Free Hand of Fire (The Master of the Tane) by Thomas Rath Page A

surrounded her shivering body.
                  Quickly pulling herself from the icy river and into the canoe, she dug her push pole into the swirling flow and pushed the vessel out towards the center of the river. The current was strong, testing her exhausted strength as it beat against the small craft threatening to wash her down through the rapids she had spent most of the previous day getting past. Running them in daylight would be risky enough, at night it would be suicide.
                  Rani tried to eliminate the sounds of the forest behind her by concentrating on moving quickly up stream and away from the stage of death. To her relief, the shouting rush of the Belfar River rapidly replaced the cries from the awaking forest leaving her with a small sense of security. She pushed on, further upstream, ignoring the burning in her limbs and the ache in her back. She wanted to be far away from that scene of death. Those yellow eyes forced themselves back into her mind driving another shiver up her spine. She had come close to losing her life today, too close. Life in the Teague swamplands was dangerous at best, but nothing she had ever experienced came close to what she’d seen today.
                  Trying to force it all from her mind, she concentrated on the river’s currents which were difficult to navigate in the early darkness of night before the moon rose. She picked her way through as best she could until the water finally slowed from its rush into a silent, drifting flow. She was exhausted. She had to find a place to tie up and sleep but she wanted nothing to do with the shore on either side. She would push her canoe until morning if need be, but she would not get near the forest again this night, or any other.
                  It was at least an hour after the moon had finally made its appearance and bathed the water with sparkles of hypnotic light, before Rani happened upon her salvation. A large, stone bridge spanned the width of the river supported by two rock pilings that jutted up from the bed beneath; a perfect place to tie off her canoe. Pushing herself under the bridge, she secured her line, pulling the craft up close to the slimy stone pillar just out of the line of sight of anyone, or anything, that might pass above while she slept. Satisfied she was safe, she loaded her blowgun with a poison dart and lay back against her pack using it as a pillow.
                  All around her seemed peaceful and quiet as if death incarnate did not lie in wait just beyond the edge of the forest to either side. The water brushed by in quiet serenity stroking at her exhausted mind, bidding her to follow on currents of restful bliss, but the gloomy thoughts that gripped her would not allow such blessed slumber. She remembered. It tore at her heart and sapped the light from her soul. But still, she remembered. The reason she was there in that cursed river alone. Alone. She was alone, and empty.
                  Rani’s mind raced back to the year when she had first felt the Burning. It was a time to celebrate in a young person’s life. When one felt the Burning they were allowed to enter into a marriage contract with a man of their choosing. Should he accept, a year of purification was declared when they were not allowed to have contact with anyone of the opposite sex until the night they were bound as one. Rani had loved her chosen mate since the first time she’d met him and their wedding was a celebration for the whole community. His face flashed into her mind with the painful stab of longing that had been her lot for the past two weeks. Both their parents had been taken by fever years before leaving them alone as neither had any siblings. And now, save for her remaining children and the one she knew was growing inside of her, she was left  with no one.
                  Rani’s short time as a wife bore fruit the first year they were