Skeen's Leap (40 page)

“Meet here?”

“No. The Esher Gate. If the Ravvayad follow precedent, they'll hit us between here and the gate. They've failed every time they've tried that, so I suspect a double attack this time. You might take a look about the gate for anything that smells suspicious. Be careful.…” She broke off, shook her head. “Sorry about that, I've been around the Aggitj too long. By the way, you want to tell me your name? Or do we just call you guide.”

“Britt'll do. It's enough.”

“Britt it is. Tomorrow, Yes.”

“Yes.”

The attack came half a stad before they reached the gate—four naked twisting forms. Pegwai cracked one skull, Skeen broke a kneecap with the staff she'd taken to carrying, the Beast bit the downed man and leaped away, Hart's spear skewered a third, and the last started backing off, mouth gaping, poison glands swollen ready to spit the corrosive deadly fluid at anyone who got too close. Skeen darted him, the Beast scurried over and bit the Ravvayad in the face, then curled up in the Boy's arms. The housefolk from Zenica and Sogan who were leading the karynxes some distance behind the Company came up with them, handed the leadropes to Skeen, calmly ignoring the bodies splayed out on the street. “Lifefire tend your journey with Bona Fortuna,” the taller man said; he inclined his head, then walked off with his associate who hadn't said a word the whole time.

“Well.” Skeen made a face at Pegwai when she saw his silent laughter. “Were they afraid we were going to ask them to come along?”

Pegwai poked at one of the corpses with the end of his staff. “They don't approve of the company we keep, that's all.”

Britt was waiting just inside the gate. “I took a short walk along the road,” he said. “Nothing obvious, but just this side of the crescent bend I saw a flock of gurdjis fly up from one copse and settle in another.”

Skeen nodded. “Chul, see what you can see without being obvious about it.” As the Min-Skirrik boy fluttered off, a soft gray mourning owl, she swung round, scowled at the karynxes. The Aggitj, Timka, and probably the Boy were expert riders, though karynxes might be strange to them, but she was merely adequate and Pegwai not even so good as that; his legs were too short and plump to get much purchase. “Ders, take care of my karynx, will you. I'm walking for the first bit. Peg?”

“I'd rather have solid ground under me if I have to swing this.” He banged his staff against the dirt.

Chulji came fluttering back, shifted to Skirrik. “Three of them,” he said. “And three on the other side of the road.”

“Djabo's bleary eyes. How far from the road?”

“On the left, two karynx's length, a little closer on the right.”

“Bows or spears?”

“Both.”

Skeen rubbed her chin. “Boy, you know their constraints. Will they sit in the trees and try to skewer us long distance?”

“Yah, em. They's room out here. If they can't get me, ul try fo's many a you's they can get.”

“I see. Hm.” She turned to Britt. “Two choices. Fight or go round. Me, I'd rather go round. Can we?”

“Roundabout and a lot of time, that's all; easy to find riding room down here.”

Skeen ran her fingers through her hair (hair that was mostly dark brown now, with only the tips pale and stiff). “If there were just the three,” she said, “I think I'd try taking them out. Six, though.… I don't know. I'm not happy at the prospect of them creeping up on us some night when we're deep in the mountains.”

Pegwai leaned on his staff. “Forgetting whether it's six or three, if you were alone without us on your mind, what would you do?”

“Go round now and take them out one by one when they followed.”

“Well?”

Skeen slapped her hip. “All right, why not. Britt knows the land and they don't. Let them sit and sweat.” She smoothed her hair down, moved the few steps to Ders and took the leadrope from him. “Seems I ride after all. Let's go.”

THE ADVANTAGE OF THE HIGH GROUND.

or

WHAT A HANDY THING IT IS TO HAVE WINGS.

Because he didn't have a Pallah form yet and might never have one (which made riding a karynx decidedly awkward), Chulji volunteered to fly watch over Ravvayad, flitting back at intervals to let Skeen know what was happening. The Kalakal assassins sat patiently in their copses until half the morning had passed, then they filed into the middle of the road and stood arguing for a while; eventually they walked back toward Karolsey until they reached the place where Skeen and the others had stood waiting for Chulji's scouting report. Three kept on going, vanishing through the gate. One dropped to his hands and knees and moved his head in circling darts, sniffing out their trail. He followed it a short way, got to his feet and came back. The three stood silent in the road and waited until one of the others came through the Esher Gate riding a karynx and leading three more. Then with three mounted and one tracking, changing the tracker every hour, they started after the Companions.

By the time the four Ravvayad circled back to the road it was almost sundown. They rode hard until their mounts were stumbling with fatigue, then made camp, graining and watering and rubbing down the karynxes before fixing themselves a cold meal. Chulji left them chewing stolidly on dried meat and hard biscuits, washing these down with drafts of water they fetched from the river.

In the other camp, some twenty stads ahead of the Kalakal, the Aggitj divided the night into four watches and drew straws to determine who would sleep when. After introducing a very nervous Britt as a friend, the Boy set the Beast to prowling the trees around them.

There was no disturbance of any kind that night.

Bright clear dawning, turning to a warm rather windy day. They rode past rich farmland. There were few houses visible yet they were seldom alone in the landscape—drovers watching herds, women washing clothes beside the river, and men, women, and children working in the fields. Most straightened (glad of the excuse to rest weary backs) to wave at the travelers and call out greetings.

Toward the end of the day they passed from croplands to grazing lands, low rounded swells covered with a short succulent grass. The road began to tilt upward and lose its identity as a road. By the time they camped for the night (having made another forty stads; the karynx lope was effortless and slightly faster than a similar gait in a horse), they had gained ground on the Kalakal because their pursuers had to let their mounts rest and recover from the hard work of the first day; part of every hour they slid from the saddle and walked beside the karynxes.

Another quiet night.

By midday they were deep into the foothills, taking a lesson from the Chalarosh and trotting part of the time at the stirrup so the karynxes would have the energy for a run if that was needed. Chulji reported that the followers were making up time because they were still on a relatively flat stretch of road while the Company was dealing with steep rises and sudden drops and a pathway that was so unused that only Britt knew exactly where it was. Some distance below them the river whispered noisily about the rocks in its bed and on the other bank mists and clouds of insects rose from the swamplands stretching out to the horizon without many breaks in the low wide-spreading trees, with only the occasional glint of water among the cottony green. The land seemed empty, but Britt was much more alert now; Timka shifted also and scouted the land ahead of them while Chulji kept a close watch on the Kalakal. Timka flew back to report she'd seen five other persons moving on the mountain slopes ahead, widely scattered, none of them anywhere near the river. “Trappers,” Britt said. “Maybe miners. Maybe just some wilders out hunting for their next meal.”

When they stopped to camp, Pegwai was exhausted and had knots in his muscles that kept him sitting still and silent for his pride's sake. If he moved too suddenly, he'd groan and give way. Skeen watched him sweat for a few minutes, then shook her head and got to her feet. “Whenever Tibo visited some of his family, he came back like that,” she said. “Friend of mine, trained as a tumbler and juggler when he was a boy; tried to be a boy again, showing off for the family. On your stomach, Scholar.” She bent over him, squeezed his shoulder. “Only therapeutic, I promise,” she murmured. “Company manners.”

That night Skeen was restless, very tired. Too tired to sleep, she told herself—both of us, she told herself when she heard Pegwai shifting about too often. Thinking about Tibo was a mistake, she told herself, and this time it was true. Thinking about Tibo fed the ache of need in her and the pain. That and the nearness of the event that would free her from this world or keep her here forever. What she'd told Pegwai about searching further, if there were no Ykx at Lake Sydo or if those Ykx proved uncooperative, that was moon-dreaming, talking to keep her spirits from sagging so low she couldn't get out of bed or eat or do anything but sleep or gloom. Fifteen days Britt said. Three gone. Small creaks and rustles as Pegwai turned over again. Sleep, old friend, you need it. Take your own advice, Skeen, another night like this and you'll be a rag. Peg. Peg. Peg. She wanted him and didn't want, was afraid of wanting. More terrified than she'd been the first time she'd slipped alone into a warehouse going after empty flakes and domp boards, a combination of terror and desire that churned her insides to mush that threatened to run out her toes.

An hour or so before dawn Ravvayad came creeping around the camp, trying to get close enough for a clean shot at the Boy. This wasn't the desert they knew, this land was too lush for them. They weren't accustomed to working through slender shivering trees and crackly brush, they had sloughed their robes, wore only weapon harness and loincloth; but even so their clothing snagged on branches, their feet seemed to seek out small dry branches and crunch them with crackles loud enough to wake the dead. They didn't make one quarter the noise they thought, but it was enough. Domi heard the rustles, his not-hair picked up their body heat. He turned slowly trying to locate them. Out in the darkness the Beast hissed and spat. Domi gave a shout, loosed a quarrel from his crossbow into the center of the loudest sound, clawed the bowstring back and shot again. Then the guard was beside him, holding out his bow. Domi took it, shot a third time while the guard laid in another quarrel. He held the bow out, but Domi shook his head. “Gone,” he said, then pointed as the Beast came trotting into the small dell, smugness dripping off his small body. They watched him snuggle up against the Boy.

The moment the alarm sounded, Pegwai and the other Aggitj rolled from their blankets and leaped to stand in a circle about the Boy, Skeen on her feet, darter out. They all relaxed as the Beast sighed and flattened himself against the Boy's side. Timka shifted from her cat-weasel form, spoke softly to Chulji, who took to the air a moment later, a night-owl on silent wings. She pulled on the loose robe she was wearing on this leg of the trip (it made quick shifts simpler) and belted it about her. “Chulji's up,” she said. “He'll watch them back to where they're stopping.”

Dawn, pink in gray; breakfast fire, coals more black than red. Skeen emptied her mug, handed it to Ders for washing. “Britt, tell me about the land ahead. It's time I started working on the Ravvayad.”

“No!” Timka leaned over the fire, hand out, reaching toward Skeen. “No. You stay with us.”

Skeen looked startled. “What?”

Timka folded her hands in her lap. “It's easy. I've been thinking about this. Ji and I can put them on foot. Spook the karynxes from under them. We have to get close, but we can do it under cover, where there are trees—tall ones, get away while they're picking themselves up. It's not so dangerous that way. Besides, the Beast and Domi took out one of them and Domi scratched another and they spent most of the night catching up with us. Without karynxes they won't have a hope of catching us. It's not so dangerous, don't you see?”

Skeen smoothed a finger across her lips, frowned at the fire. Pegwai watched them both, saying nothing. The guide was back among the trees, detached from all this, watching with cool interest. The Aggitj and the Boy bustled about getting the breakfast things washed, the gear packed and loaded on the karynxes, leaving the planning and all the arguing to the others. Skeen watched the fire die a while longer, then she looked up. “It won't stop them,” she said. “They'll find other mounts.”

“Where?”

“I don't know.”

“Neither will they.”

“Don't discount luck. Bona Fortuna is a capricious dame, she can conjure life out of stone for them if she chooses.”

“Whatever happens, we'll slow them down. Do it again if Bona Fortuna kisses them. They can't stop us. Even if they suspect us, they can't shoot down every bird in the sky and we can stay out of bowshot while we're watching them, get away quick once we've hit them, hit them any time we want as long as we're careful.”

Skeen gazed at her, gave her a long slow smile. “Point taken.” She got to her feet. “Hal?”

“Saddled up, gear stowed, ready to go, Skeen ka.”

Pegwai grunted onto his feet. “Do you realize how sharp that backbone is? Comes right through the leather.” He sighed. “I'm ready, I suppose. No use putting it off any longer.”

“Timmy?”

“If you must, Skeen, will you please please make it Ti? I'm flying today, I'll see you come the noon halt.” She stepped out of her robe, shifted to hawk and swept up out of the dell.

Skeen frowned after her, a look both speculative and amused, then she swung into the saddle. “Let's go.”

Noon halt. “They crawled back to their camp,” Chulji said, speaking through a mouthful of cheese and raisins and the contortions of his mouthparts that were the Min-Skirrik equivalent of a broad grin. “A nush or two later, one of them goes riding back toward Karolsey. All hunched over he was. You plunked him good, Domi, shoulder or back. The other two ate and then they rolled up in their blankets and took a nap; they woke up about an hour ago and started coming after us. They're way way back and not coming fast.”