"You need not fear that we will harm you." Delivered in a markedly unenthusiastic tone, it was not a reassuring statement.
Having heard it, Lucrezia wasn't overly
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surprised when the woman turned away without showing the least inclination to free her hands.
Djemil Eyub left me tied because he was afraid, Lucrezia thought, and he was not so contemptuous as to refuse to tell me who he was. This one is afraid of nothing, but she will not set me free. And she will not deign to tell me her name. A pox on politeness, then.
"Why did you kill the Eblans?" she called after the retreating figure.
"They could not have harmed you."
The armoured woman turned to look back at her, pausing in her stride.
"They attacked us," she said flatly.
"This is how we deal with those who attack us. We are warriors, after all."
She did not continue on her way, though for the first time she seemed curious to see how Lucrezia would respond.
Did you come all this way because you were attacked in the hills?
Lucrezia wondered. / can't believe that. If you didn't come in search of help, you must have come in search of land. Do you intend to found new Dragomite Hills in Khalorn -- and eventually in Xandria itself?
If so, you have surprises in store. Wait until you see real cavalry, instead of these ragged mounted bandits. Wait until you have Xandria's finest to face, on an open plain without trees or bushes, with their steel-headed lances and their sabres. Then you might see an authentic battle . . . and might easily be on the receiving end of a massacre.
The princess struggled to her feet.
"The four best horses and the two donkeys are mine," she stated firmly.
"Their packs contain goods which I intend to trade. Your people might be very interested in what they contain. Have you a queen of your own, or are you merely slaves of the drago mites
"The horses were yours," the woman replied.
"Now they and you- belong to us."
"That is not the way of civilised folk," Lucrezia said, as boldly as she could.
"In Xandria, we abide by the law, and we expect others to respect our property."
"In the Corridors of Power," her new captor said contemptuously, 'there is no law but the word of the mound-queen, who is the human voice of the drago mite queen. We are her warriors, not her slaves.
Her will is our will, her life is ours. "
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as easy as I
thought. It seems that my talent for it is to be subjected to a severe test.
But I'm ready. Whatever you are and whatever you intend, I'm ready. These were, however, merely the words that she brought to the forefront of her mental arena; behind and beneath them was a deeper, more honest layer of thought, whose echoes were decidedly querulous. If only Hyry Keshvara were here! wailed this tiny and tremulous voice. If only Cams Fraxinus and Aulakh Phar can get here in time . . .
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^ 2 when the news of the massacre which had taken place ahead of them first reached the caravan and flew from head to tail with astonishing alacrity
-Jacom Cerri's first thought was to ride forward with instructions that everyone in the long column must stay in tight formation, with their weapons ready. He quelled the impulse, reminding himself he was not in a position to give orders here, and that he ought not to annoy Carus Fraxinus by overstepping his allotted mark. He contented himself by speaking to his own men, although they were hardly in need of warnings to be careful. His next thought was to get the best information possible as to what had happened, and for this purpose he naturally went directly to Ktoraismi, even though he had to dismount in order to talk to the boy, thus renewing the pain in his bad leg. ; "Elema won't tell everything to the men," the boy informed him glumly.
"She's gone to hatch witchy plots with the old woman in the big wagon now.
She was taken prisoner by men from the far south who were running from the drago mite-riders but they couldn't run fast enough or far enough. She watched the demon- women cross the river again. They took your princess with them."
Jacom's heart sank as he received this last piece of news.
"Are you sure about that?" he demanded.
"That's what she said," Koraismi confirmed, with an aggrieved shrug of the shoulders.
"How can I know whether she's telling the truth?"
"I've got to talk to her," Jacom said.
"Will you tell her that?"
Koraismi shrugged again.
"She is Apu," he said, as though that were the end of the matter.
"She's talking to the witch."
Jacom felt that the whole world was against him, determined to frustrate his every purpose and ambition, no matter how trivial.
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"How heavily are these drago mite-people armed? How many are there?
Are they really mounted on drago mites
Koraismi didn't know how many there were in the party which had captured the princess or how heavily they were armed, but he admitted, reluctantly, that they hadn't had any drago mites with them when they came across the river.
"Maybe drago mites don't like water,"
he suggested.
"Maybe the drago mites are waiting on the far side of the river. Maybe the demon-women stayed behind when the drago mites were put to flight by the Uluru."
"What about Keshvara?" Jacom demanded, with rather more asperity than was warranted.
"Dead," the boy reported laconically.
"Fell into the river and drowned after being stung by a flower worm
"I have to find out more," Jacom told Purkin, who had come to hover nearby.
"I've got to see the queen."
"Rather you than me, sir," Purkin said sourly. He had not received the news gladly. Like everyone else, the sergeant had been hoping that the princess might be waiting at the ford even though he thought it unlikely. To find out now that she really had been there, but that she had been snatched away mere hours before, was doubly frustrating and disappointing.
Jacom mounted up again and rode forward to the larger of the two wagons. It was still rolling onwards at its customary steady pace, and he was forced to dismount, and then to hobble along while he tethered his horse to the backboard. By the time he had done that his leg felt as if it were on fire, but he contrived to clamber up into the wagon.
Ereleth and the old dark lander were deep in conversation, and didn't seem at all pleased to be interrupted. The giant was there too, and the three of them seemed as thick as thieves. Cams Fraxinus was nowhere to be seen. The conspirators were doing their best to speak in tones too low for the wagon-driver to overhear.
"I heard the news, majesty," Jacom said resolutely.
"It seems that the princess is in great danger, but that if we can only act quickly enough we might be able to save her. I need to know the enemy's strength before my men ride after her, if you'll allow me to question the old woman."
"If I need you, Captain Cerri," the witch-queen said coldly,
"I'll send for you."
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"Yes, majesty," l&com said, trying to make his calculated misinterpretation sound sincere.
"I merely anticipated your command.
Here I am, ready to hurry my men forward at a moment's n
otice. Please tell me everything you know. "
Ereleth sighed theatrically.
"They're at least two dozen strong," she said.
"They've just captured twenty horses, although it's not clear whether they'll be willing or able to ride them. They're not well armed but they're skilful fighters. Even if that were all, and even if Fraxinus's dark landers were willing to ride with you, you'd have a hard fight on your hands.
Unfortunately, that might not be all. There might be more of them across the river and if these women really are allied with drago mites they might have powerful protectors waiting for them. Even if they don't, they'd probably use the princess as a hostage if they were attacked. This |( isn't a time for brute force and reckless heroism, captain; it's a time for careful planning and cleverness. Wiser heads than yours will decide <" l"-t '. do, how and when as I said, I'll summon you again if I have need of you."
Jacom actually opened his mouth to say / can't do that, but he caught himself in time. A queen was a queen, after all. It occurred to him that it might be better, it he did go after the princess, not to involve Ereleth or Dhalla, whose ultimate aims obviously didn't coincide with his own.
"Yes, majesty," he said aloud.
"Sorry, majesty." ; He lowered himself to the ground again, having first untied his horse. He was about to mount up when his elbow was taken by Carus Fraxinus, who held him there until a respectable distance had opened up between their position and the women. Jacom guessed that he must have jumped down from the front of the wagon.
"Don't do anything foolish, Jacom, I beg of you," Fraxinus said. "I heard what you said in there and! know what you meant-so did Ereleth.
She's right, Jacom - this is no time to rush in. We have no idea what we're up against. " As he finished the final sentence he began to walk, and Jacom walked along with him, steeling himself against the pain.
"If we don't move quickly, Carus," Jacom said tautly, 'we'll lose whatever chance we've got of getting the princess back. Ereleth's right about one thing if the people who took her link up with a larger force, we'll be heavily outnumbered. If. . . "
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"We don't want a fight, Jacom!" Fraxinus was quick to say.
"If it's at all possible, we want to make friends with these people. They could see us safely across the Dragomite Hills, if they were so disposed.
They're probably anxious ~ with good reason, if they've met dark landers who think they're demons but Lucrezia's no fool, and by now she must be just as desperate to find us as you are to find her.
She'll do what she can to persuade them to wait. "
'yomt" main objective may be making friends who can help you cross the hills," Jacom said, 'but it's not mine. At the end of the day, you don't really care what happens to the princess. Perhaps it would suit your purposes very well if I didn't manage to get her back but I have priorities of my own. "
"You have no cause to say that," Fraxinus said, in an aggrieved tone.
"I'm not your enemy, Jacom, and I never have been. If you decide to stay with the expedition I'd be delighted but I have no intention of trying to trick you or force you. If you and your men gallop off now, though, you'll be splitting our arms and armour in two. If you fight and don't win, you'll ruin your own chances, you'll leave us in an impossible situation, and you might very well get the princess killed. Please, Jacom! It seems that I've already lost one good friend I don't want to lose any more."
Jacom took this for cunning flattery, but he knew that the assumption was ungracious, and perhaps unfair.
"I'm sorry about Keshvara," he said, 'but. . . "
"No buts, Jacom. Believe me, your best chance of recovering the princess is to remain with us. If anyone's to ride ahead, let it be Dhalla. She might succeed in talking to Lucrezia's captors, where you'd almost certainly fail.
Did Ereleth or Koraismi tell you that the warriors who have her now are all women, and that they seem hostile to men in general? If their social organisation mimics that of a dragomife hive, however loosely, a warrior woman might have a fair chance of opening negotiations with them. Don't go, Jacom even if you aren't riding into an impossible situation and delivering your men to the slaughter, you might do irreparable damage to your own cause."
Jacom saw that Sergeant Purkin's horse had drawn level with them now, and that the sergeant had stopped to listen. Jacom was horribly conscious of the fact that the few men he had left in his command might abruptly cease to be in his command if he gave }3i
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them an order they^ didn like. Purkin clearly
had a lot of respect for Fraxinus, and might be glad of a good excuse to switch his formal allegiance, and that of all the remaining men. He was suddenly sure that if he wanted to hang on to the ghost of his commission, he had to do what Fraxinus wanted.
"I'll wait, then," he said miserably.
"Let's see if Dhalla can find out exactly what we're up against before we do anything reckless."
Carus Fraxinus smiled as he stepped back, finally releasing Jacom's arm so that the captain could mount up again. While Jacom got up, gently spurring his horse so that it could move into step with Purkin's, the merchant hurried to the smaller wagon, and vaulted up on to the driving-seat to join Aulakh Phar.
Jacom sank into a depression which Purkin's relative cheerfulness proved utterly incapable of lifting. They hardly exchanged a dozen words before the sergeant ostentatiously dropped back to leave his superior officer to his own bitter devices.
They arrived at the scene of the massacre within two hours. Jacom's men helped the dark landers to chase away the night- cloaks, crocolids and carrion birds which had gathered about the ripening cadavers, while Jacom sat astride his horse and watched in sombre silence.
The corpses had been stripped of everything of value; such clothing as had been left to them had been ruined by rents and bloodstains.
The dark lander boys made a rapid check to make absolutely sure that none was still alive, moving with a clinical efficiency that Jacom found strangely disturbing. Although his own men were trained soldiers it was obvious that they were nauseated by the carnage.
Jacom was appalled by the sight of so many men crudely hacked and bludgeoned to death, and he found it very difficult to restrain the urge to vomit.
Fraxinus and Phar contrived to be business-like, but he judged that they too were deeply disturbed by what they had found.
Fraxinus asked Elema to show him exactly where Hyry Keshvara had met with her accident, but there was not the slightest sign to offer hope that she might have survived.
While Jacom stood helplessly by, looking across at the far bank, Checuti came to stand beside his stirrup.
"A horribly bad business, captain," the thief-master said.
"You, at least, should find some cause for satisfaction in it,"
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Jacom growled angrily.
"If we'd found the princess here you'd be on your way homewards, and not to spend your ill-gotten gains either."
"Truce, captain!" said Checuti, not at all mockingly.
"I've come to make peace, not to pour further acrimony into our troubled relationship and I can take no pleasure at all in such sights as this. Once we cross this river, it'll be odds against any of us returning to the land and life we love, and this is a ghastly reminder of the dangers which face us. It's time to put aside old differences. I'm as anxious for the princess as you are it's in her best interests if we work together."
"I know about your anxiety for the princess," Jacom said sourly.
"What Ereleth did to you and Andris Myrasol is common knowledge by now."
Checuti di
d not seem particularly disconcerted by the news that his shameful secret had been broadcast.
"Bearing grudges can eat a man up inside as surely as any cunning worm," he said calmly. "You have no reason to love me, captain, but that shouldn't make it impossible for us to deal courteously with one another. A truce would work to everyone's advantage. You have no real enemies here not even the witch-queen, who's more dangerous to your ultimate ambition than I could ever be. Why must you be so surly?"
"You're Ereleth's creature now," Jacom pointed out vindictively. "You can have no friends unless she commands it."
"That's not true," Checuti told him.
"Her creature may be nestling in my guts, but that doesn't make me her slave.
I'm my own man, not hers, and I always will be. I'll admit, though, that I'm now a member of this expedition at least until Ereleth decides to quit just as you are. There's no profit for either of us in continued enmity. I wish you could admit that."
"I'd sooner trust one of those," Jacom said, pointing to a crocolid drifting in the shallows, waiting patiently for the time to come when it would be allowed to return to its meal.
That's not the choice before you," Checuti pointed out dourly. " It's drago mites that we might have to deal with, not crocolids. Dragomites and warlike drago mite-lovers. Not to mention witch- queens and secretive dark landers and princesses with Serpent's blood and starry-eyed merchants hankering after the garden of Idun and the Pool of Life. You might think the purple forest's 333
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unearthly, but it's nothing compared to what we'll find in the far south, if that's where we're fated to go. Crocolids are earthly, at least.
. . there are creatures in the world far stranger and far less friendly, and we're about to stroll into their back yard. Aren't we, sergeant? "
The last remark was occasioned by Purkin's arrival, in the company of Guardsman Kim.
"Never seen killin' like it, sir," Purkin announced mournfully.
"Crude but quick. Not a single one of them dead, unless they took the body with 'em."
"We're a long way from home, sir," added Kim.
Serpent's Blood Page 40
