“Open,” she said, then demonstrated what she wanted, opening her own mouth. When the woman complied, she pushed the wadded kerchief into her mouth, then bound it firmly in place with the neck scarf, wrapping it several times around the woman’s mouth and neck, making sure she could breathe through her nose. She quickly bound her ankles with another length of cord, and stood back. The woman’s eyes followed her above the gag, angry and accusing.
“Well, at least you’re alive,” she told her.
Hal snapped his fingers impatiently. “Forget it,” he said. “Let’s get her husband ready to travel.”
He selected a pair of woolen trousers and a thigh-length red jacket in heavy, brocaded material from the available clothes and thrust them at the Sha’shan. “Put them on,” he ordered.
The Temujai leader complied, stuffing his nightshirt into the trousers. There was a pair of felt boots by the bed and he pulled them on as well. Then, at a word from Hal, Stig stepped forward and tied the Sha’shan’s hands firmly in front of him, looping the end of the rope down between his legs and up his back again, then round his throat. If he moved his arms too violently, he would choke himself. Stig found a linen shirt and tore off the sleeves, wadding one up to form a gag, and holding it in place with the other sleeve wound round the man’s neck.
Hal studied the dimly lit interior of the yurt, making sure there was nothing else they needed to do. The woman wriggled angrily on the bed. She mumbled something through her gag, but the volume level was very low. He doubted that it would be heard through the thick felt walls of the yurt. Nonetheless, he raised a warning finger to her.
“That’s enough,” he said, and she settled back, although her eyes flashed with anger. “Stig, take a firm grip on our friend here,” he ordered, and Stig took the end of another rope looped around the Sha’shan’s neck, twitching it experimentally.
“Remember,” he told the Sha’shan, “make a sound and you’re dead.” He raised the gleaming blade of the saxe that he held in his other hand.
The Sha’shan nodded, understanding.
“Right,” said Hal. He blew out the lamp and pulled back the door flap. “Let’s get out of here.”
chapter twenty-eight
He slipped through the gap in the doorway and pressed back against the outer wall of the yurt. Thorn, standing watch outside, nodded a greeting to him. Then Hal held the door flap open so that Stig could emerge, his hand wrapped in the back of the Sha’shan’s collar in a grip of iron. He urged the portly Temujai leader out onto the rear deck of the wagon, then stopped him before he could move too far into the open. Lydia followed, moving as silently as a ghost.
Quickly, Hal moved to the top of the steps and checked the three sentries they had knocked out and left bound and gagged. The three forms still lay motionless in the long grass. He looked up at the outer ring of sentries. They were some distance away and seemed to be taking no notice of the camp itself. All of them were facing outward. He estimated that they would have to pass close by the nearest one. That way, they would be a reasonable distance from his two immediate neighbors. He gestured the others forward and went swiftly down the stairs. Stig followed, with the Sha’shan. Thorn came next and Lydia brought up the rear. They moved to the long grass and knelt, semi-concealed. So far, the Sha’shan had behaved himself. But that wasn’t to say he would continue to do so if they passed within a few meters of one of the sentries. Without him, and with the cover of the long grass, the four Skandians could easily break through the ring. With him, it might be a different matter. Hal beckoned Lydia to his side and indicated the nearest sentry.
“We’re going out that way,” he breathed. “Can you take him down?”
She studied the man’s position for a few seconds, eyes slitted as she calculated angles and distance.
“You want him knocked out?” she answered, her voice barely audible.
Hal nodded. “If you can do it.”
She paused for a second or two, then replied. “I’d like to get a little closer.”
Hal made a go ahead gesture. “Get as close as you like,” he said. He had considered sending Thorn to knock out the sentry. But it would take time for the old sea wolf to creep through the long grass and get within striking distance. Plus two men struggling, even for a few seconds, would be more likely to be spotted by the other sentries in their peripheral vision. If Lydia could do the job, it would be quicker and cleaner, he thought.
Lydia said nothing. She glanced down at her quiver and selected another blunt-headed dart. Then she dropped to her belly and, moving on her elbows and knees, started to slide forward toward the sentry.
Hal lost sight of her for twenty seconds, then she appeared once more, barely thirty meters from the sentry, rising out of the long grass, the dart held ready in her atlatl, her right arm back.
As before, she came to a fully erect stance. Her arm whipped forward and she released the dart. In the dim light, Hal couldn’t see its flight. But he saw the sentry suddenly throw his arms wide, letting his spear drop. Then he went facedown in the grass. Lydia, moving smoothly and without excess haste, dropped back into cover.
Hal counted to ten, waiting to see if there was any reaction from the other sentries in the cordon. When there was no sound from either side, he gestured to his companions.
“Let’s go.”
They moved in a crouch, half running as they made their way up the slight slope. Stig maintained his firm grip on the Sha’shan’s collar, shoving him ahead of him through the waist-high grass, holding him to a low crouch so that he would be less visible.
They came up to Lydia, who was kneeling beside the unconscious sentry. She had tied his hands and ankles and was gagging him with his own kerchief and scarf. Hal paused beside her.
“Good work,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
He glanced along the sentry line. He could make out the two nearest sentries in the dim light of predawn. But they were both facing slightly away from the line he wished to take. He beckoned his companions.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Keep low.”
Still in a crouch, the four raiders and their hostage moved quickly through the long grass. Hal led the way, with Stig and the Sha’shan behind him, then Thorn, then Lydia. The girl paused every so often and turned to check their back trail. But there was no sign that anyone had sighted them. After several hundred meters, Hal signaled to Thorn.
“You can break the trail for a while.” The shaggy-haired warrior nodded and moved to the head of the little column, shoving through the long grass, making an easier path for those behind him. They continued in this order until they crested the next shallow rise in the terrain and started down the far slope.
“We’re clear,” Lydia called softly from her position in the rear. Hal glanced round. They were hidden from sight now by the low ridge. He straightened, coming to full height. His knees gave a silent sigh of relief.
“All right, everyone, let’s push it up. Someone’s going to find those sentries, or the Sha’shan’s wife, before too long.”
The most logical time for that, he thought, was when the sentries were relieved. He wondered how long that might be. They hadn’t had time to watch and see their schedule. He considered asking the Sha’shan, then shook his head, dismissing the idea. The man might be behaving himself at the moment, but there was no reason why he would give them that sort of information.
He took the lead again, pushing faster through the long, clinging grass, anxious to put as much distance between them and the Temujai encampment as he could.
Thorn moved up to stand beside him. “We’re leaving a pretty obvious trail,” he said.
Hal turned and studied the ground behind them. With five people walking one behind the other, the grass was being heavily trodden down. It would take some time to spring back to normal.
“Can’t be helped
,” he said.
“We could move in line abreast,” Thorn suggested. “The trodden-down grass would recover much quicker that way.”
Hal considered the idea. Thorn was right. With the grass being crushed flat only once, it would spring back into position much sooner. By dawn, there might be no sign of their passing. But he shook his head.
“It’ll slow us up,” he said. Moving the way they were, with two people changing the lead every fifteen to twenty minutes, they could make much better time. If they moved in line abreast, each of them would have to break their own trail—and that would be twice as difficult for Stig and his captive. It was a better choice to move faster, even though they would leave a more obvious trail for pursuers to follow.
They struggled on, fighting the long grass again. The going was twice as hard for Stig, burdened as he was by the Sha’shan. He suspected that the man was delaying as much as he could, moving slowly, stumbling constantly and deliberately, and holding back against the nonstop urging of Stig’s fist wrapped in his collar. But Stig couldn’t prove it and there was nothing he could do to make the man move faster. Threats would be useless, he knew. He could threaten retaliation for the man’s actions, but unless he was willing to carry out the threats, he might as well save his breath. He glared at the back of the Sha’shan’s head. In a way, he admired the portly little man.
Thorn dropped back beside him. “Want me to spell you?”
Stig nodded gratefully. Thorn might be able to get the recalcitrant Temujai moving faster, he thought. Thorn wasn’t one to make meaningless threats. If he threatened retaliation, he’d carry it out—probably with that big hardwood hook he wore in place of a right hand.
He released his hold on the Sha’shan’s collar and Thorn quickly gripped the back of the man’s jacket with his left hand. He twisted the cloth a little and turned the Temujai leader to face him.
“I’ve been watching you, Your Sha-sha-ness,” he said. Thorn wasn’t a stickler for correct titles. “And I can see you’re dragging the chain and trying to slow us down. Keep it up and this is what will happen.”
He rapped the hardwood hook against the top of the man’s head. The blow made a distinct klok! as it landed and the Sha’shan staggered slightly with the force of it. Tears sprang to his eyes. It wasn’t a debilitating blow. But it was a painful one. Thorn shook him with his left hand.
“Are we clear?” he said.
The Sha’shan lowered his gaze, only to receive another painful rap on top of his skull.
“Are we clear?” Thorn repeated, more forcefully.
The Sha’shan nodded, shaking his head to clear the new tears that had sprung to his eyes. “We’re clear,” he muttered, his voice surly.
Thorn beamed at him. “Somehow, I thought we would be. Now let’s move!” And, as he said the last word, he shoved the Temujai leader roughly in the direction of travel, holding him up so as to prevent any tendency to fall.
* * *
• • • • •
Lek’to, the Sha’shan’s wife, was no shrinking violet. You didn’t get to be first lady of the Temujai nation if you were. She was a brave and resourceful woman, and she was angry and humiliated by her treatment and at being left, tied hand and foot and gagged, on her own bed.
She wriggled her way to the edge of the bed, paused and rolled off, landing with a painful thud on the hard timber floor of the wagon, bruising her right elbow, which took most of the fall.
Noise, she thought. Noise would alert the sentries and bring them running. She wriggled her way to a sitting position, leaning against the bed, and peered around the room.
The shrine against the wall had several metal and ceramic fittings. If she could knock it over, they’d make the sort of noise that might bring help. But then she realized the shrine also had three red-lensed oil lamps burning. If she knocked it over, they might well set the yurt on fire.
That would bring men running too, she thought, but they might be too late to save her. She discarded the idea. The low table in the center of the room held a brass teapot and six small cups. They’d make noise if they fell. She wriggled closer to the table and hooked her feet under it, trying to tip it over. But it was too low and wide, too stable, and all she could managed was to make it slide away from her.
There was a dagger hanging in a sheath from the row of pegs along the wall. But it was too high for her to reach, and tied as she was, she couldn’t rise to her feet. Even if she could, she realized, her hands were firmly tied behind her back.
She paused to think. There seemed to be nothing inside the yurt that would help her loosen her bonds or her gag.
What about outside?
There were guards ringed around the wagon, she knew. But she realized the raiders must have overpowered them to gain entrance to the yurt. No hope of help there. Then a thought struck her.
There was a loose nail at the top of the steps leading down, in the railing, close to floor level. She had been nagging her husband to have it fixed for days now. But, typical male that he was, he’d fobbed her off and forgotten to get it done.
At least, she hoped he had. She began to writhe her way across the yurt floor now, shoving her way through the entrance flap and then sliding herself on her backside toward the railing.
She reached the top of the steps and looked around. There was the head of the nail, protruding from the timber by a centimeter or so. As ever, Pa’tong had neglected her request to have it fixed.
May the Three Horse Gods bless his procrastinating soul!
Now, she thought, if she could snag the rope around her wrists on that nail, she might be able to work it loose. Or fray it until it parted.
It would take time. But time was what she had.
Lots of it.
chapter twenty-nine
Wearily, Hal crested the last rise leading down to the lake where the Heron would be waiting for them.
He staggered slightly as he stopped. His calf and thigh muscles ached with the effort of shoving through the thick grass for kilometers, with depressions and uneven terrain waiting to make him fall headlong. Doing this trip twice in a matter of hours was hard work, he thought.
The sky to the east was growing pale, with the first streaks of light showing. The lake lay ahead of them, at the bottom of the long slope of grassland. The moon was almost down on the western side, leaving a glittering path back across the water toward them. He couldn’t see the Heron. If the ship was in place, it would be hidden against the dark bulk of the island, he realized.
He heard the others come level with him, pausing at the top of the rise as he had done. Stig had charge of the Sha’shan once more. The tubby Temujai leader sank to his knees as they stopped. Stig, for once, allowed him to do so. They were all tired.
All except Lydia, Hal thought. She seemed immune to fatigue, moving silently and swiftly through the grass, never seeming to put a foot wrong, bringing up the rear and watching for the first signs of pursuit.
“We’ve made it,” she said.
Hal threw a warning glance her way. It never paid to be too confident. You never knew when fate might be listening in, waiting to disappoint you. Fate tended to do that, he thought gloomily.
“Nearly,” he said, taking his flint from the pouch at his belt and unsheathing his saxe.
Quickly, he struck the flint against the back edge of the knife’s steel blade three times, creating three brilliant flashes of light.
A shower of sparks fell from the last stroke into the grass at his feet. The grass, after being buried by freezing snow for months, and then blown by the constant wind over the past few weeks, was sere and dry. The sparks, fanned by the morning breeze off the lake, caught in the long strands and a small flame rose up.
“Watch out for that,” Thorn warned him.
Hal quickly stamped the little flames out with his boot, the grass crackling underfoot.
He looked back at the island, in time to see three answering flashes, brilliant against the dark background.
“They’ve seen us,” he said. “Let’s go.” And he led the way down the long, gradual slope, heading for the lakeshore. They hadn’t gone more than fifty meters when the low, dark shape of the Heron appeared, moving out of the shadow of the island and sliding through the water under oars, heading to meet them.
Nervously, he cast a look back over his shoulder. But they were alone on the vast grass plain.
Nevertheless, there was no time for delay. “Push it up,” he ordered his companions, and they doubled their pace, running down the slope, slipping and sliding on the uneven, uncertain surface.
The Heron was halfway to the shore now. The oars moved at double time, heaving the narrow hull through the dark water, creating flashes of silver phosphorescence where they touched the surface and leaving a white wake behind her.
“Hal?” There was a warning note in Lydia’s voice. She was a few meters behind the rest of them, continuing to check for any sign of pursuit. He stopped and looked back, in time to see six horsemen appear over the ridge they had just left.
He sensed that Thorn and Stig had stopped to look as well, and he waved them forward.
“Keep moving!” he ordered, his voice cracking with the strain. “Thorn, give Stig a hand. Lydia and I will slow them down!”
Thorn nodded his understanding and moved in beside the Sha’shan. Together, he and Stig gripped an arm each, raising the Temujai leader onto his toes and frog-marching him at a shambling half run toward the safety of the lakeshore. Hal watched them for a few seconds, his heart leaping to his mouth as Stig stumbled and fell, dragging the other two down with him. But he was up in an instant, urging and shoving the Sha’shan through the grass. Thorn cursed quietly and repeatedly as they blundered on.
Return of the Temujai Page 19