Warrior of the Wild(70)

“He may bear the face of a man,” I say, “but he is no man. He is something else, and I won’t hesitate to end him.”

“Good.” Soren’s gaze flicks past me. “We’re in luck. The stream’s opening up.”

The stream widens and deepens into a slow-moving pool. The water is clear—I can see down to the bottom where the rocks gather. They shimmer at the bottom as the sun filters through the water. They must be filled with metal fragments. This mountain has never been mined. It must be rich with ore and other deposits.

“Ladies first,” Soren says. “Let me know how cold it is.”

“It’s runoff from the mountain. It’s going to be freezing.”

“Would you rather be clean or warm?”

I take another sniff at my clothing. “Clean.”

“I’ll keep watch. I promise not to look.”

“So noble.”

He gives me a wicked grin before walking away, his back to me. I pull the armor sheets from out of my clothes and discard them by a tree. Then I shuck my boots and ax. I grab a bar of soap and clean set of clothes from my pack and walk to the pool’s edge. Once there, I take off my clothes and place them within reach of the water.

I dip a single toe into the stream. Freezing is too gentle of a term for what it is. I can’t fathom why there isn’t ice floating along the surface. There’s no easy way to do this. I take a deep breath and jump.

The cold is so intense it feels like needles are scraping my skin. I just stand there for a moment, waiting for my body to adjust.

“All good?” Soren shouts, his body facing firmly away.

“Th-the w-water is g-great. Just wait until i-it’s your turn.”

He laughs lightly. I pretend not to notice.

I soap down every inch of skin on my body twice. I lather the soap in my hair until bubbles stream down my arms. I take a deep breath and go down. A headache starts to form from the cold.

Once done, I heft myself out of the water and don my fresh set of clothing. I pull my hair out of my face, wrapping it into a braid. Then I let Soren know it’s safe to look, but he stays where he is, keeping guard while I’m still vulnerable without my armor.

I grab my dirty clothes and plunge them into the water. I only have the one extra set with me for this climb, so I’d better clean these now.

As I scrub and scrub with the bar of soap, one spot won’t come out. Blood from the cut on my arm, I think. I need something rougher to take to it.

About an arm’s length away, I find a good-sized rock with a rough surface. I reach for it. The top shimmers in the sunlight, a bright metal vein glinting along it. I take the rock to my garment and scrub roughly. It does the trick, the spot coming right out. With the water running downhill, the soap doesn’t build up; it washes downstream with everything else, so my clothes are free of soap in no time.

I climb from the pool, wring out my clothes, and find a nearby tree branch to drape them across to dry.

When that’s done, I take the rock I found with me. Soren will want it for his clothes, I’m sure.

I start for the tree where I deposited my pack and armor, the rock in hand, when a force bats it from my palm.

I look up, but Soren still has his back to me a ways off. My head spins in a circle, looking for some intruder. I find nothing.

“Did you see anything?” I shout.

“Rasmira, I promise I kept my back to you while you were bathing. I didn’t see anything.”

My cheeks blush. “No, I mean, did you see someone or something?”

“No, why?” He turns toward me.

I look down at the ground, thinking perhaps someone threw something at my hand, but there’s nothing but more rocks.

“I’m not sure yet,” I say. I have to take a step backward to retrieve the rock. Gripping it more firmly, I head for my pack once more.

But I can’t.

At first, I think it’s the god’s power that Soren and I keep running into along the mountain, but how could it be? I just walked this way fully clad in my armor. I would have felt it before.

Is there something different about this rock in my hand? Why can’t I take it with me? Is it important to Peruxolo? Does he want it to stay near the stream? And if so, why?

Maybe all I need is a running start.

I take a few steps back, dig in my heels, and bound toward the tree. There’s pressure against my hands—I almost lose the rock, but then something gives. I hear a crash in front of me, my head snapping up to see my armor no longer propped against the tree but on the ground.

“How did you do that?” Soren asks.

I take another step forward. Though there’s extra pressure, the rock moves with me. And my armor—

The sheets skid away from me, never letting me grow closer to them.

All I can do for some time is look back and forth between the rock in my hands and my armor. I step all the way up to my pack, my armor now ten feet away to the side.

“Do you recognize this metal?” I ask, holding up the rock for Soren to see.

“It’s brighter than iron,” he says.

“And it clearly has a negative reaction with iron.”

“Like a lodestone?” Soren asks.

“Yes, exactly like a lodestone, but different than the ones found in my village. This one is so much stronger.”