Chapter 7 -- Raylin in Tailso

“You’re not the best fighter I’ve ever trained, but you’re good enough,” Shay said, rubbing her wrist where Raylin had smacked it with the flat of her blade. The sun was still rising to its zenith over the dusty practice field, but the air was thick with the smack of wooden practice blades and sweat. “How can you be the same woman who fell down the barrack stairs the other night?”

Taller than most men and with a face like butchered meat, Shay deserved the nickname hobkin more than Raylin ever had. A glancing axe blow had divided her face diagonally in two, nearly killing her when she was a child. The weapons master never spoke of who had delivered the blow. Healers had done what they could for her, had even considered putting her out of her misery at one point, but Shay had been a fighter. Since that day, the shieldmaster had made sure never to suffer beneath another’s power again and taught every willing woman the same.

“I’m clumsy, just not when I fight,” Raylin huffed. Sheathing her sword, a gift from LittleThaw, she rubbed her own bruises. They were less in number than they had once been, but each felt like a lesson still to be learned. “Growing up in the Bay, girls learn to fight as well as, if not better than most of the boys.”

Like most of the women in Digrif’s Bay, Raylin was built stoat and had always equated her thick limbs with true strength. Shay had quickly robbed her of that illusion, leaving her a bruised and wheezing wreck each day. She practically danced during sparring sessions, always turning her opponents’ strength against them as if she were a flame, bending and flickering until you drew too close. Then she would burn you.

The only place Raylin could best the older woman was in nightly games of Shields and Bandits. Raylin had always been the smartest person in Digrif’s Bay, but those were shallow waters. She had feared every other person in Tailso would be as smart as herself, if not smarter. After challenging soldiers, commanders, merchants--anyone who would wager a few coins for the challenge of a game--Raylin had suddenly worried only the hobs might prove her equal. Shay had set her fears to rest, never beating her, but always coming close.

“You’re still an atrocious markswoman, and half the time it looks as if you’re half-drunk on the back of your mount,” Shay said. With a wave of her hand, she beckoned Raylin to one side of the practice field as two eager young men moved to take their place. “Your balance has improved considerably. Let’s see your Spire pose.”

Left leg trembling slightly, Raylin raised her right foot and placed it against her thigh, then lifted her arms straight up. She managed not to wobble too much and concentrated her gaze on the other woman’s face.

Shay continued speaking as she mimicked Raylin, albeit with much more grace.

“Put a sword, axe, spear, or any other bladed weapon in your hands, and I’ll wager you’re as good as any of the other Shields.” The smile which spread across her scarred face was as unsettling as it had been the first time Raylin had seen it. “Which just means you probably won’t stab yourself unsheathing your sword.”

“Thanks,” Raylin said, straightening her back.

“It’s obvious you’re not cut out to be a regular soldier. Good blade work doesn’t mean much in a true battle. It’s all hacking and slashing until it feels as if you couldn’t possibly swing your sword again.”

Nodding with her head, Shay indicated the busy practice field. Only one pair of fighters seemed to be putting any grace into their sword fighting. The rest held their weapons in two hands, swinging at each other with all their strength as if each blow was meant to split a person in two.

“One way or another, you’ll be a Shield,” Shay said, a hint of pride in her otherwise dour voice. “If you do your job right, you’ll probably never swing your sword, only give orders.”

“Stories tell of Shields fighting in the front lines beside their soldiers.” Following Shay’s lead, Raylin switched to her other foot and resumed the tortuous balance practice.

“I admire your...idealism, Ray.”

“Call it what it is--naivete” Raylin huffed, almost falling backwards as she lost focus.

“I call things as I see them,” Shay said, waving her hand as if Raylin’s words were a bothersome fly. “You’re hardly naive. Based on what you told me of your past and of life in Digrif’s Bay, you’ve seen some of the worst and best in people. You wouldn’t be the first youth to run away from home, hoping to become a great hero and change the world. The difference is, I think you might actually succeed.

“However, what you want and how you must act as a Shield are as far apart as your fingers from your toes.” She wiggled all ten digits as she said it, not swaying in the slightest.

“Shields don’t fight in the front. Not since Shrivemount Bridge,” Shay continued. “When EchoingKnock collapsed his bridge, the Radiance lost two Shields who had decided to lead by example. And despite what the stories say, there was still fighting to be done even after Sineck’s army lost its golem. The war lasted for months afterwards, but had those Shields survived, had they been present after the bridge fell, they might have routed the bulk of Sineck’s army and ended the war much sooner.

“Listen to your heart when choosing your fights, Ray, but when they start, use your head.” Something about the way the older woman said it made Raylin think she spoke from personal experience. Despite her objections, she didn’t dare contradict her master, lest she intrude upon pains she knew nothing about.

When Shay finally allowed her to release the posture a moment later, Raylin’s leg felt like a partially chopped tree ready to topple.

“Drink some water,” Shay said and led the way off the practice field.

As Raylin drank from her water skin, she looked around for Shield Bree, the garrison leader. The training field was surrounded by other recruits, most of them stern-faced young men. The women looked even harder, as if each of them had already been through their own crucible. They provided a stark contrast to Raylin, who still approached her training with a wide-eyed awe.

“She was watching us spar, but you’re not to bother the Shield until you’ve had something to eat.” Like Gnolen, the shieldmaster could read Raylin like one of her favorite books. “Drop by the mess and fill your stomach before you pester her.”

“Looks like that won’t be necessary,” Raylin said, pulling a cloth from her pocket to wipe the sweat and dirt from her face.

LittleThaw waited near the edge of the practice field, a bowl of stew nearly swallowed by the grooves of her large hand. Small for her kind, the hob’s head brushed the barrack’s ceiling on the rare occasion she ventured indoors. She wore a laborer’s leather vest over a roughspun white shirt and cotton pants that ended near her calves. With LittleThaw’s sparkling brown eyes and thick black hair, which reached her waist, Raylin suspected her friend was considered very beautiful by her kind, though the hob would never admit it.

“A full net to you,” Raylin said, bowing her head slightly.

Shay and others had urged her to employ more traditional greetings, but when she could, Raylin liked to use the expressions of her home. They were the only thing she had carried with her when she left, aside from the clothes on her back. No matter how she might change in pursuit of her goal--and once she achieved it, in the execution of her duties--Raylin was determined to keep a small part of the Bay alive within her.

“Shade and health,” Shay said, sweeping the words from Raylin to the approaching hob before she sauntered off, presumably in search of her own meal.

“Thank you, Shaper,” Raylin said, taking the bowl of stew and enjoying the way LittleThaw blushed at the honorific title. “How go the new fortifications?”

“Quite well,” LittleThaw rumbled. “Shaping takes quite a lot out of me, but it’s wonderful to hear the stone singing. I wish you could experience it, but you little humans are deaf to even those sounds you can hear.”

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“I sense a reprimand forthcoming,” Raylin groaned, then blew on her stew, dispelling curls of steam which rose from glistening chunks of potato, carrot, and meat. Under the pretense of finding a place to sit, she retreated from the hob and headed toward the shade of the nearest wall.

“I heard you beat PebbleDancer.” The hob’s rumble turned into a thunder clap, crashing at Raylin’s back. “You were supposed to wait until your training was complete.”

“Do you think Gailinn knows?” Raylin whipped around as she spoke, unable to quell her excitement. A few drops of stew splattered on the ground. As fixated as she was on LittleThaw’s face, she wouldn’t have noticed if the entire bowl spilled. “You said only a few of us have beaten the hobs, and I’m the only one to have beaten more than one. Not only that, I’ve beaten seven of you.”

“And forced each of them to spread word of their defeat in hopes of meeting Gailinn,” LittleThaw added, pointing a finger the size of a wine bottle at Raylin’s face. The hob’s anger melted into disappointment. “I should never have told you about her. Have you any idea how embarrassing it is for a hob to admit defeat, let alone actively seek out people to tell about it?”

“I know, and I promise I’ll make amends to all of them.” Raylin buried her face in the stew, still not eating. She examined the contents at great length to hide her burning cheeks long enough to turn around and retreat once more.

With the sun high overhead, the walls offered only the slimmest of shadows, but they were enough to conceal Raylin as she sat and asked in a quiet voice, “Do you think it worked? Have you heard anything?”

“No,” LittleThaw said, punctuating her answer by dropping heavily to the ground beside Raylin. “But there is news of a different sort. Young Gnolen has sent another letter.”

As always, Raylin was impressed with how carefully her companion removed the letter from her pocket. Her second thought was a nagging suspicion the hob had bribed several of the gate guards. Since they had arrived in Tailso, LittleThaw had somehow intercepted every one of the letters Gnolen sent.

Taking the paper in hand, Raylin was about to secret it into her own pocket, but she was pulled up short by a wistful sigh.

“You want me to read it now, don’t you?” Raylin asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” the hob responded, head angled skyward though her eyes kept darting toward the letter.

Without another word, Raylin broke the cream seal, which smelled faintly of fish oil, and opened the letter. As she read, she started on her lunch, balancing the bowl in her lap, so she could hold the letter in one hand and her spoon in the other.

To Raylin, wise as the oldest hob, more beautiful than the rising sun’s light on the waters of the Bay, skilled fighter and soon-to-be Shield:

“His greetings grow longer with each letter,” Raylin said, glancing over to LittleThaw who was pretending to study something in the distance, even though they both knew she had been reading the letter over Raylin’s shoulder. “Soon the entire front page will be nothing but unnecessary and undeserved compliments.”

“Hmm. What kind of woman would want kind words from her lover?”

“Will you ever believe me when I tell you Gnolen was not my lover?” Raylin asked, keeping her voice neutral. Anger and indignation only emboldened LittleThaw.

“When you stop blushing every time you say the word ‘lover’,” the hob laughed. The sudden eruption of noise drew a few looks from sparring soldiers.

Raylin ignored the hob and returned her attention to the letter.

I’ve been spending time with the hob who replaced LittleThaw. She says they are rock sisters, which means they share the same father but not the same mother. Her name is QuickThaw. Apparently they both took the ‘thaw’ part of their name from their father, but the other part comes from their mothers’ names. That part is either an antonym or synonym, sometimes even a rhyming word. It all depends on what time of day the hob was born. But I’ve also heard some hobs don’t use a describer in their names, preferring something simple like Trunk or River. You probably already know more about any of this than me.

QuickThaw has been telling me about news from around the Radiance. Apparently this Gailinn woman has been meeting with all the lesser races. Kilkinteth have left their hives. They’ve been helping plant crops throughout the Radiance.

All of the cities and some of the larger towns have police forces now, and you’ll never guess which race they’ve employed. Lycanthropes! I asked the council if they’d heard anything about the Bay receiving a police force. They told me to focus on my fishing, which means ‘no.’

Your mom confessed she’ll write you a letter one of these days. She’s still upset you left without saying goodbye. Then again, we all knew you were leaving, so she could have come to see you off. I’ve been taking her some of my catches every few days, and I share your letters with her. She told me she was proud of you, then threatened to bash me with her frying pan if I told you.

I’m honestly more frightened of your mother than I was that haunted beach, so please don’t tell her I told you.

You’re always in my thoughts,

Gnolen.

“It’s not too late,” LittleThaw said. She had probably finished the letter in half the time Raylin had, even while spying and trying to hide the fact she was doing so. “I can dissolve the oath binding us, and you can return home. A life spent loving and being loved by that man would be a dream come true to most women.”

“But not to me,” Raylin said automatically, hiding her uncertainty beneath the familiar words.

Before leaving the Bay, she had been filled with doubts. Would she measure up to the other soldiers? Would her victory against LittleThaw prove to be a fluke? What if she changed her mind about Gnolen, but it was too late? Was it all a mistake?

After arriving in Tailso, those doubts had dwindled like the final vestiges of her baby fat. Each lesson mastered sliced away a sliver of who she used to be, shaping her body with lean muscles and focusing her mind with indefatigable purpose. Only one doubt remained, and it was Gnolen.

“Not even a little bit?” LittleThaw’s question poked through her new exterior and bruised her core. Part of her would always be the bookish, clumsy girl from the Bay. She had loved Gnolen since they were children.

But love was not the universal constant from bard’s tales. It was quicksilver, always changing and impossible to pin down. What had started as a fierce loyalty between friends had become something muddled as they grew. Trying to understand her feelings for Gnolen was like making sense of a book whose pages had been torn out and rebound in the wrong order--upside down and backwards.

He had a hook in her, deep in that core she protected so fiercely. Eventually he would reel her in or the line would snap.

“What about you, L.T.? Who’s the great love of your life?” Raylin changed the topic, knowing exactly how to fluster the hob. “What were you saying about that other stone shaper? What was his name--WideTongue? You said he had beautiful hands, and a voice that could shake mountains.”

“He’s nothing more than a colleague.” LittleThaw’s folded ears burned red. Raylin stifled laughter as she spooned the final bits of stew into her mouth. “You...you didn’t challenge him to a game, did you? Bind him with some outrageous oath?”

Raylin had never seen the hob panicked. She seemed to lose all control of her body, simultaneously hiding her face and stomping her feet. It was as if someone had set her hair and boots on fire, and she couldn’t decide which to put out first.

“It was a joke,” Raylin said. Stretching her arm, she tapped LittleThaw on the side of the head with her spoon. “Nothing more.”

“I’m still too young to think about love and children.” LittleThaw glowered.

“Too young! You’re 83 years old!” Raylin dropped the spoon in her empty bowl with a resounding clink.

“Young by hob standards,” LittleThaw said. Emotions under control, she became her usual, bookish self.

“Then who are you to give me any advice about matters of the heart, you big oaf?”

“Just a friend,” the hob said. Her smile was one of the warmest and most genuine Raylin had ever seen.

“More than that,” Raylin said, setting aside her empty bowl and taking the hob’s hand in both of hers. “A sister.”

“You would need a hob name,” LittleThaw said, tapping her chin with her free hand. “LittleRay, from the maternal.”

“Don’t forget I’m going to be a Shield. LittleRay isn’t a very heroic name. Doesn’t inspire much fear or confidence.”

“You mustn’t focus on only one part of the name,” LittleThaw said, her hand frozen on her chin in a gesture that Raylin knew meant a lesson was forthcoming. She leaned further back against the wall, allowing the shadows to wrap around her as her eyes fell half-closed. “It’s like a battlefield. If you devote all your attention to one soldier, or even to one group, you can’t see the larger army. Even beyond that, you have to see the land and the weather. Peer into the future and anticipate your enemy’s moves. How do you think I would feel, as short as I am, if people assumed my name had been chosen because of my height? Hob names are like lycanthrope names--a picture of words.”

“And how would you interpret my name?” Raylin asked.

“That’s not important,” LittleThaw said. “People assume my name relates to my height, as if my parents knew I would be short. Their assumptions don’t bother me because I have my own interpretation of my name. Picture a white mountain, trees covered in snow, streams and ponds frozen. Icicles hang from tree limbs. The sun rises, warm enough to melt only the tiniest bit of that frozen landscape. Water drips from those icicles. Ponds and streams shine like glass. Snow-covered trees glisten and sparkle as if they held all the stars of the sky in their boughs.”

“It will take time,” LittleThaw added, “but you’ll find the picture of your name. Tell me when you do.”