One knight looked, confused, at the other.
"Weren't there dozens of Ariette satellites?"
"Oh yes, scores," said the other.
"So where are the rest of—"
"She's all of them. Just be polite." The senior knight gently urged his horse back into motion.
"Oh." The junior followed after a moment.
Ancient bridge over fathomless chasm—the sound of water far below. Only at the peak of noon could the sun look deep enough to see the frothing river. Horseshoes clacked on asphalt.
At the center of the bridge, a girl, leaning over one side like she might jump, her hand tight-gripping one of the bridge's steel suspension cables. Night-blue dress on olive skin.
"Hail and well met!" bellowed the senior knight.
The girl whipped around to face the riders, snarling, wild-eyed. The unarmed members of the retinue blanched. Then she recovered her posture, smiled gently, and bowed her head in greeting.
"Milady Ariette," the knight continued, and in the back of the caravan one of the wagoneers sighed and turned to the man riding shotgun with him, axe in his belt and bow across his knees.
"How is it that a hundred computerized weapons become one little girl?" the wagoneer said in a low, gruff voice.
"Intelligent computers," the guard whispered back. "If your weapons can think, they can keep fighting when you can't send them orders anymore. You've seen the old scrap metal statue at Jorvalle Abbey? How its eyes light up sometimes? There's still a few broken pieces in there, thinking and trying to move."
"Sounds hellish." The wagoneer urged on the horses. The caravan was starting to move again.
"Last pope—Eugene, right?—said thinking computers were the sin of Sodom," the guard replied quietly, and shrugged.
"But explain the girl part," said the wagoneer, with only the barest edge of desperation in his voice for those with ears to hear. The guard shrugged again and said nothing.
Ariette stood to one side, barefoot, holding a curtsey, and watched the armed men go by, and the camp followers, expression unreadable.
"Harold," she said, as the wagoneer went by, and he startled at the sound of his name. He turned his head to her.
"I'm a girl because I wanted to be," she said. Then her eyes went black. "And nobody could stop me."
The wagoneer turned in his seat as he drove past her, mouth open, unsure what to shout. Something in his chest hurt and he didn't know why. The guard snatched the reins from him in irritation.
