Oathbound

Eight

Someone wrote a song about it -- but that was later. Much later -- when the dust and dirt were gone from the legend. When the sweat and blood were only memories, and the pain was less than that. And when the dead were all but forgotten except to their own.

"Deep into the stony hills Miles from keep or hold, A troupe of guards comes riding With a lady and her gold. Riding in the center, Shrouded in her cloak of fur Companioned by a maiden And a toothless, aged cur."

"And every packtrain we've sent out for the past two months has vanished without a trace -- and without survivors," the silk merchant Grumio concluded, twisting an old iron ring on one finger. "Yet the decoy trains were allowed to reach their destinations unmolested. It's uncanny -- and if it goes on much longer, we'll be ruined."

In the silence that followed his words, he studied the odd pair of mercenaries before him. He knew very well that they knew he was doing so. Eventually there would be no secrets in this room -- eventually. But he would parcel his out as if they were bits of his heart -- and he knew they would do the same. It was all part of the bargaining process.

Neither of the two women seemed in any great hurry to reply to his speech. The crackle of the fire behind him in this tiny private eating room sounded unnaturally loud in the absence of conversation. Equally loud were the steady whisking of a whetstone on blade-edge, and the muted murmur of voices from the common room of the inn beyond their closed door.

The whetstone was being wielded by the swordswoman, Tarma by name, who was keeping to her self-appointed task with an indifference to Grumio's words that might -- or might not -- be feigned. She sat across the table from him, straddling her bench in a position that left him mostly with a view of her back and the back of her head. What little he might have been able to see of her face was screened by her unruly shock of coarse black hair. He was just as glad of that; there was something about her cold, expressionless, hawklike face with its wintry blue eyes that sent shivers up his spine. "The eyes of a killer," whispered one part of him. "Or a fanatic."

The other partner cleared her throat and he gratefully turned his attention to her. Now there was a face a man could easily rest his eyes on! She faced him squarely, this sorceress called Kethry, leaning slightly forward on her folded arms, placing her weight on the table between them. The light from the fire and the oil lamp on their table fell fully on her. A less canny man than Grumio might be tempted to dismiss her as being very much the weaker, the less intelligent of the two; she was always soft of speech, her demeanor refined and gentle. She was very attractive; sweet-faced and quite conventionally pretty, with hair like the finest amber and eyes of beryl-green. It would have been very easy to assume that she was no more than the swordswoman's vapid tagalong. A lover perhaps -- maybe one with the right to those magerobes she wore, but surely of no account in the decision-making.

That would have been the assessment of most men. But as he'd spoken, Grumio had now and then caught a disquieting glimmer in those calm green eyes. She had been listening quite carefully, and analyzing what she heard. He had not missed the fact that she, too, bore a sword. And not for the show of it, either -- that blade had a well-worn scabbard that spoke of frequent use. More than that, what he could see of the blade showed that it was well-cared-for.

The presence of that blade in itself was an anomaly; most sorcerers never wore more than an eating knife. They simply hadn't the time -- or the inclination -- to attempt studying the arts of the swordsman. To Grumio's eyes the sword looked very odd and quite out-of-place, slung over the plain, buffcolored, calf-length robe of a wandering sorceress.

A puzzlement; altogether a puzzlement.

"I presume," Kethry said when he turned to face her, "that the road patrols have been unable to find your bandits."

She had in turn been studying the merchant; he interested her. In his own way he was as much of an anomaly as she and Tarma were. There was muscle beneath the fat of good living, and old swordcalluses on his hands. This was no born-and-bred merchant, not when he looked to be as much retired mercenary as trader. And unless she was wildly mistaken, there was also a sharp mind beneath that balding skull. He knew they didn't come cheaply; since the demon-god affair their reputation had spread, and their fees had become quite respectable. They were even able -- like Ikan and Justin -- to pick and choose to some extent. On the surface this business appeared far too simple a task -- one would simply gather a short-term army and clean these brigands out. On the surface, this was no job for a specialized team like theirs -- and Grumio surely knew that. It followed then that there was something more to this tale of banditry than he was telling.

Kethry studied him further. Certain signs seemed to confirm this surmise; he looked as though he had not slept well of late, and there seemed to be a shadow of deeper sorrow upon him than the loss of mere goods would account for.

She wondered how much he really knew of them, and she paid close attention to what his answer to her question would be.

Grumio snorted his contempt for the road patrols. "They rode up and down for a few days, never venturing off the Trade Road, and naturally found nothing. Over-dressed, over-paid, underworked arrogant idiots!"

Kethry toyed with a fruit left from their supper, and glanced up at the hound-faced merchant through long lashes that veiled her eyes and her thoughts. The next move would be Tarma's.

Tarma heard her cue, and made her move. "Then guard your packtrains, merchant, if guards keep these vermin hidden."

He started; her voice was as harsh as a raven's, and startled those not used to hearing it. One corner of Tarma's mouth twitched slightly at his reaction. She took a perverse pleasure in using that harshness as a kind of weapon. A Shin'a'in learned to fight with many weapons, words among them. Kal'enedral learned the finer use of those weapons.

Grumio saw at once the negotiating ploy these two had evidently planned to use with him. The swordswoman was to be the antagonizer, the sorceress the sympathizer. His respect for them rose another notch. Most freelance mercenaries hadn't the brains to count their pay, much less use subtle bargaining tricks. Their reputation was plainly wellfounded. He just wished he knew more of them than their reputation; he was woefully short a full hand in this game. Why, he didn't even know where the sorceress hailed from, or what her School was!

Be that as it may, once he saw the trick, he had no intention of falling for it.

"Swordlady," he said patiently, as though to a child, "to hire sufficient force requires we raise the price of goods above what people are willing to pay."

As he studied them further, he noticed something else about them that was distinctly odd. There was a current of communication and understanding running between these two that had him thoroughly puzzled. He dismissed without a second thought the notion that they might be lovers, the signals between them were all wrong for that. No, it was something else, something more complicated than that. Something that you wouldn't expect between a Shin'a'in swordswoman and an outClansman -- something perhaps, that only someone like he was, with experience in dealing with Shin'a'in, would notice in the first place.

Tarma shook her head impatiently at his reply. "Then cease your inter-house rivalries, kadessa, and send all your trains together under a single large force."

A new ploy -- now she was trying to anger him a little -- to get him off-guard by insulting him. She had called him a kadessa, a little grasslands beast that only the Shin'a'in ever saw, a rodent so notoriously greedy that it would, given food enough, eat itself to death; and one that was known for hoarding anything and everything it came across in its nest-tunnels.

Well it wasn't going to work. He refused to allow the insult to distract him. There was too much at stake here. "Respect, Swordlady," he replied with a hint of reproachfulness, "but we tried that, too. The beasts of the train were driven off in the night, and the guards and traders were forced to return afoot. This is desert country, most of it, and all they dared burden themselves with was food and drink."

"Leaving the goods behind to be scavenged. Huh. Your bandits are clever, merchant," the swordswoman replied thoughtfully. Grumio thought he could sense her indifference lifting.

"You mentioned decoy trains?" Kethry interjected.

"Yes, lady." Grumio's mind was still worrying away at the puzzle these two presented. "Only I and the men in the train knew which were the decoys and which were not, yet the bandits were never deceived, not once. We had taken extra care that all the men in the train were known to us, too."

A glint of gold on the smallest finger of Kethry's left hand finally gave him the clue he needed, and the crescent scar on the palm of that hand confirmed his surmise. He knew without looking that that swordswoman would have an identical scar and ring. These two had sword Shin'a'in bloodoath, the oath of she'enedran; the strongest bond known to that notoriously kin-conscious race. The blood-oath made them closer than sisters, closer than lovers -- so close they sometimes would think as one. In fact, the word she'enedran was sometimes translated as "two-made-one."

"So who was it that passed judgment on your estimable guards?" Tarma's voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"I did, or my fellow merchants, or our own personal guards. No one was allowed on the trains but those who had served us in the past or were known to those who had."

He waited in silence for them to make reply.

Tarma held her blade up to catch the firelight and examined her work with a critical eye. Evidently satisfied, she drove it home in the scabbard slung across her back with a fluid, unthinking grace, then swung one leg back over the bench to face him as her partner did. Grumio found the unflinching chill of her eyes disconcertingly hard to meet for long.

In an effort to find something else to look at, he found his gaze caught by the pendant she wore, a thin silver crescent surrounding a tiny amber flame. That gave him the last bit of information he needed to make everything fall into place -- although now he realized that her plain brown clothing should have tipped him off as well, since most Shin'a'in favored wildly-colored garments heavy with bright embroideries. Tarma was a Sworn One, Kal'enedral, pledged to the service of the Shin'a'in Warrior, the Goddess of the New Moon and the South Wind. Only three things were of any import to her at all -- her Goddess, her people, and her Clan (which, of course, would include her "sister" by blood-oath). The Sword Sworn were just as sexless and deadly as the weapons they wore.

"So why come to us?" Tarma's expression indicated she thought their time was being wasted. "What makes you think that we can solve your bandit problem?"

"You -- have a certain reputation," he replied guardedly.

A single bark of contemptuous laughter was Tarma's only reply.

"If you know our reputation, then you also know that we only take those assignments that -- shall we say -- interest us," Kethry said, looking wide-eyed and innocent. "What is there about your problem that could possibly be of any interest to us?"

Good -- they were intrigued, at least a little. Now, for the sake of poor little Lena, was the time to hook them and bring them in. His eyes stung a little with tears he would not shed -- not now -- not in front of them. Not until she was avenged.

"We have a custom, we small merchant houses. Our sons must remain with their fathers to learn the trade, and since there are seldom more than two or three houses in any town, there is little in the way of choice for them when it comes time for marriage. For that reason, we are given to exchanging daughters of the proper age with our trade allies in other towns, so that our young people can hopefully find mates to their liking." His voice almost broke at the memory of watching Lena waving good-bye from the back of her little mare, but he regained control quickly. It was a poor merchant that could not school his emotions. "There were no less than a dozen sheltered, gently-reared maidens in the very first packtrain they took. One of them was my niece. My only heir, and all that was left of my brother's family after the plague six years ago." He could continue no further.

Kethry's breath hissed softly, and Tarma swallowed an oath.

"Your knowledge of what interests us is very accurate, merchant," Tarma said after a long pause. "I congratulate you."

"You -- you accept?" Discipline could not keep hope out of his voice.

"I pray you are not expecting us to rescue your lost ones," Kethry said as gently as she could. "Even supposing that the bandits were more interested in slaves to be sold than their own pleasure -- which in my experience is not likely -- there is very, very little chance that any of them still live. The sheltered, the gentle, well, they do not survive -- shock -- successfully."

"When we knew that the packtrain had been taken, we sent agents to comb the slave markets. They returned empty-handed," he replied with as much stoicism as he could muster. "We will not ask the impossible of you; we knew when we sent for you there was no hope for them. No, we ask only that you wipe out this viper's den, to insure that this can never happen to us again -- that you make such an example of them that no one dares try this again -- and that you grant us revenge for what they have done to us!" There -- that was his full hand. Would it be enough?

His words -- and more, the tight control of his voice -- struck echoes from Tarma's own heart. And she did not need to see her partner to know her feelings in the matter.

"You will have that, merchant-lord," she grated, giving him the title of respect. "We accept your job -- but there are conditions."

"Swordlady, any conditions you would set, I would gladly meet. Who am I to contest the judgment of those who destroyed Tha -- "

"Hush!" Kethry interrupted him swiftly, and cast a wary glance over her shoulder. "The less that is said on that subject, the better. I am still not altogether certain that what you were about to name was truly destroyed. It may have been merely banished, and perhaps for no great span of time. It is hardly wise if the second case is true to call attention to oneself by speaking Its name."

"Our conditions, merchant, are simple," Tarma continued, outwardly unperturbed. Inwardly she had uneasy feelings about Thalhkarsh, feelings that had her ready to throw herself between Kethry and anything that even looked like a demon. "We will, to all appearances, leave on the morrow. You will tell all, including your fellow merchants, that you could not convince us to remain. Tomorrow night, you -- and you alone, mind -- will bring us, at a meeting place of your choosing, a cart and horse...."

Now she raised an inquiring eyebrow at Kethry.

"And the kind of clothing and gear a lady of wealth and blood would be likely to have when traveling. The clothing should fit me. I will be weaving some complicated illusions, and anything I do not have to counterfeit will be of aid to me and make the rest stronger. You might include lots of empty bags and boxes," Kethry finished thoughtfully.

Tarma continued; "The following morning a fine lady will ride in and order you to include her with your next packtrain. You, naturally, will do your best to dissuade her, as loudly and publicly as possible. Now your next scheduled trip was -- ?"

"Coincidentally enough, for the day after tomorrow." Grumio was plainly impressed. It looked as though he'd decided that Tarma and her partner were even cleverer than he'd thought.

"Good. The less time we lose, the better off we are. Remember, only you are to be aware that the lady and the packtrain are not exactly what they seem to be. If you say one word otherwise to anyone -- "

The merchant suddenly found himself staring at the tip of a very sharp dagger held a scant inch away from his nose.

" -- I will personally remove enough of your hide to make both of us slippers." The dagger disappeared from Tarma's hand as mysteriously as it had appeared.

Grumio had been startled, but had not been particularly intimidated; Tarma gave him high marks for that.

"I do not instruct the weaver in her trade," he replied with a certain dignity, "nor do I dictate the setting of a horseshoe to a smith. There is no reason why I should presume to instruct you in your trade either."

"Then you are a rare beast indeed, merchant," Tarma graced him with one of her infrequent smiles. "Most men -- oh, not fellow mercenaries, they know better; but most men we deal with -- seem to think they know our business better than we simply by virtue of their sex."

The smile softened her harsh expression, and made it less intimidating, and the merchant found himself smiling back. "You are not the only female hire-swords I have dealt with." he replied. "Many of my trade allies have them as personal retainers. It has often seemed to me that many of those I met have had to be twice as skilled as their male counterparts to receive half the credit."

"A hit, merchant-lord," Kethry acknowledged with open amusement. "And a shrewd one at that. Now, where are we to meet you tomorrow night?"

Grumio paused to think. "I have a farmstead. It's deserted now that the harvest is in. It's just outside of town, at the first lane past the crossroad at the South Trade Road. No one would think it odd for me to pay a visit to it, and the barn is a good place to hide horses and gear."

"Well enough," Tarma replied.

All three rose as one, and Grumio caught the faint clink of brigandine mail from Tarma's direction, though there was no outward sign that she wore any such thing beneath her worn leather tunic, brown shirt and darker breeches.

"Merchant -- " Tarma said, suddenly.

He paused halfway through the door.

"I, too, have known loss. You will have your revenge."

He shivered at the look in her eyes, and left.

"Well?" Tarma asked, shutting the door behind him and leaning her back up against it.

"Magic's afoot here. It's the only answer to what's been going on. I don't think it's easy to deceive this merchant -- he caught on to our 'divide and conquer' trick right away. He's no soft money-counter, either."

"I saw the sword-calluses." Tarma balanced herself on one foot, set the other against the door, and folded her arms. "Did he tell us all he knew?"

"I think so. I don't think he held anything back after he played his high card."

"The niece? He also didn't want us to know how much he valued her. Damn. This is a bad piece of business. Poor bastard."

"He'd rather we thought the loss of goods and trade meant more to him," Kethry replied. "They're a secretive lot in many ways, these traders."

"Almost as secretive as sorceresses, no?" One corner of Tarma's thin lips quirked up in a halfsmile. The smile vanished as she thought of something else.

"Is there any chance that any of the women survived?"

"Not to put too fine a point upon it, no. This -- " Kethry patted the hilt of her sword " -- would have told me if any of them had. The pull is there, but without the urgency there'd be if there was anyone needing rescue. Still, we need more information, so I might as well add that to the set of questions I intend to ask."

Concern flickered briefly in Tarma's eyes. "An unprepared summoning? Are you sure you want to risk it? If nothing else, it will wear you down, and you have all those illusions to cast."

"I think it's worth it. There aren't that many hostile entities to guard against in this area, and I'll have all night to rest afterward -- most of tomorrow as well, once we reach that farmstead. And my 'arsenal' is full, my nonpersonal energies are completely charged, and my other-Planar alliances doing well. It won't be any problem."

"You're the magic-worker," Tarma sighed. "Since we've hired this room for the whole evening, want to make use of it for your magicking? It's bigger than our sleeping room."

At Kethry's nod, Tarma pushed the table into a corner, stacking the benches on top of it, while Kethry set the oil lamp on the mantlepiece. Most of the floorspace was now cleared.

"I'll keep watch on the door." Tarma sat on the floor with her back firmly braced against it. Since it opened inward, the entrance was now solidly guarded against all but the most stubborn of intruders.

Kethry inscribed a circle on the floor with powders from her belt-pouch, chanting under her breath. She used no dramatic or spectacular ceremonies for she had learned her art in a gentler school than the other sorcerers Tarma had seen. Her powers came from the voluntary cooperation of other-Planar entities and she never coerced them into doing her bidding.

There were advantages and disadvantages to this. She need not safeguard herself against the deceptions and treacheries of these creatures, but the cost to her in terms of her own energies expended was correspondingly higher. This was particularly true at times when she had no chance to prepare herself for a summoning. It took a great deal of power to attract a being of benign intent -- particularly one that did not have a previous alliance with her -- and more to convince it that her intent was good. Hence, the circle -- meant not to protect her, but to protect what she would call, so that it would know itself unthreatened.

As she seated herself within the circle, Tarma shifted her own position until she, too, was quite comfortable, removed one of her hidden daggers, and began honing it with her sharpening-stone.

After some time, there was a stirring in the circle Kethry had inscribed, and Tarma pulled her attention away from her task. Something was beginning to form mistily in front of the seated sorceress.

The mist began to revolve into a miniature whirlpool, coalescing into a figure as it did so. As it solidified, Tarma could see what seemed to be a jewel-bright desert lizard, but one that stood erect, like a man. It was as tall as a man's arm is long, and had a cranium far larger than any lizard Tarma had ever seen -- except perhaps the image of Gervase that Kethry had used to entertain Liha'irden. Firelight winked from its scales in bands of shining colors, topaz and ruby predominating. It was regarding Kethry with intelligence and wary curiosity.

"Sa-asartha, n'hellan?" it said, tilting its head to one side and fidgeting from one foot to the other. Its voice was shrill, like that of a very young child.

"Vede, sa-asarth," Kethry replied in the same tongue -- whatever the tongue was.

The little creature relaxed, and stopped fretting. It appeared to be quite eager to answer all of Kethry's questions. Now that the initial effort of calling it was done with, she had no trouble in obtaining all the information she wanted. Finally she gave the little creature the fruit she'd been toying with after supper. It snatched the gift greedily, trilled what Tarma presumed to be thanks, and vanished into mist again.

When it was completely gone, Kethry rose stiffly and began to scuff the circle into random piles of dirt with the toe of her boot. "It's about what I expected," she said. "Someone -- someone with 'a smell of magic about him' according to the khamsin -- has organized what used to be several small bands of marauders into one large one of rather formidable proportions. They have no set camp, so we can't arrange for their base to be attacked while they're ambushing us, I'm sorry to say. They have no favored ambush point, so we won't know when to expect them. And none of the women -- girls, really -- survived for more than a day."

"Oh, hell." Tarma's eyes were shadowed. "Well, we didn't really expect anything different."

"No, but you know damn well we both hoped," Kethry's voice was rough with weariness. "It's up to you now, she'enedra. You're the tactician."

"Then as the tactician, I counsel rest for you." Tarma caught Kethry's shoulders to steady her as she stumbled a little from fatigue. The reaction to spell-casting was setting in fast, now. Kethry had once described summoning as being "like balancing on a rooftree while screaming an epic poem in a foreign language at the top of your lungs." Small wonder she was exhausted afterward.

The sorceress leaned on Tarma's supporting shoulder with silent gratitude as her partner guided her up the stairs to their rented sleeping room.

"It's us, Warrl," Tarma called softly at the door. A muted growl answered her, and they could hear the sound of the bolt being shoved back. Tarma pushed the door open with one foot, and picked up one of the unlit tallow candles that waited on a shelf just inside with her free hand. She lit it at the one in the bracket outside their door, and the light from it fell on Warrl's head and shoulders. He stood, tongue lolling out in a lupine grin, just inside the room. He sniffed inquisitively at them, making a questioning whine deep in his throat.

"Yes, we took the job -- that's our employer you smell, so don't mangle him when he shows up tomorrow night. And Kethry's been summoning, of course, so as usual she's half dead. Close the door behind us while I put her to bed."

By now Kethry was nearly asleep on her feet; after some summonings Tarma had seen her pass into unconsciousness while still walking. Tarma undressed her with the gentle and practiced hands of a nursemaid, and got her safely into bed before she had the chance to fall over. The kyree, meanwhile, had butted the door shut with his head and pushed the bolt home with his nose.

"Any trouble?" Tarma asked him.

He snorted with derision.

"Well, I didn't really expect any, either. This is the quietest inn I've been in for a long time. The job is bandits, hairy one, and we're all going to have to go disguised. That includes you."

He whined in protest, ears down.

"I know you don't like it, but there's no choice. There isn't enough cover along the road to hide a bird, and I want you close at hand, within a few feet of us at all times, not wandering out in the desert somewhere."

The kyree sighed heavily, padded over to her, and laid his heavy head in her lap to be scratched.

"I know. I know," she said, obliging him. "I don't like it any more than you do. Just be grateful that all we'll be wearing is illusions, even if they do make the backs of our eyes itch. Poor Kethry's going to have to ride muffled head-to-toe like a fine lady."

Warrl obviously didn't care about poor Kethry.

"You're being very unfair to her, you know. And you're supposed to have been her familiar, not mine. You're a magic beast; born out of magic. You belong with a spell-caster, not some clod with a sword."

Warrl was not impressed with Tarma's logic.

:She doesn't need me,: he spoke mind-to-mind with the swordswoman. :She has the spirit-sword. You need me, I've told you that before.: And that, so far as Warrl was concerned, was that.

"Well, I'm not going to argue with you. I never argue with anyone with as many sharp teeth as you've got. Maybe being Kal'enedral counts as being magic."

She pushed Warrl's head off her lap and went to open the shutters to the room's one window. Moonlight flooded the room; she seated herself on the floor where it would fall on her, just as she did every night when there was a moon and she wasn't ill or injured. Since they were within the walls of a town and not camped, she would not train this night, but the Moonpaths were there, as always, waiting to be walked. She closed her eyes and found them. Walking them was, as she'd often told Kethry, impossible to describe.

When she returned to her body, Warrl was lying patiently at her back, waiting for her. She ruffled his fur with a grin, stood, stretched stiffened muscles, then stripped to a shift and climbed in beside Kethry. Warrl sighed with gratitude and took his usual spot at her feet.

* * *

The two mercenaries rode out of town in the morning, obviously eager to be gone. Grumio watched them leave, gazing sadly at the cloud of dust they raised, his houndlike face clearly displaying his disappointment. His fellow merchants were equally disappointed when he told them of his failure to persuade them; they had all hoped the women would be the solution to their problem.

After sundown Grumio took a cart and horse out to his farmstead, a saddled riding beast tied to the rear of it. After making certain that no one had followed him, he drove directly into the barn, and peered around in the hay-scented gloom. A fear crossed his mind that the women had tricked him, and had truly left that morning.

"Don't fret yourself, merchant," said a gravelly voice just above his head. He jumped, his heart racing. "We're here."

A vague figure swung down from the loft; when it came close enough for him to make out features, he started at the sight of a buxom blonde wearing the swordswoman's clothing.

She grinned at his reaction. "Which one am I? She didn't tell me. Blonde?"

He nodded, amazed.

"Malebait again. Good choice, no one would ever think I knew what a blade was for. Or that I ever thought of anything but men and clothing, not necessarily in that order. You don't want to see my partner." Her voice was still in Tarma's gravelly tones; Grumio assumed that that was only so he'd recognize her. "We don't want you to have to strain your acting ability tomorrow. Did you bring everything we asked for?"

"It's all here," he replied, still not believing what his eyes were telling him. "I weighted the boxes with sand and stones so that they won't seem empty."

"You've got a good head on you, merchant," Tarma saluted him as she unharnessed the horse. "That's something I didn't think of. Best you leave now, though, before somebody comes looking for you."

He jumped down off the wagon, taking the reins of his riding beast.

"And merchant -- " she called as he rode off into the night, " -- wish us luck."

He didn't have to act the next morning, when a delicate and aristocratically frail lady of obvious noble birth accosted him in his shop, and ordered him (although it was framed as a request) to include her in his packtrain. In point of fact, had he not recognized the dress and fur cloak she was wearing, he would have taken her for a real aristo, one who, by some impossible coincidence, had taken the same notion into her head that the swordswoman had proposed as a ruse. This sylphlike, sleepy-eyed creature with her elaborately coiffed hair of platinum silk bore no resemblance at all to the very vibrant and earthy sorceress he'd hired.

And though he was partially prepared by having seen her briefly the night before, Tarma (posing as milady's maid) still gave him a shock. He saw why she called the disguise "malebait" -- this amply endowed blonde was a walking invitation to impropriety, and nothing like the sexless Sworn One. All that remained of Tarma were the blue eyes, one of which winked cheerfully at him, to bring him out of his shock.

Grumio argued vehemently with the highborn dame for the better part of an hour, and all to no avail. Undaunted, he carried his expostulations out into the street, still trying to persuade her to change her mind even as the packtrain formed up in front of his shop. The entire town was privy to the argument by that time.

"Lady, I beg you -- reconsider!" he was saying anxiously. "Wait for the King's Patrol. They have promised to return soon and in force, since the bandits have not ceased raiding us, and I'm morally certain they'll be willing to escort you."

"My thanks for your concern, merchant," she replied with a gentle and bored haughtiness, "But I fear my business cannot wait till their return. Besides, what is there about me that could possibly tempt a bandit?"

Those whose ears were stretched to catch this conversation could easily sympathize with Grumio's silent -- but obvious -- plea to the gods for patience, as they noted the lady's jewels, fine garments, the weight of the cart holding her possessions, and the well-bred mares she and her maid rode.

The lady turned away from him before he could continue; a clear gesture of dismissal, so he held his tongue. In stony silence he watched the train form up, with the lady and her maid in the center. Since they had no driver for the cart -- though he'd offered to supply one -- the lead-rein of the carthorse had been fastened to the rear packhorse's harness. Surmounting the chests and boxes in the cart was a toothless old dog, apparently supposed to be guarding her possessions and plainly incapable of guarding anything anymore. The leader of the train's six guards took his final instructions from his master, and the train lurched off down the Trade Road. As Grumio watched them disappear into the distance, he could be seen to shake his head in disapproval. Had anyone been watching very closely -- though no one was -- they might have noticed the lady's fingers moving in a complicated pattern. Had there been any mages present -- which wasn't the case -- said mage might have recognized the pattern as belonging to the Spell of True Sight. If illusion was involved, it would not be blinding Kethry.

* * *

One of the guards was contemplating the lady's assets with a glee and greed that equaled his master's dismay. His expression, carefully controlled, seemed to be remote and impassive; only his rapidly shifting gaze and the nervous flicker of his tongue over dry lips gave any clue to his thoughts. Behind those remote eyes, a treacherous mind was making a careful inventory of every jewel and visible possession and calculating their probable values.

When the lady's skirt lifted briefly to display a tantalizing glimpse of white leg, his control broke enough that he bit his lip. She was one prize he intended to reserve for himself; he'd never been this close to a highborn woman before, and he intended to find out if certain things he'd heard about bedding them were true. The others were going to have to be content with the ample charms of the serving maid, at least until he'd tired of the mistress. At least there wouldn't be all that caterwauling and screeching there'd been with the merchant wenches. That maid looked as if she'd had a man betwixt her legs plenty of times before, and enjoyed it, too. She'd probably thank him for livening up her life when he turned her over to the men!

He had thought at first that this was going to be another trap, especially after he'd heard that old Grumio had tried to hire a pair of highly-touted mercenary women to rid him of the bandits. One look at the lady and her maid, however, had convinced him that not only was it absurd to think that they could be wary hire-swords in disguise, but that they probably didn't even know which end of a blade to hold. The wench flirted and teased each of the men in turn. Her mind was obviously on something other than ambushes and weaponry -- unless those ambushes were amorous, and the weaponry of flesh. The lady herself seemed to ride in a half-aware dream, and her maid often had to break off a flirtation in order to ride forward and steady her in the saddle.

Perhaps she was a tran-dust sniffer, or there was faldis-juice mixed in with the water in the skin on her saddle-bow. That would be an unexpected bonus; she was bound to have a good supply of it among her belongings, and drugs were worth more than jewels. And it would be distinctly interesting -- his eyes glinted cruelly -- to have her begging him on her knees for her drugs as withdrawal set in. Assuming, of course, that she survived that long. He passed his tongue over lips gone dry with anticipation. Tomorrow he would give the scouts trailing the packtrain the signal to attack.

* * *

The lady and her companion made camp a discreet distance from the rest of the caravan, as was only to be expected. She would hardly have a taste for sharing their rough camp, rude talk or coarse food.

Kethry's shoulders sagged with fatigue beneath the weight of her heavy cloak, and she was chilled to the bone in spite of its fur lining.

"Are you all right?" Tarma whispered sharply when she hadn't spoken for several minutes.

"Just tired. I never thought that holding up five illusions would be so hard. Three aren't half so difficult to keep intact." She leaned her forehead on one hand, rubbing her temples with cold fingers. "I wish it was over."

Tarma pressed a bowl into her other hand. Dutifully, she tried to eat, but the sand and dust that had plagued their progress all day had crept into the food as well. It was too dry and gritty to swallow easily, and after one attempt, Kethry felt too weary to make any further effort. She laid the bowl aside, unobtrusively -- or so she hoped.

Faint hope.

"Sweeting, if you don't eat by yourself, I'm going to pry your mouth open and pour your dinner down your throat." Tarma's expression was cloyingly sweet, and the tone of her shifted voice dulcet. Kethry was roused enough to smile a little. When she was this wearied with the exercise of her magics, she had to be bullied into caring for herself. When she'd been on her own, she'd sometimes had to spend days recovering from the damages she'd inflicted on her body by neglecting it. Tarma had her badly worried lately with all the cosseting she'd been doing -- like she was trying to keep Kethry wrapped safely in lambswool all the time -- but at this moment Kethry was rather glad to have the cosseting. In fact, it was at moments like this that she valued Tarma's untiring affection and aid the most.

"What, and ruin our disguises?" she retorted with a little more life.

"There's nothing at all out of the ordinary in an attentive maid helping her poor, sick mistress to eat. They already think there's something wrong with you. Half of them think you're ill, the other half think you're in a drug-daze," Tarma replied. "They all think you've got nothing between your ears but air."

Kethry capitulated, picked up her dinner, and forced it down, grit and all.

"Now," Tarma said, when they'd both finished eating. "I know you've spotted a suspect, I can tell by the way you're watching the guards. Tell me which one it is; I'd be very interested to see if it's the same one I've got my eye on."

"It's the one with the mouse-brown hair and ratty face that rode tail-guard this morning."

Tarma's eyes widened a little, but she gave no other sign of surprise. "Did you say brown hair? And a ratty face? Tailguard this morning had black hair and a pouty, babyish look to him."

Kethry revived a bit more. "Really? Are you talking about the one walking between us and their fire right now? The one with all the jewelry? And does he seem to be someone you know very vaguely?"

"Yes. One of the hired swords with the horsetraders my Clan used to deal with -- I think his name was Tedric. Why?"

Kethry unbuckled a small ornamental dagger from her belt and passed it to Tarma with exaggerated care. Tarma claimed it with the same caution, caution that was quite justified, since the "dagger" was in reality Kethry's sword Need, no matter what shape it wore at the moment. Beneath the illusion, it still retained its original mass and weight.

"Now look at him."

Tarma cast a surreptitious glance at the guard again, and her lips tightened. Even when it was done by magic, she didn't like being tricked. "Mousebrown hair and a ratty face," she said. "He changed." She returned the blade to Kethry.

"And now?" Kethry asked, when Need was safely back on her belt.

"Now that's odd," Tarma said thoughtfully. "If he's using an illusion, he should have gone back to the way he looked before, but he didn't. He's still mousy and ratty, but my eyes feel funny -- like something's pulling at them -- and he's blurred a bit around the edges. It's almost as if his face was trying to look different from what I'm seeing."

"Uh-huh. Mind-magic," Kethry said, with satisfaction. "So that's why I wasn't able to detect any spells! It's not a true illusion like I'm holding on us. They practice mind-magic a lot more up north in Valdemar -- I think I must have told you about it at some time or other. I'm only marginally familiar with the way it works, since it doesn't operate quite like what I've learned. If what I've been told is true, his mind is telling your mind that you know him, and letting your memory supply an acceptable face. He could very well look like a different person to everyone in the caravan, but since he always looks familiar, any of them would be willing to vouch for him."

"Which is how he keeps sneaking into the packtrains. He looks different each time, since no one is likely to 'see' a man they know is dead. Very clever. You say this isn't a spell?"

"Mind-magic depends on inborn abilities to work; if you haven't got them, you can't learn it. It's unlike my magic, where it's useful to have the Gift, but not necessary. Was he the same one you were watching?"

"He is, indeed. So your True Sight spell works on this 'mind-magic' too?"

"Yes, thank the gods. I'm glad now I didn't rely on mage-sight; he would have fooled that. What tipped you off to him?"

"Nothing terribly obvious, just a lot of little things that weren't quite right for the ordinary guard he's pretending to be. His sword is a shade too expensive. His horse has been badly misused, but he's a gelding of very good lines; he's of much better breeding than a common guard should own. And lastly, he's wearing jewelry he can't afford."

Kethry looked puzzled. "Several of the other guards are wearing just as much. I thought most hired swords wore their savings."

"So they do. Thing is, of the others, the only ones with as much or more are either the guard-chief, or ones wearing mostly brass and glass; showy, meant to impress village tarts, but worthless. His is all real, and the quality is high. Too damned high for the likes of him."

"Now that we know who to watch, what do we do?"

"We wait," Tarma replied with a certain grim satisfaction. "He'll have to signal the rest of his troupe to attack us sooner or later, and one of us should be able to spot him at it. With luck and the Warrior on our side, we'll have enough warning to be ready for them."

"I hope it's sooner." Kethry sipped at the wellwatered wine which was all she'd allow herself when holding spells in place. Her eyes were heavy, dry, and sore. "I'm not sure how much longer I can hold up my end."

"Then go to sleep, dearling," Tarma's voice held an unusual gentleness, a gentleness only Kethry, Warrl, and small children ever saw. "Fur-face and I can take turns on night watch; you needn't take a turn at all."

Kethry did not need further urging, but wrapped herself up in her cloak and a blanket, pillowed her head on her arm and fell asleep with the suddenness of a tired puppy. The illusions she'd woven would remain intact even while she slept. Only three things could cause them to fail. They'd break if she broke them herself, if the pressure of spells from a greater sorcerer than she were brought to bear on them, or if she died. Her training had been arduous, and quite thorough; as complete in its way as Tarma's sword training had been.

Seeing her shiver in her sleep, Tarma built up the fire with a bit more dried dung (the leavings of previous caravans were all the fuel to be found out here) and covered her with the rest of the spare blankets. The illusions were draining energy from Kethry, and she got easily chilled; Tarma didn't expect to need the other coverings. She knew she'd be quite comfortable with one blanket and her cloak; and if that didn't suffice, Warrl made an excellent "bedwarmer."

Warrior, guard her back, she prayed, as she had every night lately. I can guard my own -- but keep her safe.

But the night passed uneventfully, despite Tarma's vague worries.

* * *

Morning saw them riding deeper into the stony hills that ringed the desert basin they'd spent the day before passing through. The road was considerably less dusty now, but the air held more of a chill. Both Tarma and Kethry tried to keep an eye on their suspect guard, and shortly before noon their vigilance was rewarded. Both of them saw him flashing the sunlight off his armband in what could only be a deliberate series of signals.

Even with advance warning, they hadn't much time to ready themselves.

Bandits charged the packtrain from both sides of the road, screaming at the tops of their lungs. The guards were taken completely by surprise. The three apprentice traders accompanying the train flung themselves down on their faces as their master Grumio had ordered them to do in hopes that they'd be overlooked. To the bandit master at the rear of the train, it seemed that once again all had gone completely according to plan. Until Kethry broke her illusions.

The brigands at the forefront of the pack found themselves facing something they hadn't remotely expected. Gone were the helpless, frightened women on high-bred steeds too fearful to run. In their place sat a pair of well-armed, grim-faced mercenaries on schooled warbeasts. With them was an oversized and very hungry-looking kyree.

The pack of bandits milled, brought to a halt by this unexpected development.

Finally one of the bigger ones growled a challenge at Tarma, who only grinned evilly at him. Kethry saluted them with mocking gallantry -- and the pair moved into action explosively.

They split up and charged the marauders, giving them no time to adjust to the altered situation. The bandits had hardly expected the fight to be carried to them, and reacted too late to stop them. Their momentum carried them through the pack and up onto the hillsides on either side of the road. Now they had the high ground.

* * *

Kethry had drawn Need, whose magic was enabling her to keep herself intact long enough to find a massive boulder to put her back against. The long odds were actually favoring the two of them for the moment, since the bandits were mostly succeeding only in getting in each other's way. Obviously they had not been trained to fight together, and had done well so far largely because of the surprise with which they'd attacked and their sheer numbers. Once Kethry had gained her chosen spot, she slid off her horse, and sent it off with a slap to its rump. The mottled, huge-headed beast was as ugly as a piece of rough granite, and twice as tough, but she was a Shin'a'in-bred and trained warsteed, and worth the weight in silver of the high-bred mare she'd been spelled to resemble. Now that Kethry was on the ground, she'd attack anything whose scent she didn't recognize -- and quite probably kill it.

Warrl came to her side long enough to give her the time she needed to transfer her sword to her left hand and begin calling up her more arcane offensive weaponry.

In the meantime, Tarma was in her element, cutting a bloody swath through the bandit horde with a fiercely joyous gleam in her eyes. She clenched her mare's belly with viselike legs; only one trained in Shin'a'in-style horse-warfare from childhood could possibly have stayed with the beast. The mare was laying all about her with iron-shod hooves and enormous yellow teeth; neither animal nor man was likely to escape her once she'd targeted him. She had an uncanny sense for anyone trying to get to her rider by disabling her; once she twisted and bucked like a cat on hot metal to simultaneously crush the bandit in front of her while kicking in the teeth of the one that had thought to hamstring her from the rear. She accounted for at least as many of the bandits as Tarma did.

Tarma saw Kethry's mare rear and slash out of the corner of her eye; the saddle was empty --

She sent a brief, worried thought at Warrl.

:Guard yourself, foolish child; she's doing better than you are!: came the mental rebuke. Tarma grimaced, realizing she should have known better. The bond of she'enedran made them bound by spirit, and she'd have known if anything was wrong. Since the mare was fighting on her own, Kethry must have found someplace high enough to see over the heads of those around her.

As if to confirm this, things like ball-lightning began appearing and exploding, knocking bandits from their horses, clouds of red mist began to wreath the heads of others (who clutched their throats and turned interesting colors), and oddly formed creatures joined Warrl at harrying and biting at those on foot.

When that began, especially after one spectacular fireball left a pile of smoking ash in place of the bandit's second-in-command, it was more than the remainder of the band could stand up to. Their easy prey had turned into hellspawn, and there was nothing that could make them stay to face anything more. The ones that were still mounted turned their horses out of the melee and fled for their lives. Tarma and the three surviving guards took care of the rest.

As for the bandit chief, who had sat his horse in stupefied amazement from the moment the fight turned against them, he suddenly realized his own peril and tried to escape with the rest. Kethry, however, had never once forgotten him. Her bolt of power -- intended this time to stun, not kill -- took him squarely in the back of the head.

* * *

By late afternoon the heads of the bandits had been piled in a grisly cairn by the side of the road as a mute reminder to their fellows of the eventual reward of banditry. Their bodies had been dragged off into the hills for the scavengers to quarrel over. Tarma had supervised the cleanup, the three apprentices serving as her workforce. There had been a good deal of stomach-purging on their part at first -- especially after the way Tarma had casually lopped off the heads of the dead or wounded bandits -- but they'd obeyed her without question. Tarma had had to hide her snickering behind her hand, for they looked at her whenever she gave them a command as though they feared that their heads might well adorn the cairn if they lagged or slacked.

She herself had seen to the wounds of the surviving guards, and the burial of the two dead ones.

One of the guards could still ride; the other two were loaded into the now-useless cart after the empty boxes had been thrown out of it. Tarma ordered the whole caravan back to town; she and Kethry planned to catch up with them later, after some unfinished business had been taken care of.

Part of that unfinished business was the filling and marking of the dead guards' graves.

Kethry brought her a rag to wipe her hands with when she'd finished. "Damn. I wish -- oh, hellspawn; they were just honest hired swords," she said, looking at the stone cairns she'd built with remote regret. "It wasn't their fault we didn't have a chance to warn them. Maybe they shouldn't have let themselves be surprised like that, not with what's been happening to the packtrains lately -- but still, your life's a pretty heavy price to pay for a little carelessness...."

Kethry, her energy back to normal now that she was no longer being drained by her illusions, slipped a sympathetic arm around Tarma's shoulders. "Come on, she'enedra. I want to show you something that might make you feel a little better."

While Tarma had gone to direct the cleanup, Kethry had been engaged in stripping the bandit chief down to his skin and readying his unconscious body for some sort of involved sorcery. Tarma knew she'd had some sort of specific punishment in mind from the time she'd heard about the stolen girls, but she'd had no idea of what it was.

* * *

Now before her was a bizarre sight. Tied to the back of one of the bandit's abandoned horses was -- apparently -- the unconscious body of the highborn lady Kethry had spelled herself to resemble. She was clad only in a few rags, and had a bruise on one temple, but otherwise looked to be unharmed.

Tarma circled the tableau slowly. There was no flaw in the illusion, if indeed it was an illusion.

"Unbelievable," she said at last. "That is him, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, indeed. One of my best pieces of work."

"Will it hold without you around to maintain it?"

"It'll hold all right," Kethry replied with deep satisfaction. "That's part of the beauty and the justice of the thing. The illusion is irretrievably melded with his own mind-magic. He'll never be able to break it himself, and no reputable sorcerer will break it for him. And I promise you, the only sorcerers for weeks in any direction are quite reputable."

"Why wouldn't he be able to get one to break it for him?"

"Because I've signed it." Kethry made a small gesture, and two symbols appeared for a moment above the bandit's head. One was the symbol Tarma knew to be Kethry's sigil, the other was the glyph for "Justice." "Any attempt to probe the spell will make those appear. I doubt that anyone will ignore the judgment sign, and even if they were inclined to, I think my reputation is good enough to make most sorcerers think twice about undoing what I've done."

"You really didn't change him, did you?" Tarma asked, a horrible thought occurring to her. "I mean, if he's really a woman now..."

"Bright Lady, what an awful paradox we'd have!" Kethry laughed, easing Tarma's mind considerably. "We punish him for what he's done to women by turning him into a woman -- but as a woman, we'd now be honor-bound to protect him! No, don't worry. Under the illusion -- and it's a very complete illusion, by the way, it extends to all senses -- he's still quite male."

She gave the horse's rump a whack, breaking the light enchantment that had held it quiet, and it bucked a little, scrabbling off into the barren hills.

"The last of the band went that way," she said, pointing after the beast, "And the horse he's on will follow their scent back to where they've made their camp. Of course, none of his former followers will have any notion that he's anything other than what he appears to be."

A wicked smile crept across Tarma's face. It matched the one already curving Kethry's lips.

"I wish I could be there when he arrives," Tarma said with a note of viciousness in her harsh voice. "It's bound to be interesting."

"He'll certainly get exactly what he deserves."

Kethry watched the horse vanish over the crest of the hill. "I wonder how he'll like being on the receiving end?"

"I know somebody who will like this -- and I can't wait to see his face when you tell him."

"Grumio?"

"Mm-hmm."

"You know," Kethry replied thoughtfully, "this was almost worth doing for free."

"She'enedra!" Tarma exclaimed in mock horror. "Your misplaced honor will have us starving yet! We're supposed to be mercenaries!"

"I said almost." Kethry joined in her partner's gravelly laughter. "Come on. We've got pay to collect. You know -- this just might end up as some bard's song."

"It might at that," Tarma chuckled "And what will you bet me that he gets the tale all wrong?"

"Not only that -- but given bards, I can almost guarantee that it will only get worse with age."