Fallen (20 page)

“No!” she shouted, but he was raised above her now, entwining his fingers and bringing both hands up ready to crash them down into her face. “Ramus!”

The horses neighed and snorted, startled from their sleep.

The fire spat and threw sparks at the sky.

Nomi surged up and lashed out, feeling her fist drag across Ramus's teeth. He shouted and fell sideways away from the fire, and Nomi kicked his legs away and reached for a burning stick.

Anger and shame, fury and sadness, her tears bled all of them across her skin.

“You killed me!” Ramus shouted, spitting blood.

Nomi turned and knelt in one motion, bringing the burning stick around with her.

“You think I'm afraid of fire, Nomi?” he cried, slapping the dressed burn on his arm. “My brain's dying, and you think you can scare me with that?”

The Serians were around them then, Beko standing before Ramus with his arms outstretched, Noon behind him, and Lulah kicked the stick from Nomi's hand as Ramin pressed down on her shoulders.

“Both of you calm down and keep quiet,” Beko said. He spoke softly but his words carried a great weight. “I won't watch you fight, and if either of you try, you'll get hurt.”

“I pay you to protect us, Beko!” Nomi said.

“And I'm doing just that.”

Nomi shrugged Ramin's hands from her shoulders. His face appeared beside hers. “Very well,” he said, “but don't move.”

“Ramus?” Beko said. “Are you calm?”

Ramus seemed unable to answer. He stared at Nomi with hatred. Shame as well? She wasn't sure. She hoped so but . . . they should both be ashamed.

“Ramus,” she said, “we need to end this.”

“End?” he said, incredulous. “It's ended already! I'll be dead soon, and that's the only end you wanted, isn't it?”

“I
never
wanted that!”

“You gave me your disease!” he roared, and Noon grabbed his arms when he tried to stand. “How could you? You fucking sheebok bitch, how could you?”

Nomi started crying, but the tears only seemed to spur Ramus on even more. He shouted and raged, and Noon and Beko guided him away to the other side of the camp.

“I didn't mean it,” Nomi said, fighting back the tears. She thought of Timal and what could have been, and the voyage she had ruined for Ramus, and she had never been so confused. Her own intentions seemed to have altered with time, and as she considered them, they changed some more.

“Tell that to your dying friend,” Lulah said.

Nomi looked at Beko where he stood talking to Ramus in calm, even tones. Beneath his shirt the Serian bore scratches on his back from her nails, but that seemed like a dream now, something seen away by the changes and violence of the last few moments.

And what's going to happen now?
she thought. The voyage was over. But it could never be over, not this journey, because it was still the voyage of a lifetime.

“We can make up,” she whispered.

“Can you cure him?” Lulah asked. Nomi had not meant for anyone to hear, but she looked up at the Serian and shook her head.

“No. But I can be sorry.”

“Only now?”

“I was sorry when it happened.”

Lulah laughed and shook her head. “The madman's right. You
are
a sheebok bitch. By every god that cares, I hope I never have a friend like you.”

You can't talk to me like that,
Nomi thought, but she knew that Lulah could. Back in Long Marrakash, perhaps, there was a pretense at respect, but out here, on the borders of the wilds, they lived by baser rules.

Lulah walked across to calm the horses, with Noon and Rhiana, and Ramin knelt down beside Nomi.

“Don't worry about her,” he said. “She's always angry.”

“Don't give me sympathy,” Nomi said.

The big Serian held up his hands. “None from here.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. Her head ached, two of her knuckles were split from where she had punched Ramus in the mouth, and she thought back to that illness that should have killed her. She'd had nightmares she could not explain, and the shaman had told her they were the unknowable dreams of the thing that had passed the illness to her.
And now Ramus is living
my
nightmares,
she thought.
He's under my skin, in my head. And what nightmares will this night bring?

When she opened her eyes, Ramus had already started taking down his tent.

“WHO WILL COME
with me?” Ramus said. “I can't pay as well as Nomi Hyden, but I'll promise rewards at the end, when we're back in Long Marrakash.”

He had rolled his tent and folded the poles, and Noon agreed to bring him his horse. He was leaving. There was no way he could stay, and much as he thought of this voyage as his, he knew that Nomi had paid for everything.

And he would make her pay for more.

“I'll go,” Lulah said.

“Lulah—” Beko began.

“Captain, I terminate my employ here and now. My apologies, and I hope we can serve together again. But it's the start of a voyage, not the end. I don't feel that my absence will trouble you in any way.”

“I do,” Beko said.

Lulah did not reply. She had not even glanced at Ramus yet, but she stared at her captain until he sighed and relented.

Beko stepped forward and clasped Lulah's hands. “Good journeys, Lulah.”

“And to you, Beko.”

She walked to Ramus then, her one eye giving nothing away.

“Thank you,” Ramus said. “We can discuss—”

“Plenty of time for that,” Lulah said. Noon arrived with Ramus's horse then, smiling sadly at Lulah. “Pack your horse,” Lulah said. “I need to gather my things and say my good-byes, and then we'll be on the trail.”

“It's still dark,” Ramin said.

“There's no danger here.” Lulah went back to her tent and started packing. Ramin, Rhiana and Konrad went to her while Noon went for her horse. They helped her pack and saddle her mount, and all the time they whispered things Ramus could not hear.

“Ramus . . .” Nomi began, her voice small and lost.

Ramus shook his head and turned away.

“The pages,” she said. Her voice was still weak, but she was not about to ask for mercy. Not now. Things were said and decisions made.

“The parchment pages?” Ramus said. He touched the backpack already slung over his shoulder. “In here. Come and take them.”

“They're mine. I paid Ten for them.”

“You don't have the first idea what they say. You can't even read!”

“They belong to me, and I want them back.”

Ramus posed mock-thoughtful for a while, tapping his foot and looking up at the death moon. “Well, perhaps we can perform an exchange,” he said. “My life for the parchment pages.”

Nomi shook her head sadly and turned away.

Ramus saw her talking to Beko, both of them looking past the horses into the darkness that still surrounded them.

“I'll fight whoever comes for them!” Ramus said. He drew his knife and shifted it slightly so that it reflected firelight.

Beko turned and watched Ramus, completely unconcerned.
If he wants the pages, he'll take them,
Ramus thought.
I'm being a fool.

“You'll have to kill me,” he said. “I'm dying already. If Hyden tells you to take the pages by force, you'll have my blood on your sword before they're in her hands. You want that?”

Beko moved away from Nomi, shaking his head at her insistence. He stood six paces from Ramus, looking at the backpack.

“Nomi says they're hers,” he said. “I don't know what's on the pages, nor do I care right now. But she'd like them back.”

Ramus's lip bled from where Nomi had punched him. He sucked in a dribble of blood and spat it out. “You heard me,” he said, turning the knife to throw a reflection at Beko's face.

The Serian could probably kill him in the space of five heartbeats.

Beko sighed and turned away. “I'll not fight him,” he said. “And I'll not risk him fighting me, because then he'll be dead.”

“Beko, please, those pages are—”

“This is your fight, Nomi. If you must, try and take them from him yourself.”

For a moment Ramus was sure she would do just that. She was younger than him, fitter, faster. But she was even less of a fighter than he.

“Please, Ramus,” she said.

“Piss on you, Nomi.” He turned his back on the camp, grabbed his horse's reins and set off. Ramus would have been happy knowing he would never see Nomi again. But that was not likely.

This voyage of a lifetime had become a race.

Chapter 8

IT TOOK A
while for Lulah to catch up. Ramus even began to fear that the other Serians had persuaded her to stay behind, and he went slowly, trying not to consider the prospect of traveling on his own for so long.

When he heard her coming, he breathed a long sigh of relief.

“We'll ride until dawn,” she said, “and then we need to pause and take stock. Noon gave me a parcel of food and a skin of water, but we have little else.”

“We have to gain a lead on the others,” Ramus said. “We won't be stopping.”

Lulah fell in alongside him, their horses moving slowly across the darkened landscape. Ramus knew how dangerous it was to travel by night. They were not only risking their horses' stepping into a hole or tripping on a loose stone, but there could be different perils, easily avoidable by day.

“I'm with you for my own reasons,” Lulah said. “Maybe you'll hear them, maybe not. That's my choice. But I'm here as an equal, and I'll not take orders from you.”

Ramus actually laughed. “Lulah, I never for a moment thought you would.”

He wondered if she smiled, but it was too dark to tell.

DAWN CAME AND
burned the sky. They stopped, took a drink, ate some dried biscuits from the parcel Noon had given Lulah, and Ramus took out his map.

“I drew this from everything I have at home,” he said. “It's well mapped where we are now, but even so there are differences. We're closing on the border. We need to take care.”

“Last night you were all for riding on regardless,” Lulah said.

Ramus nodded, looking up at dawn's spectacular blaze on the eastern horizon. “I'm more tired now. More angry.”

“You and she were good friends?”

He shook his head. “Not really. More like lovers who never loved.”

“A simpler life is better,” Lulah said.

Ramus glanced up, but it seemed that she had already said enough. He did not want to push her. They had a long way to go, and plenty of time for talk.

“You're sure about this?” Ramus asked.

“About a simple life?” Her eye glittered with defiance, as though he had issued a challenge.

“No, no. About this. Coming with me instead of staying with your friends.”

Lulah shook her head. “I don't have friends. I like my own company. Voyaging with you may be the next best thing.”

“I
will
pay you,” Ramus said, the lie burning still.

“I believe you.”

“After what you heard back there? I'm surprised you can trust Nomi
or
me.”

“I said I believe you. I don't trust anyone.” Lulah knelt beside Ramus and started looking at the map. She pointed to a spot southeast of Long Marrakash, where two valleys met and the hills faded away toward the Pavissia Steppes. “So we're here?”

“Near enough,” Ramus said. He picked up a small twig and leaned over the map. “We've just come down this valley. Maybe five miles to go until we reach the beginning of the plains, and then thirty more until the border.”

“It's guarded,” Lulah said. “We'll get news from the guards about any recent marauder activity, and that should help us plan a route.”

Ramus nodded, his eyes drawn back the way they had just traveled, to the approximate location of last night's camp. He wondered whether the others were still there, eating breakfast or perhaps packing and preparing to set out. He thought not. Nomi was no fool, and she'd appreciate that the race was on.

He had already decided what to do. “We need to hang back.”

“What? Make your mind up.”

“We need an advantage. And I can't just have her think she drove me away.”

“Surely we're past all that?” Lulah asked.

“I need her to know I'm not beaten.”

Lulah shook her head and sighed.

“And it's not just about Nomi and me, I promise you,” Ramus said. “You don't know what we're going to find when we get to the Great Divide.”

“And you do?”

“I have a suspicion.”

“So why is it more important for us to get there before the others?
Is
it simply competition and revenge?”