EXERPT 1 FROM "THE CARDINAL HEIR" - BY DANNY STAUFFER

Ruth, a young seamstress and mother, has accidentally fallen in with a group of rebels vying for the independence of their homeland, Borea. Robyn, captain of the group's infamous raiders, has decided to take her under her wing.

The soft light of midwinter set a lavender cast over the Beasts’ camp. The temperature had dropped steeply overnight, all water and dampness gone and replaced with crystals and fractal lace. Snow had fallen and crowned each tent with a powdered cap and the air itself was alight, dawn captured in the tiny frozen particles suspended in it. Ruth perched at the high end of camp atop a small bluff on the outskirts of the Captain’s quarter, her form stiff and thick with layers of garb. She stood with one of the large war tents at her back, looking out over the encampment. The footpaths that normally wove muddied knots throughout the Beasts’ camp had been washed clean by the snow, save for the steps she had taken on her way to the overlook. It was too early for the rabble to be out. Each tent was still and utterly silent, their occupants either yet asleep or having buried themselves deep within their bedrolls, shrouding themselves in the comfort of their own body heat. Ruth rubbed at her arms through the coarse wool of her tunic and sighed a large, cloudy breath.

Robyn had invited her to train privately that morning. Over supper the night before, she had said that today would be the perfect day for a bout. She had drilled her company with a fervor the afternoon prior, until they had worked themselves into the ground, and she knew they would certainly not take kindly to her disturbing them from their mending the day after. As such, she had no formal responsibilities to train with or talk to any other. Ruth had agreed to meet her at the bluff with sword in hand, but now the cold bit at the nape of her neck through her coif and she was beginning to regret the decision.

A hard impact on the fabric of the tent sent a puff of snow into the air and onto Ruth. A dusting fell perfectly into the narrow gap between her coif and tunic. It turned to water on her skin and raced between her shoulder blades into the small of her back as she arched away from it. She jolted and yelled despite herself, shattering the silence over the camp. She clapped her hands over her mouth and turned to find a grinning Robyn covering her own and shuddering with hushed laughter beside her.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” Robyn did her best to whisper. “And now you’ve gone red.”

“No wonder!” Ruth exclaimed, patting the rest of the snow off of herself. 

“Let’s go, quickly, before someone comes out to face the beast that made such a sound!”

The pair skirted along the bluff and out of the encampment through its northern edge. Though there was a makeshift wall and a watch tower presiding over the passage, the gate was rarely used and even more rarely guarded. There was nothing to the north of camp except an endless wilderness, and no foe of theirs would ever have the means to attack them from there, especially not in winter. It was too mountainous, sprawling with crumbling stone and lush with pine and game. 

Robyn picked her way up the slope as the game would, with a wisdom and ease to each step. Ruth followed after, shadowing every footfall she could reach and lagging behind despite it. Though they were still so near the camp and had climbed quite high above it, the tree cover obscured it completely, save for the thin lines of smoke that rose from newly kindled fires.

“Why not train in the field today, of all days?” Ruth lamented, taking a moment to straighten her back. The grade of the climb had her mostly doubled over, fingertips nearly dragging in the snow so she might keep her balance on the slick rocks. “I’m worried for my shoes. I’m not sure they are well enough oiled for this.”

“We could, but we could do that any day.” Even without seeing her face, Ruth could tell Robyn was smiling. “Your shoes will survive.”

“What is so special up here?”

“Look, we've already made it. Catch up and you’ll see.”

Ruth huffed a cloud of steam and forced her way up the final stretch of incline. The slope flattened out some where Robyn stood, and the woods opened up into a clearing. It was filled with large, flat, white-capped stumps. Beyond the cleared area itself the woods were thinned, with felled logs scattered throughout until steep grade resumed and the stoney ground was hidden by needley bows. All of it was veiled by the new snowfall, as if linen fresh from the line had been carefully draped overtop.

“We cleared all this when the camp was first built. Guilliam had planned to have the base farther up the mountain, but it was too difficult to get down in full armor… let alone up.” Robyn shouldered off the large tote she had carried up the bluff and let it fall onto one of the snow-covered stumps, then stepped atop one herself. She strode confidently across the clearing, her red hair alight even in the still air, each step falling squarely on top of a stump and leaving a dull red marker behind. She turned back to face Ruth and planted a hand on her hip. “Are you ready for your lesson?”

“You have a real lesson today?” Ruth asked, part in jest, though she was already stretching the shoulder of her sword arm in preparation for whatever scheme Robyn surely had. She walked into the clearing and stood across from Robyn, frozen sticks slipping and cracking under her feet with every step, then climbed atop a stump and drew her sword. The rippling colors of the steel seemed more bold than usual against the whiteness of the wood. “I don’t see a sword on you.”

“No, I didn’t bring a sword today.”

Ruth watched closely as Robyn reached beneath the fabric of her cape and pulled from the shroud an ax- one half of the pair that she often used in battle. The runic etchings on its honed iron face stood out even from a distance. Ruth understood, then, what Robyn was doing, and her throat tightened. Robyn hadn’t planned anything. She was in her element, with her weapon of choice, and she looked upon Ruth with open anticipation. If she trusted Robyn any less, she would call it a trap. 

Ruth froze in place as she weighed her options, but Robyn wasn’t in any mood to let her think.

“Well come on, then. We shouldn’t waste a beautiful morning like this!” The ax slid from Robyn's hand and stopped a few inches above the snow, caught by the leather loop at the end of its shaft by the bend of her fingertips. 

Ruth swallowed her nerves and steadied her posture, twisting her feet into pits in the snow. Robyn looked her over, grinned, and lunged into melee. She swung the ax in wide arcs, every muscle of her frame twisting with each swing though she held her ax only loosely by its loop, and charged ahead.

Ruth stumbled back, barely avoiding the whistling blade. Robyn spun on the ball of her foot, each swing arcing towards Ruth as quickly as the last. A snow devil swirled the ground around her, stirred to life by her furious motions. Ruth trampled backward over sticks and brush, teetering on her heels, staying only barely out of the range of Robyn's wild swings. 

"Sorry," Robyn said between strokes, her feet weaving around each other like a dancer as she pressed further towards her sparring partner. "I thought you brought your sword to use."

Ruth frowned, open-mouthed, as she lurched away from another wild arc, but then tight-lipped determination crossed her face. She tightened her grip on her sword, and the next few swings passed by her without issue as she raised and lowered it out of danger, but kept it neatly between her body and Robyn’s blade.

"That's better," Robyn grinned, "but watch your feet, you're walking blind." 

Another pass sliced the thin air. As her ax neared the end of its arc, Robyn's fingers adjusted within the handle’s loop. She pulled into a woodcutter's swing, the edge facing towards Ruth's chest. "Parry!" 

A stifled breath escaped Ruth's mouth. Only the tip of her sword interrupted the attack in time, but it was enough to cast the head of the ax away from her. The deafening sound of clashing metal filled the forest and rolled down the mountain. Her blade warbled back and forth like a pendulum atop its hilt, flicked and set out in a storm. She gripped it tightly with both hands and could only just stop it from wriggling loose from her grasp. The single interrupted strike had shocked every joint and muscle throughout her arms and back… She would be sore tomorrow, if she saw it. 

Robyn slowed only long enough for the sword to still, twirling the ax in a casual loop at her side. Her breath, though each was a great cloud, came at a normal pace. "You're meant to redirect my force, not stop it completely. Try again with this one." Her boots twisted a pirouette in the snow, and the ax again dove towards Ruth's heart.

Ruth stepped back to give herself more room, another moment longer to deflect Robyn’s blow, but this time her foot found nothing. In all of her receding from Robyn, she had forfeited the whole of the clearing without realizing it. She tried to recenter her weight forward again, but the slick layer she had pressed out of the fresh snow bore no traction. She slipped and fell with a crunch onto the decline, snapping frozen branches and panes of ice beneath her. The layer of undisturbed powder helped to cushion the brunt of her fall, but it wasn’t enough to stop the cutting cold and grit that it hid from raking her thighs as she slid down the crumbling face, helpless against the momentum until her back met the thick trunk of a tree and and she stopped in place just before she would have rolled.

Robyn stepped to the edge and looked down at Ruth, ax perched at the end of her fingers. "Are you still alive?" 

Ruth blinked until reality returned to her. "I think so," she stammered, "no thanks to you."

"Let's see if we can't fix that." Surprise and fear gripped Ruth as Robyn slid down the bank, ax spinning windmills beside her. Ruth gripped her sword and plunged it blindly into Robyn’s path. 

Robyn's eyes widened as she narrowly twisted away from the swordspoint. Another thrust followed, then another-- reckless attacks, ones that could maim if they landed. Ruth craned her body forward as far as she could from her pit in the snow, blade whistling through the air after Robyn until she could reach no further. Robyn tried to leap back, to perch out of reach, but the snow pack had different ideas. She slipped, and she too slid down the last few feet of the decline, and coming to straddle the snowpile Ruth was half-submerged in with the hilt of Ruth's sword resting upon her shoulder.

A moment passed between them. They shared steaming breaths from their knot against the tree, each one freezing mid-air against the other’s flushed face, eyes locked together. Robyn broke it off to take stock of herself, fingers searching for tears or cuts or any kind of proof that Ruth’s blade had found purchase. She started to right herself, pulling her legs from their snowy tombs, and Ruth reached for her. She could see that the way her blade had slid over Robyn’s shoulder had a little valley through her armor, but she couldn’t tell well enough if it had made it to her skin. She couldn’t see any blood, but given the tightness of Robyn’s lips, she feared the worst. The moment she had reclaimed her footing, though, a laugh tumbled from Robyn, hearty and from deep within her. Ruth’s raised hand fell to the snow. Robyn erupted in laughter, doubling over and having to throw out an arm to steady herself and stop her from falling all over again. Her hair was wild and loose around her shoulders, laced with twigs and little bits of ice, and all of her was lit up golden by the rising sun.

Ruth huffed, still very much on the ground, and let her sword slide from her grasp. Her collision with the tree had knocked her breath from her and it still came shallow. Her ribs ached, but within them her heart thrummed a wild rhythm.

Calming herself with purposeful breaths, Robyn unfastened the buckles of her padded hauberk. She slipped it overhead and held it up. She wiggled her fingers through the hole at the shoulder, grinning, so that Ruth could see, then tossed it up the slope with ease. Steam rose off of her as if she had just crawled from a spring. “You almost had me!”

Slowly, Ruth rolled over onto her hands and knees and began to crawl up to where Robyn loomed. She wiped the damp grit from her gloves off onto her tunic.“I thought you were going to gut me. I thought, even if I died, you would remember me if I left a mark.”

“Ah, shame I moved!” Robyn stooped and extended a hand to Ruth. She took it and Robyn pulled her upright effortlessly, then traced the crescent curve of the scar beneath her eye with a fingertip. “We could match.”

Ruth grunted, shouldering past her and trudging back up to the clearing. “You could have warned me I was about to fall.”

Robyn followed close behind, almost hovering after her. She returned her ax to the hook under her cape and began to reach for Ruth but stopped, thinking better. She sighed a weak laugh. “I’m sorry. I got carried away.”

“You did! Look at my poor hose,” Ruth said dolefully, reaching to the back of her legs and pulling the padding of her breeches tight. They had been torn by the stones as she had fallen, exposing her hose to the cold air. They were dotted with a few small tears of their own, and Ruth knew that the skin beneath would be changing shades before long.

“I will get you new hose! And find you breeches to match your gambeson better. You should have better gear anyway, if you are going to hold the line with the Forlorn Hope…!” She trailed off with a hopeful rise in her tone, searching for something to win back Ruth’s good will.

Ruth rolled her eyes at the obvious pivot, but she couldn’t help but smile. She could be sore later.