She had no choice but to obey. She slid a sideways
glance at the tall man and wondered if he was kind to the girl. He was certainly a man of puzzles and contradictions. He was a hunter — he'd proved as much setting that snare - and those remarkable long knives he carried must surely signify some notable status. He was no painted man, yet the paler-skinned painted man and woman yielded to his authority. But he hadn't claimed whatever first share he felt entitled to from the root water or the nuts and had shown no fear of undermining his standing by gathering such humble food.
They returned to the cave and the old woman watched the girl pour the nuts they had gathered out onto the rocky floor and begin dividing them. She realised with growing astonishment that the girl was making five equal shares.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
'Do you think you'll catch anything in that snare?' Risala sounded sceptical.
Velindre stirred at the sound of her voice, though Naldeth was still fast asleep.
'Our friend here didn't pull it up and scowl at me for a fool. I rather think she would have if she reckoned I was wasting my time.' Despite their perilous situation, Kheda found that the notion amused him.
Risala didn't smile. 'What are we going to do with her?'
'I don't know.' Kheda considered the old woman, who smiled hesitantly back at him. 'But as long as she's with us, she can't be telling some wild mage where we are.'
'You don't think you should go out and look for some signs to guide us now it's light?' Risala flung a worm-eaten nut away with some venom. 'That skull-wearer will send his spearmen out to hunt down whoever spoiled their sport last night soon enough.'
Do you mean signs of local wild men or signs and portents in the skies and the earthly compass?
Velindre saved Kheda from having to answer as she opened her eyes and yawned. She sat up abruptly as she registered the daylight slipping down the cave entrance, digging her fingers into her stiff neck. 'I thought we were going to try to get back to the Zaise before dawn.'
'You needed to sleep yourselves out.' Kheda was unrepentant. 'I learned from Dev not to risk encountering
any magic-wielding enemy with a half-exhausted wizard at my side.'
Their voices roused the younger mage. He moved sleepily before coming fully awake and instinctively clutching at his stump. 'Ah, cowshit and cockleshells.'
Kheda saw pain carving a deep cleft between the mage's brows. 'Let me have a look at your leg.'
'It'll be alright.' Naldeth spoke through clenched teeth.
'He's a healer,' Velindre said acerbically. 'Let him see it.'
'You can help me shell breakfast.' Risala tossed another rejected nut into the depths of the cave.
'My pleasure,' replied the magewoman dryly. 'Once I've attended to my own more immediate needs.'
'Can you help me up,' Naldeth asked roughly, 'before I piss myself like some cripple?'
As Velindre stepped past Kheda in the narrow confines of the cave, the warlord offered the mage his arm. Naldeth gripped his forearm and Kheda hauled him upright. Jaw clenched and sweat beading his forehead, the younger man clambered awkwardly out of the cave behind Velindre.
Risala concentrated on shelling more nuts, the only sound in the cave the sharp splitting. 'Have you any thoughts on what we'll do once we've got back to the ship?' she asked at length, not meeting Kheda's eye. 'Will we sail for home?'
Kheda hesitated. 'If we agree that's for the best.'
He saw the old woman looking inquisitively at him and then back at Risala and fell silent.
What would you say, if you could say anything we could understand?
Some moments later, he heard Velindre returning, her voice terse and practical. 'There are enough uncertainties about wielding magic in this place. You don't need the
additional distraction of physical pain, not if it can be relieved, even a little.'
'All right, very well,' Naldeth snapped as he slid down the cave's awkward entrance slope and resigned himself to unbuckling the straps around his waist and thigh. 'I'm not used to walking for so long, not over such rough ground.'
'No, I don't suppose you are.' Kheda gently pulled the metal leg aside and looked keenly at the dust- and sweat-stained trousering wadded around Naldeth's stump.
No blood; that's a mercy. A sore might not ulcerate in this dry heat but if it took an infection, I don't know what we'd do. I couldn't cut the thigh bone any shorter without physic or proper instruments and I doubt we could nurse him through such an ordeal, even if we got back to theZaise.
Velindre considerately turned her back and sat down next to the old woman. She watched her deftly cracking the nuts for a moment and then took a handful of the pile closest to her. Similarly averting her eyes, Risala pulled the mouth of her leather sack wide to receive the green kernels as she began splitting her share of the ruddy shells apart.
Kheda carefully unwrapped the cotton. It stuck and Naldeth flinched. Kheda got out his dagger and looked up to see that Naldeth had blanched beneath his tan. 'I'm just going to slit the seams,' he assured him. 'And a little water will make this go easier.'
'Not out of some muddy hole,' Naldeth said roughly.
'No.' Kheda reached round for Risala's flask slung on his back. 'Our aged friend over there showed me roots that hoard rainwater from whatever wet season this place might have. Trust me, it'll be as clean as if it had been boiled. There are similar plants in the drier isles of the Archipelago's eastern reaches.'
'If you say so.' Naldeth didn't sound overly convinced.
Kheda deftly cut the trouser leg's seams and rapidly moistened the stuck cloth with a trickle of the precious water. 'Whoever doctored this for you did a good job,' he said with well-disguised relief as he laid bare the mage's stump.
Nevertheless, the white scarring where some unknown physician had sewn up the flap of skin to seal the amputation had split in a couple of places. Pale-pink flesh beneath had oozed a little clear fluid into the cotton. Above the scarring, the shrunken muscles of Naldeth's pallid thigh looked swollen and bruised where his weight had borne down into the leather cup concealed within the metal leg.
'What does she want?' Naldeth twitched a fold of cotton over his exposed mutilation and scowled past Kheda.
The warlord turned to see that the old woman had shifted so she could see what they were doing. 'There's no harm in her—' he began.
'Where are you going?' Risala's question went unanswered as the old woman stood up, brushing nut shells from the lap of her wrap, and scrambled out of the cave.
'Not far.' Her bitten fingernails proving inadequate for the task, Velindre was using the tip of her dagger to split the nuts. 'She's left her belongings.'
'And the food's in here.' Briskly, Kheda sliced a scrap of cleanish cotton from Naldeth's ruined trouser leg and moistened it to wipe away dust crusted along one scar. 'Do you have any nuts like those in the north? They're surprisingly sweet.'
'No.' Naldeth cleared his throat and strove for an even tone. 'I don't recall seeing anything like them.'
'Assuming we can eat this splendid breakfast without some wild men turning up to dig us out of this burrow like rats, what do we do then?' Velindre asked.
'Do you feel any wild wizard nearby?' Kheda looked around at her. 'Or a dragon?'
Velindre paused in shelling her nuts. 'No,' she said at length. 'Not anywhere close.'
'Do you?' Kheda glanced up at Naldeth as he continued cleaning the mage's scars.
'You don't want me working any magic while I'm in such discomfort.' Naldeth grimaced. 'We might as well light a beacon to let that skull-faced wizard know where we are.'