Read Online His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1) by Amanda McCrina - Free Book Online Page B

the trees, stone-walled pens
for sheep and cattle, a wheat field beyond. The farm house was built
simply of gray flag-stone and the stable, adjoining it, was a low,
round, earthen building with a roof of straw thatch. Chickens strayed
in the unkempt yard. Tyren could see the family out in the field,
weeding the wheat rows.
    “Why not farm the land closer to the village?” he
wondered aloud.
    “These are all old-blood Cesini, sir,” said Verio.
“They’ve been working this land since before the time of
the Varri, before the village was built up. They’re stubborn
about it.”
    Yes, a stubborn people, the Cesini, Tyren thought. That was one word
to describe them.
    One of the men said, “Sir, there’s a rider coming.”
    He turned his eyes away from the little farm and looked up through
the trees on the hill. He could hear underbrush crackling. They
waited, watching. It was a young woman, and she wasn’t riding,
but was leading a small, sturdy, shaggy-coated mountain horse by the
reins; there were leather paniers slung across the saddle. She had
dark hair bound up tightly in a plait on her head, sun-browned skin,
was dressed plainly in a loose brown wool tunic belted at her slim
waist with a length of braided leather cord. She saw them before she
came down onto the path. Her steps slowed. Then she lifted her chin
to show defiance and turned the horse to walk down the path ahead of
them.
    Verio gave orders immediately for some of the men to detain her a
moment. She stopped when they’d formed a half circle round her,
the fingers of her right hand curling tightly round the cheek-strap
of her horse’s bridle. She looked up to Tyren and Verio with
poison in her gray eyes. It was a pretty face. Not beautiful, the
bones a little too prominent, the lips thin, the chin and nose too
long and sharp. But pretty, if it hadn’t been tight and hard
with anger.
    “You’ve no right to detain me,” she said, in
Vareno.
    Verio dismounted. “That isn’t how you speak to the
garrison commander, girl. What’s your name?”
    “Maryna,” she said.
    “Your family’s name,” said Verio, impatiently.
    She didn’t say anything to that for a moment. Then she tilted
her chin up further, her gray eyes sparking. “Nyre,” she
said. “Maryna Nyre.”
    “I know the Nyri,” Verio said. “Your people are
village folk. What are you doing up here in the hills, then?”
    She spoke in a mocking voice, smiling coldly as she spoke.
    “Maybe I was taking word to the rebels a patrol would be
passing this way,” she said.
    Verio took her by one elbow and pulled her towards him so sharply
that she stumbled. He raised his free hand to deal a blow.
    Tyren said, “Lieutenant.”
    Verio looked up to him. He hesitated, swallowing. Then, reluctantly,
he dropped his hand to his side and let go the girl’s arm. He
went to her horse and unstrapped the bags from the saddle and threw
them to the ground, prodding each one in turn with a booted foot.
Then he let out his breath in a short, humorless laugh. He lifted the
saddle flap and stood aside so Tyren could see.
    “Explain this,” he said to the girl, who was standing a
little way away from him now, her thin arms folded against her ribs,
silently watching.
    There was a knife concealed under the flap. It was steel-bladed,
double-edged. Its leather-bound haft was burnished and darkened from
long use. It was good-sized; the blade was as long as Tyren’s
hand from fingertips to wrist, as wide, at the cross-guard, as his
forefinger and middle finger together, tapering towards the point. A
serviceable tool, equally serviceable as a weapon.
    The girl’s face was blank.
    “I already told you,” she said. “Maybe I’m
with the rebellion. I’ve no other reason to carry a knife, of
course.”
    “A steel-bladed knife,” Verio snapped. “A weapon.
Not some farm tool.”
    “It’s mine,” the girl said. Her voice was just as
forceful and sharp as Verio’s. “It was my father’s.
It came to me