a falconer. Hawks, she knew, preferred feather to fur; they had to be wedded to it. But there was no man in sight. The hawk struck the rabbit, sending it tumbling, then settled down to feed as Karis rode on.
Then she remembered the night she had seduced the sentry, Gorl. She and her mercenaries had struck a wagon convoy sixty miles south of Hlobane, when she was under contract to Belliese. That's where the willows were, and she had chosen Gorl because of the lustre of his beard and his deep, soft eyes. Her spirits lifted. Having remembered, she filed him away to be forgotten once more.
'I hope you find a good man,' her mother had said, as Karis prepared to run away into the night. Her father was stretched out on the floor in a drunken stupor.
'You should come with me,' she urged the tired woman.
'Where would I go? Who would have me now?'
'Then let me kill him where he lies. We'll drag the body out and bury it.'
'Don't say that! Please. He. . . was a good man once. He truly was. You just go, my dear. You can find employment in Prentuis - you're a good girl, with a fine body. You'll find a good man there.'
Karis had walked away without a backward glance. Find a good man? She had found scores. Some who made love tenderly, whispering words of endearment, and others who had been rough and primal. Never had she considered wedding any of them. Never had she made the mistake of loving any of them. No, the men who made her stomach tremble she avoided. Sirano had been one.
Tarantio another ...
'You I will never forget,' she said aloud. She had first seen him swimming in a lake with twenty or so soldiers. It had been a long, dry, dusty march, and when they camped by the lake the men threw off their armour and clothes and ran into the water, splashing each other like children. Karis had dismounted and sat at the lakeside watching them whoop and dive and laugh. But one slim young man did not join in the revelry. He swam away from the group, then walked naked into the undergrowth, emerging moments later with handfuls of lemon mint which he rubbed across his skin. His face and arms were tanned gold, but his chest and legs were white. He was lean, and beautifully muscled, the dark hair on his chest tapering down to a fine line pointing like an arrow to his loins.
'I will have you,' Karis had decided. She had called him over, and he waded to where she sat.
'What is your name, soldier?'
'I am Tarantio.'
'My captain spoke of you.' His eyes were a deep, dark blue, his hair thick and tightly curled. 'He said you were a ferocious fighter. With a thousand like you, he says he could conquer the world.'