Ambition and Alavidha (22 page)

“He’s probably
not even still on the continent,” Thalia whispered to Daniel.

“Every little
helps,” he countered.

“Thanks Drew,”
said Thalia, “and this stew of yours is even better than last time.
Josei agrees too.”

Drew looked
pleased.

“I’d best be
getting back to my stove. Come say goodbye before you go, pick up
some titbits for the journey.”

“I will and our
thanks.”

“For the food
or the information? No, don’t answer that,” he grinned.

“You think it
is our man?” asked Daniel as Drew wandered away.

“Might be,
might not but I’m thinking, if it is the King of Leithe who is
behind all this, he would have had to know where exactly this
artefact was. He probably sent out a good many people to look for
it, some of whom have never been remembered. The only reason this
one was is the fact that this Station is so isolated.”

“True,”
admitted Daniel.

“And, call me
idiotic, but my gut feeling says that we’ve stumbled upon something
here, something important, a clue.”

“That’s a bit
far fetched. He probably was exactly who he said he was.”

“I don’t think
so.”

“So what now?
East to the Gtrathlin? I wish we knew what this person or persons
unknown has stolen and why we’re being sent to recover it. I mean,
why the great secrecy?”

He was looking
at Vya as he said this and she returned his look. Daniel got the
impression that she knew
exactly
what the artefact was.

“I think we’ll
find that the prospector person Drew was talking about did go to
the Gtrathlin’s domta,” said Thalia, “he was a spy looking for the
artefact and he found it.”

“Hunt the spy
to catch the thief?”

“Got it in one.
Of course he might have taken ship back to Leithe once he’d found
what he was looking for but I think not, timeframe’s too short. I
think he went from here to the domta then east to tell the thief
where it was. We know what he looks like and once we’ve questioned
the Lind at Gtratha we’ll know what the thief looks like too. Then
we find them.”

“You make it
sound so easy,” Daniel complained. “But I wish we knew what has
been stolen, Artefact sounds too vague, I mean, is it large or is
it small?”

“I’ve got my
suspicions,” she answered, “want to hear them?”

“I think I
do.”

“I have a
sinking feeling that the artefact is almost the most important and
dangerous object in existence. It’s not just some ancient thing
that some king or important person wants to add to a collection.
There’s too much thought, time and planning gone into all
this.”

“Some
collectors I have met are obsessive.”

“You think? Not
this obsessive. Think of how much all this must have cost!”

“So what is it
then?”

“The other
power core.”

“The what?”
This was the first Daniel had ever heard of a power core.

“Don’t you
learn history in the south? What did Tala Talansdochter and the Lai
Chizu use to destroy the Dglai spaceship?”

“Some sort of
weapon I suppose. I know that it almost completely destroyed the
land around it. My father said that some of the vegetation is just
now only beginning to grow back.”

“The weapon
that destroyed the
Ammokko
was the power core of the
Electra
, the other spaceship. The
Argyll
and the
Electra
were the survivors of the cosmic storm. Tala and
Chizu, well it wasn’t them exactly but let’s keep it simple. They
found the
Electra
’s power core, modified it somehow then
Chizu and Tala flew to the
Ammokko
and dropped it right on
top of it. They both died.”

“I know that.
I’m not a complete ignoramus.”

“Well,
afterwards, they dug out the hulk of the
Argyll
and the
wetlands near Settlement and excavated it. The power core was
removed. I’ve always believed it was taken to Dagan for
safe-keeping.”

“You think the
spy person went to Dagan to find out?”

“And he found
out that it wasn’t there. It had been moved to what our ancestors
probably thought was a safer place, to the Gtrathlin of the Lind.
Men and women were moving to Talastown in Dagan. Merchant ships
were beginning to visit there. Very few humans ever visit the
Gtrathlin and they are usually vadeln-paired. I think I read
somewhere that there is a cave in the domta and the only one who
enters the cave is the Gtrathlin. It’s where the Lind keep what is
precious to them. Tara Sullivan-Crawford’s writings are kept there,
that’s where Niaill and Taraya found the means to defeat the Lai.
The cave is sort of sacred.”

“But surely the
Gtrathlin wouldn’t have let him rootle around in the cave? And
they’d have been suspicious of him surely. I’ve heard the Lind can
tell if a person is lying.”

“Not
necessarily, some people have very good, what you might describe as
shields which the Lind cannot penetrate and the spy wouldn’t have
needed to actually enter the cave. He just had to find out exactly
where it is, after all it would have been the only place the power
core would have been taken to.”

“So we just
travel east asking questions?”

“Approximately,
yes.”

“I still don’t
understand, if the power core, if that is what has been stolen, I
mean, why don’t the Lind send out a general call and go get
it?”

Vya cleared her
throat.

“My
compliments. You have worked it out. Unfortunately Daniel, we
cannot broadcast the fact that the power core has been stolen. It
is not just the King of Leithe who has ambitions, territorial or
otherwise. Some of your dukes, for instance, might think possession
of the core would be advantageous. Pirates and brigands too come to
mind and Argyll, well, there are no doubt some men and women there
as well.” She sighed. “The Avuzdel will be looking and others. They
have been looking and have found nothing. I think though that we
are definitely on to something here and should follow it
through.”

“Why exactly am
I here?” asked Daniel, who had been still wondering about it, “I
mean, I’m not Avuzdel, not even Vada.”

“We think you
can help,” Vya answered, “and I know that you can be trusted.”

“I suppose
that’s a compliment of sorts.”

Vya’s eyes
crinkled, “a most definite compliment, I assure you. Now, time is
a-pressing, shall we go?”

* * * * *

The night after
they left the Supply Station they prepared their dom as usual and
as usual they all sat round the campfire.

Thalia ran her
hands through her hair. The firelight caught at it and Daniel,
distracted from his contemplation of the yellow flames looked
up.

His breath
caught in his throat.

She’s really
pretty! She’s really a pretty gorgeous girl. So different from the
girls back home. She’s so �� unaffected. I don’t think she realises
how attractive she is.

Thalia,
glancing up, saw him looking at her and dropped her hands.

“What?” she
asked. “Why are you looking at me like that? Have I suddenly grown
a third eye in the middle of my forehead?”

Daniel dropped
his gaze, confused.

“Nothing,” he
mumbled.

Vya caught
Josei’s eye and winked.

* * * * *

-24-

THE RTATHLIANS
OF THE LIND

By the time
three days had passed Daniel was becoming accustomed to riding Vya
rather than Firefly. At least the aches and pains had begun to
diminish. They were running through the mountain foothills, the
rises and falls of the hills and hillocks undulated like waves on
the sea. Rest periods were infrequent at best and during one of
these few and far between rest stops he raised a question as to why
they weren’t taking the path followed by the trade route.

“It’s quicker
this way,” Thalia informed him. “The trade route meanders along and
around the hills. We take the direct route.”

“And it is
easier on the paws,” Josei added with a tail wag and a Lindish
grin.

“Both hills and
route are patrolled,” said Thalia, “the Sixteenth Ryzck I think. We
might meet up with some of them tomorrow.”

But their
meeting with members of the duty Ryzck came sooner than
expected.

That evening,
campfire lit, Daniel had not long settled himself in his bedroll
and was dropping off to sleep when Vya growled a warning.

“Danger!”

She placed a
large paw on his middle and pressed down, hard.

He stared up at
her even as he fumbled for his borrowed sword. Like Thalia he slept
with it by his side.

“Shhh,” she
whispered.

“What is it?”
he mouthed.

“Gtran,” was
her terse reply.

“It’s a whole
pride of them,” Thalia whispered in his ear. He jumped. “Help is
coming. Josei called.”

“When will they
get here?” he asked scrambling to his feet.

“They’re
running to us as fast as they can. Hurry, mount up.”

“Can we outrun
them?”

“We can try,”
she answered but with little hope in her voice. “Gtran are faster
than wral and can run as fast as the Lind. They’re hungry. Only
hunger will have brought them this far down into the foothills.
Come on.”

“Harness?” he
floundered.

“No time.
You’ll have to hang on like grim death.”

Daniel didn’t
want to think about death. He jumped up on to Vya’s back, grabbing
for her neck ruff.

He heard a yowl
from out in the darkness.

“They’ve caught
our scent,” said Thalia, no longer bothering to whisper. “Run!”

Vya and Josei
set of at a standing run, with a suddenness that rattled Daniel’s
bones and which almost made him fall off. He could hear the yowling
growing in volume and becoming more intense.

Crikey,
there must be hundreds of them at least
, was his terrified
thought,
this is really scary.
He didn’t know much about the
gtran. The peculiarities and attributes of the catlike gtran had
not been numbered among the topics of his education. There were no
gtran in Murdoch although there were rumours of large catlike
creatures in the more southerly wetlands of the continent.

They ran on and
ran on some more. Even Daniel knew that even for the redoubtable
Lind; to continue to run flat out like this would tell on them
eventually and they had been travelling all day. How long before
Vya became winded? How long before she was forced to slow down?
What would happen then? They would put up a fight but against so
many how long would they last?

The yowling
grew louder.

They’re
gaining on us
, he thought with desperation.

He was not to
know, because he had no mind-link with Vya like Thalia had with
Josei that a Vadryz of the Sixteenth Ryzck was closing fast and was
bearing down on the gtran pride at an angle (and downwind).

Thalia knew but
she had not the means to tell him. She tried to shout over but the
only words he managed to make out were keep and going.

Then with a
sudden abruptness, the yowling changed to that of surprised and
angry growling. Yelps and whines of pain replaced the yowls and
hope began to stir in Daniel’s breast.

Thalia and
Josei stopped, turned and went back the way they had come.

Vya stopped too
and once more Daniel banged his nose on her neck. Again,
predictably, it began to bleed and Daniel wiped his nose on his
sleeve.

Vya didn’t
follow Josei, considering that taking the inexperienced Daniel into
the fight would be a madness close to the ultimate folly. Without a
battle-harness he would more than likely fall off and then where
would he be? Dead.

She made a
mental note to ask Thalia to give him some instruction regarding
fighting alindback.

The two of them
waited (Daniel with bated breath), straining to hear what was
happening.

Then they heard
a short cheer from out in the darkness and the yowling changed to
frightened screeching (much like his sister back home when she was
annoyed about something) which dissipated as the heartbeats sped
by.

“Have they run
them off?” he asked Vya.

“Ceja, they
killed six and the rest ran away.”

“How many were
there? It sounded like hundreds!”

“About the
usual,” she replied, “Duntanvad.”

Daniel was none
the wiser for her answer, not knowing how to count in the language
of the Lind but he did gather that there were many of them but that
they were safe now.

“We go back,”
she informed him. “This is good. The Vadryz will go with us to our
dom and there we pick up Thalia and your belongings. Josei says
then we go to the dom of the Ryzck.”

“Was anyone
hurt?” he asked.

“No. Surprised
the gtran they did. They were much better at running away than
fighting.”

She walked back
to the fight-site, her breathing was a little heavier than usual
but not in any real distress. Daniel’s estimation of the Lind went
up another notch.

No wonder the
Regiments never want to fight them. The old soldiers’ tales are
true, the Vada must be the most marvellous fighters if their
stamina is anything to go by and they are bloody good with their
swords too.

“Are you sure
that there are none of them left Vya?” he whispered in her ear,
leaning dangerously over to do so. “I wouldn’t like one to pop out
of nowhere. They sounded horribly bloodthirsty.”

“Awesome and
fearful beasts indeed,” she agreed, not bothering to lower her
voice, placidly walking back through the trees. “The wral are
bigger, yes indeed, but slower, easier to fight.”

“These gtran?”
prompted Daniel.