Irsud (26 page)

Sipping cups of the brown-amber fluid, sparring delicately like the masters they were, they wound their slow way through the complex transactions until the transferral of goods left on the black trade cloth only those things neither wanted.

Aleytys stretched surreptitiously and glanced up at the sky. The yellow sun was just past zenith and her stomach was clamoring for her noon meal. She could feel the enjoyment of his power fermenting slowly through Nakivas, could feel the puzzlement in the smugglers, their interest in her. She glanced at the ship, puzzled in her turn by its peculiar lack of definite outline. Even in the full light of the noon sun the edges were fuzzy and indistinct, the oddly blotched paint blending so effectively with the cliff face in the background that the ship seemed part of the rock. Close as she was, it was still very hard to decide which was ship and which was rock. She closed her eyes. “Shadith.”

“Leyta?”

“Is it just the paint that makes the ship so.…” She hunted for the right words then gave it up. “You know.…”

Eyes blinking Shadith considered the ship. “Probably not. I can't say, not without looking closer or asking him some questions. Why?”

“Just curious. And bored. I'm damn tired of sitting.” She shifted slightly and wrinkled her nose at Nakivas and the smuggler captain as they went through the ritual closing to the bargaining.

Nakivas stood. Aleytys got thankfully to her feet and stood behind him, her head a double handspan higher than his. The hiiri spread his hands then pointed to the ship.

The smuggler stood also, his two men rising with him. Moving lithely, he bent to touch the ground. Then he stood, pointed to the sun, ran a hand in large circles then counted off six fingers on his five-fingered hand, touching the forefinger twice. “Kateleusomai en mesis hexis.”

Aleytys leaned toward Nakivas. “He says he'll be back in six months.”

Nakivas made a small warning gesture. “I know already, Kunniakas. In six months.” He smiled quietly at the smuggler, pointed at the sun, then folded back his thumbs, extended his two three-fingered hands.

The smuggler nodded. Behind him the other two put the remaining goods in containers and folded up the trade cloth. He held out his hands palm up. Formally, quickly, Nakivas laid his own smaller hands on them then bowed slightly. Hands at his side again, he called over his shoulder, “Pack it on. Kunniakas.”

“Yes?”

“On your horse, woman. We're leaving.” Snapping his fingers he marched to his own horse and swung into the saddle. Facing the smuggler for the last time, he saluted and said, “In six months. We'll be here.”

Aleytys laughed and mounted. With Nakivas bringing up the rear, the pack train crossed the stream and wound into the jumble of boulders.

On the way up the cliff Aleytys looked out across the valley. The long-haired one, now tiny as a mannequin, was watching them, hands on hips, body a living question mark. The other two were marching to the ship carrying the packing boxes.

The cold chill passed over her body again. She shivered and felt vaguely depressed, increasingly disturbed, as they moved into the shadow under the trees and began the round about trip back to the settlement. She should have felt relief … why don't I, she thought … why … instead she endured an uncentered free-floating anxiety that would have suited a raving paranoiac.

That too passed and she settled down in the saddle, steeling herself for the long ride home.

CHAPTER XXV

The pack train was slow. Far slower in the return than the coming, because the loads were heavier. Aleytys tilted her head back and stared up at the heavy barrier of leaves that blocked put the sky. She shivered again. The anxiety was back stronger than before. Something out of the sky … it was coming … something bad.

As her nervousness increased it infected her mount, making the gelding difficult to manage as he transmuted his uneasiness into head jerkings, skittish sidelong leaps, abortive attempts to bolt which she quickly curbed. The pack animals nearest her picked up the taint and shied at moving shadows until the drovers cursed them tensely, sending wary glances around for the source of the nervousness.

Aleytys kicked her mount into a faster gait and rode to the front of the train to catch up with Nakivas. Riding beside him, she glanced nervously around. “I'm skittish as a month-old foal, Nakivas. It's messing up the train, compromising your security.”

“What's wrong?” He looked alertly around at trees and the scattered fragments of sky visible through the heavy thatching of leaves. “Something threatening us?”

“No.…” She let the word trail off. “Not here. Not now. Something about Burash. I'm terrified, Nakivas. And the settlement. I don't know. Since I'm creating such a problem here.” She waved her hand at the pack horses behind them. “Give me a guide and let me go ahead to the settlement.” Her mount jumped suddenly as a leaf rustled near his ear. She pulled him in and waited for Nakivas to answer.

“No one will touch him.” Nakivas frowned, more than a little angry to find his word doubted. “We're not honorless wood rats.”

“I know that.” She pressed her lips together unhappily as she ran her eyes over the heavy canopy of branch and leaf. “From the sky, danger from the sky. Please?”

“Pastaa! Come here.”

Around the curve of the trail Aleytys heard the soft thuds of hooves hastening toward them, a quick thudding sharp against the scuff-scuff of the slow sedate packers. By the time the hiiri reached them Nakivas's mount had caught the jitters and was shying constantly, tossing his head, pulling against the bit.

Nakivas nodded briskly toward Aleytys. “Kunniakas here has a bad feeling about the settlement.”

“Well?” Bright brown eyes glanced curiously toward her.

“Take her there. Fast.”

“The ridges?”

“Carefully.” Nakivas glanced back along the pack train. “Have shelter handy all times. You know.”

“Right?”

Aleytys broke in. “When we get close, I'll go in alone. If there is trouble, Pastaa can bring back word to you.”

“Right.” He flicked a hand along the trail. “Go.”

The ridge trail was high and hot but Aleytys barely noticed. She was shivering constantly, driven by an anxiety that shrouded her sun with black. On the winding precarious trail leading down into the steep-walled-canyon that hid the settlement, her horse twice shied dangerously near the edge, stumbling in his growing fear until only her hands held him on his feet. Her anxiety retreated slightly under the need to concentrate on the immediate danger, but returned full force when they reached the floor of the canyon.

The ground under the trees was soft and wet, muffling the sound of the horses' hooves until only the faint squeak of the leather and the occasional jingle of bridle rings as the horses shook their heads broke the heavy silence. The hiiri held out his hand.

“What is it?” Aleytys felt a tightness in her chest that squeezed her heart into a painful cramp.

“The settlement's around that.” He fanned a hand at the curving wall in a short economical gesture. “You go first. I follow.”

Aleytys' hands tightened around the leather reins until they ached. She closed her eyes. “Yes. All right.”

Still feeling a black depression, she nudged the horse into a slow walk and edged around the curve. Nothing in the placid scene gave any reason for the feeling. The wood and leather huts were still. Too still? She kicked the horse into a trot and rode into the center of the hidden settlement.

A hiiri female, one she didn't recognize, looked out at her.

“Where is everyone?” Aleytys called impatiently.

The hiiri looked back over her shoulder then she shrugged. “We prepare,” she said sullenly.

Aleytys stared around. The feeling of danger was oppressive as the sultry air before a too-long delayed storm. The hiiri radiated fear and anger in a confusing mixture. “Why are you angry with me?”

The hiiri shook her head, eyes fixed on her toes.

Aleytys lifted the reins, turning to look ahead deeper in the village, looking for a more responsive individual.

Behind her she heard a sudden thudding scrabbling sound. She swung her mount around.

Burash darted around the corner of one of the huts. “Run,” he shrieked. “Get.…”

A wide cone of brilliant red-orange light flared out. For a timeless fragment of a second, Burash's body, twisted with pain, arms flung out, shaping a silent scream.… for a second he was a black silhouette against the brilliant red halo from the energy gun. Then there was a stench of hot meat in her nostrils then the frozen moment evanesced, the black silhouette disintegrated into a handful of gently floating ash that fell slowly, slowly, agonizingly to the ground, the stench gone the air clean green cool.

Aleytys slid off the horse. Slid off the horse and stumbled half a dozen steps. Stumbled a few steps, knees threatening to give way, whimpering, unaware of the sound coming out of her. Stumbling in a morass of pain and disbelief, she reached the charred earth and knelt. Knelt beside the scorched earth and touched its veiling of fine gray ash, dreadfully horribly tiny remnant of a whole person. She stretched out a shaking hand, pulled it back, stretched it out again. Touched the ash, sobs shaking her. Touched the ash, loss and anger roaring through her. Why, why, why, you, you damn rider why didn't you do something something something. Sitting in my head, nothing, oh god, nothing, nothing, nothing, noth.…

She fell face down in the dust plunging into a blackness that surrounded her, protected her, cut off the pain, pain, pain.…

A rough hand caught hold of her hair and jerked her head up. Grinning, Sukall slapped her out of the blackness forcing her back to the light, the light, the terrible light. Radiating a sick enormous pleasure in the pummeling.

Dazed, Aleytys stared at Sukall, the realization creeping through her pain that the heavy metal weapon swinging from the nayid's belt was responsible for the ash that covered her body, her aching face. She stared at Sukall then past her into the calm cold face of the kipu.

“Sukall,” the kipu said softly, “enough. Remember what she carries.”

Sukall's fingers tightened around Aleytys' neck, then her grip relaxed. “What do I do with it?”

“Stun.” The kipu came closer, looming like an evil ominous cloud over Aleytys. “Quickly, I think, sabut.”

A black rage built and built inside Aleytys, a vein throbbing painfully at her temples. She looked first at Sukall, then at the kipu, at Sukall, at the kipu, the rage built, built, built, she was consumed by rage, she opened her mouth, a scream tore out of her, she.…

A cold metal circle touched her neck. As the rage in her formed into a blast that burst toward Sukall tearing, destroying, carrying with it the hate, the rage that seemed all that she had left in her … a cold circle touched her neck and her body went loose, cold, and she slid from under the blast she aimed at Sukall and she washed into a blackness that wiped away all grief, all anger, all horror, all.…

CHAPTER XXVI

Faintly, distantly, hazily a slow awareness of being firmed from the gray-black haze. A tugging … it disturbed the being, an irregularity stirring up unsteady waves of feeling. Aleytys sought to pull away from the growing urgency of the interruption of her quiet, her peace, her rest, but the very battle to remain quiet, unthinking and unknowing, solidified her sense of herself, woke her irrevocably into the hardness of the physical world, into the cold dark night. Aamunkoitta was shaking her, tugging at her arm with all the strength in her small wiry body. Aleytys tried to turn her head. Her mouth flooded with a sour fear-called liquid when a hard rubbery net closed around her muscles, held her rigid. She strained harder, fought against the netting, turned her head to look at the hiiri.

The netting clamped her mouth shut Painfully she forced her lips into a hoarse horrible sound that she drove into an approximation of normal speech, an approximation close enough so that the hiiri could understand. “Wha … wha haaaa'enn?”

“Kunniakas.” Aamunkoitta stammered, tears flooding from her large brown eyes. Her face was thinner, older, a narrow strand of gray running through the hair above her left ear.

Fighting the net that sought to control her movements, Aleytys pushed herself up and swung her legs clumsily over the edge of the bed. She worked her arms, opened and closed her hands until the stiff webbing criss-crossing the underside of her skin seemed to tire and retreat. Temporarily. She was shudderingly aware of the temporary nature of her victory. Her whole body ached, she felt sick, flabby, weary, as if she were recovering from a long and difficult illness. There was a sick sour smell on her skin.

She licked her lips then spat in disgust at the scummy crumbly deposit on them, the hard crumbs that flaked off at their corners. She tried to speak again. “‘Ow … how … how long?”

Aamunkoitta chewed on her lower lip. “Six months,” she muttered. She stirred restlessly. “Kunniakas.…”

“Six months.” Aleytys rubbed her hands over her body, sick with the stink of the layers of dirt on her skin. “They kept me drugged.”

“Yes.”

Moving her hands over her scummy oily body, Aleytys stopped in sudden shock. “Madar!”

“You're with child, Kunniakas?”

“No. No.” Feeling sick and heavy, Aleytys probed at the bulge on the right side of her body. She closed her eyes, shuddering, weeping, tears of horror, disgust dripping slowly over her too thin face, cutting wavey trails through the grime. She knew what lived in her womb. She knew where the web came from that tried to control her movements, her speech. She knew … and the knowledge terrified her. And there was something she couldn't remember … something … something that could help … she gave up the futile painful search and looked around.

Near the archway with its blue-green tapestry a nayid form lay crumpled on the floor, still and stiff, a black finger sticking from her neck … knife … in her throat Aleytys turned stiffly back to the hiiri. “How?”