Oathblood by Mercedes Lackey Page B

geas-blade Need on her back, and blinked the road dust out of her sore eyes. The sun sat on the horizon like a fat red tomato, seemingly as complacent as the farmers it shone down on. “How far to the next town?” she asked over the dull clopping of hooves on flint-hard earth.
    â€œHuh?” Her companion, the Shin‘a’in Swordsworn Tarma, started up out of a doze, blinking sleepy, ice-blue eyes. Her granite-gray mare snorted and sneezed as the thin swordswoman jerked alert.
    â€œI asked you how far it was to the next town,” Kethry repeated, raking sweat-damp amber hair with her fingers, trying to get it tucked behind her ears. In high-summer heat like this, she envied Tarma’s chosen arrangement of tiny, tight-bound braids. It may not have been cooler, but it looked cooler. And Tarma’s coarse black hair wasn’t always coming loose and getting into her eyes and mouth, or making the back of her neck hot.
    â€œMust’ve nodded off; sorry about that, Greeneyes,” Tarma said sheepishly, extracting the map from the waterproof pocket on the saddle skirting in front of her. “Hmm—next town’s Viden; we’ll hit there just about dusk.”
    â€œViden? Oh, hell—” Kethry replied in disgust, rolling the sleeves of her buff sorcerer’s robe a little higher. “It would be Viden. I was hoping for a bath and a bed.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with Viden?” Tarma asked. To Kethry’s further disgust she didn’t even look warm; there was no sheen of sweat on that dark-gold skin, and that despite the leather tunic and breeches she wore. Granted, she was from the Dhorisha Plains where it got a lot hotter than it was here, but—
    Well, it wasn’t fair.
    â€œViden’s overlord is what’s wrong,” she answered. “A petty despot, Lord Gorley; hired a gang of prison scum to enforce things for him.” She made a sour face. “He manages to stay just on the right side of tolerable for the Viden merchants, so they pay his fees and ignore him. But outsiders find themselves a lot lighter in the pocket if they overnight there. Doesn’t even call it a tax, just sends his boys after you to shake you down. Hell fire.”
    â€œOh, well,” Tarma shrugged philosophically. “At least we were warned. Figure we’d better skirt the place altogether, or is it safe enough to stop for a meal?”
    :For a short stop I misdoubt a great deal of trouble with me at your side,: the lupine kyree trotting at Ironheart’s side mindspoke to both of them. Kethry grinned despite her disappointment. Seeing as Warrl’s shoulders came as high as Tarma’s waist, and he had a head the size of a large melon with teeth of a length to match, it was extremely doubtful that any one—or even three—of the Viden-lord’s toughs would care to chance seeing what the kyree was capable of.
    â€œSafe enough for that,” Kethry acknowledged. “From all I heard they don’t bestir themselves more than they can help. By the time they manage to get themselves organized into a party big enough to give us trouble, we’ll have paid for our meal and gone.”
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    The dark, stone-walled common room of the inn was much cooler than the street outside. Bard Leslac lounged in the coolest, darkest corner, sipped his tepid ale, and congratulated himself smugly on his foresight. There was only one inn—his quarry would have to come here to eat and drink. He’d beaten them by nearly half a day; he’d had plenty of time to choose a comfortable, out-of-the-way corner to observe what must come.
    For nearly two years now, he had been following the careers of a pair of freelance mercenaries, both of them women (which was unusual enough), one a sorceress, the other one of the mysterious Shin‘a’in out of the Dhorisha Plains (which was unheard of). He had created one truly masterful ballad out of the stories