On the hetman's other side, Farlorn perched on an upended nail keg, his yarting across his knee, and Os-bard's eldest daughter, Fiora-a young woman, brown hair bobbed short in the fashion affected by the female volunteers, and who was fortunate enough to have inherited neither looks nor disposition from either parent-draped over his shoulder. Not far away, Chen sat with her hands clasped around her knees, gazing fixedly at the bard. She had rebuffed all attempts at gallantry by the local youths; fortunately they seemed to have taken the message without invoking her wild powers, and now left her alone.
At the moment she seemed altogether absorbed by the handsome half-elf. Under Zaranda's tutelage she had bloomed into a handsome young woman herself, though coltish still with adolescence, and she had grown less self-absorbed and obsessive in her pursuit of magic-if only because Zaranda had refused to teach her if she didn't. For his part Farlorn had begun dealing with her in terms of good-natured banter rather than his earlier disdain.
Now Zaranda felt a stab of jealousy, and wondered why. Does it matter that much to be the exclusive focus of Chen's attention? Or do I feel old flames rekindling?
Undeniably Farlorn was handsome. Undeniably she was lonely. She had good reasons for refusing to consider resumption of their liaison… or so she had been telling herself. Now, seeing his face roguish and alive in the light of the fire and an appreciative audience, she wondered if that were true.
The village girl meant nothing to him. There had been plenty such, and would be more; and Zaranda had never been the possessive type. But Chenowyn-graceless, untutored, redheaded, still half-civilized, and prone to seem half-human-had yet some quality to her that would make it hard for even Farlorn to treat her as just another dalliance.
Zaranda looked round the rest of the firelit circle. The face she sought wasn't there. No surprise.
It had been Stillhawk who began sending children, too young to train but old enough not to need adult supervision, some distance from the village as lookouts. One such had spotted the marauders' approach that day, flashing a quick warning back to Tweyar with sunlight reflected in a little mirror-a trick Zaranda had picked up in the Tuigan campaign, where rapid communication was crucial to coping with the fast-moving nomads.
As a hero of the day's epic engagement-for the people of Tweyar realized they hadn't won unaided-Still-hawk had sat through the feast laid out by the villagers. But when the dancing and drinking began in earnest, he had slipped off into the night, uncomfortable with such activities and the nearness of so many people.
Ah, well, Zaranda told herself, you didn't really want to see him anyway. For a moment she had felt that what she wanted was to sit and talk, but that wasn't it. While the bond between her and the mute ranger was strong, it was the blood-forged bond of comrades-at-arms; they were too close to brother and sister for any thing else.
"I feel old," Zaranda told the night. And she turned and went off to her hut alone.
One bandit, shot from his horse by Farlorn in a field outside the village, had survived. Once bandaged, he put on a show of defiance, announcing he would never betray his fellows, who would soon enough come and rescue him.
His bravado lasted only as long as it took Shield of Innocence to wrap a great hand in the front of his jerkin and hoist him into the air. Whether or not the bandit was a votary of evil, he was human, with an instinctive fear of orcs. Especially huge and ferocious-looking orcs.
Which is to say, he rolled over like a Calimport roach.
Two nights after the victory celebration, Zaranda mounted four mercenaries and half the village troops on erstwhile bandit horses and rode forth, leaving Farlorn and Balmeric in charge of the village defenses. In the heart of night, long after moonset, they came upon the bandits' camp near the riverbank. They left the horses in the charge of a female recruit and stole forward to surround the sleeping camp.
Stillhawk and a young villager named Hugh, who was skilled at hunting and reasonably stealthy, dispatched a pair of sentries. Then, half an hour before sunrise, the party stormed the encampment. The first bandits to struggle to wakefulness were sent back to sleep by Zaranda's magic. The few who insisted on showing fight were quickly dispatched, the bulk of the outlaws sensibly surrendering after seeing Shield of Innocence decapitate their doughtiest fighter with his sword-scissors trick.
As simply as that, the Tweyar Self-Defense Force had won its second victory, without cost to itself.
Most of the captive bandits readily accepted parole, agreeing to quit the territory, stripped of arms and valuables but carrying such food as the gang had stocked with them lest, starving, they should be faced with little choice but to return to marauding. The condition was that, were they ever caught again, they would be killed out of hand. The villagers accepted the bargain with an alacrity that surprised Zaranda; apparently the fury of their bloodletting the other day, and the task of cleaning up the grisly aftermath, had left them abashed, with diminished appetite for slaughter.
They were wary when three bandits volunteered to join Zaranda's company. No one in Tweyar could identify any of the three as having committed any atrocities, though, and once Shield of Innocence had described to the erstwhile bandits in terms leaving nothing to the imagination the fate that would befall them should they attempt treachery, even Osbard was reassured. No one, Zaranda Star included, could readily imagine anyone voluntarily running afoul of the monstrous orc. Stern and instant punishment for wrongdoing was very much a part of his god's creed.
With renewed enthusiasm, the volunteers returned to their drill. Zaranda took pains to remind her exuberant troops that they would be extremely lucky ever to gain a third victory at such little cost to themselves as the first two. She could only hope they heard.
The month of Kythorn was preparing to give way to Flamerule when Zaranda and Goldie wended their way toward Tweyar along a trail through the riverside trees. It was a stereotypically beautiful Tethyrian summer evening. A faint pink glow dying in the west was all that was left of day. The air was like perfumed velvet. The sunset swallows yielded to nighthawks, and fireflies winked at one another through the gathering dark. Thin bat cries pierced the murmur of wind in leaves.
They had each had a fulfilling day, though in strikingly different terms. The mare was rhapsodizing over the virtues of the stallions in the pastures where she had passed her day. At last Zaranda shook her head.
"Wouldn't you like to look for a mate such as yourself?" she asked. "You mean magical? Ha!" She tossed her head and snorted. "I go for the strong, silent type. Dumb all around-that's how I like 'em."
"But how can you bear to couple with others of your own kind who can't talk?"
Goldie turned her head to give her the eye. "Think what you're saying, Randi," she said. "How can you stand to couple with members of your species who can?"
Zaranda sighed, and rode the rest of the way in thoughtful silence.
It was all but full dark when they arrived back in Tweyar. "Looks deserted," Goldie observed.
"In the weeks we've been here, you might've noticed a tendency for country folk to turn in early."
"Where are our people, though?"
"Dining with the locals? It's been known to happen."
The mare's reply was a snort.
At the village stable Zaranda rubbed the mare down, brushed her, and left her with her face happily stuck in a trough of grain. She still saw no sign of human presence. Preoccupied with turning the day's events over in her mind, she paid no especial heed.