Light and Shadow by Linda Nagata

Author:Linda Nagata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, short stories, fantasy stories, military stories
ISBN: 978-1-937197-21-6
Publisher: Mythic Island Press LLC
Published: 2016-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

~~~

The sun’s arc had just broken the horizon when their troop rode away from the farm. In all the long day since, Smoke hadn’t thought of the woman again. Her bloody prayer had been granted and it was over—but not for her. She must have walked without respite to reach the Koráyos encampment in just one day, driven to find him, the knife and the coin purse her last possessions.

More lightning flickered in the night, though now it was far away. The misty rain faltered, then ceased altogether, leaving everything outside the tent damp and glistening in the torchlight: the grass, the brush, the two silver coins that had spilled from the purse.

The Lutawan farm wife got onto her feet, but she was hurting. She stood hunched, wheezing for breath, her hateful gaze bright above the dagger-shaped mark on her cheek as she glared at Smoke.

Chieftain Rennish stepped up beside him. “You said you took care of her.”

“I thought I did.”

A shadow eclipsed the torchlight. Smoke recoiled as Dehan the Trenchant came to stand at his other side. The Trenchant was a powerful man, both in the world and in the world-beneath. His years showed in his weathered face and in the gray that ran through his heavy black hair, but he remained strong and vital—and the venom that had always existed between them remained vital too. It made Smoke’s skin crawl, to be standing so close beside him.

“Who is she?” Dehan asked.

“A Lutawan. I don’t know her name.”

Rennish expanded on this. “She was one of the women at the farmhouse we visited this morning.”

“Ah,” Dehan said. “Then she should be dead now.”

The woman had hung the coin purse on a string around her neck. Her lips drew back in contempt as she yanked it off. Her scorn was all for Smoke. “You lied about my sister and then you let her die. I don’t want your coins—they won’t buy back her life!”

She hurled the purse at his face, and out of instinct he caught it before it hit, snatching it from the air with his free hand. It had a slit in it, made by the tip of his sword, and as he stuffed the purse into his pocket a coin slipped out and fell, sparkling, to the wet, trampled grass.

Dehan glanced down at it, then up at the woman. “What favor have you done for my demon son that he defied me and let you live?”

“I have done him no favors! And the favor he did for me is worse than nothing.”

“Your life is less than nothing?” Takis asked.

“My life without my sister? Yes.”

Dehan looked to Takis. “Mercy is not in his nature. Why did he let her live?”

Though Takis and Dehan saw eye-to-eye on most things, on the subject of Smoke she was at odds with her father. “He’s standing there beside you,” she said acidly. “Why don’t you ask him?”

So the Trenchant turned to Smoke, his brow cocked in question. Smoke’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword.

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