Glimpses by Lynn Flewelling Read Free Book Online Page A

in all, were a mix of men
and women of varying ages. They carried fine bows and long swords,
too. Amasa had only his knife and bow. If it ever came to a fight
at close quarters, he knew what his chances were.
    He didn’t recognize any of them as kin of
Ireya’s but it didn’t matter. They hunted his son and Amasa had no
illusions as to what would happen to the child if they ever found
him.
     
    ***
     
    Until seven years ago, Amasa had never put
any stock in the legends about the Elder Folk, or the stories of
travelers disappearing if they got too close to the Ravensfel. The
pass was high and difficult to reach, and no doubt treacherous
enough to claim the lives of those unwise enough to chance it.
There was plenty of game in the forested foothills; no need to go
risking his neck.
    It had been a litter of white lynx that took
him into the heights that fateful winter. Just one spotted pelt
would bring enough gold to live on for half a year, with some left
over for new gear and maybe a woman now and then. He’d seen the
spoor of half a dozen cats, probably a mother and her half-grown
kits. He tracked them on snowshoes for days, going higher and
higher into the mountains and closer to the pass. The foothills
became mountains, and the mountains turned to wooded peaks stark
against the clear winter sky.
    In a steep, snow-choked cut flanked on either
side by thick forest, and strewn with ice-covered boulders he
spotted the lynx in the distance, sunning themselves on a rocky
outcropping.
    It took two hours of careful stalking to get
within bowshot of them and he was losing daylight. He was taking
aim at the mother cat when he heard someone yell and something cold
and hard struck him in the back of the head, and then another. As
he turned to see who’d struck him he got a snowball square in the
face that nearly broke his nose. It hurt like fire and he tasted
blood on his lips. Staggering backwards, he caught one showshoe and
went tumbling ass over teakettle down the steep slope he’d worked
so hard to climb. The cats were long gone. So were his bow and fur
hat.
    Spitting blood, he untangled his snowshoes
and looked for his bow. His quiver was full of snow and most of the
arrows had broken fletching.
    Snowballs weren’t much of a weapon. Furious,
he trudged back up the slope to find whoever had cost him a small
fortune. As he toiled on, the thought that it might be a lost
traveler leavened his anger a little, though not much. If they
needed help, why annoy him first?
    He found his hat and was almost back to where
he’d dropped his bow when something moved behind one of the
boulders up the slope near where he’d stood to shoot. Unarmed
except for his knife, he crouched, watching to see if his attacker
would show himself. After a moment the hint of movement came again
and another snowball narrowly missed his head.
    “Stop that!” he shouted angrily. “Show
yourself like a man! I don’t mean you any harm.”
    Silence followed, then his invisible
adversary called out from behind the boulder, “Leave this
place!”
    It was a woman’s voice with a strange accent.
Amasa was a stubborn young man and no bitch throwing snowballs was
going to drive him off. He’d worked too long following those cats
and he’d find them again even if it meant going through the pass,
danger be damned.
    “Leave!” she shouted again.
    Ignoring the order, he made a run for where
she was hiding. He was within twenty feet when the woman stepped
out from behind it with a bow drawn, a nasty looking steel
broadhead leveled at his chest. A long knife hung at her side.
Amasa put his hands up to show that he wasn’t going to attack
her.
    She was young, and dressed in an odd fashion
in a long white tunic that was split from hem to belt on either
side, and worn over breeches under her white cloak. A
blue-and-white striped cloth was wrapped around her head in a sort
of cap with long tails. The long hair under it was dark, almost
black, but her eyes were light