Peering with narrowed brown eyes into the night, she walked the camp’s perimeter, relieving herself by a boulder, and circled back around.
The mercenaries were changing shift, two fresh men wiping sleep from their eyes as they fed the fire and brewed a pot of caffe to quicken their blood.
Nicoletta only nodded when they offered conversation. Unsurprised, they whiled the night away casting tall tales back and forth.
She only dozed, waking often throughout the night to check the magical scroll case through which her masters in the church communicated. Finally, just as dawn broke, she reached into the tube and found the missive she sought. She read it twice.
“Break camp,” she ordered with a smile, and cast the Archanian paper into the fire. It flared brightly and was gone, leaving no ash behind. “Reinforcements will meet us in Matharden.
CHAPTER FOUR
The postulants were roused at dawn.
Davia joined the others for breakfast after readying herself as well as she might. In her homeland, one washed with rich soaps and sponges. The scented sand and cloths used by these northerners irritated her skin.
The meals were different, too, with simpler herbs and spices, gravies instead of sauces, and heavier breads. Still, it smelled good, and her days of walking had created an insatiable hunger.
“Good morn, and well met!” Iseabheal called as Davia served herself from a cabinet against the wall.
“Morning,” she replied, turning to offer a forced smile. Joining her sisters at the table, she set into the cured ham, boiled red eggs, and warm, nutty bread.
“I hope you two slept well,” Iseabheal said. “Those beds are far from comfortable.” She flicked her blonde curls back from her face to bite daintily at buttered bread.
Davia only nodded.
“Nowhere near the comfort of a swaying berth or a moss mattress,” Mairi said, her strange accent forcing Davia to focus. She understood it, barely. Though thick with rolling consonants, it was melodic.
Iseabheal had a lighter brogue, barely noticeable. Her “I” was a longer sound, almost an “AI.” Many of her “Rs” were soft. “I have a feather bed at home, and it’s so much softer than these straw-stuffed things!”
Davia smiled, but remained silent. She had little patience for the likes of Iseabheal. Aristocrats had exposed her parents, brought to the forefront of village life their strangeness. A hint of mystical influence, a generations-old drop of elven blood, and finally a faith based not on a distant star, but on the ever-present world upon which they all lived had been enough to outrage the villagers and attract the church.
As the Mathaean postulant prattled on, Davia looked up from her plate to see Mairi’s jaws set. The tall redhead seemed not to care for their sister’s attitudes either.
“So tell me, Davia, about your homeland! I have met Archanian merchants in the past, but never a lady of the Island Empire.”
Davia sipped water from a wooden cup before answering. “It is a beautiful place, made up of forested islands of many sizes. Storms are terrible, but bright days are cool even at the height of summer. The cities stand before bays, high towers guarding the wharfs and wizards’ wards. Palaces rise above the high ground, and wonders from across the world await in the markets.”
“It sounds wonderful!” Iseabheal exclaimed. “I do hope to visit one day.”
Davia opened her mouth to answer, to explain why that was simply not wise, when Lilianna entered and bid them begin their day’s work.
***
The morning was chill and gray outside, and the postulants followed Lilianna into the forest behind the temple. Their clothing had been replaced with simple gowns of linen, soft leather shoes, and woolen cloaks; Iseabheal fidgeted with discomfort as they went.
The others focused on the forest around them and Lilianna’s words.
“This is a gray spruce,” the Maiden-Sister explained. “At its roots, you will often find verbena and woundwort, or yarrow. The needles of the tree may be boiled into a tincture to treat cramping bellies. Here at this spring,” she indicated a tiny trickle in the side of a stony ridge,” Ambarwaith–fae folk–are sometimes met.”
She kneeled beside the gray outcropping. “Here is a plant called winterfern. See how the fronds are white beneath? Come the snow, the tops will lose their green as well. It is then that we harvest them. They ornament our Yule Trees, and dry there among the other herbs, and will later be used in blessing ceremonies.”
The postulants nodded, each striving in her own fashion to gather all their mentor said into memory.
“And this,” Lilianna said, “is a broken egg. It looks like a bluehawk’s. It has been here for some while, and if we look above, yes–there it is.” She pointed up to a nigh-invisible mass of brown in the treetops.
The leaves were all but fallen this far north, though a few remained in place, curling brown and dry. Much of the forest was evergreen. Every subdued tone of green was represented, from earthy to hoary, providing rich contrast to birch trunks and gnarled white oaks.
Following the priestess for some time, wandering ever deeper in the forest, Davia’s brow grew ever more worried.
Finally, she spoke, “Lilianna, I am sorry, but should we be so far from the temple?”
“Why shouldn’t we? This is our wood, child.”
“Yes,” Davia answered, “but those who pursue me–”
The other postulants cut in at once. “You are pursued?”
Lilianna laughed, an airy sound without disdain. “Why don’t you tell your sisters the story,” she suggested.
Davia looked from the Maiden Sister to her peers, and sighed. With a deep breath, she poured into her tale.
“I am Archanian, this much you know. You must also know that all Gods save Kruss are outlawed in my homeland. An inquisition has come to pass, and my family was targeted. My father said it was another merchant family that sent word to the Church. My ancestors have long been followers of the Goddess Ordra, and her blood flows within us, part of an elven heritage that lies beyond the reach of memory.
“We lived not in a city, but in a village of some four hundred folk, and the church was stronger by far than the guilds and even the Lord. The Priest raised a mob, sent them to our home. We fled into the night with what we could carry and watched our house burn from the woods before making for Ancorra, where we thought we could hide with family.
“But the Church sent an inquisitor. One day in the summer, my mother went to market, and never returned. We learned that a woman called Nicoletta had taken her to the basilica, and Father went that night to free her, with a band of mercenaries he had hired with the last of our coin.
“The next day, my mother was burned at a stake in the basilica garden. I do not know what happened to my father. My cousins sent me at once to Rallana, secreted away on a trade ship, but soon enough that woman, Nicoletta came there too. It was in the back of a wagon off the road out of Rallana that I dreamt of this place, and so I came. My family set me on a ship north, and I thought that I would be free from pursuit, but after only three days, there were sails on the horizon behind us. We stayed ahead of the ship, but they came into port only an hour after us. In Matha, I was taken to the Ranger’s Hold, and they have escorted me ever since, though we barely made it out of your capital alive.”
Davia’s new sisters listened intently through this telling. Though she had tried to relate only the facts, her head swam with tiny, terrifying details. Her face was writ with agony, and Lilianna took her into a long embrace.
The other postulants stood in silence, contemplating. When the Maiden-Sister released her charge and stepped away, wiping a tear from her eye, Mairi spoke.
“We will protect you, Sister,” she said simply.
“We swear it,” Iseabheal said.
A hundred yards away, up on the ridge and hidden in the boughs of a fir tree, the ranger and his apprentice smiled at one another.
***
At the Ran
ger’s Rest, Nicoletta and her squad of Crimson Band mercenaries took an early lunch. The innkeep served them well enough, but Nicoletta saw something behind his smile. It was no disdain for outsiders; he was an innkeep, after all. She wouldn’t let it bother her, being certain she could take the better part of the village on single-handedly.
She had rented a room, and her men had stowed the bulk of their equipment there. Among them, only she remained fully armed. The others bore only their expedition daggers, heavy knives with just over a foot of blade, deadly as any sword in trained hands.
As they finished their meal, the door opened. A gust of chilly air accompanied two more Archanians into the common room.
“Donaro, Ambra. Good to welcome you,” she said, rising to greet them.
Donaro DuCorvanna was tall and lean, well-muscled in spite of advancing years. His close-cropped brown hair ran to gray, matching pale eyes. He wore a white tabard with the solar symbol of Kruss emblazoned in golden thread over bronze chain. Another symbol hung from his neck, encrusted with diamonds from distant Mornaya. A third hung from his belt, combining iconology and armament; the heavy morning star was a thick disk of bronze ringed round with blackened steel spikes. His left hand cradled a Gracian helm with a crest of white horse hair. A gold-plated shield hung from his back.
Ambra Belarra was subdued by comparison in her chainmail and plate armor of steel. Though etched with gold and bearing the same symbol, she wore it with humility. A great sword, almost as tall as she, hung across her back, and two shorter blades adorned her hips. Her smile was wide and bright across a heart-shaped face framed in full brown hair and inset with glittering blue eyes. Nicoletta could not help but admire her athletic hourglass figure, and knew without looking that her men did likewise. Broad-shouldered and ample, Ambra was the kind of woman Archanian painters used for models.
Nicoletta called for more wine and welcomed them to her table.
“It is a bitter land, is it not?” Donaro asked in his usual tone, deep and disdainful.
Nicoletta nodded. “Your journey?”
“It was fine,” Ambra cut in. The Bladebearer knew better than to let her companion get a word in, edgewise or by the blunt. His dour attitude could make children cry at a hundred paces. It rarely improved, and never in public.
“The seas were a bit choppy,” she went on as Donaro’s mouth opened. “Still, there were lovely dawns! How have you fared?”
Nicoletta tapped her sergeant’s boot with her own. The mercenaries rose one by one and relocated to the bar, ordering drinks. Leaning in over the table, she reported succinctly. They had not prevented the child from entering the pagan temple, two rangers defended her, and now she was within the chapel. The rangers surely lingered nearby.
Having served the Crimson Band soldiers at the bar, Tuomas excused himself to the kitchen, where he gathered an iron pot of lard. Glancing often over his shoulder, he added a few spoonfuls of pepper and stirred. He opened the oven door, placed the pot over the coals, and banked a few logs up around it.
***
As the sun retreated toward the sea, Kestyrn Grieve stayed with the priestesses while his master had a look about. Shortly came a certain bird call, and the apprentice tore his eyes away from Davia and met Torchael back up on the ridge.
“Tuomas the innkeep has sent warning. It is likely that the Crimson Band have come to Matharden. Be ready, boy. There will be trouble.”
“What are we to do?” Kestyrn’s brow was untroubled, but there was a tremor in his voice.
“What should any polite fellow do, lad? We’ll ask them to leave.”
***
After the priestesses had returned to the temple, Torchael led his apprentice to the inn where they entered to a chorus of mercenaries singing some rowdy Archanian tune. As the door closed behind them, the noise dwindled. The three servants of Kruss, inquisitor, priest, and paladin, rose to meet the rangers.
“Well met, travelers,” Torchael said quietly.
“And you, rangers,” Ambra answered, her voice strong but sweet. “Would you sit with us?”
“No,” Torchael said flatly. He took them in for a long moment with his cold gray eyes. “We have not the time,” he continued. “I thought it best to be fair, though.”
“Fair?” spat Donaro. “What matters your fairness to me?”
“I’d guess it matters a great deal. My fairness is more than mere courtesy. I am Torchael of Amhain, a Ranger of the Crownguard. I speak with the authority of the throne and the voice of the Gods.”
Donaro bristled, but Ambra laid a calming hand over his forearm. Nicoletta only smiled.
“This temple will remain holy so long as one follower stands. Your country-woman has been called to our service, and we will stand by her. My order will defend her against you and your troops night and day, and the church of Morgaine will flock to her defense, and the druids and elves will tarry where roads pass to keep you from her. My entire nation stands at her side. You have what? A handful of mercenaries?”
Donaro broke away, surging forward to stand chest to chest with the smaller man.
“We have the power of God, heathen! We have the might of the sun! We have the will to die in light’s service.”
“It will not be enough,” the ranger answered quietly.
When the Archanian went for his morning star, it seemed for a moment as though battle would ensue. Kestyrn drew his short sword, and suddenly everyone in the room brandished a knife or sword save three. Tuomas kneeled behind his heavy bar with a crossbow, shaking his head at the mercenaries, who halted their surge. Ambra and Nicoletta drew steel, as well, but only watched what transpired.
As Donaro raised his weapon, the smaller ranger stepped into him obliquely and drove a knee into the priest’s inner thigh. Torchael moved through as the priest toppled backward and squatted over him, dagger at his throat.
Just as quickly, the ranger rose, stepped away and sheathed his dagger.
“I cannot say for your companions, Archanian, but your will troubles not me.”
Kestyrn suppressed a laugh.
“We are going now, and I recommend you take your men and do likewise. Go home. You will not have Davia Mollari.” Kestyrn took his cue and stepped backward out the door, holding it open for his master.
He could not help but notice the slender woman hiding her laughter in her hands as the other helped their irate companion to his feet. As the door closed, a hail of furious Archanian battered it. The rangers had only the basics of Archanian, the trader’s tongue, but it was enough to know that the priest had no compunction against profanity.
The wake of the rangers’ appearance was massive. Tuomas quietly secreted his crossbow under the bar, checking that his long knife remained in its accustomed place at his hip. As he stood, Nicoletta approached.
“Let’s have another round, innkeep,” she ordered. Hearing the offer, the mercenaries gathered around her.
“No hard feelings, aye, gentlemen?” Nicoletta said. They agreed, though a pair of younger soldiers continued to glare. Tuomas knew there would be no trouble.
“Staying the night?” he asked the woman.
“It looks that way,” she replied.
“I have pillows if your men will be in the common room.”
“That will be just fine,” she said with a smile. The mercenaries groaned facetiously before wandering back to their tables.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she asked the old man.
“A ranger, you mean? I was, once. Now I’m just an innkeep who doesn’t need any more troubles.”
“Well,” the woman said with a wicked grin, “let’s hold that course, shall we?”
Tuomas nodded. He had been in more than one delicate situation during his career. While he would prefer peaceful company, these Archanians were shuffling coins, and so long as they remained at the Ranger’s Rest, he could keep an eye on them.
Once the mercenaries bedded down and their three masters retired,
Tuomas went about dusting the bar. Only a small oil lamp supported the fire’s glow, and by its flicker he double-checked his every precaution. A tripvine bundle in this drawer, a silver dagger behind that bottle, and hollywater in the other; such were his numerous defenses, scattered all over the inn, and for that matter the town itself. He was not the only one.
CHAPTER FIVE
The days that followed were a tense procession. For Davia, they began with prayers before breakfast and ended with a head full of lore and craft. She sat in her bed long hours after sharing a simple supper with her sisters, contemplating the day’s many lessons.
The differences between Archanian and Marienna culture were extreme. Many conventions and comportments mixed in the island empire, but had come together so long ago that the dominant order was well established. Marien was different. The three kingdoms had been united for only a few generations; and even so the islanders of Ardann, the Mathaens who occupied the fertile forested hills, and the Gwaels of the mountains still kept largely to themselves. For Davia, all three ways of life were alien.
But her connection came through the goddess, who shared the wonder and joy of all creation through the girl’s prayers, so often answered, and the very world in which she walked.
She had learned much of her sisters, with whom she spent nigh every waking hour. Iseabheal was much like many Archanian girls she had known, haughty and intemperate, but with growing awareness of others’ hearts and minds. The blonde Mathaen had come from the capital and a prestigious family. Such was the way of wealth, Davia knew, that it made callous fools of most.
Mairi was unlike anyone in Davia’s life. She was quiet and strong, she wasted no words, and her devotion inspired even the Crone-Sister. Davia wanted so badly to befriend her, but was daunted; Mairi seemed more than a girl. Not a boy, by any means, but something distant and great like a statue overlooking formidable straights.