Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall

by Charles Ingrid

  If they were going to go, now was the time. The nesters had pulled out, vacated the area, leaving clear passage. As soon as Blade and the others were spotted trailing back, that advantage would be lost.

  If there was a world waiting out there, it would be cut off from them the more they hesitated. He had no choice, as he saw it, but to let them go. Stefan, for all his hot-headedness, would be a good leader. They had comported themselves well. He sipped at his tea. He could ride in the morning, bruises and all. Those packets of aspirin had worked quite well. Too bad they'd been unable to find more. That was something of the old world he'd like to see restored.

  Thomas stretched out his hand and set his empty tea cup aside. He looked at his flesh. The blood on it was invisible to everyone but him. He had some of Charlie's valuable papers in his pack and a chart showing the genetic outcrossing and engineering that was his legacy. And he had tried and been defeated by the ghost road for a last time. It would have killed him if he had traveled it physically instead of astrally. Despite Lady's urgings and those from Gillander, he would not be trapped again. He was not used to failure. It gave him a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. He settled back and closed his eyes, wondering what he was going to say to Lady when he returned.

  Alma brushed past Bottom at the edge of the woods. The cook seemed oblivious to her, except to say, "Bring some extra deadwood back with you. Campfire's running low."

  She nodded and kept going, afraid he would notice her brimming eyes and tear-roughened face. She looked hideous when she cried. No one called anything more after her as she plunged into the brush, tree limbs snatching at her sleeves.

  It was even worse to have no one notice. She stumbled to a knoll which was still covered with a slight thatch of summer grass and sat down, curling around her knees. / divorce you. She fisted her small hand and rubbed her forehead. What she needed was for someone to hold her tightly, someone to make her safe. She had her secret and intended to keep it, but there was no comfort to be had for her actions. Nothing. She might as well have died.

  Drakkar paused in the woods, watching. The girl was not for him, and he knew it, but he watched nonetheless, sensing her pain and fragility reaching out to him. He would not go to her, not now, knowing that if he did, it would be far worse for her when the Seven Counties and the Mojave tore them apart. She was genetic promise, and he, a plague child, was genetic curse. They could have no future.

  Ah, Father, he thought. Why did you send me here?

  And even though it pained him to keep a silent watch over her, he stayed until long after she departed.

  "Thomas, you haven't been listening to a word I've been saying." Lady put her pen down, the ink from its carved tip squibbing a little on the table. She pushed her chair back abruptly and crossed to his side of it.

  "I'm sorry," he began, but she folded her arms and perched on the table's edge.

  "Don't make excuses to me." She stopped him in mid-sentence. "You've that look on your face. You're a million miles away chasing the dean."

  He looked up at her. She wouldn't have been a Protector if she couldn't have sensed his preoccupation. That did not surprise him. What surprised him was the anger she fought to contain.

  He stood up, putting their eyes more on a level. "I've got to go back. We've got nester raids on the fringe areas, and the fetishes they're leaving behind tell the story. He's done it—I don't know how, but he's done it. He's got more than half the free clans in the basin under his influence, maybe more."

  "You don't know that for sure. You don't even know it's him.''

  He rubbed his rib cage. Small knots of pain soothed away. Four cracked ribs and a permanent partial hearing loss in his left ear had been his legacy from the expedition. He counted himself lucky. "I know," he said slowly, "that if I had done from the beginning what my instincts told me to do, if I had done what I've been trained to do, none of the boys would have died. None of Denethan's men would have died years ago. Only the dean would have died."

  Her two-colored gaze narrowed, sharpened. "I was not

  aware," Lady bit off, "that you serve as judge and jury as well as executioner."

  He turned away. "There's a first time for everything. It should have been done."

  "I didn't know that and I don't see how you could have! The Vaults were meant to keep safe the best our world had to offer. Even if we had suspected what we were walking into, we would have done our best to have salvaged as much as we could."

  He put the length of the writing table between them. A few stray pieces of paper drifted down as he leaned his hip to the planking. "You and I are different from most people. We should have known."

  "And what would you have done then? Killed everyone else you could get your hands on? No. That wasn't the solution."

  He looked at her then. "We're facing an all-out war now. The nesters will outflank us once they've joined forces."

  "There's always the Mojave," she pointed out.

  "Chancy allies at best. Shankar hasn't said much to me since we've returned, but he gets his messages at regular intervals. I gather Denethan is neck-deep in trouble."

  "What does Drakkar say?"

  "The dragon boy says as little as he can." Thomas tugged at the ever present scarf about his neck. He felt constricted, dry, and brittle. "We shouldn't argue," he finished and bent down to pick up the papers he'd displaced.

  She took the papers from his hand. "No," she agreed. "I should just kick some sense into your butt."

  Thomas felt himself grin wryly. "You and what army?" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into an embrace. She did not yield to him and he let her go carefully. "What is it?"

  "Thomas, you're" infamous among the nesters. They know you're quick and strong and respect you. As much as you despise what they've become, you still stand up for their basic human rights. Go if you have to—but go to talk to them. You're probably the only man who can."

  The warmth he'd been feeling fled abruptly. He paced a step away. He shook his head. "It's gone beyond that. I can't even talk a treaty with them the Seven Counties would agree to abide by."

  "The counties," and Lady's voice was deceptively soft, "would stand behind the treaty of a DWP."

  "No! We've been all through that. I'm not fit for the position."

  "I wouldn't necessarily agree with that, but yes, we've been through all that." Lady reached for a packet of ribboned papers on the writing table. Her short, work-efficient nails plucked at the ribboning without opening it. "Call for a temporary DWP. You can do it. Boyd and the others will bow to you, at least until they can finish jockeying for the election. They all know it will behoove them to be appointed now . . . easier to be elected later. They'll back you for this, even if it's only long enough to entrench themselves."

  Thomas felt the idea gnawing at him. Lady knew the inner workings of the counties better than he did. He spent too much time circuit riding and too much time staying neutral. He never knew who he might have to execute next. "Then it doesn't matter who gets appointed, as long as they back me."

  "Well, it matters, but it's not crucial at the moment. Not as crucial as keeping a war out of the Seven Counties. Go in under truce, talk a treaty—and do whatever you have to do to obtain it, even if the dean stands between you and peace."

  She met his gaze unflinchingly. "Even if I have to eliminate the dean to do it?"

  "Whatever it takes. Better one man than legions."

  "But you would rather I didn't kill him," he countered.

  Lady tilted her head slightly, giving him the full stare of her icy blue eye, the business part of her gaze. "I'm not fool enough," she answered him, "to think the dean can be cured by a hug and a laying on of hands. But if he were whole, he'd be invaluable to this community. His education, his personal history—think of it."

  Thomas already had, and had come to the conclusion that anything the dean might have to offer would be as corrupt as he was. But he did not say that to Lady. One of her eyebrows quirked,
daring him to respond. He kept his tongue. There was a rap on the door and Quinones entered dartingly quick without waiting for answer.

  Even a psychic mute could hear the charges, the tension, in this room. The man came to a quivering halt as his nerves got the better of him. He looked wildly at Lady.

  "It's all right," she said soothingly. "What is it?"

  "For Sir Thomas," he got out. "Judge Teal is here to convene with the nominating committee."

  Blade felt his thoughts stagger a bit. The judge had to have been on the road a good six days. He looked at Lady, who had blushed in a becoming fashion.

  "That's wonderful," the healer said, and walked Quinones to the door. "See he's made comfortable at the compound. We'll meet him before dinner."

  Thomas barely waited until the door closed. "Nominating committee!"

  "Yes. You suggested a week or so ago that one ought to meet when you presented your report on the Vaults. Didn't you? That's scheduled for tomorrow."

  He now had an idea why she'd kept him bottled up all day with paperwork. He closed his mouth at her audacity as she returned to the writing desk. Then, grudgingly, "I've been set up."

  Lady replaced her ink pen in its holder and capped the inkwell. She gave him a dazzling smile. "Don't fuss, Thomas. In the words of the immortal bard—at least, I think it was him—-united we stand, divided we fall."

  Alma's footsteps hesitated on the alleyway, the soles of her shoes catching on a pebble, throwing her off stride. Her shopping bags fell from her hand. She leaned against the back wall of the bakery, her senses filled with the overwhelming smell of yeast and dough as it rose for the evening's late baking. She felt a hundred years old. The building's solid warmth felt comforting as it braced her. If she hurried, she could catch the dinner hour cart up to the Warden compound, but her body betrayed her. She couldn't move another step if she had to.

  A dull throbbing pain rose in her ankle. She bent over and ran her hand over the joint. Already it was swollen and the pain, though not sharp, was constant. Hot tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away. It served her right. She would be skulking down alleys when there was a perfectly good main street, with sidewalks and gutters, she could be using. But she hadn't felt up to the jostle of the foot traffic, the stares of folk as they recognized her—the pity she thought she saw in their eyes.

  A divorced woman. Not proven fertile. The hope of the Seven Counties, and there she was, scarcely seventeen years, and barren. That's why he left her, you know.

  Oh, God, she thought, straightening up and clinging to the corner of the building as if it could save her. What would they think if she'd told all that had happened to her? She shuddered so violently she had to catch her balance to stay on her feet.

  "Alma—are you all right?"

  She jumped with a half-scream. She caught herself with a hand to her mouth, stifling her startlement. Drakkar retrieved the fallen shopping bags in a fluid stoop. He handed them to her.

  "I didn't mean to frighten you."

  Her heart pounded in her chest. Her ears rang with her pulse. Vomit pushed up the back of her throat with the suddenness of her fear. She took a deep breath and backed away a step before he could touch her. She couldn't stand the thought of—anyone—touching her. "I'm fine. I just . . . gave my ankle a wrench."

  "What are you doing back here?"

  "Taking a shortcut to the cart stop." Alma gathered her nerve to brush past him. "I'm in a hurry, Drakkar."

  He caught her by the elbow. His deep blue eyes reflected an unfamiliar emotion as he looked at her. He did not let her go even though she tried to free herself.

  "I'll be late."

  "I'll take you up later if you want. Alma, you don't belong in the shadows."

  Those tears sprang up again. Damn her, what was wrong with her eyes. The DWP should declare her another water source! She blinked furiously. "I'm not in the shadows, I'm in a hurry."

  He let go of her arm abruptly. "Then go. You're free. Free of Stefan and free of me. But you remind me of a hunting bird I had once. A red-tailed hawk. When I left boyhood and became a man, Micah presented me with a falcon, more befitting my status. I couldn't stand the thought of anyone else flying my little hawk, though, so I freed it. It didn't know what to do when the gear came off. It stayed to its perch. We tried to shoo it away and it came back. It didn't seem to comprehend its freedom."

  Alma felt her cheeks grow warm. She looked down the tunnel of alleyway, toward the streets she'd avoided, wondering if she could bolt away from Drakkar, and knowing she couldn't. Reluctantly, she asked, "What happened?"

  "It nearly starved to death. The falconer wouldn't feed it. We hoped it would leave in search of game. Finally, one day, I took it out. My beauty was so weak, I had lost all hope for its survival. Then, on a butte overlooking the dry wells, with the sun so low in the sky I couldn't see the horizon, I flew it one last time. The effort, I thought, would kill it painlessly. I had to cast it into the air with all my might to get it to leave me."

  He looked at her then, keenly, and she found it hard to swallow. "And then?" she said.

  "And then another red-tailed hawk flew overhead. They circled a moment, and I could tell the other hawk was a potential mate, and luring it away from me. I whistled for my bird, trying to recall it in spite of my original intentions. It never faltered. It never came back." Drakkar sighed abruptly. "Meaning, I suppose, that love and the mating instinct is even stronger than that for food, at least in red-tailed hawks. My little hawk had traded its love for me for a greater freedom and a greater love."

  A dizziness swept her. She shifted weight to keep her balance. She felt Drakkar's presence suddenly overwhelm her. Alma cleared her throat. "A pretty story," she said.

  "One with a moral. Take your freedom, Alma. You'll never know what is waiting for you out there if you don't."

  A bell rang out, signaling the arrival of the transport cart. Biting her lip against a stab of pain from her ankle, she launched herself down the alleyway, calling back to Drakkar, "I know there won't be a cart waiting for me if I don't hurry!" She ran awkwardly, shopping bags hitting her skirts, and feeling his unrelenting stare after her.

  Drakkar stared for long moments after she'd been gone from his sight. He found it difficult to believe he'd ridden nearly two weeks with her, unaware of who she really was. She radiated a sexuality now that was like a heady perfume, alerting all his senses, and it was totally unconscious on her part. Her short cropped hair had filled out, now cupping her head with its dark, curled beauty. Her eyes had looked as large as pigeon eggs, he thought, and chided himself for startling her. He moved his head, felt his feathered crest brush his shoulders. I am a hawk, circling you. Will you have the strength to see and fly away with me?

  Drakkar took a deep breath. He had other business in town. Shankar showed signs of being involved in some most unambassadorial activities. One of his guard had passed him the word that he'd located what he thought was a private cote, used by Shankar to house the pigeons carrying messages he did not wish Drakkar to see.

  Drakkar was not a blind man. Shankar acted in his own behalf as often as he acted in that of the Mojave. His father was not pleased. Perhaps, and Drakkar stirred himself into action, he could find a way to make his father happier. It was always wisest to nip revolutions in the bud.

  He kept to the alleyways, following his guard's directions.

  "Do you like it?" the clean said, smoothing down the front of his caftan. A violent wind shook the chieftain's quarters. It had been blowing steadily all day and might well for weeks.

  Ketchum stared. The black robes had been hand painted by some of the finest nester artists. Fetishes were hand stitched to the patterns, along with beads and pyrite flakes and quartz gems. He thought privately that the fetishes would take a great deal of trouble to keep fresh and potent, and that the robe would be difficult to ride in. But he said only, "It reflects your power, Dean."

  "As well it should." The man held up a shield of polis
hed metal, scavenged off the hood of a truly old vehicle, an item of inestimable value in itself. It reflected his image adequately. The violent dip of one cheekbone, the ruined bridge of his nose, the mottled bruising now faded to a light shadow, he regarded those imperfections as he would a warp in the hood's surface rather than his true reflection. "As the clans pledge their allegiance to me, the decoration will be increased." He picked a stray bit of feather off the black cloth.

  The tracker more and more did not approve of this man. He could not understand why the Shastra had brought him to them, or why it did not bring the man down when its power had been usurped. The Shastra was shy with its powers, not often seen. In Ketchum's own lifetime, the beast had only been seen twice, both times during forest fire, appearing and then leading clans to safety. The shamen claimed to speak with the beast, but Ketchum thought privately that that was more a rattle of bone and seed than speech. As for himself, he had seen the beast once, the night he had ridden to bring the dean his box of lights. He would have followed the beast, but something had not been quite right about its appearance—it had not come to him, he'd decided, and therefore he would not follow. Finding the dean wounded had settled the matter. He would put more store in the sha-men had one of them had been able to tell him he would be seeing the Shastra while doing the duty they claimed the Shastra had sent him on, but none of them had predicted that happening that night.

  Privately, he wondered if perhaps the Shastra had not taken its anger out on the dean rather than one of the Protector's riders, as the dean had claimed. But signs in the camp did not uphold his theory. If anything, it indicated that the Shastra had followed the dean's attacker. Rather than dismiss the idea, Ketchum merely put it aside, waiting for the day when the Shastra would deal with the dean chieftain. It was the main reason he stayed.

  The dean looked up at him suddenly. ' 'As soon as the wind dies down," he said, "we'll have a landing time."

  Ketchum could not comprehend a machine that stayed in the air, circling the earth. But he'd been told by those in a position to know that such machines had existed and might still exist. He did not allow his skepticism to surface. "Give us three travel days," he reminded.