Arms-Commander

IX

For early spring on the Roof of the World, the day was warm enough for Saryn to shed her riding jacket as she accompanied first company’s second squad down through the pass to the north and east of the high valley through which the traders had come. Despite the clear sky and the direct whitish sunlight beating down through the greenish blue sky, snow was still drifted into piles in the shade under the massive evergreens on each side of the road. Saryn still found herself amused at what she now considered a “road.” The only proper roads in the Westhorns were those around Westwind, stone-paved and generally level, although the guards had, over the past several years, paved certain sections of the packed-dirt ways around the Roof of the World, just to keep them from washing out, as well as building several short stone-and-earth bridges.

Rocky steep cliffs rose away from the stream and the narrow road, barely wide enough for two mounts abreast, or one cart or small wagon. In places, Saryn saw glints of ice. Even so, an alpine muskrat scurried from the near-freezing water into a concealed burrow.

“Do you think the scouts actually saw brigands?” asked Murkassa, the squad leader.

“They saw armed men,” replied Saryn. “Either brigands or armsmen from Gallos. There were just two riders, and there weren’t any tracks that suggested a larger group.”

“I’d lay a wager on scouts for armsmen. Brigands would know that few men, even those with coins and weapons, travel the Westhorns in spring.”

“And not women and weapons?” asked Saryn with a laugh.

“We’re still the only women with weapons. We’ll be the only ones for a long, long time.”

“Even with Westwind as an example?”

“People don’t change. Even my mother couldn’t believe I’d leave,” said Murkassa. “My father beat her every time he didn’t like what she fixed for dinner, but she wouldn’t leave.”

“You left,” Saryn pointed out.

“I was frightened.” Murkassa laughed. “When I realized that I was frightened all the time, I decided to leave and make my way to the Westhorns.” She paused. “Most women have never heard of Westwind, except when men talk about us as worse than the white demons.”

“I can see why you left your family, but why did you come to Westwind?”

“There was nowhere else to go.” Murkassa shrugged. “Anywhere else would have been like where I grew up, and worse, because no one at all would have cared.”

“You don’t miss men?”

“I don’t miss men like my father and my brothers. I would that there had been more like the engineer, or Relyn, or Daryn, but having no men is better than having those that I knew.” Murkassa smiled. “Besides, you angels will provide. You always have.”

Saryn wasn’t so certain about that, especially in finding suitable men, those who were not either hopeless or hopelessly arrogant.

At that moment, ahead of the squad, Saryn saw one of the outriders rein up, while the other turned and began to trot back up the road toward the rest of the squad.

“Commander! Bodies on the road!”

“Arms ready!” ordered Murkassa.

“Ride down to the edge of the pass. Hold up there until I can see what we might face.” Saryn couldn’t sense any living brigands or weapons, but there might be some beyond the outriders, farther east than her sensing skills could reach.

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn urged her mount forward at a quick trot. There wasn’t any point to moving faster on the uneven downhill section of the road, with its winter-twisted humps and ruts. She rode almost two hundred yards before the road began to flatten, and the rocky edges of the pass walls began to widen out into the small and largely wooded semivalley that lay beyond the pass.

The outrider, a freckled young redhead, waited for Saryn, her mount turned so that she could watch both the squad and the other outrider who had reined up ahead.

“There are two on the road.” The young guard pointed. “You can see the cart poles, but the cart horse or donkey is gone. Like as not anything of value went, too.”

Saryn still could not sense anything…except the faint reddish white residue of death that lay over the small grassy area to the south of the road. With the light wind out of the south, all she could smell were road dust, trees, and the soggy vegetation that bordered the stream to the north of the road. “You ride with me. We’ll take our time.”

Alert as she was, all Saryn could see or sense as she neared the second outrider and the cleared area by the overturned cart were the two Westwind guards. Still…there was something in the woods, but too small to be a brigand, hiding under a spreading evergreen bush.

The two guards, their blades out, flanked Saryn as they rode slowly forward. Saryn reined up short of the oiled and weathered wooden cart, overturned in all likelihood to see if anything of value had been hidden beneath it. Her eyes ran across the carnage. Two men, both graying slightly, had been cut down within yards of the cart, but they’d died fighting, from the slashes and the blood. One had his temple smashed in. Their garments had been disarrayed, and a belt wallet lay half-open on the road between the bodies and the cart.

Easing her mount around the cart and onto the softer grassy ground to the south, Saryn reined up again. There had been three women, one much older and white-haired. She’d tried to flee and been run down by a rider and struck from behind. The other two, one of whom looked barely out of girlhood, had been stripped from the waist down, and used by the brigands before their throats had been cut.

Saryn swallowed as she saw the figure of a small child in the grass. Beyond the dead child was another body, that of a pregnant woman, also half-naked. Saryn could sense that both the mother and the child within her womb were dead.

Abruptly, she stood in the stirrups and gestured to the waiting squad. “Join up!”

As she waited for the squad to reach her, she looked back at the bodies. She frowned, realizing that all the dead, except the white-haired woman, were redheads. How likely was that?

“Brigands, it looks like to me,” offered Murkassa, when she finally reined up beside Saryn. “Bloody bastards.”

Saryn studied the bodies for a time, looking back toward those of the men as well. There was something about them. Then she shook her head. “Armsmen. The weapons used on them…they’re too good for common ruffians.”

“Why would they attack travelers? With the men, they weren’t headed for Westwind.”

Saryn stiffened. There was something, and now that she was closer, she could tell that what she sensed just inside the edge of the woods was no animal. “Someone’s still alive.” She turned in the saddle, then nodded. “Detail a few of the guards to make a cairn over by the trees. I’m going to see…”

“Do you need an escort?”

“No…I’m pretty sure it’s a child.” Even so, Saryn rode slowly around the cart and the bodies toward the darkness of the tall evergreens, letting her senses take in what lay before her, one of the short swords in her hand, ready to throw or use as necessary. The closer she got to the yard-wide trunks of the tall pines, the more certain she was that a girl hid there.

Saryn rode forward, slowly, then halted her mount at the edge of the trees. “We won’t hurt you. We’re all women. We’re from Westwind. You’ll be safe now.” She eased the short sword back into its scabbard.

The figure huddled under a scrub evergreen did not move.

After a time, the commander eased her mount forward and into the tall evergreens, stopping well short of the girl. Saryn wanted to tell the girl that she’d be safe, that everything would be all right. She didn’t. Instead, she waited, letting her senses take in the trees and the life deeper in the shadows. After a time, she spoke again. “Those who attacked you are gone.”

A small face continued to peer through the evergreen bush, as if afraid to move.

“You’ll be all right, now.” Saryn continued to wait, not wanting to press the girl, but afraid that if she dismounted or made any other moves toward the child, the girl would run deeper into the trees, where it would be even harder to find her. Besides, someone chasing her was the last thing the girl needed.

As she sat in the saddle, waiting, Saryn glanced back, but Murkassa had matters well in hand, and half the guards were already gathering stones for a cairn. That was better. The girl didn’t need to see what had happened to the others.

“You…you don’t have the silver hair. Are you an angel?” The girl spoke slowly into the silence. “Ma said we’d be safe if we got to the angels.” She stood up, almost as if she were offering herself as some form of sacrifice.

Saryn swallowed. She wanted to vault from the saddle and take the child in her arms. Instead, she blinked back the burning in her eyes and smiled as warmly as she could. “We are the angels of Westwind, and you will be safe with us. Can you walk over here so that you can ride with me?”

“My feet hurt…the rocks…” As she spoke, the girl slowly stepped around the bush and moved toward Saryn. Her hair was red, like that of all those slain, and she already had traces of freckles on her face, especially on her cheeks. She wore calf-length gray trousers and a faded gray tunic over some sort of undertunic. Streaks of blood ran across her feet and ankles. When she reached the shoulder of Saryn’s mount, she lifted her arms. Her brown eyes held both trust and fear-or those were the feelings Saryn sensed.

Saryn leaned down and lifted her, amazed at how thin and light the child was. She must be close to starving. Then she set the girl before her and turned the mount. “We’re going to join the others.” After a moment, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“Adiara, Angel.”

“Where are you from?”

“Neltos.”

Saryn had never heard of it, but then, there were all too many places in the world whose names remained unfamiliar. She wondered if she’d ever learn them all. “Where is Neltos?”

“The market town is Meltosia. We didn’t go through Kyphrien. We went around it at night. Ma didn’t say why. She made me promise to be quiet.”

“Where were you going?”

“Ma and Da said we were going to Suthya.”

“Did they tell you why?” Saryn reined up on the road. She was careful to keep her mount pointed away from the overturned cart although the guards had already moved the bodies to the edge of the clearing, where they were piling stones over them.

Murkassa eased her mount closer to the commander’s.

“Lord Karthanos…he was doing bad things to folks like us. That was what Da said.”

“Folks like you?”

“You know, Angel. Redheads. We turn red in the sun, too.” Adiara stopped speaking, and she looked at the squad leader. “You don’t have silver hair. Are you an angel?”

“I am from Westwind…now,” Murkassa replied. “The commander is truly one of the angels. She came from the stars. So did the Marshal, and she has black hair.”

“Not all of the guards of Westwind have silver hair,” Saryn said gently. “Some do, and some of their daughters do, also.”

“You have children?”

“We are women,” Saryn said, somewhat dryly. “Some of us have children.”

“Will you take me with you?”

“Yes.” From what the girl had said, Saryn doubted she had any relatives who would want her, and Saryn had no intention of riding down through the eastern Westhorns and through Gallos on the off chance of finding any who might want Adiara. “You must understand that Westwind is cold much of the year.”

“You won’t let anyone hurt me, will you?”

“No.” Saryn paused, then asked, “Will you tell me when all this…happened?”

“This morning, Angel. We stopped for the night down at the other end of the vale. There’s a pool in the stream. There was a hole in the rocks where we could shelter. We had only set out…” Tears seeped from the girl’s eyes. “Ma told me to run…and not look back.” She shuddered, and her hands clutched the base of the horse’s mane.

“How many of them were there?” Saryn asked quickly. There was little point in allowing Adiara to dwell on the actual events.

The girl looked around, taking in the twenty guards, mostly around the cairn, except for the outriders posted as guards. “As many as you…I think.”

“No one ran after you?”

“A man rode after me, but he didn’t go into the trees.”

Saryn nodded. “Did he try to follow you farther? Did he say anything?”

“He said I was too young to bother with. Someone else said I’d die in the woods.”

“Miserable brigands,” murmured the single guard beside Murkassa.

Adiara raised her head. “They were not bandits…” She shivered. “They wore armor under their rags. Uncle Rastyn said so. Then, they took out their swords…” Her words stopped.

“That’s enough,” Saryn said gently, wrapping one arm around the girl, who had started to shiver again. “You’ve told us enough.”

For a time, the only sound in the clearing was that of rocks dropping on rocks as the guards finished the cairn.

“What do you plan?” Murkassa finally asked.

“To go hunting,” replied Saryn. “They’ll expect it. So we’ll have to be careful. Very careful.” Careful enough that we can remove all of them. “The girl will have to come with us.”

“It might be good for her.”

Would it? Saryn had her doubts.

“Will you catch them, Angel?”

“We’ll see what we can do.” Saryn wasn’t Ryba. She couldn’t see whether she and the squad would be able to deal with the false bandits, but they did need to know more, and only by tracking the armsmen could they learn what was behind the attack on the travelers.