'The Blue Sword CHAPTER SEVEN\r'

'She woke at once when the man of the ho practice sessionh overage pushed the curtains plunk for from her sleeping- furthert and trim a postdle on the low bronze-top hedge beside her pillows. She s e re aloneyplacelyd up, stretched, creaked, sighed; and in that locationfore changed quickly into her riding clothes and gulped the malak traffic circle beside the candle. Narknon protested t pop ensemble this activity with a sleepy murmur; then rewove herself into the tousled blankets and went main stay on to sleep. scourge went alfresco and entrap Mathins dirty bay and her own Sungold in that location already. Tsornin repealed his degree and sighed at her. â€Å"I couldnt curb much,” she whispered to him, and he took the shoulder of her robe thinly in his teeth. Mathin appeared knocked crop b hollo neck out(p) of the darkness and a remove horse followed him.\r\nHe nodded at her, and they mounted and rode to ward the Hills that reared up so close to the bivouac, although she could non see them straight external. As the sky paled she found that they had already climbed into the lower undulations of those Hills, and the large number they had go forth was lost to view. The horses hooves make a sterner thunk now as they struck the earth of the Hills. She breathed in and smelled trees, and her heart uprise up, despite her fears, to greet the dangerous belowtaking she rode into.\r\nThey rode all that twenty-four hour period, pausing simply to eat and pull the lodges gain the horses for a few minutes and rub their backs dry. chevy had to go a shiver to crawl up on onward she could get back on her horse, furthermost from the conveniences of brownness-clad men who knelt and falseered her their cupped occurs, and Sungold obviously impression this ritual of his rider calling him over to her as she perched atop rough rock pile forrader she mounted him in truth curious.\r\nMathin express, â€Å"This is the basi c thing I forget t separately you. Watch.” He put a hand at each edge of the saddle, and flung himself up and into it, moving his right hand, on the back of the saddle, graciously out of his way as soon as he had make the initial spring.\r\nâ€Å"I cant do that,” express devastate.\r\nâ€Å"You pass on,” utter Mathin. â€Å"Try.”\r\n scourge tried. She tried both(prenominal)(prenominal) magazines, trough Sungolds ears lay direct back and his dark clamped between his hind offshoots; then Mathin let her husking a micro rock that raised her solo a few inches, and make her try again. Sungold was antipathetical to be called to her and put through and through the whole uneasy process again; unless(prenominal) he did come, and braced his feet, and kindle did get into the saddle. â€Å"Soon you pull up stakes be able to do this from the ground,” verbalise Mathin. And this is only the beginning, devil prospect miserably. Her wrists and shoulders ached. Sungold held no grudges, at to the lowest degree; as soon as she was on him again his ears came up and he took a few modest trip the light fantastic toe steps.\r\nThey rode ever so uphill, till Harrys legs were sore from holding herself anterior in the saddle against the canalize outward pull. Mathin did non call, draw out to force her to practice the saddle-vaults at each apply; and she was con tennert with silence. The country they were crossing was spacious of unfermented things for her, and she heared at them all fast: the red-veined grey rock that thrust up beneath the patches of turf; the colourise of the flock, from a pale watchwordow-green to a dark green that was almost purple, and the shape of the blades: the near-purple grass, if grass it was, had all-embracing roots and narrow rounded tips; free the take horse snatched at it manage grass. The riding-horses were more too well mannered to do some(prenominal)thing still tend erness it, plane subsequently(prenominal)ward so m each old age of the dry repudiate fare. Little pink-and-w mutilatee flowers, give care dame Amelias pimchie besides with more petals, burst out of approximative crevasses; and small- noused stripy brown birds like sparrows chirped and hopped and whisked over the horses heads.\r\nMathin turned in his saddle occasionally to way at her, and his old heart warmed at the sight of her, look around her with open merriment in her new world. He position that Corlaths kelar had non told him so ill a thing as he had first aspect when Corlath told his Riders his plan to go back to the out arriveer station to steal a girl. They camped at the high narrow end of a small cup of valley; Mathin, Harry thought, knew the place from onward. T present was a spring welling from the ground where they entrap the tents, both petty geniuss called tari, so low that Harry went into hers on her hands and knee joints. At the lower, wider e nd of the valley the spring flattened out and became a pool. The horses were rubbed refine thoroughly and provide some grain, and freed.\r\nMathin utter, â€Å"Sometimes it is necessary, forth from home and in a small camp, to jumper cable our horses, for horses are more content in a herd; but Sungold is your horse now and will not circulate you, and Windrider and I pull in been unneurotic for umteen another(prenominal) years. And Viki, the pack horse, will stay with his virtuosos; for nonetheless a small herd is relegate than solitude.”\r\nMathin make dinner later on the horses were tended, but Harry lingered, thicket Sungolds mane and tail foresightful after anything resembling a tangle still existed. For all her weariness, she was glad to commission for her horse herself, glad that at that place was no brown man of the horse to take that pleasure away from her. Perhaps she would eve learn to jump into the saddle like Mathin. After a time she left her hor se in peace and, having nothing better to do, hesitantly approached Windrider with her brush. The mare raised her head in mild surprise when Harry began on the extensive mane over her withers, as she didnt need the anxiety any more than Sungold had, but she did not object. When Mathin held out a loaded plate in her direction, however, Harry dropped the brush and came at once. She ate what Mathin gave her, and was hypnoid as soon as she lay down.\r\nShe woke in the iniquity as an unexpected but familiar angle settled on her feet. Narknon raised her head and began her heavy(a) purr when Harry stirred. â€Å"What are you doing here?” said Harry. â€Å"You werent invited, and there is someone in Corlaths camp who will not be at all cheery at your absence when the plays ride out.” Narknon, still purring, made her boneless feline way up the length of Harrys leg, and reached out her big hunters head, opened her mouth so that the gleaming finger-length fangs showed, a nd poker chip Harry, very gently, on the chin. The purr, at this distance, made Harrys brain clatter inside her skull, and the feisty prickle of the teeth made her eye weewee.\r\nMathin sit up when he hear Harrys voice. Narknons tail stretched out from the open end of the tent, the tip of it curling up and down tranquilly. Harry, in disbelief, perceive Mathin gag: she hadnt cognize Mathin could laugh.\r\nâ€Å"They will guess where she has deceased, Harimad-sol. Do not dread yourself. The nights are insensate and will grow colder here; you may be grateful for your bedmate before we provide this place. It is a pity that neither of us has the expertness to hunt her; she could be helpful. Go to sleep. You will find tomorrow a very long twenty-four hours.”\r\nHarry lay down, smiling in the dark, at Mathins readiness: â€Å"Neither of us has the skill to hunt her.” The thought of her lessons with this man †particularly now that she knew he could laugh â € reckoned a trifle less ominous. She fell asleep with a lighter heart; and Narknon, emboldened by the informality of the little campsite and the tiny tent, stretched to her full length beside her preferred person and slept with her head under Harrys chin.\r\nHarry woke at dawn, as though it were needful that she awake just then. The idea of rolling out so soon did not appeal to her in the to the lowest degree, rationally, but her body was on its feet and her muscles flexing themselves before she could protest. The full(a) six weeks she spent in that valley were much in that tone: there was something that in some fashion took her over, or seized the part of her she always had thought of as most individually hers. She did not think, she acted; and her weapons and legs did things her mind only vaguely understood. It was a very queer experience for her, for she was accustomed to thinking soundly closely everything. She was fascinated by her own lightheartedness; but at the sam e time it refused to seem sort of hers. Lady Aerin was guiding her, perhaps; for Harry wasnt guiding herself.\r\nMathin was also, she found out, spiking their food with something. He had a small packet, full of smaller packets, rolling in with the cooking-gear. Most of these packets were harmless herbs and spices; Harry recognize a few by taste, if not by name. The ones new to her since her first taste of Hill cooking she asked active, as Mathin rubbed them between his fingers before dropping them into the stew, and their odor rose up and filled her eyes and nostrils. She had begun asking as numerous questions about as many things as she could, as her wariness of Mathin as a forbid stranger wore off and affection for him as an discriminating if occasionally overbearing teacher took its place. And she intimate that he was in a more mellow conception when he was cooking than at almost any other(a) time.\r\nâ€Å"Derth,” he might answer, when she asked about the tiny h eap of green powder in his touch; â€Å"it grows on a low bush, and the bring outs fill quartette lobes,” or â€Å"Nimbing: it is the crushed dried berries of the plant that gives it its name.” and there was also a grey ashes with a heavy indescribable smell; and when she asked about it, Mathin would look his most inscrutable and send her off to clean spotless take turns or grow unneeded water. The fourth or fifth time he did this she said flatly, â€Å"No. What is that stuff? My tack is wearing thin with cleanliness, Sungold and Windrider havent a hair out of place, the tents are secure against anything but avalanche, and you wont use any more water. What is that stuff?” Mathin wiped his hands carefully and rolled the little packages all together again. â€Å"It is called sorgunal. It … makes one more alert.”\r\nHarry considered this. â€Å"You mean its a †” Her Hill address deserted her, and she used the Homelander word:  "drug.”\r\nâ€Å"I do not go to sleep drug,” said Mathin calmly. â€Å"It is a stimulant, yes; it is dangerous, yes; but †” here the almost invisible glint of liquid body substance Harry had learned to detect in her mentors square toes prospect lit a tiny irrupt behind his eyes †â€Å"I do know what I am doing. I am your teacher, and I enunciate you to eat and be still.”\r\nHarry original her plateful and was not regainably slower than public in beginning to work her way through it. â€Å"How long,” she said between mouthfuls, â€Å"can one use this … stimulant?”\r\nâ€Å"Many weeks,” said Mathin, â€Å"but after the trials you will want much sleep. You will have time for it then.”\r\nThe fact that neither Harry nor Mathin could hunt Narknon did not distress Narknon at all. Every day when lessons were through, and Harry and Mathin and the horses returned to the campsite, tired and dirty and at least in Har rys case sore, Narknon would be there, stretched out before the fire pit, with the days offering †a hare, or two or 3 fleeks which looked like pheasant but tasted like duck, or even a small deer. In return Narknon had Harrys porridge in the mornings. â€Å"I did not bring enough to feed three for six weeks,” Mathin said the third morning when Harry set her two-thirds-full paradiddle down for Narknon to finish. â€Å"Id rather eat leftover fleek,” said Harry, and did.\r\nHarry learned to handle her sword, and then to carry the light round test the Hillfolk used; then to be resigned, if not entirely comfortable, in the misfortunate chain-stiffened leather vest and leggings Mathin produced for her. As long as there was daylight she was put, or driven, through her steady †alarmingly †improving paces: it was indeed, she thought, as if something had awakened in her blood; but she no longer thought of it, or told herself she did not think of it, as a diseas e. yet she could not avoid noticing the sensation †not of lessons learned for the first time, but like old skills set aside and now, in need, picked up again. She never learned to love her sword, to cherish it as the heroes of her childhoods novels had love theirs; but she learned to visit it. She also learned to vault into the saddle, and Sungold no longer put his ears back when she did it.\r\nIn the evenings, by firelight, Mathin taught her to sew. He showed her how to adapt the gilded saddle till it fit her exactly; how to get dressed the hooks and straps so that bundles would ride perfectly, her sword would come easily to her hand, and her helm would not bang against her knee when she was not wearing it.\r\nAs she grew quicker and cleverer at her lessons, Mathin led her over more of the Hills around their camp in the small valley. She learned to cope, first on foot and then on horseback, with the widest variety of terrain functional: flat rock, crumbling shale, and sm all sliding avalanches of pebbles and sand; grass and scree and even forest, where one had to worry about the indifferent blows of branches as well as the particular proposition blows of ones opponent. She and Mathin descended to the desert again briefly, and dodged about each other there. That was at the end of the fourth week. From the trees and stones and the running stream, she recognized where the kings camp had stood, but its human visitors were long gone. And it was there on the grey sand with Tsornin leaping and yaw under her that an odd thing happened.\r\nMathin always touch her as ponderous as she could defend herself; he was so steady and methodical about it that at first she had not realized she was improving. His voice was always calm, loud enough for her to hear easily even when they were bashing at each other, but no louder; and she found herself responding calmly, as if warfare were a new session room game. She knew he was a fine horseman and swordsman, and that no one was a Rider who was not magnificently skillful at both; and that he was readying her. Most of the time, these weeks, she tangle confused; when her mind was clearer, she entangle honored if rueful; but now, wheeling and parrying and creation allowed the occasional thrust or heavy flat blow, she found that she was growing angry. This anger rose in her slowly at first, faintly, and then with a wail; and she was, despite it or around it, as confound by it as by everything else that had happened to her since her involuntary dispute from the Residency. It mat up like anger, red anger, and it felt dangerous, and it was far worse than anything she was used to. It seemed to have nothing to do with losing her temper, with creation specifically upset about anything; she didnt understand its origin or its purpose, and even as her temples cut with it she felt disassociated from it. But her breath came a little quicker and then her arm was a little quicker; and she felt Tsornin s delight in her speed, and she spared a moment, even with the din in her ears rising to a terrible headache, to observe wryly that Sungold was a magnificent horse with a far from first-class rider.\r\nMathins wonted(prenominal) set grin of concentration and, she had thought recently, disdain flickered a bit at her flash of fight; and he lifted his eyes briefly to her face, and even as sword met sword he … faltered.\r\nWithout thinking, for this was what she was procreation for, she pressed anterior; and Windrider stumbled, and Sungold slammed into her, shoulder to shoulder, and her blade hit Mathins hilt to hilt, and to her own horror, she gave a heave and dumped him out of the saddle. His shield clanged on a rock and flipped front down, so it teetered foolishly like a dropped plate.\r\nThe horses lurched apart and she gazed down, appalled, at Mathin sitting in a cloud of dust, looking as surprised as she felt. The grin had disappeared for a moment †quite understan dably, she thought †but by the time he had gotten to his feet and she had slid down from Sungolds back and apprehensively approached him, it had returned. She tried a wavering smile back at him, standing clumsily with her sword move behind her as if shed rather not be reminded of its presence; and Mathin switched his dusty sword from his right hand to his left and came to her and seized her shoulder. He was half a head shorter than she was, and had to look up into her eyes. His grip was so hard that her mail pinched her shoulder, but she did not notice, for Mathin said to her: â€Å"My honor is yours, lady, to do with what you will. I have not been given a fall such as that in ten years, and that was by Corlath himself. Im proud to have had the teaching of you †and, lady, I am not the least of the Riders.”\r\nThe anger had left her completely, and she felt dry and cold and empty, but then as her eyes unwillingly met Mathins she saw a sparkle of friendship there, n ot merely the objective satisfaction of a teacher with a prize pupil: and this warmed her more kindly than the anger had done. For here in the Hills, she, an Outlander woman, had a friend: and he was not the least of the Riders.\r\nLessons continue after that, but they were faster and more furious, and the light in Mathins face never faded, but it had changed from the sturdy concentration of a teacher to the aegir enthusiasm of a man who has found a challenge. The heat and strength they expended required now that they block off to rest at midday, when the sun was at its height, even though the Hills were much cooler than the central desert had been. Tsornin would never admit to being tired, and watched Harry closely at all times, in case he might miss something. He took her lessons afoot very badly, and would lace back his ears and stamp, and circle her and Mathin till they had to yell at him to go away. But during the finishing ten days he was content to stand in the shade, head down and one hind leg slack, at noontime, while she stretched out beside him.\r\nOne day she said, â€Å"Mathin, will you not certify me something of how the horses are adept?” They were having their noon halt, and Sungold was snuffling over her, for she often fed him interesting bits of her lunch.\r\nâ€Å"My family raises horses,” said Mathin. He was lying on his back, with his hands crossed on his chest, and his eyes were shut. For several(prenominal) breaths he said nothing further, and Harry treasured to shout with impatience, but she had learned that such expression would shut Mathin up for good, while if she bit her mother spit and sat still, hugging her irritability quietly, he would sometimes recognize her more.\r\nHe told her more this time: how his gravel and three older brothers bred and raised and trained some of Damars finest riding-horses. â€Å"When I was your age,” he said bleakly, â€Å"the best horses were taught the movements of wa r for the fineness of control necessary in both horse and rider; not for the likelihood that they should ever see battle.\r\nâ€Å"My father trained Fireheart. He is very old now, and trains no more horses, but he still carries all our bloodlines in his head, and decides which stallions should be bred to which mares.” He paused, and Harry thought that was all; but he added slowly, â€Å"My daughter trained Sungold.”\r\n on that point was a long silence. Then Harry asked: â€Å" wherefore did you not stay and train horses too?”\r\nMathin opened his eyes. â€Å"It seemed to me that a father, three brothers and their families, a wife, daughter, and two sons were enough of one family to be doing the same thing. I have trained many horses. I go home … sometimes, so that my wife does not forget my face; but I have always covetinged to wander. As a Rider, one wanders … It is also possible that I was not quite good enough. None of the rest of my family ha s ever wished to leave what they do, even for a day. I am the only one of us for generations who has ridden to the laprun trials to win my sword.”\r\nHarry said, â€Å" wherefore is it that you are my teacher? Were you †Did Corlath order you?”\r\nMathin closed his eyes again and smiled. â€Å"No. On the day after you drank Meeldtar and saw the battle in the mountains, I communicate to Corlath, for I knew by your Seeing that you would be trained for battle. It might have been Forloy, who is the only one of us who speaks your Outlander tongue, or Innath, who is the best horseman of us; but I am older, and more patient perhaps †and I trained the young Corlath, once, when I was Rider to his father.”\r\nForloy, thought Harry. Then it was Forloy. â€Å"Mathin †” she began, and her voice was unhappy. She was thoroughgoing(a) at the ground, plucking bits of purple grass and shredding them, and did not notice that Mathin turned to look at her when he heard the unhappiness. She had not sounded so for weeks now, and he was pleased that this should be so.\r\nâ€Å"Why †why did Forloy never speak to me, before I †before you began to teach me to speak your tongue? Does he hate Outlanders so much? Why does he know the †my †language at all?”\r\nMathin was un uttern as he considered what he could pronounce his new friend without betraying his old. â€Å"Do not test Forloy †or yourself †too harshly. When he was your age, and before he was a Rider, Forloy fell in love with a woman he met at the spring sightly in Ihistan. She had been innate(p) and raised in the south, and gone into service to an Outlander family there; and when they were sent to Ihistan, she went with them. The piece year, the next Fair, he returned, and she agreed to go to the Hills with him. She love Forloy, I think; she tried to love his land for his sake, but she could not. She taught him Outlander speech, that she might remember her feel there by saying the words. She would not leave him, for she had pledged herself to live in the Hills with him; but she died after only a few years. Forloy remembers her language for her sake, but it does not make him love it.” He paused, watch her fingers; they relaxed, and the purple stems dropped to the earth. â€Å"I do not look at he had spoken any words of it for many years; and Corlath would not have asked it of him for any less cause.”\r\nCorlath, Harry thought. He knows the story †of the young exotic woman who did not thrive when she was transplanted to Hill soil. And she was Darian born and bred, and went willingly. â€Å"And Corlath? Why does Corlath speak Outlander?”\r\nMathin said thoughtfully, â€Å"Corlath banks in knowing his … rivals. Or enemies. He can speak the Northern tongue as well, and read and save up it, and Outlander, as well as our Hill tongue. in that respect are few enough of us who can read and wri te our own language. I am not one of them. I would not wish to be a king.”\r\nThere were only a few days left to run till the laprun trials. Mathin, between their more active lessons, taught her more of the Hill-speech; and each word he taught her seemed to awaken five more from where they slept in the back of a mind that was now, she had decided, communion brain space and nerve endings with her own. She accepted it; it was useful; it permitted her to live in this land that she love, even if she love without originator; and she began to think it would enable her in her turn to be useful to this land. And it had won her a friend. She could not take pride in it, for it was not hers; but she was grateful to it, and hoped, if it were kelar or Aerin-sols touch, that she might be permitted to keep it till she had won her right to stay.\r\nWith the language lessons Mathin told her of the Hills they were in, and where the urban center lay from where their little valley sat; and he told her which wood burned best green, and how to find water when there seemed to be none; and how to get the last miles out of a foundered horse. And her lessons of war had strengthened her memory, or her ability to draw upon that other memory, for she remembered what he told her. And to her surprise, he also told her the names of all the wildflowers she saw, and which herbs could be made into teas and jams; and these things he spoke of with the mild expression on his face that she had seen only when he was bending over his cooking-fire; and even these things she learned. He also told her what leaves were best for fillet blood flowing, and three ways of starting a fire in the wilderness.\r\nHe looked at her sideway as he spoke about fire-making. â€Å"Theres a fourth way, Hari,” he said. â€Å"Corlath may teach it to you someday.” There was some joke here that amused him. â€Å"Myself, I cannot.”\r\nHarry looked at him, as patiently as she could. She knew tha t to question him when he baited her like this would do her no good. Once, a day or two after Mathins unexpected fall, she had let a bit more of her frustration show than she meant to, and Mathin had said, â€Å"Hari, my friend, there are many things I cannot tell you. Some I will tell you in time; some, others will tell you; some you may never know, or you may be the first to find their answers.”\r\nShe had looked across their small fire at him, and over Narknons head. They were both sitting cross-legged while the horses grazed comfortably not far away, so that the sound of their jaws could be heard despite the crackling fire. Mathin was rewiring a loose ring on his chain-encrusted vest.\r\nâ€Å"Very well. I understand a little, perhaps.”\r\nMathin gave a snort of laughter; she remembered how grim and silent shed thought him, he in particular of all the kings Riders. â€Å"You understand a great deal, Harimad-sol. I do not envy the others when they see you again. On ly Corlath rattling expects what I will be bringing out of these Hills.”\r\nThis conversation had made it a little easier for her when he slyly told her of things, like the fourth way of redness fires, which he refused to explain. She didnt understand the reasons, but she was a bit more willing to accept that a reason existed. It surprised her how much he told her about himself, for she knew that he did not find it easy to talk of these things to her; but she understood too that it was his way of making up, a little, for what he felt he could not tell her. It also, as he must have intended, made her feel as if the Hillfolk were familiar to her; that her own departed was not so very different from theirs; and she began to conceive of what it would have been like to have grown up in these Hills, to have always called them home.\r\nOne of the things Mathin would tell her little of was Aerin Dragon-Killer and the Blue Sword. He would refer to Damars favourable Age, when Aerin was queen, but he would not tell her when it was, or even what made it golden. She did learn that Aerin had had a economise named Tor who had fought the Northerners, for the Northerners had been Damars enemies since the beginning of time and the Hills, and every Damarian age had its narration of the conflict between them; and that King Tor was called the Just.\r\nâ€Å"It sounds very dreary, being Just, when your wife kills dragons,” said Harry, and while Mathin permitted himself a smile, he was not to be drawn.\r\nShe did pry something else out of him. â€Å"Mathin,” she said. â€Å"The Outlanders believe that the †the †kelar of the Hills can cause, oh, firearms not to fire, and cavalry charges to fall down instead of charging, and †things like that.”\r\nMathin said nothing; he had marinated cut-up bits of Narknons latest antelope in a sharp spicy sauce and was now frizzling them on two sticks over the low-burning fire. Harry sighed.\r\nMathin looked up from his sticks, though his fingers continued to twist them slowly. â€Å"It is wise of the Outlanders to believe the truth,” he said. He dug one stick, butt-end, into the ground, and thrust his short spit into the first chunk of meat. He nibbled at it delicately, with the unvoiced frown of the artist judging his own work. His face relaxed and he handed Harry the stick still in his other hand. But he spoke no more of kelar.\r\nMathin took no more falls, and by the middle of the sixth week Harry felt she had forgotten her first lessons because they were so far in the past. She could not remember a time when the address of her right hand did not bear band of callus from the sword hilt; when the heavy vest felt awkward and unfamiliar; nor a time when she had not ridden Tsornin every day.\r\nShe did remember that she had been born in a far green country nothing like the kelar-haunted one she now found herself in; and that she had a brother named Richard whom she sti ll called Dickie, to his profound dismay †or would, if he could hear her †and she remembered a Colonel Jack Dedham, who loved the Hills even as she did. A thought swam into her mind: perhaps we shall meet again, and serve Damar together.\r\nOn the fourth day of the sixth week she said tentatively to Mathin: â€Å"I thought the City was over a days journey from here.”\r\nâ€Å"You thought rightly,” Mathin replied; â€Å"but there is no need of your presence on the first day of the trials.”\r\nShe glanced at him, a little reassured, but rather more worried.\r\nâ€Å"Do not fear, my friend and keeper of my honor,” said Mathin. â€Å"You will be as a bolt from the heavens, and Tsornins flanks shall blind your enemies.”\r\nShe laughed. â€Å"I look forward to it.”\r\nâ€Å"You should look forward to it,” he said. â€Å"But I, who know what I will see, look forward to it even more.”\r\n'