True Warriors Sing by Rowan Erlking (classic book list .TXT) 📕

He didn’t budge though, just gazing up at her. “But…uh…you’re an unmarried woman, and I’m…. We can’t be alone together at night!”

“Just get on,” LjuBa snapped. “It’s not like I’m interested in a squire.” Ljev held back. “And you know my father would gut you if you tried anything. As if you could….”

Frowning, Ljev, heaved himself up into the saddle. “Alright. But when we find him, you tell him I kept my distance. I doubt he’d believe my word.”

LjuBa cracked the reins. They took off at a gallop.

The gallop did not last long, and soon they were in a trot. By the time the sun was setting, the horse was already long into a walk and soon the squire slid off the back to walk also. They did not stop until LjuBa chose a spot to make camp.

Ljev gathered wood for the fire, singing the drying song so that the fire would burn true. LjuBa made camp, setting up her shelter as she sang a drying song to protect everything from the damp ground. Both of them sat down to supper with a mild fire, sitting on opposite sides of the blaze,. Ljev huddled with his arms pulled close to his chest for warmth though LjuBa was toasty in her fur trimmed travel coat. She tugged the collar up to cover her ears.

“Is it ready yet?” Ljev asked, peering over his knees at the rabbit on the spit. He had caught it. She had gutted and skinned it.

“Let it roast a little more,” LjuBa replied.

They were silent again, listening to the crackle of the logs and the chrr chrr of the frogs. Floating specks of light and ash flicked up occasionally, drawing in moths and little flies, crickets eee-eeing in the grass near by. LjuBa tilted her head back to gaze up at the stars, drawing in a breath and letting it out again with a smile. A passing thought made her wonder if she ought to have left a note for her sisters, but they would have noticed her warriess things missing by then.

She noticed a streak of light cross over the sky, falling near the south, murmuring aloud. “It must be Jodis visiting the southern god, Klodil.”

Ljev chuckled.

Looking down, LjuBa narrowed her gaze. “What? You don’t believe in the four gods?”

He immediately lifted his hands, shaking his head. “No. I mean I’m a believer. I just…well, don’t you think it odd that you don’t like magic but you rely so much on the gods? They are the founders of magic.”

“No, they’re not!” LjuBa snapped, reaching for something to throw at him. All she had on hand was the stick she had been using to poke the fire with, but she didn’t want to lose it. It was nicely dry. She grabbed a wad of mud instead.

“Hey!” Ljev ducked, the clod missing his head by an inch. “Stop throwing things at me!”

“Stop saying such blasphemous things!” LjuBa shouted back.

Rolling his eyes, Ljev crawled to the fire to get warmer. “Fine. I won’t talk any more.”

“Too right!” LjuBa went to the fire also, plucking up the rabbit, which she suspected he actually wanted to get to first. Gingerly she pulled the pieces apart, her fingers stinging with each firm grip. She tossed one leg to Ljev.

He caught it in his cupped hands, sighing.

“Really…” LjuBa murmured. “I don’t see why a warrior would want to think good about magic. But oh, that’s right, you’re only a squire.”

Ljev muttered under his breath. “It is not cowardly to use magic.”

She lifted her head. “Did you say something?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I didn’t think so.” LjuBa watched him eat while squelching in the mud next to the fire. She ate a little more delicately, her eyes fixed on his down turned face. The man really did look like a wretch. He really wasn’t fit to be a warrior.

It was hours after dividing the rabbit that LjuBa put out the fire and turned in. Ljev lay down where he had been sitting, huddling in his wool blanket next to the still-warm coals. His eyes were on the sky though, taking in the constellations as the thinned clouds passed over. He could see through them mostly, the light of the moon shining so bright it was no use to attempt sleep.

“Ljev,” LjuBa could not sleep either, the canvas of her tent barely keeping out the light, “Why didn’t you recognize the warrior’s challenge? You should have already done it when you were a boy.”

Somewhat flustered that she was calling him by name it took a few seconds for Ljev to reply, “Uh. I…well, I never did…uh, did the challenge when I was a boy.”

LjuBa sat up. “Not even while playing?”

Frowning, Ljev replied, “I didn’t really have time for such games.”

She snorted. “And why not? Didn’t you want to be a warrior as a child?”

He did not answer for a while. Then he said, “I didn’t know it was an option.”

“So why start at such an old age?” LjuBa chuckled. “Why not just become a merchant or an emissary for the king?”

Ljev chuckled. “I could never be a merchant. His job is to sell to people things they don’t really need in the first place.”

“And an emissary?” LjuBa asked, peering through the darkness at him.

He exhaled.

“How about an accountant?” she asked.

Ljev chuckled again. “Why are you so concerned?”

Dropping back to her bed, LjuBa sighed. “I’d hate to see a man fail.”

“So do I,” he murmured.

They didn’t talk much after that. LjuBa soon nodded off.

When they rose in the morning Ljev put out the coals to the fire as LjuBa rolled up the bedrolls and canvas, strapping them back onto the horse. Their plan was to follow the bandits, but already the trail was messed up, muddled by the damp air. LjuBa clutched her oilskin map in her hands, clenching her teeth as she peered out at the landscape. It really was her first time out beyond the borders of central KiTai, and despite her desire for adventure, her hands were shaking.

Ljev peered over her shoulder at the map, his breathing soft that it almost tickled. “KaMan village should be to the south of us. It is closer. Do we want to inquire there first?”

Rolling her eyes over at him, then shrugging him off with a step to the side, LjuBa pulled the map away. “You think those bandits are at a village?”

He shook his head, his sheepish expression returning. “No. But someone might have seen them.”

Holding the map up for him to see, she said, poking on the village near the marked outpost in the center of that provenance, “We should go here. Our warriors at the tower would know what bandits are in the area. It would be their job to handle them.”

“If that’s the case,” Ljev murmured with slight dejection, going back to the horse, “Then wouldn’t they have already taken care of them?”

LjuBa stepped up to him, sticking out her chin not an inch from his face. “Are you saying something?”

Pulling back, he shook his head. “No. Sorry.”

“That’s right!” LjuBa shoved him aside, and climbed into her saddle. Looking down on him, she said, “Now you can either ride on back with me or you can run. But if you go on foot, you cannot ask for breaks. We need to hurry.”

He gave a sulky look back, hanging his head with an exhale, but Ljev climbed up to the back of the horse, sitting behind her, awkwardly setting his hands on her waist as if he really didn’t know what to do with them. He nodded. “Ok.”

LjuBa urged the horse to start up. It whinnied, clearly not happy with all the weight on its back, but it started into a trot anyway.

They rode straight east for a few hours as the sun lifted into the sky. Most of the land they passed through was empty. No farms, no fields, and hardly any grazing. The first sign of life was a small flock of sheep a local boy was herding without song, and most of the day was already past.

The boy was nothing like a KiTai, his skin the color of baked bread and his hair coarser rolling curls of brown, trimmed above his ears, and his deep and dark eyes were like the soil. He gazed up at the pair of blood-red haired ‘warriors’ on horseback, stiffening with his hands clenched to his bell-hooked walking staff, the wind blowing the brass so that it clanked among the bleating of lambs. Ljuba looked at him only briefly, figuring that such a child would not be able to answer their question.

They rode on until they saw the skirts of farms with cows in fenced lots and dogs herding sheep through corrals while their masters gazed on. Then they reached a muddy road. It was nearer to sunset by then, and by then LjuBa decided to let Ljev down to walk on his own. They were approaching their first village, and a warriess ought not to be seen riding with a muddy squire.

But the village was not a village. The map had been wrong. It was a town. They discovered this when they rode towards the up build of wood and stone structures that got tighter and tighter together the further in they went. The craftsmanship also improved from simple rustic to familiar sweeping KiTai roofs and carved figurines with baked tile on the top. And out of every home people stared at them, like emerging gophers from their holes.

LjuBa had the horse stop at an inn.

“I’m not so sure about this,” Ljev murmured while looking to the left and right at the strange toast colored faces that stared relentlessly back at them.

“Are you going to be afraid of everything?” LjuBa said to him with a roll of her eyes as she slid off the side, casting him that tired look her father often used with him. She then undid her saddlebag, heaving it over to her shoulder. 

Ljev rushed close to her. “This isn’t fear. I’m being cautious. Look at the way they are staring at us.”

She snorted, taking the lead to her horse and tying it to the post with a small song to keep the rope secure. “Well, you’re covered in mud. Of course they are staring.”

“That’s not it,” he said, following her up the front step to the pair of tall stained wood doors for the inn.

LjuBa marched in, parting the swinging doors and standing in the entryway. To the left was an eating hall and bar filled with all sorts of men with a few barmaids drinking and eating at rows of tables next to an enormous fireplace that blazed with heat. To the right stood the innkeeper’s desk, a rail thin woman standing behind it, her brown eyes popping out at them while Ljev frowned at the scene. In front of them was a staircase.

“I’ll handle this,” LjuBa said, marching to the front desk. “You have no need to worry.”

He followed her, hissing in her ear as she smiled to the woman. “Really? And you speak the local dialect?”

LjuBa stiffened. However, her smile remained as she took in a breath. She said,