Dead Rivers - Freedom's Gate Part 15

"Leave me alone!"

"Lauria!"

Tamar had grabbed my shoulders; I wrenched away from her in the dark, my heart pounding. Around me, I could hear the harsh breath of rudely wakened women; without a word, I picked up my mat and blankets and moved outside, lying down by the fire, where I'd dreamed of seeing Kyros. Tamar settled down beside me a few minutes later.

"You don't have to come out here," I said. " You're not the one who just woke everyone up."

"No," she said.

Shivering a little in the cold night wind, I looked up at the stars, thinking about the dream. In retrospect, of course, it should have been obvious from the beginning that I was dreaming; what would I have been doing simply sitting out by the fire, alone? Still, I found myself weirdly relieved that Tamar was with me now, as if her presence would keep Kyros from materializing. He could have a djinn bring him here, I thought. But there would be no sense to it. It could horribly compromise my cover, not to mention risking his life. It occurred to me as I drifted on the edge of sleep that I shouldn't feel relief that Tamar's presence would keep Kyros away, but disappointment. It's because I know how dangerous his presence would be to our plans, I rea.s.sured myself.

I heard a footstep and sat bolt upright; it was only Zhanna, coming out of the yurt, wrapped in her own blanket. "Are you two warm enough?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Tamar muttered from under her blanket, which she'd pulled over her head.

"You can come back in the yurt, you know. No one's annoyed with you except Ruan."

"It's nice of you to say so," I said.

"No, really." Zhanna sat down beside me, wrapped in her own blanket. "I mean, so sometimes you have nightmares. Ruan snores like a geriatric dog, especially when she's been drinking. I've been told that I snore, too, though not quite as loudly. Saken scratches in her sleep. Erdene whistles."

"You're making that up," Tamar muttered.

"No, really. Not every night, but she does it. And she talks in her sleep. Once Jolay led her through a whole bizarre conversation-'The lentils, they're coming.' 'Oh? And are they bringing the rice?' 'Oh, Prometheus, the rice! It's dressed in its finery...'uwhile the rest of us listened. And laughed. Eventually Erdene woke up, though she didn't remember a word she'd said."

"I'll sleep out here tonight," I said.

"Suit yourself." Zhanna dropped her blanket on me. "Stay warm. I'm going back in the yurt."

I spread out the extra blanket over both me and Tamar, who curled up warm at my side. After a few minutes, I stopped shivering and went back to sleep.

I woke again, with a start, what felt like bare moments later. From the edge of camp, I heard a sharply indrawn breath, and a woman's voice shout, " Raiders!"

I scrambled to my feet, throwing my blanket aside, and ran back into the yurt, where I'd left the sword I'd taken from the bandit camp. I was nearly knocked down by Saken, running out, but I got in and found my sword and ran back out with everyone else. Tamar had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the only thing handy, a rock, to defend herself. "Here," Ruan shouted, and thrust a bow and a quiver of arrows into her hands.

"See if you can hit bandits as well as you can hit a stuffed goatskin." Tamar threaded the ring over her thumb and strung the bow, still stumbling a little from confusion and tiredness.

I drew my sword, having no real idea how to make myself useful. Then horses swept in.

The raiders were Greek bandits, deserter soldiers, like the bandits Tamar and I had run into on our trip to the Alashi. All were mounted, and they were here to steal livestock and possibly women-though surely they knew that any Alashi would be more trouble as a slave than she'd be worth. I slashed at a pa.s.sing horse, realizing quickly the disadvantage of my position on the ground. The Alashi usually fought mounted; so did the bandits. I should have bolted for the horses instead of my sword; I'd have been more likely to survive the battle that way. At least on the ground I could watch Tamar's back; Tamar, a novice rider, wouldn't have gone for her horse even if it had occurred to her.

Planting her feet firmly where she was, she shot two arrows high over everyone's head (at least she didn't shoot one of the sisters by accident; that, I thought, would be unlikely to earn either of us a bead), then found her stride and hit a bandit square in the gut. He bellowed in pain and galloped out of the camp, clutching at himself. That diverted his friend's attention to the archer on the ground, and he turned toward us: Tamar, panicked, sent one arrow too high, and then I shoved her aside, out of the way of the charging horse, taking a swing at the rider as they pa.s.sed. He was far out of reach. She shot again, just missing him. He turned his horse and looked at the two of us, pausing for just a heartbeat as if he was deciding which one of us to kill. Then one of the sisters saw us-Saken, I realized after a blurred momentuand charged in, a spear raised. The bandit wheeled his horse and fled the camp.

"Get to your horses," Saken was shouting, but beyond the perimeter, we heard a loud whistle. That seemed to be the signal for the bandits to retreat; they withdrew from the camp and galloped off.

"Count yourselves," Janiya shouted.

There was a tense moment or two, then the sisters were all accounted for. Several had injuries, and Jolay's was severe: a bad cut across the shoulder. But no one was bleeding black blood, the sign of a poisoned wound, and Jolay's wound was probably not life-threatening. Then we counted the herds, and found that they'd taken most of the camels and a half-dozen horses. There were goats and sheep missing as well, but the dogs quickly rounded them up; they'd just strayed in the confusion.

"At least all the horses were spares," Saken murmured.

"Maydan, tend to Jolay," Janiya said. "Everyone who isn't injured, check your weapons and horses and mount up; we're going after them."

"Not the blossoms," Ruan said instantly. "They can stay here."

I wouldn't have argued this, but Tamar's chin went up. "We drew blood. I shot a bandit with an arrow, and Lauria got one with her sword."

"I got his horse," I muttered.

Janiya glanced from Tamar to Ruan to me, a faint smile on her lips. "I think they've proved they can be useful, Ruan." She jerked her head toward our horses, and we went to mount.

Janiya pulled up alongside Tamar and me as we settled onto our horses. "How are you two at riding these days?"

"I can stay on," I said, not really wanting to declare myself proficient. Tamar said nothing, tight-lipped.

Janiya sighed. "You can stay here if you want," she said. "Usually we wouldn't take you into battle until you were confident riders, at least. I know you're a confident rider, Lauria, and not too bad with that sword you got from the bandits. Tamar is a natural with the bow. You'll both be useful enough if you come, but you'll be safer here."

"Anyone would be safer here," Tamar said.

Janiya's lips quirked. "No one else is in quite so much danger of falling off her horse."

Tamar's hands tightened on her bow. Janiya shrugged, looked us over quickly, and urged her horse to a quick walk, then to a canter. We fell in with everyone else, our horses running smoothly across the steppe in the direction the bandits had gone.

The moon was nearly full, so there was enough light to see by, barely. I glanced at Tamar, riding beside me; she sat up straight like we'd been taught, and her jaw was clenched. Her fist was still wrapped around the bow, though she'd hung the quiver on her saddle like the other sisters. I caught her eye and gave her a questioning look. She nodded firmly and forced a sick-looking smile to her lips.

Janiya signaled a stop, and Gulim dismounted to look for the trail. She found it, we remounted, and followed again. And so it went for a while, until we reached a long-dead streambed. The loose, shifting gravel made for uncertain footing for a horse, but would leave a much less obvious trail. Gulim checked one way, then the other, and was uncertain. "They could have gone either way."

"They probably followed the streambed for a while and then headed south," Ruan said.

"Maybe. Or maybe they're just beyond that next rise..."

"We could split up."

"No," Janiya said. "Not worth the risk." She gently turned her horse to face the rest of us. "Zhanna? Can you summon a djinn?"

"This isn't exactly ideal..."

"I know. But please try."

Zhanna closed her eyes and stretched her hands up to the sky. She had no drum with her today, no flute, nothing to lull her into the trance state that made her receptive to the djinni. The women waited silently; Kara shifted from foot to foot, then dipped her head to begin to graze. Nearby I heard another horse blow out its breath in a loud snort, and Kara raised her head to snuffle in response.

I was beginning to think that the call for djinn was futile, when there was a sparkle of light and Zhanna lowered her hands and sat with an odd rigidity. "What do you want?" she said. Her voice was harsh and brittle.

"We want to know where the bandits went," Janiya said.

"North."

We had been headed west.

"Directly north from here?"

"Northwest."

"Thank you."

A shimmer in the air, and Zhanna slumped in her saddle. She shook herself and rubbed the side of her head. "That was a bound djinn," she commented. "I wonder what it was doing out here? And why it decided to visit us?"

I shivered, suddenly alert, wondering where the djinn was. I had no doubt that the djinn was Kyros's, and it was hovering around us because it was observing me. No doubt Kyros was keeping a close watch on me, and I anxiously reviewed the events of the last few days, wondering if Kyros would approve. I have been doing the best I can. If my thoughts have not always been on my a.s.signment, well, the aerika can't read thoughts.

Around me, the women were urging their horses forward again, and Kara and I fell in with them. A hiss of excitement ran through the group as someone spotted the bandits up ahead. Our horses sped up to a gallop; the bandits wheeled around to face us, and a few moments later we collided like a rock striking a rock.

I drew my sword, the sword I'd taken from the leader of the bandits who'd captured Tamar. And here are more sc.u.m like them, I thought, and felt a sudden dizzy joy that this time I was on horseback, holding a sword, facing down these men. Tamar and I had fled those bandits as fast as we could; here, we were the ones attacking.

I had trained a little with a sword in Kyros's service: basic techniques, mostly. I had never learned to fight from horseback. Working for Kyros, I was armed mostly to protect myself from desperate attacks from unarmed slaves I had been sent to recapture. On the rare occasions that I was sent somewhere that I was actually in danger from bandits, Kyros made sure I had either an escort or a spell-chain for protection. Or both. Of course, his aeriko was watching me even here...

One of the bandits charged toward me out of the darkness; I deflected his sword with my own just in time, and my pleasure at the fight was replaced with sudden cold fear. I could get hurt, I could get killed, and there was nothing Kyros could do to protect me. Certainly I couldn't imagine that his aeriko was instructed to save me from danger, since that would make me utterly useless in my a.s.signed task. My mouth was dry, my hands were steady but freezing cold, and I swung my sword back at the bandit. He deflected my blow easily and swung for me again. I threw the blow aside, realizing that I was facing a much better swordsman than myself, and it wouldn't be long before he landed a blow.

But he cried out in sudden pain and clapped a hand to the arrow in his sword arm. As his arm drooped, I slashed at him with my sword again, wounding him badly. His horse wheeled and he was quickly obscured by the darkness. I gasped for breath and realized that the sisters were withdrawing; the fight was over already. I wondered if we had our horses back, and our camels, and turned Kara to follow everyone else. My sword was b.l.o.o.d.y, still in my hand; I had nowhere to clean it and cringed at the thought of putting it back in its sheath covered in blood, so I simply held it until we paused a short time later to be counted.

Everyone was there. A few women were wounded, but none severely. I found a piece of cloth to wipe my sword and then slipped it back into its sheath. We'd retaken some horses and camels-in the dim light, I thought we might have taken horses and camels that were originally theirs, not ours. Served them right.

Zhanna gestured suddenly for quiet, and listened for a moment, her nostrils flaring in the night wind.

"They're coming after us," she said.

"Right," Janiya said. "Back to camp. We don't want them coming on the wounded without us there to protect them."

But our horses were growing tired, and halfway back to camp, the bandits caught up with us. This time, I felt as exhausted as the horses; my head pounded as I drew my sword. I told myself that surely the bandits were as tired as we were, but I was desperately conscious of the aches in my arms, of the way that each beat of my pounding heart echoed through my head and made it ache even more. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if this was yet another odd dream, and I was actually back at camp, still sleeping beside Tamar.

They swept in against us. I swung my sword wildly, afraid to close with any individual bandit, afraid to attract attention. I wanted to turn Kara and run away, and I felt a brief flash of clear jealousy for Tamar's skill with archery: she could keep her distance from the fray. Then one of the bandits turned toward me and all I could think of was the desperate need to keep his sword from my flesh. The world narrowed: I saw his sword, I saw my sword, I saw the bandit's dark eyes glittering in the darkness.

Then suddenly I felt a coldness against my side, and then a surge of pain. I'd been cut, maybe stabbed. I had no idea how badly, but in my weakness surely he would finish me off. To die out here, surrounded by strangers, in someone else's cause! My throat tightened in fury and frustration, and I defended myself against a last swing. Maybe I can kill him, even if he does kill me. He knocked my sword aside-and behind him, one of the sisters rode up, kicked him off his horse, and then brought her sword down, cutting a huge red gash into his unguarded neck.

It was Zhanna. "Come on," she said, and seized Kara's reins, kicking her own horse to a fast canter.

"We're moving again."

The bandits, too, were pulling back; the man Zhanna had killed was not their only loss. Now the pain from my wound flooded through me like scalding water; I bit back a scream and whimpered instead. I clung to my horse; Zhanna turned as we ran, took my sword, wiped it on a cloth kept on a hook on her saddle, and put it away. "Just hang on," she said. "We'll get you back to camp and Maydan."

I still had no idea how serious the wound was, and clung to the idea that surely it was minor or Zhanna would have called for a halt to at least bind it up temporarily. Either that, or it was so serious that there was no reason to bother, but I didn't feel like I was dying. I just felt like I might like to.

Finally, ahead we saw the yurts and the embers of the fire; Zhanna let go of Kara's reins and sprinted ahead, shouting, "Maydan! Maydan!"

Kara came to a stop in camp and I slid awkwardly off her back. My shirt and trousers were soaked with my blood. I wondered if it had run down all the way to my boots; I couldn't tell in the dim light. Tamar joined me, white-faced but apparently unhurt, and grabbed my arm, helping me to sit down. Maydan took a knife and cut a larger hole in my shirt, pressing her fingers carefully against the wound. "It's not too bad," she said. When I cringed away from her touch, she added, "I think you might have gotten some broken ribs from the blow, but the cut is very shallow. Prometheus was watching over you."

"Or he doesn't want her company yet," Jolay said.

"I won't need to st.i.tch it, just bandage it tightly. You'll be able to ride and fight again in a week or two."

"We may have to ride sooner than that," Janiya said.

"Well, she'll do as she has to," Maydan said. She checked the other injuries, then went to get her bandages.

"Do you think the bandits will come for us again?" Tamar said. "Their losses were far heavier..."

"I know. But that was true after our first attack, yet they came after us."

"Could they have been that desperate for horses?" That was Zhanna now, not Tamar.

"Perhaps..." Janiya walked around our booty, looking over the horses and camels we'd taken from the bandits. "Unload the camels. Let's see what's in their packs."

Maydan returned with bandages and water. She sponged the cut clean, then wrapped my ribs tightly with yards of clean linen, pinning it in place when she was done. It eased the pain slightly, and I had to admit, now that I knew how minor the injury really was, that some of my pain had really been from fear.

Maydan wanted to help me into the yurt, but it was almost dawn now, and I was too keyed up to be able to sleep anytime soon. She fetched me a blanket instead, and I settled down where I could watch the sisters unloading the camels.

The contents of the camels' packs were mostly unremarkable. There were some sacks of beans and rice, which were added to our own food stores, and bolts of cloth, some very nice, which would come in handy for replacing my shredded, blood-soaked clothing. One bolt of cloth elicited gasps, and as I saw it catch the light I recognized what it was-silk. The bandits must have robbed traders shortly before robbing us. We found some good-sized waterskins, some empty and some full. Then a small, tightly closed metal box came down; it required a key, but it didn't take long to force it open. And inside was the prize-glittering, gem-set jewelry. The wealth of the bandits, most likely. The women sorted through the jewelry admiringly, holding up some of the flashier pieces. Not flashy enough to be eye-catching, one glittering necklace was tossed aside after a quick glance. But it caught my eye. A spell-chain. I wondered if any of the women here would know what it was. That, that surely was what the bandits were so desperate to retrieve.

If they know it's here, and they know what it is, why did they keep it locked in a box, rather than around someone's neck, where it could be used? I thought immediately of the garrison Kyros had sent me to, years ago, where the second-in-command had taken over. They'd locked their spell-chain in a box as well, and then put it under guard. For a moment I wondered if these were the same men, but I doubted it. I thought this spell-chain had probably been stolen.

The soldiers at the garrison had feared madness. There were other reasons to be wary of a spell-chain as well; binding-spells could grow unstable after the death of the sorceress who performed the initial binding. If an aeriko was going to break free from the spell, it would happen when the spell-chain was used, and keeping it locked in a box when it wasn't in use would do no good. But those with a small amount of knowledge and a large amount of superst.i.tion might well keep it locked away anyway.

Now, would the sisters know what they'd taken? I wondered if I could make my way over and pocket the chain without anyone noticing. Of course, if it were found on me, even if they didn't recognize what it was, they might want to know why I was stealing common property; I thought briefly of the honey. But still, it was tempting...

Janiya stopped by to look over the loot we'd robbed from the robbers. I saw her pick up the spell-chain and curl her fist around it- she knew what it was, I thought with a pang of disappointment. She glanced around, her eyes sweeping over me, and I quickly looked away.

The sun was up now, and the excitement and tension was finally beginning to ebb, leaving exhaustion behind, and giving me the opportunity to start to fret. Not that I was terribly expert with a sword, but surely anyone paying attention last night would have noticed that I'd used one before. Slaves were never permitted to touch weapons; had anyone been watching me closely enough to notice? Certainly Zhanna saw me get wounded, she rode in so quickly; and Tamar must have seen me during the first attack, since she was shooting at my attackers. Would they become suspicious? Who else might have seen?

Worse... It was strange for there to be a "worse," but now there was. What if the bandits came after us again? We had the spell-chain; they would want it back. Of course, Janiya could use the aeriko to her own advantage, but they might gamble that we wouldn't recognize the chain and attack anyway. And using the spell-chain carried its own risks. Aerika obeyed their orders because they had to, but they would twist those orders anytime they could. Janiya would not be experienced at spell-chain tactics. It wasn't as if you could just order the aeriko to kill your enemies; you had to come up with something else for them to do. Even ordering them to move your enemies, to some remote spot, was risky; sometimes people were killed accidentally on trips like that, particularly since the aeriko were not terribly inclined to be careful.

The cloth, supplies, and jewelry from the camels had been packed away again, and Zhanna came over to sit by me. I tensed, wondering if she was going to ask me about my skill with a sword, but instead she offered me a waterskin and then stroked my hair gently. "I'm sorry you were hurt last night. It wasn't fair, sending you into battle."

"I was glad to be able to do something useful," I said, since that was what Tamar might have said. Well, no. Tamar would have bitten her head off for suggesting that she might have wanted to stay behind.

"Were you ever a shaman-trainee?" Zhanna asked.

"No," I said. "Tamar was, though." I handed the waterskin back to her.

"Huh." Zhanna picked meditatively at her thumbnail. "Did your shaman try to tap you, at least?"

"Why do you ask?"

"The djinn seem... interested in you."

My scalp p.r.i.c.kled as I remembered the Fair One's taunting. "Eh. I wouldn't know. At Kyros's, I worked in the stables; I saw the shaman seldom, if at all. I met the shaman in Sophos's harem, but I was there only briefly..."

"Would you like me to train you?"

"No," I said. "You should ask Tamar. She would."