5
Anyone who could neutralize Zandra as quickly as this injured woman was a threat to take seriously, even if it was all just a misunderstanding.
So Megs didn’t move except to raise her palms to show that they were empty of weapons. “My friend meant you no harm.”
“Which was why she drew her blade and moved to surprise me.”
Megs couldn’t see her face, but the tone was sardonic. A curtain of black hair, matted with fir needles and dirt, and which looked as if it was still partially braided in the back, hid her features.
“My friend has kept herself alive over the past four years mainly thanks to a paranoid personality,” Megs said, matching the woman’s sardonic tone.
The woman snorted.
Megs took in the woman’s black leather armor. There was no doubt that it was Imperial, but it was far nicer than the plain brown armor Megs had received when she joined the army.
The black armor also had to have been custom-fitted for the woman, who was shockingly petite – reed-slender and a full head shorter than Zandra. The standard-issue leather armor one received when joining the army came in only two basic sizes, small-ish and large-ish. Anyone exceptionally small, like this woman, or exceptionally large just had to make do. But the injured woman had pristine black armor that fit her like a glove. Who wore armor like that?
Megs glanced at the short sword and dagger hanging at her waist. The sword sheath usually bore a stamp of rank, but the only stamp on the woman’s sheath was the double-eagle of the House of Dorsa. That confirmed that she was Imperial but told Megs nothing else.
Megs cleared her throat and tried a different tack, speaking in the soothing manner she might use for a calf who’d gotten itself tangled in a briar patch.
“We’ve been tracking you since the meadow,” she said. “We saw you were running from the mountain men, and we followed you because we wanted to know if you knew more about them – who they are, where they’re going.” She paused. “And we know you’re injured. We have fresh bandages and clean water.”
The woman kept her eyes on Zandra. “How do I know you’re not one of them?”
“Do we look like mountain men?” Zandra sneered.
“Don’t play dumb,” the woman said. She had Zandra’s braid wrapped around her fist like a rope, and gave it a little tug at the word dumb. “I obviously wasn’t asking if you’re mountain men.”
Megs exchanged a confused glance with Zandra. “Then what exactly were you asking?”
The woman looked up at Megs for the briefest of moments, giving Megs a glimpse of her face before she returned her attention to Zandra.
“Tell me who sent you.”
Megs didn’t answer right away. Her mind was too busy unraveling the puzzle of the face she’d just glimpsed. First of all, the woman kneeling atop Zandra was hardly old enough to be called a “woman” at all. She was definitely younger than Megs’s twenty-four summers; if Megs had to guess, she would peg the girl somewhere between eighteen and twenty.
But besides the fact that the person who’d eluded an entire clan-sized group of mountain men was nothing but a waifish teenager, her facial features revealed another surprising fact: She was Terintan.
Megs felt as though she was piecing together a puzzle toy, only to realize none of the pieces she had matched. A Terintan in the Sunrise Mountains. A female, teenage Terintan in the Sunrise Mountains. Wearing the finest leather armor Megs had ever seen. And somehow escaping – while injured – an entire clan of mountain men.
“My name is Megs. My companion you’re kneeling on is Zandra,” Megs said, returning to the soothing tone she’d been using earlier. “As for who sent us …” Megs shrugged. “We come from a group of Imperial refugees with a camp east of here. I suppose you could call me the group’s leader.”
Zandra shot Megs an annoyed look, clearly not pleased at how much information Megs had just revealed to this dangerous stranger. But trusting her own intuition had saved Megs’s life on more than one occasion, and her gut told her that this girl was not an enemy. If anything, she could become a powerful ally.
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here – why you’re tracking me,” the girl said. She kept her eyes locked on Zandra, but directed the question to Megs.
“I was getting to that,” Megs said. “This morning, a wounded Imperial veteran was found not far from our camp’s borders. His sheath said he was a lieutenant. He warned us that an entire tribe of –”
“What was his name?”
“Clovis of House Andalthia.”
This information clearly agitated her. She wound Zandra’s ponytail even tighter around her fist, and with a flick of her wrist, the dagger’s position shifted – instead of just point, the entire blade rested against Zandra’s carotid.
It looked as if the girl might be preparing to give Zandra a shave.
Or else slice her throat wide open.
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” the girl asked. “How do I know you’re not trying to trick me, take me back to him?”
“You don’t,” Megs said frankly. “We followed you because we thought someone running from the mountain men might be on the same side as us. And because we thought you might know something that could help our people.” Megs paused, giving the girl a chance to respond.
The girl didn’t argue. But neither did she move the blade away from Zandra’s throat.
“I’m going to take off my sword belt,” Megs said. “I’m going to put it on the ground, then I’m going to take two steps backwards.”
“Megs –” Zandra said, a note of alarm in her voice.
The girl yanked hard on Zandra’s ponytail. “Not another word.”
“I’m going to take two steps backwards,” Megs repeated, “and after I do, maybe you could take your blade away from my friend’s throat?”
The girl didn’t reply.
“You subdued her quickly,” Megs reasoned. “If she tries anything stupid, you’ll be able to subdue her again, and I will be too far away to help her.”
Megs gave Zandra a hard stare. After over a year of fighting together on raids, communicating silently with looks and hand signals, Zandra would be able to interpret that look correctly.
Trust me,the look said. And in the name of all the gods, just follow my lead without arguing for once.
The girl hesitated. “Take four steps away after you put your belt down. Not two.”
“Alright. Four steps.”
Moving slowly, Megs unbuckled her belt and laid it gently on the ground. She counted out-loud while she took four steps backwards from the girl, holding her hands up the whole time.
“I’m taking your belt off, too,” the girl told Zandra. “When I get off you, you’re going to leave it on the ground and walk over to where your friend is.”
Zandra didn’t reply.
“Zandra,” Megs said.
“Fine,” Zandra huffed.
“Leave the quiver of arrows, too,” the girl commanded.
“What am I going to do with arrows and no bow?”
“Just leave them,” Megs said.
Moving cautiously, the girl let go of the braid and took her knees off Zandra’s arms. Dagger point now against Zandra’s leather jerkin, the girl undid the sword belt with one hand, eyes on Zandra’s face the whole time.
Smart. An experienced fighter always watches an enemy’s eyes and hands. The girl might be young, but she knew what she was doing.
Once the belt buckle was loose, the girl hopped backwards like an acrobat, landing three feet away on the balls of her feet.
Smart and nimble. And good enough to take out one of Megs’s best fighters.
Zandra got to her feet, brushing fir needles from her jerkin. She reached for her quiver.
“Not so fast,” the girl said.