The Girl From Black Point Rock

By Deborah J. Ross

When her brother brings home a half-starved, half-wild girl, Reava decides the best thing to do is to raise her with the newborn puppies. As the girl grows, she manifests a preternatural affinity with her four-footed foster siblings, as well as the ability to predict the future. Now the emperor's demands for more conscripts threaten to drag Reava and her kin into his unending, useless wars. As Reava prepares to confront the emperor and plead for her village, the girl insists she must come to the palace, too…and then she grins, showing her sharp, white teeth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deborah J. Ross
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201414634

Deborah J. Ross

Deborah J. Ross is an award-nominated author of fantasy and science fiction. She’s written a dozen traditionally published novels and somewhere around six dozen pieces of short fiction. After her first sale in 1983 to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress, her short fiction has appeared in F & SF, Asimov’s, Star Wars: Tales from Jabba’s Palace, Realms of Fantasy, Sisters of the Night, MZB’s Fantasy Magazine, and many other anthologies and magazines. Her recent books include Darkover novels Thunderlord and The Children of Kings (with Marion Zimmer Bradley); Collaborators, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist/James Tiptree, Jr. Award recommended list (as Deborah Wheeler); and The Seven-Petaled Shield, an epic fantasy trilogy based on her “Azkhantian Tales” in the Sword and Sorceress series. Deborah made her editorial debut in 2008 with Lace and Blade, followed by Lace and Blade 2, Stars of Darkover (with Elisabeth Waters), Gifts of Darkover, Realms of Darkover, and a number of other anthologies.

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Thirsty Redwoods Press

Boulder Creek California

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Copyright © 2017, 2021 by Deborah J. Ross

First published in Sword & Sorceress 32, ed. E. Waters, MZB Literary Works Trust

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Girl Stroking a Puppy, by James Godby; William Miller; Gaetano Testolini, 1799. From Wellcome Library, London. Licensed under Creative Commons 4.0

The Girl from Black Point Rock

ICE MOON-2, DAY 15, 1326.

She won’t speak, this girl. Won’t eat. She looks to be about five winters, but could be older. Not younger, I don’t think. She’s a scrawny, bedraggled scrap of a thing with no language I can tell. My brother brought her in from last night’s patrol, slung across his saddle like a sack of oats. I’d been still fuming because it had been my turn to go, only the old bitch had gone into labor and I’m ten times the midwife he’ll ever be.

Where in the name of all ten gods did you get her? I demanded, standing with my back to the fireplace, where the bitch and her surviving pups lay on a pile of tattered rugs. The bitch, ever sensitive to human emotions, whimpered at the sound of my voice. She’d whelped seven and lost five, and couldn’t settle.

Seden stood there, shedding clumps of snow, his arms full of child wrapped in horse blanket, and kicked the door shut behind him. Black Point Rock.

Which overlooked the main road leading westerly, the most likely source of men foolish enough to try raiding here in the Outlands. We served the Empress as bodyguards, sometimes assassins and elite warriors. We sent as many as our compounds could sustain, and in exchange were exempt from taxes. Fighting skill was bred into us, and we trained from an early age, women and men alike. Which was why, when Seden held out the waif to me, I knew he was thinking, Reava’s good with young things—puppies, babes—she’ll take this one off my hands,  and I wasn’t having any of it.

The girl whimpered, sounding too much like the old bitch, and two stick-thin arms went around Seden’s neck.

I grinned. Her choice. And turned my back without waiting for his answer.

The bitch had ideas of her own. She hauled herself to her feet, stepping carefully around the sleeping pups, and halted a pace away from man and babe, tail wagging slowly. Her ears swiveled forward. Then she closed the distance, pawing at my brother’s leg as she thrust her muzzle at the ragged bundle of child.

Which is how the girl came to be curled up with the pups, warmed by the fire on one side and the bitch’s body on the other. Still not speaking, still refusing to eat—although for a moment there I thought she’d latch onto a teat like a wolf cub.

Seden lowered himself onto the bench opposite me. I glared at him. So?

So we came across a party of traders, ambushed, none left alive, livestock and goods carried off, only a wagon too broken to be of use. His glance flickered to the pile of sleeping creatures by the fire. And her. Almost missed her, she was so still.

Trained to silence, like our own, he