3-- First Between (Part C)

The following day Oran found himself leading a group of ten people into the forests of the Uplands. Brad, the young Rnager, was there of course-- there had never been any doubt about what he would do. He rode close by, calm and confident beyond his sixteen years. his long rats tail a strip of whitedown his green cloak. There were also four mercenaries. Heather and her four employees; two female servants and two guards; made up the remainder.

Jayko, Heather's young guard, was on a stretcher strung between two horses, small, pale skinned and quiet. He was weak, understandably upset at the lost of his left hand and suffering from a wound to his head. Ragdan stayed by the young man's side, but neither had much to say. The veteran's rough, leathery face was a mask that hid anything he might have been thinking.

The mercenaries who had decided to travel with the group were a mixed bunch, three women and a tall, whip thin man.

As he rode Oran switched his attention from one member of the group to the next, wondering what had brought each of them to this moment in their lives. Brad was there because he seemed connected to Oran by more than friendship. He had left his home and everything he had known to follow.

Of the mercenaries, Dors had lost his twin in the recent fight and rode in shocked silence, his eyes vacant more often than not. However the others seemed as surprised as Oran to be riding into the forest in such mixed company. But how had any of them come to be in their profession in the first place. What event had caused them to sell their strength and courage for money? Coralee and Bindi stayed together talking and laughing, seemingly two middle aged women out for a casual ride. The former was squat, with long golden hair and a large nose. Her companion was taller, and had her brown hair cut short.

Sparrow, a woman with coffee coloured skin and her dark hair tied into dozens of braids, kept to the rear of the group She seemed to watch Dors as if worried the tall bearded man might do something to himself.

And Heather and her staff seemed as strange a mix.

Lissa and Heather talked softly, riding together just in front of where Ragdan and Gurda silently watched Jayko. Heather rode a tall bay that almost matched her hair, and the maid's small white mare seemed to have recovered well from its fall. Both of the women looked in his direction, turning away quickly when they saw him watching. Oran didn't know what was being said and he wasn't sure that he wanted to find out. He was having enough trouble dealing with the fact that he had killed Heather's father; he did not want to know how Heather would react to the information.

The group kept moving deeper into the forest, always south and slightly west. The trees grew larger the further they went, each mile seeming to add a yard or more. Oran loved the forest and knew how much Brek enjoyed being back under the trees. The shadows, the sounds, the smells-- all indications that they were home. If he had known what was happening Oran might have found the fine weather and a ride in the forest quite pleasant.

Quiet voices mingled with the breezes and the soft buzzing in Oran's head started to increase once more. The noise of the trees in his mind did not scare him as it once had. It was a part of him now and he thought he might have missed it if it were to go. The forest, and everything that went with it, was a part of him. He looked about, trying to ignore the unsettling aspects of the journey and concentrate on the agreeable.

The sun sent down beams of light through the canopy of trees and highlighted what at first appeared to be ordinary. The simple act of bringing the insignificant to the attention somehow made those things beautiful. A flower, similar to the dozens of others that surrounded it was made astounding by the single shaft of sunlight that fell upon it and lifted it from the shadows of mediocrity. A small finch sang in delightful chorus with its fellows but was turned into the star by the bright spotlight that lit it from above.

Everywhere Oran looked he saw more things which made him wish he'd had more time to experience such delights. Even in the short part of his life that he could remember he had looked behind things to see what they might be hiding. He rode silently, drinking in the wonders of the ordinary.

Heather and Lissa remained in the corner of his view and he occasionally turned to regard them with his surroundings in mind. Heather was as beautiful as ever, her eyes, so hard often-times, were soft and dreamy as she smiled and laughed. Lissa could not match her mistress for beauty, but occasionally the girl rode through a shaft of light that used contrasting shadows to animate her slightly angular features on some different level. Her smile was genuine, her laugh warm, and in those moments of illumination Heather's moods and expressions seemed somehow controlled in comparison.

Oran watch the forest and his companions as he rode, always south and slightly west. The rest of the group was strung out behind at regular intervals. Brek watched their flank and played among the trees, happy to be home.



They stopped for lunch in a shaded hollow by a small stream. There was ripe fruit on the trees about them and the water was clear and cool with the slight tang of minerals. Oran sat with his back against a tree away from the rest of the group. Hardly anyone was speaking as they ate, and then only quietly. Coralee laughed softly at something, but she cut off as if nervous, casting her eyes down to examine the heel of bread she was eating.

Oran watched Lissa rise and walked across the short grass towards him. She was small and delicate, wearing boys breeches and a shirt of dusty rose. She silently, absently, sat down beside him on an exposed tree root with her legs crossed. She was, almost negligently, spinning a dagger in her hand. For a long time she spun the dagger, blade pointing to the clear blue sky.

Looking up suddenly she whispered, "I think I might get rid of this," before looking back at the weapon, watching as it flashed and twirled in the broken sunlight.

"Why?" Oran put down the half-eaten apple he held.

"I know what can be done with it." Lissa took a deep breath and when she looked up there were tears in her eyes. "After you… killed… Marse… I practised with it whenever I could. I got Ragdan to teach me. But I really killed people. That makes me like you and I don't like that."

"No." Oran spoke more loudly than he had intended.

Several of the others quickly looked up at him before sinking back to their own thoughts. Heather seemed about to join he and Lissa, but changed her mind. Instead, she continued to watch quietly, sitting alone with one hand dangling into the stream, catching reflexively at leaves and twigs as they floated by.

"If I was an assassin then you are nothing like I used to be. Killing in self defence or in the defence of friends is not like killing for money." Oran closed his hand around Lissa's, stopping the spinning of the dagger. "If you want power or if you want to control people then you may be like an assassin, and I would feel sorry for you. But I don't think that is the case. I am not even like than any more. I would rather not kill if I have a choice. But sometimes there is no choice."

"What about Heather? She wants to be Queen. She is seeking power and people are dying to get it for her. Does that make her like you… used to be?" Lissa looked at him again, seeming to ask him to say it wasn't so.

"No, I don't think she is like me. I don't really think she is seeking power. She is seeking what is right for the people of the Highlands, and she is the one who is most likely to be able to provide that." Oran realised that his hand was still holding Lissa's and let go. He picked up the fruit he had put down earlier but discarded it again.

"And what are you doing this for?" The girl slipped the dagger into her belt, her hand shaking slightly.

"I told you. This is my home now. The Emperor has no right to be stealing from this land as he is."

Oran wondered how he could keep thinking she was a child. A sixteen or seventeen she was only a few years younger than he. How was he so much more an adult? He gazed at the hand that had held hers and rubbed at it absently.

"It is strange that I believe you. I believe that you no longer like violence. But, I do not understand how you went from being an assassin to where you are now in a couple of weeks."

"I am not sure that I understand either. I awoke in a house in the forest and, as far as I know, I was as I am now. Perhaps whatever changed me happened before I woke. I don't know."

"Will you tell me your story? Tell me of who you are?"

"As I said, I can only tell you of events since I woke." Oran looked about the forest, perhaps trying to find somewhere to run from this girl to whom he felt compelled to speak. "I am not sure if anything I can tell you is relevant."

"Relevant or not it will still be interesting. You talk to wolves and quite possibly to that horse as well. And if what I have heard about the Grey Wolf Mercantile is correct then you are also very wealthy." She looked about and gestured to the forest in general as if she had read his earlier thoughts. "Neither of us are going anywhere special. We have nothing better to pass the time."

"All right then," Oran said decisively. "I will tell you the story of my life. Every part of it since my birth in the forest."

And so Oran started to tell his story from the very beginning. The only beginning he knew.