Free His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) by Amanda McCrina

when he died. I use it because it’s what I have.”
    “What use has a farm girl for a steel blade?” said Verio.
    The girl lifted her shoulders a little. The cold smile came back to
her lips. “I carry it for my own protection, lord. You know
better than I the Outland can be dangerous.”
    Verio let the saddle flap fall. His face was ugly with anger. He took
a step towards the girl. The girl made no other move than to unfold
her arms.
    A man and a woman were coming up towards the path from the wheat
field at the little farm below. The woman was a little way ahead,
half running, holding up the long skirt of her wool tunic in one hand
so she wouldn’t trip over it.
    “Is there trouble, lord?” she said, breathlessly, when
she’d come onto the path. She stopped a short distance from the
horses. She looked to Tyren first, then to Verio, as if uncertain who
to address. She was young, though older than girl. She was plain in a
pleasant way, snub-nosed and sunburnt, kind-faced though her eyes
were careful. The man—Muryn, Tyren supposed—came up to
stand beside her. He looked at Tyren directly. He was older than the
woman. His were keen, solemn eyes with a deep calmness in them—brown
eyes, Tyren noted, not the gray of the mountain people, like the
woman’s eyes or the girl’s. Somehow, despite the
callouses on his brown hands, the muscles in his arms and shoulders,
he didn’t strike Tyren as looking much like a farmer.
    Verio had paused in mid-step to turn his attention to the farm wife.
“This is none of your concern,” he said, shortly.
    She smiled. “It might be, lord, if you’re wondering why
she was coming from the wild. I sent her to gather some things for
me. She has the skill for it, lord. She’s our healer.”
    Verio looked back and forth from the farm wife to the girl. The girl
met his look evenly, coolly, her eyes half-lidded.
    Verio jerked his chin towards the bags on the ground. “Open
them,” he said.
    The girl’s lip curled. She knelt down slowly and deliberately,
not taking her eyes from Verio. She reached to pick up one of the
bags, holding it in her lap while she unlaced it. She turned it over
so its contents came spilling out onto the path: berries, mostly, and
various herbs, and several roots of a kind Tyren didn’t
recognize. Verio looked down at it and said nothing.
    Tyren shifted his weight in Risun’s saddle. He was tired of
this, suddenly.
    “Enough,” he said. “Take the troop ahead,
Lieutenant. I’ll join you again presently.”
    Verio looked up at him a long moment without moving. Then he took his
horse’s reins and mounted up again and ordered the troop to
fall in behind him, curtly. They moved off down the path. Tyren
waited until they’d gone out of earshot. Then he looked to the
farmer.
    “You’re called Muryn?”
    The farmer said, “Bryo Muryn—yes, my lord.”
    He spoke Vareno without a trace of the usual Cesino accent, the odd
tendency to soften the consonants and draw out the vowels—spoke
it crisply, purely, the way Tyren had heard some of the oldest Choiro
nobility speak. It took Tyren aback. He gaped, stammering a little
over his own words.
    “My—my name’s Risto. I’ve just taken command
of the garrison here.”
    “An honor to have you in Souvin, Lord Risto,” said Muryn.
    They looked at each other in silence. Muryn’s gaze was steady,
unblinking. He might have been amused, from the way the corners of
his eyes were crinkled. But his face was blank.
    Finally Tyren tore his eyes away. He looked down to the girl. He’d
almost forgotten she was kneeling there.
    “My apologies for this,” he said. “A
misunderstanding, nothing more.”
    The girl didn’t say anything. Muryn said, in a bland voice,
“It’s no matter, my lord.”
    “I hope to avoid this kind of misunderstanding in the future.
From now on none of you are to go up into the mountain country unless
it’s done with my prior knowledge and consent. Those who refuse
to comply will be