“I learn at his sufferance,” Mirri said. “It is human custom to call their teachers Master, but he does not own me.”
The elders consulted.
“It is well,” the middle Elder said, but her ear twitched and Mirri knew she had not quite won the argument. “I am Seyen, Most Old of the Chitr’in. By my will, you will accept our hospitality tonight, and tomorrow tell us what this Multani wishes with us.”
That night, the Chitr’in drummed while the great triple pipes as long as a man howled discords, and the warriors danced. The fires burned hot, sending wreathes of flesh-scented smoke into the cool night air. She had sat with Gerrard on her left. To her right, there was the Most Old Seyen, who said nothing more to her but from time to time burdened her with a glance or a long hard stare; and more often, he looked at Gerrard.
The shaman, who still had not named himself, was here and there, always watching them.
Most Old Seyen plans, Mirri thought. She sees advantage, and she wants it. Or she sees the possibility of disadvantage and wonders how it may be avoided. That was well enough. What else should a leader do for her people? But whether the Most Old was to be trusted, that was another question. And what her other elders wanted, that was another matter entirely.
All her life, Mirri had tried to live up to the code of the Cat People, the code she remembered only vaguely. How they had spoken of it, the warriors of her clan that she remembered. Proud they were, and vicious. And when they gave their word, they never were foresworn. So she said, and Multani agreed with her in that grave way of his. But was it so? Really so, or just the half-memories of an abandoned child, desperate for some great heritage to cling to; and the agreement of a wise old sorcerer, equally desperate to give her something to be proud of?
Their lives might depend on it. And she did not know.
The Most Old stood up, still lithe despite the graying fur showing between the straps of her leather armour and the strips of coarse linen that covered it. She moved to the centre, to the dance, and the warriors made room for her. Round they went, and up and down and round and down and up, while all the time the drumming beat the night and the drone of the triple pipes moaned an eerie counterpoint. Mirri found that her fingers were tapping out a rhythm of their own. Some of the tribesfolk who were not dancing were beating their hands against the packed earth. She wondered if it would be all right to do the same. She leaned across to ask Gerrard his opinion, but before he turned to her, the warrior seated on the far side of the Most Old stood up.
Keilic, he was called. He had introduced himself in halting Trader before the feast had begun. But Seyen had seen him and gestured sharply, and he had left them.
He took a pace. Two paces, and he was directly in front of her, rimlit by the dancing light of the flames, his fur gleaming as if it had been oiled. He began to dance, those strong legs stamping out their own rhythm, between and around the complex pounding of the drums, and she understood that he danced for her.
He was watching her. The vertical slits of his pupils were almost round in the darkness, and his eyes glittered like topaz. Dance with me, they seemed to say. Dance with me, by the fire, under the stars. Dance with me till morning comes.
But she did not want him. Did not want his fur, gleam though it might, or the strong exciting cat-smell of him. She wanted a smile that put the world to rights and which revealed blunt white teeth, not sharp cat fangs; and pale skin, tanned to gilt by the sun; and round brown eyes.
So she stared up at him, but did not move. He wove a deep bow into the tapestry of his dance. “Dance with me,” he said, in Catling.
“I do not want to,” she answered.
Gerrard leaned toward her. “I think he wants you to dance with him,” he said. Jealousy? Hope rose up in her.
“I don’t want to,” she repeated, but she thought, I want to dance with you instead.
“You should—they might be offended,” Gerrard said.
The words hit her like a blow. “I do not want to,” she said again. She stood up, unsure what she would do. He would give me to him, she thought. If it would help to get what Multani wanted, he would give me away.
It was more than she could bear. She ran, then, into the darkness.
Later, of course, Gerrard apologized. But that was after the cat warrior challenged him, and after all three of them took the spirit walk, and after he stood alone in the darkness drenched in blood, and Mirri foresaw his death….
Drenched in blood. Pressed up against the wall of her cabin, with Crovax crouching over her, she whimpered, and then hated herself for her weakness.
“You should not overtax yourself, my dear,” Crovax said. “You’ll start your wound to bleeding again.” He licked his lips. Whenever had his teeth been so sharp? Almost like a catling’s Mirri thought.
His hand drifted toward her again. She did not want him to touch her. But he was a friend. A friend who smells like an enemy, she thought. His hand touched her neck. His face lowered toward hers—
She lashed out. Her claws connected hard with his cheek. Flesh rent under them.
He screamed and staggered back. His hands went up to his face, then came away bloody. Good, Mirri thought. Good. The ship pitched violently. Crovax slammed back against the door jamb.
He licked the blood from his fingers. His tongue flickered across his dark skin, and now it was obvious that his teeth had become fangs.
Something’s happened to him, Mirri thought. She rolled out of bed, and by the time she was on her feet, her cutlass was in her hand. The deck rolled beneath her. She struggled like a human to keep her balance. Pain from her wound jagged through her as she stretched.
She took a step forward. Another. Crovax moved backwards. Somewhere above, someone screamed. Don’t think of it, Mirri admonished herself. Don’t think of the battle above, think of the fight here. Focus. Focus. She strode toward him. One more pace, and he would be within striking range.
Saliva glinted on his fangs. He smelled of fear and anger.
What have you become? She wondered, but she did not say it. She knew better than to waste her breath during a fight.
Something like Selenia, she thought and knew then why Crovax smelled like an enemy. Like Selenia, who had almost killed her.
She would not give Crovax the same opportunity. She raised her cutlass. He barely seemed to move, but the jewel at his neck flashed and glittered in the lamplight. It gleamed in her eyes. Tears blinded her. When she could see again, he was gone.
There were so many places he could have hidden. On any normal ship, it would not be so, but Weatherlight was far from normal. Strange bits of machinery dotted the vastness of the lower deck, sculptural in the half dark. The area belowdecks was filled with pulleys and wires, pillars pierced with holes and strung with filaments and crystal prisms, clockwork mechanisms and things that might have been clockwork except that none of the cogs interlaced. All this was there, and the rolled and slung hammocks, the boxes and crates of food, and the bales of spare sail material that any great ship might carry in its hold.
And somewhere in here, Crovax waited.
Mirri inched forward, expecting attack.
Again, there was that faint scent of…blood. She had it now. Selenia, coming at her, dark wings iridescent by candlelight, sword flashing—
Something slammed into her back. She stumbled forward, momentarily unbalanced. Her incisors drove into her bottom lip, and she tasted blood.
“Don’t fight me, Mirri,” Crovax said. “This is my destiny. I must do this, as surely as you must yield to me.”
She felt his hand on the sleek fur of her nape, and felt his breath on her cheek, as his other arm came round her neck to secure her.
“Enough,” she shouted, and rammed her elbow into his belly.
He grunted. His arm locked round her neck and jerked her back. She couldn’t breathe. For a moment, they
were held there, as if frozen in time. Mirri’s vision turned red. She bit down on Crovax’s arm. Her teeth scissored through layers of cloth, into flesh.
He screamed. His grip loosened. Before he could regain it, Mirri reached up over her head and grabbed him by the shoulders, dropping low as she did so. She yanked him hard. Harder. Her muscles strained against the ripped fabric of her shirt. Pain seared across her chest and belly. She felt the stitches in her wound start to pop.
She ignored it all.
There was an enemy to fight.
So fight.
She yanked Crovax over her head and hurled him at the bulkhead. He slammed against the wall. Mirri stared at him. She was breathing much too hard, and the long cut across her belly burned like fire. The world swam in front of her eyes.
Finish it, she thought. Finish it before the wound finishes me. The darkness was encroaching, swirling round the edges of her vision so that all she could see was Crovax.
She went toward him. I ought to put an arrow through his heart, she thought. Safe. From a distance. But she had no bow, not even a throwing knife.
There was a blur of motion. Something swung at her. She got her arm up in time, but it clipped the side of her head.
She fell.
* * *
—
Darkness took her, and she was running through the forest again, fury powering her legs.
There was a noise behind her. She turned, and saw Gerrard crashing through the undergrowth. Quickly, she stepped behind a tree. She ought to speak to him. But there was no way to explain without telling him how she felt: what he meant to her, what she wanted there to be between them. And she couldn’t. She would have fought the Great Wolf alone and unarmed before she would have told him any of it.
“Mirri!” he yelled. “Mirri.”
A shadow slipped out from the tree behind him. “She is not here, human.” It was the cat warrior, Keilic. “She has run from your enslavement.”
“She isn’t my slave.”
“So you say,” said Keilic. “But when you try to give her away, when she is unwilling, then what else is she, human?”
“She is here to accomplish a mission, as am I,” Gerrard snapped. Mirri’s ears went back. If she failed Multani because she could not control her wayward heart….“Our master is depending on us.”
Keilic’s lips skinned back from his fangs. “I know you humans. He is not of your tribe. You would put his needs against your loyalty to your—”
“She’s my friend,” Gerrard cut in. “We are not of a kind, cat man. Would it please you if there were more between us?”
“It would please me if you treated her with the respect she deserves,” Keilic said. “That you don’t tells me you have no honor. You are not to be trusted.”
“Speak softly,” Gerrard said. “I’ll not be insulted by the likes of you, cat man.” Mirri noted to her horror that his hand was on his sword hilt.
“So much for your mission, human.” Keilic stepped forward. His ears were flat against his head. Red lights glinted in his eyes. “You serve your master well.”
Gerrard’s sword hissed as he drew it from its scabbard. “I’ll serve you better,” he said.
Suddenly, there was a dagger, curved and white as horn, in Keilic’s hand. For a moment, human and cat warrior faced each other. Gerrard shifted. Keilic followed him. Another pace. And then the cat warrior leaped, so fast he was inside Gerrard’s guard before the man could react.
Gerrard went down, Keilic on top of him. The human’s sword flashed in the moonlight as it tumbled away from him. Mirri saw his hand scrabbling at his belt for his poniard and saw Keilic’s dagger-hand come up.
…and saw no more, because she was in motion. She leapt at Keilic’s back, but by the time she landed, his dagger had slammed down and reversed, so that the pommel crashed into the side of Gerrard’s face. A gash along his cheekbone wept blood. The salt smell of it enraged Mirri. She grabbed Keilic’s scruff and hauled his head back.
“This is not your fight.” Her heart slammed in her chest.
Keilic said something fast and hissing in Catling. Mirri did not understand. She tightened her grip.
“It should be your fight,” Keilic said in Trader after a moment. “The human dishonors you.”
“I make my own decisions,” Mirri interrupted. She shoved Keilic away from Gerrard. “You talk of respect, but you do not respect that.” Under her light armour, her fur was rippling with the adrenaline surge of anger.
Gerrard scrambled to his feet. “We are friends,” he said. He glanced at Mirri. Friends, she thought, and strove to keep her face impassive. If it was all she could have, it would have to be the best she could have, she decided. No more dreams. No more wild thoughts of what they might have together. Friends. But Gerrard was still talking. “We study together. Work for the same aims, as the members of your tribe.”
“You mean, she makes compromises,” Keilic said. “Look at her.
How blind are you, that you can’t see what she wants?” How dare you, Mirri thought at him. How dare you think you know my mind. She took a step forward, so that she was between the others. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sabre. “Enough,” she said.
Keilic seemed not to have heard her. “It pleases you to let her near you! How pleasant to have a beautiful woman purring round your feet! And it pleases your master, for he can learn as much from her as she can from him. But in truth—”
“I said, enough,” Mirri roared. She drew her sword. The blade glinted coldly in the moonlight. She turned to Gerrard. “You, understand that I do for Multani as much as I deem wise and fair, and no more.” She swung round to face Keilic. “And you, understand that my tribe abandoned me when I was but a kitling. If my loyalties are other than—”
“But perhaps your loyalties are wrong,” Keilic said. “Blood goes to blood, stranger. What’s bred in the bone can’t be denied. If you try to deny it, you’ll lose yourself.”
Keilic’s words sent a shiver through Mirri. For a moment she felt dislocated from herself and from the scene around her. Then anger raged through her. “You speak in riddles and nonsense,” she said. “I live my life. I am happy with my life.”
“Are you?” Keilic’s voice was soft, almost soothing.
“Yes!”
“Only your words say that. Your eyes don’t. The way you hold yourself doesn’t.”
“You’ve had your answer, cat man,” Gerrard cut in. “Go back to your fire and your dance before the Most Old notices you’re missing.”
“Oh, I will,” Keilic said. “The only question is whether she comes back with me, or whether she chooses to live her life alone.”
“I am not alone.” Mirri’s anger was fast being replaced by impatience. “I have my teacher and my friends.”
“Is that enough, though? Will you live a loveless, joyless life among the humans? Do you think he’d ever accept one as different as you into his—”
“That’s sufficient!” Gerrard stepped up close, to face off to Keilic. The scent of his sweat mingled with the resiny smell of pine. Mirri wanted him so much she almost ached. “What does she have to do to convince you?”
He didn’t expect an answer; Mirri could tell by his tone. But Keilic gave him one anyway.
“Take the spirit walk,” he said. “All three of us: let the shaman lead us along the path of the Great Cat, and we will see which path the ancestors think she should take.”
Gerrard made a little sound of disgust. “What nonsense! Magic is magic, but this is just superstition.”
Mirri stared at him. For a moment, he met her gaze. Then he looked away. “Is it?” she demanded. “Is that what you think of my people’s beliefs: just nonsense to be dismissed?”
“They aren’t your people.”
“But we could be,” Keilic said.
There was a
n instant in which Mirri barely knew who she was. A cloud slid in front of the moon. The darkness was absolute. Everything changes, she thought. Nothing’s forever. Perhaps it’s for the best.
“Tell your shaman I will walk the spirit path,” she said.
* * *
—
The rough wood of Weatherlight’s lower deck bit into Mirri’s cheek. For a moment, the half-dream held Mirri. Something about the spirit walk…something she must remember. But the ship lurched under her, and up above, people were shouting across the sounds of the lurching ship.
“Crovax,” she muttered. The stink of him—blood and sweat and that indefinable smell of enemy—was everywhere.
Mirri hauled herself to her feet. He had meant to kill her. If he hadn’t, it could only be because he had greater harm in mind.
How long had she been unconscious? Not very long, she thought. She looked round for her sword, but it was gone. Either he’d taken it or it was lost somewhere in the jumble of lashed down crates and barrels that packed Weatherlight’s underdecks. No matter. She swung her head heavily from side to side, trying to sense a difference in the density of the smell. Nothing. But on the decking was the most minute of scuff marks. There were a few drops of blood on the deck a little further on. She rubbed her thumb against them. They were still damp. She hadn’t been out for very long, then.
Cautiously, she made her way between the boxes and crates of Weatherlight’s supplies. There was too much cover here. Crovax could be anywhere. Mirri’s ears flickered at a faint sound. He was up ahead then.
“Damnation,” she muttered. There was a companionway up there, and nothing much else. Despite her pain, she hurried on, pushing her way through the crowded hold, not worrying now about ambush.
She got to the bottom of the companionway just in time to see Crovax’s dark leggings whisking up through the open door at the top of the ladder. She went up the rungs three at a time, ignoring the agony that screamed through her with every extended movement.
Rath and Storm Page 25