Free The Wanderer by Cherry; Wilder, Katya Reimann Page A

ordeal will end, and I will be secure in the service of my lord.”
    “And the Lord Blayn was unarmed?” asked Captain Ulth for the second time.
    “Aye, Captain!” she answered.
    Then the captain sighed and nodded to one of the mounted soldiers, a kedran sergeant.
    “Sergeant Witt has your sword, Hem Blayn,” he said. “It was found about a half mile from this spot, in heavy brush near the roadside.”
    The sergeant was a sturdy woman on a spirited brown mare. She rode forward now and handed her lord a scabbard of chased leather, oddly shaped. Blayn, smiling, drew out at once the sword Ishkar.
    It had a broad, curved blade, the tempered metal tinged with gold and ornamented with scrollwork. The hilt was plain save for one large gemstone, pale green with a dark star at its center that winked like a single eye. The sword shone with its own light, which came and went, pulsing, as if it were a live thing.
    “Who owns thee, Sword Ishkar?” cried the young lord.
    Then letters shone out plainly on the blade and they spelled out his name: Blayn of Pfolben. Gael Maddoc was proud she was able to read the letters. Now her lord flourished his magic sword and gave her one of his smiles.
    “Did I not say my sword would come again?”
    Then he said to the sergeant:
    “Maddoc will train with your company, Sergeant Witt, and be sworn a kedran in the service of the house of Pfolben.”
    He rode off toward Lowestell with the captain and the rest of the escort. Sergeant Witt hung back, looking down at her new recruit.
    “You can ride?” she asked.
    “Aye, Sergeant!”
    The Sergeant dismounted and looked Gael up and down.
    “Child,” she said, “you are suffering from a common complaint in these parts. You think the sun rises and sets with that young lord.”
    “I have sworn to serve him,” said Gael Maddoc.
    “What did ye do in that sacred cavern?” demanded the Sergeant. “Did he lie with you?”
    Gael was shocked. She went from red to white and said angrily:
    “He is a great lord! Who would think of such a thing?”
    “Who indeed,” said Sergeant Witt, amused. “Come, we’ll make a kedran of you, then. But mark my words—the Lord Blayn will not favor you. You have seen the last of him. Now mount up on my horse and see if you can ride to the fortress yonder without falling off.”
    Gael Maddoc’s faith was strong; she managed this first task easily and every other one besides. She had taken to soldiering from the first and wondered at the way some other wenches grumbled. Did she not have three meals a day, her own horse, clothes and stout boots, a bed in a warm barracks? She sent home a portion of her soldier’s pay and planned to return to the croft on her long leave.
    Sergeant Witt’s company was part of the second household regiment of the Lord of Pfolben, the Kestrels. After only a few days in the kedran wing at Lowestell, their duty changed, and Gael went with the Kestrels to the city barracks at Pfolben, capital of the Southland.
    Only a part of what the sergeant predicted came true: Gael was made into a kedran, fully trained, but Hem Blayn continued to favor her. He saw to it that she rode escort more than
once, and he sent her on his errands. To Gael this was the work of the Goddess, nothing less, the crowning good fortune that had changed her life. To others it must have been clear that the lord in some wise recognized the quality of her devotion.
    II
    The Southland was warm and exotic after the Chyrian coast. Strange fruit hung from the trees, the nights were mild with a golden moon hanging over the Bellin Hills, above the city. Gael had never lived in a city; she enjoyed its closeness. There were new things to be seen and learned in every turn of the streets.
    The barracks were in the north, under the hills, behind the palaces and public buildings. Gael had a fine black gelding called Ebony, and she rode with another Chyrian, Mev Arun, and with Amarah, a golden-skinned girl from the Danasken folk of the