The Line of Illeniel

Chapter 15

We started out bright and early the next morning. I offered to pay James for the damage to his home but he declined saying he owed me enough already for saving his life. I argued with him, but we had too many other things to do for me to put much energy into it.

We rode at an easy pace. We might have made better time but the mules carrying the gold couldn’t manage anything faster. Penny was back in her ‘traveling warrior’ garb, chain byrnie over padded gambeson. She wore her sword proudly now, the bond seemed to have improved it. I hadn’t enchanted it before but now it was every bit as sharp as the one I had done for Dorian.

I thought about that as we rode. Without being enchanted I assumed that the magic that gave it its sharpness must be continually renewed by the bond between us. That meant that the bond had some perpetual cost, a slight drain upon our personal energies would be needed to maintain it. I wondered what other costs there might be, but I knew too little to have any good guesses.

Penny was in a good mood. Exuberant would be the best description for it. She had been ever since the bond was formed; her new strength and energy had filled her with a joyful zest for life. I’m pretty sure she was looking forward to the evening’s training session with Cyhan. She had as much as said she had a score to settle. I hoped the two of them didn’t inflict any injuries I couldn’t heal.

Cyhan nudged his horse closer to mine, “Keep your eyes open, if they have anyone after us they’ll probably make their move tonight or tomorrow.”

I hadn’t forgotten our previous discussion, “I know. I’ve been scanning the hills around us. When they get close I’ll sense them. We should have plenty of warning.”

“Warning would be good, but I won’t count on it. Men can surprise you, they may think of some way to avoid detection you haven’t come across before,” he replied.

Typical, I could have told him they would attack us naked, armed only with spoons and he probably would have warned me how dangerous a spoon could be in the hands of a desperate man. I think he lived in a state of constant paranoia.

Marc leaned over to me, “You need to relax Mort. You seem tense.”

“I’m not the one that’s tense… or rather I wouldn’t be if he wasn’t such a worrywart,” I replied.

We rode until noon before we stopped to eat lunch. When we stopped Penny made a point of leaping down from her horse, the she remounted with a standing jump. The action delighted her so much she repeated it several times. She was about to try vaulting completely over the horse before she had to stop. Her poor mare had spooked at her strange antics and nearly started bucking. She spent several minutes talking to her to calm her down.

“You’re enjoying this entirely too much,” I said a few minutes later as we ate our bread and cheese.

“And you my sweet man are jealous,” she shot back.

“Hardly, I could make the horse fly over you just as easily, but I am too concerned for the poor mare’s feelings to put her through that,” I replied grumpily.

“If you two are done eating, it’s time for my pupil’s next lesson. She obviously needs to burn off some excess energy,” Cyhan interjected.

The two of them squared off in a small clearing beside the road. I was interested to see the outcome. Penny showed every sign of having far more strength and agility now than any person, man or woman, had a right to possess. My bets were still on the older warrior though, there’s something to be said for experience and his constant training had made him just about as strong as any normal human could hope to be.

They were sparring barehanded. Cyhan felt it would be far too dangerous to do any weapons training until she had acclimated to her new abilities. That was as much as an admission that he feared she might injure him, or perhaps that he might be forced to go too far in defending himself. I wasn’t too sure which.

As soon as he said, ‘ready’ she went after him, faster than a jungle cat. She moved almost too quickly for me to follow but a moment later she was sailing past him to land sprawling in the grass. I thought she might pause for a moment after that, but I was wrong. She had barely struck the earth before she bounded up again and headed for him. He was ready for her, and seconds later she was flying off in another direction.

“Pay attention damnit!” he shouted at her. “In a real fight you or Mordecai could wind up dead with all the time you waste charging about and landing on your ass!”

That got her goat; she came off the ground as if it were a trampoline. She twisted as she came up, perhaps she planned to somersault as she came up but she overdid it. She nearly flipped all the way over again, to land face first, but her reflexes saved her. Putting out both hands she caught herself and pushed off again. The end result was a combination tumble and somersault that sent her flying over his head. She landed lightly behind him, but before she could swing at him his back kick caught her squarely in the stomach. I winced as I heard the air driven forcibly from her stomach. She flew back several feet and collapsed, choking and gagging for air.

Cyhan was ‘hopping’ mad. That would have been a great joke to make, but he truly was angry, and she was in no shape to appreciate my humor either. He took two quick strides and jerked her to her feet by her hair, “That was the dumbest shit I have ever had the misfortune to witness!”

Penny tried to say something but she wound up vomiting on him instead, a nasty concoction of bread and cheese. If I hadn’t been so worried about her I might have laughed then too, instead I ran over to help her.

“Goddammit!” he shouted at her. A long string of expletives followed and I wish I had paid better attention, some of them I had never heard before. I was surer than ever that he must have spent some time as a sailor, or perhaps a marine. Quite a bit of his swearing was pure nautical genius.

“Maybe we should take a break from our break…” I suggested.

“You stay out of it!” he roared at me. He looked as if he were ready to beat her and call it ‘training’ just to get vengeance for the noxious substance she had spewed all over him. Instead he stomped off toward the horses looking for a towel.

“Are you ok Penny?” I tried to help her stand up straight.

“Get away from me!” she shouted, pushing me back. I don’t think she intended to push me quite that hard but I wound up flying back several feet to land on my ass. “I don’t want your help Mort! I can handle this on my own.” She went in a different direction and soon I was left alone, sitting in the clearing.

“What the hell did I do?” I said to myself. Some days it just doesn’t pay to try and help your homicidal girlfriend after she’s been hurt. Honestly, homicidal isn’t too strong a word either. By her own admission she’s committed murder before. Granted the circumstances were exceptional.

Marc walked over, he had been watching silently during the bout. “She’s always been proud Mort. The best thing to do when someone’s pride is injured is to give them space,” he commented.

“I only wanted to help.”

He sighed, “Listen, ever since you turned up with your magical talents everything has been about you. Then you discovered you were the heir to not just one, but two fortunes; not to mention being a nobleman. How do you think that makes her feel?”

“Happy?” I ventured.

“No, dumbass… inferior. She went from being your equal, to being the girl that just got lucky enough to have her claws in you first,” he replied sharply.

“I can’t help my birth… or any of the rest of it. None of it matters to me anyway, not without her,” I said emphatically. “You know that!”

“Sometimes knowing isn’t enough. People think with their heads, but they live by their hearts. This is the first thing she’s had to call her own… to make her special. It might be just a burden to you, but for her this bond is an honor. It gives her something to feel good about. Getting her ass handed to her by that great hulk of a trainer is embarrassing. The last person she wants to see it is you. ”

“Why me?” I complained. “I’m the one person who’s cheering her on the most.”

Marc shook his head, “How did you get so far in life without understanding the first thing about women? Why you? Because you are the person she wants to impress the most! Not the one she wants to see her being humiliated.”

I had to admit, Marc always understood people better than I did, women especially. “So what should I do?” I asked.

“Nothing, if you do watch any more of their sparring bouts keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself. Give her plenty of space.”

“What if she does well? If she’s successful I should compliment her right?”

He snorted, “Not now… later maybe. Compliment her on some small achievement now and she’ll think you’re mocking her. Her self-esteem won’t let her believe you anyway. She’ll be her own worst critic for a while.”

He seemed to be full of good news. “So when will this get better?”

“When he compliments her,” Marc replied.

Something about having her waiting on another man’s approval didn’t sit well with me. “So if I encourage her it’s mockery, if he does she’ll be giddy with happiness?”

“Of course,” he replied smugly. “In my wild and loose days, before my new vocation, I used tactics like that to woo women all the time. You start off aloof, disinterested… cold even. Then, when you show them a bit of kindness they get weak in the knees. This is the same sort of thing. Quickest way I know of to get a woman into bed too,” he paused for a second, considering what he had just said. “Not that this is going to lead to something like that of course. You’ve got nothing to worry about with Penny,” he amended.

“Whose side are you on here?” I snapped.

“Yours my friend, always yours,” he answered, smiling.

An hour later we were back on the road. Our trip was greatly improved by the fact that no one was talking anymore. A sullen silence hung over us like a pall. It was turning out to be a grand journey.

At dusk we made camp. After a quiet meal Cyhan announced that there would be no training that evening. I wasn’t sure if he felt Penny needed more time to recover or whether he might not trust himself to spar ‘nicely’. In any case I didn’t mind the chance for a little extra rest.

“Have you sensed anyone nearby?” he asked me, probably for the tenth time.

“Nope, not a soul all day,” I replied.

“That worries me,” he said. Big surprise, he’d be worried no matter what I told him. “I’ll feel better when it’s over. The waiting is the worst part,” he added.

That made two of us, although for different reasons. I didn’t bother reminding him I would tell him as soon as I found anything. He would keep asking anyway. Personally I was of the opinion that the bankers hadn’t bothered to set up anything as sinister as an ambush. “Are we going to set watches?” I asked. I’m not sure why I asked, the answer was obvious.

“Ordinarily I would say let your Anath’Meridum take one watch with Marcus and you take the other with me. Her senses are keen enough now that she should be able to detect any foe almost as quickly as you could,” he replied. That surprised me; I hadn’t known her senses were heightened as well. He went on, “Frankly though, I don’t trust her enough yet so you’ll be taking the first watch with Marcus. I’ll stay up with her to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m not deaf you know,” she responded gruffly.

“I wanted you to hear that. Maybe you’ll learn something,” he replied.

“Alright, alright… I’ll take the first watch. I’ll wake you two up after midnight,” I spoke quickly. I wanted to head off the beginning of another war between them.

They staked their territories on opposite sides of our small campfire and soon they were both laying still, backs to the fire. Marc and I talked for a while, mostly about the old days, but we had to keep it quiet to avoid disturbing our sleeping companions. Eventually we stopped talking and sat silently on opposite sides of the fire. That left me with a lot of time to think.

I already had an idea of how I wanted to handle the possible thieves, if there were any. But I wasn’t sure how well it would work. I took the opportunity to work on the idea and plan out the words I would use when, or if, the time came.

Time went slowly and I soon ran out of things to think about. I got up and walked around the camp a few times to ward off sleep. As I walked I gathered small stones from the rocky ground near our camp. I would need them later if we did get ambushed. I was definitely getting drowsy. Eventually the moon reached a point that told me my time was done, so I went over to wake up Penny first.

I shook her shoulder gently, “Wake up sleeping beauty.”

Her eyes opened slowly in the dim light, “Mort?”

“It’s me,” I said softly.

“I’m sorry about before. I was angry with myself, not you. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you like that.”

“Don’t worry about it. You were under a lot of stress,” I told her.

“I just want to learn quickly. We don’t have much time.”

I knew what she was referring to, “Yeah. Just don’t make yourself miserable for what time we have left.”

“I can do this Mort, it isn’t a waste of time,” she said intently.

“I know, but we only have a few months left anyway,” I replied hastily, a little too hastily perhaps.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked suspiciously.

I would have thought that was obvious. I never have understood why women always look for some deeper meaning in a simple statement. “I mean I understand. It’s just that what you’re trying to learn isn’t easy. You shouldn’t push yourself too hard.”

“You think I should just give up?” She sounded angry.

How did she get from apologetic to ticked off? “I never said that Penny…” I started, trying to keep my tone reasonable.

She rose from her bedroll in a smooth fluid motion. Her speed was such that she almost tripped stepping out of it. That didn’t help matters. “There’s your bed. I don’t think this conversation is going anywhere,” she bit out.

I didn’t bother responding. There was little doubt her warped sense of self would turn anything I said into another challenge to her competence. I watched her stalk over to wake up Cyhan before I lay down. I had a bad feeling sleep would be slow to come. Stubborn girl, I thought to myself.