The Luck Of The Wheels

by Megan Lindholm

  He scrabbled out from under the Brurjan's body frantically and then crawled to Ki, as if rising were beyond him. He sat at her feet for an instant, staring up at her. Then he suddenly hugged her knees, burying his face against her skirt and shaking her with his trembling. 'Oh, Ki! It's what Vandien felt, when he killed Kellich. It was too big, too real!' He clung to her, weeping as a much younger child might, and she found herself patting his shoulders, telling him that it would be all right, all right, all right.

  A long time passed very slowly as she stood there. At last the boy's trembling subsided and he slowly drooped away from her. He looked terrible, as if he had been through some wasting illness. She found herself pushing the hair back from his face. He looked up at her and she stared down into his face. Purified. Sanctified. Something. Like metal passed through the cleansing fire. 'I killed the Tamshin. When I told the Brurjans about them. And I killed Kellich there. But Kellich went hating me, and when he was gone it was like a pain in my mind that stopped. I didn't care. Because I didn't really understand ...' He groped for words, found none. There was a comprehension in his face that was more terrible than any grief, that Ki sensed surpassed her own understanding of what had come to pass.

  'Goat. It's going to be all right,' she said, lying, but having to say something to the boy. It wasn't right for a child to be filled with whatever now possessed this boy. But he shook his head at her, refusing false comfort.

  'Ki, we have to go after them. After Vandien. And we have to hurry.'

  'Yes,' she said softly, and the boy jumped up. He started toward the wagon, then stopped. 'What do we do about them?'

  She looked at the crumpled bodies. Flies were gathering. 'Leave them,' she suggested.

  And the horse?'

  'It will eventually go back to wherever they've been stabled. It wouldn't let us get near it, anyway.'

  'Should we try to ... cover them, or something?'

  'No. I'm too tired to care. And they're too dead. It doesn't really matter, Goat. No matter what we do to them, they'd still be dead.' She paused, breathing. If she closed her eyes, the pain from her back was red and blotted out all thought. She tried to find some order in her mind. 'Goat. I can't. You'll have to sort things. Anything that's still useful, toss back in the wagon.' She looked again at the crumpled Brurjan. 'Nothing with blood on it,' she added quietly. Goat nodded silently, his eyes still full of pain.

  She clambered slowly up onto the seat. She sat down carefully, took up the reins. The pain from her back was a living thing, sucking the strength from her body.

  Goat clambered up beside her. He took the reins gently from her hands. 'I think it's finally my turn to drive,' he said.

  She nodded, leaned back on the seat and felt the world slide into deep blues and blacks around her. The wagon started with a sickening jolt, and she found it was all she could do to keep a grip on the seat and ride along.

  Cooking meat. The smell taunted her. I don't eat meat anymore, Ki reminded herself. I'm too closely linked with all things that move to want to feed on their flesh. But suddenly it seemed a silly resolution, a child's fantasy that by abstaining from meat she could somehow break the cycle of feeding and being fed upon. With or without her it went on. She had killed today, and she did not have to eat of Satativa's flesh to have preyed upon him. She suddenly perceived that eating meat or not eating meat changed nothing. She could not abstain from being Human, nor deny the position Humans held in the slow wheel of life. So she had stopped eating meat. It meant nothing. If she walked about with her eyes closed, would the colors go out of the world?

  Her eyes were closed, and had been for a long time. Slowly she opened them. It was evening, the curtains of night fluttering over the world before closing completely. A pall of smoke along the road made the light dimmer and stung her eyes. Burning meat. And hair. And blood spilled new in the dust.

  Goat's eyes were fixed on the road, holding the reins as carefully as if they were gossamer. She followed his gaze to where a dim red glow marked a fire by the roadside. Neither one spoke as they slowly approached it. Both sensed there was something momentous about to be revealed; both were too weary to guess what it might be, or to be eager for it.

  The scene that greeted them seemed like the ghastly balancing of an earlier one, the counterweight to the scattered Tamshin under the bright sun. The backdrop was the darkening sky and the beginning of stars, the ruddy touching of the firelight upon the still forms. The toppled bodies of the four Brurjans had been stripped of harness and armor, and ignominiously heaped to one side. Their gear burned with the bodies of those who had fallen killing them. They burned with the flare of spilled oil and the tenacity of piled brushwood. No one would ever be able to identify who had fallen bringing the Brurjan guards down. The horses and weapons had been taken.

  She got down slowly, walked toward the fire. The Brurjans, she noticed, had been killed thoroughly, several times over. The chest of one had been stabbed so repeatedly that the yellowish shards of its ribs glinted through the mangled flesh. Red sockets gaped where Vashikii's battle fangs had been pulled. The savagery of it bespoke a hatred she did not like to consider.

  She drew closer to the fire, wrinkling her nose against the smell, unwilling but compelled. The heat of it scorched her face, and she knew her hair would be full of the smell tonight. She circled it slowly, peering into its depths. Little was left, only the scanty outlines of bodies; two, perhaps three of them. One was clearly too tall; another wore sandals, the leather straps visible against the charred flesh. The third was under the other two, face down, indistinguishable save that he was Human. She stared at the roasting body. About the right height, about the right build ... She knelt by the fire, staring at him, willing herself to notice some grisly clue that would prove her wrong. Goat kept silent. She knelt until her face felt scorched by the nearness of the flames and the burning flesh was an unbearable stench in her nostrils, knowing, but denying.

  Something was digging into her knee. She shifted her weight, glanced down. All heat went out of the fire, all living warmth from her body. A horn button. She had knelt on it, and it had dug into her knee. It was still sewn firmly to the scorched cuff that was the sole remainder of a cream-colored shirt. Finely woven stuff, that fabric. Woven by the tiny-fingered Kerugi folk, and it had cost her a shameful amount of coin, but she had loved the way it had felt under her hands when his body heat was seeping through it and her fingers traced the muscles of his back beneath it.

  'Vandien,' she said, calmly.

  'It was a rebel fighter.' Goat contradicted her. 'They always burn the bodies of their dead. Ever since the Duke ordered some bodies exhumed, and then crucified them ... the bodies, and the families of the bodies. Because the bodies showed the marks of Brurjan weaponry, and he knew they had risen up against his Brurjan guard.'

  There was a nervous disorganization to Goat's words. Ki drew back from the fire, stared at him. He was hugging himself as if chilled to death. His eyes were very big. He looked, she thought, as if he had lost everything. Strange that he should feel so much and she should feel so very little. 'Don't believe he's dead,' he pleaded. 'Don't. It's not him. The rebels wouldn't have burned his body. They'd have dumped it with the Brurjans. Vandien wasn't one of their own, they wouldn't care what became of his body or his family. They care only for their own.'

  'It's his cuff.' Her throat cracked on the words.

  'But it's not him!' Goat insisted desperately.

  'Then where is he?' Ki demanded of the night. The darkness pressed close to the fire and filled in the eyes of the swollen dead. 'He was almost dead when the Brurjans took him. If he lived this far, being jolted like that, it would be a minor miracle. But if he did, where is he? What would the rebels want with an injured stranger, a casualty that could only slow them down?'

  Goat looked away from her. Something in his posture made her demand again, 'What would they want with him, a stranger and wounded to the death?'

  'Not an injured stranger to
them,' Goat said haltingly. 'Kellich's killer. The man they probably came after. The one who brought down their plan to assassinate the Duke.'

  THIRTEEN

  Burning down, the bodies melding, becoming indistinguishable from one another. Little would be left. Whoever had built this fire had known well how to do it. Practice? She supposed.

  'Ki?'

  'What?'

  'Shouldn't we push on, try to catch up with them?'

  She pulled her eyes from the fire, saw the boy's genuine concern. 'No, Goat. It's ... too dark now. And the horses need to rest.'

  'Here?' he asked in horror.

  Where else? she wanted to ask. She couldn't imagine moving on, leaving him here to burn alone. But she watched the boy's eyes go spooking back to the Brurjan bodies, saw how he shivered with dread, not of the imaginary things, but of the final truth he had glimpsed today. The bodies crumpled beneath their burden of burning brushwood. A dragon's tail of sparks whooshed into the air and Ki's eyes followed it, saw the bright bits wink out into nothingness.

  She had left Vandien there, finally, got back up on the wagon and left. Pushing on, pretending for Goat that Vandien was not dead and that they were hurrying after him. What should I have done? she asked herself. Waited until the fire died, tried to sort which charred bones had been dear to me?

  'There's not much that's fit to eat.' Goat spoke from inside the cuddy through the open door.

  'I'm not hungry anyway,' Ki observed, keeping her eyes on the road. The lights of Tekum were yellow sparks. 'Just fix something for yourself, Goat.'

  'He sure made a mess of the wagon.'

  'Brurjans are like that.' Ki heard the abrupt anger in her voice, tried to modify it. 'Goat, I don't feel much like talking just now. Okay?'

  'All right. You're worried about Vandien, right?'

  'Right.' Close enough to the truth, anyway.

  'They'll keep him alive, if they can.' Goat's voice was cautiously reassuring. 'They'll take decent care of him. They need him.'

  So did she. But she didn't have him any more than they did. No one had him. Her soul fell into a black gulf.

  'He's good with a sword. That's important to them.' Goat's voice was hesitant, wary. Asking to be asked. She complied.

  'Why?'

  Goat clambered back onto the scat. She couldn't really see his face in the dark, but he still stared off into the night. 'What I took from Willow,' he said softly. 'What she wanted back so badly that she was... kind to me ... was a part of a plan. I don't know everything - no one rebel ever knows everything about a plan, except the Duchess. I didn't understand it all, because Willow didn't. But Willow was to be the one to make the contact with the Brurjan that could be bribed not to look for poison on Kellich's blade.' Goat's voice fell away. 'Only I took the name of the Brurjan out of her dream.'

  'Moon's light,' breathed Ki. She stared at Goat, disbelief warring with enlightenment. 'You can do things like that.' When she said the words, they came out as a statement.

  'With some people,' Goat conceded slowly. 'Willow has Jore blood, too, though it doesn't show in the same way as mine. Nor would she admit it. But I know it. It makes the link easier for me. But she can't ... reach into someone like I can. She is just ... very persuasive. Her talent doesn't have the strength of mine. It's part of why she hates me, I think.'

  'I see,' Ki said slowly. How much jealousy had Willow felt, knowing this boy could offer the rebellion so much more than she could? Had she deliberately alienated him from her friends, to eliminate him as competition? Competition for what? For respect and honor? For Kellich's attention? Would Kellich not have needed her if Goat had been recruited?

  Reality broke over Ki like a cold wave. And she had been taking the boy back into the middle of that quarrel? Insanity. Vandien was gone; nothing could be served by following the tracks of the rebels. Senseless. Better to get the boy out of here, to deliver him to Villena as she had promised. Then would be the time to take revenge for Vandien's death. Perhaps by then she would know who to blame for it.

  'Don't move. We don't want to hurt anyone. Unless we have to.'

  One moment the night had been a quiet and empty place around them. Now hooded figures ghosted up from the grass, flowed into the road. Sigurd whinnied in sudden alarm and threw his head back. Reflex made Ki pull them in even as someone gripped the edge of her wagon, swung easily up onto the box beside her. A knife touched her throat. Her eyes flickered over the highwaymen. Seven, eight of them. Humans. But those were only the ones she could see. Were there others behind the wagon, more still lying flat in the grass? Goat was twisting his shirt front in his hands. She put out a hand to his shoulder, gripped the boy to steady him. He quivered under her touch.

  'What do you want from us?' Ki asked quietly.

  No one answered her. They were already moving around the wagon. She heard the side door open, felt the weight of an intruder rock the wagon. 'Just follow the plan,' one of them reminded the others. 'Everyone knows his own part.'

  'Rebels!' Goat breathed.

  'Quiet!' the leader barked again. At least Ki assumed he was the leader. He was the only one who had spoken, and he held the knife at her throat. In their flowing brown robes and hoods, they all looked remarkably alike. His shapeless hood had a slash for his eyes. She saw their glitter, but could not tell what color they were, nor anything else about the man. 'Climb down,' he ordered gruffly. And put your hands in front of you.'

  'Take whatever you wish and leave us in peace,' Ki suggested. 'We won't report this to anyone. We were just leaving this area anyway. There will be no trouble from us. We have business that takes us far from here.'

  'Your business has become our business,' the man said sternly. The knife pressed more firmly, and she became aware of the figure holding a blade to Goat's throat. She rose carefully, clambered down in the shadow of the knife-wielder. They walked Goat over to stand beside her. 'Clasp your hands together, palm to palm,' the leader directed.

  Ki glanced at Goat. The boy's trembling hands were clutched before him. His face was drawn. She copied him, joining her hands together and holding them in front of her. The hooded man bound her wrists with a strange, flat rope that only tightened when she flexed her muscles against it. Goat was already bound. Behind her someone mounted the box of her wagon, took up the reins. Then a bag came down over her head.

  The sack smelled of grain, and she nearly choked on loose chaff that shook free from its rough weave. The hands that seized her elbows were not rough, but neither were they gentle. She was hurried forward, sent stumbling through the dry grass and rocks for a good distance. She heard Goat cry out, the sound cut off short. 'Goat?' she called out, and a hand slapped hard against her belly, making her lose her breath. She was pushed up against a large, warm animal.

  'Mount it,' an unfamiliar voice ordered, and as she struggled to do so, someone large caught her around the waist and heaved her up on the animal. The only harness she could find was a rough blanket strapped over the horse's back. She gripped the edge of it, wrapped her legs around its barrel body. It started forward without any warning and she lurched backward, nearly losing her seat. 'Hold on,' a gruff voice warned her, and then the beast was jerked into a jolting canter, and her ears were filled with the sound of moving horses around her. If she slipped down, she'd be trampled.

  Blind and powerless to control her fate, she was carried forward in a nightmare journey. She gripped the edge of the horse's blanket tightly, using every bit of strength in her legs to keep a firm seat. She drew a deep breath, imposed an artificial order on her mind. One thing at a time, she decided. These horses couldn't keep up this pace for long. They were farm plugs, not warriors' horses. So they couldn't be going far. Once they arrived, she might have an opportunity to free Goat and herself. It was the best plan she could think of now. She gripped the thought and hung onto it, pushing all else out of her mind.

  'What is this place?' Goat's voice was eerie in the darkness.

  'I don't know. Some kin
d of a root cellar, maybe?' Ki put her hand on the boy's shoulder and patted it. She could feel him vibrating with nervousness.

  She wondered what time of day it was. She had no idea of how long they had ridden, blinded and bound, nor how long it had taken her to work free of her bonds and get the bag off her head. It hadn't helped much. It was as dark without the sack as it had been with it.

  The smell of earth was all around them. She had already discovered that the ceiling of rough slab wood was but a handspan over her head, and that to touch it brought down a shower of soil. The chamber itself was small, no longer than a tall man lying down, and about half again as wide. Her jaws ached from chewing the rope from her wrists, and her wrists were chafed raw where the bonds had worked against them.

  'I'm thirsty,' Goat said suddenly.

  'Not much we can do about it,' Ki observed quietly. She was groping her way along the wall. There had to be a door, but if there was, she kept missing it. All her hands found were earth and occasional tangles of roots. Once she stepped in something that might have been vegetables gone bad. She certainly hoped that's what it was. And around the fourth corner and down that wall again. And here it was at last. The door. She had missed it before because she hadn't remembered how her head had been forced down before she'd been pushed in. It was a very short door, no more than waist high. She groped for a handle, found none, pushed on it. It didn't yield at all. Probably barred from the outside. She sat down slowly, put her back against it.

  'What are they going to do with us?' Goat sounded even shakier than he had earlier.

  'I don't know.' Ki pulled her knees up, rested her forehead against them. 'I don't even know what they want with us. If they just wanted to rob us, they should have taken the wagon and gone. Or killed us then. What are they keeping us locked up for? I can't think of any way we're useful to them.'