by Jo Clayton
CHAPTER X:
THE QUEST
The well was a hole in the ground, a burrow gnawed from the chalk and sandstone. The water was twenty feet down, off center, a well within a well, hidden from the light by the overhang, protected from the blowing dust though not completely. A sweethorn tree grew some distance from the well itself, yet each year a squad of vassals had to cut away the web of hair-fine white roots that crept into the hole to steal the water. A few grey-green needles about an inch long clung to the first spans of the shiny black branches as they slanted precipitously upward. The rest of the needles lay scattered about the hard pale earth while the outer portions of the branches bore only hard black thorns longer than needles with upcurving points finer than the points of needles. Smaller doerwidds with foliage like scabby green-grey lichen clustered in a west-facing arc about the sweethorn.
Their Sleykyn captors had spread one of Serroi’s blankets in the shade of that arc beneath the sweethorn tree. They were kneeling in a ragged circle on the brown wool; now and then one or more of them looked at her, eyes animal-blank, inhuman because to them she was inhuman, more than that, less than beast. The interaction between meien and Sleykynin had a long, unhappy history. The Sleykyn order was implacably hostile to the Biserica as if the meien threatened them on such a deep level they had no need to think, only to react, were driven to humiliate, debase and destroy any meie so unfortunate as to fall unprotected into their hands.
A burst of raucous laughter came from the kneeling men as they tossed oblong ivory dice and watched them wobble and slide about on the dark brown wool. She knew only too well what that was about, she looked at them and forced herself to show none of her fear. A Sleykyn groaned and cursed, fell back off his knees until he was sitting with his feet stretched out before him, removed from the circle on the blanket. Bad luck, she thought. First out, last in. She almost laughed at that bitter joke, but turned instead to Hern.
The Sleykynin had dumped him on a dusty flat some yards from her, left him unprotected in the sun after kicking and beating him with casual brutality, something he owed to her, owed to the fact that he dared ride with her in Sleykyn lands. He was sitting hunched over, short sturdy legs stretched out before him, tied at the ankles with the quick but effective hitch herders used when they threw bull hauhaus. Sweat rolled down his grim, intent face. He wouldn’t meet her eyes even when she tried smiling at him. His broad thick shoulders moved slowly, the deliberation of power kept under stern control. She remembered suddenly how she’d seen him the night of the Moongather, tied naked to a chair, waiting to be demon-swallowed, working with iron patience to win at least one hand free. Serroi tugged at the ropes around her wrists but the Sleykynin knew how to bind without pity. The turns cut into her flesh, cut off her circulation. Already her hands were swollen and numb. Her weaponbelt was gone, thrown casually across the saddle on her macai, her bow was clipped to the saddle. They’d pawed her cautiously (snake-handlers holding a viper) to make sure they had all her weapons—but they’d missed the knife in her boot, paper-thin and balanced to a hair. The tajicho was busy at what it did best, protecting itself, protecting the knife as it did so.
A yell from the kneelers. A Sleykyn stood, the second man out. He stood watching the others, shucking himself out of his armor as he watched. He made a comment, most of which was lost in a sudden burst of laughter, something about leaving some meat on the bone. He threw corselet and bracers into a careless heap, stooped to unbuckle his greaves.
Velater hide. Deep-sea predators, the velaterim. They spent most of their lives out in the middle of the Ocean of Storms, spawning every five years in shallow coves a little north of Shinka. Hunted in their spawning by magic and desperate greed. Velater hide. Inner side soft, supple, breathing like live skin. Outer side covered with tiny triangular scales with razor edges. One swipe of a velater glove would rip skin and flesh away to the bone.
A third man out, one who kept sending her sour looks as if his lack of luck was somehow her fault.
She was left waiting deliberately; she knew that. How does one get ready for rape? Sit and watch and know it’s coming, fear seeded and growing in the mind. She was supposed to participate in her own degradation. That was important to them—that she validate what they did to her by helping them do it. Let me get my hands free, she thought, sighed, and give me time to get the feeling back in them.
The macain were groundhitched between Hern and the half-circle of doerwidds: the beasts shifted restlessly about the dangling reins, scratched crossly at the hard white soil, suffered more and more from standing without water in the hot afternoon sun. She could feel temper rising in them all and most of all in the macain that served the Sleykynin. Her mount and Hern’s had eased away from the Sleykyn beasts, turned edgy by the malignity in them, the fermenting turbulence in them, sidling step by step, heads jerking, the reins rippling against the ground, until they were several feet away from the others. Serroi saw this with considerable satisfaction since she wasn’t quite sure what would happen when she prodded the Sleykyn macain across the line into madness and into an unnatural attack on the masters they served with dull sullen hate. She looked at them and they looked back, all of them swinging about to fix their soft, brown-gold eyes on her, as if they somehow knew what she was going to do, as if they waited and watched for the violence to begin, a violence that would relieve a tension in them growing near unbearable. She pressed her leg against the side of her boot, felt the long slim presence of the knife.
Wait. Watch the game. Know the order in which you will be forced. Look at the faces, see them all alike, all animal faces, all dark, dark eyes, dark skin, all of them young, faces unformed, smooth as masks. Watch them unbuckle their armor and throw it in careless, piles. Know they want her to last through the rape and linger for the other torments they plan for her. A man in velater moving on her would rip the flesh from her bones. Red rags, gristle and wet white bone. Make her last. Do the first thing. Take their time doing it, driving into her bones, into her soul how helpless she is before them, not a warrior, nothing at all. Make her beg, if they can, or whimper, yes a whimper would be enough to satisfy them in the beginning.
The dice go round and round. A fourth Sleykyn is gone from the circle, sullenly stripping himself to the soft leather undertunic, moving aside to squat and fondle himself as he looks at her. Raising lust with rage, laying hate on hate until he builds a tower of hate.
She looks at Hern. His shoulders still move in that slow, controlled way, but she has little hope he can win free, even a hand. He is looking at her now, shame and anger, frustration and fear, these are in his face, not fear for himself—she knows that—fear for her. She smiles at him, tries to tell him to be ready for what she is planning. His tongue moves along his upper lip, wipes away the beads of sweat clinging there. He follows her eyes to the macain, to the gamblers. He smiles.
She looks at the sun, twisting her head over her shoulder, squinting against the white glare. It is halfway through its declining arc. She looks away, blinking to rid herself of the black-tailed spots that swim in liquid arcs before her eyes. Soon, she thinks, and even as she thinks this she hears a shout of triumph from the blanket. A Sleykyn is backing away scowling, another is kneeling, unbuckling his greaves. The kneeling Sleykyn stands slowly, very slowly, his eyes fixed on her. His leather tunic hangs to mid-thigh. He lifts the bottom and she thinks he is about to strip but he does not, only grabs hold of himself and starts walking toward her, his eyes wide and staring like a half-tame macai with a saddle on his back for the first time. He hangs limp at first though the gentle friction of his hands begins to stiffen him as he walks toward her. Surprised and not surprised, she sees that he is afraid of her, he doesn’t want to touch her. He struts toward her, leering at her, but he feels nothing of that, that is for the others behind him. He would have given almost anything to be one of the first out, to have to wait for the others, to move insulated from her peril in their slippery spendings.
H
e stops in front of her, lets his tunic drop. The pale pink tip of his tongue darts about his mouth, there is sweat collecting on his brow, his eyes glaring past her. With quick jerky movements he stoops, thrusts two fingers into the neck of her tunic, drags her onto her feet. He reaches behind his neck, pulls out the short dagger he keeps there, spins her around, slashes her wrists free, shoves her onto her face and leaps back as if she is suddenly doubly dangerous, a viper cocked to strike. “Get up,” he snarls; in spite of his efforts, his voice shakes.
She gets up without saying anything. She has said nothing the whole time, not since the Sleykynin surrounded them and took them prisoner. She knows they will not hear her, that her voice will act on them like nettles. She turns slowly once she is on her feet, wiping her abraded palms on her tunic. He is grinning at her, there is no humor, not even any enjoyment in that stretching of his lips or in his staring eyes. “Strip,” he growls. She pulls the neck thongs loose, jerks the neck opening wider then turns the sleeveless leather tunic quickly over her head. Behind her she hears Hern’s quick intake of breath, feels his shame, feels his suffering as his too-active imagination paints images for him he can’t endure. Suddenly, like a burst of light in her head, she knows how deeply she cares for him, a caring of many complexities, even now she couldn’t call it love or passion or anything so simple. She drops the tunic and fumbles with the lacings of her divided skirt. For Hern’s sake as much as her own, she has to stop this. The Sleykyn is watching avidly, not trying to hurry her, as she begins easing the skirt down over her hips. He is fondling himself again, having trouble gaining and maintaining an erection. She lets the leather skirt fall and steps out of it, reaching as she does so in to the Sleykyn macain. He is a rather beautiful boy with long-lashed dark eyes and a touch of rose on his cheeks and delicately chiseled lips. He can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen at most. She drops back on her boulder though the hot stone is uncomfortable against her bare buttocks. She can almost hear the meat sizzle. She bends over and puts her hand on her boot.
The next happenings are faster than thought; her plans made, she doesn’t have to think. She twists her mindblade deep into the macain, driving them into a squealing screaming frenzy, setting them at the Sleykynin sitting in their undertunics, unprotected, unaware, eyes focused on the tableau in front of them. Claws and teeth tearing unarmored flesh, feet stomping soft, unshelled bodies, the attack is too sudden and the five are dead almost before they know they are hurt.
As she drives the mindblade into the macain, she flicks the hideout from its bootsheath, flips it over, catches the point and sends it wheeling at the Sleykyn boy.
He drops flat, fast enough to dive below the knife. Her throw misses.
He scrambles to his feet, his face suffused with crimson, the madness in his eyes matching that in the eyes of the beasts still doing damage to the flesh and bone under their stamping claws. She turns and flies over the ground toward the carnage, getting ahead of him only because even in his madness he is appalled by the unnatural fury of the macain. He slows, his long stride hobbled by that fear. She reaches the piles of Sleykyn armor several body lengths ahead of him, plucks a knife, a sword, a velater whip from the weapons thrown carelessly about.
Moving on her toes among the bits of flesh and splashes of blood, she edges around the sullen macain, milling about, no longer tearing at the dead Sleykynin though two of them still paw at a leg, a torso, rolling them aimlessly about as if they half-remember what that meat once was. When she is past them, she runs back to Hern. She drops the sword behind him, tucks the whip coils under one arm and cuts his hands free. Leaving him to work at them, she wheels and hisses the Sleykyn boy back, flicking the whip against his calves and retrieving it too fast for his stabbing grabs. With the boy hovering just beyond the reach of the whip, she cuts Hern’s ankles loose. The boy looks from Hern (rubbing at his wrists, stamping his feet now that he was on them again, his face white with pain as circulation returns), to the macain (snapping viciously at each other, not quite at the point of mutual self-destruction), finally to Serroi. He begins edging toward the armor, his eyes moving skittishly between the three points, easing nearer, a step or two at a time, gaining confidence little by little as Serroi stands without moving and the macain-milling shifts them slowly away from the field of death. The boy seems cooler now, moving with the easy grace of an athlete. He takes another step toward the armor. The whites of his eyes glisten as his gaze shifts restlessly about. Any minute now he will have his sword. She can stop him but for Hern’s sake she will not. There is a waterskin by the sweethorn tree, a Sleykyn waterskin plump and full.
“Sleykyn,” she calls.
He shies like a nervous macai. He says nothing. He won’t look at her.
“Throw that waterskin here.”
His face goes stubborn, his chin juts. He won’t do it, she knows that, not without threats.
“Throw it here,” she repeats, putting a snap in her voice. She starts to say boy but changes her mind. “In exchange for the sword you want.”
He looks at her now, his eyes wide and staring. He considers what she said. He can get the sword with one quick leap—he knows his body’s capacity that well—but he makes the mistake of looking beyond the sword at the sprawled bodies, at the sullen frothing macain. He turns greenish pale. His throat works. His resolution slides away with the sweat suddenly slicking his body. He bends with an aged stiffness, lifts the bulging skin and flings it at her. It bounces twice and lands at Hern’s feet. Hern laughs. The boy stares wide-eyed, shies again, dives for the sword. He comes up quickly to his feet, crouched and ready to fend off any attack. He goes crimson to the ears with mortification. There is no attack, no treachery. Hern has the waterskin upended over his head. He has been drinking, now he is letting the water splash down over him. He is not even looking at the boy.
Serroi, watching the boy, thinks: Odd that this is what he won, not first rights at a rape but a choice of deaths. Probably he prefers this death to the one that struck down his comrades. She knows he is going to die. Hern will kill him. The boy doesn’t believe this. She watches the glow come back into his dark eyes. He sees Hern only as a little fat man a head shorter than him, twice his age, grey in his hair, laughter not ferocity in his pale eyes. Sword balanced lightly in his right hand, he walks toward Hern.
Serroi watches him coming, his bare feet light on the chalk, his eyes flicking from her to Hern. Always back to her. He still expects treachery. She looks down at the whip in her hand, flings it away. The boy is Hern’s problem now, she has other things to worry about. She walks toward the two macain huddling close in their nervous fear of the others. She croons to them, eases toward them, strokes them with her outreach so they will let her come up to them. She puts her hand on her mount’s nose, hears a soft moan, smiles. She scratches vigorously among the folds of skin at the macai’s throat, laughs as Hern’s mount butts his nose against her, demanding his share of attention. She unties her waterskin, it is only half full but better than nothing right now. She finds a hollow in the hard earth and empties the skin into it. All this time she hears behind her the kiss and slither of steel, the dull sound of feet quick on the ground. She pats the macain as they drink.
Hern and the boy prowl warily about each other, alert for the slightest opening. When she looks over the necks of the drinking macain she sees that they’ve tested each other already. There is a small cut on Hern’s forearm, a slightly larger one, still bleeding, across the boy’s thigh just below the edge of the tunic. She watches, thinking that the match looks ludicrously unequal. The boy is strong, fit, quick, confident, and he is young, near the peak of coordination and reaction time. Hern is not actually fat now, thanks to the strenuous riding of the past few days and the limited meals, but still sweetly rounded. He is battered, the weariness in his face a cruel contrast to the boy’s freshness. Serroi sees the contrast and knows it is true and not true. Hern has depths in him, strengths the boy would never have, a core of stubbornness that
would keep him fighting even when everything seemed hopeless, a quickness of mind to match the quickness of his body, the general amorphous attribute called character. She watches with appreciation as Hern’s point slips past the boy’s guard and tears a jagged gash in his arm. He is away before the boy’s riposte can reach him, escaping without a touch.
She scratches her mount’s shoulder, watching with guilt and anxiety as one of the Sleykyn macain curls his head around and sniffs suspiciously at his own flank. Before she can move, he sinks his teeth into his flesh, tears out a chunk of muscle and screams with pain. Then the five others are on him, ripping at him with already bloody teeth, clawing at him in a return of their mindless rage. Though it dies quickly, Serroi feels every wound in her own flesh. She has a moment to know she’ll never again be able to drive any beast to such frenzy, even to save her life. She tries reaching into them to ease the rage, but they are slippery, hard and slippery, and she can’t penetrate the wall of madness. They are locked in the world she has made for them and there is nothing she can do about it. Except kill them, she thinks. She unclips her bow, strings it, plucks five arrows from the quiver and starts for them.
Hern is breathing hard, but he hasn’t lost his speed. The boy is bleeding from another cut. He is much warier. Twice a feint has fooled him so thoroughly only his agility has saved him, the unthinking quickness that dropped him under Serroi’s knife. Another time he’d recognized the feint and reacted to what he expected only to have his sword nearly twisted from his hand by a move he’d never even heard of with all his schooling in swordplay. The move fails by a small margin, not because of anything the boy does, but because Hern’s wrists do not have their full strength, his hands are just a hair clumsier than they should have been. As the careful, controlled bout goes on, the boy slowly sees that he is the one expending most energy, attacking three times to Hern’s one, moving along a consistently wider arc. Confident in his skill and his youth, contemptuous of Hern, he has spent himself more recklessly than is wise. He isn’t stupid, he has fought well, perhaps—if he lives—he will never again fight so well. But Hern is better. That is it—the whole thing—a better swordsman, a quicker thinker, a better tactician. When the boy finally knows this, the fire goes out of him. He fights grimly on, seeks to inflict what damage he can, but he is beaten. The edge is gone off his speed, the grace has fled his body. He is a dead man walking.