“A moment, Sola! I want to hear what that one has to say. Bring him here!”
Bhaldavin was prodded forward with a sword at his back. Thura went with him. He ignored the men who surrounded them and looked once at Gringers before turning to face Zojac. He was sure he had caught a flicker of relief in Gringers’s eyes and an almost imperceptible nod that might have meant “thank you” or “go ahead, tell them what you know.”
He took a deep breath. He had to convince them to keep Gringers alive, because alive he could escape and help Lil-el. In that moment he knew that if anything happened to him, Gringers was the only one who would ever see that Lil-el and his other two children reached Ni ter-ritory safely. He could do no more for his family now. He and Thura were lost. The Wastelanders were sure to look upon them both as mutated humans, their crystal eyes and green hair marking them as surely as Gils’s splayed feet.
Zojac crossed his arms before his chest. “What did you say about this man?”
“I said that Gringers has knowledge that’s too important to throw away,” Bhaldavin answered. “He knows how to recharge the light guns you’ve taken from us. He knows about many of the machines in the building, machines built by your ancestors, the First Men. Kill him and you lose it all.”
Zojac looked at Bhaldavin a moment, then motioned to the three gray-haired men. They moved off a few paces and spoke quietly among themselves. A minute later they came back.
Zojac frowned at Gringers. “Your life is spared—for now. We’ll test this knowledge you’re said to possess and make a further judgment after that.” He turned to Bhaldavin, his glance touching Thura. “And now, you two. Are you related?”
“This is my daughter,” Bhaldavin said, holding Thura’s shoulder.
Zojac reached out and took Thura by an arm, drawing her away from Bhaldavin, though she tried to cling to him.
“Adda!” she cried.
Bhaldavin’s heart thundered loud in his ears. “Stand quietly, Thura,” he said, trying to keep the tremor from his voice. He knew they were going to kill her, but there was nothing he could do to stop them. He clenched his teeth to keep from yelling as Zojac touched her smooth pale skin, running his hands over her immature body. When the Wastelander was finished with his examination, he glanced at the three men for their verdict. The lack of expression on his face made Bhaldavin tremble. Let it be quick and painless, he thought.
Gringers spoke up suddenly. “Kill them—either of them—and you kill a gift from the gods. They are Ni! They can protect you from—”
His words were cut off by Sola, who drove his fist into Gringers’s jaw. A second blow to the stomach pushed the air from the Barl-ganian’s lungs, and he slumped unconscious between the two men who held him.
Zojac glared at Sola a moment, then spat on the ground. When his head rose, his dark eyes were fixed on Bhaldavin. “I’ve heard of the green-haired folk who live among the diseased men of Barl-gan. The rumors say that you’re capable of controlling the great lizards. Is this true?”
Bhaldavin nodded, hardly daring to believe that he and Thura might yet be reprieved. He swallowed twice before he could find his voice. “The lizards are called draak where we come from. My people have long known how to sing draak.”
One of the other men spoke. “You’re not of Barl-gan?”
“No. I come from the Enzaar Sea, west of the mountains.”
“How did you get here?” the man asked.
“We climbed over the mountains. It was cold and dangerous, but there was a way.”
“Why do you stay with the diseased ones?” Zojac demanded.
“I’ve tried to leave several times but haven’t succeeded. The pass we followed down this side of the mountain was blocked by an avalanche years ago, and I haven’t found another route back.”
Sola stepped forward. “He’s lying to save his life! He is one of the diseased ones. Look! He has but one arm, and his eyes are the eyes of a soulless one! I say we should kill him!” He grabbed Thura by an arm, jerking her to him. “And his whelp!”
Bhaldavin stiffened, eyes wide in fear as Sola brought his knife up under Thura’s chin. Terrified, the girl struggled against the man’s cruel, biting fingers. Somehow Bhaldavin tore his glance from Thura’s small heart-shaped face and turned to Zojac, who stood by frowning. Praying to the Unseen that he could reach the man, he dropped to his knees.
“Please, don’t kill her! I beg you for her life!” He wanted to say more but suddenly could not get the words past the lump in his throat.
Zojac looked at Bhaldavin, then reached out and pulled Sola’s knife hand down. “You will wait until a decision has been made.”
Dark eyes met dark eyes in a look that was pure challenge. Sola held Zojac’s gaze as long as he could, then his glance dropped. He was not yet ready to openly defy the man who had successfully led the Northern Lake tribe for the past twelve years. Another time. There would always be another time.
Zojac left Thura in Sola’s charge and walked around Bhaldavin, noting the bruised and swollen places on his face and pale skin. He paused to inspect the stump of Bhaldavin’s left arm, then hooked a finger around the cord at Bhaldavin’s neck, bringing the leather pouch up to his hand. “What is this?”
Bhaldavin’s heartbeat quickened. “My focus stone,” he lied. “It helps me concentrate when I sing draak.”
Zojac felt the round hard shape within the bag and dropped it back to Bhaldavin’s neck, satisfied with the explanation. He walked around Bhaldavin and stopped to face him.
“Off your knees.”
As Bhaldavin obeyed, Zojac looked to the other men. “He wasn’t born one-armed. It looks like it was cut off. As for the color of his eyes and hair, they are like none I’ve ever seen before, including any among the diseased ones. If it’s true that he can control the great lizards, I think we should give him a chance to prove it.”
“And the girl-child?” one of the men asked, looking at Bhaldavin. “Can she also control the great lizards?”
“She’s learning. She’s been training for a year now. She should be able to sing draak by the end of this warm season,” Bhaldavin said, exaggerating.
Zojac turned to Sola. “Release her.”
Sola frowned but did as he was told. Thura went quickly to her father and hugged him, silent tears trickling down her face. Bhaldavin stroked her hair, his own fear slowly subsiding. They were alive, at least for a little while longer, and where there was life, there was hope.
Chapter 10
GILS WAS IN a near panic as he drew himself up to the top of the stockade wall. He would never forget the look in Enar’s eyes as he dropped back to the ground and into the hands of the enemy. Realizing that he could do nothing to help Enar, he caught at the top of the wall with one hand, slipped over the other side, and hung by his arm a second before dropping a good six meters to the ground below. He landed hard, jarring both legs. Pain and a warm gush of wetness down his side told him that his wound had opened up again. He tripped over one of the young trees the Wastelanders had used as a crude ladder to scale the wall and plunged downslope, slipping and grabbing at bushes to save himself from falling.
Upon reaching the roadway below, he stumbled out into the open and looked back. Two of the Wastelanders dropped down on his side of the wall to give chase. An angry inarticulate cackle escaped his lips as he clutched his side and bolted down the roadway, fear, pain, and rage churning in his stomach. Unarmed, the odds against him, he could only resort to the skills he had developed while stalking game and his own knowledge of the territory and where best to hide.
He left the roadway before it switched back on itself and worked his way into heavier cover. He paused many times to listen. Once he heard someone speaking on the roadway above him; another time he was sure he heard running footsteps. He went on until there was nothing but silence all around him. His heartbeat slowed as he caught his breath and tried to think what to do.
The first thing he had to do was to find help, and
soon. He drew his bloody hand away from his side, then pressed it back as weakness washed over him. The second thing he had to do was make sure he did not lead any of the Wastelanders to the lake caves. His glance dropped to the ground and the distinctive footprints he was leaving behind. The Wastelanders were excellent hunters. They could easily follow his tracks if he did not find a way to outwit them.
A twig snapped off to his right. They were coming. He had to move. He stood and started off, moving slowly through a copse of small trees that would shield him for a brief time. Having had a chance to think things through, he knew where he was going and how to lose those who followed him.
Theon stood sheltered back inside the cave and shaded his eyes against the afternoon sunlight glinting on the water. A cool breeze had sprung up, making the damp cave seem colder. From where he stood, he could just see the left side of the plateau and a small portion of the mansion. There was no movement along the stockade wall, nothing to tell him what was happening above.
Lil-el came up behind him and dropped a hand on his shoulder. “See anything?”
He started, then pulled away, turning to face her. “Not a damn thing!” There was a haunted look in his dark eyes and a grim set to his lips. Theon was a small man, impatient by nature and fastidious in his personal habits. Seeing him at that moment, one might doubt the last, for his black hair was mussed and stood up in unruly clumps, his usually clean-shaven face had a scruffy growth of beard, and his clothes were rumpled and torn by his mad scramble down through the abandoned city and into the lake caves.
He rubbed a hand along his stubble-covered chin. “Gringers and Birdfoot should’ve been here hours ago! Something’s happened to them!” He turned and looked back across the water. “I’ve got to go back up to the mansion!”
“You can’t go now, Theon,” Lil-el said calmly. “The Wastelanders would see you coming. We’ll have to wait for dark.”
“We’ll?”
Lil-el didn’t flinch at the harshness in his tone of voice. “Bhaldavin is up there, too,” she said, her eyes large with worry. “And Thura, and I’ve no intention of leaving here without them… or Gringers.”
Lil-el knew that Theon’s love for Gringers went much deeper than mere friendship. Gringers had broached the subject with her several times in the past, trying to straighten out his own feelings on the matter. She and Gringers had shared many secrets while growing up together on the rafts of the Ardenol Clan. Their relationship was that of brother and sister, despite the fact that she was Ni-lach and he was human. She cherished him deeply and so shared his love-hate attraction to Theon. As for Theon being a free lover, she had learned to accept him for the way he was, as had Gringers and everyone else in the city. Theon was just Theon: fun-loving and teasing one day, snappish and rude the next, but always faithful to Gringers and whatever he wanted. For one person to love another so was both inspiring and frightening, for if anything ever happened to Gringers, Lil-el was sure that Theon would rather follow his friend into death than remain behind alone.
She wanted to reach out and touch Theon but knew that in his present mood she would be rudely rebuffed. So she spoke soothingly without touching. “Theon, I know how much you love Gringers. I love him, too, and I promise we won’t leave anyone behind, whatever we decide to do.”
Theon angrily wiped at the tears welling unbidden in his eyes. “What if it’s already too late? What if—”
She cut him off before he could go any further. “If anything happens to Gringers or Bhaldavin, I’ll know, Theon. Believe me,” she lied. “I’ll know.”
Theon looked at Lil-el, his fear easily quelled by his need for hope. He knew the Ni were different. They had a special awareness that men lacked and were capable of doing things that men could not even begin to understand, such as singing draak and linking with the strange Seeker stones like the one Bhaldavin carried. He did not even pretend to understand Bhaldavin’s relationship with the crystal that Gringers so coveted, but he respected Bhaldavin’s ability to reach into its memory for events in the past. He also respected Bhaldavin’s courage in simply touching the crystal without a protective cloth. The one time Theon had experimentally put a finger to the crystal, he had received a jolt of energy that had left him unconscious for several hours.
His thoughts returned to Lil-el, who stood watching him. She was a delicate, fine-boned creature. Her winged eyebrows and dark-green hair accented the blue-gray crystal color of her eyes and gave her an ethereal look that belied a strong sense of responsibility and a level-headedness that everyone in Barl-gan had come to rely on.
His slender fingers caught her arms in a strong grip. “Are you sure Gringers is all right?” he asked, wanting so much to believe her.
“He lives,” she affirmed, praying to the Unseen that she was right. “And as soon as it’s dark, we’ll go find him and the others. Come back into the cave now and rest. We’ll have to make some plans.”
They turned and started back into the shadowy darkness of the cave to join with the others who waited by the two rafts moored at the edge of the underground pool. They stopped suddenly when they heard a small splash as something fell into the water behind them.
Theon caught Lil-el by an arm and stepped in front of her. He quickly drew a light gun from the pouch at his belt. Lil-el had nothing but a knife for defense, but she knew how to use it. She drew it from its sheath as Theon cautiously returned to the low entrance to the cave.
A hand, then an arm appeared around the edge of the left side of the cave entrance. Grasping fingers sought for a hold and missed.
Theon raised the gun and pointed it as a mud-spattered body dropped into the water and sank out of sight.
Lil-el darted forward before Theon could press the button on the gun. “Wait!” She stepped past him and jumped into the waist-deep water. She was taking a deep breath to dive when suddenly a head rose out of the water a short distance away.
Gils coughed and spat up liquid as he struggled to keep his head up. Lil-el moved deeper into the pool and grabbed one of his arms. Startled, he fought back, then her voice came to him out of the darkness.
“It’s Lil-el! Let me help you! Theon, hurry. Give me a hand!”
Theon set his gun down and waded into the water. “Where’s Gringers?” he demanded as he helped drag Gils out onto the rocky shelf. “Is he behind you?”
Gils found energy enough to shake his head.
Theon glanced desperately toward the entrance. “Are you sure?”
Again Gils nodded. Filthy, soaked, and weary from going the long way around, he looked up at Lil-el as she cradled his head in her lap and signed for his father by brushing the back of his right hand down alongside his face.
Lil-el understood at once and turned to Theon. “Go find Kelsan. Try to get him to come without alerting the others.”
Theon hesitated, then left, his thoughts on Gringers. If Gils had escaped, it meant there was a chance that Gringers had, too. That small hope was enough to raise his spirits as he hurried toward the rafts.
Lil-el smoothed Gils’s dark-brown hair back from his face and saw the gash on the side of his head where dried blood had matted in his hair. She then noticed how he clutched at his side. Gently drawing his hand away, she saw fresh blood mixing with the water running down his side. Moments later she had him laid flat on his back.
She used her knife to cut a piece of cloth from her tunic and tried to staunch the wound. She glanced back down into the cave and wished Theon and Kelsan would hurry. The pallor of his face frightened her, and his breathing was ragged.
“Gils?”
His brown eyes opened; they were filled with pain and seemed to be begging her to help.
Her heart ached for him, and she silently cursed the twist of nature that had made him a mute. There were things she needed to ask him, questions that might mean the difference between life and death to those she loved.
Again she turned to look for Kelsan, but there was no sign of him or Theon. She turn
ed back to Gils. She could not wait. She had to know about Bhaldavin and Thura. Her understanding of Gils’s special sign language was tentative at best, but she could try.
“Gils? Did you see Davin or Thura?”
He nodded and lifted a hand, signing. “With Gringers. Alive this morning.”
“They’re all alive? Gringers, too?”
“Yes. Gavi dead. Enar, too.”
Gavi. Enar. And how many others before this is finished? she thought. She fought back tears. “Where are the prisoners being held?”
“Stockade wall. Hold—for—kill us.”
She missed too many words. “They’re holding the prisoners for what? What do they want with them?”
“Slaves.”
Coldness settled in her stomach. “Are any of them hurt badly?”
Gils nodded.
“Davin? Thura?”
“Thura not hurt.” He brushed his left arm at the shoulder, which was his way of signing for Bhaldavin, the armless one. His hand moved in the air, then he patted his face and chest.
Lil-el did not understand. Suddenly the sound of footsteps came out of the darkness and she looked up to see Theon and Kelsan hurrying toward her, Theon with a blanket under his arm, Kelsan with his physician’s pouch.
“He has a wound on his head and a sword cut on his right side,” she told Kelsan as she moved out of his way. She helped Theon wrap Gils in the blanket and briefly told them what Gils had said about Gringers, Thura, and Bhaldavin.
“He said that Gavi and Enar are dead. I missed some of what he tried to tell me,” she finished.
Kelsan ignored her and went to work. A short time later he looked up. “He’s lost blood and he’s weak, but he’ll live if we can avoid infection and keep him warm. I wish I had more of my supplies. If there’s any plan to go up after Gringers and the others who’ve been captured, I want to go along. There are things I want from my laboratory, things we’ll need if we’re forced out of the city. Come. Help me carry Gils farther back inside. I want to get him next to a fire.”
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