What Warriors Do Read online

  This brought her face to face with Thad, who had edged a bit closer than he’d realized. Seen up close, he was struck forcefully by her beauty. The aunts had, of course, considered themselves exempt from the ban upon discussing the Wildling, and had spent considerable time gossiping among themselves about what she did with herself through the long days, and how she was faring alone in the wilderness. Most had agreed that she had by now degenerated into nothing more than a feral beast, thin and starving, either burnt and wrinkled by the merciless sun or frozen and blighted by the chill nights. What Thad saw now was nothing of the sort. She was slender, yes; in the same way that her sword was slender. Starving she most definitely was not; the curves of womanhood were clearly evident despite her oft-mended clothing and the armor she wore atop it. Her hair was longer than it had been, and the sun had lightened it considerably; it now hung to her waist, a cascade of rich bronze. And her face, tanned to a dark gold like he had never seen, served only to show her eyes as a green so clear and deep that he wondered how he ever could have considered them ordinary.

  She stopped still, and regarded him for long moments before reaching out a tentative hand towards his face.

  He flinched back; he couldn’t stop himself. That hand held within it the violence, the potential to harm and kill, that his people and their ancestors had devoted their very existence to denying. Her reaching hand froze in place, and then drew back. Her eyes blinked, just once, and then she turned them away, turned away herself, and left the smithy. Walking towards the edge of the village, back towards the trail that led to the high places where she must now be making her home, she was followed by the people. Only at the unmarked border where the lodges ended and the greater valley opened did they stop, and only there did she turn and regard them once more.

  “You believe that you’re safe here, you believe that if you keep building the Wall higher and thicker, that nothing of evil or violence will ever be able to reach you.” She surveyed them all; Thad remained at the back of the crowd, not wishing to be within reach of those hands again. “You’re wrong.” That statement, delivered so matter-of-factly, struck those gathered like a blow. “I’ve found places along the rim, up there,” A long finger pointed towards the low points in the mountain wall that surrounded them. “There are paths, trails where men could find their way here from the outside. How do you think the wolf got here? Do you think it flew?” No one spoke, and she nodded slowly. “I thought that would be your answer. All right, I’ll leave. But understand, pretending that something can’t hurt you, hoping that it can’t find you, that isn’t the way to survive when the worst finally comes.”

  With that she left, striding away, back to the wild places.

  Behind her, Thad listened to the mutters of the villagers.

  “—little miss high and mighty, telling us that all we do and think is wrong. This when she’s the one who stands as a perversion before all that is right and proper—“

  “—Did you see what was in that bundle when Geran unwrapped it? Nuggets of gold, and a half-dozen bits and pieces that I’ll swear are raw sapphires! Enough for him to do a year’s finework; she paid for that knife a dozen times over, though I don’t know what she meant about a whetstone, do you?”

  “—how come she did that, mama? How come she just came and took whatever it was that she wanted?”

  “That’s only as I’ve always told you, poppet. Storming in and stealing away the things that honest folk have worked long and hard for, why, that’s what warriors do!”

  Thad walked away as the crowd began to disperse, heading back to his work. That chair wouldn’t build itself, after all.

  * * * * *

  Four times did midsummer’s day come and go, the seasons turning and life in the valley going on much as it ever had (except for that unsettling difference that no one was supposed to speak of, and yet still did, when the Elders were not close by). The Wildling came, once a season, to bring things which she found in the wild places where peaceful folk did not venture, and to take the few necessities which she couldn’t find there. No one tried to stop her, no one even spoke to her… with a few exceptions. The older boys (or younger men, if you like) found it impossible not to notice that Rain, despite the hardships of whatever sort of life she lived out away from the village, was nevertheless the most beautiful woman any of them had ever seen. The bronze mane, gold-tanned skin and enormous eyes, the slim yet curvaceous body toned by the rigors of her chosen way, to a select few these things proved irresistible.

  Of course, there was also the challenge of it all; which among them would be the one to tame the Wildling? Which would bring her to his bed, and make of her the meek, respectable woman she was meant to be?

  When, on one of her infrequent visits to the village, she chanced to linger a bit late, three of the boldest hastened themselves up the trail and found an auspicious site for an ambush. Being clever lads, they brought rope with which to restrain the Wildling until they had managed to do a bit of that taming. Being cautious lads, they also brought along a small arsenal of clubs and the like, with which go get the taming off on the right foot.

  When Rain came up the trail in the gathering dusk they were ready; they sprung their ambush flawlessly, and she didn’t even have time to get her stick in hand before they were upon her.

  Later, when they managed to drag themselves back to the village, bloodied and soundly beaten every one, there was only a minor uproar to be heard among the men folk. They knew, after all, what the boys had been up to, and were unsurprised that the Wildling had refused to submit. Old Drent, who never had recovered the proper use of his manhood, was seen to shake his walking stick at one of them as the worst of their wounds were being attended to.

  “Gods above, boy, what were you thinking?! That she-demon’s no proper mate for anything in these mountains, unless it be a the spawn of a badger and a wolf, all in one!”

  Thad, hearing this, could only agree. He himself had wed a girl named Brenna earlier that year. This after long suffering the aunts and their scolding about his useless pining for a girl who had never been a true girl at all. So he had married, and he was happy, after a fashion, with his bride, and his woodworking, and the small yet snug lodge which he had built with help from his neighbors and family.

  And still he derived a secret satisfaction at the sight of those three, sitting there so ragged around the edges, and at the knowledge that the Wildling belonged to no man at all. Except perhaps in the memory of a certain afternoon, in a meadow.

  * * * *

  Thad awoke, aware that even though he lay safe in his own bed, in his sturdy lodge, something was definitely amiss.

  Despite the darkness, the shape leaning over him was feminine, and familiar, and yet the warmth beside him proved beyond doubt that Brenna still slept.

  “Thad?” came the whisper, and the voice was, of course, Rain’s. He opened his mouth to demand of her the reason for this intrusion, for her stealing into his home, into the safe and sheltered life he had built as a means of denying that she had ever been a part of his world. Her fingertips touched his lips, stilling his words before he could speak them, and she gestured for him to rise and come with her. Unsure of many things, yet absolutely certain that Brenna should not be awakened to find the Wildling in their bedroom, he slipped from beneath the covers and padded to the hallway.

  He could not help but notice that while his bare feet made unmistakable scuffling sounds across the floorboards, her soft hide boots were utterly silent.

  When they reached the hall, she turned to face him, not without a glance into the small room that lay adjacent to the one where he had been sleeping.

  “What, no little ones yet?” she asked, her raised eyebrow faintly visible in the dimness. He shook his head, caught between irritation and a old regret.

  “Not yet, though Brenna’s expecting. Come midwinter we’ll be a proper family.”

  And it could have been the two of us here, together, and your beautiful children sl
eeping beyond that door come the deep snows.

  He thought he saw it in her eyes too, the awareness of what might have been. Then the moment passed, and she wrinkled her nose in the old way he remembered.

  “What you see as ‘proper’, I’ve always found small, and….” Her voice trailed away to silence, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Thad. I wish you no ill, nor your wife, nor any of you here. If you are happy, then I am content.”

  The young man took this in, reflecting that these were more words than the two of them had exchanged in the last five years; since she had left the village to find her own life, alone.

  “Are you content?” he asked, giving voice to something he had long wondered. “You were always so different, so… resentful of being shut in, of being stifled by our traditions. Why have you stayed here, in the valley, all these years?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the Wall, a scant half-mile away. “Would you not be happier out there, where people think as you do, where weapons and fighting are not shunned as they are among us?”

  He hadn’t been sure what reaction, exactly, that would provoke; whatever he had been expecting, however, it wasn’t the one he received. She gave a kind of start, and gave him a look which he could only term as… guilty.

  “I’ve….” She looked away for a moment, licking her lips, then turned to face him and tried again. “I tried that, Thad. I wanted to see what it was like, to see if I’d be happy there, as you said.” She shook her head, and lowered her eyes to the floor. “I wasn’t.”

  He found himself stunned by her admission, though of course nothing she did or said should have had that power, after all this time.

  “You went out there? Outside?” A simple nod was her reply, which was hardly enough given the circumstances. “What did you do, climb the Wall?”

  “No, I found a trail, in the high reaches, like the wolves must use when they find their way into the valley. It was difficult, and not easily found, but it would also be extremely difficult to block, with another Wall or anything else.”

  He nodded. She had, of course, anticipated the first reaction that any of their people would have upon hearing that there was another way into the valley; seal it away, bar passage to anyone from Outside. Now, though, he had to know--

  “What did you find there? What was it like?”

  The dimness of the hallway where they stood turned her green eyes into dark shadows.

  “Strangely enough, it was just as the elders would have us believe.” She laughed, softly, and it was a grim, cheerless sound. “Imagine my chagrin when I found that they were right all along.” He wanted to reach out then and touch her, to lay a comforting hand upon her shoulder, but the distance between them was still too great. Not the physical distance; this was something that was much harder to cross.

  “Those of the King’s lineage still rule, then?” he asked, as much to break her brooding silence as from any real desire to know the answer.

  She shook her head.

  “No. There is no king, no law of any kind, outside that of a hundred petty lords, each with their bit of burnt and trampled land and each with a cold, stone fortress to guard it. Once I came down from the high places, I spent many days skulking about, learning what I could, and it took all my skill to remain unseen.” Her hand dropped to her belt, to the hilt of the dagger that hung there, as if seeking reassurance. “Harsh and cruel the old King might have been, and yet his absence has been no kinder to those folk. Long war has ravaged the land; famine and disease are everywhere, and even the lords in their castles are

  said to go hungry more often than not.” She shuddered, and her eyes found his. “Thad, this valley is a treasure beyond price to any of them. If ever it is discovered, then some Baron or hedge-lord will strike as quick as he may, to take and hold it for his own. And Thad,” Here she stepped forward a pace, and reached out to grip his arm. “I have seen them, and their ways. I have heard the wails of their own people as they starved, and I have stood beneath the gallows and watched their slain enemies feed the crows.” She looked down from the inches of height she still held over him, and her beautiful face was grave. “If ever they knew kindness, or compassion, or reason, then they have long since forgotten.”

  He watched as she took her hand away from his arm, and turned to move silently away down the hall. Unwilling to admit how deeply her words had shaken him, he found words of his own, though somewhat harsher than he had meant.

  “And yet they are a warring folk, are they not? They live by the very sword to which you cling so tightly; why then did you return here, instead of claiming their ways as your own?”

  She paused at the head of the stairs, and turned her head just enough to meet his eyes over one mail-clad shoulder.

  “Because here is where I’ll be needed.”

  * * * * *

  Weeks passed, and harvest time came, and still Rain’s words haunted him. So much so that though he lent a willing hand to the work in the upper fields, harvesting the ripe, golden wheat, he was unable to join in the singing that would otherwise have made the day’s labor pass more quickly. All around him, the men wielded their scythes, and all he could see was the way the metal flashed in the lowering sun, as swords would flash, should the Outside find its way into their refuge. The women and children worked to gather the cut stalks and bind them into sheaves; would they work so gladly, and laugh so brightly, if some Lordling’s soldiers drove them to their labors with whips and clubs? The glad sounds struck at him like blows, and Thad turned away, stumbling past a wagon already loaded for the trip down to the mill. Brenna, his young wife, had brought his lunch to him there, hours before, after he had unloaded a wagonload of grain. He wondered if the special treatment was because she sensed the dark turn his mood had taken, since Rain’s visit. He half-wished she had not come to visit him; seeing her, and knowing his child was growing inside her, made his misery all the greater. He believed that the danger was real, he trusted that Rain knew of what she was speaking when she warned of what might happen, and yet….

  It had been a century and more since the people had fled the Outside, and they were yet safe, undiscovered. To speak to the Elders of this, to share with them what she had told him, seemed unnecessary, even foolish. Still… Brenna, and their unborn child, made even the smallest chance of it happening seem worth taking any risk to ensure their safety; if such a thing could ever be sure.

  So lost was he in his thoughts, so involved in his inner turmoil, he never saw the figure sitting amid the tall grass and slender cedars of the hedgerow at the field’s edge until she spoke.

  “Nothing here changes,” she said, and he gave a violent start, whirling to find her looking out at the villagers just ending their day’s work. “Year after year, season after season, it’s always the same here. I used to hate that, I thought of them as people who were sleeping, and had no wish to ever awaken.” She turned her head towards him, and a small, bittersweet smile tugged at her lips. “Now I’m not sure if they’re wrong. If what I’ve seen is the waking world, perhaps they’re right to cling to their sleepy dream.”

  His heart still pounding from the way she had startled him, he shook his head.

  “If you put a fright into any of them the way you did me just now, with your sneaking about, they’ll certainly sleep less soundly.” He glanced at the field, and stepped closer to where she sat. It was unlikely that any of them would spot Rain, certainly he had not, but it wouldn’t do for them to see him addressing a stand of weeds. “You know, the parents speak of the Wildling Ghoul, the crazed wild woman who preys upon the naughty boys who shirk their chores, and the willful girls who won’t mind their mothers.” He smiled, expecting her to laugh, if only wryly, in reply. “It must comfort you to know that you’ve reached the status of legend, at least in our tiny corner of the world.”

  She shook her head.

  “I doubt the children truly fear me. None of you, not one, has ever known real fear. Why should you, when all your lives have be
en spent in this warm, safe place? Where every person is known to you from childhood, and no true evil can ever reach?” She sounded bitter, and he wasn’t sure why. “I’m afraid that you will know fear soon, Thad. And see the face of evil with your own eyes.” That chilled him, despite everything the warm Autumn sun could do, and he knelt before her so that he could meet her gaze.

  “What’s happened?” he asked quietly. “What do you mean?”

  The woman regarded him for a long moment, took a deep breath, and began to speak.

  “Three days ago, I went Outside again, meaning to go down and see what passed in the nearest of the holdings there. I meant to see if perhaps things there were not so grim as I had told you, if perhaps there was some hope and comfort to be found there.”

  He wondered if she had also meant to find a place for herself out there, as he had himself suggested that she might. It pained him to think that his words had driven her to that.

  “Did you find what you sought?” He asked.

  “No; my journey was cut short. A short distance from the trail I used, just on the other side of the rim, I found a campfire.” She sighed, and looked out at the fields again. “It is inevitable, I suppose. Given how badly folk are faring Outside, how many rogues, outlaws and deserters are roaming the foothills out there, sooner or later someone is bound to find us.” She sounded so calm when she said that; he would have thought her veins ran with ice water, if not for the slight tremble of her hand when she brushed back her hair.

  “What happened?” He asked. “Did you drive them away before they could find the passage into the valley?” A sudden thought struck him, and he felt his eyes go wide. “Did you…?” Did you kill them, he thought, unable to even ask it aloud. She knew, though, she knew what he had almost asked.