Chali crept in to the remains of the camp in the gray light before dawn and collected what she could. The wagons were charred ruins; there were no bodies. She supposed, with a dull ache in her soul, that the murderers had dragged the bodies off to be looted and burned. She hoped that the mule would haunt their killers to the end of their days—
There wasn’t much left, a few bits of foodstuff, of clothing, other oddments—certainly not enough to keep her through the winter—but then, she would let the winter take care of itself. She had something more to concern her.
Scrabbling through the burned wood into the secret compartments built into the floor of every vurdon, she came up with less of use than she had hoped. She had prayed for weapons. What she mostly found was coin; useless to her.
After searching until the top of the sun was a finger’s length above the horizon and dangerously near to betraying her, she gave up the search. She did manage to collect a bow and several quivers’ worth of arrows—which was what she wanted most. Chali had been one of the best shots in the kumpania. Now the Gaje would learn to dread her skill.
She began her one-person reign of terror when the gates opened in late morning.
She stood hidden in the trees, obscured by the foliage, but well within bowshot of the gates, an arrow nocked, a second loose in her fingers, and two more in her teeth. The stallion stood motionless at her side. She had managed to convince the creatures of the woods about her that she was nothing to fear—so a blackbird sang within an arm’s length of her head, and rabbits and squirrels hopped about in the grass at the verge of the forest, unafraid. Everything looked perfectly normal. The two men opening the gates died with shafts in their throats before anyone realized that there was something distinctly out of the ordinary this morning.
When they did realize that there was something wrong, the stupid Gaje did exactly the wrong thing; instead of ducking into cover, they ran to the bodies. Chali dropped two more who trotted out to look.
Then they realized that they were in danger, and scrambled to close the gates again. She managed to get a fifth before the gates closed fully and the bar on the opposite side dropped with a thud that rang across the plain, as they sealed themselves inside.
Now she mounted on Bakro, and arrowed out of cover. Someone on the walls shouted, but she was out of range before they even had time to realize that she was the source of the attack. She clung to Bakro’s back with knees clenched tightly around his barrel, pulling two more arrows from the quiver slung at her belt. He ran like the wind itself, past the walls and around to the back postern-gate before anyone could warn the sleepy townsman guarding it that something was amiss.
She got him, too, before someone slammed the postern shut, and picked off three more injudicious enough to poke their heads over the walls.
Now they were sending arrows of their own after her, but they were poor marksmen, and their shafts fell short. She decided that they were bad enough shots that she dared risk retrieving their arrows to augment her own before sending Bakro back under the cover of the forest. She snatched at least a dozen sticking up out of the grass where they’d landed, leaning down as Bakro ran, and shook them defiantly at her enemies on the walls as they vanished into the underbrush.
Chali’s vengeance had begun.
Kevin was barely conscious; only the support of Pika on one side and Keegan on the other kept him upright. Ehrik was uncharacteristically silent, terribly frightened at the sight of his big, strong father reduced to such a state.
King Howard and his minions had been “generous”; piling as much of the family’s goods on the pony’s back as he could stand before sending the little group out the gates. In cold fact that had been Willum’s work, and it hadn’t been done out of kindness; it had been done to make them a more tempting target for the horse barbarians or whatever strange menace it was that now had them hiding behind their stout wooden walls. That much Kevin could remember; and he waited in dull agony for arrows to come at them from out of the forest.
But no arrows came; and the pathetic little group, led by a little boy who was doing his best to be brave, slowly made their way up the road and into the grasslands.
Chali mindspoke Pika and ascertained that the smith had had nothing to do with last night’s slaughter—that in fact, he was being cast out for objecting to it. So she let him be—besides, she had other notions in mind.
She couldn’t keep them besieged forever—but she could make their lives pure hell with a little work.
She found hornets’ nests in the orchard; she smoked the insects into slumberous stupefication, then took the nests down, carefully. With the help of a scrap of netting and two springy young saplings, she soon had an improvised catapult. It wasn’t very accurate, but it didn’t have to be. All it had to do was get those nests over the palisade.
Which it did.
The howls from within the walls made her smile for the first time that day.
Next she stampeded the village cattle by beaming pure fear into their minds, sending them pounding against the fence of their corral until they broke it down, then continuing to build their fear until they ran headlong into the grasslands. They might come back; they might not. The villagers would have to send men out to get them.
They did—and she killed one and wounded five more before their fire drove her back deeper into the forest.
They brought the cattle inside with them—barely half of the herd she had sent thundering away. That made Chali smile again. With the cattle would come vermin, noise, muck—and perhaps disease.
And she might be able to add madness to that—
Bakro? she broadbeamed, unafraid now of being overheard. Have you found the mind-sick weed yet?
But to her shock, it was not Bakro who answered her.
Daiv struggled up out of a darkness shot across with lances of red agony. It hurt even to think—and it felt as if every bone in his body had been cracked in at least three places. For a very long time he lay without even attempting to move, trying to assess his real condition and whereabouts through a haze of pain. Opening his eyes did not lessen the darkness, but an exploratory hand to his face told him that although the flesh was puffed and tender, his eyes were probably not damaged. And his nose told him of damp earth. So he was probably being held in a pit of some kind, one with a cover that let in no light. Either that, or it was still dark—
Faint clanks as he moved and his exploring fingers told him that chains encircled his wrists and ankles. He tried to lever himself up into a sitting position, and quickly gave up the idea; his head nearly split in two when he moved it, and the bones of his right arm grated a little.
He started then to mindcall to Dahnah—then he remembered.
Hot, helpless tears burned his eyes; scalded along the raw skin of his face. He didn’t care. Wind—oh Wind.
For he remembered that Dahnah was dead, killed defending two of the trader’s tiny children. And uselessly, for the children had been spitted seconds after she had gone down. She’d taken one of the bastards with her though—and Stubtail had accounted for another before they’d gotten him as well.
But Daiv couldn’t remember seeing Brighttooth’s body—perhaps the other cat had gotten away!
He husbanded his strength for a wide-beam call, opened his mind—
And heard the stranger.
Bakro? came the voice within his mind, strong and clear as any of his kin could send. Have you found the mind-sick weed yet?
He was so startled that he didn’t think—he just answered. Who are you? he beamed. Please—who are you?
Chali stood, frozen, when the stranger’s mind touched her own—then shut down the channel between them with a ruthless, and somewhat frightened haste. She kept herself shut down, and worked her way deeper into the concealment of the forest, worming her way into thickets so thick that a rabbit might have had difficulty in getting through. There she sat, curled up in a ball, shivering with reaction.
Until Bakro roused he
r from her stupor with his own insistent thought.
I have found the mind-sick weed, drabarni, and something else as well. She still felt dazed and confused. What, she replied, raising her head from her knees. And found herself looking into a pair of large, golden eyes.
Kevin had expected that the Horseclan folk would find them, eventually. What he had not expected was that they would be kind to him and his family.
He had a moment of dazed recognition of what and who it was that was approaching them across the waving grass. He pushed himself away from the pony, prepared to die defending his loved ones—
And fell over on his face in a dead faint.
When he woke again he was lying on something soft, staring up at blue sky, and there were two attentive striplings carefully binding up his head. When they saw he was awake, one of them frowned in concentration, and a Horseclan warrior strolled up in the next moment.
“You’re damn lucky we found you,” he said, speaking slowly so that Kevin could understand him. He spoke Merikan, but with an odd accent, the words slurring and blurring together. “Your mate was about t’ fall on her nose, and your little one had heat-sick. Not to mention the shape you were in.”
Kevin started to open his mouth, but the man shook his head. “Don’t bother; what the pony didn’t tell us, your mate did.” His face darkened with anger. “I knew Dirtmen were rotten—but this! Only one thing she didn’t know—there were two of ours with the traders—”
The nightmare confrontation with Howard popped into Kevin’s mind, and he felt himself blanch, fearing that this friendly barbarian would slit his throat the moment he knew the truth.
But the moment the memory surfaced, the man went absolutely rigid; then leapt to his feet, shouting. The camp boiled up like a nest of angry wasps—Kevin tried to rise as his two attendants sprang to their feet.
Only to pass into oblivion again.
Chali stared into the eyes of the great cat, mesmerized.
My brother is within those walls, the cat said to her, and I am hurt. You must help us. True, the cat was hurt; a long cut along one shoulder, more on her flanks.
Chali felt anger stirring within her at the cat’s imperious tone. Why should I help you? she replied. Your quarrel is nothing to me!
The cat licked her injured shoulder a moment, then caught her gaze again. We have the same enemy, she said shortly.
Chali pondered that for a moment. And the enemy of my enemy—is my friend?
The cat looked at her with approval. That, she said, purring despite the pain of her wounds, is wisdom.
Daiv had just about decided that the mind-call he’d caught had been a hallucination born of pain, when the stranger touched him again.
He snatched at the tentatively proffered thought-thread with near-desperation. Who are you? he gasped. Please—
Gently, brother—came a weaker mind-voice, joining the first. And that was one he knew!
Brighttooth!
The same. Her voice strengthened now, and carried an odd other-flavor with it, as if the first was somehow supporting her. How is it with you?
He steadied himself, willing his heart to stop pounding. Not good. They’ve put chains on my arms and legs; my right arm’s broken, I think—where are you? Who’s with you?
A friend. Two friends. We are going to try and free you. No-Voice says that she is picking up the thoughts of those Dirteaters regarding you, and they are not pleasant.
He shuddered. He’d had a taste of those thoughts himself, and he rather thought he’d prefer being sent to the Wind.
We are going to free you, my brother, Brighttooth continued. I cannot tell you how, for certain—but it will be soon; probably tonight. Be ready.
It was well past dark. Chali, aided by Bakro, reached for the mind of Yula, the cleverest mare of the Rom herd. Within a few moments she had a good idea of the general lay of things inside the stockaded village, at least within the mare’s line-of-sight—and she knew exactly where the Horseclans boy was being kept. They’d put him in an unused grain pit a few feet from the corral where the horses had been put. Yula told Chali that they had all been staying very docile, hoping to put their captors off their guard.
Well done! Chali applauded. Now, are you ready for freedom?
More than ready, came the reply. Do we free the boy as well? There was a definite overtone to the mare’s mind-voice that hinted at rebellion if Chali answered in the negative.
Soft heart for hurt colts, hmm, elder sister? Na, we free him. How is your gate fastened?
Contempt was plain. One single loop of rawhide! Fools! It is not even a challenqe!
Then here is the plan . . . .
About an hour after full dark, when the nervous guards had begun settling down, the mare ambled up to the villager who’d been set to guard the grain pit.
“Hey old girl,” he said, surprised at the pale shape looming up out of the darkness, like a ghost in the moonlight. “How in hell did you get . . . . ”
He did not see the other, darker shape coming in behind him. The hooves of a second mare lashing into the back of his head ended his sentence and his life.
At nearly the same moment, Brighttooth was going over the back wall of the stockade. She made a run at the stallion standing rock-steady beneath the wall, boosting herself off the scavenged saddle Bakro wore. There was a brief sound of a scuffle; then the cat’s thoughts touched Chali’s.
The guard is dead. He tasted awful.
Chali used Bakro’s back as the cat had, and clawed her own way over the palisade. She let herself drop into the dust of the other side, landing as quietly as she could, and searched the immediate area with mind touch.
Nothing and no one.
She slid the bar of the gate back, and let Bakro in, and the two of them headed for the stockade and the grain-pits. The cat was already there.
If it had not been for the cat’s superior night-sight, Chali would not have been able to find the latch holding it. The wooden cover of the pit was heavy; Chali barely managed to get it raised. Below her she could see the boy’s white face peering up at her, just touched by the moonlight.
Can you climb? she asked.
Hell, no, he answered ruefully.
Then I must come down to you.
She had come prepared for this; there was a coil of scavenged rope on Bakro’s saddle. She tied one end of it to the pommel and dropped the other down into the pit, sliding down to land beside the boy.
Once beside him, she made an abrupt reassessment. Not a boy. A young man; one who might be rather handsome under the dirt and dried blood and bruises. She tied the rope around his waist as he tried, awkwardly, to help.
From above came an urgent mind-call. Hurry, Brighttooth fidgeted. The guards are due to report and have not. They sense something amiss.
We’re ready, she answered shortly. Bakro began backing, slowly. She had her left arm around the young man’s waist, holding him steady and guiding him, and held to the rope with the other, while they “walked” up the side of the pit. It was hardly graceful—and Chali was grateful that the pit was not too deep—but at length they reached the top. Her shoulders were screaming in agony, but she let go of him and caught the edge with that hand, then let go of the rope and hung for a perilous moment on the verge before hauling herself up. She wanted to lie there and recover, but there was no time—
They have found the dead one! Texal o rako lengo gortiano! she spat. The young man was trying to get himself onto the rim; she grabbed his shoulders while he hissed softly in pain and pulled him up beside her. What? he asked, having sensed something.
No time! she replied, grabbing his shoulder and shoving him at Bakro. She threw herself into the saddle, and wasted another precious moment while Bakro knelt and she pulled at the young man again, catching him off-balance and forcing him to fall face-down across her saddle-bow like a sack of grain. NOW, my wise ones! NOW!
The last was broad-beamed to all the herd—and even as the perimeter guards
began shouting their discovery, and torches began flaring all over the town, the Rom horses began their stampede to freedom.
The cat was already ahead of them, clearing the way with teeth and flashing claws; her task was to hold the gate against someone trying to close it. Chali clung to Bakro’s back with aching legs—she was having her hands full trying to keep the young man from falling off. He was in mortal agony, every step the stallion took jarring his hurts without mercy, but he was fastened to her leg and stirrup-iron like a leech.
The herd was in full gallop now—sweeping everything and everyone aside. There was only one thing to stop them.
The narrowness of the postern gate—only three horses could squeeze through at any one time. If there was anyone with a bow and good sense, he would have stationed himself there.
Chali heard the first arrow. She felt the second hit her arm. She shuddered with pain, ducked, and spread herself over the body in front of her, trying to protect her passenger from further shots.
Bakro hesitated for a moment, then shouldered aside two mules and a donkey to bully his own way through the gate.
But not before Chali had taken a second wound, and a third, and a fourth.
****
“I’ll say this much for you, Dirtman, you’re stubborn.” The Horseclan warrior’s voice held grudging admiration as it filtered out of the darkness beside Kevin. He had been detailed to ride at the smith’s left hand and keep him from falling out of his saddle. He had obviously considered this duty something of an embarrassing ordeal. Evidently he didn’t think it was anymore.
Kevin’s face was white with pain, and he was nearly blind to everything around him, but he kept his seat. “Don’t call me that. I told you—after what they did to my blood-brothers, I’m not one of them. I’m with you—all the way. If that means fighting, I’ll fight. Those oathbreaking, child-murdering bastards don’t deserve anything but a grave. They ain’t even human anymore, not by my way of thinking.”
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