The sun, visible only barely behind the heavy clouds, was to her right. She twitched the bow in his direction. “That way.”
? ? ?
There was no reason to be quiet anymore. The man walked as if he had rocks in his shoes, and any animal with ears would be long gone before they got anywhere near it. That explained Aeris's continued absence; the bird would have to go to the other side of the island to find an animal that hadn't been scared away. Not trusting the blade on his back, Sibba kept him in front of her and her ax in her hand, having strapped the bow on her own back.
“Do you have a name?” he asked, glancing at her over his shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered.
For a time, the only sound was the man’s heavy footfalls. Then, “Well, what is it?”
“Sibba.” She purposefully omitted her surname. He didn't need to know that he had stumbled across the chief's daughter. Her armbands—gold and silver and iron rings that snaked up her arm to show her high status—were hidden beneath her sleeves and furs. She didn’t know why she still wore them; there was no one here to see except her mother who disliked the practice anyway.
“I'm Gabel.”
She watched him walk, saw the way that he always managed to account for the sword peeking over his shoulder as they squeezed through the trees. It never knocked against trunks or brushed low-hanging branches. She had not known a lot of men, but those she had known in Ottar were warriors—sure-footed men with easy smiles and sharpened blades. For someone so careless with his feet, Gabel certainly was mindful of his weapon. “That's a fine sword for a trader,” she called up to him. He didn't turn around but raised his right hand to touch the hilt before dropping it back down to his side.
“A family heirloom,” he said, his voice strained as he jumped over a small creek. If it snowed, as the sky promised it would, the creek would be iced over in the morning. The air, too, smelled clean and cold, biting her nose and fingertips threateningly.
As he struggled up the northern bank of the creek, she gained on him. This close, she saw that he was younger than she had at first thought. The sun and the wind had aged him, but he couldn't be more than thirty. This didn't ease her mind at all. More often than not, the ignorance of youth was equally as dangerous as the confidence of old age.
“Where are you from?” she asked him. The beach was nearly in sight now, and it would be another mile east toward home. The walk would take enough time for her to decide whether or not she trusted him.
“Here and there,” he said, tilting his head from side to side. “Everywhere and nowhere.”
Slipping into the Casuin tongue that her mother had taught her as a young girl, she said, “I know you are not Fielding.”
His surprise at hearing the other language was evident in his raised brows and crooked grin. “I am a part of everywhere I have been,” he answered in the same tongue.
This still wasn't an answer, but it was one that Sibba understood. She had never left the Fields, but she would. Not to raid and plunder, like the Fieldings would, but to explore and learn and find somewhere where she belonged. Her mother spoke of her home across the Impassable Strait, of a family that was a part of Sibba even though she didn't know them. Someday, she would go there. When her mother didn't need her, when she had amassed enough wealth, when she had a boat of her own, and a crew to take her there. Usually, someday seemed like a distant dream, but with Gabel standing in front of her, a stranger who had seen many lands, it seemed at least attainable. No matter what her father said, or how he had taunted her for her curiosity.
“You and your mother are alone here?” Gabel asked.
Sibba nodded automatically, lost in her thoughts so that it took her a moment to truly hear his question. You and your mother. Had she mentioned her mother? Keeping her steps even and her face straight, she wound back through their conversation. No, she thought. She would never have put her in that kind of danger.
“Yes,” she said, but it took her too long to answer and when she did, she choked on the word. When he looked back at her, his face had changed. Gone was the easy smile; in its place were hard lines and flat, emotionless eyes. In the space of that single word, he had shed the persona of a weary traveler and become someone else. Even though Sibba didn't know him, there was something predatory in his look that she recognized. It turned her palms sweaty in spite of the cold air.
His hand reached up again, fingers brushing the hilt of the sword, this time wrapping around the smooth handle and pulling it from its sheath in one clean, practiced movement.
CHAPTER TWO
Sibba
Sibba's feet moved before her mind could catch up. It was pure instinct, like the doe that had run at the snap of a branch. Gabel’s sword sang as it sliced through the air but Sibba was already weaving through the trees, heading east without thinking, toward the home she shared with her mother. She shifted to the south, longing for the cover of darkness, but the white clouds and the bare branches kept the forest bright, and even the blundering attacker would be able to follow her tracks.
He stomped behind her, confident in his pursuit. He had her trapped on an island after all. She was a sitting duck, a sure thing. She veered east again, swinging around a river birch and leaping over a swollen creek. Sibba's feet slid in the mud but she scrambled onward, digging her fingers into the dirt to propel her forward. What would her father say if he could see her now, running scared?
“Stand and fight,” he would tell her. “It is the Fielding way.” Glory in battle, death with a weapon in her hand. It was what her father and brother urged. But Sibba had never felt that violent pride in her heart. Her fighting experience was limited to childhood bouts in the mud and beating back her brother with a wooden sword. She had learned to fight, yes, but then there was her mother in her other ear, preaching obedience and unity for the greater good. Her mother, with her calming voice and gentle smile and gracious hospitality, turning Sibba away from her Fielding roots. When they had left Ottar after her father had disgraced her mother, Sibba had felt a shameful peace. She was no longer being pulled in different directions, finally free to be herself in the wilderness. It wasn’t the permanent escape she longed for, but it would do for now.