Tarah Woodblade Read online

  “We done got two, yer scholarshipness,” said Blayne and though he held his hat in his hands, his demeanor was firm. “We ain’t told no one ‘bout ‘em fer a long while ‘cause Pa wanted to hold onto ‘em fer himself.”

  “No one was willing to pay the sum you wanted, you mean?” Scholar Abernathy asked walking along the side of the rogue, examining its flank.

  Blayne wasn’t about to admit that. He blinked and said, “Naw, it ain’t ‘bout the money. Pa’s fond of ‘em and he didn’t want to sell ‘em to no wizard that’d just accidentally melt ‘em to goop. When he heard you was a scholar, why he said, ‘that Abernathy’d be just the right sort for our . . . Puppy’.”

  Lenui gave his uncle a scowl.

  Abernathy snorted, but continued to examine the animal, walking around to the other side. He kept a slight distance to avoid touching it again, a look of distaste on his face.

  “The High Scholar is not fond of dogs, dwarf,” said the steward with the black sash. “If you had two rogue horses, why did you not bring them both and let him choose the one he wanted?”

  “My dislike for canines will not matter in this case,” the gnome said, waving his hand absently. “However, I must wonder why this one was chosen. It is shivering. Is it ill?”

  “Would you like us to have it examined first, High Scholar?” the steward in the black sash asked.

  Blayne sputtered in offense. “‘Course it ain’t sick. What’re you tryin’ to imply? We ain’t gonna bring no sick goods to our-!”

  “Puppy’s fine,” Lenui interrupted, hoping to keep his uncle from screwing things up too badly. “Pa Cragstalker just chose him ‘cause he’s the calmer of the two rogues. The other’n gets excited too easy.”

  Blayne shot him a glare that promised him a whupping later and Lenui winced. His arse would be just as sore as Donjon’s after they got back to camp. He vowed he wouldn’t show it like Donjon did though. He might be young, but he wasn’t like these Cragstalkers. He was a Firegobbler and tough as iron. Just like his daddy.

  “Bringing the calmer animal was likely for the best, considering its purpose,” said the gnome. “But why does it shiver?”

  “The durn thing don’t like bein’ wet,” Blayne explained. “It hates the water so much it don’t even like drinkin’ from the pond back home.” His eyes widened as he realized the gnome might consider that a bad thing. “But that don’t matter. It’s a rogue. It’ll do whatever you tell it to, whether it likes it or not. You could tell it to swim ‘cross the Wide River’n it’d do it.”

  The gnome didn’t glance at the dwarf, but he smiled to himself. “Even better.” He held out his thin arm and one of the green-sashed stewards rushed forward with a towel and wiped the gnome’s hand clean. “I think I am ready. Pay the dwarf.”

  The black-sashed steward hesitated. “Are you sure, High Scholar? Do you want to pay full price for this animal?”

  “Do it,” Abernathy said.

  “Yes, High Scholar,” she said and gestured. Two of the guards rushed over and retrieved a wooden chest from the back of the steward’s horse and brought it over. They set the chest down in front of Blayne and she handed him the key. “You will find your payment in full within the chest.”

  The dwarf opened the chest and Lenui caught a glimpse of gold before his uncle shut it. Blayne smiled and gestured to Donjon, who carried the chest back to their horses. He looked back to the steward. “You realize we’ll be countin’ this when we get back to camp?”

  “I counted it all myself, sir,” said the steward with a slight frown.

  “Alright, then,” Blayne said. “A few things you’shd know bout this rogue. It’s a meat eater so it don’t much like grains. It’s smart as a reg’lar horse, but not much smarter. Also like all rogues, if you let some wizard pry too much into the magic holdin’ it together, it’s liable to die on you.”

  The way the rogue horses had been created was a great mystery and the reason they were so rare was that most of them had died in the hands of wizards. Once again Lenui was glad Puppy was going to a scholar. Even if the gnome was curious about how it was made, he wouldn’t be likely to kill it with magic. Especially after Blayne’s speech.

  The gnome didn’t even look at Blayne. He simply shrugged and said. “I won’t need it for that long, I’m afraid. Anne, would you bring me the implements please? The animal’s odor is much too strong to bring it all the way back to the stables.”

  “Yes, High Scholar,” said the steward with the black sash. She ran to the camel and unstrapped a long cloth-wrapped bundle from its side.

  When she returned, the gnome withdrew a golden chalice from the bundle and handed it to her. Then he unwrapped the rest of the cloth, revealing a peculiar scepter. It was three-feet-long and made of polished copper. The length of the scepter was covered in intricate runes and its end was shaped into the likeness of a gnome’s head. The look on its face was joyous and its mouth was open as if it were singing.

  “Hold the animal still,” Abernathy commanded.

  The four guards surrounded the rogue horse, each one grasping a leg. Puppy didn’t like this treatment. He struggled and whimpered. The men had difficulty holding on. The gnome approached the rogue and wrapped the arm holding the scepter around its neck. Then he reached into his robes with his other hand and pulled out a wicked looking knife.

  Lenui’s eyes widened. “Hey, what’re you gonna-?”

  In one smooth motion, the gnome scholar drew the blade across Puppy’s throat. The rogue horse staggered as blood spewed from the wound. While one of the stewards caught some of the blood in the chalice, the scholar held the scepter underneath its neck, letting the blood soak into the runed length of it.

  “Puppy!” Lenui ran towards the rogue horse, but the gnome warrior darted in front of him. Lenui froze as he felt the cold of the gnome warrior’s blade against the skin of his throat. It gave him a warning glare. Blayne and Donjon grabbed Lenui by the arms and yanked him back.

  “What’re you doing, you blasted idjit!” Blayne snapped in his ear. They dragged him over to his horse. Blayne reared back and punched him in the mouth. Lenui fell backwards, his vision blurring. “Get up and get on your garl-friggin’ horse!”

  Lenui rolled to his knees and looked up in time to see the black-sashed steward hand the blood-filled chalice to Scholar Abernathy. The gnome drank deeply, then grimaced and handed it back to the steward. One of the other stewards rushed over to hand him a towel. The other held out a waterskin. The gnome rinsed out his mouth and spat, then began to clean the blood off of his face and hands.

  Puppy fell to his knees and shuddered, then the guards let go and he rolled onto his side. By the time the gnome handed the towel back to his stewards, the rogue horse had stopped breathing.

  Blayne kicked Lenui in the side. “I said, ‘on your horse’!”

  Lenui stood and spit out the blood that filled his mouth, noticing that one of his bottom front teeth came out with it. Numbly he realized that Blayne must have landed a knuckle right on it. Only twenty-four-years-old and he’d already lost a tooth. Maggie wouldn’t be happy about that. He climbed the set of stirrups and swung his leg over the saddle.

  “I told you not to get attached to them critters!” his uncle said, then walked over to talk to the steward.

  Lenui swallowed and ignored the snickers of the other smugglers as he looked at Puppy’s unmoving form. He clenched his fists. This was wrong. This was all wrong. He knew what his mother would have said. Maggie would have called this business. What the scholar did with his property was none of his concern. But his daddy would’ve seen things different. He would have told Lenui that your animals needed to be treated with kindness and respect. He wouldn’t have sold any animal to someone that would mistreat it. He wouldn’t have allowed what just happened either. But there was nothing Lenui could do about it now. Puppy was dead. If he tried to go after the scholar now, the gnome warrior would kill him and the other dwarves wouldn’t lift a finger to help.r />
  Scholar Abernathy lifted the scepter and Lenui noticed that it looked completely clean of blood. The gnome nodded and handed the scepter to a steward. “Remove its ears and tail and bring them back with us,” Abernathy instructed, then wiped his face and hands with the towel. “The rest can be left to rot.”

  The scholar retrieved his book from the steward and hummed to himself as he walked back to the camel. He opened the book, already reading as he climbed into its awkward saddle. If Lenui had a bow he would have shot him, consequences be damned.

  “Uh, you sure you want to just leave the rogue there?” Blayne asked the black-sashed steward, one eyebrow raised. “Wizards’d pay good money fer a whole rogue horse carcass.”

  “Would you like to buy it back from us?” asked the black-sashed steward.

  Blayne frowned and rubbed his chin as he thought about it. “Well, uh . . .”

  One of the other stewards whispered something in her ear and she shrugged. “It seems that the High Scholar may be interested in your second rogue horse. Would you tell Pa Cragstalker we will be contacting him soon in regards to the beast?”

  Blayne eyed Puppy’s corpse. “Well, I dunno. Pa’s got other buyers interested-.”

  She reached into her robes and pulled out a bulging pouch. “If Pa promises to hold it for the next six months in case High Scholar Abernathy wants it we will include a fifty gold bonus.”

  “Fifty gold, huh?” Blayne mused.

  “And you can keep this one’s corpse to do with it what you will,” she added with a roll of her eyes.

  “You got it,” Blayne said with a smile and took the pouch from her hands.

  The buyers soon left. Lenui stared hollowly as he watched the others make a litter to drag Puppy’s remains on. He was glad they didn’t tell him to help. He would have punched all of them.

  Blayne saw the look on his face and sidled his horse next to him. “Yer lucky Maggie’s my sister or I’d kill you fer the way you acted back there.”

  “I ain’t surprised,” Lenui said. “Hell, maybe you should just kill me now and deal with momma later.”

  When they got back to the camp, Blayne had Lenui stripped and bound to a tree and lashed him bloody. Lenui refused to cry out or apologize and was quiet for most of the three-week trip back to Corntown. Blayne thought him sufficiently cowed, but Lenui was spending the majority of his time trying to figure out what he was going to do when they got home. He finally made his decision the day before they arrived.

  Lenui put on a brave face when they got back. He laughed about the incident with Pa Cragstalker and his mother. He waited a few days before he snuck over to the rogue horse’s pen in the middle of the night.

  “Hey, Monkeyface!” Lenui whispered.

  “Wee!” shouted a rough voice from the darkness. Monkeyface was smarter than Puppy. It couldn’t pronounce many words, but it did remember the last part of his name.

  A few moments later, the rogue horse approached the side of the pen where Lenui stood. It had the front end of an enormous gorilla, the mid section of a horse, and the rear end of a mountain cat. Its huge face stretched unto a toothy smile. “Wee!”

  Lenui hopped over the fence and scratched behind its horse-like ears.

  “Come on, boy,” he said. “I think it’s about dag-gum time we set you free.”

  Chapter One

  “You got money on ya?” asked one of the scruffy men, an evil gleam in his eye.

  Tarah fought down her nerves and breathed in the situation using all the training her papa and grampa had given her. She sensed three men altogether, but the two standing in front of her were the immediate threat. They were unshaven and filthy and wore cast-off armor that had been badly damaged and messily repaired. She couldn’t see the third man, but she could hear him shifting his feet behind the bushes.

  “Money? Why, are you beggars?” Tarah asked, arching one eyebrow coolly. This wasn’t good. These men were likely leftovers from the war. They wore swords, but didn’t move like trained soldiers so that meant they were probably Ewzad Vriil’s men.

  “Beggars?” said the man, frowning. He wore a leather half-helm and his eyes were as yellow as his teeth.

  “You asked for money,” she reminded. Tarah forced her body to remain relaxed. She planted her quarterstaff in the ground casually as if it were no more than a walking stick, but she knew that it was imposing. The wood was red as blood and the runes carved into it suggested unknown magic. “Strange. I wasn’t expecting any beggars this far from Sampo. I didn’t bother to bring any coppers to throw to you.”

  The man’s sneer turned into a snarl and he drew his sword. The weapon was a longsword and of a much higher quality than she had noticed before. The pommel was worn and dirty but the blade was polished and there were a series of runes impressed along its length. It could have magic. “Does a beggar carry a sword like this?”

  Tarah’s hand tightened slightly on her staff, but otherwise she didn’t allow any of her anxiety to show. She just wanted to get to Sampo. Why couldn’t they have been bears? She could handle three bears. Wild beasts were predictable. It was men she had difficulty dealing with.

  “So not beggars.” She shrugged and rubbed her chin, giving them a look that suggested mild curiosity. All the while she kept her ears open for sounds of an arrow being drawn from the bushes. “Maybe you’re tax collectors then? Funny, you don’t smell like tax collectors.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said the second man. He had a thinning mop of greasy hair that had probably been blond once. A cruel scar ran across his forehead. He laughed, but Tarah noted that his laugh was forced. He wasn’t as confident as the first man. “We’re tax men. Here to collect our fees.”

  “You accept broken bones as payment?” she asked, giving him a bored look. Tarah twirled her quarterstaff with her right hand and planted it in the ground again. Inwardly she calculated how long it would take her to get to the man in the bushes. She hadn’t heard the creak of a bow being pulled back, but he could be readying a throwing weapon.

  “You? Break our bones?” said the man with the fancy sword. He wasn’t as impressed by her act. “You’re big for a girl maybe, but no match for us.” He looked her up and down. “Least you sound like a girl. Wouldn’t know it by looking at you.”

  Tarah’s jaw clenched. She knew what she looked like well enough. She was indeed tall for a woman, and her frame was more muscular than feminine, especially in her armor. At least he hadn’t made fun of her face yet.

  “Ugly though,” the man continued with a snort. He looked at the thin-haired man. “What do you think, Hal? This a girl?”

  Tarah’s hand tightened on her staff further, her arm muscles stiffening. She didn’t like that his words bothered her. She should have been used to the ridicule by now. She had always been plain, even as a child, and that was before the fight that bent her nose. Still, being called ugly always riled her up. She refused to let her feelings show and forced a yawn instead.

  The first man’s flippant attitude had put his friend at ease. Hal smiled. “Hard to tell what she is under that leather armor of hers, Eddy. It looks nasty. What’s it made of? Dirty dog hides?”

  “Moonrats,” Tarah replied and both men’s eyes widened as they looked at it closer. These men were a bit thick. Most recognized it right away. The dead gray color of the fur was one giveaway. Not to mention the moonrat tails that hung at her waistline, the shriveled hands on the ends of the tails were still intact. “They ain’t good eating so I had to do something with ‘em.”

  The men took a step back. Moonrats were feared, especially as their numbers had grown during the war. But the shock on Eddy’s face didn’t last long. His sneer returned. “I know who you are. You’re Tarah Woodblade aren’t you? That hero?”

  The sarcasm in the man’s voice shook her. She knew just how little of a hero she was. She had come back to face her actions and had been expecting the ridicule, but to hear it from this bandit . . . She made herself give her grampa’s
teachings one last chance.

  “That’s right,” she said confidently.

  “Too bad. See, we got a special hero tax,” Eddy said. “Give us your money and weapons and we’ll let you leave . . . unmolested.”

  “Unmolested?” Tarah sighed, shaking her head. “If you know who I am and you’re determined to be bandits, I guess I’ve got no choice.”

  She shrugged the small pack she carried off of her shoulders. She set it onto the ground next to her, then removed her bow and quiver and laid them on top of it. Eddy grinned, thinking he had cowed her, but Tarah gripped her red staff in both hands and assumed an attack posture.

  She gave him a menacing grin of her own. “I’m glad you decided not to be beggars. See, Tarah Woodblade doesn’t kill beggars. But I have been thinking of making my next set of armor out of bandit skin.”

  Hal took two more steps back, his face white, but Eddy’s smile broadened. “You know, by what I seen, moonrat skin is pretty thin. I bet it makes a terrible armor.”

  The man gave a slight nod and there was a rustle in the bushes. Before Tarah could turn, she felt a thump in her back. It had been a throwing knife after all. She heard the blade fall to the leafy ground. Eddy had been right about the thickness of moonrat skin. That was why her grampa had reinforced the leather with treated fiber mesh. Luckily the blade hadn’t hit a seam.

  Tarah turned and ran for the bushes. The hidden man stood up in surprise and drew his sword. Tarah leapt and swung her staff down at his head. The man was able to bring his sword up in time to block, but the strength of her swing, assisted by her staff’s weighted core, slammed the man’s sword blade into his forehead and he crumpled to the ground.

  Tarah didn’t have time to wonder if he was dead. She heard a roar behind her and twisted around to find Eddy bearing down on her, his polished longsword swinging. She swung one end of her staff up under the blade, knocking it high. Its keen edge missed her head by inches and she brought the other end of her staff down low, catching the side of Eddy’s right knee.