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Overview
Gaultry enjoyed the simple, pastoral life of a hedge witch, where her most daunting task was to travel to the nearby village to purchase supplies. But her peaceful life is shattered when it becomes entangled in an ancient prophecy--a prophecy which names her and her headstrong twin sister, Mervion, as their nation's salvation...or its destruction.
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429979733 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2010 |
| Series: | Tielmaran Chronicles , #1 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| File size: | 607 KB |
About the Author
Katya Reimann was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Katya Reimann was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is the author of the Tielmaran Chronicles, including Wind from a Foreign Sky and A Tremor in the Bitter Earth.
Read an Excerpt
Wind from a Foreign Sky
By Katya Reimann, James Frenkel
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 1996 Katherine A. ReimannAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-7973-3
CHAPTER 1
Gaultry never carried her knife on market days. No one carried weapons on market days, and everyone agreed it made for fewer fights — or at least fewer serious fights.
But for Gaultry, shedding her knife was only the first part of a day-long trial. Market day in Paddleways village meant changing her hunting hose for long skirts, her knife belt for her Aunt Tamsanne's good red sash. Worse, market day meant trying to cut a convincing figure as she haggled with the village crowds.
It felt unnatural. When the villagers looked at her, it seemed they always saw her aunt, who was commanding and wise, or her sister, who was charming and wise, before they saw Gaultry, who suspected she didn't impress anyone as either of these things. Somehow, dealing with Gaultry, the village people always knew that they could hold to their price, and get it.
But today, much to her surprise, it had been different. Today, with the breaking of the new spring, she had begun to find her feet as a trader. Mother Liese, the baker, let her have a third loaf of bread without arguing, and Coln, the village blacksmith, gave her a score of nails for half the price she'd been expecting. So what if Coln teased her that the look of surprise on her face was worth what he lost on the price. "Let a wild rabbit out of a trap, you get the same expression!" He laughed. But so what? She'd got her price. Her clever older sister could scarcely have done better with an hour of hard bargaining.
Tamsanne would be pleased when she got home. Tamsanne had assured her niece numerous times she'd find her place in the world of tongues and trading. Gaultry had always found it hard to believe her.
But not today. Gaultry was finished with her business by early afternoon. She declined a surprising offer from Coin and his wife to stop in for an early tea.
"Tamsanne's expecting me," she had told the friendly blacksmith.
"Then plan to stay for tea next time," Coin pressed her. "That's Prince's Night. Annie can ready a cot for you if you'd like to see the fireworks."
"Next time won't be until after the Maying Moon. Tamsanne wants me at the cottage for Prince's Night."
"Making you miss the Prince's marriage celebrations here in the village? That's not kind."
Gaultry shrugged. "Paddleways will be too crowded for the likes of me. I won't want to come."
Coin, who was stocky, not at all shy, and loved to drink a holy day through, did not believe her. "Tell Tamsanne there's places for you both if she changes her mind."
"I will," Gaultry said, hoping he didn't think her rude. "It's a kind offer."
Afterwards she packed up to head home with bundles that were far heavier than she had hoped for.
It was a long three miles from Paddleways village to Aunt Tamsanne's cottage. Gaultry's satisfaction with the day's good trading lightened her step for the journey and it was a pleasantly sun-filled day for the walk.
The first mile was fields, empty today save for the wild birds. Then came a shallow ford with ancient stepping stones, washed a little too far apart by years of winter flooding to be usable. Beyond came the great woods, Arleon Forest. Past the ford, the track dwindled to a narrow path, hemmed in on either side with tender spring shoots. Gaultry folded the hem of her skirts into her sash and quickened her pace. She was eager to reach home and put aside her market clothes.
The path wound deep into the woods, first across a broad marshy bowl, and then up through a heavily forested boulder slope. Gaultry concentrated on the rising ground, her pace steady as she picked her way among the rocks, her big pannier basket balanced on one hip, a clutch of string bags on the other. The young huntress was a strongly built woman, with long legs and the efficient grace earned of her many years spent roaming the woods. She had come this way to market since she was a very young child, and Tamsanne had held her hand to support her. In those days, even empty-handed, the climb had not been so easy. Remembering, a smile crossed her lips.
Settling into her pace, she began to whistle.
She turned a corner, passed between a pair of ancient, moss-covered oaks, and stepped into the grassy clearing that marked the start of the pine plateau. Intent on the ground under her feet, the warmth of the early afternoon sun as it slanted down through the trees and touched her back, she was not at first aware that she had company.
Eight men were waiting for her in the clearing. Mounted men, with lean soldier's horses, dun and gray. But these men wore dirty leathers and dark cloaks instead of soldier's gear and armor, and insignia or heraldic badges were conspicuously missing from their shoulders. Behind them, spread loosely among the spindle-trunked pines, were half a dozen hunting dogs, coarse runners with ragged gray fur and orange-brown predator's eyes. They had waited so quietly for her, men and dogs both, that Gaultry was deep in among them before she even realized that they were there.
The dogs gave her the first warning: ears folded, tails low, and eyes suspicious; she could tell at once that they were set against her. Two men shifted, closing a loose wall across the path behind her.
Her hand went reflexively to her belt, but, of course, it was market day. No knife.
"Good afternoon, Gaultry Blas." That was the leader, a heavy man with lank yellow hair and three days of beard on his chin, a makeshift captain's sash of red buckram looped over one shoulder. He took his horse a few paces towards her, close enough that Gaultry could smell the sweet grain on its breath. "We've been to some trouble to find you."
Gaultry didn't know him, or any of the others. She could think of no reason for the men to want to assault her, and was for a mad moment more puzzled than alarmed. Surely her successful day's shopping from the village could not be the lure?
"What do you want?" she asked. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded high and unconvincing. This was the worst thing she could have said, and the worst way she could have said it, both confirming her identity and admitting fright. "Who are you? What do you want?" More foolish questions. She bit her lip to stop herself from asking the same wrong questions a third time, and moved her basket from her hip to her front, where she could hold it shut with both hands.
The men were enjoying her fear. Looking from one face to the next, she tried to guess what it meant that they were here, set to attack her in Arleon Forest. This was a planned attack. A random attack she could perhaps understand, but this?
The leader, grinning at her obvious confusion, dismounted, and stepped forward. He was taller than Gaultry, and heavily muscled. His frame seemed very broad and strong as he came towards her. "Who are we? Why, we've been sent as saviors, Gaultry Blas. We've come all this way to make you safe." He grinned again, suddenly nasty. "Did you ever guess such a shy, pure girl as you could be so threatening?"
Gaultry retreated one step, then another. She wished that she had her knife, that she wasn't encumbered with a day's worth of shopping, that she knew what in the great gods' majesty the man was going on about. They could not be forest outlaws — Tamsanne, her aunt, had a pact with the local outriders. Indeed, anyone local, even a renegade, would have known better than to attack one of Tamsanne's nieces. Any other day Gaultry would have been armed, able to protect herself. But today, loaded with market goods, encumbered by cursedly billowing skirts —
The leader made a signal with his hand. His men closed off the path. One man chirruped to the dogs, and the whole pack of them were on their feet, whining, nervous, and eager.
Their leader was very close now. Beneath pale, straw-colored brows, he had guarded, orange-brown eyes — a predator, like his dogs. He held her eyes with his, the smile beneath them brutal, and gave his men another signal. The circle of horses tightened, the riders readying to dismount.
"Who sent you?"
"You're nicer looking than we were told to expect," the leader drawled, ignoring her question. He let his orange-brown eyes flicker down her body, taking in her blue market dress, her bundles and basket, the spring posy someone at market had tucked into her sleeve, the bright cloud of her fox-colored hair, worn loose for the day in the village. He dropped one hand to the strap of her basket. "That's good," he said. A cat stalking a sparrow, with her as the sparrow. Gaultry jerked away.
"Don't touch me."
Two of the men behind him laughed openly at that. Her mouth was bitter with bile; panic rose in her. Everything she said only whet their will to attack. She could see their taste for her helplessness and her fear sharpened, even as she watched them.
She stared around the circle, searching for a friendly face. Whoever had picked these hunters had chosen well. One man, maybe two, wore the cold face of duty. The rest were flushed, leering, expecting violence and gladdened by the expectation. She quavered, indecisive, knowing she should stall them, or at the very least deny she was the woman they'd named, but her mind was an awful blank. She could only focus on the unanswerable questions. Someone had decided that she, the daughter of a soldier and a hedge-witch, a woman with no business to speak of outside the bounds of Arleon Forest, was a threat.
With one hand still holding her basket's strap, the leader dipped into the leather bag at his hip, and pulled out a pair of manacles — roughly forged iron with teeth on the inner circles of the bracelets. He looked into Gaultry's eyes, hypnotically intense, and reached for her wrist. Touching you is the least we'll do, his eyes told her.
Gaultry dropped her basket, her net bags, everything, and stumbled back, thrashing with elbows and hands against the encroaching circle. The leader grabbed her sash and pulled. She tore away, slipping as the sash untied abruptly from her waist. Reeling as she tried to find her balance, she bounced off the barrel ribs of a horse, cursed, and ducked under the brown curve of its belly.
Astonishingly, she was clear of the circle.
She fumbled, finding her feet as the hunters laughed and clumsily rounded their horses to the pursuit. Stumbling past the dogs, she sprinted for the cover of the trees, her mind empty save for the spasm of flight. She barely noticed the lash of branches and leaves against her arms and body as she ran, headlong, into the green embrace of the forest.
Running blind, she tumbled almost at once into the middle of a bramble bush, the black briar's thorns catching her skirts in a thousand places. The common pricking pain of the coarse, wine-red canes on her hands brought her back a little from her terror. The belling sound of a hunting horn rang sweet and clear through the woods behind her. Gaultry swore, and ripped herself free. These men were hunters, and she had just gifted them with a running quarry to hone the edge of their aggression. Starting to run was probably the worst thing she could have done. Not that she could have borne the indignity of passively allowing herself to be captured!
Behind her, the hunters laughed and shouted, rallying the dogs, whipping up their horses. She tucked up her skirts, cursing as the cloth slipped and flapped against her legs, and ran on.
She was a fool. Her heart was near to bursting in her chest and her lungs were heaving and her head was spinning with the wish that she was running faster. She was a fool.
Mervion would never have panicked like this. Her clever older sister wouldn't have lost her nerve and bolted. Mervion would have charmed the men — or their horses, or the dogs — and turned the entire pack in on itself with confusion, making her escape under the cover of that confusion. Or she would have bluffed and diverted their attention while she prepared a spell or warding to cover her flight.
At the very least she would have tied up her skirts properly before beginning to run.
But not Gaultry. For Gaultry, the thinking usually happened after she'd already made the big mistake.
Another clamor of the hunting horn broke her futile self-castigations. For now, a declining head start in a race she seemed destined to lose was her only advantage. She was free in the woods and she had always prided herself that the woods were her element. Now she was going to have to live up to that pride.
Loud baying howls sounded through the trees. Too close. The dogs could move faster through the thickening brush than the men on their horses. She was going to lose her lead to the dogs before she lost it to the men.
Gaultry sucked in a ragged breath. Her legs were failing her. She needed more speed.
She would have to try a spell. A taking-spell, to spirit the strength she needed — perhaps even from one of the beasts that pursued her — into her own body. Then, if she was lucky, she would be able to maintain a lead on her pursuers until she reached Tamsanne's boundaries. Then — perhaps — Tamsanne would sense her distress and help her.
Her taking-spell was her strongest magic. A deer would have been best for it, but with hunting sounds echoing through the forest, there wouldn't be a deer for miles around.
It was going to have to be a dog, the first dog that caught her. She'd have to catch it with the spell and pull the strength from it before the rest of the pack reached her and dragged her down.
Gaultry cut through a clump of saplings, trying to seize a moment's cover to prepare her spell. She took a long breath.
Huntress Elianté, she prayed. She tried to focus her mind, to tap an inner reservoir of calm. Hear my cry.
The sharp crackle of breaking brush was all the warning that she had that the race was over. She whirled, meeting the tawny-gray wolfhound as it rose to seize her. There was another dog at its side —
The dog's full weight bashed against her and knocked the breath clean out of her lungs. They crashed together into the bracken, the second dog snapping for room to join them. Gaultry found herself pressed down in the loose pine-mold of the forest floor, gasping for air. The dog clawed and snapped for her neck. If it caught her throat in its jaws, it would pin her in the bracken and hold her until the huntsmen closed in for a live kill.
If it closed its teeth on an artery when it seized her throat, she wouldn't get a chance to wait for the huntsmen.
White fangs thrashed at her face as she scrabbled frantically to impose her taking-spell onto the animal's aggressive will. Fetid breath blasted her face; she recoiled, sickened. Next to them, the second dog bit her ankle and howled at the triumph of having caught her.
"She's down! Hold her, Butcher, hold her!"
Gods, Gaultry thought, despairing. They were close enough to hear the dog's howl. Soon there would be four more dogs —
There was dog slobber on her face. Her lip had split, and she had the warm metal taste of blood in her mouth, but finally she got hold of one of the animal's small ears and gave it a vicious twist. The terrifying beast yelped — a sharp contrast to its deep-throated bark — and Gaultry had a clear moment in which she had its full attention. She locked her gaze into its yellow hunt-wild eyes, and let it look deep inside her.
It yammered in terror, and tried to escape, but the spell had already crested and lashed out to take it. The yelp subsided into a whimper. Gaultry tried to block her fear of the second dog as she held her mind open for the strength the spell had opened. Her mind and body sucked in the turbulent mist of the animal's spirit, briefly closing her vision. The dog's hot hairy body, knocked into a near coma, slumped against her.
When her sight cleared, her vision was the high-contrast green and purple of dog-sight. The casting was clumsy — she'd taken more from the animal than she'd intended. She had its will to hunt along with its will to race, a dangerous mixture of animal urges.
The second dog, hair bristling on its spine as it sensed the casting, bared its teeth and stood away, stiff-legged. Gaultry struggled to her feet, giddy with power, and tried to ignore it. The first dog's keen nose had come to her with its speed, and her senses were flooded by rich forest smells. She was ready to fight, to prove her pack dominance —
She was ready to get herself murdered, she told herself wryly, drawing herself back from a snarl. She'd taken the dog so she could run, not so she could brawl with a dog-pack. Forcing herself to turn away, she pushed her legs out into a fresh sprint.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Wind from a Foreign Sky by Katya Reimann, James Frenkel. Copyright © 1996 Katherine A. Reimann. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
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What People are Saying About This
" Wind from a Foreign Sky is an exciting and evocative story set in a well-realized fantasy world."
Katya Reimann is a very talented writer with a bright future.
—Terry Goodkind, bestselling author of Stone of Tears