Free The Lady of Han-Gilen by Judith Tarr

herself together. Nothing had
broken. But ah, she hurt. She made herself stand, take one limping step, then
another.
    She scented it before she heard it, an awareness far below
the conscious, a blind turning of the body toward its greatest need. Water, a
trickle over moss and stone, pausing in a pool little bigger than her hand.
    She collapsed beside it, to drink until she could drink no
more. Every muscle cried then for rest, but she took off her garments one by
one, slowly, like a very old woman, and washed herself a hand’s breadth at a
time. Only when she was clean would she lie back with the sun’s warmth seeping
into her bones.
    Food. That, she needed still, and sorely. But the sun lay
like a healer’s hand upon her skin. She let it lull her into a doze.
    Wake! It was not a voice, not precisely. Wake and move.
Sleep after power—sleep is deadly. Wake!
    Feebly she tried to close it out, to sink back into her
stupor. Yet her body stirred and rose and fumbled into its filthy coverings.
They were stiff; they itched and stank. Her clean skin shrank from them.
    Food. Here, green, and a white root, crisp and succulent.
There in an open space, a tangle of brambles with fruit nestled within their
thorns. Beyond, a widening of the stream; a small silver fish, now leaping in
her hand, now cold and sweet on her tongue.
    She gagged, but the fish had found her stomach, and she was
herself again, weak and still hungry but clear enough in mind. She found a
further handful of thornfruit, and a clump of greens, root and top. Time enough
later to fashion a snare for the meat she needed.
    She drank from the stream and knelt for a time beside it,
laving her face. Her father had warned her often and often. All power had its
price. Used lightly, it asked no more of the body than any other exercise.
Expended to its limit, it drained the body’s strength, could even kill unless
its wielder moved to master it. And even with mastery one needed long sleep
after, and ample food and drink, and a day or more of rest. She had never gone
so far, but she had seen her father after some great feat of wizardry, building
or healing or calling of the wind, borne away like an invalid, bereft of all
strength.
    But she had done so little. Unlocking; illusion; shielding;
swift travel from place to unknown place. Yet she had come as close to
dissolution as she ever cared to come.
    It was still too soon to remember. She stood wavering. Only
a little farther. Then she would seek shelter and set her traps.
    She began to walk beside the water. She felt hale enough but
very weary. A little farther—a little.
    Where the stream, wider now, descended between steep banks
and bent out of sight, she stopped. Her knees folded beneath her. Shelter—her
snares—
    A shadow crossed the sun. She regarded it without alarm. A
voice spoke above her, strange words, yet she ought to have known them.
    The shadow cast a shape. A man in kilt and cloak of shadow
green, a very dark man, black indeed, with a proud arch of nose over a richly
braided beard.
    Fear erupted within her, and beneath it despair. She was
caught again. There would be no second escape.
    Another man appeared beside the other, dark likewise, and
taller, and perhaps younger; his face was clean-shaven. From where she lay they
seemed very giants. The newcomer stooped, reaching for her.
    She fought. But her blows were feeble; the men laughed.
    They were handsome men, with very white teeth, and rings of
copper in their ears and about their necks and on their arms. The taller one
said something; she thought it might have been, “Now, brave warrior, be still.
We’ll not be killing you right this moment.”
    No. She would die slowly, at the Exile’s hands. She renewed
her struggle, striking with all the strength that was left her.
    “Aiee!” yelped the
man who held her arms. “He’s a regular wildcat. Tangled with one, too, from the
look of him.” Her elbow caught him in the ribs; he grunted. “Now then, you.