Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (14 page)

“We thank you for your assistance,” said Jiaan, rising to end the interview. “If any of your men chose to join the Farsalan army instead of yielding to the Hrum’s draft, have them go to the place where the Khaquan River flows out of the foothills and wait there. A guide will appear to take them to the army camp within a few days.”

Fasal was frowning. “But why don’t we—”

“No,” said Jiaan. “Forgive us for leaving so abruptly, but we have far to go.”

Emerging from the mine’s dimness, the summer sunlight was blinding.

“All right,” Fasal muttered, shielding his eyes with one hand. “Why didn’t you want to tell him that we’re going to the desert next? You said that miners looking for better ore have been sending expeditions into the badlands for centuries. They might have offered us a guide.”

“And we’d have had to refuse,” said Jiaan. “Which would be embarrassing at best, and insulting at worst. I told you, the commander thought the Suud killed the miners he was sent to find—and would have killed him and his troops, except that he offered them no harm. If the Suud and the miners are at war, the last thing we want is to show up with a miner as our guide.”

Jiaan’s vision had cleared enough to find his way to the post where Rakesh was tethered. Jiaan untied his reins and mounted, knowing that the well-trained horse would find the way, even if his rider was still squinting.

Fasal, fumbling with his horse’s tether, snorted. “Peasants squabbling with barbarians hardly constitutes a war. If you want to create a secure base camp in the desert, then take some men and build
it! We’ve got over a thousand men now—I can’t imagine why you think you need the Suud’s permission.”

“You’ll see,” said Jiaan grimly. “Soon enough, you’ll see.”

B
UT FIVE DAYS LATER
 . . . “We haven’t even set eyes on the Suud!” Fasal complained. “If they’re afraid to show themselves to just two men, what makes you think they could do anything to an army?”

“They haven’t shown themselves,” Jiaan admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they’re afraid. I wonder what they’re going to do, now that we’ve stopped letting them lead us in circles.”

The moon was just past full, so there was plenty of light for the horses to find their way through the maze of rock spires. But the still, moonlit landscape was so eerie that a distant jackal’s howl was enough to make Jiaan jump. And the light clearly displayed Fasal’s grin when he did so.

They had descended to the desert three evenings ago. Even Fasal had been impressed by the trail that snaked down the great cliff, though Jiaan was annoyed to see it hadn’t left him
damp-palmed with fear. On the other hand, if Fasal hadn’t been present to remind Jiaan of his dignity, he might have succumbed to his own impulse and crawled down the trail—a fine picture that would have presented to the watching Suud.

After several nights in the desert, Jiaan was certain that their every move was being watched, even during the day, when the Suud had to wear robes to protect their white skin from the blazing sun.

Jiaan had insisted that he and Fasal sleep during the day and search for the Suud at night, as a matter of courtesy. To show up at a Suud camp in midday would be as rude as waking anyone else up in the middle of the night. That was why he’d timed his visit to coincide with the full moon.

But after his first day in the desert, Jiaan had realized another advantage to the Suud’s habits—he wasn’t certain either he and Fasal, or the horses, would survive the heat of the desert on a midsummer day. Jiaan had never encountered anything like it; the dry air seemed to suck moisture from his mouth and body. Even sleeping in the shade, he woke at dusk with an aching head and a ravenous thirst.

The first two nights, he and Fasal had followed the Suud’s small, clear footprints wherever they led. Fasal, because he believed they were about to come upon the camp at any moment, Jiaan, because he hoped that eventually the Suud would get tired of leading them in circles and make contact. And the fact that the tracks had crossed streams often enough to allow them to fill their water skins and let the horses drink, assured him that at least the Suud weren’t trying to kill them. If they hadn’t been led to those streams, and the stream they now followed, they’d have been forced to leave the desert on the second night. But if the Suud weren’t trying to drive them off, why didn’t they reveal themselves? The last time he’d been in the desert, his Suud guides had made him feel welcome.

Of course, Jiaan reflected grimly, the last time he’d been invited.

“I still don’t know why you let them lead us around like that,” Fasal grumbled. When Fasal had finally realized they were traveling in circles, the rocks had rung with his outrage. Jiaan hoped none of the watchers spoke Faran. “There’s hardly any water in this Azura-forsaken pit. If we keep
following this stream we’re bound to come to one of their encampments, sooner or later.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Jiaan. “If we start heading straight for one of their camps, what do you think the Suud are going to do?” Though he had to admit, he too was tired of simply going where the Suud led them. That was why he’d agreed to the change of plan.

“Don’t be such a . . .”
Peasant coward.
“. . . so silly,” Fasal corrected himself. “What could a bunch of barbarians possibly—”

Fasal’s mare began to buck. Fasal wrapped his legs around her barrel and swore. Jiaan eyed the ground at her feet, looking for a serpent or a scorpion—anything that could have caused her reaction, but there was nothing there.

Then Rakesh snorted, shied like a gazelle, and began to kick as if surrounded by a swarm of hornets. Jiaan’s legs could get no grip on his slippery hide. If he was to be bucked off, he’d best do it with as much control as possible. Rakesh bucked and Jiaan, feeling his rump leave the saddle, released his death grip on reins and mane and let himself fly free.

By some miracle he managed to land on his feet, off balance, staggering. But he might have
remained upright if not for the spear butt that struck his ankles, sweeping his feet from under him. He hit the ground hard and lay still, blinking up at the cloud of spear points that hovered over him. It was several moments before he could tear his eyes from the glittering steel to look at the grim, white faces beyond them.

The sound of thudding hooves drew his attention. Fasal was a true deghan, and he rode like one. It took a carefully timed blow from a spear butt to knock him off the gyrating mare, who promptly stopped bucking and stood, snorting and shivering. Rakesh had also quieted, and Jiaan’s gaze returned to his captors.

At least they were using the spear butts to subdue them, not the points. That was a good sign, right?

“I hope you speak Faran,” he said.

If they did, they weren’t admitting it. Only the bouncing babble of Suud sounded as a man approached the group around Jiaan. He was even shorter than most of the small, fine-boned Suud, his hair a cloud of white curls around his stern face. He said something and the spears withdrew—but not very far. He held out a
leather cord and motioned for Jiaan to sit up. The Suud was small, but his arms were banded with muscles. Jiaan still might have tried something stupid, if it weren’t for those hovering spear points. Besides . . .

“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” said Jiaan. He sat up slowly, and at a gesture from the man, turned and knelt with his hands behind him. “I came to ask for your help.”

Firm hands bound his wrists together. The cord was tight, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. “Not fight,” Jiaan repeated. “Help. I need your help.”

If they understood, they showed no sign of it, and Jiaan cursed himself for his lack of forethought. The Suud he’d dealt with before had spoken Faran, rough and fractured, but enough that Jiaan could communicate. But those Suud were traders the high commander had found in the marketplace at Setesafon—of course they spoke Faran. He had been foolish to assume that all the Suud did.

But since the Hrum had invaded, no Suud had come to the Farsalan markets, so he couldn’t have brought a translator even if he’d thought of it. Their absence was one of the things that had made
him hope they might be willing to help. Now that hope seemed naive.

Four of the spear carriers remained to guard him, while the rest went to surround Fasal, who seemed to have been stunned by the fall. It was the first time Jiaan had ever seen a large group of the tribesmen; in the markets there were never more than three or four of them, and the tight-woven robes they wore to protect their milk white skin also obscured their strangeness. Here, in their moonlit desert, they wore only a cloth wrapped around their hips—even the women. Did they allow women to hunt, perhaps even to fight, as the Hrum did?

Jiaan looked away from their naked breasts. Ordinarily he would have found the sight . . . interesting, at least. But the Suud women, moving over the sand like ghosts, with their white hair drifting around their shoulders, were just too strange. Jiaan would as soon have bedded a corpse.

Last autumn, dealing with the Suud who had helped him escort the lady Soraya to the hidden croft, Jiaan had dismissed the rumor that the Suud were some sort of lesser djinn, or related to them.
Many deghans believed in the djinn, or at least claimed to, when it was to their advantage, but his father hadn’t, and his peasant mother had called them deghan nonsense. Watching now, as several spear butts prodded a dazed-looking Fasal to his feet, Jiaan’s mind still knew the Suud were human, but his prickling nerves were no longer quite so certain.

A spear butt connected with his rump, bringing him to his feet. The Suud talked among themselves as they marched Jiaan and Fasal through the rock maze. They still followed the stream, Jiaan noticed, so Fasal had probably been right that their camp was beside it. Jiaan was concerned for Fasal, who staggered along in silence. His hair was dark, so Jiaan hadn’t seen the blood till it ran down the back of his neck and stained his shirt. But when he tried to speak to Fasal, a white-skinned hand rose and cuffed his head. The blow was more warning than punishment, but it still made him stumble, and Fasal looked over and met his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

Jiaan subsided, aware of the Suud’s sharp gazes. He had met peasants whose eyes were pale, but none who had eyes with that unnatural, crystalline
iris. In the moonlight you could barely see the irises at all, just black pupils lost in a sea of white. Like djinn. But the Suud traders he’d dealt with just a few months ago had eyes like that, and though Jiaan had found their appearance strange, he had laughed and joked with them. He had liked them.

Being invited made a difference, it seemed.

But if he had led himself and Fasal to their deaths, why hadn’t they been killed already? No. Jiaan took a shuddering breath. The only reason for taking prisoners was because you wanted them alive. They hadn’t even been harmed, except for the damage they’d sustained being bucked off their horses.

Those same horses were now being led by the last of the Suud, as quietly as if nothing had happened. How had the Suud made Rakesh buck like that? Throwing small rocks? Jiaan wouldn’t have thought Rakesh would react that violently, but horses feared what they didn’t understand, and if several had struck him at once . . . Jiaan pushed the thought of djinn magic from his mind. The commander had lived among the Suud for a time, and he said they were just people—good people
for the most part. And the commander was never wrong. Right?

Their arrival at the camp distracted Jiaan from his whirling, half-panicked thoughts. There were more Suud here, more women, and tiny, shrill-voiced children. He had never seen tents like these, round, and arching over bent poles. Their tops were made of stitched hides, but their sides seemed to be made of Farsalan silk. They were scattered like bubbles across a flat crescent, nestled in a wide bend of the stream. Fires glowed in front of most of them, and a huge firepit, with an iron cauldron hanging above it, marked the rough center of the camp.

Jiaan had no time to see more. He and Fasal were thrust into one of the tents—the door was so low he had to shuffle through on his knees, bending his head. Two guards followed them inside, making the small, hutlike tent very crowded, even after they pitched out several baskets and bedrolls to make room. Firelight flickered through the silk walls, but the light was dim. The guards pushed Jiaan down, and then rolled him over to untie his wrists. The ache in his shoulders intensified as he moved his arms. Jiaan murmured, “Thank you,”
and was cuffed for his pains.

And he’d spoken too soon, for the guards pulled his wrists in front of him and bound them to one of the sturdy poles that supported the tent. It would be more comfortable, but Jiaan feared that only meant he was going to be there for some time.

“I need to talk to some—” Another cuff, harder this time. Fasal hadn’t even tried to speak. In another man, Jiaan would have taken that for common sense; with Fasal, it made Jiaan fear that his head injury was worse than he was letting on.

Jiaan lay on his side, gazing at the tent pole to which his wrists were tied. After a time, he tried to loosen it. He took care to move slowly, but a spear butt nudged him immediately and he subsided. The pole hadn’t shifted at all, as far as he could tell—it must be driven deep into the sand. More time passed. An old man entered the tent, carrying a bowl. Jiaan had to twist his neck, but his eyes had adapted enough for him to watch as the man bathed Fasal’s head.

“What’s in that water?” Fasal demanded suddenly. “My headache’s better.”

The cuff was aimed at his head, but the old man intercepted it and said something sharp in
Suud. The guard shrugged and rapped Fasal’s hip with his spear butt instead.

As his fear of being slaughtered wore off, captivity proved to be a cursed bore. Just before dawn the guards took them to relieve themselves, and drink from the stream, but then they were returned to the tent.

Jiaan hoped their guards would leave them, and sleep during the day, but of course the Suud weren’t that foolish. They came and went in three shifts, carefully robed to protect them from the blazing sun.