The Dreamtrails (20 page)

It seemed highly unlikely, but in moments there was a wild clangor of bells, and people began spilling out of the building from all directions, giving credence to the armsmen’s belief that the whole house was in danger of being destroyed. I waited until they had all run down toward the rear of the homestead and then farsent Lo and Zarak. I found one of the men without bands and made him “see” a host of armed strangers creeping through the woods toward the back of the house, and a senior armsman ordered the others to investigate while he tried to find out where the fire was. He ran back into the homestead, and I knew I did not have much time.

I farsought Zarak again and was delighted to find that the wagon had already left the cobbled yard and was swiftly nearing the entrance to the property. By my reckoning, it was not more than half an hour to the road leading to the cloister, and with luck, they might make it all the way there without being seen.

“We will deal with anyone we meet,” Zarak sent determinedly.

I withdrew from him only to find that the search for the fire and intruders was beginning to flag. Doubts were flowering, and any minute it would dawn on someone that they had been tricked. I reached into the minds of the unbanded men and managed three more sightings of people creeping about the house, prolonging the search for another half hour. Then someone discovered that one of the armsmen guarding the armory had no demon band. In a short time, all five unbanded armsmen were found and brought before their chieftain.

“The Misfit is here and trying to release her companions,” Vos screamed at his men. “Find her!”

I ran back through the trees to the barn and across the
cobbled yard toward the corral. I heard a shout and ran faster, but my wet socks slipped on the damp cobbles, and I went down hard. I was surrounded in seconds, and it was all I could manage, as I lay there, winded and dazed, to command Gahltha to do nothing, for I knew he could see me from the corral. If he tried anything, he would be killed. All the armsmen glaring down at me held knives or bows with arrows already nocked. I lay very still.

“Get up,” snarled a senior armsman as he arrived with a lantern and took in the scene before him.

“I’m not sure I can. I think I have sprained my leg,” I gasped.

Another armsman reached down, obviously intent on dragging me to my feet, but the senior armsman told him sharply not to be a fool. Was I not the Misfit witch who had forced their comrades into removing their demon bands and serving me? Who knew what I would do to someone who touched me?

The armsman snatched his hand back and gave me a look of frightened loathing.

“I will need a … stick if you want me to stand,” I said, levering myself awkwardly into a sitting position as more armsmen emerged from the house.

Before any of them could decide whether there would be any risk in giving me a stick, Vos came hurrying along the side of the homestead with more of his men. I noticed Kevrik among them, a purple swelling over the eye where Zarak had struck him. But from the smug triumph on Vos’s face, he had no idea yet that his prisoners were gone. I tried to reach Kevrik’s mind, but the demon band he now wore made it impossible. He looked down at me coldly.

“So,” Vos sneered, his eyes glittering with triumph in the
lantern light. “You thought you could use your filthy powers to rescue your friends, but see how you have failed. Here is the man you used to help you trick others into removing their bands.” He was pointing to Kevrik.

“Let me kill th’ witchling who made me betray ye, Chieftain,” he begged hoarsely.

Vos laughed. “You shall have her, but first, Chieftain Malik will wish to question her.”

“Then let us ride now and take her to him!” Kevrik snarled.

A look composed equally of arrogance and unease crossed the chieftain’s narrow features. “It is dark now, and Chieftain Malik commanded that none should come to his camp without first sending a message.”

“Sirrah, surely that could not mean you?” Kevrik demanded. “Are ye not the equal of Chieftain Malik, since ye are both chieftains, an’ ye are within yer own region? Let us take the freak to him, for will he nowt be eager to ken that she is taken prisoner? Let Chieftain Malik witness how yer men captured the Misfit when his own armsmen failed.”

“You speak well, Kevrik,” Vos approved, his cheeks flushed. He turned to the other armsmen. “I have decided that we will ride immediately to the camp of Chieftain Malik and deliver this creature to him.”

Several of the other armsmen, one of them the highlander whose voice I recognized from the wagon, sought to dissuade Vos, but the more they talked of Malik’s commands, the more stubborn Vos became.

“Am I Malik’s armsman to be commanded hither or thither? Besides, I wish to see Malik, and since he cannot be bothered to come here, then I will go to him, and in triumph, bringing him what he most desires.”

Still some of his captains argued until Vos flew into a rage and ordered them to make ready to ride.

Malik was the same solidly muscled, gray-eyed, gray-haired man he had been the last time I saw him, but he wore his arrogance with a vicious new edge that must have been honed by the secret bargain he had made with the Herders. He listened impassively to Vos’s description of my capture—by his telling, a brilliant coup in which Vos himself was a central figure. Without the congratulations and accolades from Malik that Vos clearly expected, the story at last foundered to an uncertain end.

“Did I not inform you that I wished you to send word that you had caught the Misfit? Did I not command that a messenger be sent if you intended to come here?” Malik inquired coldly. The light from lanterns hung about the encampment gave his face a sinister ruddy glow.

Vos’s bluster about being Malik’s equal shriveled, and he said, “You did, however … ah … it is a dangerous Misfit that my men caught. Not just a beastspeaker but a powerful coercer.”

Malik all but curled his lip in derision. “Your men caught her after they first let her escape and after you acted against my express orders to do nothing about Noviny or his visitors until I gave you leave.” Vos tried to speak, but Malik ignored him. “But I am sure Chieftain Dardelan will be most understanding when you expalin to him why you took Noviny and his granddaughter and their guests prisoner and interrogated them.”

Vos paled. “But … if the freaks had used their powers to escape, they would have reported me to the Council of Chieftains.”

Malik gave a bark of laughter. “Do you really imagine that the Council of Chieftains will be forever ignorant of what you have been doing here?”

“You said I would have your full support if it came out,” Vos stammered.

“So you would have, had you not decided to take prisoners against my orders. And now you march into my camp, though I warned you against it.”

“I am sorry, Chieftain Malik,” Vos gabbled, unraveling with fear. “I hope that you will not take this … eagerness of mine amiss. I will take this creature and return with my men to my homestead.”

“The mutant might as well remain here,” Malik said. He turned to look at me. He had glanced at me indifferently when we arrived, and I thought that he had not recognized me under the mud and dirt. But now, seeing the look of gloating hatred in his metal-gray eyes, I knew I had been wrong. He knew exactly who I was.

A cold shiver of terror ran down my spine. I forced myself to seek the mind of the horse Dovyn, whom I had unbanded, but the probe would not locate. His missing band had probably been discovered and replaced.

“Why are you here in Saithwold?” Malik demanded.

My mouth was so dry with fear that I had to work my tongue to produce moisture enough to speak. “We had letters from the beastspeaker Khuria, who serves Master Noviny. The missives did not sound like him, so we—”

Almost casually, Malik drew back his hand and struck me in the mouth. It was an openhanded blow with the back of his knuckles but hard enough to make me stagger sideways.

He asked in an almost bored voice, “What did you know of matters in Saithwold before you came here?”

“Nothing until a woman at an inn mentioned the blockade. She said that Chieftain Vos was trying to force people in Saithwold to elect him.”

Vos let out a strangled cry of dismay, but Malik silenced him with a cutting gesture.

“And the Black Dog?”

“Brydda said the high chieftain knew what Vos was trying to do but that Dardelan didn’t want to act against him until after the elections. He did not want us to come here, but when I said that Zarak was determined to see his father, he offered to help us get past the barricade.”

Malik sneered. “You would have me believe that despite knowing there was trouble in Saithwold, Brydda Llewellyn, a known friend to freaks, escorted here the guildmistress of Obernewtyn and doxy to its master, and left her without protection?”

I heard Vos gasp at hearing my title, but Malik ignored him.

“Brydda didn’t think there would be any real danger,” I said. “The worst we imagined was having to wait in Saithwold until after the elections, and in the meantime I would be able to stop anyone from doing anything rash, by telling them that Dardelan meant to deal with Vos.”

Malik struck me again, this time with a closed fist that glanced off the side of my head and knocked me to the ground.

“Get up,” he said coldly.

I struggled to my knees with difficulty, because my wrists were bound. The blow had set off a great explosion of pain in one ear, and I fought a blackness that fluttered about the edges of my vision, wondering what Malik wanted from me. I was answering his questions truthfully, and he could have
no idea that we knew of his bargain with the Herders.

“Get up,” Malik said once more.

Trembling, I obeyed. When he stepped toward me, I instinctively lifted my bound hands to protect my face, but he sank his closed fist into my stomach. I doubled over, gagging at the force of the blow, and fell to my knees. When I managed to heave in a breath, he ordered me up yet again. I obeyed as slowly as I dared, tensing for another blow. Instead of hitting me, Malik asked what Noviny had told me. When I opened my mouth to answer, he punched me again in the stomach.

I fell badly this time because of my bound hands, banging my head on a rock, and when Malik told me to get up, my limbs would not obey. I stayed curled on the muddy ground, praying that he would not kick my head or face. When he did not move or speak, I looked up to find him staring down at me, his features utterly empty. The moon had risen and seemed to ride on his shoulder. No wonder Maruman hated the moon, I thought dazedly. It was on Malik’s side.

Malik turned to Vos, who looked frightened out of his wits. “Do the other prisoners know that you have caught this one?”

“No,” Vos said in a thin voice. “They have not been questioned since the first interrogation, just as you ordered.”

“Good. Go back to your homestead. Remove Noviny and his granddaughter to their homestead and have them kept there under guard. Do not speak of this Misfit’s capture to them. Offer no explanation and make sure your men are equally silent. The other two Misfit freaks and the crippled gypsy are to be questioned again. Edel,” he addressed one of his own men, “accompany Chieftain Vos and conduct the interrogation. Begin with the cripple and torture him until he
dies, regardless of what he does or does not confess. Make sure the other two witness it, then begin on the boy. That will loosen the old man’s lips if they are keeping anything back. Find out why they came, what they have learned here, and what they intended to do. I will expect a report by tomorrow.”

Edel nodded, but Vos stammered a protest. “The … the Council of Chieftains will want to know what happened to the Misfits, Malik. And if this woman is truly the bondmate of the Master of Obernewtyn …”

“This is a freak, not a woman,” Malik snarled. “I will deal with her as all mutants ought to be dealt with. It is nothing to do with you. As far as anyone else will know, you saw her but once when she came to pay her respects to you, and then you had her taken back to Noviny’s property.”

“But if she talks—”

“You need have no fear of that.”

Vos swallowed the meaning of this as if it were a stone. “But the other Misfits … Noviny and his granddaughter will say that they and the cripple remained my captives when they were returned to their home.”

“If you are ever accused of anything, you will let it be known that Edel performed the interrogation of the Misfits at my command.” Malik’s tone was so indifferent that it sounded like boredom.

“But the Council of Chieftains will—”

“I will deal with the Council,” Malik said with cold finality. “Now go.”

Vos hesitated, perhaps expecting something more formal to pass between them, but Malik made no face-saving speech. Finally, with as much dignity as he could muster, Vos commanded his men to mount up and ride back to his property. They obeyed silently, watched by Malik’s men.

Malik was now speaking quietly to one of his men, and I closed my eyes for a moment, battling fear. My tongue found the jagged edge of a chipped tooth, and my lip stung where it had been split. I could also feel the drain of energy as my body tried to repair itself. There was no way to stop the process, for it was not activated by my will, and opening the locks had depleted me, though that fatigue was still coercively netted. I did not dare push the pain I now felt into the same net, because pain trapped in this way doubled and tripled in a very short time.

I was so intent upon my thoughts that I failed to notice Malik’s armsman circling behind me. When Malik abruptly ordered me to get up, I obeyed, relieved to find that my limbs would obey. But even as I stood, swaying slightly, I felt the cold metal of a demon band snap around my neck.