Blackdog (58 page)

“I thought feather-cloaks were one of the magics lost in the devils’ wars,” Varro said cautiously. “Hey, Gaguush, look at this—you won't see anything like this again.”

“I hope not.”

Moth grinned. “Lost, ya. So are bone-horses. Look, Mikki won't be able to carry him, come dawn. Take Styrma.”

And the horse fell apart, blew into dust. She caught the skull one-handed as it fell, the only thing left of the beast, and offered it to Varro.

He took it cringingly, as if he expected it to be slick with rotten meat, which it was plainly not, old and clean and dry. Turned it wondering in his hands. “Boss—”

“I know, I saw. Another Northron wonder. And what price for all this sudden help?”

“We're on the same road,” said the wizard—call her that, it was easier on the nerves. “For now. That's all.”

“Right. And I want Holla-Sayan and Pakdhala back whole and sound and sane at the end of it. You going to give me that?”

Moth met her eyes then, unexpectedly sombre and…and honest, Gaguush thought, as she had not been yet. “No. Varro told you what I am. Believe him. My name was Ulfhild of Ravensfell once, Ulfhild the King's Sword of Ulvsness, and my name was Vartu. I'm here for Tamghiz Ghatai. You know that name. Tamghat. And you pick up what you can behind me, Mistress Gaguush. Your Holla-Sayan—I'll save them both if I can. But I promise nothing.”

Gaguush nodded grimly, watched with arms folded as Moth flung the feather-cloak around her shoulders and was—in a breath—gone, a grey blur of bird, owl, falcon, impossible to say, lost in the night.

The devil hadn't meant Pakdhala, when she said “save them both.”

“Now I've seen everything,” said Immerose.

“Not by half, I suspect.” Gaguush turned on Mikki. “So, you riding, or flying, or turning into a smoke and blowing up on the wind?”

“Ride for now,” Mikki said. “Though I imagine the camel won't be happy about it.”

“They don't like demons?” she said, testing.

“Don't like men of my weight, I imagine.”

But the pack-camel they gave him grumbled and groaned no more than usual, and he had a light touch with the beast, even if he was, he claimed, no rider. He wasn't any great weight compared to the bales they usually carried.

Great Gods help the governor's guard and the so-called militia if they barred the gang's way out of town.

Mooshka's daughter Jerusha came chasing them before they got out the gate.

“Mistress Gaguush, wait.”

“No.”

“My father says Holla-Sayan is the Blackdog.”

“So?”

“So little Pakdhala is the goddess of Lissavakail?”

“I don't know what in the cold hells Pakdhala may be. I don't much care. She's my…my girl, Holla's daughter, and some Nabbani
slaver
for all I know's brought murder to my gang and drugged her or something, Bikkim says, and carried her off.”

“You'll be killed, all of you. You can't take on Tamghat with a few spears and a bit of bad language.”

“You saying I should just forget it? Ride away to Marakand and leave ‘Dhala to whatever that pervert Lake-Lord intends? The damned devil didn't even dare tell me that.”

“I'm saying don't be stupid, Mistress. You won't get her back chasing after her as though some raider's taken her for ransom. If you must go—”

Gaguush snorted.

“Then do as I tell you. There's a place—once you get where the hills are rising into the mountain feet, about a day's travel, there's a place you'll see, a grove of walnuts to the east and a stand of bamboo to the west. Just past that, you turn east. It looks impassable, but it's not. Steep going, though. Up the shoulder of the mountain, then down suddenly into a ravine. Follow the water upstream and don't fall in and drown yourselves. Past a waterfall, then ford the stream, up under the shadow of the cliffs. Someone should have met you by then.”

“What sort of someone? Someone who'll already have shot us with some of those good iron arrowheads I've been bringing you from At-Landi?”

“Possibly,” Jerusha admitted, with one of her rare smiles. “Say I've sent you to see Auntie Orillias.”

“Thank you.”

Jerusha shrugged. “You're going to get us all killed if you don't use sense.”

“Come with us.”

“I would, but…you're not the only ones making hard decisions right now, you know? All our gods go with you. I'll open the gates. Do us all a favour and don't ride through town, eh?”

So they were out into the forbidden night of Serakallash, and Jerusha was right, nothing to be gained by running into the Tamghati loyalists of the watch and coming to grief in the streets before they'd even started. Lion shouldered his way to the fore and Gaguush swung his head for the alley leading down towards the bleaching skulls of the sept-chiefs and the ruin of Sera's spring.

As well the gang's hotheads, and she counted herself among them, had a reminder of how Tamghat dealt with his foes.

The wind howled around the corners, stinging with sand. Gaguush wrapped her scarf over her face. At least they could hope they'd have their backs to it.

N
ightmare, in which she struggled, mired in the seething bitumen pits of the Black Desert, trying to reach her own body. It walked away from her. Pakdhala surfaced into herself and discovered it still wasn't a dream, as it had not been the last time, and the time before that.

Bikkim was dead. She had seen him lying, his throat cut, as she walked, each step dragging what felt like a heavy chain, from her bed. She raged and cursed and screamed for her father, for the Blackdog, but that was only in her mind, and she battered herself senseless on glass walls without ever being able to reach him, to reach herself. When she was small there had been an old man in Marakand, a kinsman of the twins’, who lived with their family and sat propped in bed, watching the children. He couldn't speak. He moved his limbs like they were dead things dragged with some last, failing strength. He dribbled when they spooned food into his mouth. But his eyes were alive, and he watched, and wheezed at some funny story Immerose told. She had come to that, and death was not going to release her. Like the old man, a prisoner buried alive within—not a corpse. A puppet. Ivah clutched her close.

From Serakallash to Lissavakail was a two-day journey on horseback, a little longer on foot, but not much so, because of the narrow trails, the sharp rise and fall of them, which meant horses mostly walked. These galloped, blind in the dark, but even so they could not hope to outrun the Blackdog, no matter how often they switched horses, as they had twice already, Grasslander warriors camped and waiting, delicate, gazelle-legged desert-breds waiting saddled as though all had been prepared for days. The rolling pastures of Serakallash were left behind and they climbed the foothills, into the twisting mountain track, stone underfoot, stone all around, the scent of home.

The wind bit, carrying the scent of sand, the harsh dry air of the desert. A storm still rode in their wake. That wouldn't stop the Blackdog.

Dawn crept into a bruise-yellow sky and the leading riders turned, taking a track that ran up the side of a steep spur.

“Where are you going?” Ivah called hoarsely. She had been weeping, in the dark when she thought no one would notice. Pakdhala had seethed with hatred for her, for her daring to weep for Shaiveh left behind, when Bikkim was dead at the Grasslander's hand.

“Your lord father's orders, my lady,” their leader said from Ivah's side. “He said to meet him here.”

“Meet him?” Ivah asked. “He said nothing to me about—”

They called Ivah “my lady”…her father's orders…
No.
Pak-dhala convulsed, freeing herself from Ivah's grip. She went sliding like a trout, hit the ground among the hooves. A horse lifted and jumped her as she rolled. She might have been knocked out for a moment; the next she knew, there were booted feet all about her, people cursing and Ivah crying, “’Dhala, ‘Dhala, are you all right, are you hurt?” as if she cared.

Pakdhala got an arm under herself. It dragged like a stick from her shoulder, but she fumbled herself up on it, pulled until her knee came up and she rocked there, trying to get the other leg to answer.

And they would all stand around and watch her crawl slowly to freedom? Hah. Little fool. So she could move of her own will, after a fashion. She shouldn't be showing them that. She flopped on her face and strong arms gathered her up.

“No offence, my lady, but you don't weigh much more than she does and next time it might be you both landing under someone's hooves. I'll take her, by your leave.”

“Do,” Ivah snapped, as though she meant something else entirely.

This man handled Pakdhala as though she were glass, calling over a woman to feel her arms and legs, feel over her chest and back, to be sure she had taken nothing worse than bruises. She wished something was broken and that it would cost them a few heads, but felt no more battered than she did after coming off Sihdy a time or two when she was young, or when that spotted colt of her uncle's threw her.

Ivah was surreptitiously spitting on the end of her scarf, trying to wash her bloody face clean. Daylight showed her a mess, her nose swollen, her upper lip black with bruise. Hah.

But they rode up the path, walking now, knife-edge of the ridge, thin brown grass plastered flat by the following wind, and down to the floodplain of a shallow river, where loose stones clattered underfoot. Not another relay of horses waiting. A round felt tent, the Grasslander house, was erected on the river's edge, and out the low door—he strode towards them, smiling, arms wide.

“At last! Great Attalissa, my most gracious lady, we have you safe at last. Welcome, welcome home to your kingdom.” He even had the accent of the mountains now, or he put it on, mocking.

Hunger.
Such hunger. He was a fire, to consume all he drew into his embrace. She had not seen him at Lissavakail. He looked so…human. The way the caterpillar looks itself, till the wasp that has grown inside it drills a hole in its back and emerges.

“You've been badly used,” he added. “Your captors will suffer. Every blow repaid twelvefold.” Pakdhala tried to pull away from his reaching hand, could do no more than stiffen her joints. But the caress did not touch her, not quite. She still felt it, as if he left some poison in the very air.

“Father…” Ivah said.

Tamghat ignored her. “Quickly, Ketsim. Take the goddess to the centre of the circle—there. Lead your horse. Don't scuff the lines more than you can help.”

The tent was coming down, all the camp disappearing into bundles on packhorses.

The circle was a triple line poured of what looked like ash and sulphur and some red powder, a great sweeping enclosure drawn over the stones. Pakdhala tried to tip herself, to fall and erase some of the scrolling writing that ran around the circle. Any delay—the Blackdog was coming, she knew that as she knew the sun rose in the east. But the governor of Serakallash kept a tight hand on her arm as he guided the horse over the marks, and she stayed in the saddle.

“Father!” Ivah demanded, and Tamghat rounded on her.

“What have you done with Shaiveh?”

“She stayed to let me get the goddess away. As you'd have wanted.”

“You fled and left her to die, you mean. A loyal
noekar
deserves better from her lady. What were you whoring with on the desert road?”

“What? No one!”

“Don't lie to me! Was it that she-cat Kinsai? You took her into your bed and mind, didn't you? Nabbani trollop! I should have drowned you when you were born and found an honest woman of the Grass.”

“Father, I don't know what you mean.” Ivah slid from her horse and ran to him, stumbled to her knees. Did she fall, or did he really expect her to kneel grovelling at his feet? “Father, please, I don't understand you. What have I done wrong? I found the goddess and brought her to you. I did the spells as you told me. It all went as it should. We even outran the Blackdog.”

“And what did you bring with you? A spark of Kinsai's will, or something worse? Did
she
woo you to her side with some tale? Did you let her in, or were you just too weak? Did you surrender without even a fight that might have warned me?”

“I don't understand!” Ivah's voice rose shrill. Some remote part of Pakdhala even pitied her. “I brought the goddess—she is Attalissa, you said so yourself.”

“I came to you, daughter, to let you know how you were to elude the Blackdog. I came to your dreams, and I was attacked.”

“I didn't—”

“You! You couldn't if you wanted to. You couldn't muster the strength of mind to get my
attention.
Whatever you've let ride you, you won't be carrying it back to Lissavakail. I won't be ambushed in the midst of the most important working the world has ever seen. I won't have
her
using you against me.” He drew his sword.

Ivah screamed and ducked, hunkering down hands over her head, sobbing. The hurrying Tamghati folk paid her no heed, put great effort into not looking. Pakdhala, carried by the horse as Governor Ketsim turned it in the centre of the circle, had no choice.

Tamghat stared down at Ivah a long moment, mouth pulled into a sneer. Then he turned away. “Coward to the end,” he said. “Even your cursed mother died on her feet.”