Bladesinger - Keith Francis Strohm [22]
Water spun and rose into the air like a funnel. Slowly it bent toward the druid and touched her cheek, gently, like the soft caress of a young child. Behind her, she heard Borovazk mutter something before he dismounted and knelt before the running water. The Rashemi ranger spoke rapidly in his native tongue then stood. A moment later the water funnel straightened then gradually fell back into the stream.
The spirit's presence departed.
Marissa remained on her knees, stunned by the intimate communion she had just experienced. Truly, the gods had crafted a land of wonders when Rashemen came into being. Even the wilds of Cormyr, the land of her youth, couldn't compare to what she had experienced here in such a short amount of time. Thoughts of her childhood came back to her. Raised in Waymoot, near the heart of the King's Forest, she had spent many years wandering the deer trails and hidden paths of the woodlands while her father toiled away at his trading business, burying himself in work to forget the fog-shrouded day he had buried his wife, Marissa's mother, an elf bard from Evereska. Perhaps Marissa reminded her father too much of what he'd lost, but soon after her mother's death, he had retreated into ledgers and factor notes, pushing her away. She had grown up in the shadow of the oak and alder trees of the King's Forest, counting her years as they came from the heights of shrub-studded bluffs and the depths of root caves, fatherless and motherless-unless the moon-throated example of wolf and the night-hunting owl could be considered father and mother. The forest had raised her.
When the Circle had come for her, Marissa had been ready. Decades she had spent as an Initiate, wandering the rugged land of Cormyr, from the forbidding peaks of the Storm Horn Mountains to the stagnant heart of the Vast Swamp, watching and learning, touching and being touched by the wisdom of soil and seed, root and stone.
She would trade it all, she knew, for a few months more in this strange northern land.
"Come, little witch," Borovazk's rumbled. His touch, however, fell light upon her shoulder. Marissa looked up into the ranger's face, lined with the years and harsh weather. There was something there, a softness that she had never seen before, a chink in the armor of his boisterous good humor.
Hesitancy, she thought. Or fear.
"Is time to be on our way," he continued.
Marissa nodded and stood. She was conscious now of the others. Roberc sat easily on Cavan and raised an enigmatic eyebrow as he puffed away on his pipe, while Taen tightened and retightened the straps on his saddle. Within moments, she sat astride her own horse and waited for Borovazk to lead them forward. The change in the ranger's demeanor didn't trouble her nearly as much as the half-elf's continued withdrawal. Ever since their brief exchange during the night of the hag-wind, he'd seemed sullen and quiet-more so than usual. She had thought he'd worked past it, just for a moment, right before their battle with the trolls. However, Taen had said almost nothing to her since the aftermath of that combat. He'd even engaged the normally surly Roberc in conversation but had found little to say to her except some softly spoken morning pleasantries.
Marissa wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but she knew it would have to stop. When Borovazk started forward, she kicked her dun gelding forward, moving next to Taen's own mount.
"What is it, Marissa?" he asked after she had stared at him for a few moments without saying anything.
"Ah," she responded, trying to