Long Lost Longbow

“Long lost sister? That’s a big one.” Lupita Smith passed the reins of her horse from her right hand to her left, reaching to hold Sir Danielle Longbow’s. The knight reached out her hand, taking her lover’s hand as their horses rode side by side. Caparisons that draped both steeds brushed long grass growing on the summer baked track.

Hours after bidding her half sister farewell, Danielle’s head was spinning. Her life had been thrown into disarray by many historical events, battles, investigations and adventures. For a simple conversation to rewrite everything she believed about herself seemed ridiculous.

“Second place isn’t bad,” Lupita said, changing the subject abruptly. “Fabian was on top form, he did well. No shame in coming second to him.” Smith’s brown hand gripped the scar crossed pallor of Danielle’s. “Now you’ve got more scars for your collection.” A frown creased the War Witch’s brow.

“Crann winning first and second in the duels is an honour for the kingdom I suppose.” Danielle nodded, hardly hearing Lupita’s mention of scars. “I don’t understand why anyone was shocked that he beat me. They should know of his father. Fabian still thinks he’s walking in his father’s shadow but I’m certain he surpassed Sir Lorenzo Castel years ago.” Her accent was of Fisher’s Gasp, a village by a lake of the same name.

“They’ve heard the stories about you,” Lupita said, having to let go of the knight’s hand to steady her horse as the path narrowed. “Slaying monsters and dragons.”

“One dragon.”

“It’s one more than the rest of them. They don’t even know what a dragon is, most of them.”

“Lucky them.” Danielle stretched, her joints clicking. Bruises groaned but that was nothing new.

“Don’t you want to talk about it?” Lupita asked. “It’s a big thing, discovering you have family, that you’re not the last one.”

The knight ran her hand over the pommel of her sword for reassurance. Crowds at the tournament had clamored to see the blade glow in the darkness after the day’s sport. She checked that her bow and quiver were still strapped securely in the saddlebags. She spun her unloaded matchlock in her hands. The reassuring weight of it soothed her.

The road was quiet. As hard as the knight peered through the thicket of trees and bushes she saw no threats.

“I don’t know what to think,” Sir Longbow said at last. “She’s so different. I keep wondering if my life could have been like that. A big house. Servants. Learning to read and write as a child.” Danielle’s brown eyes met Lupita’s. “I don’t think I ever would have met you. Everything would have been different.” She swatted at a swarm of flies, nudging her horse to speed up.

“I hadn’t been thinking about that,” said Lupita in the accent of Crann’s capital, Leonor. She hurried after Danielle, riding away from the mass of insects gathered over a puddle in the path, North.

The sweaty warmth of the south lessened as they rode north towards the mountain range that divided the Kingdom of Sliabh from Crann. Trees parted, revealing the farmland at the base of the mountains where the soil was richer.

The track grew wider as they joined roads from farms to the towns and villages on hilltops. “This is what life should be,” Danielle said, changing the subject again as she watched cattle pulling plows and families tending their crops. “Honest work which enriches the world. No victims, no losers.” She had her hand on the pommel of her sword again. Thinking of battle and the lives it had taken brought her no comfort, only guilt.

“Stop changing the subject,” Lupita berated her with a soothing voice. “Tell me what you’re thinking about your sister.”

“Mostly that I should have seen it coming.” Danielle looked up to the barely there wisps of cloud in the azure sky. “My father was known as a philanderer. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised I haven’t run into more of his bastards in Crann. I guess he liked to sow his seed far and wide.”

“How do you feel?” The knight’s wife asked.

“I don’t really know yet.” Danielle shook her head. “There’s too much to think about. Are there more out there? I didn’t think to ask her because I was shocked she even existed. She might know about other siblings. It’s madness.”

Birds flitted from branch to branch in the trees. Sweet chirps were the words of the song, the wind was the melody behind them. Leaving the forest behind, the chirps became the cackle of crows picking worms from the ground after the rain of the previous night.

“I want to know if I have brothers or sisters in Crann,” Danielle said after they passed two crows fighting over a worm.

“Carl can help us with that.” Lupita said of their friend, the Queen’s consort. “It’s exciting, isn’t it? I might see if I have any other family in the North. I doubt it though.” The witch’s face ducked.

“You’ve still got your father. He’s not too old to give you younger siblings.”

“Don’t.” Lupita laughed. “Not too old but definitely too busy,” she said of the Master of Smith’s who had overseen Crann’s industrial revolution.

“Don’t be so sure. It doesn’t take long to make a baby.” Danielle smirked at Lupita, who replied with a disgusted frown.

“I don’t want to think about that, thank you very much.”

“Think about us when we get back to our own bed then,” Sir Longbow said, winking. “I’ll-”

“You sir,” Lupita pointed at her, “are a cad. Not so unlike your father in some ways.”

“You wound me.” Danielle placed her hand on her heart. “I am a one-woman knight.”

“There’s two of us,” the witch held up two fingers then pointed back and forth from herself to the warrior.

“Then I’m a two woman knight,” responded Sir Longbow in a tone of surrender.

“TWO!” Lupita yelled, “who’s the other trollop?” Her eyes bulged, hands on her hips. She held a face of mock outrage for moments until bursting into laughter.

“You’re insane,” Danielle shook her head. “Completely mad. Can’t wait to get you back to bed. Let’s ride.” She nudged the horse with her heels and set it galloping.

“Wait up.” Lupita followed, trailing behind as they sped along the roads of Sliabh towards the mountains. They thundered along, hooves kicking up the mud of country lanes. Farmers turned from their work to watch the giddy pair fly past on their horses draped in the finery of Crann. Deep pine greens flapped and fluttered, obscuring or revealing the golden oak tree that was the crest of Crann Kingdom.

At the base of the mountains they slowed, letting their weary mounts catch their breath. Both snorted as the knight and the witch dismounted by a tavern at the foot of the mountain range the people of Sliabh called the Western Mountains, or the Carraig Mountains after the capital. To those of Crann they were the Sliabh Mountains or the Eastern Mountains.

“What business does a knight of Crann have in my bar?” asked the innkeeper as Danielle pushed the creaking door open and ducked under the low doorway. The bearded bald man was sunburnt on every patch of skin that showed.

“Just looking for a room, innkeeper, not trouble. I have gold to pay.”

“Invadin’ are you?” He pulled two wooden tankards from under the bar and welcomed them to come closer with a wave of his huge calloused hands. “Not sure I’d mind being a citizen of Crann at the moment. Sounds like you lot are doing well for yourselves?”

“Things have been quiet since the Empire of the Holy Proclamation collapsed,” Danielle agreed, nodding. She sat on a stool by the bar, which wobbled with one leg a little shorter than the others. “We found a new empire to hate us though. Thank the gods it’s on the other side of the world.”

“Where’s that then?” asked the barman, forgetting about drinks as he listened to the knight. Drunks to either side leaned closer.

“Quin Shi.”

“Queen She?”

“Quin Shi,” Danielle said more slowly. “You say it like Coo Win She.”

The barman frowned, made a funny face as if he didn’t believe her then spun his dirty finger in the air to tell her to keep going.

“It's a country the size of the Empire of the Holy Proclamation. It has a wall all the way around it just like the walls around Leonor only thicker. In that part of the world others call it the Empire of the Endless Wall.”

“What’s that got to do with Crann?”

“It’s where the guns come from.” Sir Longbow put two gold coins on the bar and pointed to a barrel behind the par. “Quin Shi wasn’t so happy about Crann having them. It sent an army to take them back.”

“How’d that go?” asked a drunk who had as much beer on his clothes and in his beard as in his stomach and bladder.

“It was a massacre, things were going well for us at first but they set off bombs as we were closing in on the last of them.”

“Bombs?” asked another drunk who had vomit stains on his sackcloth clothes.

“There was a big explosion.” Danielle mimed with her hands. “It cut our soldiers in half.” She swiped with her hand.” Taking a flagon from the barman, she sipped. Nodding, she drank deeply.

“You were there?” The innkeeper asked, leaning close again. The knight could smell his body odor, rancid onions.

“I was there.” Sir Longbow nodded, leaning away from the pungent man. She downed her drink then slid her cup across the bar again.

“We both were,” said Lupita.

“You a knight as well?” asked the barman.

“Just a soldier.”

“Do you have rooms for the night?” Danielle asked.

“I do.”

“With a lock on the door?”

“You can bar them from the inside. Locks are expensive. And they can be picked.”

“True. You had problems with that?”

“Once, a while ago. Man locked himself in his room. We found him with his neck cut the next morning. Never found out who did it.”

“I can guess.”

“Red church I suppose.” The barman lit a cigar and blew a smoke ring that sailed over Danielle’s shoulder. “Don’t want to know what the man did. Don’t need to know. I just wish someone had paid for the mess. I had to burn the bed. No one would use the room. It’s a store now.”

“Hopefully he deserved it,” Lupita said, knowing well the ways of the Church of Red Knives.

“We’ll never know,” said the barman in a hushed voice. “I shouldn’t talk about it.” The sunburnt man looked about nervously.

“This is good. What is it?” Danielle held up her drink.

“Crann Hanger Cider,” said the man automatically. He gulped as his eyes passed from the witch to the knight. “It’s just the name though. You know kingdoms, rivalries. People call Crann the New Empire now. People are nervous, wondering if the armies that beat back the Holy Proclamation will march south to conquer.” Eyes that had been staring into cups once more were on the newcomers again.

“You’re safe. If Crann matched anywhere, it would be north to retake the broken lands left behind by the Holy Proclamation. No need to fight a war up there, just monsters.” Danielle drank the Crann Hanger Cider and pointed into the cup.

The barman filled her cup from the tap. “More monsters now than ever I knew before. Don’t you think? I never heard of all the things people talk about now. Burning skeletons in the north. Drowned things in the rivers. Those trees you got.” He shivered.

“The curaduile? They’re not so bad,” said Lupita. “They taught us the old tongue. The king’s tongue.”

Pouring himself something darker than Crann Hanger, the innkeeper nodded along, letting the witch talk.

“Curaduile saved us from the empire. That’s the truth. It’s horrific how it works. Really though, they only eat when they’re attacked. If you stay out of their way you’re fine.” Lupita pushed her cup across the age scarred bar top. “Any wine?”

“Good stuff or the bad stuff?” asked the innkeeper.

“Half of the bad, let’s see how bad it is. What’s it called, we hate Crann wine?” She smiled.

“Dead Vine Wine.” He poured half a flagon for her and handed it over. Dry skin on his forefinger had cracked open. Blood filled the lines of his fingerprints until he sucked on the wound.

“Bitter and sour.” The witch pursed her lips. “What’s the good stuff like?”

“Better.” The barman coughed, covering his mouth with a wet rag he’d used to wipe the bar.

“A cup each.” Danielle reached for her coinpurse. The barman waved his hand, she’d paid enough. Filling two cups for them, he peered over the wood between them at the weapons hanging from the knight’s belt.

“Pardon me askin’, Sir. Could I see your sword? Never seen one as fine as that.” Hopeful eyes glinted as he waited on tenterhooks.

Silently conferring with Lupita, Sir Longbow shrugged. Slowly drawing her sword from the scabbard, she set it down on the bar, but didn’t let go of the handle.

“Me name’s Alvar,” said the barman as he ran his hand across the flat of the blade. “Yours?”

“Danielle.”

“Lupita.”

“Danielle? Common name in Crann is it?” He pricked his finger on the tip of the blade and swore, salving the wound in his mouth.

“Common enough. Can’t say I know many.”

“You’re not Danielle Longbow.” It was a statement of fact, not a question. “She’s taller. I heard she got a sword that glows like the sun. Killed a dragon with it is what I heard. No offence, that don’t look like you.”

“True enough.” Danielle drank the sweet wine and tasted every grape.

“Met her?”

“She’s very busy,” Lupita said, teeth wide in a mirthful grin. “Killing monsters, you know.”

Danielle slid her sword back into the fine green scabbard decorated with golden oak trees. The green dyed leather of the handle grip was brown from the blood of her bleeding blisters. Feigning exhaustion, Danielle had the innkeeper take them to their room for the night.

“Me or mine will be at the bar if you need anything. There’s always one of us awake.” Alvar nodded to them and pulled the creaking door closed on its rusty hinges.

“It’s charming. Reminds me of the cottage we had in Leonor after the siege.” Lupita stripped off her Royal Coven robes and flopped down onto the bed, wincing as the beams of it made themselves known. “Well built, this bed.”

Lupita watched Danielle unbutton her cotton armour. The witch’s eyes traced the bulges of the knight’s ropey arms with lust. Free of the clothes, Sir Longbow settled down with her wife.

“I love you, Dan,” Lupita whispered. A kiss became a nipple of the knight’s ear.

“I love you more. We should have asked for some hot water and a bath.” Turning to face her lover, the warrior began kissing the deep brown skin of the witch’s neck with her pink lips. Hands intertwined, Danielle traced a line with her tongue down to Lupita’s nipples.

“My lips are up here,” the witch pulled the knight back up by the hair and held the warrior’s head in place until their tongues met.

Slipping her hand down the curves of Smith’s back, Longbow grabbed her backside and squeezed. The nightly ritual never aged. Adventures had parted them, but their time together always held a magic that lived in dilated pupils and screaming gasps. Beads of sweat sparkled on Lupita’s bucking limbs as she held a hand across her mouth. Danielle’s smile was in her eyes as her tongue lashed her lover mercilessly.

When the sorceress’ strength had been spent, her eyes began to droop. Shaking hands gripped the knight’s hair again.

“Hold me. I’m done.”

Wrapping an arm like a tree trunk around Lupita, Danielle closed her eyes.

Her sister's face waited inside her eyelids. Lady Lucia Moreno had Danielle’s brown eyes, her jawline, she was a practical woman in many ways.

I heard stories about you, sister. I’ve seen the portrait of you by the King Consort Carl of Crann. Lucia’s birdlike arms were tanned where hers were pale, flawless where hers were scarred. I have the book he wrote about you. I read it often. Do you read? Danielle had admitted she could but preferred not to if she could avoid the hassle. You must. Reading is the most wonderful gift in life. It can take us to other worlds. It can make mighty heroes of humble housewives. Disappointment had washed over Lady Moreno in a flood. Hanging her head, the knight felt shame in her upbringing in Fisher’s Gasp.

Lucia’s perfect arms embraced Danielle with the strength of a wet leaf. Never be ashamed. You are a great woman. Half the world knows of your deeds. Never be embarrassed in front of me. I love you now. You are my blood and I will always love you. I wish only that we had met before now.

Sounds of a struggle echoed up through the floorboards. Throwing on a shift, Danielle loaded her matchlock and strapped on her belt and sword.

“Is there a problem here?” Danielle asked as she pounded down the groaning stairs into the bar.

“Only if you get in our way, mister,” said a man with the barmaid’s neck gripped in his hand.

“Then there’s a problem,” said Sir Longbow. “Solasaich.” The magic word ignited the emerald glow of her sword as she pulled it from the scabbard.