Bazil Broketail (37 page)

But they were all she had at her disposal, and so they would have to be convinced that they must make a great effort. And she resolved that she would have to lay her ambushes more carefully in future.

Ossur Galan had seemed the correct choice. Matugolin was so confident of it that she’d allowed herself to be swept up by his enthusiasm. Alas, the good king was dead, a victim of his own mistake. It was such an obvious place, where the trail could be blocked so easily. The enemy had scouted it and seen them and turned the tables on her. She sighed. It was hard, but she could not allow herself to wallow in guilt—what was done was done. They had to go on.

She returned to composing her address to the men in the morning. It was almost completely worked out in her head when a light touch on the ground beside her woke her out of reverie. Her hand flashed instinctively to her dagger’s hilt, but then she saw that it was just an elf.

The elf greeted her with a little bow. It was young, but already accomplished enough to wear a necklace of weasel skulls. Clearly it was an exceptional tracker.

The elf spoke quickly in the Tunina tongue, which Lessis understood, though not as readily as the elf tongues of the coastal forests.

When he had finished she rose and dismissed the elf with thanks and sent him to the fire where the other elf trackers were asleep. Then she went to Kesepton’s tent and woke the captain.

Five hours of uninterrupted sleep left Kesepton befuddled at first, but under Lessis’s gaze he struggled to clear his mind.

“Our foe has emerged from the forest just to the north of Mt. Tamarack.”

“Tamarack?” he muttered. “That’s about a dozen miles from here.”

“He has been met by a tribe of Baguti, the Redbelts.”

“A tribe?” Kesepton was aghast. “I don’t think we have enough men to fight a tribe.”

Lessis was undeterred. “Baguti are superstitious people, they can be panicked sometimes. Perhaps we will be able to surprise them.”

“The men may mutiny. The idea of attacking an entire tribe, it’s just, uh, excessive perhaps.”

“The men will not mutiny.” She said it with extraordinary certainty. “But we will have to get across the Oon before our enemy. Then we can set an ambush in one of the canyons on the far side. I know where he will cross— the Baguti always go to the ford at Black Rock.”

“How many Baguti are there?”

“Many, perhaps three hundred men and five hundred women and children. They have their flocks and herds with them, to feed on the fresh grass here south to the Oon.”

“Three hundred! We’ll be massacred. The Baguti do horrible things to prisoners, didn’t you know that?”

“Of course. But we will pick our spot very carefully this time.”

Kesepton didn’t care to argue. It looked as if Duxe was right—the witch intended to kill all of them in this futile pursuit of the magician Thrembode.

“So we must make good time tomorrow, an early start.”

“The men will mutiny.”

“No, I will speak to them in the early morning. They will go on, you will see.”

He didn’t see, but he didn’t argue either—he knew it would be pointless.

The Princess Besita who had once dwelt in Marneri would scarcely recognize herself, but this lean young woman with hardened features and blank eyes was the same princess who had been abducted on that cold night, so many months before.

The changes were many. Instead of her regal ermines and silk she wore just the simple shift of a nomad woman and carried three big waterskins over her shoulder as she strode down to the stream nearby.

The heaviness in her body, which she had fretted about in Marneri, was gone. Along with any chance to overindulge in fattening foods.

They had arrived the night before, finally emerging from the dark depths of the forest onto this open plain. It was a vast place, a flat immensity, broken here and there by low hills that stretched away to the west.

The Gan, the men had called it. Especially Gasper, rider Rakantz of Captain Ushmir’s detachment. He had been telling her about the Gan for days, ever since they’d entered the forest in fact.

According to Gasper Rakantz, the Gan was a cruel wild place, where men like Gasper killed their prey without hindrance and had their way with any women they met. The Gan was a desert of grass ruled by nomads, and the nomads were ruled by men like Gasper.

On the Gan, came the hint from Gasper Rakantz, anything might happen. Even the sudden murder of a bad-tempered magician with more arrogance than was warranted in any man.

On the Gan she might be free of Thrembode…

For some reason this idea did not excite her as it once might have.

The stream ran almost straight down a gulley lined with white rocks. The water was high, and she did not have to do more than hold the waterskins down under the surface to fill them.

The water was cold, too, a chill that mimicked the deep freeze that had settled on her heart. She no longer understood herself. And that was not entirely the fault of Thrembode the magician.

At first her abduction had been a thing of wretched confinements, bound and gagged, smuggled in a carpet aboard a merchant ship, hidden in a coffin one night in a mortuary in Ryotwa.

Then in Kadein things had improved. There’d been a luxury suite of rooms in a grand hotel plus Thrembode’s impassioned lovemaking and their mutual pursuit of the muse of art and music in the great city.

Something had changed in her heart. It was so romantic, living an underground life of luxury. Thrembode had friends everywhere, or servants, it mattered little. Agents of the witches sought him out, but he evaded them with ease and they never penetrated the secret of the hidden suite of rooms in the Hotel Tablor.

She’d stopped thinking about escape. She’d stopped resisting his advances, had in fact grown to relish them again.

Was it love that she felt? Could she actually love this man of cruelty and harshness, who was also capable of such sweetness that she willingly surrendered to him?

But, she asked herself, how could she resist him? The knowledge of his power, coupled with his wit and intelligence, overawed her. He was so far beyond all the men she’d known it was almost as if he were another kind of creature altogether. In fact she was his slave. And she seemed happy to be so. It was just hard sometimes to understand why.

Not that he beat her, often, at least not since the time at the pink villa outside Kadein. That time she’d fought back and he’d gone wild. Gone a little too far, leaving her crumpled on the floor.

He’d checked himself then, livid with fury but aware of the value of his prisoner. His life lay in the balance and he needed her. His Masters would not accept failure, and her death would be a most grievous failure.

She had realized her hold over him. He could not harm her too seriously, no matter what she did. And yet she did not push him too far; she was content to serve.

Perhaps, she’d thought, she was making amends for the shallow, comfortable life she’d lived. Now she was tasting the hard side of life. Oddly she felt more alive than she had ever felt before.

Staggering under the three full waterskins, she made her way back up the slope to the camp. It never ceased to amaze her—here was a princess of royal blood, carrying water for her master like any common serving wench, but she felt no real sense of outrage. She had no wish to complain.

They’d pitched the tents in a grove of foragebush on top of a slight rise. The Gan lay flat and open on all sides, except to the east where the trees thickened quickly into the forest that cloaked the higher ground of Mt. Tamarack.

Further south, dominating the scene, was the massive dome of Mt. Ulmo. She stared at the mountain and its white snow cap. Somewhere far beyond that mountain, beyond other mountains, lay her home.

Home—there should have been more feeling behind that thought but there wasn’t. Home did not seem to mean what it had once. She was puzzled by this lack. She loved Marneri, where else could she want to be?

Then she thought of Thrembode lying stretched out on a bed in Kadein with the winter light on his tawny skin. He was her home, he was her god. She felt the heat begin again in her loins. She needed him, desperately, nothing else mattered anymore but this violent need she had for his body.

The water was heavy, but she bore it up the slope and into the camp. She was getting better at this. In the early days she’d been appallingly weak and helpless.

Even as she set the water down, her master’s voice came from his tent.

“Here—wash me, woman.”

She poured water into a small basin and took up a clean pair of rags and went in. Thrembode sat on a small camp stool, wearing his boots and little else.

She trembled. He was ready to take her once again.

It was this that she lived for. She got down on her knees and removed the boots. Then she began to wash his legs and feet. His hands tousled her hair; she moved closer. And stopped.

There was someone outside the tent, coughing loudly.

“Uhh, Master Thrembode.”

Thrembode’s eyes bulged. If this was more impertinence from Gasper Rakantz he’d make the fellow regret it. He’d had enough of these riders. They were nothing more than an elite group of arrogant nincompoops, as far as he could see.

“What is it? I don’t want to be disturbed.”

He needed the woman’s attentions just then; she was the only pleasant thing left in his life. This endless riding in forest and steppe was not Thrembode’s idea of a good time. Thrembode was made for more sophisticated worlds, great cities, high societies.

“The Baguti are here. The chieftains want to see you.”

Thrembode’s eyes opened dangerously for a moment. Then with an oath he pushed the woman’s mouth away. God she was becoming quite beautiful, now that she’d lost the soft flesh of civilization. He had trained her well.

It would be a pity to lose her, but in Tummuz Orgmeen she would be required by a higher power.

And all that training would go to waste, for the Doom was merely a spherical stone, a black monster buried in the city of the steppes. It had no fleshly desires except an urge for revenge on all living things.

Such a waste. “Alright, I’ll be with them in a moment.”

He turned to Besita. “My apologies, princess. While I am engaged with these men, why don’t you see what sort of food Captain Ushmir and his men are preparing and bring me some.”

It was the gentle Thrembode, he was being kind to her. She loved him for it.

“Yes, Master,” she said, and pressed her face to his boot.

Thrembode pulled on his breeches and jacket and went out to greet the Baguti chieftains. The woman ducked out ahead of him and headed for the tents of the riders. The Baguti eyed her and then one of them whistled. She did not look back.

Thrembode’s eyes narrowed momentarily, then returned to the Baguti. They were short men, with the classic bowlegs of the steppe, nomad peoples. It was said they were born in the saddle, and it was certainly true that many of them learned to ride before they learned to walk.

Clad in dust-colored shirts and leather trousers, with metal pot helmets atop their heads, they stood there with eerie false smiles on their round weatherbeaten faces, while their eyes flicked about nervously examining the scene, and most of all examining him, whom they had come to meet.

They could sense the power emanating from him. He was indeed a servant of the great ones. They could tell. They would have to go carefully here. He must be delivered safely, along with the luscious wench he had brought with him. Which was rather a pity.

Women like that were a great rarity on the steppes. Baguti women were short, bowlegged and ill-tempered, much like their men, whom they resembled in other ways as well, including a predilection for knives and for drinking the black drink.

“Welcome to the Gan,” said Pashtook, chieftain of chieftains of the Redbelt Baguti. Pashtook had the look of a wily horse thief, which in fact was pretty much what he was.

Thrembode nodded to the Redbelt chief.

“Greetings,” murmured Dodbol, spear chieftain of the Redbelt. Dodbol had the warrior’s contempt for other men. He wore brass knuckles and carried a heavy quirt that he slapped idly against his legs.

Thrembode felt the challenge in the man, but he restrained himself from launching a spell and instead settled for a cold stare without any nod of recognition for the warrior chief. If there was to be trouble it would most likely come from this one, who was young, heavily muscled and filled with too much pride.

The third chieftain was Chok, horse chief of the Red-belts. He was older than the others, with wiser eyes. He said nothing at first but nodded in turn to Thrembode, who nodded very slightly back.

“Sit,” said Thrembode, indicating the rugs laid out before his tent.

The chieftains crouched, they never sat except on horseback. Thrembode set up his stool once more. He pulled a flask from within his jacket, opened it and toasted the Baguti.

“To the brave and the free—long may you roam the steppes and call them your own.”

The Baguti struggled with some of this, since their knowledge of tongues beyond their own was limited, but they eyed the flask eagerly enough.

“Good black drink, you bring?” said Dodbol, the warrior reserve broken all at once.

“The best, I make it myself. Very strong. So be moderate.”

“I like that, sound good.”

Dodbol took a heavy swig.

Fools, simple nomadic fools
, thought Thrembode.

The flask moved among them.

“And now, tell me, what conditions lie ahead?” he said in his most diplomatic voice.

Chok handed back the flask.

“Fresh grass all the way to the river. On the other side new grass, too. We can make good progress.”

Thrembode had a sudden premonition. “How many are there in your party?”

“Whole tribe. We graze horses here and collect slaves for the market.”

Thrembode felt his temper twitching again. Why couldn’t anyone get anything right?

“I am supposed to meet with a small party, for a very quick transit to the city.”