Then a sandy area caught my eye. Like water spilled from a pitcher, it wound its way through rocks, then spread into a wider patch.
“Over here,” I called to Del, riding behind me. “Footing’s better.”
And indeed it was. The sandy area went down a rocky hillock and opened into something very like a shallow streambed, except there was no water. There had been once, before desert took it over. But now it was dry, with an underlayment of hard and uneven stone intermixed with sandy pockets and water-smoothed, hollowed-out boulders. Amazingly, there was a scattering of vegetation here, edging the streambed. Tough, reedy-looking shrubbery of a pallid green hue.
“Look ahead—there.” Del pointed. “Are those wagon ruts?”
“Out here?” But even as I asked it, I saw what she meant. A few paces up there indeed appeared to be wheel ruts running across the streambed, visible only when they hit sand pockets. I moved the stud into a faster pace, then pulled up when I reached the ruts. “Hunh,” I commented. “Someone’s been out here in a wagon.”
Del reined in beside me. “It makes no sense. There is nothing out here for settlers or caravans.”
I shook my head. “Not enough tracks for a caravan. One wagon, I’d guess. Two mules. Maybe someone got lost.” I marked how the ruts entered the streambed on one side and exited the other. “Let’s follow the tracks,” I suggested, reining left. “Maybe whoever we find will invite us to supper.”
“If they haven’t already been someone else’s supper.”
“I’m not sure we’re still in Vashni territory,” I said. “Which reminds me…” I untied the increasingly odiferous bag of sandtiger meat from the saddle and let it drop into the edge of the streambed as the stud climbed out. The gelding followed, white head swinging on the end of his long neck. Gold fringe dangled lopsidedly. “You know, you could always hang your Vashni necklet across your horse’s face. He’s already wearing axle grease and wine-girl fringe… human fingerbones might give him a little added class.”
Del, not surprisingly, did not deign to reply.
We followed the tracks as they wound their way through the rocks and sand. After a while they turned in toward the mountains on our left, gaining in elevation. We wound our way up, and then almost abruptly the crude ruts gave out onto a flat area to our right, opposite the massive boulders skirting the bottom of the mountain on the left. The flat formed a plateau, the chopped off crown of a shallow bluff overlooking where we’d come from, including the streambed. A few straggly trees, low shrubbery, and modest grassy patches skirted the edge near the continuation of the ruts. I pulled up there to give the stud a blow and take a look around. Del’s gelding picked its way slowly up to join us. Del was, I noticed, drinking water again.
“You all right, bascha?”
She nodded as she restoppered the bota. “Much better than this morning. Just thirsty.”
“Liquor does that.” I glanced around. “You know, this wouldn’t be a bad place to stop for the night—” I broke off, whistling in surprise. “Hoolies—would you look at that?” I pointed. “Up there against the boulders, there. Looks like a shelter to me. And the remains of a cookfire in front of it.”
“Where—? Oh, that?” Del rode past me, heading toward the huge tumbled boulders lining the merging of mountain with flat area. “It is a shelter, Tiger—it’s a little lean-to. The wagon ruts go right past it, but they’re deeper by the shelter, as if they stopped here.”
I followed. Del was right. Someone had used one of the larger boulder formations for the back wall and had built a rough lean-to out of branches and canvas. The fire ring hadn’t been used for a while, but clearly this was a regular camping place. No one would sacrifice canvas in the desert unless he intended to return.
“Halloo the camp!” I called. “We’re coming in!”
Del reined in next to the fire ring. “No one’s here.”
“You never know.” I dismounted and drew my sword. Del had done the same. But there was no place to hide in the lean-to; it boasted only two sides, the boulder for a back wall, and a branch-and-canvas roof. It was large enough for possibly three people, if they were very close friends. “Good enough for tonight,” I said. “Let’s get the horses settled, and then we can think about food.”
Del recoiled. Her expression clearly announced she wanted nothing to do with food. Possibly forever.
I disagreed. “You need to eat something. You’ve only had water all day.”
“Yes, and in fact…” She turned abruptly and headed toward the hillside strewn with tumbled boulders, sheathing her sword.
“Are you sick again?” I asked.
“No. But I have had a lot of water.”
“Ah.” Grinning, I strode back to the horses. I decided to be a nice, kind, thoughtful man and untack her gelding. “Hold on, old son,” I told the stud. “You’re next.”
I untied saddlepouches and piled them beside the lean-to, tossed Del’s bedding inside. The gelding gazed at me out of mournful blue eyes, peering through dangling bits of fringe.
“You look ridiculous,” I told him, undoing his girth. “No offense, but you do.” I lifted saddle and blankets off his damp back, set both by the lean-to. “Amazing what we let women get away with, isn’t it?” His response was to thrust his head against my chest and rub. Hard. “Ah, hoolies, horse—” In disgust, I stared down at the front of my burnous. “Now I’ve got black gunk all over me!” Of course, the gelding also had greasepaint smeared all over his face, like an overly painted wine-girl first thing in the morning. Quite a pair, we made.
I heard the rattle of fallen pebbles high in the rocks and glanced up to see Del picking her way down from one of the piles of boulders. You’d think that since we’d been sharing a bed for several years modesty would no longer matter, but Del was fastidious. She always went off to find privacy, and I’d been ordered to do the same. I just never went as far. Men have a certain advantage when it comes to relieving the bladder.
Her arms were spread for balance as she worked her way down. She was concentrating on her path, rope of hair swinging in front of one shoulder. It’s difficult to look particularly graceful when clambering down over piled rocks and boulders. Even for my Northern bascha.
I drew in a deep breath, preparing to bellow complaints about her horse. But I lost the impulse the instant I saw movement behind her.
Vashni? No—
Movement flowed down the mountainside, disappeared behind rocks.
I dropped the reins. “Del!”
Then it sprang up onto a boulder, and I saw it clearly.
“Del—” I was running for the rocks, yanking sword out of sheath. Her face was turned toward me.
I’d never make it, never make it—
“—behind you—”
Atop the rock she spun, grasping for her sword hilt, and went down hard beneath the leaping sandtiger.
EIGHT
WHEN in the midst of deadly danger, time slows. Fragments. It is me, the moment, the circumstances.
As it was now.
I saw Del, down. The glint of sun off her bared blade, lying against stone. The spill of white-blond braid. The sandtiger’s compact, bunched body, blending into the rocky background as it squatted over her.
I bellowed at the cat as I ran. Anything to distract him, to draw his attention from his prey. Del was unmoving: probably unconscious, possibly dead.
“Try me!” I shouted. “Try me, you thrice-cursed son of a Salset goat—”
The sandtiger growled, then yowled as it saw me. I threatened his prey. For a moment he continued to hunch over Del, then came up into a crouch, flexing shoulders. Jaw dropped open. Green eyes glared.
Everything was slowed to half-time. I watched the bunching of haunches, the leap; judged momentum and direction; knew without doubt what was necessary. My nearly vertical blade, at the end of thrusting arms, met him in midair. Sank in through belly fur, hide, muscle, vessels, and viscera, spitting him to the hilt. I felt the sudden wei
ght, heard the scream, smelled the rank breath, the musk of a mature male. Without pausing I ducked head and dropped shoulder, swung, let his momentum carry him through his leap. Over my head, and down.
I was conscious of the horses screaming, but I paid them no attention. I was focused only on the sandtiger, now sprawled on the ground, jaws agape, tongue lolling. For all I knew he was dead already, but I jerked the blade free, then swung it up, over, down, like a club, and severed his head from his body.
Then I dropped the sword. I turned, took two running strides, climbed up into the boulders. “Bascha…”
She lay mostly face-down, one arm sprawled across a cluster of rocks. Her torso was in a shallow gulley between two boulders. Legs were twisted awry.
“Del—?”
There was blood, and torn burnous. I caught the tangled rope of hair and moved it aside, baring the back of her neck to check for wounds. She had not had time to face the cat fully. His leap had been flat, then tending down. Front paws had curled over her shoulders, grasping, while back paws raked out, reaching for purchase.
He had leaped at her back, intending to take his prey down from behind. But Del had moved, had begun to turn toward him as I yelled, had begun to unsheathe her sword, and he’d missed his target. Instead of encircling her neck with his jaws, snapping it, piercing the jugular, the big canine teeth had dug a puncture and furrow into her right forearm and the top of her left shoulder at the curve of her neck. The main impetus of the bite had fouled on harness and sheath.
I planted my feet as firmly as possible in the treacherous footing, then bent, caught a limp arm, and pulled her up. I squatted, ducked, levered her over one shoulder, head hanging, braid dangling against my thigh, while her legs formed a counterweight before me. I rose carefully, balancing the slack-limbed drape of her body. Teeth clenched, I made my way slowly down the boulders, found level footing on the flat, sandy crown of the bluff, and carried her to the lean-to. I had tossed her rolled bedding there while unpacking the gelding; with care I slid her over and down, arranged her limbs, set her head against the bedroll. Then, locking my hands into the front of her burnous, I tore fabric apart along the seam, exposing her body in its sleeveless tunic.
Exposing arms and legs, and the sandtiger’s handiwork.
“All right, bascha—give me a moment here…”
Almost without thinking I unbuckled the harness, worked the leather straps and buckles over her arms and out from under her body. Tossed it aside in a tangle of leather and brass. Yanked my knife free of its sheath, cut swathes of her burnous, and began wadding it between torn flesh and what remained of the tunic’s high neck. Claws had cut through it, into the flesh beneath, baring the twin ridges of collar bones. One claw had nicked the underside of her jawbone at the angle beneath her left ear, trickling blood across her throat.
More fabric was sacrificed for her right forearm as I bound it tightly. Then I worked my left arm under her back, lifted her, tipped her forward against me. Her head lolled into my shoulder.
“Hold on, bascha—I’m taking a look at your back.”
The sandtiger had attempted to set hind claws into her lower back and the tops of her buttocks, but all he’d managed to do as she turned was pierce the leather of her tunic. Very little blood showed through. So, the worst of the damage appeared to be the bite wounds at the top of her shoulder and in her right forearm, plus the deep claw lacerations reaching from the first upswelling of both breasts nearly to her throat.
Of course, that was the visible damage. Inside, beneath the flesh and muscle, sandtiger poison coursed through her blood.
With Del slumped against me, I untied the thongs on her bedding, unrolled it with a snap and flip of my hand, eased her onto it. Now it was time. Time I knew.
I bent over her, then slowly lowered my head. Rested my ear against her chest, petitioning all the gods I’d cursed for all of my life that she not be dead.
The beating was slow but steady.
My breath left on a rush of relief. I did not sit up immediately. I pressed dry lips against her brow and did more than petition. This time I prayed.
When it became clear the bite wound in the top of her shoulder did not intend to stop bleeding on its own despite my ministrations, I did the only thing I could. I built a quick, haphazard fire in the rock ring outside the shelter, arranged my knife so the blade would heat, and when steel glowed red, I wrapped a flap of leather around the handle and carried it back inside the lean-to. Del was as pale as I’d ever seen in a living woman, even to her lips. Apologizing in silence, I ground my teeth together and set the hot blade against the wound.
Blood sizzled like weeping fat over a fire. The smell of burning flesh was pungent. I felt my gorge rise and fought it back down; Del would hardly appreciate it if I threw up all over her. I was aware of a detached sort of surprise; I had cauterized various wounds in my own body more times than I could count. But never before had I done it to Del.
She stirred, twisting her head. Her mouth sprang open in a weak, breathless protest. I tossed the knife aside, caught both her hands, and hung on.
“I know, bascha. I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Her eyelids flickered. “Del?”
But she was gone again, hands lying limply in my own. I set them down, noted blood had soaked through the bandage on her forearm, and turned on my knees to gather up more makeshift bandages.
The world around me wavered.
Not surprising. Reaction. I shook my head, wiped sweat out of my eyes, grabbed gauze and folded a section into a pad. After unwrapping blood-soaked bandages, I bound the pad to the seeping wound. What it needed was stitches, but I had nothing to use. The stud was gone; he’d departed in blind panic during the sandtiger attack. It meant the loss of half our food and water and other supplies, including the medicaments Del had packed. I had nothing for treating her except the crude bandages I’d already fashioned out of burnouses, cautery, and a bota of Vashni liquor, which had been put into our pouches without either of us being aware of it.
I’d considered using cautery on the forearm bite wound, but decided against it in favor of pressure and tight binding. Del would scar regardless, but using hot steel on it would twist the flesh, binding it into stiffness. She needed the flexibility to handle a sword. Nor would she thank me if I did something that harmed her ability to wield one.
I sighed when finished, let my eyes close for a moment. The day was nearly done. The sun straggled down the sky, preparing to drop below the horizon. The long desert twilight would provide light for an hour or so, and then it would be night, with only the stars, the moon, and the dying fire for illumination. I needed to find more wood, but I didn’t want to leave Del that long.
Still, two swords were lying out there, hers and mine. I’d taken no time to pick them up since pulling Del out of the rocks. For the moment she was lying quietly.
I stood up, crouching beneath the low roof, and ducked out the open front. Muscles protested as I straightened. Del’s gelding nickered softly as he saw me. He at least had remained despite the sandtiger attack. When I had time to track down the stud, who probably wouldn’t go far, I intended to have words with him.
I went hunting. Del’s sword lay between two of the boulders. I picked it up, climbed back down to mine beside the dead cat. I set both blades aside, grabbed the hindlegs, and dragged the sandtiger farther away from the camp. Scavengers very likely would come for his carcass; I’d just as soon they did so from a greater distance.
Something occurred to me.
Smiling grimly, I unsheathed my knife. With great deliberation I cut out each of the ten curving front claws. I tied them into the remains of my burnous, then gathered up the swords and went back to the lean-to.
Del lay as I had left her, very still upon her bedding. The sun, going down in a haze of red and gold, gilded her face and lent it the healthy color it lacked. I propped both blades against one crude wall, caught up a bota, and sat down to once again dribble water into her mouth, b
it by bit so she wouldn’t choke.
In the final vestiges of the dying day, seated next to Delilah, I cleaned my blade of sandtiger blood—hers had never made contact—propped it once again beside hers, then untied the sandtiger claws from the rags of my burnous. Employing knife, Vashni liquor, and grim deliberation, I began to clean them of blood and tendon. When I had time, I’d drill a hole in each one, string them on a thong, and set it around Del’s neck.
I glanced down at her, noting the pallor of her face. “I made it,” I said. “I survived. So will you. You’re tougher than I am.”
Later, she was restless. A hand to her forehead told me precisely what I expected: she was fevered. Quite apart from the wounds, the poison from envenomed claws was enough to make her deathly ill, even to kill her. As a boy I’d been clawed in the face and across one thigh and had been very sick from sandtiger poison for three days despite the fact much of the venom had been expelled before I was clawed. Years later a couple of shallow scratches laid me low for hours. But Del had sustained much deeper gouges than I.
Earlier, I had hacked down some of the branches used to build the shelter, tossing them onto the fire. Now I threw the last of those I’d cut on the coals, waited for the flare of kindling flame, then knelt by her side. In the reflected firelight her cheeks were flushed, blotched red and white from the poison. Her lips and eyelids were swollen.
I dampened a cloth with water, then pressed it gently against her face. Lastly I wetted a corner, laid it on her lips, and squeezed. Her mouth moved minutely, responding to the water; I slipped a hand beneath her head, lifted it, dribbled tepid water into her mouth. Her throat spasmed in a swallow; then she began to choke.
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