The long afternoon passed more quickly for occasional game taking. Danaer let his students hunt landmarks as well as birds, pleased to see they were becoming adept at both. They had much to master, but they displayed early talent.
When the order came to halt, the sun rested on the horizon. The willows and bubbling springs of the camp lay close, and the weary men and horses gathered wagons and baggage near the best water and grass. Danaer again passed outgoing sentries and rode to Yistar's command area. The Captain was acting more cheerful now. "We did make better time, ai?" Yistar fingered the birds dangling from Danaer's pommel. "Getting a Uttle sling game along the way, are you?"
"Only while pursuing our course. Captain. We stumbled across a few and thought to provide you with some fresh meat for your mess."
Yistar snickered and tugged at his mustache. "I wager you thought that." He took a few of the squabs and tossed them to his orderly. "But I will take my
bandit toll all the same. Enough. Get you to your units and your own mess, and some sleep. We make an early start on the morrow."
Xashe and Rorluk chattered all the way to their unit camp, basking in the envious stares that followed them. As they reached the picket lines and dismounted, a wave of pain swept up from Danaer's ankle. He clung to his roan, gritting his teeth and choking on a rush of nausea.
"Troop Leader . . . ?"
"It is nothing. Away. See to your mounts and go show oS. your catch." Hearing the strong warning in that, they obeyed, though they looked back at him anxiously several times. Danaer bit down any shameful outcry, slowly recovering from shock. Then he swore an oath at his own stupidity—to ride so long with his foot out of the stirrup!
"Danaer?" That came softly, and sweetly, out of the twilight. But at that instant he felt not at all like confronting Lira. She persisted, seeking him along the pickets until she found him. "Danaer, what is it?"
He sighed and slumped against a post,-pulling off his boot with difficulty and a gasp. "I twisted my ankle earUer . . ."
"Warrior? Where are you, Destre?" That voice was deep and not made for whispering, though the speaker attempted it.
"Then! At it! Wrath ve Dortu! There are more here than at Yistar's staff tents," Danaer muttered. "Over here, Gordyan."
The big man came up to them as Lira was saying aggrievedly, "Why did you not tell me he was hurt?"
"Because he would not have wanted me to." Danaer had slithered down the post until he sat on the grass. Gordyan fumbled in the pocket of his vest and took out a small hide flask. For a while Danaer was lost to anything save the cold fire of the liquid Gordyan swabbed on his bruises. "You knew this would happen. Why did you not step down from your roan more often, soldier?"
Stung to hear his self-reproaches put against him, Danaer flared, "We are in a haste to reach Deki, or
have you so soon forgotten the plea of Siirn Lorzosh-Fila?"
Gordyan looked fiercely at him, then abruptly knocked off Danaer's helmet. Too stunned to move, Danaer sat dumbly as Gordyan also shoved aside his mantle. Then he lifted the scout bodily, carrying him past amazed picketmen and recruits, into the glow of a nearby campfire. Some of Danaer's unit mates were gathered there, and they gawked at the gigantic apparition lumbering into their midst. Lira ran along behind Gordyan, upbraiding him for this manhandhng.
Danaer was set down beside the fire. His ankle bumped sharply on the ground, and while he sucked in his breath a moment, Gordyan swept an arm around and commanded, "Send them away!"
Whatever was to happen, Danaer sensed Gordyan would not be denied. The soldiers scattered with little argument. Just as suddenly, Gordyan himself vanished into the night. In a short while he returned, carrying Danaer's helmet and mantle and the string of birds. He tossed the helmet aside scornfully and folded the mantle, setting it beside Danaer. Then he asked, "Can you cook these, sorkra lady? I always bum them."
Lira bUnked, a slow smile brightening her face. "Yes, if you will rig me a spit."
Gordyan set to work with brushwood and knife. Once, as he was constructing the spit, he glanced at Danaer and commented, "That helmet bothered me. Without it you are a true Destre, as you ought to be."
When the gutted birds were roastmg, Gordyan took off his headcloth and mantle and the dustcloth draped about his throat. He crossed his arms over his Jmees and hungrily watched the sizzUng game. Danaer eyed Lira, but she did not imderstand the significance in Gordyan's baring his head this way. The big man's hair was wiry and peaked at his brow, Hke the images in Argan's temple which depicted Bogotana. Lira tested the birds and plucked one off the spit, offering it to Gordyan. But he leaned forward and snatched out Danaer's boot knife, spearing the food and handing it to the scout. "Let me lesson you in an old Destre
custom, sorkra lady—the hunter always feeds first on his catch."
Danaer stared at the empty sheath in the one boot he still wore, then at the knife it had held, now resting in his own hand. "Gordyan, be assured / have been lessoned; I will never dare challenge you."
"Eat!" Gordyan said. He was already biting into a second bird Lira had taken off the spit. Through a mouthful he added, "Find out what a good cook your qedra is."
"I told you that word was too strong."
"I do not mind it," Lira said. Danaer was unsure if she grasped the full meaning of the Destre term, but she must know it in part; her smile was sly.
"See? Your woman does not object. I would she would call me so. But she prefers to call me other things." Gordyan chuckled.
"I ... I am sorry for that," Lira stammered. "I did not know of these rough games you play. Forgive me."
"Forgive? I would think far less of a woman if she did not defend her man."' Gordyan regarded them both fondly, his attitude embracing them.
"You do us honor." Danaer finished his bird and sucked the juice from his hand, then said, "On such a night it is easy to forget past injuries. This is honor, and I give you thanks."
"I would ask honor of you in return." Gordyan's rumbling voice dropped into a still deeper register. "Call me hyidu. Swear blood friend."
Danaer was grateful that Lira did not break the brief silence. This was a time when a man must probe his heart and seek out the goddess and her will. After much considering, he said, "To no man have I..."
"Nor have I. Many of my men call me friend, but to none of them have I felt this loyalty, Danaer. It is touched by Argan, a blessing she puts on my spirit. Perhaps there is wizardry in it, too, your qedra touching my mind as the goddess touches my soul." That last was a weak joke which barely caressed the tension holding them. Gordyan's inner feelings shone in his dark eyes, and there was no jesting there.
"It is true. I had not studied my heart until now."
"Much has passed between us, and most suddenly." Once more Gordyan's words reflected Danaer's thoughts. "It can be only the will of Argan. She governs mortals whatever ill we may do to each other. If she judges us of kindred blood, it is so."
Danaer accepted. This was not a matter of reason, but of a man's being. It might speak to man or woman but once in a lifetime, or never. And it could not be refused.
Both men drew their belt knives. Gordyan's was steel, the plunder of his raidings. Danaer's was bronze, the issue given Troop Leaders by the parsimonious suppliers who quartermastered Siank garrison. They took the blades awkwardly in right hands and put the points to the base of their eiphren fingers. The small bleeding slit gave Danaer almost no hurt.
"Kant, prodra Argan :.."
They prayed in unison, clasping hands above the fire, letting mingled blood drip into the flames according to the ritual. At first Danaer could do little but wonder at the immensity of Gordyan's hand. Then the power of this pledge engulfed his senses.
Hyidu. Blood friend until death. A vow of the heart, sacred to Argan above all things. The solemnity he had felt was torn away and replaced by an intense, unreserved joy.
Gordyan and Danaer repeated the oath, gripping forearms, sealing a pact that could never be
broken. As Gordyan would guard, so would Danaer. Should the necessity come, he would willingly die that this man could live. Or he would bloodily avenge Gordyan's death if his friend was called too soon to Keth's portals.
The cut, and his ankle, gave him no pain at all now.
"Danaer," Lira said very carefully, as if afraid to break the spell. He and Gordyan smiled at her.
"It will be well," Danaer explained. "It is most well. Argan binds us forever, henceforth."
They sat around the fire, talking into the night. Once more Gordyan applied the stinging liniment to soothe Danaer's ankle. Lira proved her minstrel's
headband by singing tales of Sarlos and Krantin. Her voice was vibrant, sending a pleasant shiver down Danaer's back, as intriguing as that husky laugh he so liked to hear. Gordyan had unsaddled Danaer's roan and fetched his pack, making excuses to his unit when Shaartre had come looking for his fellow Troop Leader. At Gordyan's insistence, all Danaer's mates were kept at bay, and the little camp was theirs alone. Danaer lay back on his blankets and folded mantle, listening to Lira's songs of lovers, enemies, blood friends; her music lulled him into deep contentment.
Half asleep, he heard Lira and Gordyan conversing in Sarli. Where had Gordyan learned the southern language so well? Danaer knew a few words of Lira's homeland, but his blood friend was fluent; he could not follow the things Gordyan was saying. Without any jealousy, delighting in the contrast of powerful man and pretty little woman sitting close and speaking on good terms, Danaer drowsed.
Lira's face seemed to shinuner, perhaps distorted by the heat rising from the fire. And in her place he saw ... a green jewel between winged brows and black eyes, pale brown hair of silken brightness, not Lira's dark curls.
Kandra? The Lasiimte seemed to sit gazing at him, as Lira was doing. And with the same expression, far more than the sensuous half-promise Hablit had noted.
How could Kandra be here? She was with her lord, Gordt te Raa. She was the Siirn Rena's woman, and those promises could not be made to such as Danaer.
He tried to call out to Lira and Gordyan and ask if there was sorcery afoot. Danaer could not speak or move, trapped in the waking dream. Then he stared at Gordyan, watching his blood friend. This was a man in easy, relaxed conversation with his hyidu's woman. His words and manner were without any sexual overtones. Indeed, now Gordyan would protect Lira as furiously against any insult or attack as he would act to aid Danaer.
And his manner was not the way Gordyan would
address Lasiimte Kandra. He would not sit so close nor speak so familiarly.
Danaer did not want to look upon the illusion. His mind grew restless, silently searching for Lira. The vision shimmered once more and disappeared, and Danaer sighed happily. Lira was there, and the image of Kandra was gone. All was as it should be again.
He was too sleepy to wonder on this. Mirage or magic? What matter? His hands, like his eyelids, seemed borne down by heaviness. He could not reach to touch Lira's obsidian talisman.
For a heartbeat or two, he dimly remembered that he had intended to speak to Lira concerning the talisman. Even that eluded him, drifting away. The Sarli tongue was lilting and musical of itself. Danaer yielded to its comfort, dreaming of cool waters and good company by a cheering fire.
XII
ViDIK
"There!" Xashe pointed to a mass of brick on the flatland ahead to the east. He and Rorluk asked together, "Vidik?"
Danaer laughed at their hopeful tone. "And you have been looking forward to Vidik's women, with their reputation, ai?"
"Is it true. Troop Leader? You are a Destre. You would know."
"You will discover for yourselves, soon. Now hold us straight to this route while I notify the Captain." Danaer galloped back to where Yistar and Branra headed the column, wheeling his roan to fall in beside them. "Your favor—^Vidik close before us."
"You know the proper fork to take," Yistar said by
way of grumpy acknowledgment. "Get us camped by good water north of the city."
"Out of the city, Captain?" It was one of Yistar's aides who asked that, and Branra looked over his shoulder at the man, grinning wickedly. The staff were hke boys wanting a treat who had been told their father would not linger at the sweetmeat booth. "We ... we thought, sir, that we might camp in Vidik . . . for provisions."
"You think too much, sir," Yistar growled. "We will have trouble enough from Vidik's cutthroat merchants and women of ease, even if we camp well out from the walls." His aides reddened and Branra's grin widened into a leer. "We will not enter Vidik and invite such trouble."
But as the serpent of wagons crawled in a long arc to the north of the city, it quickly became plain they could not avoid contact with Vidik's people. Rising clouds of dirt marked the approach of riders and carts. It was the women and merchants Yistar had sought to avoid. They were rushing out to meet the caravan at its campground. Tradesmen wanted to hawk wines and gewgaws, and the women would sell their favors for the glory of the goddess.
The column passed huge herds of grazing roans and shaggy motge and fat little woolbacks. Danaer sympathized when his companions cast longing glances at the motge; the kine were a walking feast to men weary of the army's dry fare, and the game birds had been scarce this day. Xashe and Rorluk teased at the risk of lancing down a heifer or calf and butchering it. Danaer let them make banquets with daydreams, Jaiowing they but wished, having no courage to attempt it. The young men would be soured once they learned that some of those brutes would be butchered and sold to the army, but at prices only ofificers could afford.
Fading sunlight reflected from a particularly tall structure in Vidik. Danaer knew that would be the temple. Vidik's Zsed honored Argan in humble brick, but it was said the temple's interior was of surprising richness. In happier times, Danaer might have made a
pilgrimage there. But he knew Yistar would be in no mood to grant any man leave from the camp tonight.
Like a living thing, the caravan spilled through the grassy hills and eddied around wells and groves. This was the last good campsite for such a large body until they should reach Deki. Troop Leaders cast lots with one another to find the best placement of their units.
"Now, then, no grumbling," Shaartre warned the greener men. "Get busy, or I will have you transferred to infantry. Then you can dig latrines rather than tend to your horses."
Danaer was unsaddling his scout roan when Shaartre came over and ran a hand down the beast's steaming side. "By Des', Yistar ran us all hard, even you scouts, eh? Some of these blacks are nearly foundered .. ."
Loud quarreling came from the banks of a nearby spring-fed creek. One voice was Rorluk's, but the other man spoke with a pure Destre accent. "I will see to that," Danaer said. Grateful, Shaartre nodded.
A small crowd had collected at the creek, hoping for diversion. There were both soldiers and Destre present, and Danaer saw that with very little friction this might erupt into a serious brawl. Rorluk was glowering at a Destre a good deal older and taller than he, and their argument was worsening and becoming ugly.
"Out, you carrion!"
"lit . . . back! Before I wear your hide for a cloak!"
Danaer thrust aside spectators and caught Rorluk's arm, pulling the young soldier back roughly. The object of contention stood to one side of the disturbance, smiling archly. Vidik's women of ease had lost no time in finding the army camp. This one's green skirt, the badge of her calling, was slit to her waist. Gaudy gems pinned her gown together, but it revealed far more than it hid. She played with her elaborately coiled and braided hair and fluttered her lashes seductively at the circle of soldiers around Danaer.
"She was sworn to me," the Destre said furiously. "And while I looked to my roan, she crawled off to this lit warren."
Danaer eyed him with suspicion. "Since when is a woman of ease sworn to any one man?"
"She is Azsed! She has no place here."
"That is her choice. You will not fight with my men —or did you not hear Gordyan'
s orders? You were commanded to pitch your Zsed well away from the army's tents."
At that, a wariness entered the Destre's expression. But it was not a sort Danaer liked. There was no fear in this warrior, not even sensible caution. Danaer could put no reason to his feeling, yet he knew there was some unusual danger here.
The Destre was not alone. Four of his comrades waited on the opposite bank of the stream. Soldiers leaned close to Danaer and Rorluk, hoping for excitement, eager for a brawl. The woman of ease was merely an excuse. The leader of the Destre-Y stared at Danaer, then said, "Let her have the lit, though why she should want to play with children . .."
Rorluk lunged at hma, spitting oaths most barbed for one so young. "No man calls me—"
Danaer threw out an arm, stopping him. "This one shall, or you will stand double watch tonight, soldier." Chastened, Rorluk mumbled unhappily but stepped back.
"Ai! You bejit traitor to your own kind, call back that lizard spawn—"
Danaer whirled to face the Destre. "He's a quarter less your weight and the same of your age. Do you always challenge a safe contest, warrior?"
"You take me, then, you false-eiphrened dog!" The man whipped out his boot knife, and his cronies grinned in anticipation.
Danaer was more exasperated than angered. He had rarely seen a tribesman so Bog' determined for conflict. "Save it for the Markuand," he said, turning away to show his contempt. There was a touch on his sleeve, and Danaer knew before he looked down that the man's blade had ripped through the cloth. No blood was drawn, for the blow was precisely aimed— a dare.
"What be your mother's name? I will tell her she
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