“That one is wenda himself!” he said in disgust. “Should he find a woman in his furs, he would not know what to do with her. But I, my pretty do not have that lack. How are you called?”
“That does not concern you.” I answered the interest in his eyes. “Would you care to have the price of many women? A price that you yourself may set?”
“What do you say, wenda?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “No woman would be allowed the possession of dinga.”
“Nor do I have dinga,” I answered, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. If I had had any of their money he would have had it, and me with it. “The dinga would be given you if I were taken to the house of the offworlders. It is not distant from here, and the offworlder called Dennison would pay well for me. He has little knowledge of the value of dinga, and can easily be convinced to part with much of it.
“It is a thought,” the first man said hopefully “The offworlders are fools, and will pay many times the worth of a woman.”
“Perhaps,” the third man said, staring down at me thoughtfully. “I would know why the offworlder should wish to buy you, wenda. Have you value other than that which may be seen?”
“I have value only to the offworlder,” I said carefully, not liking the calculating turn of his thoughts. “The sooner we reach there, the sooner you may have your dinga. ”
“If the dinga is there, it shall not stray,” he said, putting his hand out to finger a strand of my dripping hair. “I shall see for myself what your worth may be, then we shall speak again of additional value. I will know what I sell before I sell it.”
“You cannot...” I started, but he pulled me toward him, the heat beginning to build in him. I could feel the first man’s desire too, and it made me frantic. They’d both use me before they decided whether or not to take me to the embassy, and they’d spend some time trying to find out why Denny would pay for me. I had no chance of escaping them, but maybe I could distract them.
As the third man slid his hand into the open side of my imad, I searched the first man’s mind and found the faint jealousy there, It was mostly envy that the other man would have me first, but it was enough. I fanned it carefully and encouraged it a little, and the first man stepped closer to us.
“Hold!” he said sharply “It was I who captured this woman. Why are you to have her first?”
“It is my right,” the third man answered coldly. “Am I not a greater warrior than you?”
I prodded a resentment, and anger flared in the first man. “I am not so poor a warrior that I may be ignored!” he snapped. “Do you think me darayse?”
Instead of the anger I expected in return, the third man grew thoughtful. “You are not darayse,” he said quietly “We have ridden together under many suns. As it matters to you, do you have the woman first.”
The first man was instantly mollified, and I was almost in shock. They weren’t going to fight over me—you only fight for something you don’t want to share. They had no qualms about sharing me, so there was no basis for argument. I might have had enough strength to force one of them away from me with my empathetic abilities, but I could never have handled two and the necessary running as well; not to mention that I didn’t want to give them even a hint as to what I was able to do. The first man pulled me to him with a big grin, taking up where the other had left off, and I struggled ineffectually, trying to think of something else.
Then I caught the flash of fear from the third man, feeling him cover it instantly and stiffen. The first man loosened his hold on me to look over his shoulder where the third man was looking, then released me altogether with a sinking feeling strong within him. I moved to one side where I could see too, and saw an icy mountain of coldly enraged barbarian. Tammad sat stiff on his seetar staring at the other two men.
I moved away farther still, and there wasn’t a single word spoken among the three men. Tammad dismounted and they all three drew their swords, the two strangers gripped in despair, but grimly determined to do what they could. First one, then the other of them slipped out of their rain capes, finding themselves appalled to see Tammad merely fold under the right side of his. They needed all the freedom of movement they could get, but he had enough as he was.
The two men separated, going against the slightly bigger barbarian from two sides. Tammad watched them with complete unconcern, waiting patiently for something. When the two men suddenly charged him, his patience changed to satisfaction and the waiting was over.
He moved with the speed that had saved him from the jaws of the fazee, and the two men never had a chance. He blocked the sword of the one on his left with his own sword, then cut viciously back toward the one on his right. The man on the right had his sword up for a downward stroke, and the barbarian’s blade opened him from side to side. His blood rushed out to join the pouring rain, and the man collapsed to join the trampled mud. He felt no surprise at his death, just a deep, wailing sadness.
The other man had staggered back a step, but by the time be raised his sword again, he stood alone in the battle. He was the one who had been the third man, and his mind cried with a fear that never reached his face.
Tammad moved at him almost casually bringing his sword down at the man’s head with no attempt at deception. The man blocked the blow with his own sword, two-handed, but it still staggered him. Another blow came and another, and each time he had to move back a step. His arms seemed to be having trouble holding the sword up, and finally they could no longer do so. The sword fell from nerveless fingers, and with numbed mind, the man slid to his knees in front of the barbarian. I didn’t understand why the core of him screamed and gibbered and shook with a sickness of fear that was worse than the fazee’s had been, a sickness that was foam-flecked and rancid blue, until I saw the barbarian raise his sword again, high, high, and bring it crashing down ....
I cringed away and quickly turned my back, but couldn’t turn away from the voiceless shriek. The man had been so afraid of dying, and his sickness soured my soul. To suffer a man’s death with him put a big question mark next to the value of the gift I’d thought so much of.
Through the trees I saw the road, and shakily prodded myself into moving toward it. Once I got back to the embassy I’d be all right. I’d bathe, and change into my own clothes, and sleep in a real bed. I was a free woman, and “No,” the barbarian said, suddenly there to take me by the hair. “We go the other way.”
He dragged me over to a small tree, forced my arms around it, then took something from his swordbelt. When he let go of me my wrists stayed together, held by something that hooked the two wrist bands to each other.
“Turn me loose!” I screamed, fighting the chains that held me. “You have no right to do this to me!”
He didn’t even bother answering. He moved around behind me, doing something I couldn’t see, and there was nothing but calm in his mind—calm and a small knot of anger that made me want to hide. The tree was hard and I was dripping wet, and I couldn’t pull loose from the bands that had been forced on me.
When he finished with whatever he had been doing, he came to get me. He separated the wrist bands again and pulled me over to his seetar where the reins of the dead man’s seetar were already attached to his saddle. He lifted me into the saddle, mounted himself, then headed us toward the road. When we reached it, we collected the second seetar no longer needed by a dead man, and turned up the road.
“I want to go back to the embassy,” I moaned, shivering against the chill. I was as wet as if I’d fallen in a river, and the barbarian’s rain cape was cold against my back. “This is kidnapping and you know it!”
“A man cannot steal what is his,” he told me in that calm, even way of his. After a minute he added, “The camtah was left without my permission.”