Finders-Seekers

by Gayle Greeno

  “Six, no ... seven, ahead of me. They keep moving, shifting back and forth. They move more easily than sunlight.”

  Seven? Not too bad, if that were all, but she wouldn’t delude herself, not with the thicket of arrows hedging them in, and their simultaneous directions.

  “Ten ahead of me,” Rawn growled. ” ‘Nother ten or eleven ahead of Saam, he says.”

  In contrast, Parm sounded deflated when he responded : “Only eight, no, seven.” The chiding that Harrap gave him wasn’t audible to the others, it was too personal, but they suspected the ghatt had been lectured about envy and greed. “I know. We should have listened to Saam. Not been caught like this.”

  “I take it Saam knew?” With the three back-to-back, Doyce caught a glimpse of Jenret’s profile, saw the long, dark lashes dip against his cheek when he spoke.

  “Apparently.” And no longer had any time for speech as the three ghatti mindspoke as one.

  “ ’Ware! Coming through!”

  The cessation of arrows had lulled them, a momentary false peace, an eye of calmness in the storm, but now the very trees shook with explosive life and movement, writhing as if to expel the Erakwa from the womb of their woodland home. Coppery, near-naked bodies, gleaming in the late sunlight, fragmenting, moving with such smooth speed that the eye could scarcely discern one from another. They swept in a molten wave toward them, bodies merging into one solid wall of flesh with grimacing, painted faces and arms menacing with hatchets, clubs, short spears.

  “Stay together! If we separate, it’s easier to cut us down!” Jenret shouted as he parried the initial blow. Mahafny bounced up, her sling whistling around her head as she let loose the first stone, and an Erakwan fell, an incongruous look of surprise on his face as his jaw dropped slack and his eyes rolled back.

  The ghatti sprang to their feet, dashing through the charge, tripping some, leaping fiercely onto Erakwa backs, wheeling and slashing with their claws. Parm used one bare back as a vaulting point and sprang in another direction, claws whipping across the face and eye of one Erakwan. The man howled in pain, blood welling down his face, and Parm screeched, too, first with astonishment, then with confidence. Khar and Rawn both rebounded from one charging body to the next like two furred, demented demons, striving to distract and damage as many as possible.

  Horrified, Doyce saw an Erakwan pluck Rawn from the back of one of his fellows and dash the ghatt to the ground, smashing at him with his war club, but the black ghatt spat defiance and twisted aside at the last possible instant, disappearing into the melee of legs.

  Saam didn’t fare as well. Grimly clawing at the back and shoulder of a heavily muscled Erakwan with blue chevrons painted like surprise marks over his eyes, Saam set his teeth around the neck bone, working to pierce it and slide a fang between the vertebrae to puncture the spinal cord. The Erakwan flailed ineffectually, unable to reach or unseat him. Busy with her own defense, Doyce turned in time to glimpse a war club wielded by another warrior catch Saam along the shoulder and send him crashing earthward in a heap. It was the last thing she had time to notice as more and more Erakwa rushed within striking distance, and she parried and thrust, hacking wherever an opening presented itself.

  Mahafny dodged back and forth, throwing now rather than using her sling, and finally, laying about her with a large rock as the bodies pressed tighter against them, hemming them in, making them collide with one another, misjudge their strokes. Jenret went down on one knee, bodies pressing him backward with no room to wield his sword. Severing a spear shaft with her own sword, Doyce kicked an Erakwan in Mahafny’s direction with a yelp of warning and the eumedico promptly thumped him behind the ear. Harrap’s massive arms swung his borrowed staff with a metronomic regularity until a low-swung club slipped under his guard and he crashed down with a bellow, five Erakwa on top of him, grappling to pin each limb. With the comforting bulk of Harrap gone, Doyce sensed that Jenret had never regained his feet, leaving her back unprotected.

  To have come this far and fail at this point! The thought galled her and she swung with renewed but hopeless fury, on the brink of overbalancing herself. She had no breath left to curse and saved it for another stroke, no longer bothering to choose a target with care; she was bound to hit someone in any direction she turned. Too many of them! Too many! She lunged to full extension and a hand snagged her wrist, and more hands grasped her from behind, pulled her roughly to the ground as Khar screamed, changing course to spring to her aid. Then yet another pair of legs blocked her view.

  “No!” She screamed at the top of her lungs and projected in mindspeech as well. “Go! Back away! Now! All of you!” If she could send the ghatti off free, they could seek help or perhaps devise a rescue plan. Saam and Parm limped in rapid retreat toward the forest, and Rawn broke his stride, wheeling back to intercept Khar and turn her. He slammed her with his shoulder to force her to change direction, and the ghatta lashed sideways at the solid black shoulder, already scored with blood, and hissed at him, charging forward with a rebellious growl. “Go!” Doyce mindscreamed again. “Khar’pern! Run, love! Escape!”

  But the ghatta ran on, oblivious to anything but Doyce, her mindspeech a roiling frenzy of wrath and alarm, the near-palpable sensation of the fear of loss overriding everything else. Khar never noticed the gaily decorated war club that smashed the back of her head. She collapsed and rolled, tongue lolling, half on her side, half on her back, the vulnerable white of her chest exposed for a killing spear point. A small circle of Erakwa gathered around her, first one, then another, gingerly prodding the ghatta with club or spear. One, clearly one of the leaders, raised his painted war club, studded with a spike of antler, ready to crash it down on Khar’s unconscious head.

  Without knowing how she managed it, Doyce struggled to her feet, her wrists lashed securely behind her with rawhide. She bulled free of the grasping hands, aware of tearing pain but not caring, and charged the circle head-down, scattering bodies as she slammed through. She gauged the club’s downward swing as she dove over Khar’s body. Then there was only jarring, numbing pain as the blow landed.

  Pockets of shadow and brightness eclipsing and expanding, elongating and shrinking as torches moved back and forth amongst the horses and Guardians. Rolf squinted in the unrelenting glare, narrowing his eyes, then strained to see as the torch moved to one side. Fifteen in the squad plus their sergeant, wide and hard as burled oak in his formfitting leather gear, helmet resting secure over close-cropped grizzled hair. The sergeant nodded, not really seeing him, more concerned with gear, rations, travel readiness. He paid special and personal attention to the tack on Swan Maclough’s bay, callused, large-knuckled fingers checking every buckle and seam.

  “We should be able to catch up with them,” the Seeker General said, her bay twitching, nervous under the probing hands of the sergeant. “Balthazar and his men know the north like no one else. And we have the advantage of fresh mounts as we go along. They won’t, so while they tire, we’ll be able to gain on them.”

  Rolf tilted his head to take in the mounted figure of the Seeker General, indigo cloak wound around her, Koom on his platform gleaming ruddy red in the torchlight. He wouldn‘t, please, wouldn’t beg, Lady help him, he wouldn’t, but he had to try again. To have failed, collapsed before he could race back to announce the premature departure, heart flittering as irregularly as an agitated songbird beating at its cage when the cat creeps close. Angina, Twylla had said, but a portent of worse to come if he didn’t ease up. Chak coughed, bringing him back from his self-pity.

  “I still think it advisable that I accompany you. I must go!” The naked appeal in his voice shamed him but he pressed on. “You need another Seeker with you. By rights it should be me.” His heart didn’t flutter now, he could feel its trip-hammer thudding at his temples, his throat, at every pulse point.

  “I’ve sixteen already,” she pointed out, reiterating the obvious, Rolf knew, trying to make him acknowledge his presence as unnecessary. “You’re needed here.
Someone has to keep Dovina and Andwers in line, keep them from informing the Monitor yet as to what’s going on. I’ve this escort as a favor only; you know it isn’t strictly legal for me to have commandeered it.” Swan wet her lips. “And if for some reason I shouldn’t return, I’m hoping that you’ll be elected in my place. I’ve left sealed documents for the Monitor—should they prove necessary—and one of them asks that he name you Seeker General Pro Tem until an election can be held.” She reached out a hand and brushed his shoulder, not daring to let her touch linger, to communicate her affection. “And after the stress you’ve been under recently, Twylla feels rest is advisable.”

  He pulled back, afraid even her casual touch would register his inadvertent stiffening, his resentment. Stress? Balderdash, she’d been under greater stress and for longer, not to mention that she must have fifteen years on him! He could keep up, Chak could keep up, they would if they had to crawl every centimeter of the way! The veins in his forehead pounded, flecks of black and gold spangled his vision, and he forced himself to breathe slowly and steadily, to face the unpalatable truth. Being a reasonable and logical man, he had to acknowledge that part of what she said had validity: the Tribune must remain intact to govern the Seekers in her absence. Let Andwers and Dovina sound a hasty alarm and who knew what would happen? But his friends rode out there—especially Parcellus and Doyce, Per’la and Khar. Abandon friends and you have none left, he whispered to himself, holding the thought tight.

  “There is a way,” Chak interjected. “Just be more forceful, but with subtlety.” And the image Chak projected made him giddy with excitement. Could he do it? He might be younger than the Seeker General, but he wasn’t a young man nor, he had to admit it, a well one, either. Nor was unprovoked violence his way.

  Raising his shoulders in seeming acquiescence to the Seeker General’s words, he smiled and wordlessly moved off as if the debate were finished and he had been convinced. As he turned, he tapped one of the Guardians on the arm to attract his attention. “A word with you, if I may, about the Seeker General’s needs on a forced ride such as this.” The young man came politely, toying with the leather and bronze helmet in his hands as he followed Rolf into the dark throat of a passageway between buildings.

  Like a shot Chak darted between the Guardian’s legs, clawing at his cloak from behind; the young man stumbled and looked down to see what pinned him in place. With every hoarded piece of strength in his body Rolf smashed clasped hands behind the Guardian’s ear, sending him crashing to the ground. Then as Balthazar, the sergeant, called for the laggard, Rolf stripped off the unconscious man’s breastplate and leather arm guards, fingers trembling with exertion and excitement as he fought with unfamiliar buckles and straps, the throbbing in his temples a joyous accompaniment. He scooped up the fallen helmet, jammed it low over his forehead, and rushed out, hugging Chak tight to his chest under the hastily donned cloak, and flung himself on the one free horse while the other riders milled about, ready to be off. Once they escaped beyond the revealing torchlight, who would notice?

  He jerked his horse into position after the others, weak with relief. For some reason this Guardian had tied his bedroll to the pommel of the saddle rather than lashing it behind. An impromptu platform for Chak. Still, he kept the cloak flung over the ghatt to keep him hidden. What Guardian would be accompanied by a ghatt?

  “This cloak has not been washed recently,” Chak muttered and sneezed.

  “Neither has much else from the smell of it. But don’t complain, it was your idea. ”

  Hooves, pounding and pounding through the night until they rang louder and more constant than his heartbeats. Leaning forward with exhaustion, wavering in the saddle, Rolf rode at the tag end of the squad. How many leagues had they covered from night until near dawn? Chak clung for dear life to the bedroll, still draped by the offending cloak.

  Balthazar dropped back until he rode level with Rolf, paced him in silence as Rolf struggled to draw the hood of the cloak farther over his helm. Lady help him if he had to speak, he hadn’t a clue as to what timbre of voice the young Guardian had possessed, high, low, shrill, gruff?

  “Night’s not that cold, think you’d be a mite stuffy like that,” Balthazar observed.

  Rolf muttered some noncommittal sound, neither denial nor agreement.

  “Doesn’t it bother the ghatt?”

  Rolf jerked upright in the saddle, jaw unhinging in disbelief. Discovered already, Lady help him, what a fool he’d been to think he could disguise himself! Now the ignominious sending home, back to do his duty.

  The sergeant reached to twitch the cloak back from Chak. “Had a bet you’d try something. Could see it in your face from the beginning when she said you wasn’t going. Didn’t seem fair like. So we drew lots as to who’d be the one tapped if you tried anything. Ferris was a right good sport about it.” He gave Rolf a comradely smile. “Sure and you didn’t think it was that easy to overcome a Guardian?”

  Hope as fresh as the air fanning his tired face and head, free of the hood and helm for the moment, rushed through him. “You don’t plan to send us back? We thank you. But I’m not sure I’d want to be you when the Seeker General finds out about this deception.”

  “Stay back, stay out of her line of sight and in another day or two, it’ll be too late. Any man’s entitled to try his hardest to protect what he holds dear.” He passed a canteen across and the rhythmic sloshing of the water sounded beautiful in Rolf’s ears. “Hold on to your hopes, that’s what makes a good Guardian.” And with that the sergeant urged his steed back to the head of the squad.

  Rolf worked the plug out of the narrow spout with his teeth, managed to squirt a dribble of water into Chak’s mouth until the ghatt coughed, then swallowed noisily. Then he drank, throat working in relief as they rode on, still exhausted but resolute.

  Blackness, velvety soft. She blinked, experimented again to be sure. Yes, her eyes were open ... the colors darted and swam back and forth when she closed them. Hard dirt tamped firm by years of animal and human feet, an enclosed, acrid smell from continuous habitation, smoke, cooking fires, curing skins, rancid fat. She shifted, rolled onto her back, ignored the wave of pain as her other shoulder and the back of her head made contact with the ground. Hands puffed and swollen, still bound behind her, and her head throbbed with slow, steady rolls of pain. Waves of pain, and with it the potent sense of desolation and loss. Khar! Khar! Dead, lost, gone. Alone again.

  But the steady swells of pain began to vary, alternating its rhythm so that two distinct and separate flows attacked her from opposite directions, counterpointing each other. Her own pain and pain on the very threshold of her mindspeech. Wavering, flickering in and out, sometimes merging with her own heart’s beat and her own throbbing pain, sometimes distinct and separate. Sometimes as an “other,” sometimes as one.

  She allowed herself a smile of exultation, tears sliding down her face, moistening matted hair. Khar lived! Alive, she could feel it! Doyce called out with her mind, but touched only unconsciousness, a blank receptivity without boundaries that she had never encountered before. She let her mind reach out and enter, encountered a series of blurred images, saw herself featured in many of them. She pulled back and withdrew, instinct telling her she trespassed on an intimacy that Khar had never offered before and was now powerless to stop. Still, it didn’t matter. Khar was alive and near.

  With effort she rolled back onto her good shoulder and jackknifed until her thighs were at right angles to her body. Her hands, tied at the small of her back, gave little leverage, but she managed to raise herself onto one hip. Behind her, faint shimmers, a murky flicker of light, bobbing, sputtering, hissing, more noise and shadowy motion than illumination. She pivoted on her bottom to find the source, digging her boot heels to turn herself around.

  “Ah, welcome back. It doesn’t burn too brightly, I’m afraid. It’s just a wick floating in a dish of liquified fat.” Mahafny, steady and as bracing as a cool wind over rain-swept fresh ear
th. “Wait. Sometimes if I blow on it, it bums brighter.”

  She did so, and the flame jumped tall and pure, outlining her face, cheeks rounded with blowing, cameo-carved against the dark. Her silvery hair hung loose, straggling around her face, and the sight disconcerted Doyce. Mahafny disdained untidiness or carelessness of appearance. Mahafny, her hair not wound in her elegant chignon. A wonderment and a puzzle, nearly driving her thoughts of Khar from her pounding head.

  “You’re gaping like a gaffed fish, Doyce. If you’re going to say something, do so. If not, stop opening and closing your mouth. It doesn’t inspire confidence as to your mental capacity after a blow on the head.”

  “What ... what about Khar? Where is she? Where are we? Harrap and Jenret?” It took effort, but she mouthed the words, made the sounds. She operated on two different planes of consciousness—or unconsciousness—one very much her own and aware, the other deep-melded with the ghatta’s pain, and the possible entry into the heart of an unknown and uncharted union.

  “Khar’s over beside me, resting on your tabard.” Mahafny’s words rushed, jumbled in her ears, though she heard the eumedico speaking distinctly, no attempt to soften the impact of her message; it was not her way. “I don’t know, Doyce, if she’ll survive. She took a bad blow the first time, much harder than the one you took trying to save her. The Erakwan managed to deflect the worst of the blow at the last instant. He had no intent to kill you. Though why they strove so hard to take us alive, I don’t know. We weren’t as restrained as they—some died.

  “They unbound me for a little after they brought us here, let me check on you both before they tied me again. Her head’s swollen, I can feel more flex and movement to the cranium than I’d like. There may be pressure building inside. If it doesn’t subside soon....” She trailed off, rested her chin against an upraised knee.