"I suppose that's my answer," she said, watching the eagle go. "Wait here."
She walked back across the clearing and over the road to where she had tethered her horses, and just to watch that shapely rump sway was enough to make his throat dry and his gaze blur. Into the woods she disappeared, leading the horses, and reappeared a bit later without them. With a faint smile, she returned to him and grasped his wrist. He was choked with desire.
She led him deep into the woodland, close beside the river where there was lots of cover and plenty of twisted trees that made perfect hitching posts, to which she tied him.
After a long time, she asked him if he wanted her to stop, and he gasped, "No."
A while after that, she asked him again, and he whimpered, "No."
Not that he could have stopped her anyway. Not that he would have wanted to.
Even later, she said she had to go get more water, and he needed a break by that time, because it was hard work, as the Merciless One knew. The slow heat of the afternoon drowsed around him. His hands began to tingle and go numb, but he couldn't relieve the pressure of the rope. He began to lose feeling in his feet. He cooled, and withered.
The colors within the trees changed as shadows drew long under the branches. It was about the time he realized that he was too effectively trussed up to free himself, and too far from the road for his voice to carry the distance, that he also discovered he had lost his bone whistle. Even if it was concealed beneath the pile made by his clothes and gear, he could not reach it.
It was getting dark fast, for night always came quickly.
He heard male voices, laughter, in the trees, but when he called after them, no one answered.
That's when he understood that she wasn't coming back.
44
Keshad was tired of trudging. Mostly he thought about how he was going to get away from Rabbit, Twist, and the rest of his new comrades, all of whom were the kind of people you never ever did business with unless you were already on your way out of town. It was as if someone had swept up the worst criminals into one band, on purpose.
What was he even thinking? That was exactly what had happened.
It was almost dark when they caught up with the strike force, a group of several hundred soldiers. This was the group Bai had counted two nights ago. Three hundred and twelve, she had said, but as he walked into the rough encampment the soldiers were setting up alongside the road, he wondered if there weren't more. Canvas was rigged up along ropes to form shelters. Grooms walked the horse lines. Men piled hay along the rope line, feed filched from village storehouses. Although dusk was falling, no one had lit any fires. Wagons were driven across the road to form barriers before and behind the line of march.
"Heya! Second Company! Over here!" A captain called out their sergeant. "We'll reach Olossi tomorrow. The last village we came through was already abandoned, so it seems someone had news of our coming. We're covering three watches, not two, tonight. On high alert. Your men will take all the watches. Double your normal numbers."
"That's not fair!" Twist muttered. "They always give us the watches, like we're not worth any other duty. Aui! I liked it better when we were on our own."
Keshad forbore to remind Twist that he'd been complaining all day about not getting first pickings with the rest of the strike force.
How had his luck changed so fast? He had gambled, and won freedom for himself and for Bai, but now he was no better than a captive in enemy hands. They'd as happily cut his throat and rape his corpse as give him a handful of rice, and certainly no rice or even a hank of stale flatbread was forthcoming tonight. Nor dared he try to purchase anything, which would mean he'd reveal his coin. Stomach grumbling, he stuck close by Twist as they found a bit of ground to rest on. When Kesh rolled out his blanket, the others hooted and called him names.
"Very particular!"
"Quite the merchant's son. Southern silks never too good for you!"
"Nah, he's hoping for a bit of company."
"Rabbit here won't do it. You're too wiggly for his tastes."
One thing Keshad had learned in the marketplace was not to let your opponent smell blood or weakness. "I'm wanting a bit of sleep, if you don't mind!"
"Oooh. Isn't he particular!"
The ginnies opened their mouths to display their wicked teeth. The men looked away.
"Just shut up and leave the lad alone," added Twist. "And if you don't mind my saying so, I can't sleep with your chatter. So just shut it, all round."
They settled down, but Keshad could not sleep. As soon as he shut his eyes, he saw that hideous, distorted creature descending out of the night sky and onto the road. Yet when he opened his eyes to banish the vision, there were a dozen snoring men scattered around him, lying on the ground at all angles like a crazy fence, trapping him. There was no way he could escape.
And they all stank.
The air was clear, untainted by smoke or moonlight. He turned onto his back. The ginnies shoved into the gap between his arm and his body. With them pressed against him, he stared at the sky. Each star had a name and a classification in the lore of Beltak, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, but he did not know more than the two every believer must recognize or be subject to the lash. There: the Royal Road that spans the heavens. There, low and in the north: Iku, the Head of the King, around which the heavens spin.
Older tales whispered in his ears as if the trees were mocking him, reminding him of the Tale of Plenty and the Tale of Fortune. There came the Carter and his barking Dog, rolling slowly up out of the east. In the north, the Sacred Tree had fallen sideways. The Three Footsteps trod west. Tree cover hid the southern sky. But these were Hundred tales. They were all lies.
He dozed off, woke at the sound of hooves, but it was only a man walking a horse along the road. A normally shaped horse. The other vision had been a lie.
Next thing he knew, the butt of a spear slammed into his ribs.
"Eh! Aui!"
Magic clamped his jaws over the shaft.
"I wouldn't have to do it this way if those things didn't bite," said Twist.
"Let go."
The ginny let go, and Shai had to rub him to calm him down. Mischief "smiled," as if amused.
"Come on. Up! Our turn at watch."
Up he dragged himself, sticking close to Twist as they got their assignments.
"Smart of you to bring your bundle with you," said Twist. "Someone will steal it, and you'll never know where it's gone."
"Thanks."
It wasn't that he trusted Twist, precisely, only that he mistrusted him less than he did the others. They'd been assigned to the rear guard, and fortunately that meant the wagon barrier. He found a comfortable spot to sit, on the driving bench of one of the wagons, and wedged his bundle in beside him. The ginnies draped themselves over the bundle, snugged together, and closed their eyes. He amused himself by whistling under his breath to pass the time, every tune he could think of and then over again. Twist dozed, leaning against a wagon. A pair of other men paced, arguing in low tones about a bet one had lost and the other had won. After a while they fell silent and shared a smoke, off by the edge of the road, huddled close to hide the spark of its burning.
The night wind whispered its tale in the trees. The horses moved restlessly on the rope line. The stars remained silent.
A woman laughed.
He started up, but no one else seemed to have noticed. The pair sucked on their smoke. Its dizzy-sweet smell pricked his nostrils, and he shook himself. That laugh had sounded like Bai. He squirmed around, peering along the stretch of road. The shelters had been strung off the road, along the cleared ground and back under the woodland cover. The horses formed an irregular line of shadow along the river side of West Track, although the river lay too far away from the road in this spot for him to hear its running. He could not see the other barrier. The road had a strange quality in the darkness, the barest hint of a shine that made it possible to travel at night, even during the dark of the moon without lamp or candle or torch to light your way.