It proved to be a sheep-farmer's holding rather than a true farm; hidden away in a tiny pocket-valley, she would never have found it if not for Need.
To the landowner she told the truth-but cautioned him to tell any other inquirers a tale she and Need concocted, about a plague that caused death and feeble-mindedness, killing all the men of a village where she had relatives, and leaving only the healthiest of the girls alive. She offered him the entire herd of horses (save only the one she had chosen for herself) to tend to the novices. Her only other condition was that as soon as possible he was to send a message to the nearest temple of the Twins, telling what had happened and asking for their aid for the girls.
As she had expected, the offer was more than he could possibly refuse, and when Need read his thoughts to be certain he would keep the bargain, she found no dishonesty. Winter was an idle time for farmers and herders; he had a houseful of daughters and servants to help tend the girls. And sons to find wives for... it would be no bad thing to have a mage-talented girl for a bride for one of his boys. Such things tended to breed true even if shock made the girl lose her own talent, and a man could do much worse than have a wife who could work bits of magic to help protect herself and her home, and to enrich the family, if she was able to keep practicing. Hedge-wizardry and kitchen-witchery was easy to learn; it was having the power to make it work that was granted to only a few.
She agreed on their behalf that if any of them chose to stay with him and his boys, there would be no demands for reparations from the Sisterhood. then she saddled and mounted her horse, and turned back to the hunt. they were now weeks, not days, behind the enemy, but he was burdened with wagons and hysterical girls, and Vena was alone, and now a-horse. As she turned her mare's head back along the trail, Need finally spoke.
"Demonsbane, girl! Why didn't you put that fatuous sheep-brain in his place? Brides for his sons-what did he think you were, some kind of marriage-broker? And where did he ever get the idea any of them would want to live out their lives making herb-charms and tending brats and lambs?" the sword grumbled on, for a while, and Vena let her. The novice had plenty of other things to think about; most notably, finding the now-cold trail of the rest of the captives. It wasn't easy, not with two weeks' worth of wind and weather eating at the signs.
But she had the right gear for the job, at last. Sheepskin boots and coat, woolen leggings, sweater and cotton undertunic. And all the provisions and equipment she needed.
Or at least, all that she needed until the next encounter.
But she told herself she wasn't going to think about that until it happened.
Finally she found the track, half-melted prints of hooves and wagon-wheels in the snow, and Need finally finished venting her spleen.
Vena waited for a moment, both to be sure she had the trail and to be certain Need was talked out. "Look," she pointed out, "After everything those girls have been through, one or more of them are bound to change their minds about a life dedicated to High Magery and the Sisterhood. that farmer was trustworthy and kindhearted; not a bad thing in a father-in-law. And the boys were a little rough around the edges, but no worse than the lads in my home village. You and I can never give back what those girls-our Sistershave lost, but we can at least give them options." Need stayed silent for a moment. "You could be right," she finally said, grudgingly. "I don't like it, but you could be right." Vena decided not to tell her that she was having second thoughts, herself she doubted she'd survive long enough to consider being a farmer's wife.
Right now, despite this early success, she wasn't going to give herself odds on that.
Nyara woke with the sun in her eyes, and for a moment, her arms and legs still ached with that long-ago cold; her hands expected to encounter those heavy blankets instead of furs, and she was exhausted with a phantom weariness that vanished as soon as she realized who she was, and where.
Phantom weariness was replaced by real weariness. She lay where she was for a moment, despite her resolution of the night before to get up early to fish. Dream-quests did not, as a rule, leave her tired. Nor did they leave her feeling a weight of years..."that's because I never took you back so far before," Need said, and it seemed as if the sword was just as tired as her student. "I've granted you what I seldom grant my bearers; now you know the name I had forgotten, MY name as a human." But that wasn't what mattered to Nyara; suddenly she sat bolt upright and stared at the sword leaning against the wall with a feeling of anger and betrayal. "You didn't help her!" she accused. "You didn't help her at all!"
"I did what I could," the blade replied, calmly. "I was new to my form and my limitations. I had as much to learn as she did, but I didn't dare let her know that, or her confidence would have been badly undermined. I've had a long, long time to learn more of magic, Nyara. I didn't know a fraction then of what I know now." Nyara stared at the sword propped in the corner, aghast. "You mean you did not know what you were doing?"
"oh, I knew what I was doing. I was herding us both into trouble. But what else was I going to do? there were all those youngsters in danger, and if Vena and I didn't do something about it, nobody would." Nyara blinked, and started to say, "But that's not f-"
"Fair? No, it wasn't. Not to Vena, not to me, and certainly not to the novices." The blade's matter-of-fact attitude took Nyara aback.
She climbed out of her bed of furs as her thoughts circled around something she could not yet grasp. Need was not cruel-not on purpose, at any rate. She was driven by expediency, and by a dedication to the longer view. But she wasn't cruel...
So what was she trying to say?
She had sacrificed herself for the bare chance of saving the novices through Vena. The girl herself had done the same. And it was all so unf-It was unfair. But so was what Father did to me, what he did to the Hawkbrothers, what happened to the gryphons...Life was unfair. She knew that, and so did Need. But she'd been complaining about that unfairness a great deal lately.
"Very good, kitten," Need said in her mind. "You've figured that part out. I find it a wonder that you can even grasp "unfairness " ' knowing so little else in your life besides it. I am still working on that; it seems inconsistent with what your thrice-damned father taught you. Know this, though: oftentimes the concept of fairness can be a wall to accomplishing what must be done. Worrying over fairness can sometimes impede justice, and that in itself is not fair." Nyara nodded, as more awareness of Need's teaching came to her.
"Now let me show you what real unfairness is... "
Venna clung with her fingers and toes to the side of the cliff, and prayed that Heshain's thought-seekers would not find her...
*Chapter Seven - Treyvan, Hydona, Jerven and Lytha
Darkwind had been struggling for several days now to maintain his dignity, his composure, and above all, the signature Tayledras detachment, and failing dismally. The cause, ever and always, was Elspeth. He wondered if all teachers felt like this, or if he was particularly blessedor cursed-with a student so intelligent and quick that she threatened to run right over her hapless instructor.
"I can't keep ahead of her, and sometimes it's all I can do to fly apace with her," he confessed to Treyvan, as he helped the gryphon affix a set of shelves onto a wall of an interior room, a bit of work that only small, nimble, human hands could manage. Treyvan and his mate had expanded the original lair quite a bit since things calmed down, reconstructing the original walls of the building that had stood here, then creating several rooms where there had once been only two. Why the gryphon would want shelves, he had no idea-but then, there were a great many things he still didn't know about the gryphons. For all he knew, they collected hertasi carvings and wanted to display them.