The Mountain's Call. Caitlin Brennan

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СКАЧАТЬ The dogs were loose in the yard as they were every night. They were not as intelligent as the horses, but they were more subservient, and for her purposes more useful. They thought it a great game to tug and pull at the bolt that secured the trapdoor, until after a white-knuckled while it slid free.

      She was up among them in no time at all. They fell over one another in delight, tongues flapping, tails wagging frantically. She rubbed each big shaggy head and pulled each pair of ears and thanked them from the bottom of her heart. Then she sent them back to guard duty.

      Her brother’s pack was back on its hook in the toolshed. The waterskin was beside it. This time Valeria made sure she was not followed. The rats in the walls and the pigeons in the rafters assured her that her mother was asleep beside her father. Morag had committed a cardinal error of warfare, as Titus would be sure to remind her when they woke and found their daughter gone. She had underestimated the enemy.

      Anger was still strong in Valeria. It ate the twinge of guilt and the impulse to stop and say goodbye to her brothers and sisters. What if she never saw them again?

      What a soldier did not know, he could not betray. That was another of Titus’ maxims. Valeria left them all sleeping the sleep of the happily ignorant.

      No one was waiting for her this time. The road was empty under the chilly starlight. She paused where the path turned onto the road. The warding rune on the post there was meant to keep intruders out but not—she drew a breath of relief—to keep the family in. She did not look back. In her mind’s eye she saw her father’s farmstead in its fold of the hills, with its thatched roofs and its wooden palisade and its border of trees.

      She said farewell in her heart, but her eyes were fixed on the shadow on shadow that was the wall of mountains. Her feet were itching to begin the journey. The first step was the hardest, but each one after that was easier, until she was striding headlong, almost running, into the north.

      Chapter Two

      The horse followed Valeria for a day before she gave in to his importuning and let him carry her. He was clean and well fed and his hooves had been trimmed recently, but he refused to acknowledge that he belonged to anyone. He insisted that he had come for her. He was neither white nor a stallion, but Valeria did not care about that. His back was comfortable and his gaits were smooth. She could have paid gold and done worse.

      She had defied her mother and abandoned her family, all of whom, in spite of her anger, she missed terribly. She was a fugitive, living off what she could forage and trying to stretch her few provisions for as long as she could. She barely knew where she was going or how long it would take to get there. And yet she was happy, even when the last snow of winter caught her on the road and forced her into an empty barn for a day and a night.

      The bindings on her magic had slipped loose after she’d passed the runepost at the border of the farm. She could call fire to warm her and the horse. There was hay in the deserted barn, cut last year but still dry and clean. The horse ate a good deal of it, and she slept on the rest. A few half-wild hens roosted in a corner of the barn. Their eggs were small, but there were a decent number of them. With the last of the bread and dried apples from home, Valeria had a feast while the storm howled outside.

      When she rode out through melting snow, the second morning after she came to the barn, she had cut her long hair short. It was practical, and she thought it might also be safer if she was out riding the roads alone, to be taken for a boy. Her head felt odd and light, and her ears were cold.

      The horse pranced, glad to be free again. Valeria’s rump was not so happy. It was just beginning to recover from the effects of too much riding after too little practice.

      She would need better discipline than that if she was to be a rider. She gritted her teeth and suffered through it.

      Before the storm came, she had met few people on the road. Most of those were farmers going to market. She had seen an imperial courier once, galloping flat out on his spotted horse.

      A troop of legionaries tramped past not long after she left the barn. She resisted the urge to hide from them. She was not a fugitive. She was Called. Her horse, bridleless and saddleless and obeying her without question, would tell anyone that. So would the road she was on, which led north to the Mountain and the white gods.

      In the stories she had heard, the Called could ask for food and lodging at the imperial way stations. The day after the last of her provisions ran out, she tested it. It was that or resort to stealing.

      The man in charge of the station had the same toughened-leather look as her father, and the same accent, too. Wherever a legionary came from, after twenty years in the emperor’s service he came out talking that way, usually with a voice gone raw from bellowing orders in all weathers above all manner of uproar.

      He did not ask her who she was or what she was doing. As she had hoped, it was obvious. He gave her a seat at the table in the mess hall and a bed in the barracks, and showed her where she could stable the horse. When the horse was bedded down with a manger full of good hay and a pan of barley, she went to claim her own dinner.

      There were only a handful of other people in the station tonight. They were all imperial couriers either resting between runs or waiting for the relay to reach them. Most of them, like the stationmaster, asked no questions. One or two watched her without being blatant about it. They all seemed to know each other. She was the only stranger.

      She finished her dinner as quickly as she could, trying not to choke. She barely tasted the stew and bread and beer. She escaped before anyone could strike up a conversation.

      She left before the sun came up. The cook was just taking the first loaves out of the oven when she came down from the room. He gave her a loaf so hot and fresh she could barely hold it, with a wedge of cheese thrust into a slit in the crust. The cheese had melted into the bread. She ate it in a state of bliss, and belched her appreciation.

      “Gods give you good luck,” the cook said, “and a safe journey. May the testing favor you.”

      She hoped she did not look too startled. “Thank—thank you,” she said.

      The cook smiled and touched her forehead. “For luck,” he said. “Never had anyone Called from your village before, did you?”

      She shook her head. “I’ve heard all the stories. But—”

      “You give luck,” the cook said, “and take it, too. Stop at the stations. Don’t try to go it on your own. Most people respect the Call, but a few might try to steal the luck.”

      “How do they—”

      The cook slashed his hand across his throat. “It’s in the blood, they say. I don’t believe it—I think it’s in the soul, and killing you unmakes it. Those on the Mountain, they know for sure, but they’re not telling the likes of us.”

      “I don’t know anything about it,” Valeria said.

      “You’ll learn,” said the cook. “Best be on your way now. It’s a long way to the Mountain, and time’s not standing still.”

      “How long—”

      “Three days for a courier,” the cook said. “Ten, maybe, at ordinary pace, and allowing for weather and delays. Ask at the stations if there’s a caravan heading the way you need to go. That’s safest. You might even meet others of the Called.”

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