Cold Steel

“Lord Gwyn sent us after you, Maestra,” said one of the soldiers, grasping my arm. “You’re not to leave camp ever, on Lord Marius’s orders, unless the commander says so. Cursed little witch got what was coming to her, didn’t she? Ragno’s got a burn on his chin now.”

“Let me go!”

He hesitated, grasp tightening, then looked past me. A black shape stalked the trees. It yawned to display saber teeth. The soldiers retreated hastily, and so did I, for there was nothing I could do for the dead girl.

She was dead because she had no catch-fire, no training, no chance of a normal life. No wonder she had hoped to run away to the general’s army.

Rory stayed in cat form all that night. At dawn he gifted me with a dead rabbit. In its own small way, the gesture was rather sweet, and seared over the campfire the meat was tasty.

Our troop moved south with skirmishers’ haste, changing out horses, stopping at a village to commandeer sacks of grain from unhappy villagers before riding on. The soldiers treated me with propriety but their stares made me uncomfortable and Rory was in a constant state of half-leashed snarl. Lord Gwyn frequently halted to interview the locals. More than once he called a file of laborers out of the field and cracked questions over them as they stood with heads bowed, their surly anger like a cloud. They never had anything to say.

Another few miles south an old woman appeared, trudging with a bundle of reeds atop her head. She stopped stock-still, seeing the thirty soldiers and their horses. Then she saw the big cat.

“Salve, domine,” she said with remarkable aplomb. “Lord of cats, what brings you here to this lonely community, riding with the prince’s men?” With a wise smile she dropped her voice to a murmur. “Forty years too late if you chanced to wish to seduce me in your human body. For if you are as beautiful in your other form as in this one, I think I just might have let you.”

Purring, Rory approached her cautiously and licked her hands. She smiled, then sobered as she eyed the soldiers and, with a frown, considered me alone among them.

“Do not fear us, old aunt,” said Lord Gwyn. “Be on your way.”

Rory escorted her past the troop and waited until she was out of sight before he loped after us as we rode on.

The blissful scent of summer lay everywhere. Ahead a tower and roofs marked the town of Castra. We clattered into town past well-tended buildings. People hurried inside and closed their doors. A small river ran through the middle of the town. After we crossed the bridge the soldiers led the horses to water. I walked downstream along the grassy bank, whacking at leaves. Birds warbled. An object spinning past on the silty green water caught my eye. I fished out a tricornered hat. One peak had been crushed. A badge in the shape of a lion’s head was pinned on the felt.

With a shiver of misgiving I scanned the river. A white tassel flowed past, too far away to reach. A little farther downstream something had gotten caught in a bush that hung over the river: a sleeve trimmed with gold braid. I walked down and prodded at it.

An arm was still inside, although the hand had been blasted off, ragged bone shining. A dead man was caught in the branches. His face was bloated, his left eye was a gaping hole, and half his teeth were missing. Tendrils of black hair streamed out from his head, and he wore a white sash embroidered with the twin lions of Numantia.

I reeled back, gasping. Noble Ba’al! Death lay at hand, ugly and violent.

Yet my mind grasped the whole: Camjiata’s army was somewhere upstream.

Lord Gwyn’s shout carried from the bridge. “Can you cursed men not keep your eye on the girl?”

With no warning, volleys of rifle fire shook the air. Gouts of smoke rose all about the bridge as Lord Gwyn’s skirmishers were attacked so suddenly that I stood in gaping confusion. Had the day not been peaceful just one breath ago, even the quiet corpse in its watery grave?

The battle raged in plumes of smoke, in the ragged cries of men hit and fallen, in the rumble of horses’ hooves as survivors tried to escape the ambush. Rory raced up still in cat shape and shoved me with his head. Several men appeared on the other side of the river with rifles pointed right at me. They wore the same uniform as the dead man: Iberians! I pulled the shadows around me. Shot peppering behind us, Rory and I bolted through the dirt paths and fenced gardens of the outskirts of town. A cart track lay empty but for a solitary bird hunting for bugs. The shooting ceased. Crows flocked overhead, heading for the battleground.

We broke onto an empty pasture recently mown. Drying grass lay in raked strips along the uneven ground. A bird whistled in a lovely waterfall of song. Another bird chirruped four discordant notes. The skin of my neck prickled. Rory halted, ears forward. I slipped my cane from its loop.