by Dave Freer
Two of his friends grabbed him and pulled the wide-eyed hunter away.
"I think," said Honest Clarence, his voice cracking slightly, "that we'd better be going, before that bunch get any drunker and stupider." As they left, a voice echoed after them.
"Run, you little desert turd. Run back to the desert. I'm going to foller you and cut your fucking throat."
"Phew," said Clarence. "You handled yourself well, youngster. What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't. It's Keilin . . . Skyann."
The jewel buyer looked at him with some surprise. "Proper chip off the old block you are. Well, young Skyann, have a good night with Lucy's girls. Tomas'll pass out in a few minutes, and it'll be at least ten tomorrow before he even thinks about hunting you again. I suppose, like the ol' fellow, you'll leave all the trouble you've made behind you, and be back over the pass by then. Come an' see me when you're next in town. Even if you're a damn sight too sharp a trader, it's been good doing business with you."
"Actually, I'm going west. How far is Shapstone?"
"Matter of four hundred miles or so. But there's nothing but Morkth there now," Clarence said, his surprise showing.
"Good." Keilin's face was far grimmer than it had been when dealing with the hunter.
It was only after the jewel buyer had turned aside to his own home that Keilin allowed his control to slip. He felt himself start to shake.
CHAPTER 7
Trees. And bloody rain. Trees to get in your way, and rain to wet you. This was how Keilin would have described the western side of the mountains now. It never occurred to him that this place looked very like the pictures he had once daydreamed over. On the other hand, the homesteads and travellers along the road would have described his thieving passage as a plague. The truth to tell, the boy-man was getting cocky. The Westerners were mud-soft. And there was no Marou to cut him down to size.
He'd spotted the hidden fire quite easily. Yes, whoever it was had bothered to hide deep in the woods, and had built it in a hollow where the light could not be seen, but they'd used pine. He could smell it a mile off. He moved closer, slipping silently from tree to tree. Perhaps a wary target would be more of a challenge.
The sleeper wrapped in the tatty blanket did not stir as Keilin went through the meager possessions in the bag. What?! There was no food. Not a damn crumb. But wait . . . what was this lot? His expert fingers read the shape and nature of the bangles. Gold! He was about to relieve the traveller of a few on principle when his fingers encountered another thing. A familiar oily coldness. It was so unexpected that he gave a small gasp. He looked across at the sleeper whose face was now clearly visible in the moonlight, to see if he reacted. And saw his victim was female, young, and by the looks of it, starving. Also, if the disturbance in the dirt on her face was anything to judge by, she'd gone to sleep crying.
It pulled at a cord in Keilin's innermost being. He remembered his own flight and desperation. If she too had one of the stones, perhaps she was as much a victim as he was. Also . . . he had a not insubstantial interest in girls. His brain suggested leaving her and her troubles strictly alone, but his glands called for a more chivalrous gesture. As Keilin was a physically normal young male, his glands won without any effort.
He had a generous amount of the country's finest provender, liberated from a wide selection of now irate citizens, stashed relatively nearby in his kit. Ten minutes later he was back, building up the fire and frying some succulent slices of a stolen side of bacon in a stolen pan.
Her awakening was amusing. Her nose literally twitched as the food smell plucked at it. A small tongue licked out catlike across her lips. Its effect on Keilin's glands was nearly tectonic. However, her reaction on seeing him failed to live up to Keilin's romantic expectations.
She sat up, bleary eyed, took one look at him, scrambled to her feet, and ran. He sat stunned for a moment before taking off after her. "Oi! Come back! I won't hurt you!"
He'd run in the hunt after desert gazelle. She'd had the rapid pursuit of a waddling bee wife for the last nine months. It was not much of a chase. She stood, panting, her back to the rough bark of the tree she'd been trying to climb, broken dagger in front of her. "Come . . . one . . . step nearer, I'll . . . kill you." Her eyes were wild enough to suggest she really meant it.
Keilin was thoroughly irritated by the shattering of his illusions. He'd thought she'd be pleased to see someone, especially with dinner. But the fear in her voice drew sympathy from him too. "The bacon's burning, you daft little girl. Stop being so stupid. I just saw you didn't have any food, so I was cooking some for you. I'm going back to see if I can save that bacon." He turned and walked back. Behind him resentment vied with fear and hunger. One should not call a princess, or possibly anyone, a "daft little girl" on first meeting. It never gets a relationship off to a good start.
The bacon was thoroughly burned. He turned it out, scraped the pan a bit, and sliced some fresh pieces. He was aware that he was being watched. When the rashers were beginning to curl, he tossed in a couple of duck eggs that a farmer he'd robbed a day back was still cursing about.
Without lifting his eyes from the pan, he asked, "Got a plate? I usually eat out of the pan myself, so I can't offer you one."
"Why don't you go away, you horrible boy?" came the fierce voice from the trees.
"I'm going, once I've had supper. You can come and eat, or you can sit up a tree."
"Go away. I've got my own food." The words sounded weak against the smell of the frying bacon.
"No, you haven't. I went through your kit while you were sleeping. You can't eat gold bracelets, you know."
"You've stolen my things, and now you're just trying to lure me out with food. You want to rape me." The voice was suspicious, accusing.
Keilin's mind turned back to an alley and Guard-Captain Kemp. His reply was gentler. "If I'd wanted to rob you, I'd have taken what I wanted and left. If I'd wanted to rape you, I'd have put a knife against your throat while you were asleep, not cooked you supper first. Besides, I've got enough money to buy any girls I want," he said with some pride.
Shael's quick mind assimilated all of this. He could have robbed her. He could have killed her. He could have raped her, too. . . . To her now awake and hungry self it made little sense, but he obviously wasn't planning to do her any harm, even if he was appallingly rude and terribly underbred. "I'm coming down. Try anything and I'll kill you."
He laughed. "Yeah! You and what army?" His experience in the field of diplomacy was not legion. He skillfully speared a piece of bacon on the point of his knife, and dropped it into his mouth. He continued to talk with mouth full. "Come and eat. No sense in letting it get cold." He'd gone from thinking her an object for his gallantry to an object for his pity. It showed in his tone. Shael might be hungry enough to accept his charity, but she did not have to like it. She advanced hungrily on the frying pan with an expression on her face that would have made older and wiser men wary. Keilin, however, knew little about people, and even less about girls. He didn't even notice, which did not improve matters. He just shoved the pan towards her while he chewed with his mouth open.
She was smaller than he'd first thought. Under the scowl and the dirt layer it was quite a pretty face. Some sense of gallantry began to return to Keilin, as he watched her gobble, daintiness and the manners of a princess forgotten in a sudden desperate hunger. "Here . . . don't eat so fast. Your stomach's not used to food. You'll cast it all up again."
The books Keilin had devoured in the library had led him to dream of caring and nurturing a delicate damsel, who would fall into his arms with gratitude afterwards. His experiences with his mother after she'd been on a three-day dream-dust binge stood him in better stead with the reality that followed. When Shael had stumbled up and rushed towards the bushes, he'd followed, held her head and rubbed her back. When she'd finished he handed her a leather water skin. She eyed it suspiciously. Keilin could see her hands were shaking on the flask neck. "Ju
st water. Rinse your mouth out."
When she'd done that, he led her back to the fire, and put her blanket over her thin, shivering shoulders. He put more wood on the fire, took a small pot from his kit, and began shaving dried meat into it. He added water and set it in the flames. "How long," he asked conversationally, "since you last ate?"
The damsel in distress was showing scant signs of appreciation. In fact the hostile, shaky voice suggested that she planned to blame the whole of the indignity and discomfort on him. "I don't see what it has got do with you." Then she apparently thought better of it. "I've had a few berries and purslane leaves. Nothing else for . . . quite a long time."
He nodded. "I thought so. Marou an' me had a few thin times too. He taught me that you've got to start eating again slowly. Soup is best." He pulled the pot from the center of the flames with a stick, and let it stand in the embers on the edge, so just a fuzz of little bubbles buzzed up steadily from the hot metal. He went to his pack again, and emerged with a battered mug, and a hunk of bread.
A few balancing tricks with a hot pot filled the mug, which he handed her. "Drink it. Slowly. The bread's a bit old, so dunk it in the soup. And don't be stupid enough to wolf it again. I'm not making you more food to upchuck in the bushes." The knight in shining armor was supremely unaware that every time his kindness raised him a step in the princess's estimation, his tongue took him two steps back.
The warm soup and the small pieces of bread curdled uneasily in her stomach. For the moment at least, it seemed they weren't going to come back up. With food, her mind began to function along its normal paths. This boy . . . he could be used. She'd been avoiding human settlement so as to leave no trace of her passage. At first it had just been wise, but fear had prevented her from going to buy food. But this boy, well, he could buy her food, and provide some protection too. He was young and not very big . . . not so good for defending her, but also small enough for her to fend off easily. She gave him one of her devastating smiles.
He looked at her across the fire and sighed. "I wish you were my sister." He came from a place and level of society in which incest was unpleasantly normal.
She was stunned. "I'm no relation of yours, you lowborn common boy!"
He shrugged. "Didn't say you were." He lapsed into silence, looking out at the darkness over her shoulder.
At length, having thought the statement over, and reconsidered it in the light of her time with the beekeepers, she decided that it was perhaps not an insult at all; she had the courage to ask why he wished that she were his sister. His reply did him no good at all.
"I dunno, I always thought if I had a sister then I would have been able to join one of the gangs."
"Why did you have to have a sister to join a gang?"
" 'Cause they didn't let you in if they didn't get one."
There was a dangerous silence. "What did your gang want with the girls?"
He failed to read the signals, concentrating on something else in the darkness. "For the gang bosses to screw, of course, and to rent out."
"You are a despicable, revolting disgusting toad, and you stink!"
He looked at her puzzledly. "Why are you so mad?"
"Do you think, you filthy commoner, that I'd be a . . . a prostitute? I'm a princess, you . . . pig!"
He looked the thin, ragged girl up and down. "Yeah. And I'm the Captain of the Cru. Grab your kit. There's somebody out there and we'd better scram. Move!"
Once again the little princess was silenced. She would cheerfully have refused to go, or have gone elsewhere, but she was too scared of what could be out there in the dark. They left the fire, took up their bags and moved off into the night. Keilin led them unerringly to a trail between the straggling brambles, and up to an area of broken rock slabs. "Slip in here," he whispered, pointing to a rock-edged crack. "I'll leave my gear and go back and see what they're up to."
He'd left his pack . . . so he was planning to come back. Time passed. She had felt safe hidden here among the rocks, but the stillness of the night slowly consumed her confidence. Her stomach hurt. She wasn't sure if it was the soup and bread, or fear. He must have been caught . . . of course he'd lead them to her. He was prepared to sell his own sister, after all. Even though her ears were desperately reaching for sounds, she didn't hear him return.
"Phew, girl, you've got some mean folk looking for you. Pity they couldn't find their own bums in the woods in the dark. I've led them on a merry chase. They're feeling right sorry for themselves now. Next time you steal things make sure you take it from folk who aren't going to try so hard to find you."
She was too relieved at his return to react to his presumption that she was a thief, hunted by those she'd stolen from. "What . . . what did you do?"
He chuckled "They thought they'd sneaked up on your fire. They were a little disappointed to find you weren't there any more. They were about to settle down for the night and track you in the morning, when I threw a stone into the fire, and led them off past our hiding place to that swamp down there. They're muddy and miserable and lost by now."
"I must run. W-which way did they go?" There was an edge of panic in her voice, as she started fumbling for her bag.
"Relax. Only one of them was any kind of woodsman. And he'll be too sick to track anyone for a couple of weeks. I put a little arrow in him, with a dab of shargy on it. The others are city men, and they're not going to find their way out of there for hours. And I stole their gear, and dropped it into one of the pools. They'll sleep cold and wet tonight."
"Where on earth did you get shriba beetle larvae?" she asked, delving into her knowledge of toxins.
"On the other side of the pass. My partner showed me. Move up. It's bloody well starting to rain again."
For the first time in two weeks Shael slept well. Keilin struggled, however. The warm body next to him was having a bad effect on his imagination. It was at least an hour later, when the soft rain had turned to a steady blatter that he suddenly thought, How come she knew just what shargy was? He filed the point away in his memory, meaning to ask her about it in the morning.
The morning, however, brought such an argument about what direction they would take, that he forgot about it. Eventually Keilin prevailed . . . but he had a sneaking feeling that he hadn't won at all. The feeling grew with each passing hour. She was manipulating him, dammit. To the extent that he even began to suspect that he was making a prat of himself.
* * *
This boy was nothing but a pain. He didn't do what he was supposed to do. He should have been falling over himself by now to do exactly what she wanted. Instead, every time he opened his mouth he had something rude or disparaging to say. She'd lost her temper a couple of times already . . . and then had to work hard on damage control. She had been keen on ensuring her safety, encouraging circumspect behavior. The harder she tried to get him to do so, the more crazy chances he seemed to want to take. Last night he'd raided a campfire, stolen the food off it while the travellers had been beating the bushes for him. And this morning, when she'd been looking at herself in a pool of water, he'd told her she was as vain as a two-silver whore. She noticed, however, that he had washed himself . . . and the water in the mountains was bone-chilling cold.
* * *
Here he was, going away from Shapstone City, with a girl who alternated between turning his insides all stupid with her smiles, and irritating the hell out of him by making a complete idiot of herself. And every time he'd made up his mind he'd just had enough of it, she made him feel desperately sorry for her. Which was why he was going south and not northwest. She wanted to go to Polstra, the mountain city. Very well, he would take her there, and then dump her. But first she was actually going to notice how good he was. Heroes, after all, had no trouble with girls . . . at least not in any of the books he'd enjoyed. Tonight's raid would be spectacular.
If Keilin had been less set on a grandstand performance he might have smelled a rat. Their horses were too conveniently downwind, the fou
r travellers were too obviously asleep too early. Their saddlebags hung too much in plain sight. But tonight he was going to count coup. He'd brought Shael to a point she considered far too close, in order that she might watch.
Thus she was in a perfect position to observe how it all went very wrong. The four of them appeared to be asleep, as Keilin moved into the camp like a lazy shadow. He pointedly ignored the tempting saddlebags and moved toward the sleepers. What he was planning to take from underneath the pillow Shael never found out. Keilin let out a startled yowl as a ham-sized hairy fist closed around his arm. A second hand reached out for Keilin's spear.
And missed. If the muscular, shaven-headed one had not neatly twisted the spear out of Keilin's hand someone would have died. As it was, the other huge hairy hand caught his arm before he could reach for a knife. The woman threw a waiting handful of twigs onto the fire, which flamed up. The tall one sat up and looked impassively at the struggling boy, taking in his features, his cold eyes narrowing.
"I think . . . we have caught more than a core section here. I think we may have a psionic too . . . well, well!"
He walked over to Keilin, who was being held easily at the end of an unnaturally long arm's length by Beywulf. "Where is it, boy?" Keilin said nothing, just writhed more energetically. He could feel the jewel chilling against his flesh. "S'kith. Hold his legs. Leyla. Search him." The shaven-headed one too was immensely strong. Keilin kicked out viciously but in seconds he was effectively immobilized. The woman began methodically searching his pockets.
"Notice," said Beywulf cheerfully, "how she starts on the trouser pockets. She'll search your ball bag next, boy."
However, her hands ran up his body, finding the pendant chain and pulling out the jewel. The captain reached out and touched it. It was biting cold. "Well, sod me!"
He looked closely at Keilin. It was not an overly friendly stare. "Evie Lee's hair. Evie Lee's eyes. And the nose . . . I don't need gene typing to guess at your ancestry, boy."