Moonscatter (14 page)

When the shadows of sundown were swallowing them and the western sky layered with red and gold, Teras gave a muttered exclamation and pulled his mount to a stop. Tuli looked at him, a question in her eyes. “I thought you wanted to keep going.” She frowned. “What's wrong?”

“Boom,” he murmured as he searched the sky and the road ahead.

“Gong?”

“Loud and loud. Look!” He pointed at the sky close to the northern horizon.

She followed his finger and saw two dark specks drifting in lazy circles above the treetops some distance ahead. “So?”

“So Hars. Those, they aren't passare, Tuli. Demons, that's what they are. Traxim. Look how big they are, all that way alay and we can still see 'em.” His hands closed tight on the ledge in front of him, he leaned forward and peered intently at the black specks. “They look to be watching something.”

“For us maybe?”

Teras dropped back in the saddle and kneed his mount to a fast walk. Tuli kept her macai to a trot until she was beside him again, though her tired beast complained with low hoots and a whine or two. “Hars?”

“When we got to talking, remember I told you, after Nilis met the Agli, anyway we got to talking about this 'nd that 'nd he told me about the tilun, you know, 'nd after that he sat fiddling with a bit of leather, you know how he does, 'nd after a while he started talking about when he was a kid 'bout big as me.”

Tuli glared at him. “And you didn't tell me!”

“Maiden's toes, Tuli, what happened at the tilun scared all that right outta my head.”

“So how come it's back now?”

“Them. Demons. Eyes and spies for the Nearga-Nor. Hars said he smelled Nearga-Nor mixing in where they shouldn't. Said he knew them better'n anyone should have to. Said when he was a kid in Sankoy, he got snatched away from his family by one of the High Nor because he had some kinda talent or other, didn't say much about that. Well, he didn't say nothing about that. Anyway, that Nor started teaching him things 'nd that wasn't so bad though he missed his family a lot and the Nor was meaner than a limping fayar. And he kinda like the idea of being a Nor and doing the things his master could, kinda liked the idea that he'd come back and do some awful things to the Nor to pay him back for the way he treated him. But there was this initiation thing he'd have to go through and he wasn't trusting the Nor much so he sorta snooped around. No one would talk to him but there was this other boy who was a couple years older who'd been initiated already and was getting along good with the Nor and he happened to see him naked one day and so he found out one thing they were going to do to him.” He flushed a dark red and scratched uneasily at his upper lip, then along the line of his jaw, then tugged at the collar of his tunic.

“Teras!” Tuli felt like reaching out and shaking him but she didn't. “Don't be like Nilis,” she said sharply.

“Well, you're a girl.”

“Well, I'm going to snatch you bald in another half-second if you don't get on with it.”

“If you must know, they were going to geld him. You know what that means?” He wouldn't look at her.

“I watched Da and Hars when they did that to the rogue macai last year. Mama explained.” She stared at him. “You mean the Agli and all them are …?”

“Uh-huh. Anyway, while he was with the Nor he found out all about the traxim. Told me what they look like. Big black devils with leathery wings. Wingspread wider than I am tall. Stink worse than downwind of an oadat coop. Sometimes the Nor put poison on their talons, when they're not just being spy-eyes.”

“Teras, is Hars …?”

“No!” Teras exploded. “Course not, Tuli. He ran off before they could. And if you ever tell him I told you.…”

“As if I would.” She frowned at the specks which were beginning to merge with the increasing darkness of the sky. “You think they could be watching Da?”

“Uh-uh, not unless he started back to the Tar for some reason. He's been on the road near five days now, should be over halfway to Oras, even riding slow.”

“They're watching something. And if we get too close, they'll see us sure and if the Agli's the one using their eyes, he'll know where we are and where to send his guards, and if they've got poison on their claws like you said maybe he'll make them attack us. He'd be rid of us with no one knowing.” She touched dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “Can they see in the dark? If they can't we could sneak past once it's full dark.”

“Don't know. Hars didn't say.” Teras glanced at the sky where the last bit of sun had eased behind the Earth's Teeth and the colors were slowly fading. “Let's keep going a while and see if we can think up something real nasty for them.”

“Maybe they'll go away or find a perch for the night.”

“You really think they would?”

“No.” She sighed. “Teras?”

“Huh?”

“Why don't we get a little closer and go off the Highroad? We can hobble the macain and sneak through the trees until we can see what they're watching.”

He thought for a moment then nodded. “Better than that, we can take the macain with us and sneak them around whatever it is, then hobble them and come back for a look. That way we'll have a good start on the traxim when we go on in the morning.” He thrust his hand into a jacket pocket. “We got our slings. Fill our pockets with good stones and I'd back us against a decset of those city-bred guards, 'specially you with your night sight.”

Tuli giggled. “I'd like to get them into those trees in the dark, tripping over their own feet and skewering each other instead of us. We could run them crazy.”

As soon as it was full dark, they led their grumbling mounts down the steep embankment and into the trees until they were moving along beside a rambling, badly maintained Tar-hedge. Tuli rubbed her stomach, hunger overriding her excitement. A fistful of dried fruit, a torn bit of bread and cheese snatched on the run just wasn't enough. She heard her twin's stomach growl and giggled. Teras glared at her, then moved on as carefully and quietly as he could. She adjusted quickly to the confused blurring of shadow thrown by the Scatter; there were nine of the eleven moons in the sky with Nijilic TheDom now past full and beginning to lag behind the smaller but faster moons, the Dancers and the Drover, the Jewels of Anesh and the smallest of them all, the Dasher. For Teras, adjustment was more difficult; the shadows were a shifting confusion, tricking him into misjudging heights and stumbling over roots and other small obstructions that caught at his feet before he could make them out. He settled down after a few minutes and went more slowly, taking his time instead of plunging ahead, and his progress became almost as silent as Tuli's.

The leaves overhead murmured in the night wind. Somewhere not too close a stink-shell had been disturbed and wisps of its pungent defense came drifting to them. The macain grumbled and whoofed, wanting to stop and graze, which they considered their due after a hard day's work. Their claws dug into the thick layers of fallen leaves, sending fragments of leaf and gravel in an irregular rain behind them. Tuli chewed on her lip as she glided through the dark. The beasts were making too much noise to sneak them past anything more alert than a hibernating doubur.
Sneak
, she thought.
Hah. More like stomp up to their front door and bang on it and announce here we are
.

A different sound came floating to her through the night noises and the tromping of their disgruntled mounts—a few stray notes broken by shifting wind gusts. Tuli caught hold of her twin's arm. “Hear that?”

“Sounds like a flute.”

“Yah. What I thought. Gong?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Well, we better leave them here.” Tuli nodded at the macain. “They just won't be quiet. There's a bit of grass.” She pointed. “That should keep them happy.”

They left the hobbled beasts cropping eagerly at the grass and slid into the shadow under the trees. Teras kept close behind Tuli, stepping where she stepped, the two of them gliding like moondrift toward the music. It was soon more than scattered notes, blending into a haunting melody that wove into and around songmoth twitters, the whistles of hunting kanka passare, the rising and falling whisper of wind through the trees.

Those trees thinned abruptly, opened out into a roughly circular clearing. Tuli dropped onto her knees behind the high roots of a spikul tree. As soon as Teras was settled beside her, they eased apart a few of the tall thin suckers growing in a thicket on the clearing-side roots and stared wide-eyed at the scene spread before them.

A number of blocky wagons like boxes on wheels were scattered about the clearing, small cook fires burning by all but one. Women bent over pots dangling above the fires (the rich meaty smell drifting to her on the wind made Tuli's mouth water and her stomach cramp), children played in the dust near their feet. Men sat in groups on wagon tongues or squatted beside their wagons talking in low tones. The few words that reached Tuli's ears were strangely accented and unintelligible; they were speaking some language she'd never heard before, not the mijlocker that she'd grown up with. One wagon was drawn apart from the others, closer to the tree where the twins crouched. Its fire was larger than the others and had no pots or spitted meat roasting.

The flute player was a long thin shadow beside that fire. Red light played restlessly on a lined face and a thatch of pale hair, on thin fingers flickering along the pipe. Beside this figure a blockier shape with a bland round face held a fat-bellied lute, fingers and finger shadows dancing vigorously over the strings coaxing from them mellow flowing sounds like the leap of water in a mountain brook. Other shadowy forms squatting by the fire tapped at small drums. A big woman sat on a chair at the back of that wagon, clapping with the beat of the drums. After a short while she dropped her hands. “Vala, Seichi, gelem-hai brad,” she called, her deep voice music as rich as any the lute produced. “Tans pyr zal.”

Laughing, patting at long black hair flowing loose, tugging at tight bodices, smoothing the gathers of flaring skirts over slim hips, the two girls left their fires and came running to the big woman. Men and children, women not still cooking supper started drifting from the other fires, settled in a circle behind the musicians. The music stopped a moment. The flute player stretched, shook saliva from her instrument. “Kim olim'k?” Her voice was low and husky; she spoke the strange tongue with a slight mountain lilt. Looking around at the others, she ran her free hand through her untidy hair, cocked her head and waited for the answer to her question.

The big woman cleared her throat and the confused babble among the musicians died away. “Sorriss,” she said firmly.

The flute player laughed, glanced at the others, blew a few experimental notes, then settled into a lively tune. The lute came in, then the drums picked it up. The girls began dancing around each other, flirting dark eyes, swinging their long dark hair, arms rising and falling, hands clapping over their heads, dropping to clap before their breasts. The spectators picked up the rhythm and were clapping soon in their turn, laughing and calling out cries of appreciation and encouragement.

The girls swayed and whirled, their feet pattering swiftly on the earth, turning and twisting in their intricate dance. A man rose to his feet. Several of the sitters called his name, then fell silent. He gave a wild cry that brought a gasp from Tuli and a glare from Teras. The man began to sing in a sliding minor tremolo that climbed over and under and around the bouncing melody from the instruments, weaving a thread of sadness through their cheer.

Teras and Tuli watched entranced, so absorbed in the strange spectacle that they failed to hear the two men coming up behind them, were not aware of these until hands closed on them and jerked them to their feet. Teras struggled then went still when he found his first effort useless. Tuli tried to wrench herself free. When she failed she blazed up, flailed out with her feet, threw herself about, tried to bite her captor. Since he was stronger than her and skilled in the control of struggling animals, she got nowhere.

“Tuli!” Her twin's voice was like a slap in the face, bringing her out of her blind rage. She quieted and hung panting in the hands of her captor.

He lowered her until her feet touched the ground. “Tat way, yoonglin'.” With a shove he sent her stumbling toward the fire and the dancers. Her hands shaking, she straightened her jacket and tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. She moved closer to Teras, wanting to take his hand, unwilling to show that much weakness.

“Vat ye got, cachime?” A small man walked from the fire and stopped in front of her. He spoke the mijlocker with a strong accent that made him hard to understand. Tuli lifted her head defiantly and stared at him. His face was a congeries of wrinkles, his nose a blade of bone jutting from that sea of folds. Eyes lost far inside somewhere flicked over her, turned to measure Teras, then fixed on the face of the biggest man. An eyebrow rose. “Mijlocker.”

Her captor smelled of musk and sweat. He shrugged. “Thom 'nd me, 've check d' snares.” He held up a cord with six lappets dangling from it, their forepaws limp, their necks broken, their powerful hind feet soiled with dirt and oil from their fear glands. “Ve find d'two sneakin' 'nd watchin'.”

“Spies?” The little man's lips stretched in a thin smile, spreading out the wrinkles in his cheeks, his eyes narrowed yet further—shooting out little gleams of amusement. “These? Some young for it.”

Behind them the music died away, the dancing stopped. Tuli shivered under the threat of all those eyes. They looked hostile, certainly unwelcoming.

“What were you doing there, boys?” Perhaps by conscious effort his accent smoothed out a little.

Tuli looked at Teras, thinking he'd better do the talking. At least they'd taken her for a boy, but she didn't trust her tongue or temper.