She turned toward the reeve and raised her voice. "Will your eagle tolerate my ginnies?"
"They look pretty big. That's a lot of extra weight to add on. Heh. Don't know if she'd fancy them for an appetizer before her supper."
"That settles it!" she said with a laugh.
She transferred the ginnies to Kesh, where they dug in hard enough that he squeaked.
"Hush, now!" she scolded him, or maybe the ginnies. She dropped her voice to a murmur. "Magic. Mischief. You're to stay with Brother until I get back. Don't let him get into any trouble." She kissed their snouts and tickled them under their scaly chins, and they replied with chirps just as if they could understand exactly what she was saying.
To Kesh she said, softly, "I'll expect to meet you in Olossi at, oh, there's a tavern called the Demon's Whip in an alley within the entertainers' district in Merchants' Walk."
"You owed him seventy-eight leya-for what I'm not sure! I remember that place!"
"Yes. And it was worth every copper. Tell Autad that I'll work off your bill, if you don't want to spend any more of your precious coin. It won't be a problem anyway, since I'll likely get to Olossi before you do."
"Bai!" he said, hard, under his breath. He couldn't believe this was happening.
She slapped Kesh, as Master Feden and his wife used to do. "Do what I say!"
"Trouble?" The reeve had moved closer, trying to overhear.
"Not at all." She turned her back on Keshad and strolled over to the reeve. "He's scared of being on his own." She whistled breathily and seemed by the motion of her head to be looking the reeve up and down. The man actually flushed.
"Too bad about those awkward tight trousers," she said as she came up to him and pressed her palm against his leather vest. "I guess you can only get into and out of them while you're standing on earth. I wonder if it would be possible to, you know, do it while you were flying and holding on to each other." She took one step back and rested that hand atop the swell of her breasts under her tight sleeveless jacket.
The reeve swayed as if he had been hit on the head.
"You haven't been to the temple in a good long time, have you?" she said sympathetically.
He gave a little involuntary groan. "Not allowed," he gasped. "The hieros at the temples aren't sworn allies to the Star of Life. So it's forbidden to go. Yordenas is a real bastard about it. That's why it surprised me to find a Devouring girl working at Argent Hall."
"You know what they say, the master eats the meat he refuses to his dog."
Horas sucked in a sharp breath. "Isn't that right!"
"As for the temple, you know we are bound to accept all worshipers within the walls. As for outside jobs, we take whatever hire comes our way, as long as the customer matches our price. Are you ready?"
"Aui!" He wiped his brow, then licked his lips. "Surely I am."
He called the eagle by putting a whistle to trembling lips, but Kesh heard no sound. Bai did not shudder or shrink as that huge creature came up behind him so he could hook in. He even had extra harness to strap her in, tight against him. With a sharp cry, the eagle thrust and lifted. The last Keshad saw, the reeve was working to insinuate a hand inside Bai's jacket as the poor eagle beat hard to get all that weight above the trees, banked low in a wide curve, just skimming over the treetops, and headed Hornward along the West Track.
Kesh stood there like a lack-wit until Magic bit his ear.
"Ouch!"
Were the damned ginnies laughing at him? They had bright, knowing stares. He didn't like them, but they seemed to accept him as, well, as their idiot brother. You had to be loyal to family.
He shuddered. He had no choice but to go along with Bai's crazy plan, whatever it was. He trudged back the way they had come and at length and with sweat pouring freely he got back to the stinking massacre site. The vultures considered him such a paltry threat that they merely lifted their heads to observe his appearance before going back to their feeding.
By now he could ignore the scene by pretending it did not exist, by covering his mouth and nose with cloth to mask the odor, and by keeping his gaze fixed on the stony roadbed. Only those puddling bodies existed, those two men that Bai had killed, and they were just corpses, nothing that could harm him. Ghosts couldn't hurt you. They had no substance; they were only emotion and spirit.
He knelt beside the man she had knifed in the chest, because this body was less soaked with fluids. She'd taken her knife; he hadn't noticed that at the time, or had he? The ginnies scrambled down off his back and away from the bodies, not liking the tang. He fumbled at the man's garment, found a leather thong along the hairy neck, and with distaste wangled it over the head and fished it off. It was a medallion, like an oversized coin with the usual square hole through the middle but an unusual eight-tanged starburst symbol stamped into the metal. He sniffed it, and bit it. It was tin, not even silver. Allegiance came cheaply, it seemed. He wondered what else the "Star of Life" was offering. Or what it was; perhaps some kind of secret society banned by guild and council alike.
None of it made sense.
He rose and, reflexively, dusted off the knees of his trousers, then scooped up the ginnies. Yet he paused, there on the road. Bai was gone off on some fool's errand. He had food, and drink, and a decent string of leya as well as a few items that could be sold to set up in a safe town as a laborer or to hire his labor out to a local merchant somewhere.
Should he really chance going back to Olossi? He could not imagine what Bai thought she was up to, or what all that talk had meant between her and the reeve. He had no loyalty toward Olossi Town, or the temple, or the reeve hall. He wanted to start a new life, while Bai had abandoned him in the service of whatever old-fashioned notion of duty she had imbibed at the breast of the Merciless One. Maybe, after all, it was best if they split up, if he never met her at the Demon's Whip.
Maybe.
For the first time since he had been sold into slavery by his greedy relatives, he had no fixed purpose to guide him. So of course, standing there like the idiot he was, he waited too long. The ginnies hissed, and flattened against him as if they expected him to protect them from a threat he could not see. Crows and vultures deserted their carrion in a chaos of caws and wings.
About twenty mounted men appeared out of the east, from Hornward, blocking the road. They were riding toward Olossi. Each man wore a staff tied up against the back of the thick leather jackets they wore as armor, and on each staff, over their heads, flew four long ribbon-like yellow and red flags rippling in the wind. When they saw Keshad, they all drew their swords.
35
After the last years with his luck turning sour at every chance just to spite him, Horas knew that fortune had finally given him an armful of the very best. He'd been happy to fly messages for Marshal Yordenas these past months since he'd come to Argent Hall. For one thing, it gave him insight into the plots and plans of those who played the pipes to which the rest of them danced. And anyway, it was better flying messages than having to cool his heels at the hall with all manner of restrictions set on him while the master ate the very meat he refused to his dogs.
"Heh," he said, liking the phrase. He'd gotten his hand inside her vest, and he tweaked a nipple.
"None of that," she said sharply. "You've no idea what I can do to you if you make me mad. Aii-ei!" She gave a yelp as Tumna dipped, and pulled sharply up again. Then she laughed as folk do when they are scared and thrilled at the same time.
A hot shiver coursed through him. Her breasts were firm and shapely, and her tight buttocks ground up against him because he had hitched her into the spare harness with her back to his front. He was a little taller, and could see over her, which was a good thing since Tumna was huffing and beating hard trying to get loft. They hadn't found a good updraft yet, no doubt because they were too close to the river, but he didn't care. It had been months since he'd worshiped the Merciless One, not for lack of trying.