We Will Hunt Together (6 page)

"They loosen as they mould to your body."

"It fits me."

"I took dimensions off your vest. And I have a good eye."

Helgaer coloured slightly at the implications of Camille eyeing her closely enough to know how to make armour fit.

She picked up her new wooden sword. A few practice swings, gentle enough to not jar her wound, suggested the cuirass would not interfere with her arm in combat.

"You fight very practically."

"Tola wouldn't let me rest until I could do basic techniques well enough to satisfy her. When I asked her to teach me something more interesting, she said she would, but only when I was faster. I never learned more complicated techniques, but I did become very fast."

"How did Tola come to learn so much?"

Helgaer's face froze. "I am not stupid," she said, angrily scrabbling at the cuirass's straps until she got them open. "I know that mere hunters do not learn so much about fighting.

"She came from a region of Vreeland where villages are at war with each other. She lost her family to a raiding party, but survived by cutting her way past them to safety when she was the last one alive. She became a bandit in the Ortlin highlands, taking just what she needed to live comfortably, but lost too many of her comrades and left, moving east to where I found her. I don't know if the soldiers had been looking for her. I do not care, either."

Camille nodded slowly, her expression still neutral. "What are you going to do? What will you do if you survive?"

"I will not be preying on others. I can hunt, and I can farm, and I do not wish to kill one man more than I have to. Beyond that, I don't know. It won't be important until I succeed or I die. I will need to get word to my family, but whether I return or visit, I do not yet know."

Camille stared out across the clearing for a while, looking at nothing. Then she sighed. "Come back alive and you can stay here for a while."

Helgaer looked at her in surprise. Although Camille had rescued her, taken her in, tended her wounds and fed her, that was the first truly welcoming thing she had said.

"Thank you."

Camille just nodded.

"I don't want to put you in any danger," Helgaer said. "If I succeed but there are soldiers after me, I will not return. They may keep chasing me across Ortlin, but I will lead them a chase they won't forget. If I succeed and I am free, I will welcome your hospitality." Her lip twisted in half a smile. "I still have a debt to repay."

Camille snorted. "You can repay it by surviving and by not making my efforts meaningless."

Helgaer laughed, harshly. "Vengeance is a holy quest in Vreeland, but dying for your vengeance diminishes your death's worth. We are proud, and we do not forget insults, but we are not stupid."

"And yet, you are ready to die."

"If I was not, I would not be able to fight as well as I need to or make the necessary choices."

Camille looked at her, raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "I can understand that. I prefer to take my time, plan, practice and wait for my moment, but I can understand that."

Helgaer awoke as Camille was closing the door quietly. She lay on her back in the barely-there light of early morning as it filtered through the cabin's poorly fitting shutters, smiling to herself.

When she got up, she was still moving with care and a twinge of pain, but her smile did not stop. She was, despite the pain, moving a little more freely each day. She dressed in her woollen shirt and strapped on the cuirass. Her belt went over the top as tightly as she could bear it with her sword, knife and dagger in place.

She drank deeply of the chill water from the barrel before picking up her wooden sword and moving to one side of the clearing.

She started with basic exercises, moving her feet lightly despite her thick-soled boots as she advanced across the clearing performing the cuts and parries Tola had drilled into her, choosing only those techniques that did not stress the waist.

She turned around when she reached the trees, performing the same set of exercises back to where she had started. When she had crossed the clearing, she began retreating, faithfully practising the backwards footwork that Tola had, time after time, told her was just as important as what you do with a blade.

When she judged she was almost among the trees again, she swung around, smiling thinly with satisfaction as the tip of her wooden sword flicked through leaves.

She moved onto different footwork while repeating the same sword exercises over and over. She moved lightly but quickly, each movement ending in precisely the same spot relative to her body.

She did not stop until the sun was high and she was sweating inside her shirt.

She left her cuirass in the cabin when she took the farmer's shirt and hose down to the creek with her so she could wash hers properly. She also took fresh bandages, padding and the herbal paste.

She was naked to the waist, vigorously scrubbing herself clean while her shirt and her binding soaked, when something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

She dropped into a crouch, dagger in hand—her sword was lying on the bank—as she twisted on the balls of her feet to face behind her.

Nothing was there.

She froze, only her eyes moving, all thoughts of modesty forgotten as she scanned the surrounding trees for any shape, movement or colour out of place.

She slowly rotated on the spot, still finding nothing, ending up facing once more away from the stream. The nagging feeling was still there, but she could not work out why. She slowly straightened up, sheathing her dagger.

"I'm impressed."

Helgaer was not unskilled with throwing a dagger. It almost left her hand now.

"No people, and few animals, can sense me."

Camille stepped out from behind a tree, appearing to form from perfectly natural patches of shadow and leaf.

Helgaer's rising anger at being spied on and stalked was drowned by the sudden realisation that she was bare-breasted in front of only the second woman she had ever known to share her love for women. Keeping rigid control of herself, she began to turn back to the water when she noticed the blood staining Camille's shirt. "You're hurt!"

Camille shook her head. "It's not my blood. There's a wolf back at the cabin. Wolf skins fetch an amazing price. Nearly as good as bear. I can carry a good-sized wolf, but it did bleed on me."

When Camille reached the side of the river, she untied her belt before casually pulling her shirt over her head. She looked like a wildcat—no spare fat and all lean, strong muscle. She looked down at breasts that, without her nipples marking them, were barely visible at all. "You can see why my parents gave up hope of marrying me well."

Helgaer found herself staring but didn't look away. Camille's body looked like that of a young man, but she was undeniably a woman. Helgaer felt jealous, enormous, and conflicted about the sexual attraction she was feeling.

Camille knelt on one knee so she could begin scrubbing the blood out of her shirt.

Helgaer furiously returned to washing herself, hissing in pain as she pulled too sharply on the flesh around her entry wound. Camille's head snapped around. Helgaer squashed her left breast with her right hand so she could see the wound clearly. There was no blood.

Cursing silently at herself and knowing that she was being clumsy because she wasn't concentrating, Helgaer reached for her binding cloth.

"Leave it to dry. Let me."

Helgaer gave in.

She sat on a fallen tree as Camille, still shirtless while hers dried over another branch, bent to peer intently at both wounds, prodding them gently with her fingers before saying, "You heal quickly."

"I'm Vreelander." It was all Helgaer could think of to say.

"You're young and in good health."

Helgaer almost blushed again.

Camille anointed the wounds, but did not replace the pads, simply wrapping the bandage more loosely around Helgaer's waist. "They are healing well, and this will let us know more quickly if you open them again."

Helgaer tried to help, but Camille pushed her arms up so she sat there feeling foolish with her elbows level with her shoulders as her waist was bound.

As Camille tied the bandage off, her head bumped Helgaer's left breast.

She shot Helgaer an impish smile before standing up, casually reaching for her still wet shirt.

Helgaer sat frozen in shock for a second before turning, a little too quickly, to snatch the farmer's shirt. She still felt half-naked when the tight shirt stretched over her breasts, but she did not take it off to bind herself with wet cloth.

Camille was already plucking the last pheasant as Helgaer trudged into the clearing. The wolf hung by its hind legs from the branches of a tree, the last of its blood dripping into a bowl.

Helgaer, still flustered, found it an easy distraction. "What does wolf taste like?"

"You've never tried it? You wear so many skins, surely—"

"My family has never been desperate enough. We feed them to the dogs. It gives the dogs a taste and ensures our goats and cattle are never troubled."

Camille looked impressed. "I met Vreeland hounds once. They terrified me. They were friendly after their master introduced me to them, but they still terrified me." A thought seemed to strike her. "I've seen Vreeland cattle as well. What can threaten a Vreeland cow?"

"A Vreeland wolf." Helgaer, finally, felt she could claim that as a victory over Camille.

Camille laughed, saluting Helgaer with a handful of feathers. She dropped the feathers carefully into a bowl, occasionally discarding one that was small, broken or misshapen.

Helgaer's eyes flicked to where Camille's quiver leaned against the wall of the cabin. She could recognise the distinctive patterning on at least half of the arrows.

"What else do you use for fletching?"

"Crow or turkey are good." Camille held up the naked bird. "What do you think—roast, stew or boil it whole?"

"Stew it whole." Helgaer felt off-balance from Camille's sudden cheerfulness. She didn't know if Camille had decided to accept her, was feeling a euphoria from killing a wolf, or—she clamped down on that speculation before her cheeks started burning again.

Preparing a meal helped take Helgaer's mind off questions she did not want to consider.

When the rubbish had been cleared away, the knives washed and the pheasant heating, Camille brought out her coffee pot again. She was still in a rare, slightly fey, humour that was keeping Helgaer feeling unsettled.

"When will you skin the wolf?"

"Tomorrow, after it's had a chance to settle. I was hoping you would help me."

"Of course." Helgaer wasn't sure if Camille had flicked a keen glance at the way her flattened breasts were outlined by her shirt or if it had been her imagination. She shot a quick look down and was horrified to see her nipples visible even through the sturdy linen.

She cast a quick look at where she had hung her shirt and binding over the tanning rack, willing them to dry faster. She almost fetched her wolf-fur vest, but it was too warm to claim she needed it.

The coffee seemed to be taking a long time to boil.

"I'm impressed by how you endure cold water."

"We use snow to wash with in winter," Helgaer said, feeling her face heating. "I'm impressed by how you carried a wolf."

"You didn't think I looked strong enough?"

"No. I mean, I hadn't thought how strong you looked. I mean, I know how heavy wolves are."

"You have bigger wolves in Vreeland. You've said so yourself. Have a look at that one."

Helgaer turned to look at the animal again. She did have to admit it was a smaller breed than the ones she was used to. It looked like a lowland wolf that had wandered uphill instead of the true mountain wolves that came down to her village.

As she turned back, she caught a trace of that quick, satisfied smile on Camille's face again and realised she had briefly turned sideways.

Helgaer jumped to her feet, hurrying to the tanning rack to check on her clothes.

"Don't."

Surprised, Helgaer turned around.

Camille was walking towards her. "You should be proud to have been born a Vreeland woman. You can choose to make what you will of your life, but you are a woman to make your people proud."

Helgaer stared at her, speechless.

"You are gifted with a sword, you are stronger than your older brother, and you have more honour than most men or women I meet, whether your quest for vengeance is a holy mission or not. I say that all of that means you are more than just the body you were born with, no matter how much you dislike it."

Helgaer could still just stare.

"Your mother was correct, you know. You are stronger than any man. You should be proud to be a woman."

Helgaer's gaze raked up and down Camille. "You tell me that?"

Camille's mouth twisted. "I hardly have a choice."

Helgaer stared her down, until it was Camille's turn to shift uncomfortably. "I would wager no man has a face as pretty as yours, but you wear a man's clothes. You cannot tell me they were ever intended to be worn by a woman."