She untied her robe, and was amused to find herself pausing and glancing around before continuing to undress, even though she knew there had been no snoopers in these parts for a thousand years. She left her shift on. Adding her outer clothes to the others, she knelt down in cool water and set to work as well as she could with only a scrap of crude goat-tallow soap and with no rocks to beat them. Then she spread them on the long, warm grass to dry.
By that time, the air was chill on her skin, for the sun had ducked below the high treetops. As the air had cooled, so the water had seemed to become warmer. If she did not take her dip soon, the crocodiles might sneak up on her in the dark.
She took a careful look at the river and could see no floating logs, with or without smiles. A mule brayed in the distance, so Azak must be returning already, and she was surprised to discover how comforting that knowledge was—solitude had become an unfamiliar sensation.
Trying to remember when she had last been completely alone, she stripped to the skin and waded out into the river. Soon the current was unpleasantly strong, tugging at her legs and prizing the sand out from under her toes. By the time she was knee deep, she dared go no farther. She knelt and soaped, splashed and rubbed.
Two mules whinnied.
She ducked her head for one last rinse, then started back to the shore, squeezing water from her hair. She rubbed wetness off her skin with her hands, wishing she had some of those seductively soft towels from the palace in Arakkaran. She reluctantly concluded that she would have to dress in damp clothes …
Mules did not whinny!
Then she heard Kade scream.
2
In the muddle of memories that Inos retained of the ensuing events, it always seemed as if the sun went down at that exact same instant—as if she left the water in daylight, leaped across the sand and up the bank with one jump, and landed on the turf in dusk. Deep shadows of the high forest crown filled the meadow as she raced across it, her bow in one hand, three arrows and a wet shift in the other, pursued by every terror her mind could conjure. Twigs and small pebbles dug at her bare feet, and thorny flower stems under the long grass scraped her shins. She stumbled over tussocks and hidden ridges. Her damp skin was cool, to match the icy horror inside her, and her hair was a wet rag flopping on her back.
Kade! Oh, Kade!
The mules had not screamed as they would have done for lions. The mules were still there, eating contentedly. Inos could see them, vague shapes in the gathering dusk. The whinny-noises had been ponies, or horses.
Why would Kade have screamed just once?
And a sudden flash of clarity—what did Inos think she was doing racing across the meadow in the nude? Why, oh, why, did she never stop to think? She should have taken the three seconds necessary to pull on a robe, instead of just grabbing up a sodden scrap of underwear that wasn’t going to do very much good if the danger was human. Specifically, man-type human. That insight struck her about halfway from the river to the little windbreak; she stumbled, recovered, decided she could not desert Kade, and kept on running, heart pounding now from fear and exertion both.
Smoke still drifted from the tangled screen of branches Azak had woven between the saplings. Nothing looked disturbed. Kade was in there, or behind there. With what? With whom?
A mule brayed, and they all raised their heads—
Eight of them! Four mules and four horses. Saddled horses. Full-size horses, dim in the twilight. Well-trained horses, with their reins left dangling, cropping grass. Maybe a minute had passed since Kade screamed, and then a man stepped out of the shelter.
Inos dug in her toes, windmilled her arms once, and stopped dead, gasping for breath and simultaneously tucking the arrows under her arm and trying to arrange her skimpy covering like a curtain in front of herself with her free hand. It wasn’t very satisfactory.
He had seen her. He held out his hands in welcome and called something. She made out not a single word, but his meaning was clear enough: Here she comes. Three other men emerged at his side, indistinct in the gloom. She could see few details, but they were men, young men, and she had no clothes on.
For a moment Inos just gaped in horror and disbelief—Azak had been so certain there were no traces of people. And the four strangers likewise stood and gazed at her. These were no primitive savages; they were decked out in long pants and some sort of neat shirts or tunics, all of the same dark-green shade. Each man wore a jaunty forester’s cap with a feather in it and they carried longbows, the longest bows she had ever seen.
Then the first one made a beckoning motion and shouted to her, inviting. Come all the way.
Inos’s feet began backing up of their own accord. To meet four strange men in a forest was bad enough, but to do so with no clothes on was the stuff of nightmares.
There was no way she could even pull on her stupid slip without laying down her weapons.
The strangers conferred briefly. One gestured at the horses, and the others jeered at him. The leader said something and they laughed. They laid down their bows, slid the quivers from their shoulders, and dropped those also.
Again the leader called to her, and she made out enough to know he was telling her to disarm, also. She had three arrows, only three. Plus one bow and a white flag.
“Who are you?” she shouted. “What do you want?” She eased back a few more steps—nearer the river and the forest beyond, nearer her heap of clothes. Kade! What had they done to Kade?
What? the leader shouted. Or so she assumed—he cupped an ear.
“What do you want?” she cried again, ashamed other shrillness.
One of the others said something, and they all laughed again. The leader shouted, pointing: You!
Then one of the others made a joke, and they all laughed, and quickly spread out in a straight line. The leader glanced along the line, then called out two or three words. Then two more …
On your marks …
Get set …
They were going to run her down on foot. She would be first prize in the men’s cross-country sprint.
And perhaps all the other prizes, too.
If she tried to escape from the loop of the river, the men would run her down easily. She could not swim. Crocodiles were a trivial evil now—she whirled around and took to her heels.
Another obvious shout: Go!
And a glance over her shoulder confirmed that word. The race was on.
Three arrows, four men, fading light … she would not dare shoot until they were at point-blank range, and if they charged her together, she would not have time to draw her bow a second time. Could she bring herself to shoot an arrow into a human being? Even to try might be a stupidity, for if she felled some or wounded some, then how would the others retaliate?
She ran as she had never run, and the river was horribly far off. Beyond it lay deep forest where she could hide if she could ever reach it alive. Harsh breathing and pounding heart and tangles of grass grabbing at her legs to trip her … Somewhere on the run her useless slip caught on a bush and was lost.
She would never make it. She had provoked enough chases in her life to know that female legs were no match for men’s when it came to running. Even when she had been taller than Rap and Lin she had never been able to outrun them.
Then a chorus of mule noise in the distance, and a thump of hooves—Azak! With a cry of relief, Inos stopped and spun around. The men were dangerously near already, closing in on her like talons, but they had stopped and turned also, to see who came. And they had left their bows at the shelter! Had she had any breath left, Inos would have cheered—Azak would ride them down and fill them full of arrows and chop their heads off in the first half minute.
The mule came into view, coming from the upstream side, the way Azak had gone.
A largish mule, riderless.
Skittering and jumpy, it raced around in tenor and indecision, and then headed for the others. It was Azak’s mule. No Azak. The implications of that were not thinkable.
>
The four men laughed and jabbered and lost interest in the new arrival. They turned to face their quarry again. They were so spread out that it was hard to keep all four in view.
The leader called out to her and she thought she picked out some of the words: lady … friends … be friends … He repeated the beckoning gesture he had used before. Inos shook her head and stepped back, speechless with terror and lack of breath.
Blood roared in her head. Terror …
The man laughed. He pointed an aim at the mules, then raised a hand high to indicate height. He pulled an imaginary bow, swung his arm around, jabbing a thumb in his chest. He made falling gestures. The other three gasped out fits of laughter at this dumbshow.
Azak bushwacked? Shot down from cover? So his panic-driven mount would have fled and then eventually circled back to join its companions.
Azak shot … What had they done to Kade?
Azak … Kade …
Now Inos.
She dropped two arrows and heaved on her bow to string it—faster than she had ever done that—and she had the third arrow notched at once, pointing at the leader. In this twilight, with her heart bouncing all around her chest, she was probably not capable of hitting a rain barrel from the inside.
The men on the ends were edging around, moving to encircle her. Again the leader called out in his singsong dialect, unfamiliar and yet teasingly close to being intelligible: hurt? … no, he meant not hurt … promise, promise, promise … She would trust his promise like a viper’s kiss. The meanings came more in gesture and inflection than words, but the mockery and gloating came more clearly still.
“Go back!” she shouted, drawing the bow. “Call off your men. I’m not bluffing!”
The leader cowered in pretended fear and backed a couple of steps. But the others … Evil take it! She couldn’t watch all three and aim an arrow at the same time.
Three? She whirled, and the fourth was not a dozen paces off, between her and the river. As her bow turned on him, he stopped and threw up his hands in mock surrender. He was taller than the others, fresh-faced, not very old. He spoke, and again the main words came through: … mercy … have mercy … lady … mercy …
“Stand aside!” Inos shouted, and moved to edge past him. He stepped to block her. She glanced around at the others. They were closer. The tall one shouted to attract her attention; then the others did. Now they were openly playing a child’s game—whenever she was looking, they stood still; when she wasn’t, they moved.
That river was horribly wide and swift, but it could contain no monsters worse than these. She dashed for the widest gap. The tall youngster dived for her. She struck with her bow, and he grabbed it. She let go, staggered, and was taken from behind by two arms like barrel hoops. She kicked screamed, twisted, butted …
Her captor cursed in her ear and squeezed until her ribs creaked. She cried out with her last puff of breath, going limp, as dark spots danced before her eyes. He eased the strain a little. The three other men were clustered around, inspecting the spoils, all winded, panting and grinning.
They were not tall, but then Inos had become accustomed to djinns. Imp height, then—middle size for a man, but still taller than she. Their faces and arms were a middle shade of brown, too, but they were not imps. Their hair was paler, curly not straight; they had too much shoulder and not enough hip … and their eyes were set at a curious slant, like an elf’s. Pointed ears. Pixies. Living pixies! Young men out for devilment, two of them little more than boys.
But old enough. Four of them.
God of Mercy!
They were panting too much for so short a run. They kept smiling, chuckling, breathless with excitement. They spoke words that meant nice girl and much happiness. That meant horrible things.
They wore sleeveless shirts and long pants and boots—all of them well-made garments, embroidered, fitted. All the same olive green. Clothes and wearers smelled of woodsmoke, and horse, and male sweat.
The leader reached out to stroke her cheek and she tried to bite his hand. He laughed and fondled her breast instead.
“Brute!” she shouted with all the wind she could find. “Animal! Evil!” She kicked, and he caught her leg and hung on to it, so she reeled on the other foot, held up only by the man behind her, who chuckled in her ear.
The leader said something and stroked her thigh. Her skin came up in gooseflesh and he laughed at that.
“Don’t understand! Don’t know what you say. Monster! Four against one? You’re brutes! Cowards! Spawn of Evil!”
Still holding her ankle in one hand and fondling with the other, the leader spoke, tried again, and finally found a word she knew and reacted to: “Outsider!”
He glanced at the others, then at her again, and he discarded his smile. “Outsider?” he repeated in his strange accent. He turned his head and spat on the grass. “Outsider!”
It made sense. Outsiders—intruders. Nonpixies were fair game. Shoot down the men, take the women. Then what? And what had they done to Kade? Whole legions could vanish in Thume.
“No!” She shook her head wildly and tried to struggle again. The same thing happened as before—her captor crushed her into helplessness. She whimpered, trying to wrestle her leg free, trying to butt, but she had slid down until her head was against her chest and butting did no good. Again she slumped into quiescence, but her heart was going mad inside her.
One of the others spoke sharply, impatiently.
The leader snapped, telling him to be quiet, but he dropped her ankle and began unlacing his shirt. She was half sitting now, unable to straighten her legs, and gradually sliding lower in her captor’s arms.
The leader threw down his shirt, grinning at her. By some trick of the light, she could see the sweat glint on his chest with every harsh breath. He hooked his right heel under his left boot and tugged out his right foot.
“You bunch of animals!” she sneered, not shouting now. “Beasts! Filth! What sort of man treats—”
Again a sound of hooves, many hooves, shrills of alarm from the horses.
The men looked around, and Inos twisted her head to see. The shirtless man rammed his foot back in his boot and took to his heels, bellowing orders. The other two followed at once, leaving only the one holding Inos. He turned to watch, giving her a better view also.
The three men were running as if chased by lions, running for their horses. Horses and mules were in wild panic and uproar. In their midst, one horse plunged and leaped as its rider scrolled the dark with lines of fire, waving a flaming branch.
Nothing like fire to spook horses! Two were off into the trees already. The third had caught in one of the mules’ tethers and was down. The mules were breaking loose but two of them had gone over also, and all were screaming in terror. Still the mysteriously glimmering figure on the horse flailed the torch around, and now the mules were up. Pounding hooves seemed to shake the clearing, gradually dwindling as the stampede faded into the forest, until all the animals had gone into the night and only two horses remained: one rolling helplessly, obviously injured, the other still bearing the maniac with the torch. Three young men ran impotently, uselessly, over the meadow, howling in wordless rage.
Then the rider hurled down the dying brand and wheeled the horse, and came across the clearing like an avenging hurricane, hooves hardly seeming to touch the ground. It was Kade! Incredible Kade, riding a mad horse as if she were Azak himself, wearing nothing but her flimsy cotton slip, white hair fluttering in the night.
Had she been armed with a lance, she might have skewered one of the marauders in her charge. As it was, he leaped to catch the reins, stumbled aside at the last minute, and fell heavily.
The jailer’s grip had slackened. Inos straightened her legs, slamming her head up into his face with a satisfying impact, throwing all her weight back against him, then letting it all drop again. The two of them sat down simultaneously, hard. She lashed out backward with an elbow, hoping to hit him in the belly, but he grabbed
her hair and pulled her over at just the same moment, so she tilted and missed and caught him between the legs instead. He seemed to have a sensitive spot there, for he spasmed and cried out. She pounded again, harder, and he lost interest in her altogether. She scrambled free.
She was on her feet and running as the horse came thundering by, and she made a wild grab for the harness as if she were an acrobat, but all she caught was a glimpse of Kade’s terrified face above her. Brutal impact threw her aside and into the ground hard enough to explode the world into fragments.
For a moment she was stunned … in pain and breathless and too battered to care what happened. She tried to rise. A stab of white-hot agony in her ankle stopped her. Reality flooded back.
Grass was burning over by the shelter, a fountain of yellow light in the dusk. Kade was still somehow clinging to that berserk horse. It must have balked at the river, or she had wheeled it, for now it was pounding back toward the two men still on their feet. Again it seemed one must be ridden down. Again the man leaped aside in time, and this one did not fall.
And the other stepped between Inos and the spreading grass fire—and he had a bow! He was taking aim; the horse had turned again. The arrow flew, Inos yelled a warning, the horse reared, hooves flailing the sky. Then it sank back on its haunches and toppled over sideways. Kade! Inos could not see what had happened to Kade.
Silence.
No rider rose from the fallen horse.
Again Inos tried to stand, and again was stopped by that fearful pain. She must have broken her ankle.
One by one the men limped over and stood, glaring down at her.
The one who had fallen was clutching his arm in a way that reminded her of Kel breaking his collarbone years ago, going after birds’ eggs on Windle Scarp. The man who had been her jailer was holding his groin, bent over and muttering horribly. His nose had bled badly all over his chin and his shirt. The other two were gasping for breath and looking just as mad.
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