It was Tarrant who first spotted the rakhene encampment—and he let out a shrill shriek to warn his companions as he circled down lower, overseeing their arrival. Seconds later the leader of the rakh drew a finely engraved horn from out of his belt and blew on it, presumably to alert the camp to their presence. The rakhene formation pulled in tighter about the humans, spear-points nearly touching the horses’ flanks, forcing them to a halt. After a few minutes Damien could see a second company riding toward them, maned warriors who gripped their weapons tightly as they approached, as if impatient to use them. They glared at the humans as they approached the raiding party, and angry words passed between the leaders of the two groups. The cadence of the newcomer’s speech resonated with fury as he indicated Damien’s unbound hands, and those of the other humans. Their captors responded defiantly, and Damien could only guess at his argument: the humans were disarmed, they were wounded and exhausted, they were sharing two mounts among three of them—how much damage could they possibly do? At last, with an angry nod, the leader of the second group agreed to lead them in. His companions went galloping on ahead, presumably to warn the camp that they were coming.
The great white bird swooped low overhead: a warning to the rakhene warriors, a gesture of support to the three humans. Despite his anxiety, Damien smiled.
Never thought I’d be this glad to have you around, you son of a bitch.
They rode to the top of a gentle swell, where thick autumn growths crowded about their horses’ ankles. From here it was possible to see the rakhene encampment, a village of tents and lightweight structures that stretched as far as the eye could see. Xandu grazed between the primitive dwellings, with no hobble or leash to bind them in place. Despite the lateness of the hour there were numerous people about, going about the day’s business as if the sun were still high in the sky. Children darted out into the moonlight and then were gone again, small golden forms as naked as the xandu who indulgently made way for them. Full-grown rakh tended cookfires, carved new weapons, sat around low-banked fires with bowls of steaming drink in their hands and made noises that might have been laughter. There were warrior-rakh like the ones who had captured Ciani’s party, broad-shouldered, heavily maned males with glittering ornaments woven into their fur; slender females, clothed from neck to ankle in finely gathered cloth, layered necklaces cascading down the front of their tabards; other females, aggressively naked, whose few, carefully chosen ornaments served only to highlight full rounded breasts, a sensitive strip of hairless skin that ran the length of their abdomen, hips and thighs that swayed as they walked in a motion at once exotic and familiar: the timeless dance of sexual desire. There were others, too, whose dress or manner blurred the dividing line between those groups, but they were gone too quickly for Damien to identify. Castes? Genders? What manner of society did these creatures develop, when human-style intelligence first began to stir within them?
With a brusque, barking sound, one of the rakh ordered him to dismount. Damien tried to obey. But his legs, weakened by the exertions of the night and numbed by the searing cold, were barely able to support him. He held onto the horse for support and breathed deeply, trying to will the feeling back into his flesh, praying for the strength not to look as weak as he felt in front of his enemies. Ciani and Senzei dismounted quickly, without being ordered to, and came running toward him. There were spears placed in their path, but Zen shoved them aside; for once he seemed more angry than afraid. Then, suddenly, a shadow swept cross Damien’s face. The rakh nearest to him drew back—fearfully, it seemed to him. Then, in the space that they had cleared, the great predator-bird landed. Feathers gave way to burning coldfire, which melted in turn into flesh; Tarrant caught Damien before he could fall, and for once his skin was no colder than the priest’s own.
“Good flight, I hope,” the priest whispered.
“I’ve had better.” He held Damien steady while Senzei rewrapped the blanket around his shoulders. “You need to get warm, fast.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
A group of rakh were approaching from the camp. Damien managed to stand up straight, though he could feel the strain of it pounding in his heart. Beneath the blanket he grasped at Tarrant’s arm, hoping such weakness went unseen. Whoever thought that man’s presence would be so reassuring?
They waited, side by side, as the strangers approached. Seven in all: three males, two females, and two that might have been either—slender figures, fully clothed, whose form and manner offered no hint of gender or social status. Eunuchs? Adolescents? Not knowing their society, Damien couldn’t begin to theorize.
The newcomers seemed to command some special respect, and warriors hurried out of their way as they joined the raiding party. They came to within several paces of where the humans stood and studied them. So focused was he upon staying on his feet, denying his own weakness, that Damien almost missed it when the rakh-woman joined them. Clearly, she was one of their number.
It was Tarrant who spoke first; his tone was harsh. “If you mean to kill us, now’s the time to try it. If you intend anything else, I think it’s time you told us about it.” It was hardly a speech calculated to make friends—but there was very little time left for diplomacy, Damien realized. In less than an hour’s time the sun would begin to rise, and Tarrant would have to leave them. He was trying to force some kind of confrontation before that happened.
It was the rakh-woman who responded. “It’s your intentions that need to be judged—not ours.”
“We came to heal one of our own kind. Not to do battle with the rakh.”
“Our peoples are at war,” a male challenged him. “Do you deny that?”
Damien stiffened. “That war ended centuries ago.”
The woman hissed softly. “Not for us, human. Not for us.”
Damien was about to respond when Ciani broke in. “Please . . .” she said softly. “We’re exhausted. Can’t you see that? We don’t have the strength left to hurt you, even if we wanted to.” Damien felt Tarrant stiffen at his side, as aghast as he was at her admission of weakness. What in hell’s name did she think she was doing? “Please. We need . . . a fire. Something to drink. A minute to breathe. just that,” she begged. “We’ll do what you want. Whatever you want, after that. Please.”
For a moment, utter silence reigned. Damien trembled—in disbelief, and apprehension. He’d never imagined that such words would ever come from her lips, such an abject admission of weakness . . . and not here! Not now! Not when they needed so desperately to establish themselves on strong ground. But because she was Ciani—because she must have something in mind, some reason to act this way—he bit back on the defiant words that were half-formed on his lips, and forced himself to be silent. To wait. To let her speak for the four of them.
The rakh conferred among themselves, sharp phonemes passing like animal hisses between them. At last the woman looked back at them. For a few seconds she just waited, perhaps to see if one of the men would protest Ciani’s message. But Senzei and Tarrant had clearly come to the same decision that Damien had—in fact, Tarrant was nodding slightly in approval.
“Come with us,” the rakh-woman said. “You’ll be fed, and given warmth—and then you can explain yourselves.”
The woman’s small group surrounded them in guard formation, herding them to the north. As for the real guards, the rakhene warriors, they hissed disapprovingly as their prisoners were taken from them—but they did let them go, which said much for the status of the woman’s group.
Damien glanced up at Tarrant, who put a slender finger to the side of his face. Through the contact of flesh-on-flesh a Working formed, that widened the channel between them until words could pass along it.
Very clever of her, don’t you think? Assuming that animal instincts would still be active among them. Enough so that a display of abject submission might be enough to short-circuit their aggressive instincts. She seems to have earned us a place—however low—within their hierarchy. Which means the hierarch
y may now afford us some protection.
Quite a woman, he thought, and his words resonated with admiration. She’s put us all to shame, for not having thought of it before.
It surprises me that the Hunter can still experience shame, Damien thought back.
Very rarely, he admitted. It’s not my favorite emotion.
The hand fell away from his cheek, fine skin grating on several days’ stubble. Time to shave, Damien thought—or maybe time to give up on it and just let the beard grow. Sometimes that was the best thing to do, while traveling. It occurred to him that Gerald Tarrant seemed to have no such problem—and it was faintly amusing that a man of such power should have devoted a portion of his skills to something as inconsequential as facial hair. But then he glanced at Tarrant—at the clean, delicate profile, the perfect skin, the eyes brimming with vanity—and thought. No big surprise. The man’s got his priorities straight. Appearance tops the list. And he smiled to note that the adept’s hair, though still wet, had been Worked back into a smooth, gleaming mass; the holes that the rakh had poked in his finely woven garments had been cleaned of blood and repaired, with similar finesse. He looked like a refugee from a garden party.
The tent that the woman led them to was a large one, situated at the western face of the encampment. As they ducked beneath the flap she raised to enter it, Damien was aware of faces peering at them from behind the protection of its bulk: young faces, mostly, anxious and curious and clearly fascinated by the presence of these strangers among them. In some there was no hostility, merely a desire to learn what these strange creatures were—which meant that the former trait was learned, not faebom.
What was learned can be unlearned, Damien thought. It was a promising sign.
The tent was a large one, that easily accommodated both the humans and their self-appointed guards. In its center was a low fire, mere glowing embers beneath a blanket of ash. But that was more heat than Damien had seen in hours, and when the woman gestured toward it he settled himself gratefully on a coarse rug laid before it, and shivered in relief and pain as the unaccustomed warmth of it began to drive the deadly cold from his body.
The tent itself was made of the skins of various animals, stitched together with painstaking care. But that surface was nearly invisible from the inside; tapestries and arras, richly worked, hung from the tent-poles in carefully orchestrated layers, trapping warmed air between them. Rugs were scattered across the floor, so numerous and so carefully overlapped that not a hint of grass was visible. Small sculptures hung from the juncture of tentpoles—wards, perhaps, or some rakhene equivalent—and they rattled like wind chimes whenever some harsh wind shook the structure. There was furniture—short tables engraved with intricate designs, screens and mirrors, chests and shelves—and bits of jewelry, shell and colored glass, that lay strewn about the interior like fallen leaves. These people might have had nomadic roots, Damien reflected, but he doubted that they traveled much now; there was enough stuff here to keep a moving company busy for days.
They settled themselves in a circle about the fire, humans on one side and rakh on the other. A constant tinkling accompanied the movement of their hosts, delicate necklaces and hair ornaments and mane-beads striking against each other as the rakh took their positions about the fire. Such noise would alert prey or enemies from quite a distance; the warriors must shed enough decoration to move silently in the field, before they left the camp.
Drink was passed, a hot, bitter brew reminiscent of tee. Damien gulped it down with relish, felt its heat spread quickly through his veins. The aching relief of it nearly brought tears to his eyes. There was food, mostly meat, and Damien registered the fact that the early rakh had been carnivores; any taste for plant life that they might have developed would have come after man’s Impression had begun to alter them.
Their hosts waited until they had eaten their fill, as silent and still as a beast stalking game. No words had passed among them since the time they entered the tent, yet it was clear that a hierarchy had somehow been established. When the last cup of steaming drink had been emptied, when nothing remained of the strips of roasted meat but a thin puddle of juice on carved wooden plates, one of the maned rakh stirred, and with an air of obvious authority addressed the humans.
“You should know what we are, before you begin. Our rank among this people—that of khiast—has no translation in your tongue. It’s a rakh-thing, born of the persecution time—”
The woman hissed sharply. A few words of the rakhene language passed between the two of them, sharp, biting phonemes with obvious anger behind them. Damien sensed a wealth of emotion that reached back into the rakh’s early years, when a species torn between human potential and bestial inheritance was forced to flee from the very race that had brought it into being. The male’s tone, when he spoke again, was filled with anger and resentment. And something else, perhaps, that lurked about the edges of his words, nearly hidden behind his facade of racial aggression. Fear? Awe?
“What I mean to say,” he amended gruffly, “is that although our people are familiar with your tongue, we seven alone are fluent. Our ancestors foresaw a time when we might need such fluency, perhaps to bargain for our lives—and so they captured women of your tribes, and sometimes men, and forced them to interact with our young. Until your English took root here, and our few khrast families were established.” With a short, sharp gesture he indicated his companions. “Each one of us has spent time in the human lands, among your kind, absorbing the vernacular. Some have passed as demons, some as visions, some—occasionally—as humans. We’ve traveled in your world; we know your ways. We seven can interpret your words so that our people will understand what you have to say. That’s all. We have no other rank but that; nothing in common as individuals, beyond the khrast tradition. No authority as a group, beyond that which we may wield as individuals.”
“We understand,” Ciani said.
The rakh-woman leaned forward; her eyes flashed viridescent, like a cat’s. “Tell us why you came here,” she commanded.
It was Senzei who answered. In a voice that trembled only slightly, he told them what manner of creatures had come to Jaggonath, and with what intention. He described the attack upon Ciani—and its devastating result—in terms so passionate that Damien felt as though he had witnessed the incident himself. Then, for a moment, Senzei’s overpowering grief at Ciani’s loss stopped the words from coming. For a moment he shook silently, the pent-up anger and frustration of the preceding days finally getting the better of him. That, too, seemed to communicate something to the rakh. When he spoke again, they seemed . . . different. More receptive, somehow. As if he had finally reached them on a level they could relate to.
“They came from your lands,” he concluded. “Demons that feed on the memories of others, and keep intelligent beings like farm animals to feed on. We came here hunting them. One demon in particular. All we ask is the right to pass through your territory in order to reach it. In order to free our companion from that curse.”
Damien glanced at Ciani, saw that she was trembling. Merciful God . . . if it was hard for Senzei to describe these things, how much harder for her, who had suffered in ways he could barely comprehend? He longed to take her hand, to offer her that minimal comfort, but dared not. Who could say what manner of interaction might anger these creatures?
After a silence that seemed painfully drawn out, one of the slender rakh spoke. “I’ve seen such things,” he muttered. “In the east, near the House of Storms. Seen, but not believed.”
“Human demons,” a maned male spat. “Born of human fears.”
“Inside the Canopy?” a female challenged him.
“Humanity is like a disease. It spreads without limit.”
With sharp rakhene syllables, the male who had spoken first silenced their bickering. “It’s not our place to make decisions for our people,” he said firmly, “merely to interpret for them.” He looked the small group over; his expression was cold. “We’ll pass
on what you’ve told us and let the others decide. But you should know this: We’re not a forgiving people, and our hatred of your kind runs very deep. The punishment for humans who trespass in our lands has always been death. In all my years, I’ve only known of one exception to that rule. One human who managed to bridge the gap between our species, and earn the respect of a southern tribe, so that they permitted her to live. One.”
He stood. His amber eyes were fixed on Ciani. “I remember that woman. I remember her scent.” His voice dropped to a soft hiss. “And the fact that you don’t remember me, Lady Faraday, says more for your suffering than a volume of human arguments ever could.”
He drew back a tent flap, allowing the warrior-rakh who were waiting outside to enter. The other khrast gathered themselves to leave. Clearly, the interview was over.
“I’ll do what I can,” he promised.
The camp of the rakh did not lend itself to the maintenance of prisoners. As negotiations between their captors were hissed in low tones, Damien reflected upon what the maned rakh had said, and the implications of it. The punishment for humans who trespass in our lands is death. It meant that the rakh had no experience in dealing with human prisoners—and if they handled their political affairs with the same animal instincts that they used to establish their local hierarchy, they might not even have experience in holding rakhene captives.
He glanced at Ciani as they were led from the tent, herded like milk-beasts. He expected to see fresh pain evident in her face, the anguish of lost memory suddenly brought to light. And there was certainly that, in considerable measure. But something more, also. Something that gleamed in her eyes with aggressive fervor, as she watched the rakh respond to unspoken, almost unseeable signals. Something that was coming to life in her, here . . . as it must have come to life the first time, so many years ago. They had sensed it in her, and it had saved her.
Hunger. A thirst for knowledge, as powerful as Senzei’s yearning for power—or Tarrant’s hunger for life. Or my—my what?
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