“You wouldn’t ride as Jania rode, then?” Garen’s tone was light, but his gaze was not. If not for the medicine, he wouldn’t have spoken thus.
“Jania rode these ridges,” I said, “and these valleys. She did not ride in some stranger’s land.”
Abruptly, Garen grabbed my hand. “Nara,” he said, “You must not be silent again. I must always hear your voice.”
“Always?” I laughed, trying to make it a joke. “If the God and Goddess grant us years enough together, you might regret that.”
“Always,” he said, and he did not laugh.
Garen will not tell you this. Perhaps I should not tell you either.
But his serious voice made me feel strange, shy as the day we met. “I will not be silent,” I promised. And then, shyer still, I said, “I wish something, too.”
“What do you wish?” Garen asked, even though he need not do anything on account of my wishes.
“I wish to hear your voice. I wish—to hear you sing.” He never had, you see, in all the months I’d been here.
“My voice is no gift from the God,” Garen said.
“I wish to hear it, just the same.”
So he sang the hymn from our wedding day. His voice was rough, and off-key, and perfect. I added my high voice to his low one, and as we sang together, I knew there was in truth a bond between us, and that it was not like other bonds.
You say the gods have put this thing between Garen and me. I do not know your gods. I know only one Goddess, who is lost and seeks a way home; and one God, who has offered her shelter and longs to keep her forever by his side. Yet nothing is forever; one day the Goddess will return home. One day Garen and I will be parted, for a time at least. If Garen leaves first, my only comforts will be my songs and my land, and even they will not be enough. Yet that parting will not be this day, and that matters more than any story can say.
But then, I do not know how to tell a story. I only know how to sing.
Garen does not know how to sing. But he is learning.
FINDING ELVIDA
by Mickey Zucker Reichert
Mickey Zucker Reichert is the author of such masterful DAW fantasy novels as
Beyond Ragnarok, Prince of Demons,
and
The Children of Wrath
(
The Renshai Chronicles
trilogy),
The Last of the Renshai, The Western Wizard,
and
Child of Thunder
(
The Last of the Renshai
trilogy),
The Bifrost Guardians
series,
The Legend of Nightfall, Flightless Falcon,
and
The Unknown Soldier,
her debut science fiction novel for DAW. She is also the coauthor (with
Jennifer Wingert
) of the spellbinding fantasy novel,
Spirit Fox
. Mickey lives in Iowa with her husband and three of their children, and divides her time between her family, her writing, teaching at the local university, and the assorted livestock.
ASWORD crashed against Elvida’s with a force that nearly unseated her from Raynor’s saddle. Trusting the Companion to tend to balance, she put her full concentration into harmlessly redirecting the strike. Her riposte followed naturally, training drummed into habit by Weaponsmaster Altorin. Her blade struck flesh with a sickening tear. Pain thrummed through her hands, her enemy a target more solid than mock combat had prepared her to expect. Blood splashed, throwing red spots and squiggles across Raynor’s snowy neck and her own silvery gray uniform. The man collapsed, and a bitter thread of bile clawed its way up Elvida’s throat.
Cursing the dark curls that obscured her vision, Elvida wasted a motion tossing them from her eyes. She followed the sound of bridle bells to find the other two Companions, Tabnar and Leahleh, together. Surrounded by a mass of unmounted enemies, Herald Sharylle and her partner Anthea flailed wildly through the press. Scarlet splattered their Herald Whites and their faces, and the warriors bayed at them like blood-sick hounds.
Open for the moment, Elvida suffered a moment of terror. Her first mission was supposed to be routine, a leisurely ride through the Holdings, hauling a single cart. They would plant soaproot and blue bells, help organize the restocking of Waystations, and gather information to assure nothing troublesome was brewing just beyond the kingdom. Instead, danger had found them, in the form of a small and, as yet, unidentified army. One that clearly hated Heralds.
Sharylle screamed in clear agony. Her Companion plummeted, and both disappeared beneath the wild mass of warriors.
“No!” Elvida shouted, her cry lost beneath Anthea’s louder one, raw with a pain so desperate and primeval it stopped the assault long enough for her to disengage as well.
“This way!” Anthea called out, and her Companion wheeled suddenly toward Elvida. “The cave.”
Elvida remembered the dark hole they had passed earlier that day. Dank and jagged, it had seemed to radiate a chill that spiraled through her marrow, so unlike the myriad welcoming Waystations that had brought the three women and their Companions through so many warm, safe nights. Elvida had relished the camaraderie, opening up to the Heralds in ways she had never dared to in the past. For the first time in her life, she had felt as if she had real sisters, though she also found herself envying the bond the Heralds shared.
Raynor reared, spun, and galloped toward the cave. The suddenness of the movement added to Elvida’s gastric distress. Mentally, she suffered her own terror, the rage of the enemies, and the deep, hellish agony of Anthea together. The mixture made her desperately ill. Leaning forward, she vomited, trying not to further soil Raynor or herself. It felt silly to concern herself with hygiene at a time when it seemed abundantly clear: They were all going to die.
Raynor’s slender, muscular legs carried them at a speed the unmounted warriors could never hope to match. Apparently reading her terror, her Companion sent waves of encouragement that did not fool Elvida. Without the magical strength to Mindspeak, his Herald-in-training was limited to empathic communication, but she had learned that well. Raynor could try, but he would never wholly hide that his own courage was a thin veneer masking a fear nearly as strong as her own.
Leahleh loosed a frantic whinny, followed by a cry from Anthea. Raynor whirled in time to show Elvida that the Herald had fallen. Leahleh stomped and snorted, her empty stirrups flying, attempting to hold a band of men with waving swords at bay. Elvida saw no sign of Anthea. Where is she? Where is she?
Raynor nickered in question.
Elvida glanced around frantically, knowing every moment wasted meant one less in flight. She knew Sharylle and Tabnar were dead; Anthea would never have abandoned her partner if any hope remained. Now, Elvida searched for some radiating emotion that would assure her the remaining Herald still lived. Nothing came to Elvida’s mental senses, but her wildly leaping gaze did eventually land on Anthea. The woman lay among the stones, blood trickling from one ear. Though clearly unconscious, her chest still rose and fell in obvious, living breaths.
Leahleh whinnied in agony.
“She’s alive!” Elvida jerked Raynor’s left rein. “We have to save her.”
Raynor did not hesitate, speeding back toward the fray while Elvida wrestled her own decision. Magically Giftless, she had honed her weapons and Empathy skills, but she had little hope of standing against even two armed men, let alone several dozen. Nevertheless, while a Herald lived, she had no choice but to attempt a rescue.