She went on in that vein for quite a while. Poor baby. Poor baby. Kerowyn just patted her gingerly on the back until the flood subsided, then coaxed her to the side of the spare horse and secured the blanket full of loot to the back of the saddle. The horse was so tired it didn’t even object to the noisy bundle.

“Where’s the knee-rest?” Dierna asked, trying to find the kind of accoutrements she was used to on a saddle.

“There isn’t one,” Kero replied, hauling herself up onto Verenna’s back. “You’re going to have to ride like me.”

“Like—but—” Dierna paled, then her lower lip started to quiver. “But—but—I can‘t! It isn’t—my dress—it’s not womanly!”

Kero closed her eyes, and begged Agnira for patience. “Your dress is ruined,” she pointed out. “Besides, no one expects to see you alive, Dierna. Nobody is going to notice that you’re riding astride. Now just slit your dress and let’s get out of here before one of those bastards comes back.”

And when Dierna hesitated, with the little knife Kero had handed her dangling loosely from her fingers, Kero added, “That leech-thing might not be dead, you know.”

The girl squeaked; slit the skirt of her dress so that she could swing her leg over the saddle and get her foot into the stirrup, and mounted with all the haste Kero could have wanted.

Blessed Agnira, spare me from “womanly, ” if this is what it is, she thought, making the words an unconscious prayer as she took the reins of Dierna’s horse to lead it behind her own. Just—spare me.

Five

:So what do you think of the girl now?: Warrl asked conversationally, as Tarma sorted through the scattered piles of the bandits’ belongings.

“I’m pretty impressed,” the Shin‘a’in admitted, as she squatted on her heels, emptying out a belt-pouch, and separating copper from silver. Not that there was much of the former, and of the latter there was even less, but Tarma was a thrifty soul, and young Lordan was going to need all the help he could get. He was going to have to pay for enough mercenaries to keep his neighbors from getting ideas about annexing his property to theirs. That took ready cash, and silver and copper spent as readily as gold.

“I think I have a fair notion how much of what went on was the damn sword’s doing, and how much was the girl‘s,” she continued, pouring the coppers into a large leather pouch that had been a wineskin a few moments ago. “She’s got a few brains besides the guts.”

:Unlike a certain barbarian nomad I once knew. : Warrl chortled; Tarma simply ignored him, and moved on to a pile of looted wedding gifts the girls had overlooked. Of course, it had been under one of the men Tarma had shot, which might be why they’d overlooked it....

She shook her head over a blood-soaked silk cloak. Too bad; that’s one wedding present ruined past anyone using it. She tossed it onto the fire. “I never claimed to have much in the way of brains when I was younger. Now—well, I’d rather do things with a minimum of effort, and that takes planning. That was good work with the horses, Furface.”