A Man Of His Word - Perilous Seas Part 15

"Go back!" she shouted, drawing the bow. "Call off your men. I'm not bluffing!"

The leader cowered in pretended fear and backed a couple of steps. But the others . . . Evil take it! She couldn't watch all three and aim an arrow at the same time.

Three? She whirled, and the fourth was not a dozen paces off, between her and the river. As her bow turned on him, he stopped and threw up his hands in mock surrender. He was taller than the others, fresh-faced, not very old. He spoke, and again the main words came through: . . . mercy . . . have mercy . . . lady . . . mercy . . .

"Stand aside!" Inos shouted, and moved to edge past him. He stepped to block her. She glanced around at the others. They were closer. The tall one shouted to attract her attention; then the others did. Now they were openly playing a child's gamewhenever she was looking, they stood still; when she wasn't, they moved.

That river was horribly wide and swift, but it could contain no monsters worse than these. She dashed for the widest gap. The tall youngster dived for her. She struck with her bow, and he grabbed it. She let go, staggered, and was taken from behind by two arms like barrel hoops. She kicked screamed twisted b.u.t.ted . . .

Her captor cursed in her ear and squeezed until her ribs creaked. She cried out with her last puff of breath, going limp, as dark spots danced before her eyes. He eased the strain a little. The three other men were cl.u.s.tered around, inspecting the spoils, all winded, panting and grinning.

They were not tall, but then Inos had become accustomed to djinns. Imp height, then-middle size for a man, but still taller than she. Their faces and arms were a middle shade of brown, too, but they were not imps. Their hair was paler, curly not straight; they had too much shoulder and not enough hip . . . and their eyes were set at a curious slant, like an elf's. Pointed ears. Pixies. Living pixies! Young men out for devilment, two of them little more than boys.

But old enough. Four of them. G.o.d of Mercy!

They were panting too much for so short a run. They kept smiling, chuckling, breathless with excitement. They spoke words that meant nice girl and much happiness. That meant horrible things.

They wore sleeveless shirts and long pants and bootsa"all of them well-made garments, embroidered, fitted. All the same olive green. Clothes and wearers smelled of woodsmoke, and horse, and male sweat.

The leader reached out to stroke her cheek and she tried to bite his hand. He laughed and fondled her breast instead. "Brute!" she shouted with all the wind she could find. "Animal! Evil!" She kicked, and he caught her leg and hung on to it, so she reeled on the other foot, held up only by the man behind her, who chuckled in her ear.

The leader said something and stroked her thigh. Her skin came up in gooseflesh and he laughed at that.

"Don't understand! Don't know what you say. Monster! Four against one? You're brutes! Cowards! Sp.a.w.n of Evil!"

Still holding her ankle in one hand and fondling with the other, the leader spoke, tried again, and finally found a word she knew and reacted to: "Outsider!"

He glanced at the others, then at her again, and he discarded his smile. "Outsider?" he repeated in his strange accent. He turned his head and spat on the gra.s.s. "Outsider!"

It made sense. Outsidersa"intruders. Nonpixies were fair game. Shoot down the men, rape the women. Then what? And what had they done to Kade? Whole legions could vanish in Thume.

"No!" She shook her head wildly and tried to struggle again. The same thing happened as beforea"her captor crushed her into helplessness. She whimpered, trying to wrestle her leg free, trying to b.u.t.t, but she had slid down until her head was against her chest and b.u.t.ting did no good. Again she slumped into quiescence, but her heart was going mad inside her.

One of the others spoke sharply, impatiently.

The leader snapped, telling him to be quiet, but he dropped her ankle and began unlacing his shirt. She was half sitting now, unable to straighten her legs, and gradually sliding lower in her captor's arms.

The leader threw down his shirt, grinning at her. By some trick of the light, she could see the sweat glint on his chest with every harsh breath. He hooked his right heel under his left boot and tugged out his right foot.

"You bunch of animals!" she sneered, not shouting now. "Beasts! Filth! What sort of man treatsa""

Again a sound of hooves, many hooves, shrills of alarm from the horses.

The men looked around, and Inos twisted her head to see. The shirtless man rammed his foot back in his boot and took to his heels, bellowing orders. The other two followed at once, leaving only the one holding Inos. He turned to watch, giving her a better view also.

The three men were running as if chased by lions, running for their horses. Horses and mules were in wild panic and uproar. In their midst, one horse plunged and leaped as its rider scrolled the dark with lines of fire, waving a flaming branch.

Nothing like fire to spook horses! Two were off into the trees already. The third had caught in one of the mules' tethers and was down. The mules were breaking loose but two of them had gone over also, and all were screaming in terror. Still the mysteriously glimmering figure on the horse flailed the torch around, and now the mules were up. Pounding hooves seemed to shake the clearing, gradually dwindling as the stampede faded into the forest, until all the animals had gone into the night and only two horses remained: one rolling helplessly, obviously injured, the other still bearing the maniac with the torch. Three young men ran impotently, uselessly, over the meadow, howling in wordless rage.

Then the rider hurled down the dying brand and wheeled the horse, and came across the clearing like an avenging hurricane, hooves hardly seeming to touch the ground. It was Kade! Incredible Kade, riding a mad horse as if she were Azak himself, wearing nothing but her flimsy cotton slip, white hair fluttering in the night.

Had she been armed with a lance, she might have skewered one of the marauders in her charge. As it was, he leaped to catch the reins, stumbled aside at the last minute, and fell heavily.

The jailer's grip had slackened. Inos straightened her legs, slamming her head up into his face with a satisfying impact, throwing all her weight back against him, then letting it all drop again. The two of them sat down simultaneously, hard. She lashed out backward with an elbow, hoping to hit him in the belly, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her over at just the same moment, so she tilted and missed and caught him between the legs instead. He seemed to have a sensitive spot there, for he spasmed and cried out. She pounded again, harder, and he lost interest in her altogether. She scrambled free.

She was on her feet and running as the horse came thundering by, and she made a wild grab for the harness as if she were an acrobat, but all she caught was a glimpse of Kade's terrified face above her. Brutal impact threw her aside and into the ground hard enough to explode the world into fragments.

For a moment she was stunned . . . in pain and breathless and too battered to care what happened. She tried to rise. A stab of white-hot agony in her ankle stopped her. Reality flooded back.

Gra.s.s was burning over by the shelter, a fountain of yellow light in the dusk. Kade was still somehow clinging to that berserk horse. It must have balked at the river, or she had wheeled it, for now it was pounding back toward the two men still on their feet. Again it seemed one must be ridden down. Again the man leaped aside in time, and this one did not fall.

And the other stepped between Inos and the spreading gra.s.s firea"and he had a bow! He was taking aim; the horse had turned again. The arrow flew, Inos yelled a warning, the horse reared, hooves flailing the sky. Then it sank back on its haunches and toppled over sideways. Kade! Inos could not see what had happened to Kade.

Silence.

No rider rose from the fallen horse.

Again Inos tried to stand, and again was stopped by that fearful pain. She must have broken her ankle.

One by one the men limped over and stood, glaring down at her.

The one who had fallen was clutching his arm in a way that reminded her of Kel breaking his collarbone years ago, going after birds' eggs on Windle Scarp. The man who had been her jailer was holding his groin, bent over and muttering horribly. His nose had bled darkly all over his chin and his shirt. The other two were gasping for breath and looking just as mad.

She wanted to cringe, to make herself as tiny as possible before their fury. There was no amus.e.m.e.nt or mockery now in their slanted eyes, only Hurt and Pain and Revenge. Two of their mounts had run off, two been killed or crippled, two men injured, and all four had been made to look like idiots. They were not after fun now. They were going to make her pay. Long and hard.

Her fingers scrabbled on the ground, gathering sand and grit for throwing in eyes. She wasn't going to cringe and she wasn't going to cry out no matter what they did. She was a queen, for G.o.ds' sakes!

"Animals!" she shouted. "Serves you right. Wait till my other friends arrive! You! Go and bring my robe from over there . . ."

One of the younger pair, one of the uninjured, said something emphatic and stripped off his shirt. She couldn't do much against those muscles, even if the other men did not help him. He kicked off his boots, glaring at her. Then he dropped his pants, and she instinctively averted her eyes. Oh, G.o.ds! The drumming of her heart was making her feel giddy. This time there could be no escape, but whatever happened she wasn't going to give in. She would make them fight for every sc.r.a.p of satisfaction, and if she could claw out an eye or two then Evil take the consequences because they would surely kill her afterward anyway.

Was all that noise just the beating of her heart? Hooves? A third time Inos was saved by a distant sound of hooves. A third time they all turned to look.

A horse came galloping out of the trees. It was huge and spectral, gleaming white as if wrapped in glory. Its rider was garbed all in white, and his cloak streamed like aurora in the night. Horse and rider glowed alike with unearthly silver radiance that brightened as they came thundering across the meadow, making the ground tremble. The pixies started to shout in alarm, the stripper hastily hauling up his pants. And they all fell silent, freezing in position. Inos felt a wave of calm and peace flood over her. She was saved. The occult had arrived.

3.

The sense of serenity was as distinctive as a signature. That, and a flicker of red fire around his head, told Inos who her savior was even before he drew close and reined in his magnificent luminous stallion.

When she had first met him in the seclusion of his home, Sheik Elkarath had worn a sumptuous robe of many colors. On leaving Arakkaran he had set aside such unbusinesslike ostentation in favor of plain white garb. Of all his finery, he had retained only his gem-adorned agal, as if it were a small vice he could overlook in himself. Now a halo like blood flashed from its rubies. The trailing edges of his kaffiyeh shone brighter than moonlight alongside his snowy eyebrows and beard, making them seem to glow also, while the draperies of his kibr flowed to his boots in waves of white glory. He was almost too bright to look upon, and he lighted the glade as far as the trees.

"Greatness, you are a welcome sight," Inos said weakly. She could feel herself floating in strange surges of emotion, like long ocean swells, up and down and up . . . There was pain and terror and screaminga"horrible-hair-tearing hysterics inside her somewhere, there was a broken ankle and worry about Kade and Azak, but all those were overlain by the silken web of calm that she had recognized as Elkarath's. It was an intensification of the spell he had used on her every day from their first meeting until she had fled from him at Tall Cranes. It was magnified now to soothe her after what she had endured. The slow ups and downs must be variations in the intensity of the magic as he sought to adjust it to her needs.

He nodded calmly from the eminence of horseback. "I regret that I did not arrive sooner, Majesty. However, it would seem that you have suffered no harm I cannot heal."

Her ankle had stopped throbbing already. She fingered the swelling absently. "My aunt?"

Elkarath glanced across the clearing to the body of the felled horse. "She has been stunned, but she is in no danger. I shall attend to her when we have meted justice here."

"And Azak?"

"He also will survive. I was just in time for him, also."

A wave of relief burst through the emotional blanket, and Inos muttered a swift prayer to the G.o.ds. "This is good news indeed, Greatness!"

"Humph!" The white brows came down in a scowl, and Elkarath turned his regard on the four frozen youths. They twitched slightly and mumbled. Harmless as flies in amber, they drooled and rolled their eyes in their efforts to move lips and tongues.

"These vermin," the sheik said icily, "shot down a man from ambush and then did not have the grace to kill him. He might have lain there suffering for days so far as they knew, or cared. As it was, he had almost drowned in his own blood when I arrived. Else I had been here sooner."

He swung a leg and dropped as nimbly as an adolescent, although the stallion stood at least seventeen hands. Then it didn't. The great horse shrank and faded and in moments had become merely another s.h.a.ggy mountain pony like many Inos had seen in the foothills on the far side of the Progistes. Its occult glow dimmed and vanished. Even through the euphoria spell, Inos felt p.r.i.c.kles of shock, and she heard the four immobilized pixies mumble gutturally.

The least surprised seemed to be the pony itself. It flickered ears and swished tail in a sort of equine shrug, then lowered its head to crop the lush gra.s.s.

The sheik knelt to examine Inos's ankle. Inos had no clothes on. He chuckled softly. "Do not be shy. No woman has secrets from me." He laid a cool hand on the swelling and it subsided. Her other sc.r.a.pes and bruises were healing also.

"There! That will do for now." The old man rose, with none of the stiffness he displayed when there were others around to tend him. He held down a courtly hand to help Inos rise also. Silver sandals appeared on her feet and, as she came erect, a silken robe enveloped her. A filmy shawl materialized over her filthy, tangled hair. He had either forgotten underwear or was too tactful to use magic so intimately.

She mumbled thanks and bobbed a shaky curtsy. He bowed in response and laughed softly, as if he were enjoying this rare opportunity to exert powers he normally concealed. He did not look straight at her, though. He never did. Being a sorcerer, he could see without looking, she supposed, and that had become a habit to him. But she always found it irritating.

The prisoners moaned and s...o...b..red and twitched in their efforts to move. Lighted by Elkarath's awesome light, they all seemed younger and slighter than they had beforea"unusually broad, perhaps, and with a curl to their hair that she had rarely seen on men before, and only by artifice on women. Their eyes were large and angled like elves', stretched wide now in terror. The irises were pale hazel, almost gold. But they were no hideous monsters, merely youths little older or taller than herself. How could they have behaved so?

"Sc.u.m!" said the sheik. "Who are they?" Inos asked.

He shrugged. "Not formal guards at their age. Just a hunting party, I fancy."

"They are well groomed, civilized-looking. Their clothes are well made."

"Ha! Their behavior was not civilized. They had been stalking you for some time. Their lives are forfeit, so it matters not who they are, nor whence they came."

The amber eyes rolled in their sockets. Curiously, Inos was discovering that she felt very little hatred toward her attackers. Perhaps it was because they looked so helpless and she could remember how it felt to be pinned down by sorcery, or perhaps because she had escaped without permanent hurt. Maybe it was only the sorcerer's spell working on her emotions, but they seemed very young to die.

The sheik was stroking his shining white beard in dignified consideration. "They did not actually consummate their violation of your person, Queen Inosolan, but the intent was manifest. Your escape was narrow enough to justify granting you the traditional satisfaction." He drew his dagger and offered it to her with a flourish, hilt first.

Inos stared at it in bewilderment. "What am I supposed to do with that? "

"Take what they were so eager to give." She recoiled a step and turned to meet the horrified gaze of the immobilized youths. "No!" she said. "I am not a public executioner! And I would not stoop to barbarity like that."

"Indeed?" Elkarath murmured, and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the occult blanket he had laid upon her emotions.

A thunderbolt of rage and hate struck her, followed at once by a shivery wild joy at having the tables turned. Again her heart thundered in her ears. She tasted bile burning her throat as she recalled what these four moral cripples had done to her and what they had intended. The gloating, the mockery, the actual pain, and above all the planned degradation . . . four men against one woman . . . her hand trembled as she reached for the dagger. Revenge would feel very good.

And she heard her father's voice. "Do what is good," he had told her once, "not just what feels good." When? Why? She could not recall the occasiona"perhaps something very trivial in her childhood. But the precept was not trivial. With a great effort she mastered her fury and turned to face the old man.

"No! They deserve punishment, I agree. But not by me." The sheik raised his s...o...b..nk eyebrows in disbelief and for once looked at her squarely.

"Punishment and vengeance are not the same," Inos shouted. "You are judge here. Yours is the power. They are your captives. Judge then, and execute your judgment." She took a deep breath, steadied her voice, and added, "And if it please your Greatnessa"I prefer the world this way. I want to take life as it is and as I am, not a painted replica seen through the eyes of a drunkard."

He frowned. "You are trembling."

"I am not ashamed of that under the circ.u.mstances. I would rather tremble than be a puppet."

A faint smile rumpled the folds of his chubby red face. "Spoken like a queen! So be it." He replaced the dagger in his sash and turned to the four captives. "You are judged unfit to live. Die, then, and may the G.o.ds find more good in you than I can."

They jerked into motion, turning on their heels and starting to walk. Inos stuffed knuckles into her mouth as she saw the nature of the sentence. Of course the old man would be watching her, but if he expected her to have a fit of hysterics, then she would not give him the satisfaction. So she held herself rigid and watched, and by some occult trick she was allowed to see through the darkness as the four boys advanced over the gra.s.s, stumbled down the little bank, and continued across the sand. They waded into the river until the water reached their waists, and the tall one lasted until it was halfway up his chest. Then the current took him, as well. None of them reappeared.

Inos released a long breath. She felt nauseated. She was still shaking. She would have nightmares for years . . . so be it!

It had been the sheik's justice, not hers. "Now my aunt, your Greatness?"

"Of course. And First Lionslayer will be here shortly.. Come, then."

He led the way across the meadow, walking within the moving circle of his own radiance. The gra.s.s fire that Kade had started had died away to a few red flickers and pale smoke drifting among the trees, so the forest was not going to burn down. The sky was full of stars alreadya"night came more swiftly here than it did in Krasnegar.

Do what is right, not what feels right. No, it had not been her father who'd told her that. That had been one of Rap's little homilies. Rap had been full of such sayings. She'd often teased him about them. The whole gang had teased Rap about his proverbs; not that teasing Rap had ever been difficult or even very satisfying, because he'd never seemed to mind much. He'd never lost his temper like a jotunn or screamed like an imp; he'd just shrugged and gone his own way.

Why should she be thinking of Rap now? Because of the chase? Because of running from the men in terror, as shed often run from Rap in play? She could well remember him catching her and pulling her down on the sand, and holding her there until she let him kiss hera"when they'd been smaller, of course. Not in the last year or two. They'd only kissed once after kissing had become a serious activity.

Or was it because Rap had died for her, and now four more men had died because of her'? Maybe that was it.

And the sheik had already reached the dead horse, and Kade was clambering to her feet, decently dressed already, like Inos herself, but looking very bewildered.

Inos ran to her, and they hugged.

4.

Elkarath was throwing power around by the barrelful. The dead horse vanished, and in its place appeared a bonfire, a pyramid of logs crackling and sparking and casting a welcome light. Then he created a circle of rugs around it.

"We have a little time to kill," he said. "Let us enjoy this fine evening." He glanced around the clearing. "There is no danger . . . yet."

He sat down and crossed his legs, chuckling at the women's exclamations of wonder. "Be seated, ladies! Now, have you a preference in wine, Highness?" His occult glow had faded away, and he was only a plump old man in a white robe and white headcloth. Firelight twinkled in his rubied headband.

"Oh, I defer to your expertise, Greatness," Kade simpered, settling on one of the rugs and tucking her legs around in the usual Zarkian position, with no more than her usual stiffness. If she had sustained injuries in her fall, then obviously the sorcerer had cured them, and her previous uneasiness had gone completely.

How much her emotions were being suppressed Inos could not tell. It would not be out of character for Kade to survive even her recent ordeal without losing her poise. She had the barest trace of a tremor in her hands and her eyes were jumpy, but otherwise she was almost her old self. Indeed she was in much better spirits than she had been since entering Thume that morning. Whatever fears she had felt were apparently now dispelled by the guardian presence of the sheik.

Misted silver flasks of wine arrived beside each of them, and a first sip convinced Inos that the vintage was as fine as anything in Duke Angilki's cellar, or Azak's. It was cold, too, and even the Palace of Palms had trouble maintaining an adequate supply of snow for chilling the princes' wine, snow brought from the mountains by fast camels.

Kade glanced around at the looming night. The treetops were dark fingers waving against the stars. "Those . . . er, ruffians?" She had been told that they had been disposed of, and had asked no questions. "They were pixies? Live pixies?"

The sheik nodded, sipping his wine. Snow-bearded, cheeks rouged by desert life, he seemed like everyone's ideal grandpappy. His voice was slow and placid as a glacier. His eyes would twinkle under the heavy white brows once in a while; but to catch a real look at those eyes was almost impossible. Inos wondered whether his benevolent air was genuine, or if he was again projecting an occult glamour to fog her mind. Perhaps he did so automatically, without thinking, as a shopkeeper used politeness. "It would appear that there are still pixies living in Theme," he agreed.