Masques (Sianim #1)(21)

He stood silently for a minute before he said, "I don't think so. That was probably why he went from straying arrows to sending elementals - the timing is about right. But since we survived it, there was no harm done."

* * *

MYR WAS UP AND ARRANGING BREAKFAST WITH A DEXTERITY that Aralorn found fascinating to watch. She let herself be organized with a bowl of cooked grain that made up in amount what it lacked in flavor. After the food she'd eaten at the inn, she felt no inclination to complain. Wolf neither ate nor removed the mask, a situation that seemed an established pattern, since no one commented on it.

As she ate, Aralorn took the time to observe the people. The introductions she'd received the night before had been needfully brief, and many of the people had been asleep. She could only place the names to a few of the faces.

The sour-faced cook was a smith from a province in southern Reth. A large snake tattoo wrapped itself around one massive forearm, disappearing into his sleeve. She noticed that for all his gruffness, his voice softened remarkably when he was talking with the children. His name was Haris.

Edom sat a little apart from the rest. He had the dark, straight hair and sallow skin typical of parts of western Reth, the legacy of interbreeding with the dark Darranians. His hands were the soft, well-cared-for hands of an aristocrat. He was an oddity in the camp. Too old to be a child, yet younger than till the adults. He was a recent arrival and still looked as if he felt a little out of place.

All but two of the children had been sleeping when she'd arrived at the valley. Those two were now seated as close to Myr as they could get. Stanis had the red hair and freckles of the Southern Traders and the flamboyant personality to go with it. The second boy, Tobin, was a quiet shadow of his friend. Stanis tugged impatiently at Myr's shin until he had the young king's attention. Then he settled back on his knees and started talking with grand gestures of his arms that looked a little odd on a boy of ten or eleven summers.

Aralorn was just about to look away when she saw Myr's expression sharpen with alert interest. He looked around for Wolf and waved him over. Aralorn followed.

"Stanis, tell Wolf what you just told me."

Stanis hesitated for a moment, but the enjoyment of being the object of attention manifestly won out over any shyness that he felt around the intimidating magician.

"Well, yesterday afternoon when it was time to eat lunch, nobody could find Astrid. Me and Tobin thought that she might have been playing up near the old caves. So we all went up there to see if she still was. Edom was too scairt to go in but I wasn't. We looked for hours and hours. Then when we all got back out together she was waiting with Edom.

"She said that she met a nice man who knew her name and took her out of the caves. Edom says that he didn't see no one with her when she came out. And Haris said that he thinks that she wandered into the month of one of the caves and fell asleep and dreamed about the man. But I think that she met a shapeshifter and Tobin does too, only he thinks that it could have been a ghost too."

Aralorn suppressed a smile at the boy's delivery - he'd gotten most of that out in one breath.

"What do think, Wolf? Astrid doesn't tell stories, for all that she's but a child. Who do you think she saw?" Myr's tone was quiet, but it was evident that the thought of someone living in the caves (wherever they were) bothered him.

Wolf thought for a moment. "It's entirely possible that she did meet someone. Those caves interconnect with cave systems that run throughout the mountain chain. I have seen many strange things in these mountains and heard stories of more. I know for a fact that there are shapeshifters in this area." He didn't even look at Aralorn as he said that. "I've never seen anyone in there, but if a shapeshifter doesn't want to be seen, he usually isn't. I wouldn't worry too much. From his actions it is apparent that he means us no harm."

Myr relaxed a little, relying on the older man's judgement. Stanis looked pleased with himself - Wolf had agreed with him.

* * *

AFTER BREAKFAST ARALORN FOUND HERSELF CORNERED BY Myr, and before she knew it she was agreeing to give lessons in swordsmanship. Myr divided the adults into four groups, to be taught by Aralorn, Myr, Wolf and a one-armed ex-guardsman with an evil smile and the unlikely name of *willow. The other three were all much better with a sword than Aralorn was, but luckily none of her students was good enough to realize how badly outclassed she was.

The first part of any low-level lesson was a drill in basic moves. Haris Smith-Turned-Cook handled the sword with the same strength and sureness that a good smith uses in swinging a hammer. He learned rapidly from a word or a touch. Edom had the normal flaws of adolescence - all elbows and awkwardness. The others were in the middle range. Given three or four years of steady sword work, they would be passable, maybe.

She fought her first bout with Haris, deciding to face the best fighter first - when she was fresh. It was a good idea. He might not have had much experience with a sword, but he had been in more than one dirty fight. If she'd had to rely on only her swordsmanship to fight him, she might have lost, but she'd been in a few dirty fights herself.

When she finally pinned him, Haris gave her the first genuine smile she'd seen on his face, "For a little bit of a thing, you fight pretty well."

"For a hulking brute, you are not too bad yourself," she said, letting him up. She turned to the observers. "And that is how you light on a battlefield. But not in a training session on swordsmanship. The sword got in his way more than it helped him. If he were fighting in a battle today, he'd be better off without his sword. That will not be true in a month, for any of you - I hope."