Tervy and Ironskin

By the time the herders returned from repulsing the raiders, dinner was congealed. It was too dark to hunt for more kindling, so Onthar ordered Frijje to collect some chips from the cattle pit.

"Faw!" he grumbled. "That's a dirty job. I know! Make the girl do it." Onthar deferred to Sturm.

"I doubt she could get much filthier," Sturm admitted. "I'll go with her."

Tervy showed no sign of displeasure when Sturm explained what she was to do. She plunged into the herd, shoving aside yearling calves and cows. She filled a bandan na with the few pats that were dry enough, and came back out. Showing them to Sturm, she said, "Enough?"

"Enough. Take them to Frijje."

The coals were stirred and the fire blazed up again. The stew was dished out. Tervy watched expectantly, licking her lips. Sturm asked for another bowl.

"There are none," Ostimar said sullenly. "Not for raider scum."

Sturm ate only a third of his portion and gave the rest to

Tervy. She ate wolfishly, slapping gobs of thick stew into her mouth with her dirty fingers. Even Rorin, the least clean of the herders, was disgusted.

When it was time to bed down, Sturm asked, "Should someone stay awake, in case the raiders return?"

"They won't come back," Onthar assured him.

"Some other band might."

"Not at night," grunted Rorin, hunkering down on his blanket.

"And why is that?"

"Raiders don't move at night," Ostimar explained.

"Wolves'll get 'em in the dark." He pulled his horsehair blan ket up to his chin and slipped his rolled bandanna down over his eyes.

Wolves? The herdsmen didn't seem worried about wolves. Sturm mentioned as much to Frijje, the last one awake.

"Onthar has a charm against wolves," he said. "He hasn't lost a beast to wolves in three years. G'night."

Soon the circle around the campfire was filled with soft snores and wheezes. Sturm watched Tervy, sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, staring at the dying fire.

"Do I have to tie you up?" he said to her. "Or will you behave?"

"I not run," Tervy replied. "Out there is tyinsk. Wolves."

He smiled at her. "How old are you, Tervy?"

"Say?"

"How many years have you lived?"

She looked back over her shoulder, her brow furrowed with incomprehension. "How long ago were you born?"

Sturm said.

"Baby doesn't know when born." Maybe her people were too primitive to count the years. Or perhaps it wasn't important; probably few of them survived to middle years.

"Do you have a family? Mother? Brothers and sisters?"

"Only uncle. He dead, out there. You cut, here to here," she said, running a finger across her throat. He felt a twinge of shame.

"I'm sorry," Sturm said regretfully. "I didn't know." She shrugged indifferently.

He kicked his bedroll so that it opened feet to the fire.

Sturm lay down. "Don't worry, Tervy; I'll look after you.

You're my responsibility." But for how long? he wondered.

"Ironskin keep Tervy. Tervy not run away."

Sturm pillowed his head on his arm and dropped off to sleep. Hours later, the sharp howl of a wolf roused him from slumber. He tried to sit up but found that a weight held him down. It was Tervy. She had crawled atop Sturm and gone to sleep, her arms draped over him.

Sturm eased the girl to one side. She fought sleepily, say ing, "If charm fail, wolves come, have to get me before get you. Protection."

Smiling, he ordered her in hushed tones to do as he said.

"I can protect myself," he assured her. Tervy curled up on a narrow strip of his blanket and returned to sleep.

Tervy spent half the morning trotting alongside Sturm and Brumbar. He had offered to let her ride, but she insisted on keeping pace on foot. However, as the northern plain's summer sun took its toll, Tervy relented and hopped on

Brumbar's rump, behind Sturm.

"This the biggest horse in the world!" she declared.

He laughed. "No, not very likely." Her conclusion wasn't difficult to understand, considering that Brumbar was half again as tall and twice as heavy as the average plains pony.

At midday, the herd caught wind of Brantha's Pond. The pond had been built by Brantha of Kallimar, yet another

Solamnic Knight, 150 years before. The pool was two hun dred yards across, a perfect circle whose shore was paved with blocks of granite from the Vingaard Mountains.

The thirsty cattle quickened their pace. The herders had to concentrate at the head of the moving mass to discourage the animals from breaking into a dangerous stampede. At first, Sturm was mystified by their haste, but Tervy sniffed the air and informed him that she, too, could smell the water.

Within an hour, the silver-blue disk of Brantha's Pond came into view. Another herd, far larger than Onthar's, was being driven away. Horses, wagons, carts, and their occu pants clustered around the pond's edge.

Sturm's own interest quickened, stimulated by the impending contact with new people. The herdsmen were good fellows (well, there was Belingen), but they were taci turn and rather dull in conversation. Sturm had actually begun to miss the distracting talk of the gnomes.

The travelers abandoned the pond's edge when they heard the massed mooing of Onthar's herd. The cattle broke ranks and lined the shore, burying their peeling pink noses in the green water. Sturm pulled Brumbar up short. Tervy threw a leg over and dropped off. She ran toward the pond.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Sturm called. Before his eyes, the girl stripped off her collection of skins and vaulted onto the back of a drinking cow. She stood up and walked across the hind ends of two more beasts, then dived into the water. Sturm urged Brumbar down to the granite paving.

The girl swam in short, quick strokes to the center of the pond and disappeared. Sturm watched the green surface.

No bubbles. No turbulence other than that created by the drinking cattle. Then Tervy burst out of the water not ten feet from Sturm, scattering the cows who were drinking there.

"Give hand," she said, and Sturm leaned down to pull her out of the water. "I not stink now, hey?"

"Not as much," he admitted. He handed her clothes to her and tried not to let his embarrassment show. "Did you jump in because we said you smelled?"

"I not care what they speak," Tervy said, tossing her shoulder at Onthar and his men. "I not want Ironskin to smell me bad."

He was touched by her gesture. Sturm turned Brumbar around and rode out of the congested pond bank. He teth- ered his horse with Onthar's ponies and saw the herders squatted on the ground, eating whatever they could scrounge from their rucksacks. Tervy was hungry, too. She snitched a flake of jerky from Belingen's bag. He caught her at it, and boxed her ears. She promptly put a thumb in his eye. Belingen howled with rage and groped for his skinning knife.

"Put it away," said Sturm. Belingen found himself staring up thirty-four inches of polished steel.

"That raider wench nearly put my eye out!" he snarled.

"You punched her pretty good. That should satisfy you – or are you fighting with girls now?"

Sturm decided to take the girl to the caravan wagons and see what he could buy to eat. Tervy's ponytail dripped water down her back as she eagerly trotted along beside him.

"Ironskin will truly buy food with money?" she said, incredulous.

"Of course. I don't steal," Sturm said.

"You have much money?"

"Not so much," he said. "I'm not rich."

"That I figure. Rich man always steal," Tervy said. Sturm had to smile at the blunt wisdom of her statement. He was smiling a lot lately, he suddenly realized.