The Lion of Farside by John Dalmas

Again her tears sprang silently. Truly there could be no more hope.

Tomm’s cloak was taken from his pack, and put over Varia with its storm hood up to conceal her telltale Sister’s face. Then bronze manacles were put on her wrists, manacles with a twelve-inch chain that allowed some use of her hands. Meanwhile the storm had begun, flashing and booming, but the rain passed in a minute, a spattering of large cold drops with wind and a smell of ozone, to blow off northeastward. Then her captors set her on one of their spare horses and started northward. They would travel by night now, albeit the nights were short in that season.

Varia scarcely noticed. Her mind was numb. On their brief stops, she neither ate nor drank. Finally, as dawn paled, they left the trail, set sentries and cooked. A military camp, for despite their clothing, these were soldiers. One of them led Varia a little distance off, gave her cloth and a pan with water, to use after relieving herself, removed her manacles and left her in privacy. After a bit he reappeared and took her to the others. She accepted food—a thick, honey-sweetened corn meal mush, and cheese—and drank from a cup that was offered. There was more in it than water or brandy—some potion—and she fell quickly asleep.

They rested through the day, ate again as the sun set, and moved on. Before dawn they’d passed the first farms. Meanwhile she’d grown more alert, and begun thinking of escape. To her it was obvious that their leader had set a spell to help them ride unnoticed. Not an invisibility spell—that wasn’t practical for a traveling party—but a spell that made them easy to ignore, to pay no attention to. It would hardly cover an uproar though. Perhaps, she thought, she could make an outcry, screaming and struggling, when they passed through some town, or met some large party of travelers.

But the two villages they passed through that night were tiny and fast asleep, too small to waste what would undoubtedly be a single chance. Nor did they pass any travelers. And as if her captors knew her thoughts, the next evening she was gagged before they broke camp. Apologetically it’s true, complete with explanation, and not brutally as Idri had gagged her, but still firmly gagged. She glared as the leader tied it.

In camp she was left ungagged and mostly unchained, but somewhat segregated from most of the party. One of the half-ylver had been assigned as her guard and companion. His name was Caerith, and when they camped, he talked to her. By the third day her reserve had softened, and his occasional brief monologs had become limited, intermittent conversations. This had been a reconnaissance party, she learned, sent to explore the territory where reportedly the Sisterhood had relocated. Not that there was any intention to make war, he insisted. For one thing, the new location was in a dwarf kingdom. This had been simply a matter of intelligence-gathering. What they’d do with such intelligence, Caerith didn’t know.

After the third day, with the country increasingly peopled, they turned to one of the pack horses and replaced their buckskins with more civilized travel clothing. Oddly, there was even a set which more or less fitted Varia, though she continued to wear Tomm’s too-large cloak for concealment.

They continued to travel only by night. Varia knew the pole star, and saw that their road took them more northwestward than north. Ferny Cove was northwesterly. Each time she thought of it, she felt a pang of desperation. Thus, in camp after the fifth day, she went to the leader.

“You’re Cyncaidh?” she asked.

His expression was calm but grave, his face not only handsome but aristocratic, though few aristocrats had one like it. “Yes,” he said, “I’m the Cyncaidh.”

“I lived for more than twenty years on Farside, and have a husband there. Then the Sisterhood stole me from him and brought me back. They kept me in detention at the Cloister, and—used me badly, but I watched for my chance, and ran away. When the tracker caught me, I’d been traveling northwest, working my way toward Ferny Cove, to the gate there. To find my husband again. We can’t be many days walk from there now. I want you to let me go.”

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