Moonscatter (10 page)

She wrenched her arm free. “Not yet,” she said. “Not now.”

“What?”

“You go see about the macain. Bring them around to the south side, I should be coming out a window there and down the wall.”

“Forget it, you won't be out of the hills long enough to need those things.”

Serroi strode back to the stairs, pulling the hood up as she went, tugging it so far forward it dangled in her eyes. Standing behind the crumpled body, she stared at him, angry words flooding her mind, choking in her throat. In the end, all she said was, “See we have mounts.”

She wheeled and ran up the stairs, up and around, anger driving her like fire under her feet, her toes whispering tsp-sp on the worn grass matting, pattering on the landings, around and around, up the squared spiral, first floor, second, doors all shut, whoever slept behind them ignorant of or ignoring the meie interdicta flitting up through flickering shadow, third floor—fourth.…

She stopped running, stood panting, bent over hands clasped tight about the worn sphere of the banister finial, gulping in the hot still air redolent of lamp oil and hot metal, blinking at shadows wavering like grandfather ghosts along the narrow hall ahead of her.

A door opened near the hall's end and a man stepped out—a tall, thin man with black hair braided into a fantasy of coils.
He dressed to meet me
, she thought.
He knew I was coming
. The lamp by his door touched russet gleams in his molasses-on-coal skin, pricked azure flecks from his indigo eyes. As Serroi straightened, heart thudding with the violent fear of norim she'd never been able to eradicate, he brought up his hand, long thin fingers like reptile paws spread out behind a pinwheel of white fire. He flung it at her, plucked another out of nowhere, flung it, plucked and flung a third.

Fast as thought they swept toward her. Faster than thought. She had no time to duck or defend herself, no defense if there was time.

The heat touched her face, the glare blinded her.

The tajicho hummed and burned in her boot.

The firestars, one, two, three, swung around and sped back at the Norit. He worked his long fingers frantically to cancel the calling before he burned in his own fire.

Without waiting to see what happened, Serroi flung herself around the newel post and lunged for the door. At first her fingers fumbled uselessly with the latchstring, then she managed to fight down the terror enough to see what she was doing. Behind her she heard a howl of pain and rage. She jerked the door open, heard other doors down the hall open, heard sleepy voices—sounds cut off when she slammed the door behind her. She slapped the bar home and jerked in the latchstring. With the bar like a comforting arm pressing against her shoulders, she leaned on the door, scraping the sweat off her face, struggling to control the panic that the Norit stirred in her.

“Open.” The demand was a roar muffled by the wood behind her head. She felt a thump against her back as a fist pounded on door. Coldly furious, the Norit screamed again, “Open this door, meie, open and live. Defy me and die.” She sniffed with disgust and stepped away from the door.
Absurd, absurd
, she thought.
No one talks like that, defy me and die. Words of a wooden tyrant in a puppet play. He couldn't mean them, absurd even to say them
. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and struggled to put behind her the paralyzing fear her Noris had etched in her bones those days of pain, endless unrelieved pain, when he couldn't believe she wasn't defying and resisting him. She was tempted to yell back at the Norit, taunt him with his stupidity, but in the end reason prevailed; anything she said he could seize on and use against her. She listened to mutters that might have been curses and smiled.

She ignored the demanding voice and growing noise outside, ignored the cessation of sound that followed a snapped order from the Norit, ignored the droning chant that broke the silence. She dug through the boy's chest, determined to give Braddon good measure for his generosity. Item by item, she pulled out what she thought she could use and rolled these things into a compact bundle, strapping it together with a wide black belt. The chant grew louder, more insistent. When she stood again, she saw the bar shuddering in its iron loops. As if impatient but inept hands tugged at it, the heavy hardwood bar moved a little, rattled in place, moved again.

The single window in the room was a small square by the head of the bed. She thrust the shutters open and tossed the bundle out, hoping Hern had sense enough to collect it and tie it to her saddle, hoping too that he hadn't rebelled against being ordered about by a child-sized female and left her to get herself out of this mess. She glanced at the bar, frowned. It was moving more smoothly now. Grim-faced, she ran across the room, flattened her palms against the bar. “Tajicho,” she whispered, “if you ever twisted magic awry …” laughed when the chant broke off with a roar of pain. She shoved the bar home again and ran for the window.

She found the bundle in a forked branch of a desiccated bush, one of those she'd helped to plant in that season she spent as stableboy for Braddon, the last step on her trek to the Biserica. She found time to be sad as she tucked the bundle under her arm and reeled in her rope, laying it in coils as she pulled it down, found time to scold herself for slashing at Hern, to berate Hern for his blind refusal to listen to her. The rope whipped to her hands with a soft whisper of leather and a harsh rattle of the bushes, the rattle reminding her that this had once been a cheerful pleasure garden. She'd last seen it with the fountain playing in the middle, with small tables scattered about, a glass and copper lamp burning on each, brightly dyed paper lanterns strung overhead. The tables and the lanterns were gone, the flowers in the squat round tubs were gone, only weeds grew in the dry soil and even the weeds were dying. The stone flags were littered with bits of paper, dead leaves, passar droppings. As she clipped the rope back on her weaponbelt, she looked up. The small window above was still dark and empty. She smiled with satisfaction. “Bit on something that bit back,” she murmured. “Serves you right.”

No Hern yet. She shook her head and moved toward the front of the Inn, listening intently. The thick walls defeated her ears but through the outreach of her eyespot she sensed a growing turmoil inside.

Hern came around the corner, riding one macai and leading a second. Serroi felt rather ashamed of herself for suspecting him of desertion, especially when she saw that he'd taken the time to switch gear to fresh beasts. She shook her head, her rueful smile widening to a grin as she took note of the fineness of the beasts and realized that they probably belonged to the Norit. She swept him a deep bow, tucked the bundle more securely under her arm and swung up into the saddle. “There's a gate in the back wall.”

He lifted a brow. “Looks quiet out front.”

“Won't be.” She rode past him and was pleased when he followed without a word. The gate was barred, the hinges rusty and stubborn, but Hern dealt easily enough with it. When he was mounted again and riding beside her, she said, “The Norit was waiting for me. He's blocked now, but he won't stay that way long.” She turned her macai into the shadow of a small grove on the edge of the commonlands. “You hear? Waiting for me.”

Hern snorted. “Fighting shadows, meie. No one followed us. No one saw us.”

She shook her head. “No one had to. The Norit's been here a full passage. You heard what Braddon said.” She held her mount to a rapid walk as she threaded through the trees, skirting the garden patches (mostly empty now of all but weeds, the produce pickled in crocks or stored deep in root cellars against the rigors of winter). “He knew I'd have to leave the Valley. He stirred up the Kry so there'd be only one way for me to go.”

“He. Always He. Who is this ‘he'?”

She glanced at his scowling face, looked away. “The last of the Great Nor, Dom,” she said somberly. “The others are dead now, most from challenging him. The domnor of the Nearga-nor. The driving force behind all this—or so I think. No, I'm sure of that.” She felt his silence, looked at him, shook her head. “You couldn't touch him, Hern. I don't know who could.”

Where the commonland ended she saw the tatty hedge she'd expected, the boundary hedge of Hallam's Tar. Sweet Hal the feckless, everyman's friend.

“Puts us back on the road,” Hern's voice was mild but she couldn't miss the understated sarcasm.

“No.” Biting at her lip, she frowned along the hedge. “Which way … which way.… When Tayyan and I were coming north to take ward at the Plaz, we stopped off to see Braddon and Matti. The tarom of this holding is the laziest creature on the Plain. He let a small hole in his hedge wear big. A herd of hauhaus got out and started making a mess of the commons.” She flipped a hand at the open lands behind them. “We rounded up the beasts and fixed the break with some poles and wire. Ah, I remember now. This way.” She started east along the hedge.

Hern gave an impatient exclamation and started after her. When he caught up with her, he said, “After three years?”

She chuckled. “You don't know Sweet Hal. Long as the patch held he wouldn't see any reason to fuss about it.” She pointed. “See?”

There was a narrow gap in the hedge, bridged by neatly woven poles and wire. “Tch! Look at that. Hallam's still Sweet Hal.” The bushes about the gap were tattered and dying, the wire wound precariously about brittle dead limbs. “Looks like a breath would blow it over. Hallam's luck that it lasted through the Gather storms.” She edged the macai closer, reached down and tugged the patch loose with a series of small poppings from the thorn hedge. “Sweet Hal, bless him, even the Followers can't change him.”

Hern followed her through the gap, slid off his macai and wired the patch upright again, cursing under his breath as the dry thorns stung him. Sucking at his knuckle he came walking back toward her. Standing by her stirrup, his lips pursed prissily, he said, “One doesn't leave gates open in pastures. It isn't nice.” When she laughed, he swung into the saddle. “Dammit, woman, we're supposed to be fleeing for our lives.”

“No one's chasing us just yet.” She began angling across the field through the silent black shapes of sleeping hauhaus, heading for the distant tarhouse, pleased with the power and grace of the mount she rode. “Trust a Norit to save the best for himself.”

“Trust me.”

She laughed. “All right, I will.” Bending forward she scratched through the spongy growths along the macai's neck, drawing from him small snorts of pleasure after his first startled duck away from her fingers. “No, Norim don't know much about us beasts, do they, my beautiful friend. They don't know how we like to be stroked and praised when we do good.” She straightened, glanced over her shoulder at the Inn. She could just make out a small bright square high up near the roof. “Well, well. On your feet again are you?” She pulled the macai to a stop and slid from the saddle, calling Hern to come back. “The Norit's with us again.” She pointed.

Around them the dark bulky forms of the hauhaus were rocking onto their feet. A few browsed with the herbivore's constant hunger, restless under the rise of the great moon grown near full and pouring its light down on the Plain. Others dipped their heads but only nosed at the grass.

In the distant window a black form swayed from side to side as if the Norit sniffed the wind for their traces. It stiffened. “Ma-al-chi-i-in.” The word was a wild howl rushing by overhead; again Serroi thought she saw the Norit move, stretch more of himself outside the window, his head swinging rhythmically. “Ma-a-al-chiin!” he shrieked. Serroi shuddered.

Hern stirred beside her, touched her arm. “Malchiin?”

“A chini called from Zhagdeep. A demon to track and kill.” She kept her voice low and steady but she couldn't control the trembling of her body. Against her will the Noris had used her to make those malchiinin. Demons aping flesh, shaped by the chini essence of the pups she'd raised then betrayed, pups she'd seen driven to their death by her Noris. If anything part or wholly magic could break through the tajicho's distortion, a malchiin could. They knew her, blood and bone they knew her, her scent, her shape, her voice, her touch.

“Can it?”

“What?”

“Track us.”

“I don't know. Probably. Take my hand.” In the moonlight she saw his pale eyes glint with amusement and his mouth stretch into a mocking grin. “Don't say it, Dom.” She thrust her hand at him. “I'm protected from the Norit's far-seeing but you're not. There's a chance he'll think I'm alone but why depend on that?”

“Touching. Your solicitude, I mean.” His hand closed over hers, warm and rather comforting. “Difficult to ride like this.”

“We won't be riding for a while.” She stiffened as she heard the third call; for just a moment she felt a lifting of her spirits, a brief hope that the Noris wouldn't send the beast-demon. Then a streak of utter blackness swept across the sky, dropping chill ferocity like rain onto the earth below. She closed her fingers hard on Hern's hand, fighting down the urge to mount and kick her macai into frantic flight away, away anywhere even though she knew that flight was futile.

Hern raised his brows. “Malchiin?”

“Yes.”

Shouts drifted broken on the wind, coming from the Inn, squeals from unhappy macain and other less identifiable noises. The night turned red over there with the glow of torchlight.

“Nice little mob.” Hern tried to pull free but she kept her grip on his hand.

“The Norit won't wait for them.”

The malchiin began belling, the huge sound bounding and rebounding from earth to sky. The sound swelled and cut off, the subsequent silence as stunning and ominous as the beast's first call had been. Hern jerked loose and drew his sword. “We can't outrun that.”