The others were smiling now; Tamar, the only other woman, grinned widely. Giron shook his head again, but relaxed. “I see you have wit enough, at least. And you are brave, if you would walk back alone. How would you eat?”
Paks grinned. “Well, sir—if I could not forage something, I must go hungry, but that’s nothing new.”
“Hmmph. Can you use a longbow?”
“I have used one. I would not claim to be an expert in it.”
“You were a swordfighter, I heard.”
“Yes.”
“How long since you last fought?”
“Something more than half a year.”
“Tamar, lend her your blade; it’s the lightest we have here.” Tamar came forward, and drew her sword for Paks to take. She offered it over her wrist, in the elven way.
Paks felt her heart pounding. Could she? She wrapped her hand around the hilt, and sent a mental cry to Gird: Protector of warriors, help me now, or never. After so long, the sword felt strange as she hefted it. She turned her hand minutely, and felt it settle into her palm. There. At least she would not drop it. She heard the soft ringing of steel as Giron drew his own blade. When she looked up, he was eyeing her.
“I would see your skill, before deciding,” he said. “I will not speak of rumor, but I must know what you are.” He took a step forward. For an instant, Paks was sure she would bolt. Her vision wavered, and her breath stuck in her throat. She clamped her hand on the sword, and tried to think of Gird. The Kuakgan’s voice came instead: courage is going on. She nodded abruptly, and came to meet Giron.
With the clash of the blades her mind seemed to clear a little. Her arm moved of itself, countering his first slow strokes. She could tell they were slow, could tell that he intended to probe no more than he had to. He moved a little faster. She watched the play of his wrist, remembering slowly what it meant. If this, then that. The elbow bent so allows the angle here—she met each stroke squarely. It felt as if she were learning all over again: she had to think about almost every move. More came back to her; she tried a thrust past his guard. Blocked: but he looked surprised. So was she. Her body moved less stiffly, the sword began to feel natural in her hand again. He circled; she turned to meet him. Her feet shifted without her thought. Again he circled, and speeded his attack. She was frightened now, but pushed the panic down, and blocked each thrust with a grunt of effort. Only think of the strokes, she told herself. Only that. Her left foot came down on a stone, and she lost her rhythm momentarily. His blade raked her arm, leaving a narrow line of blood. She caught his next thrust on her blade and blocked it. He stepped back.
“Enough.” He looked at her with new respect. “You need practice, but you have plenty of skill to draw on. We use the sword little; bows are more use in the woods. But you are welcome to stay with us.”
Paks heard, but did not answer at once. She felt dizzy with relief: she had not dropped the sword, had not run away, had not fainted. The slash on her arm stung, but did not bother her; it was not pain she had feared.
“Are you all right?” he asked. She looked up.
“Oh yes. Well enough. It has been a long time, that’s all.” She looked for Tamar, and held out the sword. “I thank you for the use of it; it’s a fine blade, indeed.”
“A family weapon,” said Tamar, smiling. “It was my aunt’s before me, and her mother’s before that.” Paks thought of old Kanas’s sword that hung over her father’s mantle. “Here—” She took out of her pouch a little jar and a roll of cloth. “Clean that scratch and put some of this on it.” Paks thanked her and rolled up her torn sleeve to wipe the blood away.
“You have scars enough,” commented Giron. Paks nodded without speaking, and spread ointment from the jar along the line of the cut. “You’ll need more clothes, too,” he said. “We should make the nearest karrest by nightfall; plenty of stores there. You haven’t asked what pay you’ll get.”
Paks looked up, then handed the jar back to Tamar. “No. I haven’t. Whatever I earn, I expect.”
He laughed, for the first time a natural laugh. “Well enough. It won’t be as much as it might, since we must outfit you with clothes and weapons. But the crown of Lyonya has its honor.”
Within a week, Paks felt at home with the rangers, almost as comfortable as with the Duke’s Company. She wore their green and russet with leaves and crown woven into the pattern, and she was getting the same calluses on her fingers from the great blackwood bow she’d been given. So far she had seen no fighting; she had wandered the woods with the same small band, uncertain just what they were doing or where they were.
“I still don’t understand,” she said one day as they were stretched in the sun resting. “Are we guarding a border, or hunting robbers, or what?”
“Lyonya is not like other kingdoms,” said Giron. Paks had heard that so many times that she was tired of it; it wasn’t the explanation he seemed to think it.
“I know that, but—”
“Impatience!” Tamar laughed gently at her. “You are all human, aren’t you?”
“All but my name. Go on.”
“In Lyonya, we have not only the borders to worry about—the clear borders—but the taig of the forest itself. You met the elfane taig, in the valley, and that was but one taig. Each place has its own, some greater and some lesser. Here the forest is unbroken enough to have a taig—I should rather say, to be a taig.”
“Does it have a name?”
“If it does, I am not the one to know it. The taig of a forest would not speak to me, not directly. It is too mighty for that. Even the kuakgannir would not claim to speak to a taig so vast.”
“I still don’t know just what a taig is.”
They all laughed, but it was friendly laughter. “No. And I don’t know how to explain it. If you live long enough, Paksenarrion, perhaps this understanding will come to you. But you can feel a taig, as you know, even when it does not speak to you: you felt the lure of Ereisbrit.” Ereisbrit, they had told her, was the name of a tiny waterfall only two spans high, that poured itself into a moss-edged slash of blue-gray rock. When she first saw it, she had stood frozen in delighted awe.
“Yes. I remember that.”
“We are to feel the taig of the forest, and tell the King if anything goes amiss in it. We can wander far, listening and feeling for anything wrong. As for robbers, there are few in Lyonya, and the lords have their own guards to hunt them. They may ask our help, and if we have time we give it. Borders—yes, we guard those. But surely you are aware that we have more than mortal borders here.” He looked at Paks sharply. She glanced around the sunny glade where they lay.
“I’m not sure—”
“Lyonya is human and elven. Elves are immortal. Does that tell you nothing?”
Paks thought hard. Haleron had said something about elven magic, about other levels. “Magical borders?” she guessed finally.
He grunted. “Magical—yes. Elves—the true elves, not we mixbreeds—are not wholly in the world humans know. In the elven kingdoms, the borders are so other that unescorted humans never pass them: never know they are there. Here, in a mixed kingdom, we have both kinds of borders. We rangers worry less about the obvious ones. With loyal lords holding close to Tsaia—and Tsaia itself an ally, for the most part—we need not look for armies of that sort. Brigands—if we see them, we deal with them, but the lords of steadings rarely need help. To the south, though, in the high mountains, are remnants of old troubles: these sometimes come down and try to invade. And through both borders. Thus the thriband—what you call orcs, or urchii—and sometimes far worse.”