Sianim 01 - Masques

get trained in Darranian-style swordsmanship? So I faked it.”
    Aralorn looked him over. “Quite a problem, I agree. What you will do is tell this all to Myr. You do it, or I will.” She put a bite into her last sentence. She’d trained her share of new recruits before she became a spy—some of them needed orders that sounded like orders.
    Edom balked; she saw it in his eyes. Whether it was the order, the idea of telling Myr his secret, being told what to do by a woman, who was also obviously Rethian (prejudice went both ways between Reth and Darran), or all of the above, she didn’t know. Though she suspected all three. She waited while he worked it out, saw him swallow his pride with an effort.
    “I’ve heard he’s not as prejudiced as most Rethians.” She waved a hand in the vague direction of the rest of the camp. “And with the lack of trained fighters here, Myr can’t afford to be too picky.”
    Edom stared at her a moment. “I guess I’ll go do that now, then.” He gave her a small smile, took a deep breath, and seemed to relax. “If he doesn’t kick me out, I guess it might be nice to be useful, instead of sitting on the sidelines all the time.” After a brief bow to her, student to teacher, he ran off to where Myr was fighting.
    Aralorn stretched wearily. Tired as she was, it had felt good to work out with a sword rather than a mop—it was almost as good as playing at staff.
    The exercise had made her hot and itchy, so she wandered over to the creek. It took her a while, but she found a place deep enough to wash in, with a large flat rock that she could kneel on and avoid the worst of the mud. She ducked her head under the water—its icy temperature welcome on her overheated skin.
    As she was coming up for air, she heard a newly familiar voice say, “See, I told’ja she had a funny-looking sword. Look, the handle’s made out of metal.”
    Aralorn took her time wiping her face on her sleeve and smoothing her dripping hair away from her face. Stanis and his silent-but-grinning companion, Tobin, stood observing her. She hid a smile when she recognized Stanis’s solemn-faced, feet-apart, hands-behind-his-back pose. She’d noticed that Myr did that when he was thinking.
    “Have you killed anyone?” Stanis’s voice was filled with gruesome interest.
    She nodded solemnly as she rolled up the long sleeves of the innkeeper’s son’s tunic again. Maybe she should cut them, too. The boots were giving her blisters.
    “You’re not supposed to fight with swords that don’t have wooden handles,” said Stanis worriedly. “If you kill a magician with your sword, his magic will kill you.”
    She could have explained that any mage powerful enough to be problematical that way would certainly not need a sword to kill her. But she didn’t want to scare them any worse than they already were.
    “That’s why I only wound magicians with my sword,” she explained. “When I kill magicians, I always use my knife. It has a wooden grip.”
    “Oh,” said Stanis, apparently satisfied with her answer.
    They were silent for a moment, then Stanis said, “Tobin wanted to know if you would tell us about killing someone?”
    “All right,” agreed Aralorn. Far be it from her to give up the chance to tell stories. Her friends rolled their eyes when she started one, but children were always a good audience. She looked around for a good place. She settled on a grassy area, far enough away from the stream so that the ground was relatively dry, and sat down cross-legged. When her audience joined her, she cleared her throat and began the story.

    That was where Wolf found her. Her audience had grown to include most of the camp, Myr’s raggle-taggle army as enthralled as any bunch of hardened mercenaries at her favorite tavern. He walked quietly closer until he could hear what she was saying.
    “. . . so we snuck past the dragon’s nose a second time. We had to be careful to avoid the puddles of poison that dripped from the old beast’s fangs as it slept.”
    She had just thrown away her career and her home—no matter what the outcome of this, she had disobeyed orders. If she returned to Sianim, it would be as a criminal and a deserter. She knew that. Knew that Myr’s little band of refugees was doomed unless they had the luck of the gods—and he didn’t believe in luck, not good luck, anyway. Yet here she was, entertaining this grim and hopeless bunch with her relentless cheer.
    “Dragon’s