Gabria was about to leave when she noticed a full leather sack lying near the coals of the hearth fire. A red cloth was fastened to the- sack-red for Clan Corin. She peered into the bag and smiled. Piers had found a way to say good-bye. The bag was packed with food: dried meat, beans, horse bread , dried fruit, and a flask of Piers’s own favorite wine. There was enough food to satisfy her for many days. Gratefully she took the bag and gathered her loose belongings into two bundles.
Outside the tent Nara waited patiently. When Gabria appeared and began arranging the bundles over the mare’s withers, Nara nickered softly. The priest watches.
Gabria surreptitiously glanced around Nara’s chest and saw Thalar standing in the shadows of a nearby tent. He was watching them with obvious anger and disgust.
“He does not obey Lord Athlone’s command,” she replied, annoyed.
He is not the only one who watches.
The sorceress sprang onto the horse’s back and tightened the golden cloak around her neck. “Then let’s show the Khulinin how a Hunnuli and her rider leave camp.”
Nara trotted back to the main path. She paused for a moment to sniff the chill evening breeze, then lifted her head and neighed a challenge that rang throughout the camp. The unexpected noise brought people running out to look. The stallions in the far pastures answered with their own clarion cries, and the dogs in the treld barked furiously.
Nara proudly neighed again and reared, her powerful front legs pawing at the pale stars. Gabria felt her own joy soar to meet the Hunnuli’s. She drew her sword and answered Nara’s call with the Corin’s war cry.
The mare leaped forward. Her eyes ignited with a golden-green light as she galloped down the road through the treld. Her hooves pounded the hard ground.
Gabria clung to the mare and raised her sword above her head. “Farewell, Khulinin!” she shouted to the dark tents and the people who stared after her.
From the hall’s entrance high on the side of the hill, Lord Athlone smiled as he watched them go. He should have known Gabria would not slink out of the treld. He raised his fist in a silent salute, which he held until the horse disappeared into the deepening night.
It was fully dark by the time Gabria and Nara passed the Khulinin burial mounds and found the tiny stone temple of Amara nestled in a copse of trees atop a hill. Because the temple was used only a few times during the year, it was small and very plain. A rectangular stone altar sat across from the only door, and above the altar a large circular window faced the east and the rising moon.
Gabria left Nara outside to graze, carried her bundles into the temple, and built a small fire in one corner away from the window. Chewing on a piece of dried meat, she curled up in her blanket and cloak. For a long while she stared at the fire and tried not to shiver. A cold draft blew through the window and made the fire dance.
Though Gabria was apprehensive, she was not frightened or worried about Amara’s reaction to her presence in the temple. Despite Thalar’s warnings, she had always felt secure and accepted by the Mother Goddess. Nothing had changed that, but this temple was so quiet and strange! She could hear Nara grazing among the trees, and she thanked Amara with all her heart for the black mare. Gabria was used to noisy, bustling camps and the constant company of people. This silent solitude was frightening. She could not imagine being alone for a long period of time, and without the Hunnuli for company, Gabria doubted she would be able to bear this banishment for six months.
It would be six very long months without Athlone, too.
Gabria cuddled deeper into her blanket and let her thoughts wander to the Khulinin lord. When they’d first met, Gabria had hated Athlone. He was a wer-tain then, commander of the Khulinin warriors, and his father’s most trusted adjutant.
He, too, had befriended a Hunnuli, a stallion named Boreas who later died at Lord Medb’s hand. Gabria quickly learned that Athlone was a forceful, commanding, sometimes impetuous man whose sole loyalty lay with his clan. He had been immediately suspicious of Gabria’s disguise, and when he discovered the truth of her identity, he nearly killed her. It was only through the unexpected help of magic and the support of Nara and Boreas that Gabria was able to fight him off and eventually convince him to help her. What had begun as mutual animosity and distrust grew to respect and love.
Unfortunately, their love was not being given much of a chance to blossom. The deep feelings they shared were very new to both of them and had not been fully explored. Gabria worried that a six-month separation might prove too rocky for the tenuous roots of their new love.
Thinking of Athlone reminded Gabria of the bundle he had given her. She had not yet opened it. Quickly she pulled the wrapped parcel out of her pile and untied the leather thongs that held it together. Several small items tumbled onto her lap, each one hastily wrapped in large pieces of woolen fabric.
The young woman was pleased to see that each scrap of fabric was large enough to cut for mittens or to piece together for a small blanket. Best of all, a packet of bone needles was tucked into one of the parcels. Gabria began to unwrap the packages and found a little stone oil lamp, its wick hole plugged with wax to hold the oil, a pair of mittens lined with rabbit fur, a hatchet, and a warm cap.
Last of all, she found a long, narrow package bound with a golden armband. The band was small and solid, traced with an interwoven design of fanciful horses. It slipped over her hand and settled comfortably on her wrist. Armbands were a favorite gift among betrothed couples, and Gabria sensed the band was Athlone’s way of reassuring her of his love. The thought pleased her.
Finally she uncovered the narrow package. The gold wool fell away, and a dagger slid into her hand. Gabria gasped. The dagger blade was forged from steel, a rare, valuable metal crafted only in the city of Rivenforge in the kingdom of Portane. The handle was braided silver, formed to fit the hand and inset with small rubies and topaz. Red for the color of the cloaks of the Corin clan, gold for the Khulinin.
Tears formed in Gabria’s eyes as she turned the dagger over in her hands. The weapon was a priceless gift given from the heart. Women did not usually carry such weapons, but she had owned another dagger once. It had been a gift to her father from Lord Savaric, and she had found it in the smoking ruins of her home. It had been her only physical remembrance of her dead father. Unfortunately, on that afternoon when she faced Lord Medb in the duel of sorcery, she had transformed her father’s dagger into a sword to slay her clan’s murderer. The weapon had been destroyed with Medb’s body.
She realized then that Athlone understood how much the old dagger had meant to her. The armband was his gift of love, but the jeweled weapon was his gift of hope that she could build a new life.
Gabria wiped the tears from her eyes with a scrap of wool and carefully laid the gifts aside. She found her empty sheath, slid the dagger in, and fastened it to her belt. The weight of the weapon felt good on her side. She curled up in her blanket once more and watched the fire die to embers.
As the coals’ glow dimmed, Gabria promised herself that she would endure this exile. She would go back to Khulinin Treld in the spring and do everything in her power to build a good relationship with the clan and with its chieftain. She owed herself nothing less.