Mask of Swords by Jonathan Moeller Page B

snorted. “Girl, I just said am I not.” 
    Sigaldra snorted. “Another way you are Jutai! You do not speak with proper language to your holdmistress.”
    “Bah! When you have seen as many winters as I have, then we shall see,” said Ulfarna, though she smiled as she said it. Boots rasped against the stairs, and Liane ran into the hall, wearing a dress of green with a dagger at her belt. 
    “Are we ready, Sigaldra?” said Liane. She looked at Ulfarna and smiled. “It will be under the table in the corner of the kitchen.”
    “What will?” said Ulfarna. 
    “The vial of spice that disappeared,” said Liane. 
    “Ah,” said Ulfarna, and she bowed to Liane. “I see the ancestors have blessed you with another vision. I shall seek it at once.” She hurried from the hall, cane tapping against the floor. The Tervingi forbade the use of all magic, save for the power wielded by their Guardian, in memory of the dread wizards of the Dark Elderborn who had once held the Tervingi as slaves. The Jutai were more broad-minded, and believed their ancestors chose to grant visions to Liane, regarding her as sort of an oracle. 
    Sigaldra did not know what to think. Perhaps her ancestors had no power, and she had carried an urn of ashes from the middle lands to no reason. 
    “Shall we go, sister?” said Liane. 
    Once again Sigaldra shook off her dark thoughts. She had to stop brooding so much. 
    “Yes,” said Sigaldra. “Let us go for a walk.”
    She led the way from the great hall, the armor heavy against her shoulders, though she had grown accustomed to its weight. Sigaldra and Liane walked from the doors of the keep and looked at the village. 
    Sigaldra’s village, she supposed. Under the laws and customs of the Grim Marches, she was Lady Sigaldra of Greatheart Keep, holding these lands in vassalage from Lord Mazael of Castle Cravenlock. If she wished she could grant some of those lands in fief to other men, to raise knights sworn to her. The thought was alien. Mazael was her hrould, she was the holdmistress of this hold, and she would raise spearthains and swordthains. Why bother with lords and knights? 
    The keep sat upon a hill, and Sigaldra walked down the path to the village. Once, before the awful day of the Great Rising, the village had held seven hundred souls. Then the runedead had killed them all and haunted the ruins. After the defeat of the runedead, the Jutai had been in need of a home, and Mazael had settled them here. The last fifteen hundred of the Jutai had been eager to farm their own land, and Sigaldra had hoped they could live in peace with their neighbors.
    But their new neighbors, it seemed, had other ideas. 
    She turned a wary eye to the north and kept walking. 
    People greeted her, and she made sure to greet them back, to inquire after their lives and homes. Once, the Jutai men had worked the fields and the Jutai women had tended the houses, but there were too few men left to work the fields. So now men and women both worked in the fields, save for those craftsmen who worked full time. Their first year here had brought in a good crop, and their herds had increased. Sigaldra hoped the next year would be even more prosperous, that they could finally lay away a surplus for the future. She had confidence that the Jutai could do it. 
    Unless, of course, they were driven from their homes yet again. 
    With that dark thought in mind she went to the shop of the blacksmith. 
    Her father had been a blacksmith, and Vorgaric’s shop always made her a bit wistful, its familiar smells of wood smoke and hot metal and sweat filling her nostrils. Over Vorgaric’s door hung a mangled steel cuirass, a massive hole in the center. At the great battle of the Northwater, a Justiciar knight had attacked Vorgaric, gloating that his magical black dagger would steal away Vorgaric’s life. The blacksmith had responded by collapsing the knight’s chest with a single blow of his massive two-handed