by Myers, Karen
CHAPTER 46
Najud pushed back against the force that questioned him and staggered to his feet. He couldn’t reach through his shield to alert the others, but he saw them run from their kazr in haphazard clothing, armed and headed for their predetermined positions.
Haraq pushed by him again, into the kazr, and emerged seconds later with his bow and khash and swept towards the woods where he hoped to be concealed behind the qahulajti when she finally arrived.
If she ever did. It was all Najud could do to stand upright, despite the shields reinforced by all four bikrajab, and she must be miles away. He made sure that Haraq stayed protected, but this couldn’t last for long.
*Where are they?*
It was like standing in front of the war horns when they blasted out a challenge. He was only surprised his hair didn’t blow back. How far away was she?
He scanned, with a faint hope of finding Penrys with her, captive but alive, but the girl was out of range, and Penrys was surely gone.
It was time for the plan. He braced himself, since she seemed to have settled upon him as the leader.
*Come and talk to us.*
He felt an inarticulate snort of surprise, as if a horse had suddenly spoken to her.
*I can understand you. You’re not like the others.*
Her attention turned from him for a moment. He could hear the horses a couple of hundred yards away whinnying, and then a general probing test against their united shield.
*You’re a different kind, like goats and sheep. Stay. I’ll retrieve the rest of the herds you stole, and bring you back with us. It’s a good valley, good for the flocks.*
Najud swallowed. This was like throwing out a net for bait fish and finding a toothy monster bigger than your boat, in that moment before it realized it could tear apart the net, and the boat, too.
*Come and talk to us. We can tell you things you want to know.*
She ignored the invitation. The concept of learning things from her beasts must be too strange for her.
*Where are they?* This time the push was stronger, and Najud swayed as if it were a physical wind. Was this what Penrys would have been like, if she’d ever probed him?
Time for the bait. *Behind us, lijti. They’re behind us. We can show you the way.*
That pleased her, he could tell, and for a moment he was ashamed of fooling someone so naive, but he couldn’t spare pity for anything so deadly.
The pressure on him lessened, and she was silent in his mind. He waited for several minutes, then moved to the center of the camp, to the deeply flattened circles of bare grass where the big kazrab had been.
He called out, “She’s stopped, for now. I think she’s going to come here directly, but she’s further away than I can reach, still.”
One by one, they left their positions and returned, all except for Haraq. Najud knew where to look and felt his mind, but it was calm and quiet, almost like one of the trees he hid with. Better to let him stay there, if he wishes. I can barely feel him, and I know where he is.
The girl’s unshielded mind-speech reached Penrys, but she couldn’t hear the replies.
The camp must still be there. They should have left!
Nothing seemed real to her, not the endless snow and trees, not the shifting of her body as the horse moved under her, not the emptiness of her stomach and the heat of her flesh, melting off her like butter. Her coat was gone and she didn’t miss it.
“Sorry, kit-cat, little leopard—it’s now or never.”
She urged the mare into the running walk that so many of these shaggy horses could do. It’s not right—she’s starving, too. But I have to get there, I have to!
The rest of the herd joined in, and she extended her shield over them, thinking of the horse that had trampled Umzakhilin. None of my horses will do that, not while I’m still alive. I won’t let that happen to them. They’re my horses, my herd.
Not hers. Mine.
She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. She felt the girl, not far ahead of her, and her wolves with her.
It wasn’t long before Najud could feel the qahulajti directly. “She’s coming. Half an hour?”
The pressure from her hadn’t strengthened so much as broadened, until she seemed inescapable, like a storm. All the bikrajab could feel it, and Najud’s audience in the center of the camp barely moved in acknowledgment of his announcement.
“Wish she’d just get here and finish it,” Munraz muttered.
Najud spared a thought for Haraq. He believed he’d escaped notice and might continue to do so, focused as the qahulajti had seemed to be on the bikrajab. He wished him well. Maybe someone would survive to tell the tale.
The survivors by now would be out of range, and he was sure Jirkat could be trusted to keep them moving. The snow, however, would give them away. Once the little barrier of this camp had been swept aside, it would be easy for her to follow the track. All that work for nothing. And Pen-sha.
His stomach clenched. No! There are four of us. We can do this.
“Back to your spots and wait. Watch for the wolves, but try to wait for her to appear before killing any of them. She has to get within our reach first.”
He watched them find their positions and vanish, leaving him alone in the center of the camp, like the bait he was.
Seized by impulse, he made a show of pawing the snow with his foot and baa’ed loudly, like a sheep.
The chuckles from the hidden men around him made him smile in return.
If I die here, I die. Better than being captured. And maybe snow will hide the trail of the survivors. Anything could happen.
The wolves found him first.
They paced into the camp from the west, seven of them, and Najud moved to attract and hold their attention, worried about them scenting out the others. They behaved more like dogs, sniffing him and growling but not attacking.
Trained them, did you? Didn’t want them tearing up your herds, eh?
He could feel the fear sweat breaking out—this many wolves could take down a man in moments, even with a khash. The leader, a dark male, snarled at him but left him alone.
Can’t let them find the others.
“Can you hear me?” he called out, but the answer came back in his mind.
*Be quiet. I am here.*
His tongue froze, and he stood, immobilized, as she strode into the camp.
At first she seemed to him almost like a small bear. She was dressed in skins, crudely pieced together, all except her boots which looked like typical Zannib summer boots, worn and falling apart. She wore a belt and on it was a sheathed knife, the gleam of the metal on the hilt a shocking bit of civilization.
There was the chain, the chain he was so familiar with, but on an alien neck, and the face… It was expressionless. He had to look past the deadness of the face to see how young she was, and foreign. He’d never seen freckles in quantity before, and light-brown hair was very strange, outside of travelers at the ports. The hair was matted and hacked unevenly to keep it off of her face.
He thought her skin might have been pale, but it was so uniformly coated in grease and ingrained dirt that he couldn’t tell.
His tongue wouldn’t work, and so he continued in mind-speech.
*Welcome to our camp.*
She stared at him, before replying, as if puzzled by a talking animal.
*Do you eat meat, like the others? My friends won’t like that.*
Turning her head casually, she sent her wolves to the hiding spots of the other three bikrajab. *Come out where I can see you.*
Najud avoided thinking of Haraq while he heard Jiqlaraz and Munraz come up on him from behind.
Khizuwi’s eyes flickered to Najud, when he staggered to his side, but he didn’t speak. Perhaps, like Najud, he couldn’t.
It puzzled him that she didn’t make them drop their weapons—Munraz’s bow and all the khashab. Doesn’t she recognize what they are?
*You look like the others. Why do you
feel different?*
Najud tried to explain. He needed a distraction to make her free them. *We’re bikrajab. You are, too.*
She backed away in revulsion. Najud could see it in her mind, and her body confirmed it, but only a wrinkled nose on her face echoed the emotion.
*You’re animals. I’m nothing like you.*
And she broke their pitiful shield to show them the truth of her claim.
CHAPTER 47
The savage girl’s words expanded to fill his mind.
*Where are the rest of my herds? Show me.*
It was so strong, it actually inhibited his ability to reply. She must have sensed it, for she backed off the pressure slightly and issued the command again.
Clearly she spoke to all of them, not just Najud, because Jiqlaraz answered her. *East and north, back the way you came, lijti.*
Najud felt his hackles rise. Any man could succumb, but to give her a term of respect?
In that instant, a wolf yipped behind her, and the qahulajti turned around. A second arrow appeared in the wolf’s chest, and he fell. The girl howled at the death.
It was the first sound Najud had heard from her.
With a sweeping gesture of her arm, the girl flung the remaining wolves out to seek their target and followed them. Two more sprouted arrows, one after the other.
Najud pulled at her control but couldn’t free himself. It took little of her attention to pin him down, just a nuisance while she dealt with other problems.
Then the qahulajti stopped suddenly, turned to face the trail, and screamed.
Najud felt the draining of her power and regained his independence. He knew that somehow, impossibly, it must be Penrys, but there were more urgent dangers to deal with. “The wolves,” he shouted to the others, “Kill the wolves.”
He heard the twang of an arrow behind him from Munraz’s bow, and then he drew his own khash and finished off a wounded one. In a few minutes, all the wolves were dead or dying. Jiqlaraz nursed a bite on an incautious hand, but the rest were unbloodied.
The qahulajti stood immobilized as he had been, facing upslope to the west, and all of them crept around her cautiously, khash in hand. Haraq emerged from the trees with an arrow nocked to his bow, ready to shoot.
The girl ignored them all, and trembled.
Najud’s ears finally registered the sound of hooves in snow, and five horses ambled into the camp.
His broad welcoming smile faded as he took in the sight. Something rode the exhausted leopard-spotted mare, and it moved, but his eyes failed to recognize the details. The face was hardly visible through the hair glued onto it, and he couldn’t tell the knitted cap from the hair. The chain—he could see the chain—and his faltering smile returned, but the rider had no glance for anyone but the qahulajti.
She walked her horse up to the girl and stopped. “No, they’re mine.” Her voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.
Penrys’s horse jolted at the howling of the wolves, and the commotion woke her to action.
She scanned and found them all—the girl, the wolves, fighting and dying, and Najud and the others, captive. The camp’s horses were untouched.
There was no time for finesse, and she had nothing left in her but brute force, anyway. She drained the girl’s core of power into her chain, all of it, and heard her scream. She grinned tightly at the sound.
She returned a tiny trickle, enough to let her mind-speak, and no more, and then she spoke to her. *Wait for me. We will discuss this issue of you and your herds.*
One more push. “Come on, my dearie, good little horse. We’re almost there, and then we can rest.”
It seemed forever before she took the last bend around the old pine, and there they were. The blood of the wolves was vivid on the snow. She’d felt them die and felt a distant regret, but it had to be done.
When she stopped in front of the girl, she swayed a moment and then reinforced her whispered claim with her mind. *My herds, all of these.*
The girl refused to agree. *What did you do? Who are you?*
Penrys saw her youth, vividly. *I’m you. Another version. It doesn’t have to be this way.*
She scanned her as deeply as she could, clumsy in her weariness. There were no answers there. Her skills were exactly what you could expect—animals and survival. She was curious—Penrys could feel that—but damaged, so damaged.
*Do you have a name?* Perceiving the girl’s confusion, she offered, *Shall I give you one?*
*What’s that mean?*
*M’name’s Penrys. Someone gave me that name, too, when I first woke up.*
There was no reply for a moment. *No one was there, when I first woke up.* This was followed by images of the wolves who’d found her and fed her, before she weakened beyond recovery. Her wolf family, now dead.
*I’ll call you Vylkerri, to honor a man I respect.*
There was no reaction from the girl. Too little, too late. She’s not really quite human any more.
Penrys could feel the simmering, frustrated rage, powerless but undiminished. I can’t just keep her drained forever. Too tired. It’ll have to do for now.
She swayed again in her saddle, and looked down at Najud. There seemed to be a light shining behind him, and he looked worried. “I came back to the camp, like you said.”
Her mouth was dry and she moistened it. “She’ll be all right until the power comes back. Don’t know how long.” A thought furrowed her brow. “Look after the horses, will ya? They took real good care of me. They’re awful tired.”
The thought of dismounting scared her, distantly. “You just let me stay here for a while, Naj-sha. I’ll be better when I wake up.”
Behind him, Najud heard Khizuwi take charge. “Bind the qahulajti, Jiqlaraz. Munraz, you help him.”
He couldn’t move for a moment. Pen-sha was alive, but could he keep her that way? His eye traveled down to her right leg, and his skin chilled when he saw the angle made by her calf.
“Haraq, I need your help.” He walked around to the other side of her horse and she turned her head to track him, blearily.
“Don’t you worry,” he told her, his voice as calm as he could make it. “We’ll take good care of you. You’ll be fine in no time.”
She grabbed his shoulder and repeated her warning. “You can still see the core power of a wizard, yes? Like that one?” She cocked her head at the captive girl. “You’ve got to watch her while I take a little nap. It’s gonna come back, her power, and I’m gonna have to drain it again, but I need a little rest right now, m’mind can’t focus on it…”
“Shush, now, Pen-sha. I’ll take care of it, you can count on me. If there’s anything I can’t handle I’ll wake you up.”
She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. There were lines in her face, under all the dirt. Up close, it looked like dried blood.
“And m’horses… I asked a lot of them and they kept me company.”
The hoarseness of her voice as she muttered her urgent messages thickened his throat.
Behind him, he heard Munraz asking Haraq quietly, “Why is she so worried about the horses?”
“They’re like warriors who fought together. She wants to make sure they’re taken care of, like any good commander. People who’ve been fighting a long time, they get like that.”
“I promise, Pen-sha,” Najud said. “Now you be quiet. We’re going to take you off your horse.”
She shook her head. “Better if I do it m’self.” She leaned forward until she was almost flat along the horse’s neck, and then dragged her right leg over.
Najud stood behind her to support her, but she managed to land on her one good leg before he scooped her up and carried her away, with Haraq in his wake.
His eye took in the qahulajti, and Jiqlaraz standing over her. Her hands and feet were bound and her knife had been removed. Najud wondered if he could see her core power, as he’d told Penrys. He’d done that with the Rasesni mages.
He looked at her now, and it was plain t
o him. Where Penrys was bright, this girl was dim, but it was true—the power would return. If they couldn’t wake Penrys when that happened, they’d have to kill their captive.
Khizuwi walked out of Jiqlaraz’s kazr with a piece of canvas and a leather satchel, and he laid the canvas on the bare grass where one of the big kazrab had been.
“Lay her here, zarawinnaj.” He raised his voice. “Munraz, take the pot in your kazr and add more water to it, and heat it until it boils. While that’s happening, find Najud’s warm water and some rags and bring all that here.”
Haraq helped Najud lay Penrys down on the canvas in all her dirt. She was still conscious but drifting off.
Najud masked his fear and smiled down at her. “We’re going to get you clean, Pen-sha, and take a look. Then we’ll fix you up.”
A grimace crossed her face. “Don’t think so. Leg’s… bad. Sorry, Naj-sha.”
He patted her cheek. “You let me worry about that. Now be quiet.”
Her eyelids drooped, and then reopened. “Did it work?”
“What, the rescue? We sent almost sixty people back to Umzakhilin yesterday.”
A faint smile flickered on her lips, and this time her eyes stayed closed.
CHAPTER 48
All attention now focused on Penrys’s leg.
They’d cut off her clothing and washed her roughly before draping a blanket over most of her to give her some warmth. Khizuwi had shooed Najud away from his examination of the leg, and he busied himself with washing her face and hands thoroughly, and soaking all of the blood out of her hair. They never did find the skull fracture that had generated the blood, but since it seemed to have healed cleanly, they ignored it. She slept unmoving through all the attention, though she whined when Khizuwi poked at her leg.
“Come look,” Khizuwi finally said.
Najud crouched down where Khizuwi pointed, and swallowed. It had taken a while to soak the cloth padding off of the injury, and for the first time he saw it clearly.
“The bones are firmly set,” Khizuwi said. “That doesn’t normally happen in just four days but…” He shrugged. “You can smell infection, but the blood is still reaching her foot—that’s a good thing.”