Amazon Companion (20 page)

"I imagine that is stiffer."

"Yes, and hard on the plants. But it is better than starving."

We rode in silence for a few minutes before I asked her, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Can you stand it?"

"Yes. Tell me about the voices."

"They are always there," she said. "Even after you kill the demon, the voice remains in your head."

"The voices are there now?"

"Yes. Whispering to me. That is why they are demons. Their bodies are horrible, but it is their whispers that make them demons."

"Why does this help?" I said, gesturing to the way she was holding me.

"It quiets the voices," she said. "I couldn't explain why."

"And holding Malora does not help?"

"No. It makes the voices louder. They hear each other, it seems. We tried to remain lovers, but we couldn't. The demons spoke to us while we made love. It was terrible."

"When you touch me, and she touches me, do the demons hear each other?"

"No. It is like they are afraid of you. But it takes intimate touch for them to hear one another. I can touch Malora, I just cannot be intimate with her. I cannot hold her like this."

"This is not that intimate."

"It is intimate enough," she said. "I can ride double with another warrior, but you will not find us holding each other like I am holding you. It would be torture for both of us."

"So the voices are still as you hold me?"

"They grow still," she said. "We would need greater intimacy for them to become silent."

"So they are not silent for Malora, either?"

"No, but she is doing much better now that you are here. She sleeps better."

"What happens without companions?"

"We go mad eventually. You should ask these questions of your warrior."

"My warrior becomes more troubled talking about these things. You grow less troubled. But that is all for today. Tomorrow you will tell me about your first kill. Hold me now and tell me a happy story."

So she told me how she broke her leg while on patrol, ending with being laid up for eight weeks.

"Nori, I would like to under
stand why that is a happy story."

"Because it was the coldest winter I had ever known, and I got to stay inside near a warm fire until spring."

I laughed. "I will have to remember that."

"Self-inflicted wounds are hard to disguise."

"I am terribly clumsy. Surely you have noticed."

She didn't answer.

"Nori," I said. "You are one of my trainers. Surely you've noticed."

"That is definitely a conversation for your warrior."

"However did I beat Riva?"

"She was trying very hard not to actually hurt you. You didn't have the same care, and then she was startled by your ferocity.
"

"I was fighting for my sister's life."

"You were well-motivated. I have to wonder whether you would more fully apply yourself to training if Gallen's Cove were closer to the demons."

"I believe Malora's whip is all the incentive I need." I rubbed my backside, which still hurt from three swats during the afternoon session.

"You are not as sullen as you were the first day."

"I am biding my time while I look for an opportunity to turn the tables."

"Good luck with that."

"Leave me my fantasies. They're all I have."

She chuckled.

We arrived with no false turns. Nori didn't comment, but simply slid from the horse, then helped me down. I didn't need the help, but I knew she wanted the touches to linger. I turned to her. "Better?"

She nodded and released me.

I had no trouble finding the snares. We had caught two more rabbits. Nori insisted we move the center snare.

"Why? It's been doing so well."

"We don't want to over-harvest a single location."

"Ah, of course. More rabbits next year."

"Yes. Some hunters make a small map of where they have left their snares so they can rotate them around over the years."

"Do you?"

She smiled. "No. I am not so diligent.
You may also notice I do not use much rabbit skin in my clothing."

I smiled, understanding. She hunted larger game.

After that, she showed me how to find vines I could use. If they were too thin, they broke easily. If they were too thick, the rabbit could escape. They had to be just right. We set our fifth snare, and I thanked her for the lesson.

"You are welcome, Maya. Can you find the way home?"

"Yes."

"Blindfolded?"

"No."

"I bet you can."

I cocked my head. "A new puzzle?"

"Perhaps."

"You would direct our mount?"

"No."

"Somehow I would direct our mount while unable to see?"

"After a fashion. Go on. Mount up."

I climbed onto the horse, and Nori climbed on behind me. Then she produced a length of cloth and held it where I could see it.

"You're actually serious? I think you're going to direct the horse."

"Yes, I'm serious. No, I am not going to direct the horse unless something unexpected happens."

"Like we get lost?"

"Like we encounter a bear."

"I think you're crazy. All right, go ahead." She wrapped the blindfold over my eyes then told me to adjust it until I
couldn't see.

"Grab the reins," she said. "Give them a swish, then tell him to take us home. After that, let him have his head. Your subconscious will make the right choices. Don't try to think about it."

So I did what she said, and the horse began moving.

Nori leaned against me and wrapped her arms around me again.
We compared teaching stories. I taught school and she taught martial arts, but we found similarities.

"Students are often lazy," I told her.

"Tell me about it," she replied.

"You are trying to get a lot more from your students than I did from mine," I said. "I would not say I have been lazy."

"I would."

"You don't mean that."

"I do, but I don't want to fight about it."

I didn't respond right away. "You're serious?"

"Yes."

"I am not sitting around playing with my friends, Nori. No one has ever accused me of ever being under-committed to anything I have set my mind to."

"You do what Malora and I demand at the tip of a whip, and not one tiny bit more. How is that different than your students?"

"The tip of the whip may have a lot to do with it. When during my day do you want more from me? Or are you suggesting that I am lazy in spite of the whip?"

"Could you get more from your students if you had Malora's whip?"

"And was willing to whip children? Yes, I guess."

"Do you give us more because if you don't, you know what happens?"

"Yes."

"So you are lazy, and you work hard only because the alternative is worse. If we didn't make you, would you even attend training?"

"No," I said sullenly.

"Don't get angry, Maya. But would you want me to be dishonest with you?"

"No," I said, only
marginally less sullenly. "I really am lazy?"

"Not about anything else, but about this? Yes."

"But I don't like it," I said. "I'm not any good at it, and I'm never going to be any good. Furthermore, Malora says I'll never be a warrior, and she said it before the first day of training. She has said she'll do anything she can to prevent me becoming a warrior. So why do I have to train like one?"

"I don't like mathematics," Nori said, her tone a mirror of mine. "I'm not any good at math, and I'm not going to be. Furthermore, I know for a fact I'll never, ever need to do anything more complicated than basic addition and subtraction. So why do I need to learn more than that?"

"Damn it!" I said, then began laughing. "That's almost word-for-word what some of my students have said to me."

"I was one of those students once. I am terrible at math."

"I could teach you," I told her playfully.

"No
, thank you. I know for a fact I will never need to be good at math, and unfortunately for you, Teacher, you don't have a whip, and if you had one, you wouldn't know how to use it."

"How hard can it be? You flick it against someone's backside."

"You think it's that easy?" she asked.

I sighed. "It's not?"

"There are reasons only Malora and I play the demon nipping at your heels. Do you think either of us like making you flinch? I'd love to share it with the other warriors, but they lack the delicate touch."

"Delicate?" I screeched, rubbing my backside again. "It doesn't feel delicate."

"Malora and I can lay just the tip of the whip right where it will do the most good. With anyone else, you get more than the tip or a complete miss. Of course, we can also make that tip sting exactly the amount we want. Again, with the others, it tends to either be a thump or rips your skin."

We rode quietly for a few minutes.

"I was a good teacher," I finally declared.

"I have no doubt," Nori said.

"I am a poor Amazon."

"That is not how I would put it."

"You took a good teacher from people who needed her and took me to where I am hopeless."

"Am I holding you like you are hopeless? You could have let us take your sister."

"No!"

"So here we are. I am not going to apologize."

"Am I going to get better?"

"Of course. And if you actually decide you want to get better, maybe you won't feel the tip of the whip so often."

"So often?"

"I don't believe you are ever likely to be so motivated you won't need a little extra
motivation."

"I was hoping it was an initial incentive, and as I grew stronger, you would put the whip away."

"You can believe that if you like. It isn't how good you are, it is how hard you work. You quit early."

No one had ever said that to me before. I didn't like it, but I had to admit she was right. I vowed to do better, but I must admit, it was a vow I broke. I couldn't help it, any more than my poor math students could help it, perhaps.

"We're supposed to talk about happy topics," I finally said.

"I like talking about training strategies. Don't you? What did you do to motivate your students?"

"I tried to make math fun."

She didn't respond.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm thinking."

"Oh, please. Like you never thought of that."

"Oh, we make training fun, but I realized you haven't seen it."

"I don't think it will help."

"Probably not."

I elbowed her. Gently.

"What would you do?"
she asked.

"Games. Points. I made them compete against themselves, not each other. With math, that is easy. There is one right answer to most math problems, although there can be more than one way of getting there."

"What else?"

"Gold stars. Recognition. If a student struggled, I didn't hold the clock against him. What mattered was that he did the work and turned it in. I could work on the clock later, but if the clock becomes the absolute, and a student doesn't believe he can beat the clock, then he doesn't even try.
I offer praise for improvement or, for a student that is struggling, praise for honest effort."

"Tomorrow we will show you fun. You are not ready to participate, and I do not believe you will find it fun. Even if you hate our fun, we are not going to lighten your training."

"I didn't think you would."

"It is customary for the companions to wager."

"What do they wager?"

"Usually kitchen duty. No one will wager against Malora though, or me, except at the end."

"At the end?"

"Team competitions. Do not be offended when Malora does not allow you to participate. It is possible Neela and Aura will, but if they were my companions, they would not."

"All right."

We rode for another few minutes, talking about incentives when teaching. Then Nori told me, "I am going to remove your blindfold." She did just that, and I blinked in the light.

Through the trees, I could see the village.

"You guided the horse!"

"Are you accusing me? Would you like to settle the dispute on the training ground?"

"No. Allow me to rephrase. Did you guide the horse?"