A Woman Warrior Born Read online

Crossing the empty gather-hall that served the Tomeguard who lived there, Breea paused at the doors to the hall’s kitchen. The old master cook, Pecu, waved his arms at boys and girls in plain tunics who were streaming into the kitchen. They knew what he wanted, and ran to stoke fires, fill cauldrons, and away on a dozen missions. Some few noticed her in the doorway, halting to stare with wide eyes.

  Breea turned away. Her mind’s eye was filled with the memory of a guard’s chest crumpling beneath Bay-ope’s ax with a sound like the breaking of a handful of twigs. An ax flashing as it flew, biting deep into a fleeing priest’s back. Bay-ope’s swift but calm retrieval of the weapon, putting a foot to the man’s back, bracing the body as he pulled the blade out with a sucking sound like a boot leaving mud.

  Across the hall behind her, elite guards entered. Guardians sent by Ajalay, no doubt. One approached bearing her father’s journal, and bowed, offering her the tome. When she took it, he retreated to a respectful distance. Never before had an elite guardsman bowed to her. She stared at them, then walked from the hall through the door farthest from them.

  At a junction of passages, the sweet scents of horse dung and hay reached through the tight blankness that gripped her. She followed the smells to the south-wall stable, pushing open its door. Five hundred stalls stretched away beneath lantern-lit arches. Down the stable, horse heads emerged. Walking to Letet, Breea hugged her horse’s neck. After a while, Letet began to fidget, lifting her head out of Breea’s embrace, and pushing against the stall door. She turned her head and eyed the stall latch.

  The elite following her took positions at the far stable door.

  Breea sighed and rubbed her horse’s head. "Later, r’hame," she said.

  Returning to the library, Breea ascended the great stair. At the top she waited for her escort to appear around its curve, and then made the silent sign for them to stop and retreat. The man in the lead paused, then acknowledged, backing down the stair.

  Breea found the small stair leading up to the observation tower that rose from the highest peak of Limtir’s roof. The spiral was pitch black, but Breea knew every step. At the top, she opened the door and froze.

  A lone Tomeguard stood silhouetted by the watch fires burning on the towers of the wall. Breea was disappointed, but she should have known the tower would be manned while Limtir was under the drum.

  The figure turned, and said, "Fair evening."

  "Taumea?"

  She stepped out without closing the door. The remains of a small meal lay on the ledge next to a set of empty tea bowls.

  He followed her gaze, and said, "Valiena."

  Breea looked at him sidelong, "On watch?"

  "A husband has duties more significant than watch and battle, or so speak certain women."

  Breea felt her spirits began to rise. "She brings you truth?"

  "Indeed. As you with Ambard."

  Loneliness cut through Breea.

  Sensing it, Taumea changed the subject. "Your shoulder?"

  "Good," she said, looking at the tea bowls. There were three.

  "We have been waiting for you."

  "Here?"

  "Where else to find you but in ‘Breea’s Tower’?"

  Breea blinked.

  "You must know," said Taumea. "Lovetorn guardsmen have been requesting watch duty here for years in the hope of meeting the tower’s owner."

  As aware as she was of the affections of some, she had no idea that her movements were so watched that a place could acquire her name. There was only one man...but she must not think of him now. As a girl, the tower had been her sanctuary. Despite its peaked roof and broad eaves, the tower was so exposed to wind and weather that few visited it except when the drum demanded its manning.

  A west wind swept past, hissing softly through the battlements. On the air were mountain scents, rock dust with a hint of sun warmth, alpine meadows, and the spice of ancient, gnarled fir trees. Her gaze soared into the night, westward over the mountains, across the Timaret Plains to the Leuvat Sea, over its stormy waters, and all the way to the city of Yash, capital of the priest-ruled Yasharn realm, unimaginably distant and mysterious to Breea, who had never traversed any of the passes leading from Limtir Valley. Lands she had only read about, animals strange and beautiful, cities from songs sung by those who brought gifts for knowledge. Stories told in the Study Hall on deep winter nights by traveling scholars. Yash, where there was a priest who had seen her future.

  "I am leaving," she said.

  Taumea didn’t move. He was thinking now with that special intentness that was his. It had marked him as a boy, stock-still staring at a thing while he considered its import. First days, earning his bread at Limtir by hauling the great piles of manure that hundreds of horses made, the stable boys mistook the quiet pause for dimness of character. After he had bloodied them, teaching them that stillness was not to be equated with unawareness, they brought their elder brothers to revenge their defeats. He bloodied them as well. Some of those were Tomeguard apprentices. Bay-ope took him in then, raising him as a son, placing him in the guard.

  He said finally, "Where will you go?"

  "Yash."

  Breea pulled her arms tight around her father’s journal, and tried to see the future through the darkness.

  "Valiena and I will accompany you."

  A voice behind them asked, "Where?"

  Valiena glided up to Taumea, kissed him, and set a cloth-wrapped pot of tea on the ledge. They locked eyes for a moment, and Breea sensed a conversation in their gazes, a decision agreed.

  Valiena took a cloak from her arm and draped it around Breea’s shoulders, saying in her plainswoman accent, "It has been an age of moons." She poured a bowl of tea for each of them, and said, "What travel?"

  Cradling the warm bowl, Breea said, "I am going to Yash."

  Valiena jerked, spilling tea.

  Taumea turned back to his watch.

  Both women knew this was his way of letting them discuss and decide. Valiena took Breea’s arm, and they left the tower. The pair passed down through the library and across the east courtyard to the gate wall. Inside, Tomeguard were everywhere, and all they hailed Valiena. A cook in the kitchens of Limtir, she had access to fine foods that guardsmen rarely tasted, it being reserved for upper sanis scholars, or those visiting scholars, such as the Meric Loremen, who could afford what she created. When there was a surplus, she brought it home, making her a very popular figure.

  Valiena and Taumea’s chambers were warm and almost dark, the only light coming from a heap of embers in the hearth.

  "We’ll get a six-room when Taumea receives his lieutenant’s horn," said Valiena.

  Nodding, Breea thought of all the empty chambers in Limtir now. Valiena paused as the same thought took hold. Breea took off the cloak she wore as Valiena disappeared into the bedroom, returning with two gold chalices and a crystal bottle half full of dark-purple liquid.

  Lifting the bottle with care, she said, "Loosh port, from Lawiss-Isswarn. I traded two swans baked in my sweet spiced glaze, and four curried marmots from the Urtchra hills for this."

  They pulled a tall stack of furs from a corner and arranged them like reclining thrones in front of the hearth. Valiena lit a small lamp, and Breea took off her boots and daggers. Her friend unlaced her own fur-lined shoes, throwing them beside the door to the hall, and they both settled into the soft skins.

  Breea stretched her toes at the warmth from the open hearth that heated both rooms. Valiena unbraided her pale hair, and shook it out. It was hair the color of ripe straw that had first caught Taumea’s eye. It glowed in the dim orange light as Valiena carefully poured the port, and handed a chalice to Breea.

  They raised their cups, and Valiena gave the toast that had begun their companionship. "Our friendship, illuminated by Opalah."

  "Bright ways," said Breea.

  Breea swirled and sniffed the drink as Valiena had taught her. The scent reminded her of late-summer afternoons eating fruit and drinking honey wa
ter with her mother. She took a sip and sighed as flavors flowed over her tongue in a river of warmth.

  "It’s mystic," said Breea, and regretted her words, for they reminded her of the mystic powers of Ajalay, and her own as well. There was no escape. Even as she sat warm before a friendly hearth with her best friend, deep down heat seethed, waiting for an excuse to erupt in violence. She wondered how it was that she was not more fearful.

  Valiena sipped her port, closing her eyes, then said, "I think Bay-ope’s caught the moonstone for Ajalay."

  "Friends just. Since they were children."

  "You were not at the gathering a fortnight ago. He sang."

  "He always sings."

  "To Ajalay alone? I tell you, Bree, he drew out the light of her soul with that thunder voice."

  Breea shifted on the furs. Raised by her father with his conservative faith in Het, One God of Yash, she always envied Valiena’s openness and honesty in the realm of relationships and sexuality; and though she tried to emulate it, never felt successful. Sometimes, she wondered if that were the reason Ambard chose to leave her every season. Valiena had taught her much, all things Ambard seemed to appreciate with a lusty enthusiasm, but nothing was enough to keep him from leaving, or to let her go with him.

  Valiena cried, "I don’t think you’re hearing me." After sighing at the ceiling, she considered Breea. "My mother taught me that a moonbeam cannot alter her path, yet she illuminates all she touches, even if she does not know it."

  "Will you go with me?"

  "Always."

  Breea felt a rush of relief. Her friend smiled, though worry tightened the skin around her eyes.

  Valiena said, "I have a story you should know."

  Breea tucked furs so that she could sit higher. Valiena’s stories always had meaning. That she had one not yet shared was strange.

  Valiena set down her chalice and crossed her legs in the fashion of a Plainsfolk Teller. She looked into the fire and said, "This is my Lr’icune."

  Breea sat up. Only once in their friendship had Valiena mentioned Lr’icune. Two summers past they had secretly climbed Eagogan Peak on a moon-washed night to celebrate Breea’s first joining with Ambard. Valiena had shared then that each woman’s Lr’icune was her key to inner truth and ultimate destiny.

  "When I found myself in the Urtchra foothills after escaping the priest’s trackers, I had a dream. The vision came to me on the second dark night of Orhven month. With Opalah’s face turned away, I could not travel, and could not sleep until weariness subdued my fear. In my dream, a man-beast found me hiding in the hills on a dark night, and tried to rape me. I fought it, but it was stronger. As it overcame me, I saw Opalah shining from the snow of a high distant peak. Her light illuminated a chopping knife lying in the dirt beside me. The blade was, as I have told you other times, my only weapon stolen from the Temple’s kitchen.

  "I took it, glowing with moonlight, and cut the wolf-thing. I cut, and cut, and chopped. With the dawn came an army from the mountains, starving after long battle. Seeing their need, I took the mound of chopped flesh that was the beast to a pond, built a fire around the edge, and made a stew to feed the army. Strengthened, they returned to the mountains, but took me with them. When I awoke, I followed the path of the dream army, found Dachidfal’s Pass, and was taken by the gateguard to Limtir. The peak in my dream was Limtir Mountain. The woman who led that army was you."

  A chill started in the small of Breea’s back and spread to grip her body. Memories of six summers of friendship flooded her. She could not look at her friend, but began to understand much about Valiena.

  Breea said, "Your shock when you met my father. I thought it was him..."

  Valiena smiled, but her eyes were serious. "It is not every face of Opalah that you meet Lr’icuna." When Breea looked puzzled, Valiena said, "She who walks in Destiny. She who shapes the Lr’icune."

  Breea shook her head in denial, but the refusal seemed empty. A subtle rightness to Valiena’s words made her shiver inside.

  "Remember when I tried so hard to serve you? We have laughed many times about my first months at Limtir. I thought you were a young goddess, and I could not understand when you started asking me questions about the world outside the valley, and joining with a man, and how I braided my hair. I came to know you were a girl as I was, and there was much I knew which you did not. I am blessed in your friendship. Your love illuminates lands in me that even Taumea cannot. You gave him to me, though he could have been yours. He and you make me whole. I have been ready to journey with you since that morning in your father’s study. I can feel still, the whirling that cut me down when you walked into the room.

  "When I woke, I was shamed to have fainted before both Lr’icuna and the Tetr-Sanis of Limtir. I was so grateful my swoon did not cause him to send me away. He was not a man to tolerate weakness."

  "He knew you were strong. He knew then many things—perhaps even why you fainted." Breea opened her father’s journal. "He wrote this when I was very young." She read the first paragraph, and then the prophecy. Breea looked up from the book, and said, "I am going to find the priest who gave my Calling."

  Valiena nodded. "I thought sure you were Lr’icuna for the first few seasons. I missed my mother so desperately in that time. She would know how to treat you, know how I should behave. Without her, I turned, as I should have from the first, to the tales she taught me. One of my favorites was of a crippled and exiled girl who befriends an Urdjra. The Urdjra, she discovers, is a trapped Alach. When the girl helps the Alach regain her true form, she turns the girl into an immortal Urdjra to run free across the plains. I decided to treat you as an Alach in disguise, but I couldn’t continue to believe it when you were so much like me. When you won the Apprentice Division Tourney—then I remembered the leader in my dream.

  "After I caught the moonstone for Taumea, and we were trying never to be apart, I would tell him a tale afterward, trying never to repeat a story."

  "Yes, but only if you weren’t in the kitchen or a scholar’s study. Didn’t Ajalay catch you in the audience chamber? Yes, Hale made Taumea patrol the Goatpath all winter long!"

  Valiena said, "He never complained. I ran out of stories in a tenday."

  Counting how many "stories" that was a day made Breea flush. She waited for her friend to continue, but Valiena was looking into the fire, pale eyes distant. And determined. Abruptly, she got up and walked into the next room. There was the sound of something heavy being moved, then silence. In the quiet, Breea watched the coals glow, and felt the warmth of the port soothing her. She sent her thoughts west as she had on the watchtower. Through her fears she saw a wide plain from high vantage. Herds of beasts moved across its green-tan vastness. It was how she imagined the Timaret Plains, Valiena’s birthplace.

  Valiena returned from the bedroom with her hair tied back, and sat before Breea. Opening a leather-bound book on her crossed legs, she lay a hand on each page.

  "There was no story to guide me, so I realized I must be living one in having Lr’icuna as a friend. Lr’icuna, you speak, I will be there, and these pages shall enlighten. You ride, I will follow, and these pages shall smell the dust. You battle, I will follow, and these pages shall weep. Your illuminated path shall not go unreflected."

  A lance of emotion sliced Breea, and cold flowed into the wound. The Valiena that Breea knew did not write stories about friends, and did not keep such secrets. There was an unknown person sitting across from her now. Breea stood.

  Fear took hold in Valiena’s eyes. She dropped the book, and followed after Breea.

  "Please don’t leave. I am your friend. I am."

  She took one of Breea’s hands in both of hers.

  Breea simply stood. So many wounds were open in her, all the way back to her mother’s vanishing, and all written in that leather-bound book. The book written by the one person who knew every deep secret she had.

  Valiena read the betrayal in Breea’s eyes and dropped her hand. The plainswoman walked
away to where the book lay. She bent for it, then stepped toward the fire.

  "No," spoke Breea, not knowing why.

  Valiena took another step, but Breea intercepted her and took the tome. Her friend’s gaze begged the forgiveness that Breea knew she would never ask. Breea handed the book back to her friend and said, "A moonbeam cannot change her path, only illuminate what she touches."

  New tears streaked Valiena’s face, but her back was straight as she held the tome to her chest. Voice rough, she asked, "When do we leave?"

  Breea hugged her. She felt the warmth of their friendship again, but felt also the hardness of the book between them.

  Breea said, "In the morning."

  "Will you sleep here?"

  It was a common thing for them when the talk ran late. Looking at one another, they both needed it as well. Breea nodded. They sat, added wood to the fire, and by mutual consent talked of their men, lamenting flaws and praising in the same breath.

  Valiena stood and pounced on her shoes, shoving them on her feet. Breea understood, and tugged on her boots. Taumea should have left watch and been home long ago. Slamming open the door in their haste, they strode into the hallway.

  Taumea lay sleeping on his back a few strides down the hall, cloak folded as a pillow, hands resting on his belly. His eyes opened at their approach, and he smiled, but Breea saw that he watched them carefully, Valiena especially.

  As he and Valiena prepared for bed, Breea arranged the furs in the living room for sleeping. She heard a short whispered conversation, but forced herself not to hear what was said.

  In the morning, she woke to a softly snapping fire. This day she would ride away from everything she knew. She rolled over to see Taumea looking at her through the fireplace as he lifted the lid of a pot hanging in the flames. They exchanged a brief smile. He was already dressed in the Tomeguard’s travel uniform of dark-green and rust-red woolens. She heard Valiena whisper, "Is the water hot?"

  "I am awake," said Breea.

  Valiena swept into the room with two thick riding cloaks and a bridle over one arm. She wore a long brick-red blouse of soft, warm material gathered at the waist with a finely worked belt, tan riding breeches, and her favorite travel boots. Her hair was a knot-work braid that shortened her hair suitably for travel. She dropped all but one cloak onto a pile of saddlebags and armor by the door, and gave Breea a questioning look.

  Breea nodded at her; all was well between them and, yes, Breea still intended to leave.

  Valiena said, "I’ll meet you at the stables."

  Breea dressed, and belted on her daggers.

  "She will stop by the kitchens for provisions and farewells," said Taumea, entering with bread and bowls for tea.

  As they shared tea and bread, they did not speak. Was flight like this the right way? When she considered reasons to stay, an almost wild need to escape greeted her at every turn. Limtir had become a windowless room, and yet there were a thousand unfinished things. Who of her friends lay wounded in the infirmaries? Who lay still on the cool slabs of the Spirit Hall? And her studies, was she to abandon all hope of sanis? How could she leave without speaking to Ambard?

  At a knock at the door, Taumea rose to greet a young guardsman who handed him Breea’s cloak, bow, quiver, and sling.

  "Messages delivered, sir."

  Taumea nodded and closed the door.

  Sight of the bow brought a vision of the white beast charging, sword arcing in, and she seemed to smell his rotted scent. Echoes of pain and terror rippled through her, and she stood, fists clenched.

  Taumea caught her gaze, and they stood thus until Breea willed herself calm. His dark eyes were serious as he watched her reach out and take the bow from him.

  The texture of hand-polished wood and bone brought with it memory of years of proud use. She caressed it, reaffirming. This is mine. I made it. It protects and is protected by me. I am alive and he is dead.

  Taumea watched as she walked the Warrior’s Road, passing the marker cairn on that path where the memories of your deeds were themselves a battle.

  At the finish of their meal, they hefted saddlebags, cuirass and chainmail, and headed for the stables. As they crossed the east muster hall, empty except for a man at each door, Bay-ope’s voice bellowed after them.

  "Gods vomit! Halt, you twain."

  They turned to see him striding over, the sound of his boots echoing through the hall. The massive muscles of his legs shivered beneath his leather breeches with each stride. His fingers were curled as his arms swung, on the edge of becoming fists.

  Growling, he asked, "What is this mutiny?"

  Breea did not think he was joking.

  Taumea saluted with a crisp bow and replied, "Captain, I go where Valiena Anfannala goes, and Valiena follows Breea. Breea seeks answers beyond these walls. I follow to guard them."

  Breea was about to explain, but tensed as the force of the men’s wills collided in a silent thunderclap. Bay-ope’s eyes glinted, and Breea stepped back.

  "With your soul, Lieutenant," said the captain.

  An affirmation passed between them, an oath of honor debt, an agreement that bound not only the two men, but her as well; but before she could sort what had been promised and acknowledged, Bay-ope turned to her with a fatherly smile. With a single stride he closed with her and lifted her into his arms as he used to when she was little. Bow and cloak were awkward in her hands she hugged him around the neck, and felt as small as a mouse on a bear’s back, and as safe.

  "Show them," he said, "what it means to be a Banea and a Limtirian."

  He kissed her forehead and set her down.

  Between the two warriors she walked into the stable, where Ajalay was waiting, hands to hips.

  "Beyond perfect sympathy with your character, what have you to justify this?"

  Within Breea a whirl of fire rose in answer. A hand strayed to her chest as she forced it back.

  Watching, Ajalay said with affirmation, "Thus." Turning, she ordered, "Come beneath the sky."

  Breea set down her cloak, bow, and chainmail and followed Ajalay out onto the open courtyard between wall and library. The eastern sky was bright, and the cloud that clung to the top of the mountain glowed at its apex as though fire burned within it.

  In the Tetr’s wake, anger at being denied her own choices achieved a peak that would let Breea challenge her mentor. Ajalay whirled and planted herself. Breea stumbled to a stop.

  "Take off those daggers."

  Breea did as she was told. The Tetr indicated that she should drop them. Breea set them on the flagstone, then stepped back from the flow of heat that poured from Ajalay. Belt and sheaths blackened and flared in a burst of flames that left only ash. Metal shimmered orange, then flowed onto the stone. The sapphire pommel stones resting in the pool of molten metal glowed, then began to flame so whitely that Breea had to look away. After a moment it was done, and all that remained was a wide glowing place on the stone.

  Breea felt their loss. She had killed Lupazg with those blades. But she understood. You do not keep gifts from one who betrays. Ajalay shrugged open her cloak and lifted a pair of long, graceful daggers in black leather sheaths. Their pommel stones were round emeralds larger than any Breea had seen. She took them, felt almost no weight, and recognized the weapons as ones from behind the hidden wall. Ajalay indicated with a nod that Breea should put them on. As she buckled the belt, she felt comfortable, safer, but not in a defensive sense. Safer because nothing could bar her way. A honed edge of purpose tingled in her muscles.

  "May you never need them," said the Tetr-Sanis. "Breea Banea, I declare you Scholar of the First Order. You are Sanis."

  Around Breea’s neck she hung the silver-wrought open book on a knot-work thread that was the symbol of Scholar attainment. A stain of guilt tarnished Breea’s joy. She had not taken the tests. The Tetr-Sanis lifted Breea’s face. Aja looked older and more like the woman Breea knew as she declared, "You have passed trials enough. There is one thing mor
e I must teach you. You must control your power. I am sending with you two books of weaving. No. Fear nothing for me. You will need them more than I. The most important of them is boundaries. They are the techniques of control and cloaking. There are natural boundaries within you, just as the power is. What do you think is keeping it within you at this moment?"

  Startled, Breea wondered how much Aja knew about the flame.

  The Tetr replied to the unspoken question. "I can feel you. At distance. You must learn to create further boundaries before you weave. You know the simplest. It is the foundation of all further work. Add this. Listen."

  Warmth flowed, a stream of essence power. Ajalay drew her will around it just so, and the flow vanished.

  "Now you. Within."

  Breea tried, and felt cooler as the fires were banked. The technique was simple.

  "Good."

  A scholar delivered four tomes to Breea’s arms.

  Ajalay touched the top tome and said, "Boundaries." Laying fingers on the spine of the second she said, "Weaves of war. To learn them you must know Abitalen. Here is a chronicle of early Limtir, and this a translation with the basic Abitalen lexicon as well. Master boundaries before you consider wielding essence in battle.

  "There is so much of the outer world that I would teach you. You know less than a wanderer’s trisk for travel in the outer world. In other ways you are..." Her mouth twisted. "Aptly suited to the Wanderer’s Way. Forces are moving in the world, Breea, and all is changing. The Kaul have invaded Mericsland. The Yasharn have embarked upon Conversion. The baseness and cunning of the current priesthood must never be underestimated. Their lens on worth is more mirror than window, and it reflects a twisted, vicious heart. Seek our people wherever you go, for they alone will aid you without recompense. All others will ask a price, and not always in coin. Remember, in the city of Yash, women are forbidden weapons. Hide yours."

  Breea sensed that Ajalay was talking about more than her daggers.

  Friends were gathering, looking worried and bewildered. Someone had saddled Letet for her, and she felt disoriented and emotional. Valiena came across the courtyard from the library kitchens, followed by two kitchen girls laden with bundles of supplies, and spied the Sanis Scholar necklace on Breea’s chest. With a cry of happiness, she rushed to hug Breea.

  "I knew my help with all that studying would bless you!"

  As Breea accepted congratulations from Bay-ope and others, Taumea and Valiena lashed books and supplies to an already laden packhorse, then mounted their own steeds. Breea took Letet’s reins and mounted. Pecu, the old master cook, appeared by her boot and handed up a cloth-wrapped bundle, then squeezed her knee with a gnarled hand. Yavay’adil gave her a beaded bag she knew to be a healer’s kit. Without ceremony, Bay-ope handed Taumea a lieutenant’s horn. On the back of its polished curve, gold inlay shaped a ring of blades around an open book.

  "There are few beyond these walls," said Bay-ope, "who know the sound of this horn, but they who do will come when it calls."

  Taumea bowed in the saddle. Bay-ope gripped forearms with Taumea, then with Breea, and nodded to Valiena. Breea turned Letet and rode for the gate. Tomeguard manning the gate towers stared down at her as she waited for all three sets of massive portals to open. Back straight under their eyes, she rode through the gatehouse tunnel and into pale gold sunlight.

  At midspan on the bridge over Wisdom’s Water, she stopped Letet to take in the view southward. Her gaze ranged over the forested hills of the Gamanthea-Dur Su below. Beyond lay hazy plains of green-gold. Here and there loops of river shimmered in the sun like discarded sabers. The end of the valley was lost in a pale distance of bright air. Letet looked down the road, and took a step. Breea held her in place with a small lean back. A tremor of irritation rippled through the horse, but she held her place.

  Breea felt light. She looked to her friends to share it, and they nodded to her. Staring at them, it came to her that the path was hers. She was lead. First among friends.

 

  Chapter 4

  B’feu