by Tina Daniell
Chapter 7
THE DECOY
———
Kitiara had a dreamless night. When her eyes fluttered open, she stretched and yawned. Then, with a start, Kit realized the sun was bright in her eyes, and she jumped up, clutching the blanket to herself, embarrassed.
She was the last one awake. Radisson, who was tying something to his horse, smirked at her. Droopface was already astride his mule, with its pouches, pots, and pans, looking more alert and purposeful than he had for days.
Her face burning, Kit slipped behind some bushes to change into her gentleman’s garb. She could hear Radisson chuckling, and Ursa saying something to him. Radisson muttered something else, and Ursa told him to shut up. Furiously she fixed her costume and came out from behind the bushes, ready.
Ursa came over, glaring. He reached into his pocket and got out a bushy swatch of Kit’s hair that had been affixed to a strip of muslin. With some paste he stuck the makeshift mustache under her nose, roughly enough that she winced. “Yes,” Ursa said approvingly, appraising her mannish disguise.
Among them all hung an air of tension that had been absent before, when their mission had not been so immediate. And where was El-Navar?
She spotted the sinewy Karnuthian on his white stallion, atop a rise some distance away, shading his eyes and looking off toward the northeast. El-Navar was slumped in the saddle, almost humpbacked, reverting to his strange daytime languor. He did not even so much as glance in Kit’s direction.
She realized that she was staring too hard at the Karnuthian and that Ursa was watching her carefully, so Kit turned her face sharply toward the mercenary.
“Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?” she demanded angrily.
“Why didn’t you wake yourself up, sleeping beauty?” piped up Radisson from his horse. Droopface gave an uncharacteristic guffaw.
Kitiara took a step toward Radisson, her hand reaching for a knife that was not there—indeed, she was unarmed, and on her costume there were no belts or loops for weapons.
“You had a good rest,” Ursa said tersely, stepping in front of Kit to block her. “There was little for you to do anyway. Now, let’s hurry.” He looked at the sun, already midway through its morning arc. “We don’t want to miss our … appointment.”
Kit couldn’t help but glance again at El-Navar, but the Karnuthian hadn’t budged, still hadn’t even looked toward her. He seemed as if he were sleeping, or dead, as if only his eyes were alive, searching the horizon.
Damn your soul, Kitiara thought coldly.
She made sure Cinnamon was all right while the others waited. Then she pocketed Gilon’s small carving knife, just in case. In a matter of minutes Kit climbed onto her father’s chestnut mare and rode out last in the mercenary band, their sparse column stretching out for a quarter-mile. Today El-Navar was far in the lead, still hunched in the saddle, never looking behind him as he rode.
They rode hard for about an hour and were now in steep, rocky territory that led into the East wall Mountains. Kitiara reckoned they were about an hour from Silverhole, and that the road they could see at intervals, below them to the right, was the main one that took several days to wend around this perimeter range. She had never been this far north, but knew from crude maps that Silverhole was at the foot of the range which became, farther upcountry, all but impassable except at select spots.
After riding for a short time, they entered a maze of gorges and ravines. They maneuvered closer to the main road, and then, up ahead, El-Navar gave a signal. He pointed off to the east, dismounted, tied his horse, and melted into the rocks. Radisson and Droopface rode on, waiting near El-Navar’s horse. When Kitiara, too, began to move forward, Ursa grabbed the reins of her horse and pointed up and in back of them, toward a sharp incline.
“Up here,” he said, turning his gray. Kit followed him for several minutes, heading directly up the slope. Ursa kept going to the east, with Kitiara following, until they reached a ledge that jutted out over the area, offering a good view of a place where the main road took a sinuous bend through the rocks. No longer could she see El-Navar or his horse, nor either of her other two comrades.
Ursa gestured for her to be as quiet as possible. He tied his horse and crept to the edge of the overlook. Kitiara followed his lead, advancing slowly on her hands and knees until they were both peering over the side. There was no one in sight below. Ursa gestured for her to follow him back, and she did, until they were near the horses.
“This is the place,” said Ursa in a low voice. “Here’s what you do.…”
Quickly Ursa reviewed her part in the plan. Kitiara still had not gotten over the humiliation of the morning, and her face showed resentment as she listened. Though she now knew what her part was in the scheme, no one had bothered to tell her what her share of the take would be when it was all over. Or what the job was all about. El-Navar had told her last night just to do her part and forget about everything else. But she was tired of being left out of all the important decisions.
“What if something goes wrong?” Kit asked Ursa. “What if I need to … help … or rescue you?”
Ursa’s face was taut, more so than ever now that the deed was close at hand. He had been very ironic and amusing when she’d first met him, but there was none of that in his steely look now.
“If something goes wrong,” snapped Ursa, “you run away. You have a simple job: Do your part and don’t get caught. Stay ahead of your pursuers, don’t let them get a good look at you. Double back and meet us. That’s all you have to do. If you do that much, you’ll be doing fine.”
Kit said nothing, her lips pursed.
“If something goes wrong, remember, you don’t know us and you were never here.”
He clapped Kit on the arm and mounted his horse. Turning the horse, he looked over his shoulder at her. His expression relaxed and for a moment there was something of the former Ursa in his dark eyes, something genial and warm. “Luck,” he said to her, waving as he rode off.
Another hour passed. There were few trees up this high to shade Kitiara. The sunlight reflecting off the rocks was blinding, the heat almost palpable. Kitiara heard only the sounds of occasional birds and animals, and she looked down below so long at the spot where the road snaked into a bend, seeing nothing, that her eyes began to swim with dots. She felt as if she was in the middle of a swirling snowstorm, a whiteout of all color. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes, lie down, and go to sleep, but she remembered what El-Navar and Ursa had said. She had to stay awake and do her part.
Then she heard approaching sounds, and immediately crouched low. Tensely Kit eased forward on her hands and knees, until she could just see over the precipice. Surely they would not be able to spot her, with the unrelenting sun in their eyes. But she took no chances and stayed low.
Kitiara could see a stretch of the pebbly road as it appeared among the jutting rocks. After the road continued for several hundred yards, it disappeared back into the rocks, before once again winding into full view. She watched the first stretch of road carefully, knowing that Ursa and his mercenaries waited behind the wall of rocks that concealed the narrow, second bend.
With no warning, a man on a horse appeared at the head of the road. He was dressed in fine armor that shone like silver in the sun. He was helmeted and carried a short lance with a plume of purple feathers. Obviously wary, he moved slowly into the open area, his horse, a magnificent sorrel, prancing nervously. But the helmeted leader did not break pace, and close behind him followed other men and horses.
By the gods, there were more than a dozen of them, fully armed and armored. Some were dressed in colorful regalia, others plainly. The armored men carried a variety of estimable weaponry, while the others, probably estate workmen, carried spears. They looked like a formidable bunch, and they outdid the four waiting to waylay them in number and arms.
Alarmed, Kitiara wondered if she should somehow signal Ursa and the others. Did they realize how many men they would be
up against? Had they plotted all along to overcome such odds?
Kit uttered a low gasp as she spotted a figure riding in the center of the group, on a pale roan which was the most beautiful of the horses. Strapped to his ornamented saddle was a small decorated chest that, Kit guessed, held the object of their mission.
This horse’s rider was young, slender, mustachioed, with short-cropped black hair. He carried no weapons. He wore a black gentlemen’s vest and white lace blouse, and even from overhead, at a distance of several thousand yards—especially at a distance of several thousand yards—Kitiara saw how he might be mistaken for herself.
She ducked even lower to the ground, and with trepidation saw that the first of the riders had vanished beyond the bend. The rest of the retinue followed, one by one. For what seemed like long minutes—more likely it was long seconds—there was a tension-charged silence. It would take the riders roughly five minutes to emerge from the bend, Kit guessed. Yet the silence went on until Kitiara thought she would scream. It was as if everything, the birds and animals and the wind too, had stopped. Kitiara craned her neck, but could see nothing.
A quick series of loud reports rent the silence, not quite explosions, but terrible noises that jolted Kit’s nerves. Following this, there spiraled up from the ground a cloud of dust and smoke. The cloud did not quite reach where she was perched, so she could look down on it from above. It was a strange color, a pearly white that seemed almost transparent in the sunshine, yet small particles of pitch black swirled around within it.
As she gaped, the air in the cloud crackled and each of the small black particles burst apart. From within them, as far as Kitiara could tell, a thousand black crows emerged, cawing and shrieking and flying in a mass so dense and terrifying that Kitiara shut her eyes and thrust her arms in the air to ward them off. Whether they were real or illusory, she did not know, but when she opened her eyes again after several seconds, they had entirely disappeared. When she looked down, she saw that the pearly cloud had disappeared, too.
During the occurrence, Kit was vaguely aware of screams and cursing and the noise of close fighting below. She thought she heard Ursa shout something. She heard groans and the cries of dying men, and hoped that one of them was not El-Navar.
As she looked on, several of the armored men and estate workmen rode from the bend into view, halting in apparent confusion as if something they had been chasing had suddenly vanished. Two or three of them were wounded and bleeding. The young gentleman was conspicuously absent from their midst, and Kitiara quickly gauged that about half of their original number was gone.
How Ursa and his men had escaped, if they had escaped, Kitiara did not know, but this was her cue to act.
“Ho there!” she shouted in as gruff a voice as she could manage. She stood up on the cliff so that she was clearly visible to those below and waved her arms. Kitiara could tell from their upturned faces that they were confused by seeing their lord and master so high up and far away. “Up here!” she called. “Hurry!”
Then Kit whirled out of view, jumping onto the waiting Cinnamon. After listening for a moment, she was satisfied to hear a clamor of voices and then the sounds of hooves pounding on the road. She knew it would take them a while to make the climb.
She spurred Cinnamon up a crude, twisting-turning path that wound up the mountainside to still higher ground. Branches whipped Kit across the face. She scraped her legs on the sharp rock outcroppings. Cinnamon stumbled once, and Kitiara had to get off and pull at her bridle to get the mare going again. Small animals darted across Kits path. A hawk flew upward, shrieking annoyance.
After a few minutes, Kitiara dismounted and, breathing hard from the exertion, found another overhang that afforded a good view of the terrain below. She waited. Shortly, the band of armed riders and estatemen moved into sight. They looked around, looked over the edge, and looked up. Seeing nothing, they began to argue amongst themselves.
“Hey!” Kit stood up again, gestured elaborately, and saw the men’s surprised, suspicious faces as they spotted her. One of them shouted something at her, which she couldn’t make out.
“They’re up here! I took one prisoner. The others—”
Kitiara thought that a good touch, breaking off as she spun out of view. She listened a moment and heard them arguing again. She knew that one or two of them might drop back, but even if the others were no longer convinced that she was their young lord, they couldn’t pass up the possibility that catching her would lead them to the other perpetrators.
As Kit remounted Cinnamon, she heard the horses below snort and whinny before starting again in her direction, up the rocky incline. She looked around and chose another, even more narrow, precipitous path slicing upward. She could zig and zag in these low mountains forever, and eventually lose the ones who did not turn back. All she had to do was stay well away from Silverhole and not get lost.
Several hours later, and a dozen miles to the northeast of where she had started out, Kitiara was satisfied that she had left her pursuers behind and no longer had any reason to be cautious.
She stopped beside a small stream and splashed welcome refreshment into her mouth, then poured several tin cups of the cold water over her head. Cinnamon bent her head to drink alongside her mistress. Kitiara yanked off her mustache and tossed it into the bushes. Allowing herself a brief rest, she lay on her back and basked in the rays of the sun, now descending in the sky.
Kitiara figured she had about two hours of riding, straight toward her destination, before she would be back at the rendezvous spot. That should be well before nightfall.
Indeed, it was almost two hours later that Kitiara approached the previous night’s campsite. She was clinging to the saddle, sore and weary, much more exhausted than she had thought she would be. Cinnamon, too, was no longer moving with ease, but was almost plodding along the forest trail.
As she neared the rendezvous, Kit was startled to see, lying strewn before her on the trail, an assortment of debris that included ripped clothing, smashed weapons, some coins and jewelry, and pieces of broken wood she recognized as fragments of the treasure chest that Gwathmey’s son had been carrying with him. She also noticed markings that led off the path.
Warily Kit dismounted and, drawing her knife, advanced slowly into the undergrowth. Here, she saw that bushes and twigs had been trampled underfoot, and these clues led farther into the dense woods. Stooping low, Kitiara followed the trail. It was now nearly twilight, yet she was fully alert, breathing fast, ready.
At last Kit came upon a trampled form face down in the dirt, sprawled full-figure, as if it had been running and been knocked down, but with such force that it could never get up again. Taken aback, she stopped and took a moment to glance around, seeing and hearing nothing.
Cautiously, she proceeded closer. Then, with growing horror, Kit flipped the body over. She gasped when she recognized the person as being a ringer for herself—the young nobleman with his short black hair and thin mustache, Gwathmey’s son, the man she had impersonated. He was quite dead.
Worse than dead. His front torso was torn to bits, with pieces of entrails hanging out and blood congealing around every wound. It looked as if he had been clawed by some ferocious monster, and then, Kitiara winced at the thought, half-eaten. Only his serene, youthful face, white as snow, appeared untouched.
This was the first time Kit had ever seen a dead person so close. This was the first time she herself was partly responsible. She felt no sorrow, no pity, only shock. And fright.
Stumbling backward, Kitiara lost all orientation. She turned, ran, fell, got up, ran again—wildly, in circles, pushing branches out of the way with one arm while the other shielded her eyes. She couldn’t find her horse. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see anything in the swiftly falling darkness. Kitiara stumbled again, and this time did not get up. Lying there, she fell asleep.
Kit lay on her back, her face to the sky.
She dreamed of a youthful face, pure and beaut
iful, that did not seem to belong to its mangled body, a face that looked remarkably like her own.
A cracking noise sounded in the undergrowth, and Kit felt the presence of something. Even before she woke fully, Kit knew that she was no longer alone.
She tried to sit up, but a hand on her chest pushed her back, and when she opened her eyes she was looking up at Ursa. He put his fingers to her lips, whispering, “Shh. Keep still.” He was on his haunches, bending over her, but his eyes darted back and forth among the trees.
It was pitch dark, well past midnight. The air had cooled. Kit saw that her horse and Ursa’s were tethered nearby. She couldn’t see very far through the trees. Her own fast breathing sounded loud in Kit’s ears.
After long seconds, Ursa relaxed his hold and permitted Kitiara to sit up. Disoriented, she tried to remember what had happened, how she had got here: Oh yes, it all came back to her. The ambush, the decoy escape, doubling back, and finding … the mutilated body of the young nobleman.
Although Kit had probably only slept a few hours, she felt revived. She was no longer afraid; in fact she felt almost confident. As she looked around for the others, Ursa rose and began making a small fire. She could see now that they were in a slight bowl of land sided by rocks and bushes. A good concealment. Ursa must have carried her here, and found Cinnamon.
“Where are El-Navar and the others?” she asked.
“Waiting somewhere,” said Ursa, his back to her. The tone of his voice indicated some worry. He busied himself making broth—putting water from a canteen into a big tin cup, adding some stuff from canisters in his pack, and then, with a forked stick, heating the contents over the fire.
Kitiara moved near the fire and sat down so that she could see his face clearly. “Were you followed?” she asked anxiously.
“Were you?” Ursa asked. His tone was noncommittal.