Darkness and Light

Chapter 38

By the time the herders returned from repulsing the raiders, dinner was congealed. It was too dark to hunt for more kindling, so Onthar ordered Frijje to collect some chips from the cattle pit.

"Faw!" he grumbled. "That's a dirty job. I know! Make the girl do it." Onthar deferred to Sturm.

"I doubt she could get much filthier," Sturm admitted. "I'll go with her."

Tervy showed no sign of displeasure when Sturm explained what she was to do. She plunged into the herd, shoving aside yearling calves and cows. She filled a bandan na with the few pats that were dry enough, and came back out. Showing them to Sturm, she said, "Enough?"

"Enough. Take them to Frijje."

The coals were stirred and the fire blazed up again. The stew was dished out. Tervy watched expectantly, licking her lips. Sturm asked for another bowl.

"There are none," Ostimar said sullenly. "Not for raider scum."

Sturm ate only a third of his portion and gave the rest to

Tervy. She ate wolfishly, slapping gobs of thick stew into her mouth with her dirty fingers. Even Rorin, the least clean of the herders, was disgusted.

When it was time to bed down, Sturm asked, "Should someone stay awake, in case the raiders return?"

"They won't come back," Onthar assured him.

"Some other band might."

"Not at night," grunted Rorin, hunkering down on his blanket.

"And why is that?"

"Raiders don't move at night," Ostimar explained.

"Wolves'll get 'em in the dark." He pulled his horsehair blan ket up to his chin and slipped his rolled bandanna down over his eyes.

Wolves? The herdsmen didn't seem worried about wolves. Sturm mentioned as much to Frijje, the last one awake.

"Onthar has a charm against wolves," he said. "He hasn't lost a beast to wolves in three years. G'night."

Soon the circle around the campfire was filled with soft snores and wheezes. Sturm watched Tervy, sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, staring at the dying fire.

"Do I have to tie you up?" he said to her. "Or will you behave?"

"I not run," Tervy replied. "Out there is tyinsk. Wolves."

He smiled at her. "How old are you, Tervy?"

"Say?"

"How many years have you lived?"

She looked back over her shoulder, her brow furrowed with incomprehension. "How long ago were you born?"

Sturm said.

"Baby doesn't know when born." Maybe her people were too primitive to count the years. Or perhaps it wasn't important; probably few of them survived to middle years.

"Do you have a family? Mother? Brothers and sisters?"

"Only uncle. He dead, out there. You cut, here to here," she said, running a finger across her throat. He felt a twinge of shame.

"I'm sorry," Sturm said regretfully. "I didn't know." She shrugged indifferently.

He kicked his bedroll so that it opened feet to the fire.

Sturm lay down. "Don't worry, Tervy; I'll look after you.

You're my responsibility." But for how long? he wondered.

"Ironskin keep Tervy. Tervy not run away."

Sturm pillowed his head on his arm and dropped off to sleep. Hours later, the sharp howl of a wolf roused him from slumber. He tried to sit up but found that a weight held him down. It was Tervy. She had crawled atop Sturm and gone to sleep, her arms draped over him.

Sturm eased the girl to one side. She fought sleepily, say ing, "If charm fail, wolves come, have to get me before get you. Protection."

Smiling, he ordered her in hushed tones to do as he said.

"I can protect myself," he assured her. Tervy curled up on a narrow strip of his blanket and returned to sleep.

Tervy spent half the morning trotting alongside Sturm and Brumbar. He had offered to let her ride, but she insisted on keeping pace on foot. However, as the northern plain's summer sun took its toll, Tervy relented and hopped on

Brumbar's rump, behind Sturm.

"This the biggest horse in the world!" she declared.

He laughed. "No, not very likely." Her conclusion wasn't difficult to understand, considering that Brumbar was half again as tall and twice as heavy as the average plains pony.

At midday, the herd caught wind of Brantha's Pond. The pond had been built by Brantha of Kallimar, yet another

Solamnic Knight, 150 years before. The pool was two hun dred yards across, a perfect circle whose shore was paved with blocks of granite from the Vingaard Mountains.

The thirsty cattle quickened their pace. The herders had to concentrate at the head of the moving mass to discourage the animals from breaking into a dangerous stampede. At first, Sturm was mystified by their haste, but Tervy sniffed the air and informed him that she, too, could smell the water.

Within an hour, the silver-blue disk of Brantha's Pond came into view. Another herd, far larger than Onthar's, was being driven away. Horses, wagons, carts, and their occu pants clustered around the pond's edge.

Sturm's own interest quickened, stimulated by the impending contact with new people. The herdsmen were good fellows (well, there was Belingen), but they were taci turn and rather dull in conversation. Sturm had actually begun to miss the distracting talk of the gnomes.

The travelers abandoned the pond's edge when they heard the massed mooing of Onthar's herd. The cattle broke ranks and lined the shore, burying their peeling pink noses in the green water. Sturm pulled Brumbar up short. Tervy threw a leg over and dropped off. She ran toward the pond.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Sturm called. Before his eyes, the girl stripped off her collection of skins and vaulted onto the back of a drinking cow. She stood up and walked across the hind ends of two more beasts, then dived into the water. Sturm urged Brumbar down to the granite paving.

The girl swam in short, quick strokes to the center of the pond and disappeared. Sturm watched the green surface.

No bubbles. No turbulence other than that created by the drinking cattle. Then Tervy burst out of the water not ten feet from Sturm, scattering the cows who were drinking there.

"Give hand," she said, and Sturm leaned down to pull her out of the water. "I not stink now, hey?"

"Not as much," he admitted. He handed her clothes to her and tried not to let his embarrassment show. "Did you jump in because we said you smelled?"

"I not care what they speak," Tervy said, tossing her shoulder at Onthar and his men. "I not want Ironskin to smell me bad."

He was touched by her gesture. Sturm turned Brumbar around and rode out of the congested pond bank. He teth- ered his horse with Onthar's ponies and saw the herders squatted on the ground, eating whatever they could scrounge from their rucksacks. Tervy was hungry, too. She snitched a flake of jerky from Belingen's bag. He caught her at it, and boxed her ears. She promptly put a thumb in his eye. Belingen howled with rage and groped for his skinning knife.

"Put it away," said Sturm. Belingen found himself staring up thirty-four inches of polished steel.

"That raider wench nearly put my eye out!" he snarled.

"You punched her pretty good. That should satisfy you — or are you fighting with girls now?"

Sturm decided to take the girl to the caravan wagons and see what he could buy to eat. Tervy's ponytail dripped water down her back as she eagerly trotted along beside him.

"Ironskin will truly buy food with money?" she said, incredulous.

"Of course. I don't steal," Sturm said.

"You have much money?"

"Not so much," he said. "I'm not rich."

"That I figure. Rich man always steal," Tervy said. Sturm had to smile at the blunt wisdom of her statement. He was smiling a lot lately, he suddenly realized.

Sturm found an Abanasinian group that was journeying to Palanthas. Besides the hired driver, there was a merce nary, a woman soothsayer, and an elderly tanner and his apprentice. Sturm swapped stories of Solace with them for a while, then came away with slices of dried apple beaded on a string, some pressed raisins, and a whole smoked chicken.

For the fine victuals, he dipped into the purse that the

Knight of the Rose had given him and paid twenty coppers, well more than his total wages as a herdsman.

Tervy danced around him, fairly bursting to get at the food. The apples didn't interest her, but she devoured most of the chicken, down to some of the small bones. Sturm untied the cheesecloth bundle that held the raisins.

"What that?" Tervy said, chicken grease smeared across her face.

"Raisins," Sturm said. "Dried grapes. Try some."

She grabbed a handful and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Umm, sweet." Spilling raisins all around, she finished the first handful and reached for another. Sturm swatted her hand.

"You eat all those " she said, wide-eyed.

"No," he said. "You can eat them if you do it in a civilized manner. Like this." He picked up four raisins, put them in the palm of his left hand, and ate them one by one with his right. Open-mouthed with curiosity, Tervy duplicated his artions precisely, except when it came to getting the raisins from her hand to her mouth one at a time.

"Too slow!" she declared, and crammed them all in at once. Sturm pulled her wrist down.

"People will stop treating you like a savage when you stop acting like one," he said. "Now do it the way I showed you." This time she did it just right.

'You eat like this all time " asked Tervy.

"I do," said Sturm.

"Ah," she exclaimed knowingly. "You big man. Nobody steal your food. I little, eat fast so nobody steal my food."

"No one's going to take food away from you here. Take your time and enjoy it." When they had finished their meal, they strolled back to the herders' camp. Tervy gazed at

Sturm with a mixture of awe and amusement.

Onthar announced that it would take only two more days to reach Vingaard Keep. Once the cattle were sold, each man would be paid his wages and could sign on for another drive, if he so desired.

Sturm was the only one to decline. "I have other business in the north," he stated. Frijje asked him what. "I'm looking for my father."

"Oh What's his name " asked Onthar.

"Angriff Brightblade." None of the herders responded to this disclosure. However, behind Sturm, Belingen stiffened.

His mouth dropped open to speak, but he closed it without saying a word.

"Well, I hope you find him," Onthar said. "You're a fair hand with cattle and good with that sword. These others, they don't know a sword from a sharpened stick.

"Thank you, Onthar," Sturm said. "Traveling compan- ions help shorten the journey."

Frijje played his pipe a while. Tervy, who had been sitting by Sturm's side, arms wrapped around her shins, was won derstruck by the funny noises that the young herdsman was making. Seeing her interest, Frijje handed her the flute. Ter vy blew in the end as Frijje had done, but could only make a faint, unmusical rasp. She flung the pipe back to Frijje.

"Magic," she stated flatly.

"No, my girl. It's all skill." He dusted the dirt from the mouthpiece and trilled a fast scale.

"You move fingers like a cleverman," she pointed out.

"Believe what you want." Frijje lay back and played a slow ballad. Sturm put his head down, but Tervy continued to watch Frijje as long as he played.

In the days that followed, Tervy's command of language increased dramatically. She told Sturm that among her peo ple no one spoke without leave from the head man, so that by habit they all spoke in clipped, short sentences. She had learned the Common tongue in order to be a scout. Tervy's raider band had stalked Onthar's herd for more than eight hours before striking.

"We didn't know you had a sword," she said. "If we know — if we had known, we'd have used another plan."

"Such as?"

She grinned. "Would've jumped you first."

These conversations took place while Sturm worked the herd and Tervy rode behind him. The resilient Tervy wasn't the least bit worn from riding the hard pillion all day. And in the evening, when the communal stew pot came out, she earned her portion of Sturm's meal by cleaning and oiling his boots, his sword, and sword belt.

"You've picked up a squire," Belingen said, as Tervy dili gently buffed Sturm's boots with a piece of sheepskin.

"Um, and in a year or two she'll be a fine companion on cold nights," Ostimar added with a wicked grin.

"Why wait so long?" Rorin said. The herders laughed roughly.

"What do they mean?" Tervy asked.

"Never mind," Sturm said. For all her toughness, Tervy was completely innocent, and Sturm saw no reason for her to change.