Yaril plummeted downward, shifting to girl as she touched ground; she caught hold of the mules’ bridles as Brann slid from the saddle, ran round to get her shoulder under Ahzurdan’s arm and tap Daniel’s wrist to tell him he should let go his hold. Both of them staggering awkwardly, she got Ahzurdan to a tree and lowered him onto swelling roots so that, he sat comfortably enough with his back supported by the trunk and his legs stretched out before him. Without waiting to be told, Daniel brought a cloth and a waterskin and a clean robe for the man, then he went to lean, against another tree, the skirts of his long vest pushed back, his thumbs hooked behind his belt.
It was very quiet under the trees; there were a lot of pines now and other conifers, the earth was thick with springy muffling dead needles and the wispy wind shivered the live ones to produce their characteristic constant soughing whispers, but the birds (except, of course for Jaril hawkflying overhead), the squirrels and other rodents busy about the ground and the lower branches, the deer and occasional bear they’d seen before the attack, all these had prudently vanished and with an equal wisdom had elected to continue their business elsewhere until Brann and her party left the mountains. Even the mules were subdued, standing quiet, heads down, eyes shut; not trusting them all that much, Yaril stayed close to them, ready to freeze them in place if they tried bolting.
Brann wet the cloth, hesitated, then gave it to Ahzurdan and let him rub his face clean and dab at the clotted vomit and the stains on his robe. When he tossed the cloth aside and reached for the clean robe sitting on a root beside him, she got to her feet and went to stand near Daniel.
Ahzurdan used knots on the trunk and a lot of sweat to raise himself onto his feet. “That kind of weaving costs,” he said. He wiped his sleeve across his face, looked at the dusty damp smears on the black cloth that covered his forearm. “You pay for it yourself, or you,arrange to have others pay the bill. There’s at least one talisman that transfers credit from other lives to yours.” He began fumbling with the closures to his robe. “I
never paid much notice to talismans, one can’t learn defenses specific to them, there aren’t any, so what’s the point? BinYAHtii,” he said. He slipped one arm free of the-riled robe, transferred the clean one to that arm, worked-s second arm free. “If you feed BinYAHtii, it won’t feed on you. Daniel Akamarino.” He let the robe fall round his feet, kicked it away, pulled the other over his head. “You talked with that angry child,” he said as his head emerged. He patted the cloth in place, shook out the lower part. “I picked up something about a Lot where children are taken. She talk to you about that?” He listened intently, his hands absently smoothing and smoothing at wrinkled black serge; when Daniel finished, he said, “I see. Two of the children stay around for training, but the child who gets the gold isn’t seen again. That’s Maksim, the clever old bastard. The thing about BinYAHtii, you see, it takes the characteristics of the creatures it feeds on. If he gave it grown men and rebels, he’d have fits trying to control it; children, though… hmm. Forty years…” His hollowed face fell into deep new wrinkles; his flesh was being eaten off his bones by the ravages of the demon lifestuff and the effort it took to maintain his defenses while he defended them. “I was hoping he’d have to rest a day or two. He won’t, he can draw on BinYAHtii. I’m about done, Brann. Even with your help, I’m about done.” He touched his fingers to his tongue, looked at them, wiped them on the bark beside him. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, stood very still a moment, then he shook himself, straightened up. “Would you spare me a sip of that wine, Daniel Akamarino?”
“My pleasure.”
Brann clicked her tongue, annoyed at the satisfaction in the words. It wasn’t overt enough to justify a challenge, but it accomplished what it was meant to, Ahzurdan flushed crimson and his hands shook. But he ignored the pinprick, drank, drank again and handed the skin back without speaking to Daniel.
They mounted again and started on. A lean gray wolf, Jaril ran before them, leading them along the route Yarilhawk chose for them, winding through ravines, over meadowflats, along hillsides, heading always for the forested slopes of slumbering Isspyrivo. They rode tense and edgy, neither Brann nor the two men spoke; the air between them felt sulfurous, powdery, a word, a single word might be the spark to trigger an explosion that would certainly destroy them. Tense and edgy and afraid. At any moment, without the least warning, Settsimaksimin could strike at them again.
As the afternoon progressed, Ahzurdan sank into a passivity so profound that even Brann’s transferred life-stuff wouldn’t jolt him out of it; he rode on with them more because he hadn’t sufficient will in him to slide from the saddle than because he had any hope of living through that next inevitable attack. He made no preparations to meet it, he let his defenses melt away, he rode hunched forward as if he presented his chin for the finishing blow, as if he were silently pleading for it to happen so this terrible numbing tension would at last be broken.
Daniel Akamarino drank Tungjii’s wine and cursed the meddling gods that fished him from a life he enjoyed and dumped him into this life-threatening mess. And kept him in it. He’d made one futile gesture toward distancing himself from something that was absolutely unequivocally none of his business. Nothing since. Why? he asked himself. I know better than to mess with local politics. There were at least a dozen chances to get away and I let them slide. Why? I could have got away, left this stinking land. A world’s a big place. I could have got lost in it, gods or no gods. Messing with my head, that’s it. Her? Probably not. The shifter kids? Maybe. Hmm. Don’t flog your old back too much over missed opportunities, Danny Blue, maybe they weren’t really there, not with young Jay sniffing after you. He watched the gray wolf loping tirelessly ahead of them, shook his head. Forget regrets, Old Blue, you better concentrate on staying alive. Which, by all I’ve seen, means keeping close to Brann. Interesting woman. He grinned. Wonder what sleeping with a vampire’s like? A real one, not some of the metaphorical blood suckers I’ve known. Sort of dangerous, huh? What if her ratchet slips? He laughed aloud. Brann’s head whipped round, she was scowling at him, furious with him for what? making the situation worse? Danny One wasn’t taking it in, he wasn’t taking much of anything in right now. Daniel had seen that kind of passivity before, that time he was out with the hunting tribe and one of them got himself cursed by a shaman from another tribe. The man just stopped everything until he stopped living. Not great for us. Kuh! next time old Maksim blows on us, he’ll blow us away. He looked at the wineskin, cursed under his breath and pushed the stopple home.
Brann couldn’t relax; they were moving at a fast walk, no more, but the roan’s gait was jolting, the beast was rattling her bones and making her head ache, her stomach was already in knots with the waiting and worrying, if she couldn’t stop fighting the damn mule she’d better get down and walk. Gods, gods, gods, may you all drop into your own worst hells, I swear, if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll take the kids and I’ll go hunting you. If I live through this. She grinned suddenly, briefly. I think I think I think I’ve got an out, miserable meeching gods, the kids can’t eat on their own if they stick to ordinary folk but maybe just maybe they can graze on you. If they have to. Not that I’m going to lay down and die. That phase is over. She looked at Ahzurdan, wrinkled her nose. No indeed. A swift glance at Daniel AlcamarMo. I don’t like you much, Danny Blue, but you stir me up something fierce. Slya bless, I don’t know why. I wish I did, it’s not all that convenient right now. Look at me, I’m not paying attention to what’s going on round us, I’m thinking about you. Shuh! straighten up, Brann. How much farther? Where are you, Chained God? How much do you expect us to endure? If I had a hope of getting out of this, you could sit there till you rusted. Do something, will you? Tungjii, old fiddler, where are you? Stir your thumbs up, what did Danny Two call you, shemale? Hmm. I wonder what it’s like, seeing sex from both sides of the business. Slya’s rancid breath, there I go again. “Jay, how much longer to Isspyrivo?”