Sunstar is dead. And I trained him with my own hands for this war, betrayed him into the hands of the one who would ride him into this slaughter, and the noble horse never faltered, but bore Carolin to this place and to his death. I would have done better to kill him myself when he ran joyously around our green paddock behind the hostel of the Sisterhood. Then he would never have know fire and fear and a sword through his heart.
Dark was falling, but far away at the edge of the battlefield, a lantern bobbed, a little light wandering over the field. Grave-robbers? Mourners seeking the slain? No; intuitively Romilly knew who they were; the women of the Sisterhood, seeking their fallen comrades, who must not lie in the common grave of Carolin’s soldiers.
As if it mattered to the dead where they lay….
They would come here soon, thinking her dead – when she had fallen from her horse, stricken down by Sunstar’s death, no doubt they had left her for dead. Now they would come to bury her, and find her living, and they would rejoice….
And then Romilly was overcome with rage and grief. They would take her back to themselves, reclaim her as a warrior-woman. She had fled from the company of men, come among the Sisterhood, and what had they done? Set her to training horses, not for their own sake or for the service of men, but to be slaughtered, slaughtered senselessly in this strife of men who could not keep their quarrels to themselves alone but involved the innocent birds and horses in their wars and killings. …
And I am to go back to that? No, no, never!
With shaking hands, she tore the earring of the Sisterhood from her ear; the wire caught and tore her ear but she was unconscious of the pain. She flung it on the ground. An offering for Sunstar, a sacrifice offered to the dead! She could hardly stand. She looked around, and saw that riderless horses were wandering here and there on the battlefield. It took only the slightest touch of her laran to bring one to her, his head bent in submission. It was too dark now to see whether it was mare or gelding, grey or black or roan. She climbed into the saddle, and crouched over the pommel, letting the horse take his own way . . . -where? It matters not. Away from this place of death, away, friend. I will serve no more, not as soldier nor Swordswoman nor leronis. From henceforth I shall serve no man nor woman. Blindly, her eyes closed against streaming hot tears, Romilly rode alone from the battlefield and into the rain of the night.
All that night, she rode, letting the horse find his own pathway, and never knew where she went or what direction she took. The sun rose and she was still unaware, sitting as if lifeless on the animal’s back, swaying now and again but always recovering herself before she quite fell. It did not seem to matter. Sunstar was dead. Carolin and Orain had gone she knew not where, nor did it matter, Orain wanted nothing of her . . . she was a woman. Carolin, like the Sisterhood, sought only to have her use her laran to betray other innocent beasts to the slaughter! Ruyven . . . Ruyven cared little for her, he was like a monk from the accursed Tower where they learned devilry like clingfire. . . .
There is no human who shall mean anything to me now.
She rode on, all day, across a countryside ravaged and deserted, over which the war had raged. At the edge of the forest, she slid from her horse, and set him free.
“Go, my brother,” she whispered, “and serve no man or woman, for they will only lead you to death. Live free in the wild, and go your own way.”
The horse stared down at her for a moment; she gave it a final pat and pushed it away, and, after a moment of motionless surprise, it turned and cantered awkwardly away. Romilly went quietly into the darkness of the forest. She was soaked to the skin, but it seemed not to matter, any more than the horse minded his wet cloak of hair. She found a little hollow between the roots of a tree, crawled into it, drew her cloak tightly around her, covering her face; curled herself into a ball and slept like the dead.