Orphans - Kevin Killiany [20]
Rowath, the Holder, had allowed her to stay in the married quarters after Dosar’s death. He had hopes, more than she had, for the outcome of her pregnancy; he said she would need the room for her children. Until he moved her back to the barracks, she had a hearth and a place to hang this shield. A place of memory.
She was not surprised to find the line of packbeasts abandoned. The lone able-bodied raider had apparently made good use of his mobility, for she saw no sign of him. Dosar would have known where he had gone; Dosar was the tracker. Then again, Dosar’s longbow would have brought the four raiders down before they’d known a warden was about.
The animals came easily to hand, having no more objection to retracing their steps uphill than they’d had to following the trail down. They were loaded, she saw, with ingots from Domat’s mine, but not overloaded. The raiders had planned a long journey before finding a market for their booty.
No mystery there: this trail branched either duskward, past the lower birthing pool to Atwaan, which had mines enough of its own, or dawnward to the Tetrarchy. The Four Houses would use this little bit of metal in a day and had the wealth to pay twice its worth without blinking.
Come to think of it—and she did stop to think, peering first back down the trail, then up to the hills on either side—this was not enough to warrant a journey through the wilds to the Tetrarchy. These few must have been but one cell of a larger group of raiders. She wondered how many Holds were being raided today.
Had they known, she wondered as she continued up the trail toward Domat’s outpost at the downwater edge of Rowath Hold, that the warden for these trails was dead? Their small number and the openness with which they’d moved indicated they had expected no opposition.
Certainly not to be brought down by a pregnant shield maiden in single combat. Even in her dark mood, that thought made her smile.
She had been proud to be a shield bearer, to excel in a craft dominated by men. She was a defender, sworn to protect others. For many years she had defended Dosar, guarded him against assault and ambush as he patrolled, searching out raiders and renegades.
It was a familiar partnership; no longbow man could protect himself in close combat and often no armsman with sword or crossbow could engage thieves and brigands before they escaped. Though, and again despite her mood Ahrhi smiled at the memory of Dosar’s amusement, it was very rare for a warden to marry his shield bearer.
But she had been poor defense against a raider with a longbow. No guardsman could protect another against the shaft of a longbow. They came from too far to be seen, flew too fast to see. No one held her at fault for her husband’s death but her.
She jerked the lead packbeast’s halter more savagely than the poor animal deserved when it tried to snatch a bite of trailside grass. She murmured an absent apology, and the creature tossed its head, rejecting it out of hand.
There was no marque of House or Hold on the arrow she now carried in her bedroll, but she knew the arrowhead. It was the narrow lozenge of dense black metal that came only from the foundries of Atwaan, though some said from the Halls of the Builders themselves. She doubted that last, but knew that when she was able to travel, it was to Atwaan she would go. When she found the mate to the arrow she carried, she would avenge her own.
Within her, her babies stirred. Hers and Dosar’s. The shifting was not much, only enough to remind her. Enough to add a new depression to her dark thoughts.
The Holder’s generosity did not extend to Doctor’s price, and she had no friend or family to stand midwife. She would go to the birthing pool, and sooner than she wanted, alone. That was traditional. That was the