Lamarchos (28 page)

In a little while she put the reins in Maissa's stiff hands and closed her fingers around them. Maissa sat stolidly, keeping the horses moving steadily along the eastern edge of the horde. No more quarrels came their way. That was good too. Aleytys leaned back against the slats, waiting to see if she could trust the zombied woman to stay at the side rather than working her way back to the master's wagon.

“Hey, Lahela!”

She jumped up onto the seat clutching at the carving. “What?” she shrieked.

“Loahn says good luck.” He waved the crossbow at her then rode off, shooting into the horde as rapidly as he could slap in new quarrels.

“That's nice,” Aleytys muttered. She climbed down, holding tightly to the carving as the caravan rocked and swayed over the uneven ground. She frowned thoughtfully at Maissa, opened her hands, stared down at them a minute, then went inside.

“Rope … need some rope …” She began pulling open the drawers and rummaging through the jumbled contents inside. “I know Kale had rope. He cut off a piece for Miks …”

She rested on her knees in the narrow space between the two bunks frowning and chewing on her lower lip. Still frowning, she wriggled around, carefully avoiding the drawer where Sharl slept. Leaning forward, she explored the panel shutting in the Vryhh-box, scratching at it with nervous impatient fingers. After a frustrating struggle costing her two torn fingernails, she pulled the panel free and pushed it behind her, then teetered back on her heels and shoved the sweaty strings of hair off her hot face.

The Vryhh-box was still there, cold and hard against her fingers. She passed her hands over the box, explored the rest of the cavity, “Ah.” She pulled out a coil of rope, sissal around a monofilament core. Alien artifact, so put away out of sight. She relaxed and rubbed her forehead, suddenly tired to death, weary of this world, weary of trying to deal with all the conflicting needs yammering at her. Stirred by some vague remnant of the curiosity that plagued her off and on, she probed further into the cavity.

Cold metal stung a hand. Cautiously, she pulled the object out. A knife. In a worn leather sheath. “How …”

She pulled the knife from the sheath, touched her fingers against the cutting edge. Kale? Maissa? Stavver? She turned it over in her hands. Maissa? Why would she? The knife wasn't her weapon. Miks? He had his own knife, had it with him. Not Miks. That left Kale. But he had a knife too. Aleytys remembered him turning it over and over in his hands … She held the hilt up to the light. There was a tiny engraved figure nearly worn away. A wolf's head. She pinched her lips together. Kale. Before Maissa painted the fakes on … she ran a thumb thoughtfully over the small roughness … wolf's heads on his cheeks. Why?

Well. Only Kale could answer that. Aleytys shrugged and pulled herself up, her joints stiff from kneeling so long. She dropped the knife beside Sharl's nearly cleaned diapers and slid the drawer shut. The panel went back in place somewhat more easily than it came out.

Sucking a pinched finger, she settled beside Maissa. The stone walls around the city ahead were a dark mass against the sky. Another half hour … she worked the reins from Maissa's hands and wound them around the cleat. The horses kept plodding ahead, ignoring the lack of guidance, swept along by the horde around them.

Aleytys put her shoulder into Maissa's stomach and heaved. With the slight body wrapped around her neck she staggered into the caravan. After stretching Maissa on the bunk, she tied pieces of rope around her arms and legs, then used two other sections of rope to anchor hands and feet to the ends of the bunk.

She bent over Maissa. “That'll keep you out of the city, Captain.” She shook her head. “You could've been killed yesterday. Then where would we all be?” She patted Maissa's shoulder and went back outside.

Chapter XI

It all happened again. The dying. The burning. The toppling minaret. The drums and chanting. And the sleep-coma.

Aleytys slipped off the bunk and stretched, working out the kinks that came from sitting still too long. She bent over Maissa frowning at the deep bloody bruises where the maddened woman had tried to tear free from the ropes. She touched the knots, frown lines deepening. “Later, Captain. When we get out of this mess.”

She touched Sharl briefly, inspected the padding that held him tightly. The ride out would be rough. She plucked at the quilting. No time to get him in a sling. This would have to do. She pushed the drawer nearly shut.

The blue steel blade of the knife shimmered like silk on the coarse ticking of the mattress. She threaded a piece of rope through a loop in the top of the sheath, then shoved the knife home. After tying the ends together in a neat square knot she slipped the loop over her head and one shoulder so that the knife hung beside her hip. Before leaving the caravan she tapped her temple, smiling at the sound of the chime. “Be ready, Rider. When it starts we'll have to be fast.” A second chime answered her and sent her laughing out the back.

She glanced around. A few sleeping figures slumped around the caravan, very few of them to the east. Before starting for the master's wagon she stared out at the rippling rise of land. “See you, Miks. Soon.”

The hard-gaited roan stamped impatiently. Aleytys eyed him with distaste. “Boneshaker old friend.” She sighed, pulled the reins loose and swung up on his back. She settled herself in the saddle and swung the animal around, keeping him at a slow walk as she circled toward the master's wagon. The big horse picked his way delicately through the carelessly tumbled figures who lay sunk in a sleep so deep it verged on coma. They had to circle wide to avoid places where the sleepers lay packed so closely the horse would refuse to go on.

When they reached the wagon she slid off his back and tied the reins in a half-hitch in a ring dangling among others beneath the back edge of the wagon. “All right, Rider,” she murmured. “Now's the time to do your trick.”

The diadem chimed. As the several notes ran downscale to a basso growl she felt the influence again spread through her body. She swung onto the wagon and pushed recklessly through the circle of guards knocking them down like slow motion pins. Her body plunged into the tent.

The master sat with his head resting on his hands, elbows on knees, the boy sitting in front of him echoing his posture. The shaman stood bent over beside the boy staring intently into his face.

Black eyes glinted, narrowed and thoughtful, in Aleytys' mind. It seemed to her they smiled briefly at her … somehow … then turned back to measure what must be done. Then her body leaped forward.

The knife was in her hand. Her free hand grabbed a handful of springy white curls, hauled the master's head up. The knife slashed once, twice through the neck. Then a third time. Then the boy. His throat was thinner. Much thinner. Her hand lowered the head onto the floor between thin legs. Finally the shaman. He started to topple as her hand jerked his head up. The knife slashed twice and the body fell, cut loose from the head. Her hand loosed its grip on the head, then her body wheeled and ran from the tent, through the still falling guards, trampling on flesh and wood indiscriminately. Her body leaped from the wagon onto the, horse, snatched the reins loose, and sent the roan back through the sleepers.

Aleytys felt a strain behind her eyes that grew and grew. Breath sobbing into her body in great gasps, she kicked her heels into the roan's sides, driving him across the cold bodies, slipping, sliding, struggling to keep his feet as he rushed headlong toward the caravan.

A moan whispered across her brain. The low rumble celerated upward and the tightness went away. She shook her head, dashing away the fragments of possession from her brain. Around her the horde creatures were stumbling to their feet, a dazed uncertainty in their faces. Muttering incoherently they took a few steps in one direction, then turned another way, bumping into each other to stand motionless the moment they were in physical contact, then twitching away again in a frenetic outburst of movement.

Aleytys forced the roan through them across the half-kilometer between the master's wagon and her caravan. Fumbling hands clutched at her legs, then moved away, clutched at the bridle only to forget what they were doing, clutched at the horse until the roan's speed threw most of them off. She kicked the others away.

At the caravan she leaped recklessly for the driver's bench, snatched at the reins as she tumbled past them. “Hi-ya!” she shrieked, slapping the reins hard against the horses' rumps, startling them into a run.

Aleytys nearly fell off before she managed to seat herself. She screamed again at the team. The caravan leaped, bounded, threatened to overturn, teetering precariously as it rumbled over confused horde beings. Somehow it stayed upright. The roan ran free behind the caravan, head held high and to one side to keep the dangling reins from under his feet.

They raced across the bumpy flat outside the city and rolled onto a winding rutted road that led vaguely eastward. Aleytys let the team settle to a rapid trot and managed to look behind.

There was no pursuit. She couldn't even see the town anymore. It was down behind a fold of earth. There were no sounds—nothing—except the harsh grinding of the wheels and the rattle of the hooves. She saw the roan stumble then snort, lifting his head high, one of the reins snapped in half.

“Ahai, Madar!” She pulled back on the reins, kicked in the brake. “He'll break his neck.” The roan pranced up beside her. “Haiyi, boneshaker, I'm a fool.” She slid down from the seat. “If Loahn wants you back, he can go look for you.” She rubbed his nose gently, then scratched behind his ears as he whuffed his pleasure. Then she stripped off the saddle and bridle, throwing them beside the road. She used the blanket to rub him down, then slapped him on the rump. “On your way, boneshaker.”

She climbed back into the caravan. Sharl was whimpering his fright. The two quilts padded around him had kept him safe but he was terrified by the rough ride. And uncomfortable. She picked him up and held him against her. “It's all right, baby,” she whispered. “It's all right.” She laid him on the bunk and changed him. As he lay waving his arms about for sheer joy in being able to move them, she knotted a batik into a sling and laid him in it so he could feel her next to him constantly and be reassured. Then she bent over Maissa.

The woman was unconscious, a dark bruise on her temple. She lay folded against the wall, held to the bunk by the tethering ropes. Aleytys cut them off, then worked the gag out of her mouth, grimacing at the dark scummy stains on the knife blade. She wiped the knife against Maissa's batik, rubbing hard to get rid of that blood. Then she shoved it back in the sheath that dangled on the hip across from Sharl.

Reaching for the power, she plunged into it, let it flow over the mangled wrists and ankles where the ties had been, healing the tears and bruises. She used the heel of her hand to force Maissa's mouth open, touched the swollen bloody tongue, bitten through in several places.

When the healing was finished she let the power puddle momentarily in her hands, ignoring the cold feeling of danger that trembled through her. Maissa's eyes were open, staring at her. They saw nothing, acknowledged nothing. Aleytys shuddered. She bent over Maissa, touched her fingers to the small woman's temples, letting the pooled power flow forth. “Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep, little Captain. Let it all be a dream when you wake. It's over. No more hassle, no more master. Forget, forget, forget.…”

She pulled her hands away, breaking with the power. The small thin body was relaxed, breasts rising and falling in a slow steady rhythm. Her face was peaceful, the dark shadows in her soul sleeping with the rest of her. Aleytys felt the relaxation in her and was satisfied.

Back on the driver's bench, she uncleated the reins and reached out, searching for the mint green flow of Stavver's presence. She found it easily. Ahead. Above. She toed the brake loose and clucked the team into a steady walk. The roan whinnied softly and ran ahead of the team. Aleytys laughed, feeling marvelously lighthearted.

“All right, boneshaker, we'll go together.”

Chapter XII

“You all right?” Stavver let go of her and stepped back, running worried eyes over her, frowning because the moon had set and only the stars lit the rocky slope.

“Good enough, but glad to see you, Miks.”

“They hurt you?”

“A little. I'm more disgusted than hurt, though.” She shuddered and moved close to him, holding out her arms. “All that killing.”

“It's over, Lee.” He gentled her against his chest.

“For me. For you.” She felt his heart beating strongly under her ear.

He stirred and moved apart from her. “Maissa?”

“In the caravan. Sleeping.”

“She sane?”

“I don't know. I tried to make her forget. I don't know if I succeeded.”

“It was bad?” He shifted suddenly, his feet making a scraping sound on the rocky ground. “She was raped?”

“Yes.” Aleytys searched his face. “You didn't ask about me. No.” She held up a hand as he moved toward her. “Don't bother. Yes. The master had me. Phahhh! I won't be clean again till I soak a month in a hot bath. No one's ever treated me like … have you ever used a woman, Miks. Used. That's the right word. Have you ever used a woman when you didn't give a damn about what she felt or didn't feel, when you didn't want her to be a person only a convenience, when you would have resented her making you understand she was a human being with rights of her own, when you didn't want to know her in any way but one?”

He laughed dryly, his shadowed face taking on an indifferent cruelty that jarred once more on her feeling for him. “It happens.”

“Well, thank the Madar, it's never happened to me before, and, if I have the least thing to say about it, it never will happen again.”