The Sword-Edged blonde

ELEVEN

I left Arentia before dawn, two days after my interview with Queen Rhiannon. I slipped out of the castle with the morning garbage detail, and waited at the dump outside town for an hour to make sure no one had followed me. My adversary, whoever he was, clearly had his fingers on a lot of spider webs. I wanted to make sure mine didn’t quiver.

A day’s ride on my stolen horse brought me almost to the Arentian border, where I made camp. That night I stared up at the stars and imagined a wide-eyed horse tumbling out of the sky, its hooves pumping madly as it plummeted toward the ground. I looked over at my stolid, arrogant horse, tied to a low tree branch. The absurdity of the idea made me smile.

If you wanted to say anything was possible, it was conceivable that Rhiannon had fallen from the sky in the shape of a horse and then transformed into a beautiful woman. And I guess it was also conceivable that the fall could’ve knocked her memories from her head. But none of that explained how a horse got up in the sky in the first place. Or why Queen Rhiannon was the spitting image of Epona Gray, the Queen of Horses.

Hell, I chastised myself, don’t be catty about it. Queen Rhiannon is Epona Gray.

Epona Gray, and Cathy Dumont, and Stan Carnahan and the mysterious Andrew Reese. I hadn’t thought of those names in over ten years. It was from a time in my life when I made foolish alliances far too quickly, and often found myself stuck with obligations I couldn’t fulfill. I’d learned a lot since then.

They say too much introspection is as bad for you as too much drink. The folks who say this spend a lot of time introspecting, so I guess they’d know. Forced introspection can be even worse, because no one is ever compelled to contemplate the good things in their past. You look to history to avoid the same mistakes, not repeat the same joys. That’s why defeats are clearer than victories, funerals more vivid than weddings.

I hated my past. Yet in it was my only clue to the disappearance of Phil’s son. The resemblance between Rhiannon and Epona Gray was too striking to be mere coincidence. But how had a woman who’d been dying when last I saw her traveled all this way, in both time and distance, to emerge as the sun-infused beauty I met in that tower?

The trail to Epona Gray stretched back thirteen years, almost as far as the one to Phil and Janet. I seldom thought about that time in my life, but now I had to retrace not just my footsteps but my memories and feelings. Something, some miscellaneous detail, had to provide the connection. And if I knew why Epona had become Rhiannon-never mind how — I might know why someone hated her.

So by day I headed toward Cazenovia, eventually crossed the bridge at Poy Sippi, and traveled through the dense forests to the hidden place that, long ago, had sheltered Epona Gray. And each night, I gave my thoughts renewed access to those days as well, hoping that some vital clue might shake loose from the memories. The past washed over me like the flood that hit Neceda, leaving behind the debris of pain, failure and death.

That first night on the trail, my thoughts returned to the other time I’d skulked out of Arentia, after Janet’s death. I’d been sixteen, and sure of absolutely nothing except that I never wanted to see anyone I knew ever again-not my parents, not my friends, especially not Phil. As soon as my injuries had healed enough for me to travel, I caught a ride with a flannel merchant heading for the border, and spent the next three months drunk off my ass, fighting and whoring my way as far as my money took me. I wasn’t trying to burn Janet’s memory from my mind, or seeking death so I could be with her. I was creating a new Eddie LaCrosse, one who’d never been rich or brave or happy. Eddie version two was mean, selfish and took no shit from anyone.

Finally, several months into my transformation, I awoke in some strange girl’s bed, broke and bruised and monumentally hung over. When the girl started screaming for her money, I smacked her, and knew I’d achieved what I wanted. I’d reached a point where no one else existed for me, where my own brutality was simply the way I operated. I was a bully and a jackass, and people better stay out of my way.

Even a jackass needs a job, though, and what better one than signing up for someone else’s army? My dad had insisted I learn to handle a knife and sword, and it turned out I had a real knack for it. Since I didn’t care which side won, I had no problem hacking down anyone designated as my “enemy,” and so I spent five years bouncing around various small countries, once rising to the rank of major. I drank too much, killed people for all the wrong reasons and generally behaved like most of the career soldiers I knew. I saw things so brutal they would give a lesser man, or any man with a conscience, nightmares for life. It was a liberating experience.

Once again, though, the change came when I awoke one morning with a girl. Only this time she was dead, and so was everyone else in the whorehouse, including my entire unit.

It remains the spookiest dawn of my life. A noise awoke me, but I never found out what it was. I winced at the sun through the window. The girl’s body had stiffened during the night, and I had to struggle to get free of her cold, clutching arms. A single sword thrust went through her back and emerged between her breasts, bisecting her heart. Blood soaked the mattress beneath us. Her expression was one of slack-jawed surprise, although her eyes were closed. When I threw her aside in momentary panic, I dislodged two dozen flies already claiming the body.

My head thundered from drink, and I quickly checked myself for injury. Not a fresh mark showed among the old pink scars. Had the murderer been after only the girl? And had I been so drunk that someone could come into the room and stab her without waking me?

I got dressed, and found my money was still in my pockets; robbery hadn’t been the motive. I searched each room on the second floor and found the same thing-a soldier and a whore, both dead from a single sword thrust. Nothing seemed to be taken from them, either.

The bar downstairs was empty. I helped myself to enough drink to dull my headache, then went into the street. Our horses, tied to the post the night before, were gone. The manure piles told me they’d been away for over six hours. The rest of the tiny crossroads town was deserted, although I found no other bodies, or any indication when the native population left. It was as if they’d just vanished.

I didn’t make a really thorough search because the whole thing was too damn eerie. I got out of there as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me. At first my wine-addled brain convinced me I was marked for death, that who or whatever had slaughtered everyone else would realize it had missed me and follow me to the ends of the earth. Later, after I’d thrown up a lot and choked down some half-cooked rabbit, I realized I’d just been incredibly, almost mythologically, lucky.

To this day I don’t know for certain who killed them all, or why. We were fighting in a disputed territory with lots of guerrilla units as well as regular troops on the prowl, none of whom were above ambushing us while we were drunk or asleep. Later I heard a faction loyal to the local king may have killed everyone and burned the town; I must have accidentally slipped out while they were off readying their torches. Either way, that day loaded with real death marked the symbolic demise of Eddie the Mercenary. Although I wasn’t a religious guy, I couldn’t shake the notion I’d been spared for a reason, and once I’d sobered up enough to think straight, I decided I’d be an idiot not to honor my luck.

I spent two aimless years doing odd jobs for meals and learning various quirky trades. I was still young, and didn’t really look like a soldier, although I still had my sword and sundry other hidden weapons. I also still despised horses, so I traveled everywhere on foot. It kept me lean and alert.

And so it was that one day thirteen years ago I strolled along the empty road between Antigo and Cazenovia, minding my own business, when I heard the distinctive clatter of swords in combat.

I instantly slipped off the road and into the thick forest. A woman’s voice snarled, “Goddammit!” accompanied by three quick clangs. I followed the sound to its source.

Three men, rough-clad ambush robbers by the look of them, surrounded a fourth figure. The bad guys had huge battered swords and wielded them with casual, vicious skill. They stood around their quarry in a practiced pattern that kept one of them always out of their victim’s field of vision.

In the center of this triangle stood a slender, red-haired girl, as tall as me but with that willowy quality so many country girls possess. She had short hair and was dressed like a man, which actually made her look more feminine. But this was certainly no helpless maiden.

As I watched, one of the men grabbed for her jacket. She spun, and something smaller than their weapons flashed in each of her hands. They were too big to be knives and not wide enough to be swords, but they clearly did the job. The man howled and jumped back as the girl blocked not only his awkward sword thrust but the straight-to-the-mark jab of another man now directly behind her.

She aimed a kick at the backstabber’s knee, but he dodged it. She used her momentum and spun, catching the third man’s sword in the crossed blades of her own long, thin weapons. She rolled her weight onto her back foot and slammed her other one into his crotch. As he fell, she kneed him hard in the face. He dropped, out cold. Then she whirled on the other two, trying to keep them both in sight.

“Who’s next, huh?” she demanded. There was no fear in her voice.

She was, however, outnumbered, and these guys were pros. They’d already slipped up by underestimating her, and they wouldn’t make that mistake again. They slowly circled, moving into opposite positions so she couldn’t watch them both at once. Neither of them had noticed me, however, and I used the trees and shadows to cover my approach.

“Look, fellas,” the girl continued, “this doesn’t have to get any uglier. I don’t have any money on me, so this is just a waste of your time.”

“You got something on you, all right,” one of them said. “It may not be money, but it don’t mean we can’t sell it somewhere.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re awful cute under all that,” the other agreed. “And I know one way to find out.”

She snorted. “What you see is nothing, I got a Falinese dancing girl tattooed across my back.” Then, surprising me as much as them, she attacked.

She feinted toward the weaker-looking of the two, and when the bigger man tried to take advantage of this, she was ready for him. She kicked him hard in the nuts, then spun and slashed him across the throat. It wasn’t just a casual blow, either; she windmilled at him, so that if the first blade missed, the second would not. In this case, neither did.

But even the best plans can be foiled by sheer dumb luck. The bigger man was so big, his momentum carried him forward faster than she could react, and he plowed into her, blood gushing from his neck. His weight drove her to the ground, and the remaining thug lost no time stepping forward to take advantage of this.

That is, he would have if my throwing knife hadn’t struck him in the heart. He never knew what hit him or where it came from, and he stumbled a few feet before collapsing. I waited to make sure he wasn’t faking before strolling over to the scene.

The girl, still pinned beneath the big man, looked up at me. “So are you gonna do anything other than gawk?” she gasped in annoyance. “I could use a little help here.”

“I already gave you a little help,” I said, and retrieved my knife from the dead man’s chest. I wiped the blood on his clothes and slipped it back into the side of my boot. “I figure you can get out of there on your own.”

She glared at me, but didn’t ask again, and after a couple of moments of concerted wriggling, she emerged rumpled but unhurt. Blood streaked her clothes, but none of it was hers. The first man moaned, and she kicked him in the head hard enough to knock him out again. Then she faced me, and I got my first close look at her.

She had wide shoulders and the kind of trim, narrow body that spoke of hard muscle beneath her baggy clothes. A deep scar cut through her right eyebrow and touched her hairline, where a streak of white sprang from it. She was cute rather than pretty, and I just bet she knew that and it bugged the hell out of her. “So what happens now?” she snapped, challenge in her voice. For all she knew, I was another bandit.

“Can I see that tattoo?” I asked with a grin.

“Is that why you jumped in?”

“Nah. You looked like you needed a hand. Hand given. We’ll leave it at that. See ya.”

“That’s it?” she exclaimed as I walked back toward the road.

“That’s it,” I tossed over my shoulder.

She made an exasperated noise. “Will you wait a minute?”

I stopped.

“Where are you headed?” she asked as she caught up with me.

“Nowhere,” I said honestly.

She paused for a deep, calming breath before she spoke again. “Here’s the thing. You’re pretty good with a knife. I assume you’re good with that sword. And you seem to be a decent guy. At least, you didn’t try to get into my money bag or my pants.” Then she stopped, scowling as if her openness embarrassed her.

“Either say it or don’t,” I prompted.

“Well, it’s just… I’m not a fighter, I’m a delivery man… girl. Woman. I’m new at it. And I’ve had six fights like that one in five days, most of them not even over the package I’m supposed to deliver. They were over this package.” She gestured at her body. “Know what I mean?”

“Ah.”

“And damn it, I don’t want to have to either pretend to be a teenage boy for the whole trip or just ‘lay back and enjoy it,’ as they say.”

“Understandable.”

“So…” Again she paused, working up the nerve to say what she wanted. “I would like to hire you to go with me the rest of the way.”

“The rest of the way to where?”

“I’ll tell you when I know I can trust you. Until then, all you’d have to do is just tag along and look unpleasant.” She put her hands on her hips and waited for my reply. Her skin was flushed from exertion, and it made her freckles stand out.

“You don’t even know me,” I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t, and I don’t have time to check your damn references, either. I’m a pretty good judge of people, and my fast decisions tend to be my best ones. If you’re in, let’s go; if not, say so.”

“Okay, so what’s in it for me besides your charming company?”

“I have half my fee in advance. I’ll give you half of that, which means I’m out a quarter of it.”

“I can do math, you know. But how much actually goes into my pocket?”

She told me, and it was certainly a respectable amount. I didn’t have to think about it for long. “Okay, you got a deal. Where are we going?”

“Uh-uh. I’m the boss, so we’re in the world of need-to-know. Until, like I said, I know I can trust you.”

“It ain’t very smart to hire a bodyguard you don’t trust,” I pointed out.

“You’re not a bodyguard,” she almost snarled. “I can guard my own damn body, thank you very much. You’re just along to expedite things.”

“So I’m your arm candy,” I said with a grin.

She scowled, but I saw amusement in her eyes. “I’d say you were arm spinach. It’s good for you, but nobody enjoys it.”

“In case you stop eating healthy, then, maybe I better get half my fee in advance.”

She shrugged. “If it makes you feel more secure.” She took out a handful of money and counted out half of the agreed amount.

“You can trust me now,” I said as I put the money away.

“Only halfway,” she fired back, but she grinned when she said it.

And so I met Cathy Dumont, proprietor and sole employee of Dumont Confidential Courier Service. Since we were far enough from Arentia that she’d probably never heard of my family or my own connection to scandal, I gave her my real name, and we shook hands on our bargain. She told me nothing about our destination, or about the “package” she carried in her backpack. As for where we were headed, she said only that we had to cross the Wyomie River sometime within the next three weeks. We could’ve made better time on horses, but neither of us had the money to buy them or was sleazy enough to steal them. So we walked.

We fell into an easy traveling rhythm those first few days. Cathy proved to be quite loquacious, but unlike a lot of people, she actually had something substantial to say. She explained that she’d come from Bonduel, the daughter of a blacksmith who encouraged her to both master some form of weaponry and never allow herself to be dependent on anyone. She married young, and was widowed shortly afterwards, a memory that seemed to call up no regret on her part; I didn’t ask the obvious questions about just how her late spouse had met his end.

Yes, she was attractive. And yes, I noticed, and yes, it had been a while for me. But besides the fact that she was not very encouraging (she insisted we always sleep with the fire between us), I just wasn’t motivated that way. Although I’d visited whorehouses with my fellow soldiers, Janet had been my only “lover.” Even after seven years that memory was still too fresh.