Karavans Page 20
“Oh, indeed. Most of the karavan. Jorda was up front talking with Branca and Melior when I came down and was met by the boy.” She nodded at the elder son who had joined his father, looking no more settled by Rhuan’s revival than he had by his death.
Rhuan sighed. “Well … I suppose I’d better get up.” He rolled onto a hip and pushed himself into a sitting position, wincing. Then he saw the smallest girl in her father’s arms. Rhuan paused a moment, then heaved himself to his feet with a quiet grunt of effort. Ilona saw the dimples appear as he stood and spread his arms, displaying himself to the little girl. “There. You see? Not dead.”
The girl’s expression was dubious. “But you were. Mam said so, when she tried to find the rabbit in your chest.”
Rhuan’s smile faded into incomprension. “The rabbit?”
“In here.” Audrun laughed and placed a flattened hand on her chest, then thumped it three times.
“Ah!” The dimples were back as he looked to the girl. “Yes, it’s true the rabbit was still for a while, but now he’s back and kicking away.” Rhuan touched his chest. “Right here. Do you want to feel it to be sure?”
Solemnly the girl studied him, then nodded.
Rhuan stepped closed, took her hand in his, and pressed the flattened palm against his chest. “Feel it? Thumpathumpa-thumpa. A very strong rabbit. All right?” The girl nodded, and Rhuan released her hand. He reached down then, offering the same hand to the farmwife, and pulled her to her feet.
Ilona half-expected he might extend the same courtesy to her, but she was left to fend for herself as Rhuan casually informed the family that what they had witnessed was a Shoia gift and not an ability any human claimed, which meant humans were far more vulnerable and fragile and thus must be much more careful not to hurt anyone. It was for the children’s benefit, she knew, but she thought it applied equally to adults.
She stood up, brushing dust from her split skirts and long tunic. There was a stirring in the cluster of onlookers, who parted and let the karavan-master through.
Jorda’s expression was grim. A quick, darting glance took note of the dead bodies, and then he looked at Rhuan. “You’ll explain this later.” He didn’t wait for the guide’s answer but turned to the karavaners. “We’ll stay the night here, where we are. We’ve bodies to bury—I’ll ask for volunteers from the men in a moment—and diviners to consult. After that, I’ll want the head of each family to come to my wagon so I may pay out your fares.”
Ilona looked at him sharply even as gasps of astonishment rose among the karavaners.
Jorda’s ruddy beard glowed brightly in the sun as he raised his voice. “We’ll not be going on. We’ll return to the settlement.” He put up a silencing hand as additional exclamations and startled questions broke out. “I’ll repay each of you in full. But we are turning back.”
Stunned, Ilona stared at him. In all the years she had been in his employ, despite all the dangers and challenges to the safety of the karavans he led, Jorda had never once turned back. Except in her dream….
He waited as the outcry followed his words. When it had died from disbelief and anger to quieter frustration, he continued. “I have word that many more Hecari than the six in this patrol attacked the settlement. They killed men, women, and children, and burned many tents.” His bearded jaw jutted in unspoken challenge. “I’ve just now consulted two of my diviners, and they both said the same: Our task is to go back to the settlement and give these people—” His mouth worked as he tried to control his emotions,“—my friends, many of them!—what aid we can. We’ll wait out the monsoon and get a fresh start early in the fall. Those of you who wish to go on with me then are welcome; if you’d rather go with another karavan, so be it. But those people back there deserve our help. I must do this.” He glanced briefly at his guide. “Rhuan and I will welcome any who care to help us bury the bodies.”
Ilona looked at Rhuan. No dimples were in evidence; no smile in place. Beyond him stood Audrun, one hand pressed against her mouth as if to lock in the words she longed to speak while the other was knotted into her loose tunic. Her face was drained of color. Briefly she closed her eyes tightly, then opened them and looked at her husband. Her expression was stricken.
And Ilona realized that by the time the monsoon was over and the roads dried enough to be passable, the baby would be born.
In Sancorra. Not Atalanda.
BRODHI WAS ANNOYED to be counted among the number of men Mikal designated for the task of sorting through the burned tents, looking for bodies or anything that might be salvagable. He had not intended to undertake any such duty, but after a moment’s reflection he acquiesced. There were all manner of perils upon his journey, tests and traps he would never recognize and might fail or fall into along the way, as well as truths left unknown. The decision was uncomplicated: he accepted the task Mikal laid upon him, or refused it. He likely would never know which was the correct decision.
Grimly, Brodhi agreed to accept Mikal’s task.
Bethid rounded up fellow couriers Timmon and Alorn and walked the pathways looking for children separated from their parents, either by the decimation or the confusion. The keening Sancorran wail of grief still threaded through the settlement as woman after woman took it up to mourn the dead. It broke out afresh each time the body of a loved one was found.
The work was filthy. Brodhi and the others of his detail kicked apart charred tent timbers, pulled aside burned oilcloth, cleared drifts of ash and set about making piles of salvage. With one of every ten tents burned, the landmarks Brodhi was accustomed to were missing. He claimed a stronger land sense than the humans helping him, but the lack of familiar corners, twists, and turns was nonetheless a sobering underscore to the devastation.
At a mound of collapsed and half-burned oilcloth, Brodhi uncovered the body of an old woman. She lay on a thin, straw-filled pallet, white hair lying across her shoulders in two neat braids. She was neither burned nor bloodied; Brodhi, kneeling beside her, realized that in all likelihood she had died before the Hecari attack. Someone had washed and braided the fine, white hair. Someone had carefully set a chain of charms into the old woman’s gnarled hands, to see her safely across the river. Someone had, undoubtedly, begun the mourning rituals their faith required for the woman’s passing. But she was alone now, clothing dusted with ash, a partially charred tent pole fallen across bare feet.
In her face was a map of years Brodhi could not count. But he knew that according to the stunted lives of humans, she had lived longer than most. Likely she had come with grown children intending to leave Sancorra, to find safety from the Hecari.
Brodhi knelt on one knee beside her. With exquisite care, he brushed ash from the aged face. Moved the fallen tent pole aside. Stroked away from closed eyes the fragile strand of white hair. “Old mother,” he murmured, “where are your children? Have they crossed the river with you?”
“Brodhi. Brodhi!”
He glanced up and was genuinely surprised to see Darmuth astride a near-black horse, making his way through fallen tents and grieving survivors. Clear, eerily pale eyes examined the ruins, the bodies, the details working to find the dead or living amidst what remained.
Brodhi rose as Darmuth reined in. “Rhuan received the sending, then.”
“Dramatically so, yes. But shortly after that we were engaged in resisting our own complement of Hecari. The scale of damage is far less at the karavan than here, however …five warriors dead, but no humans.”
Brodhi added, “And Rhuan.”
Darmuth blinked in startlement. “Was he killed again?”
“You didn’t see? I felt it in the blood-bond. But he’s back among the living now.” Brodhi frowned. “What are you doing here, Darmuth?”
“I chased the sixth Hecari warrior in this direction, which is why I missed yet another of Rhuan’s deaths and revivals. The warrior is dead now, of course—” Darmuth’s sudden feral grin was unsettling, “—but since I am not limited to human speed in tra
vel, I wanted to see for myself what your sending was about.” The sideways jerk of his head encompassed the settlement. “Decimation?”
“Yes.”
Darmuth looked at the old woman lying at Brodhi’s feet. “The Hecari were uncommonly neat with her.”
Brodhi shook his head. “She was dead before they arrived. But no one has returned to her since the Hecari left.”
“Dead,” Darmuth suggested.
“Likely.”
The demon frowned thoughtfully. “She should have rites.”
“She should,” Brodhi agreed, “but does either of us know what would be appropriate?”
“You’re dioscuri,” Darmuth said lightly. “Make something up.”
A surge of anger rose up in Brodhi strong enough to flay the skin off a human. It took supreme effort not to unleash a torrent of verbal abuse that would achieve nothing other than to amuse Darmuth. And thus amuse Ferize, and thus any number of other demons, because of course they would be told. He was dioscuri, but only Darmuth and Ferize were ever inclined to mock him for it.
Even now, sly irony glinted in Darmuth’s pale eyes. Brodhi buried his anger and once more knelt down on one knee beside the old woman. In the inner language, the secret language, spoken beneath his breath, he gave her spirit release verbally. Then physically, touching fingertips very lightly to the eleven blessing points: middle of forehead, the bridge of her nose, each eyelid, each cheekbone, the fingertip hollow between nose and mouth, the upper and lower lips, chin and, lastly, the notch in fragile collar bones lying beneath age-mottled skin.
Go where you will, he wished her. Go as a human should, according to the requirements of whichever god you worship. Be well, old mother, now that the river lies behind you.
He glanced up from the body and saw Darmuth watching him still. The expression on his face was unreadable, and yet something in his eyes suggested he was cataloging Brodhi’s actions.
Brodhi rose with a marked lack of habitual grace. “I am not yours,” he declared vehemently. “You will say nothing of this.”
Darmuth was amused. “I may say whatever I wish.”
“I am not yours,” Brodhi repeated. “Leave it to Ferize. Tend Rhuan. He is yours.”
Darmuth laughed. “You think it speaks badly of you, that you would aid humans?”
He could not trust Darmuth. Brodhi said carefully, “That is not my oath. Not the oath I swore to humans—to the courier service.”
“So you remember that oath? You respect that oath?”
With vicious precision, Brodhi answered, “I remember all my oaths.”
“And do you consider one less binding than another?”
The question was a trap. Brodhi knew it, and refused to let himself be led into it. “Hadn’t you better ride back and make sure Rhuan hasn’t been killed yet again? Possibly for the seventh time? Which, of course, would end everything. For you. And for him.”
“You said you’d know if he died. Because of the blood-bond.”
“Oh, indeed, I may know he has died, but that doesn’t mean I will tell you about it.” Brodhi made an elegant but wholly human gesture with his hand. “Shoo, demon. Ride away, run away, fly away; I leave the means of departure to you. But do absent yourself from my company.”
Brodhi turned away. He neither heard nor saw Darmuth’s departure, but he knew the instant the demon was gone.
Oaths. So many promises made to humans, and to his own people. He could abjure all such things and damn himself forever. That, he rejected. Therefore it remained for him to pick his way through the myriad expectations, the numberless requisites set out upon his path. He was dioscuri. He felt, as always, as if he were a blind man, a blind man with no sense of touch, and no understanding at all of the world around him.
A blind man whose survival depended wholly on whim, on caprice.
Upon the games of the gods.
Chapter 23
IN THE WAGON, alone, Audrun sat on the edge of the cot usually shared by Ellica and Megritte. She had taken the time to go apart, to let the first reaction come upon her where no one would see. Her arms and legs felt cold, strangely numb. Her hands tingled. Spots danced before her eyes.
She closed them—and saw behind her lids the painted face of the Hecari. Smelled again his stink. Felt again his hands upon her, touching breasts and belly.
Touching breasts and belly.
Audrun raised trembling hands and placed them over her eyes. She held the posture stiffly, forbidding herself the weakness of rocking that once, in childhood, had brought comfort with repetition, with the mindlessness of movement.
Oh, it was hard. Hard not to wish herself a child, innocent of the world, knowing pain and small hurts that she had learned, in adulthood, were mere precursors to what a woman faced, being both wife and mother.
Her throat cramped painfully. Audrun grabbed the front tail of her long tunic. Fabric crumpled in her hands; she pressed the wad of cloth against her face. The first keening wail of shock, of humiliation, of trembling reaction, escaped her mouth but was captured, was stifled, in the cloth.
She was wife and mother. She would let no one see her cry.
BY SUNSET, AFTER all the wagons had been moved off the road, Rhuan, Jorda, and several volunteers dug a pit. The bodies of the Hecari warriors were dumped into it, then the freshly dug earth was thrown over them. But Jorda’s instructions for completion of the task were explicit: There was to be no mound marking the burial pit, nor even the look of recently disturbed soil. And so they spent hours carrying off buckets of dirt, scattering it onto the wagon ruts where it would soon dry to blend in. The top layer of sod was replaced over the pit, then tamped down flat. The grass would die, Jorda said, but for a day or two it would not be obvious that dead men lay below it. They could not afford Hecari discovering their dead brethren.
He thanked and released the burial detail, then turned to Rhuan. Both of them were grimy from fine dirt sifting into the sweaty creases of their skin. With sleeves rolled up, dust clung to the wirelike ruddy hair on Jorda’s thick forearms, dulling its fire, and his loose tunic was stuck to his torso. Rhuan had removed his leather tunic to dig without its hindrance; now, as the sun went down, he felt the day cool into evening.
“Tell me,” Jorda said.
Rhuan knew what was coming. He knew also he deserved it.
He sighed, rubbing dampness from his brow with the back of a hand that hours before had been scribed with the crimson streaks of poison. The heaviness of ornamented braids dragged at his scalp. He was hungry and tired; dying and subsequent revival drained him, and the chill of dusk was an affront to flesh that fed on warmth. But he knew he owed Jorda the truth first. He would eat and rest later. “They did as told, the farmsteaders. Stood quietly, and the mother and eldest daughter kept their eyes cast down.”
Jorda’s brows rose. He had not expected that answer.
“Well?”
Rhuan drew in a breath. “One of the warriors put his hands on the wife.”
Within the nest of his beard, Jorda’s mouth jerked. “And so, despite instructions, the husband retaliated—”
Rhuan cut him off. “It wasn’t the husband.”
“The eldest son, then.”
“No. Me.”
“You!”
Rhuan kept his tone level. “She’s pregnant,” he said, “and the warrior touched her where no man but a husband should touch his wife, particularly a pregnant wife.”
Jorda stared at him, momentarily struck dumb. Slowly he shook his head. “Of all people, you should know—”
“I do know better. I knew better even as I cut his throat.”
The karavan-master remained disbelieving. “But it didn’t stop you.”
“No. Had you seen the look on the woman’s face—”
Jorda dismissed that with a sharp, silencing gesture. “Six Hecari warriors? You saw fit to open hostilities that might have gotten the entire family killed? That might have gotten most of the karavan killed?”
Jorda’s tone rasped. “Where’s Darmuth?”
“Chasing down the sixth warrior.”
“And so you might even be responsible for your partner’s death.”
Rhuan laughed. “Not Darmuth’s!”
That was a mistake. It heated Jorda’s already evident anger. Above his beard, cheeks flared red. “You may have lives to surrender without fear of a permanent death, but the rest of us do not. One life is all any of us has, Rhuan. You take them for granted, those lives. You risk what isn’t yours to risk.” He was angry, yes, but also perplexed. “Tell me why I should keep you on as a guide, if you are to be so irresponsible?”
It was truth in Rhuan’s mouth, but also arrogance. He knew it. But could not, in that moment, find sweeter words; Jorda had pricked his pride. “Because I can die for you and your people, and have. Because I can take risks others can’t, and do. Because I may have precipitated this incident— that, I freely admit—but I also cleaned up my mess …and six Hecari warriors will no longer trouble the innocent folk of Sancorra. I count that a boon.”
“They might have killed the woman, Rhuan. A pregnant woman.”
“No.”
“No?”
He could not help himself. “My reflexes are better than any Hecari’s.”
It cowed Jorda not in the least. “How do you know that? Can you swear to that in each and every circumstance? That you will always be faster?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Quietly he said, “Because I’m not human.”
That stopped Jorda in his tracks. The karavan-master blinked, brows rising. Rhuan had seen it before in Jorda and in others: because he liked humans, because he could laugh and joke with them, humans forgot he was not truly of them.
Until they were reminded.
But it passed, did Jorda’s startled recollection, and he made a reply with excessive, pointed clarity. “And. You.
Died.”
Rhuan laughed at him. “And I don’t doubt just this moment that you wish I’d remained that way.”