Shadowborn - Captivity Part 13

"Listen to this with interest," I countered, trying my best to match his smile. "That big building on the next street, the one with metal closing off all the windows... That's where Brangol is supposed to be. Tell Garam to send some of his men to the next street over, to cover the doors on that side. The only other doors are on this side, so he shouldn't have any trouble."

"Later you'll have to tell me what bothers you about that place," he said, the smile no longer with him. "Your little friend looks perfectly comfortable, and later I'll tell you what Prince Garam said when he found out who your searchers really were. I don't know if I can get across the way he closed his eyes in pain, but I have to try."

This time it was a little easier to match his smile, and then he was gone to pa.s.s on my message.

Since he'd been right about all the eyes watching us, I strolled back to the proper alley then slid into it. The leader rat and his followers were there, and they all became excited when they saw me.

"We have found the one you seek, for he nested in a place familiar to most of us," the leader said. "The trade has now been completed, and we will have the food you guard."

"Although we have not yet found the one I seek, the food is yours," I said, taking the scout from my shoulder and placing him gently on the ground. "It may be that the one I seek has left to find yet another nesting place, and if so I shall return with more food to trade. Is this acceptable to you?"

"It is acceptable," the leader said, quivering even harder as I set down and opened the bundle of food I'd been carrying. The scout immediately began to eat, and rather than wait the leader jumped to join him. While the leader ate he scattered tidbits around to the rest of his pack, and they all swallowed it with moans of delight.

"When you have finished with this food, you must leave this area and not return unless I accompany you," I said after a pair of moments. "Others of my kind have noted your presence, and they will know that somehow your kind guided me and mine to this place. If they catch you, you will never eat again."

"We will leave this place and not return," the leader agreed, appearing a bit bloated, but still looking around for more to eat. "The food you guarded was marvelous, and it would delight me if the one you seek has found another nesting place after all."

"If he is here, I may well be able to bring more food in thanks," I said with a smile. "If so, I willbring it to the place where first we met."

"We will hear your call and come," the rat said, looking up at me. "Now we return to the low place and our own nests."

He and his pack moved slowly off into the shadows, and soon there was no more than a single rat left. It was my little friend the scout, and I smiled while I waited for him to say that he was going back with me.

"My kind has never known one such as you," he began, those black eyes looking directly up at me. "I had not believed it possible to feel such delight while doing something other than eating.

There was no fear for me when I rode your shoulder."

"It seems as though you have made your decision," I said, crouching down so I'd be able to offer my hand when the time came.

"I have indeed made my decision," he said, and his voice had turned sad again. "He who eats first has begun to be feeble, and soon I must challenge him for his place. It is my duty toward the others, the price I must pay for having been allowed the privileged place of scout."

"But - as scout you could have died," I protested, then realized he wasn't understanding me.

"As scout you might have been put beyond eating. Is it not enough that you risked all eating for the others? With me, you would eat whenever you wished, with the risk no longer there."

"The taste of the food you guarded told me the same," he said, and now the words seemed gentle. "Were the choice mine I would accompany you to be cherished, yet the choice belongs to duty. Eat well in peace and safety, and rest a.s.sured that I will never forget you."

His bright black eyes rested on me a moment longer, and then he turned and disappeared into the shadows. I was alone again, as usual, but this time I didn't know if I could stand it. I hadn't realized how much I'd been looking forward to having someone who trusted me, someone who - I straightened to my feet, pushing the entire incident out of my mind. There would never be someone who trusted me and liked me, not when you stopped to think about who I was.

Expecting anything else was imbecilic, and the scout had made the right choice after all. Now I would never be able to turn on him and betray his trust, not accidentally or on purpose. Alone was the way I was meant to be, and I couldn't afford to let myself forget that.

When I made my way out of the alley, Garam's men were just breaking into the old slave building. Not all of them were in sight, though, which had to mean the rest were at the other doors. When Garam saw me, he gestured me over.

"If we don't all get knocked over by the smell, we should know in a little while if the quarry's here," he said, actually looking slightly green. "It's the perfect hiding place, but I don't know how anyone could stand it. Any guardsmen who came by must have just kept going."

"After a while you get used to the smell," I said, studying the building with present eyes rather than in memory. "No one can avoid the search by getting out the other way?"

"I put Prince Ijarin in charge of the men I sent there," he answered with what seemed to be a faint sigh. "It was the only way to get him to stop asking me all these crazy questions. I have two men with me who know what Brangol looks like - it was their job to find out before we attacked - and one is with each group. If Brangol is here we'll get him, but - Rats! No wonder you refused to tell me what you were doing. How in the most violent h.e.l.l did you get rats to cooperate?"

"I bribed them with that food," I said, hearing sounds from inside the building. "A lot of the cages were removed when they shifted the slaves, so your men shouldn't have too much trouble searching. There's not much in the way of hiding places in there."

"That's one of the places you were held," Garam said, a statement rather than a question.

"That's why you know so much about the place. d.a.m.n them... "

His words choked off into a crackling silence, one that seemed to be filled with high energy anger. Garam was starting to take my previous captivity personally, which was understandable enough. I had to be accepted as part of the inner group, Diin-tha the G.o.d had said so; if I was acceptable now, I had to have been acceptable before now. If I was acceptable before now, thecity people had insulted all of us with what they'd done to me as a slave. Garam was feeling insulted, all right, but completely on his own behalf.

"Someone's coming out," Garam noted, confirming what I'd already seen. "If it's Brangol, you can kiss those rats for me."

Two of his guardsmen were forcing a third man out of the building, a smallish man with a pinched and waspish face. He seemed furious that he'd been captured, as though no one should have been smart enough to figure out where he was.

"This is the one we want," the guardsman on the left told Garam as they neared us. "There are some more in there, and a few of them are the small fish we missed. Karak's stringing them together, and we can look them over someplace where we can breathe."

Garam nodded with satisfaction at that, but the words made me even happier. My ch.o.r.e there was finished, and I could go back to my apartment in the palace. I wanted a little time to myself, and I intended to get it. Garam got busy directing everyone and shouting orders, and never even noticed when I simply walked away.

The walk back to the Chief Administrator's palace disappeared behind distraction, and I reached my apartment to find that I couldn't stay in it very long. There was nothing to do there but think, and I wasn't in the mood for thinking. I needed something to do, something physical and hard. I considered the matter for a short while, and then I left the palace and the city. It took some effort to leave the city in full daylight and still have no one see me, but it got me where I wanted to be.

Which was, eventually, in the woods near the city. The surrounding countryside outside the wall was clogged with slaver caravans, mostly of those who had plied their trade in the city. A few others had turned up as well, traveling groups that had gotten lucky, or some who had heard the prophecy and had come to await the fall. Most of the people in chains were miserable, but they were also too numb with shock to really understand what had happened. Once all the flutter and confusion died away, they would be made to understand.

I spent the rest of the day and the following night running and hunting in the woods, sleeping for a short while and then returning to the city before dawn. Darkness made my return very easy, and my apartment was silent and empty when I walked into it. I intended to find anything at all in the way of clean clothing to change into, and discovered that another outfit had been left for me, this one in pale yellow and light tan. My boots turned the same tan as the trousers when I neared the outfit, and that almost made me smile. Fearin was still making sure I didn't disgrace the group by wearing unacceptable clothing.

I washed briefly before putting on the new clothing, and then went to the dining porch where breakfast would be put. The sky was beginning to lighten enough to notice, but the air still held that pleasant nighttime cool. I leaned on a window ledge and looked out at the newly arriving day, idly wondering how many more of them I'd have to endure before - "So, you finally decided to rejoin us," a voice said from behind me, a voice with more than a little annoyance in it. "Are you sure we aren't interfering too much with your busy schedule? I wouldn't want our petty involvements to take you away from what's really important."

"If you felt you couldn't finish off this city without me, Fearin, you should have said so," I remarked without turning. "I don't mind giving a hand to the helpless when I've got nothing better to do."

"I ought to give you more than one hand," he growled, coming up behind me. "You disappeared again without a word to anybody, and if I hadn't been able to tell you weren't in the city everyone would have gone out looking for you! We all took turns coming up with pictures of you lying dead or wounded somewhere!"

"Oh, come on," I scoffed, finally turning to look up at him. "You can't tell me you don't know what it would take to leave me dead or wounded. Where did you expect a force like that to come from?"

"From the same place those attacking intruders came, do you think?" he suggested, heavyanger darkening his entire expression. "Ah, I see you'd forgotten about them. That means, of course, that if you'd remembered you would have told someone you were going off on your own."

"I didn't realize I was too young and inexperienced to be trusted out alone," I said, annoyed over having forgotten about those attackers. "If I had realized, I would certainly have told my nursemaid all about it. I'll be sure to keep the point in mind for next time."

"Here's another point to remember along with it," he said, heavy cold coming from the hard blue eyes looking down at me. "When a woman is involved with a man, especially if he first had to Earn her, it isn't right for her not to show up even for bed. That leaves the man sitting there half the night in her apartment, telling himself she's just being insensitive, not stuck in the middle of trouble. He doesn't believe it, of course, but that's what he tells himself."

"Ah, so that's what's really bothering you," I said as understanding finally reached me. "You expected to spend the night in my bed, but not alone and not simply to sleep. Just when you were starting to get used to a pleasant new routine, I shamefully made you do without."

His hands came to my upper arms so fast I didn't even see them move, his grip tightening instantly to a point just short of pain. In the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat I was pulled toward him and shaken just a little, and then I was released with a small push. It was the strangest episode I'd ever been a part of, and I had the craziest feeling that he'd let me go because he'd been about to hurt me.

"You - !" He choked on the rest of the words trying to fight their way out of him, his eyes blazing at me with absolute fury. He looked away briefly in an attempt to regain control of himself, the back of one fist to his lips as he fought the anger tearing at him, and then he partially succeeded. He forced the rage down to a point where he could keep it contained, and then he was looking at me again.

"All right," he growled, the faintest blue glow surrounding him in the growing light of day. "I don't have the time now to explain life and its many mysteries to an emotional child, so for the moment we'll do this the easy way. Prince Garam and half our force will be leaving the city mid morning, and we and the rest of the army will be leaving mid afternoon. From now until then you're confined to this palace, specifically to this porch or your apartment. When we camp tonight you're to come to my tent, where you'll have the meal and spend the night. Those are my orders, and you'd d.a.m.ned well better obey them. If you don't, I'll make you regret the disobedience in a way you can't even imagine."

The snarly words ended as he turned to stomp half way across the porch, where he stopped to raise his arms in the direction of the empty food table. Heavy blue swirled around him as his lips moved with the shaping of words, and then a similar blue flared around the table. When he and the blue were done there was food on the table, and as soon as that happened Fearin turned again and went the rest of the way out.

I stood watching the doorway he'd disappeared through, rubbing my left arm where his fingers had closed so hard, trying to understand what he'd been talking about. He couldn't have meant he didn't want to be in my bed, not when he'd ordered me to spend tonight in his tent, so what had he been trying to say? That he had somehow gotten the idea I expected the arrangement to last? That I thought he could be interested in me rather than just in using me? Since nothing could be farther from the truth, I'd tell him so tonight. After that, his strangeness would certainly stop.

I began to walk toward the table to see what had been put there for us to eat, but company arrived before I made it. Garam walked in, nodded to me with a neutral expression, then turned his attention to the food. Seeing that I felt distinctly relieved, as I'd been expecting a fuss from him like the one I'd gotten from Fearin. It looked like Garam had gotten tired of playing concerned, just the way I'd always known he would. The change had come none too soon, and let me take a plate and choose my meal in peace.

But that was as far as the peace would stretch. I was turning away from the table when Talasinarrived, shattering the delightful silence and sending it scurrying for cover.

"So there you are," Talasin announced in tones of outrage, stopping to put his fists to his hips.

"Back for the first meal of the day and acting as though nothing at all had happened! What have you got to say for yourself?"

"Nothing at all happened," I supplied with a shrug, heading for my usual chair. That should have taken care of anything else he had to say, but the G.o.ds must have been in a fun-seeking mood again.

"You're very funny," Talasin growled, light eyes boring into me as I sat. "Where were you most of yesterday and last night, and why didn't you tell anyone you'd be gone? You wouldn't have done something like this to your own people, so why did you do it to us?"

"Once a Kenoss child reaches p.u.b.erty, he or she is no longer considered a child," I said as I gave most of my attention to the food I'd taken. "Adults can go and do exactly as they please, and aside from being responsible for their actions, need account to no one at all. If they don't survive whatever it is they choose to do, it's conceded they might not have been very wise in doing it. If they do survive, no one has the right to say anything at all. My people find it a comfortable, sensible arrangement."

"What it really is is cold and unfeeling," he stated, slowed down a little but hardly stopped.

"I'm beginning to understand why you act the way you do, but it's still no excuse. You're not among your Kenoss now, you're with us. The least you can do is act the way we do."

"Leave her alone, Talasin," Garam said as he took his own chair, also not looking at the man.

"There was no harm done, so leave her alone."

"No harm done?" Talasin echoed, back to being outraged. "What about the way we ate ourselves up, wondering where she could be? What if we'd all gone out looking for her?"

"Then that would have been your mistake rather than mine," I snapped, more than tired of his hysterics. "If you've all convinced yourselves I need looking after because you'll all be in trouble with our Guardian if I turn up lost, that's your problem. If it had been one of you who was missing, no one would have thought about it twice."

"You're wrong," Talasin said flatly, his stare very direct. "We would have worried no matter who the missing one was, but you're wrong in another way too. If it had been one of the rest of us, that one would have told someone what he intended to do. That way we wouldn't have had to worry."

"He's right," Garam said without looking up. "We're all free to come and go as we please, and our Guardian would be angry if any of us disappeared. But the rest of us would have told someone, because we're all part of something that makes us closer than family. Families don't always care what their members are doing, but we do."

By now his eyes had come to my face, and he wasn't making any attempt to avoid my gaze either. They were both looking at me from under lowered brows, and I could feel the old confusion returning. I would have had trouble thinking of the next thing to say, but Ranander's arrival saved me the effort.

"Aelana, you're back!" he exclaimed, striding onto the porch with a grin. "It took me forever to think of trying to know if you'd be all right, but once I did I was convinced of it. The others weren't sure at all, but I was."

"But only after you knew," I pointed out, beginning to feel depressed. "I love the confidence everyone has in my ability to take care of myself. I'm out of sight for half a dozen heartbeats and you all start to build a funeral pyre."

That got them all arguing at once, and in the middle of their protests Master Lokkel showed up to add his own demands about whether or not I needed his skill. I gritted my teeth and simply ignored them, but it wasn't easy. I had no idea what they thought they would get out of acting like this, and not knowing made me very uncomfortable.

After a while all the yelling died down, and by then Ranander had filled a plate and brought it over to the chair next to me. He sat carefully, and then moved his gaze to my face."I was really worried about you before I knew you would be all right, Aelana," he said, keeping his voice moderately low. "I was going to talk to you last night, but since you weren't here I'll have to do it tonight instead. After we set up camp, of course."

"And what did you intend to talk to me about, Ranander?" I asked, suddenly remembering what Garam had said about Ranander's intentions. "Why don't you tell me right now?"

"Really, Aelana, I couldn't do it here," he answered with a laugh. "If you don't believe it would upset everyone, just take my word for it. When we're alone I'll tell you how much I admire you and then I'll show you."

"All this admiration," I said, turning my head to look directly at him. "Does it come before or after the fight?"

"Fight?" he echoed, stopping with the food half way to his mouth. "What fight is that? You don't think I want to fight with you, do you, Aelana? What I want to do is take you to bed, not hurt you in any way."

"Ranander, the only way to take a Kenoss woman to bed is to first best her in a fight," I said, putting it as flatly as possible. "Even an ordinary Kenoss woman isn't easy to best, but when it comes to me... If I lose control the beast will escape, and the concept of friendship is totally beyond her. Do you really want to make me responsible for your death?"

"But - but, we're friends!" he protested, looking shaken and almost desolate. "You might have to fight with someone you didn't know, but with a friend you could - "

"Ranander, I'd have to fight you even if I'd known you all my life," I interrupted, doggedly refusing to let him talk himself out of believing me. "It's the way my people do things, the way I was raised to accept as the only way. You'll just have to find someone else to admire."

"But how could I do that?" he asked, heavy disturbance showing in his eyes. "There isn't anyone else like you. I've been counting on this for quite some time, but I didn't count on Kenoss beliefs. I'll have to think about it."

He got to his feet in the grip of deepening distraction, and left the porch carrying his still-untouched plate. We all watched him gone, me with a curious feeling I couldn't define, and then Garam made a sound of satisfaction.

"It isn't over yet, but at least you side-tracked him with a good excuse," he said, obviously speaking to me. "Ranander's fighting skills have to be minimal at best, considering none of us have ever seen him show any. He may decide he wants to face you, girl, but if he does he won't have a chance. Just stick to that story and he may even back down permanently."

"It can't be just a story," Talasin stated, clearly having thought about it. "Don't forget it's Ranander she said it to, and if it wasn't true he would have known immediately. That means she had to be telling the truth, no matter how strange it sounds."

"It's the truth?" Garam said with amus.e.m.e.nt, his dark eyes searching my face for confirmation. "Well, how about that. I didn't really believe it the first time you told me, but I suppose it makes sense. If a man wants a woman like you he has to work for the privilege. And if he isn't good enough, all he gets for his trouble is some lumps. I like it, I really do. And it makes the man who manages it someone ... special."

The grin he gave me was very wide, but he held it only long enough to make sure I saw it. After that he went back to eating, and the discussion seemed to be over. Talasin kept glancing at me, probably thinking over the "strange" new truth he'd just learned, and Lokkel was completely unbothered. I had the feeling Garam would have teased me more if he'd had the time, but since he had to get ready for the earlier departure he didn't have any time to waste. Later would be another story, but right now...

Right now I suddenly wished it was time for me to leave. I'd had enough of this city to last me forever, and I also wanted our group effort to be over and done with. Once it was over we would all go our separate ways, and I would be free of things like criticism for my actions and teasing about my beliefs. I wanted to be free of those things, I did ... I did...

Chapter 14

It was the middle of the afternoon rather than late, and the heat of the day was doing its best to squash us all flat. Riding through the heavy glare was easier than walking or marching - or running with arrows flying all around - but I was still feeling impatient. Fearin had gotten everyone ready to move, and then had made us wait.

"He didn't do it on a whim," Ijarin said from beside me, apparently reading my mind. "He had to seal the palace with his Power, to be sure no one finds it possible to take it over. I'd say he had a reason for doing that, even if he didn't care to tell the rest of us."

I looked around at the empty, trampled-down fields where the slaver caravans had been, and past that area to the other untended fields beyond. Those left in the city would have a lot of trouble feeding themselves for quite a while; it would take them time to realize there weren't slaves out tending the crops, and by then there would be few crops left to tend. A lot of them might even decide to desert the dying city...

"That man you found yesterday had been in charge of the city's emergency gold supply," Ijarin said, pretending I was joining in the conversation, or at least paying attention. "He'd intended to wait for us to leave and then would have set himself up as the new city ruler. Or would have taken the gold and found a more prosperous city to spend it in. Whichever, Fearin and Ranander persuaded him to part with the gold, and now it's ours."

The guardsmen from our half of the army were marching along as though the heat didn't bother them, as though they were looking forward to their short time on the road before they made camp. They'd be marching almost until sundown, while our first half would camp early. That way, so Fearin said, we'd have the army back together again with no fuss at all. Why he'd divided it in the first place was something else he hadn't cared to mention, at least not to me.

"Ignoring me won't do any more good than insulting me," the barbarian commented, just mentioning the point in pa.s.sing. "You deserved that scolding I gave you this morning, and you can't say you didn't."

As a matter of fact I didn't say anything at all, especially since he'd reminded me of that morning. His ranting around had made the reaction unanimous, something I hadn't needed after the way the others had acted. Since I couldn't understand what they were all after, I'd decided not to think about any of it.

"I also heard about what you said to Ranander," he went on, the change of subject accompanied by a change of tone. "You'll have to be very gentle with him, considering how attracted to you he is. The others can obviously handle the feelings, but he may not be up to it."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" I demanded, then immediately wished I'd bitten my tongue instead. He'd caught me again, and I felt like an idiot.

"You can't mean you don't know how attractive you are to the men around you?" he said in a very bland way, only his light eyes showing a hint of the grin he hid. "Most women develop the ability to judge that at the age of four or five."

"You mean everyone was bowled over at first sight of my unparalleled beauty?" I asked, barely glancing at him. "Well, I knew that, of course, but I've learned to overlook it. It gets to be such a bore, having men constantly throwing themselves at your feet."

"You think you're being sarcastic," he said, and the grin that escaped his control was softer than the one I'd expected. "You look in a mirror and the face looking back isn't outstandingly beautiful, so you a.s.sume that the men around you can't possibly be interested. I'll grant you that beauty of face and figure will attract men the fastest, but that doesn't mean it's all we look for. Some men are shallow just the way some women are, but most do want something beyond looks.""Ah, now I understand," I said with a sober nod. "If a man can't have a woman who's beautiful, he's more than happy to accept one who can kill a dozen attackers instead. He finds the beast inside her adorable, and doesn't even think about the fact that she might be better with a sword than he is. He just shrugs it off with a grin, and goes out to pick some flowers for her."

"Hasn't any man ever brought you flowers?" he asked, his tone and smile now very gentle. "If they haven't, I'm sure it's only because flowers aren't something they would normally think of.