Karavans

by Jennifer Roberson

  Kendic also stared at him, then shifted his gaze as Brodhi’s eyes locked with his. Brodhi merely said, “What poison I choose to drink is my own affair.”

  Bethid scowled at him. “Of course it is. Do we care? Of course we don’t care. You make it plain you want no one to assume anything about you. Which of course makes everyone do it.” She drank from her tankard, then thumped it down again as she licked foam from her upper lip. “Did you hear about the murder a few days back?”

  “Wait.” Kendic, big and sandy-haired with a scar across his bristly chin, raised a forestalling hand. The forefinger was knobbed and crooked from an old injury. “Be fair, Beth. We don’t know that it was murder.”

  Her smile verged on triumph. “Rhuan was involved.”

  That was worth some interest. Brodhi looked at Kendic for clarification.

  The big man sighed and rubbed a hand across a scruff of beard. “Rhuan swore the man died when he feel and hit his head on Hezriah’s anvil. Or died a moment before, and then fell. The point, Rhuan says, is that he didn’t kill him.”

  Bethid’s shrug was dismissive. “Rhuan’s killed people before.”

  “Other places, maybe,” Kendic replied evenly. “He says never here.”

  The female courier fixed Brodhi with a sharp eye. “He’s your kinsman …what would you say to this? Is it likely?

  Has he killed people here?”

  Mikal arrived with a battered pewter cup and set it down before Brodhi. The eye-watering odor of raw whiskey permeated the table. “If Rhuan’s killed anyone,” the ale-keep declared, “he had good reason. Enough folk have tried to kill him.” His mouth jerked briefly. “And some have succeeded. I was here the night he first met Ilona, when two men killed him outside in the dark.”

  Bethid shook her head, setting her brass ear-hoops to swinging, and smiled crookedly at Brodhi. “Don’t know that I’ll ever get used to you and Rhuan being able to come back to life. Handy, though, I will admit.”

  Brodhi ignored the comment and looked at Kendic, who shrugged heavy shoulders and elaborated. “Hezriah says he didn’t see what happened clearly enough to know if Rhuan did it. And in view of what the dead man was, it doesn’t really matter. Dead is likely better.”

  Brodhi picked up the cup, brought it close, and inhaled. The odor was unimproved. He considered setting the cup back down again, but Mikal lingered, obviously waiting for Brodhi’s response, dark brows raised and his mouth twisted in an expression of droll anticipation.

  If he didn’t drink the whiskey, he would lose face before the humans. With an inward sigh, Brodhi brought the cup to his lips and swallowed. The liquor burned through his chest and down into his belly, where a small bonfire was lighted. Mikal grinned.

  When he thought he could speak normally again, Brodhi said, “Why is dead better?” It certainly was not, in his experience, a philosophy humans held.

  Bethid, Mikal, and the Watch captain exchanged glances. It was Kendic who answered, in a voice carefully stripped of emotion. “He wasn’t a man anymore.”

  “Came out of Alisanos,” Bethid added pointedly.

  Brodhi recalled the gaggle of children who had accosted him, talking about a demon. Something about him being at their wagon with their mother. He drank more whiskey, decided he didn’t care what the humans thought and set the cup aside. “Alisanos does now and again disgorge what it takes in.”

  “Changed, though, aren’t they?” Bethid’s blue eyes were bright with fascination. “I’ve heard those who go in the deepwood and come out—if they come out, that is—aren’t human anymore.”

  Brodhi opened his mouth to comment but was interrupted by noise from outside. One shout was joined by another, and another by a third. It was taken up tent by tent, person by person, until a chorus of voices called out one word of mutual fear and warning: Hecari.

  Hecari in the settlement.

  Kendic swore, then pushed away from the table to rise. He caught Brodhi’s eye. “Will you come?” he asked abruptly. “I speak a little of their heathen tongue, but not enough as to make a difference. They say couriers have to know it.”

  “I’m a courier and I know it,” Bethid said, annoyed by being overlooked. Then she waved a hand to indicate she understood why Kendic had looked to Brodhi. Her mouth twisted. “Go on. They’ll only speak to a woman if they have no other choice.”

  Mikal closed a hand around the amulet he wore at his throat on a greasy leather thong, reciting a common supplication to the gods to preserve his life and business. As Brodhi and Kendic exited the ale tent, the two strangers, expressions apprehensive, slipped out the back.

  That wouldn’t save them, Brodhi knew. The Hecari were not so stupid as to leave escape opportunities open.

  KARAVAN GUIDE DUTY was an unending plethora of tasks and responsibilities. Now, beneath the sun at its zenith, Rhuan and Darmuth rode well ahead of the wagons to find and secure the expected, such as a known watering place, or to discover and prepare for the potentially unexpected, such as fouled water or the presence of predatory animals, possibly even bandits.

  In high summer, the rolling grasslands were lush. Lone trees were scattered hither and yon like dice in an elaborate counting game bisected the horizon. Wheel ruts cut through turf to rich soil beneath, where it was exposed to the drying sun and the depredations of hooves and wheels. The rains had not yet begun so dust stirred by passage was a constant companion once morning dew dried. After the monsoon arrived, passage would be made nearly impossible by mud and thick, fast-growing grass. Jorda’s final karavan of the year skirted the line between the dry season and the wet.

  Rhuan, who preferred the temperate, even hot days of summer to the rains or colder seasons, relaxed nearly to bonelessness upon his spotted mount. He gloried in self-indulgent languor, smiling face turned up to the sun. Were he alone, he would strip out of every scrap of clothing so his skin could soak up the warmth. It was in him to express his pleasure with a long, insouciant purr, but he desisted lest his companion mock him.

  Darmuth, riding abreast upon a dark sorrel gelding, did no such thing. Frowning, he said, “There. I can smell them.”

  Rhuan’s lassitude fractured, replaced by sharp attention. “Hecari? Or bandits?”

  Darmuth tilted his head slightly as his pupils slitted, then inhaled sharply. Catlike, his mouth dropped open to evaluate the scent. With a hiss underscoring the word, he said, “Hecari.”

  The news was not unexpected, but unwelcome all the same. Indolence and sunshine were forgotten. “How far?”

  Rhuan asked. “How many?”

  Darmuth’s pale eyes were half-lidded, almost as if he were in a trance. His tongue, narrower than was found in humans, extruded, displaying a subtle, serpentine fork as it tasted the air.

  He withdrew it, retreating to the guise of a human male. “Perhaps a mile ahead. Ordinary patrol: six warriors. Moving this way.”

  Rhuan never asked Darmuth if he was certain of such announcements. The demon always was. Instead he nodded grimly and swung his horse around. “Wait here. Hold them for as long as you can.”

  Rhuan’s duty now, with Darmuth posted as both lookout and delaying tactic to buy the karavan time, was to ride back to warn Jorda, to prepare the people for the meeting and the inevitable Hecari demand for “road tax.” The karavan would lose hours to the patrol. Good water lay on the other side of the Hecari; they would now lack the time necessary to reach the next stop before nightfall. No water barrel in Jorda’s karavans was allowed to be more than half empty if possible; the master would call for strict conservation measures until barrels could be refilled. But for all that good water was critical, it was more vital yet to receive the Hecari patrol without complaint, to pay what they asked in coin and goods so that no lives were lost.

  EVEN AS BRODHI followed Kendic out of the ale tent, the winnowing had begun. Mounted Hecari warriors with warclubs rode through the mazelike pathways among the tents, sorting the men from the women, the children from youngest to eldest, order
ing the designated into specific lines upon the pathways. Kendic stopped short but paces away from Mikal’s ale tent, staring in shock.

  Dark men on dark horses. Too many to count and all of them in motion, but their numbers clearly were well in excess of the customary six-person patrols that collected “tax” from the people. Skulls were shaven except for black scalp locks, and gleamed with pungent oil. The lower halves of broad faces were painted indigo. Heavy golden ear-spools stretched earlobes into long teardrops of flesh, and each Hecari wore slantwise across his chest a red-dyed leather baldric bearing blowpipe and feathered darts tucked into sinew loops.

  Standing beside Kendic and aware of Bethid and Mikal coming up behind them, Brodhi noted that the Sancorrans’ initial anger and shock had been transformed to fear, then to terror as everyone was ordered or pulled from tents, roughly inspected, sorted, and assigned a place to stand. The Hecari, directing with warclubs, counted down the winding lines and motioned specific men, women, and children to step forward.

  Brodhi’s emotions, trained into reflexive quietude in times of danger, stilled. He knew what was to come. “Too many,” he murmured.

  “One Hecari is too many,” Kendic growled beneath his breath.

  Brodhi shook his head. “You misunderstand me. Too many tents. Too many people all in one place. I have seen this before. It will be a decimation.”

  Bethid’s voice was thin. “One in ten.”

  “One in ten?” Mikal’s apprehension was clear. “What do you mean, one in ten?”

  Brodhi knew Bethid, courier-trained to witness and record for dissemination, comprehended as well as he what was to come. She bit into her lip. “Mother of Moons …”

  Kendic frowned. “I don’t understand. Aren’t they here for their ‘tax’?”

  Children forcibly separated from their parents were crying loudly, clinging to one another. If they tried to go back to their parents, the Hecari used their clubs to prod them away.

  “Oh, no,” Bethid blurted. “Oh, Mother, that one’s coming over here.”

  Kendic quivered with tension. “Hold your ground,” Brodhi told him. “No matter what is done, hold your ground. Make no complaint.”

  The Hecari warrior halted his roan horse in front of the four. Disease had pitted his face so badly the scars showed even beneath the dark paint. His nose, characteristic of his race, was wide and slightly flat. He had, as the others in his party, shaved his eyebrows. Ear-spools dangled in stretched lobes.

  Black eyes glittered as he stared down at Brodhi. A gesture with his warclub indicated the blue mantle. The Sancorran word was guttural. “Courier?”

  Brodhi did not include Bethid despite her identical mantle. In Hecari he answered, “Yes.”

  The warrior stared at Mikal and Kendic. He ignored Bethid altogether. Then his gaze returned to Brodhi. Still he spoke Sancorran. “With you, these?”

  Again Brodhi answered, “Yes.”

  “Tell. Tell all.” The warrior’s gesture indicated the lines of frightened humans. “You know. Tell.”

  Brodhi drew in a long breath, then slowly released it. He adopted the emotionless detachment of his duty and raised his voice, pitching it to carry. “Do nothing! Do nothing, and you may survive!”

  The Hecari gestured with his warclub. “Again. More.”

  “Mother,” Bethid whispered.

  Kendic repeated, “What does he want?”

  Louder this time. “Do nothing,” Brodhi called again. “Nine left alive is better than ten dead!”

  The warrior grunted and swung his horse away, returning to the winding lines of Sancorrans.

  Kendic turned sharply to Brodhi. “What do you mean?”

  “One in ten,” Bethid murmured.

  It was not the answer the Watch captain desired. “They’ve come for coin before, but they’ve never done this. Why are they doing this?”

  Brodhi spoke with excessive clarity, as if to a child. “Too many in one place.”

  Kendic’s face was blank with incomprehension. Then abrubtly it drained of color as the first warclub fell, shattering a skull.

  RHUAN WASTED NO time returning to the karavan and informing Jorda of the patrol ahead. A single word sufficed: Hecari.

  Atop the high wagon seat, the red-haired man muttered a brief but eloquent curse, applied the hand brake sparingly, then eased his team of horses to a halt. “Go on, then.” Grim, he nodded at Rhuan, digging beneath his shirt for a string of protective amulets. “You know what to tell them.”

  Wagon by wagon, Rhuan rode along the line with word of the stoppage and its cause. He had little time for details, but quietly reminded everyone to recall the procedures and suggested behaviors Jorda had explained thoroughly before they had departed the settlement. Children fell silent at their parents’ sharpened orders while color drained from every adult face. In place of questions were prayers and petitions, forming a chain of low-toned voices and frantic whispers invoking protection.

  At last Rhuan reined in at the back of the column, behind the Sisters, noting that the farmsteader now walked while his wife rode the plank seat. The youngest children were not to be seen; Rhuan assumed they napped in the wagon. The husband and his two eldest walked beside the oxen.

  Their clothing and hair was coated with road dust. As they pulled down their scarves, they bared the pallor of cleaner features. Also they bared simple curiosity; their late arrival at the karavan had rendered them innocent of such behavior around Hecari as Jorda had described. Rhuan had drawn his map in the dirt and discussed the route with them, but Jorda was always the one who spoke of Hecari, not he. And Rhuan’s concern for their nearness to Alisanos had driven the thought of Hecari completely out of his head.

  Now came the grim and unenviable task of acquainting them with such danger and ugliness, and no time at all for courtesy.

  “We are stopping,” he told them, though as yet the easing of the wagon line from motion to stillness had not reached the latter part of the karavan. “When the column halts, wait quietly. There’s a Hecari patrol ahead of us.” Expressions were startled, then tensely speculative, and finally apprehensive. “All of you, even the youngest, must line up beside the wagon,” Rhuan continued. “Say nothing. If we are fortunate, they’ll be content with Jorda’s payment; it’s Hecari custom to demand a ‘road tax’ from the karavan-master and Jorda carries coin for that purpose, but occasionally the Hecari expand their demands to personal items as well. Don’t try to stop them. Don’t complain. Don’t even speak to them.” He interpreted the questions forming in six pairs of stricken eyes but raised a silencing hand before anyone could voice protest or question. “Once you’ve assembled, hold your ground where you are. Say nothing, do nothing, and let the warriors take whatever they wish.”

  Shock, then anger flowed across faces formed of strikingly similar features, fair where he was copper except for the golden-haired wife. And at last, in the face of the eldest daughter, even outrage kindled, slowly but unmistakably.

  Rhuan cut her off curtly before she could begin. “No.”

  “But—”

  “Did you hear me? No.”

  There was a wagon-length space between the Sisters’ red-topped conveyance and the wagon belonging to the family. Even as Rhuan extended a hand, the oxen team was eased to a halt.

  “It may cost you what you hold dear,” he warned them, “but everything in your wagon can be replaced. Lives cannot.” He gestured up the line. “Hold your place here. Either I, Darmuth, or Jorda himself will inform you when it’s safe.” He looked at them one by one, then indicated the farmsteader’s wife and eldest daughter. “If the warriors come to this wagon, keep your heads bowed, and your eyes down. No matter what happens.”

  The wife was clearly taken aback. “Why?”

  “In Hecari culture a woman never looks a warrior in the eyes.”

  The oldest daughter was no more inclined to accept his orders now than moments before, and challenged him. “What happens if we do?”

  He
r father shot her a hard glance. “Hold your tongue, Ellica.”

  Rhuan minced no words; best to let them know the truth if they hoped to survive. “According to the warrior’s whim, a woman may be beaten, stoned, or whipped.” He paused. “Occasionally even to death.”

  Chapter 20

  IRONIC, BRODHI THOUGHT, that what had begun as a beautiful day should become so tragic.

  Amid the settlement pathways, another man died. A woman. Then a child. Those who attempted to run were brought down by poisoned darts. The reek of death-slackened bowels and bladders was a sharp, unpleasant fug underscored by the coppery tang of blood. Yet the sun was bright, the skies clear, the breath of a breeze upon Brodhi’s face temperate and pleasant.

  “No!” Kendic cried in horror. “Stop this—” Brodhi clamped a tensed hand upon the man’s thick wrist and stepped close, so close his breath touched the other’s face as he intentionally blocked Kendic’s view. “Say nothing. Do nothing.”

  Kendic tried to wrench his arm free. “Do nothing? Are you mad?”

  Behind them, Bethid was speaking fervently to Mikal, begging him to remain where he was, not to interfere.

  Women screamed. Children shrieked. Men called out to gods as the warclubs descended and darts flew. On foot, hemmed in by mounted warriors, none of the one in ten escaped.

  Brodhi’s fingers bit into Kendic’s twitching flesh. “You can die. That’s all. Is that what you wish? To die, and be of no help to those who survive?”

  Kendic tore his wrist free. “Mother of Moons, how can you expect me to do nothing? They are killing women and children!”

  Behind them, Mikal was weeping even as Bethid told him over and over again to hold his place. To find and hold his peace.

  “I can’t!” Kendic cried. “I can’t do nothing! What kind of man are you, who does nothing to stop this?”

  Brodhi said merely, “Nothing I can do will stop this.”

  Contempt swelled in Kendic’s hazel eyes even as his lips peeled back in a rictus of disgust and disbelief.

  “Wait—Kendic—” Bethid stretched out a belaying hand. “Listen to him! Listen to me: you must let it go!”