They could have travelled for half an hour or half a day as far as he knew. Later, he found out that he had ridden on the litter for just over an hour and a half before they reached. his rescuers' camp. He was lifted from the litter and placed on a bedroll in the shade under a stand of palm trees. The light filtered gently down through the fronds and he thought he had never been so comfortable in his life. The skin was sore on his face and arms, but more of the soothing balm eased the pain.
Tug stood nearby, watching him attentively.
'I'm fine, Tug,' he told the horse. He was relieved that his voice seemed to be getting back to normal. He was still a little hoarse but at least now he could form words properly. He smiled ruefully at the thought of the words 'a little hoarse'. He remembered making that joke with Arrow — it seemed like months ago.
He wondered where Arrow had got to. He hadn't seen the Arridi horse since he had woken again. He hoped he wasn't lost.
'Got to stop losing horses,' he said drowsily. 'Bad habit.' Then he slept.
***
Will woke from a deep, refreshing sleep. He was lying on his back, looking up at palm fronds.
He was in a large oasis. He could heard the sound of trickling water close by and the movement and voices of many people. As he swept his gaze around, he saw a camp of low tents had been set up. The oasis, and the camp, sprawled for several hundred metres in either direction. There was a large central pool of water, and other outlying pools and wells surrounding it. People moved about, carrying urns of water from the wells, preparing cooking fires or tending to the herds of goats, camels and horses that he could see. From the size of the camp, he estimated that there must be several hundred people, all dressed in long, flowing robes. The men wore kheffiyehs and the women had long scarves draped over their heads, leaving the face uncovered but protecting the head and neck.
'You're awake.'
The voice came from behind him and he twisted round to see the speaker. A small, slender woman, aged perhaps forty, was smiling down at him. She carried a flat basket of fruit and bread and meat, and a flask of water as well. She dropped gracefully to her knees beside him and set the basket down, gesturing for him to help himself.
'You should eat,' she said. 'I'm sure you haven't eaten in some time.'
He studied her for a moment or two. Her oval face was evenly featured and friendly. Her eyes were dark and there was an unmistakable light of humour in them. When she smiled, which she did now, the face seemed to be transformed into one of great beauty. Her skin was a light coffee colour. Her headscarf and robe were a bright yellow. There was something motherly and welcoming about her, he thought.
'Thank you,' he said. He took a piece of fruit and bit into it, feeling the juice spurt inside his mouth, bringing his own saliva alive. He revelled in the feeling, remembering how, just a short while ago, his tongue and throat had been swollen and dry. He had a vague memory of someone repeatedly placing the neck of a water skin to his mouth and admonishing him to drink, but slowly now while he had been sleeping. There was a dreamlike quality to it but he realised it had been real. His rescuers must have thoroughly rehydrated him without actually waking him.
He took another sip of water. He wanted to ask where he was but the question seemed so banal. Instead, he indicated the people moving through the camp.
'What people are these?' he asked. She smiled at him.
'We are the Khoresh Bedullin,' she told him. 'We are desert people. My name is Cielema.' She made the lips-brow-lips hand gesture he had seen Selethen use. He didn't feel up to carrying it off in response. Instead, he made an awkward half bow from his sitting position.
'How do you do, Cielema. My name is Will.'
'Be welcome to our camp, Will,' she said. As they were speaking, he had suddenly realised how hungry he was and he helped himself to some of the delicious flat bread in the basket. There were also slices of cold roast meat and he took one, wrapping it in the bread and taking a large bite. The meat was delicious, perfectly grilled so that it was still flowing with juices, with a slightly smoky taste from the fire and lightly flavoured with delicious spices. He chewed and swallowed, then tore off another huge piece of bread and a second slice of meat, filling his mouth and chewing rapturously. Cielema smiled gently.
'There can't be too much wrong with any young man with such an appetite,' she said and he hesitated, thinking that perhaps he had shown bad manners in wolfing his food this way. She laughed and made a gesture for him to continue.
'You're hungry,' she said. 'And such enthusiasm is a compliment to my cooking.'
Gratefully, he ate more of the food. When the pangs of hunger were stilled, he brushed crumbs off his lap and looked around again.
'The man who found me,' he asked. 'Where is he?'
She gestured to the middle of the camp site. He realised that he had been placed on the fringe of the camp, probably to assure his uninterrupted rest.
'That was Umar ib'n Talud,' she told him. 'He's surely involved in very weighty affairs right now. He is our Aseikh.'
She saw the incomprehension in his eyes and explained further. 'Aseikh is our word for leader. He is the headman of the Khoresh Bedullin people. He's also my husband,' she added. 'And he knows that our tent needs mending and that I have a carpet that needs beating. This is why he is surely involved in weighty affairs right now.'
The hint of a smile touched her mouth. Will had the feeling that an Aseikh might be the leader of his people but, like husbands the world over, he answered to the ultimate authority of his wife.
'I would like to thank him,' he said and she nodded agreement.
'I'm sure he would enjoy that too.'
* * *
Chapter 28
* * *
'These Tualaghi are good at this,' Gilan said as he and Halt swung back into their respective saddles. Selethen was seated on his own mount, waiting to hear what the Rangers had found.
It was the fifth time that afternoon that they had lost the trail left by the Tualaghi war party ahead of them, and had to cast around on foot for some faint sign showing the direction they had taken.
Halt grunted in reply as they headed out again. On the first day, the Tualaghi had pushed on without making any attempt to hide their progress. But after that, they had begun to cover their tracks, leaving a small party to follow behind and obliterate the signs left by the main group as they gradually changed direction. Of course, they couldn't manage to remove every trace of their passing, but only trackers with the skill of Halt and Gilan would see the faint signs remaining.
'This is how it's been any time we've tried to follow them,' Selethen said. 'We'd see their trail clearly for a while, then they would simply disappear.'
'Makes sense,' Halt told them. 'You need daylight to cover tracks like this, just as we need daylight to follow them. The first day, they'd be keen to put as many kilometres behind them as possible. My guess is they ride out before dawn and keep pushing till the middle of the day. Then they rest and continue on in the late afternoon and evening. Then, when they've established a lead over their pursuers, they start all this zigzagging and track covering.' He looked at Selethen. 'That's when your trackers lose the trail and you have to give up,' he said. Selethen nodded glumly.
'At least this is slowing them down,' Gilan put in.
Halt nodded. 'They have to travel in daylight, the same as we do. And they're not taking a direct route. My guess is we've closed the gap by half a day.'
The two Rangers had been able to cut a few corners in their pursuit. It had quickly become apparent that the Tualaghi, perhaps overconfident in their past ability to confuse Arridi pursuers, had fallen into a pattern of false trails and zigzags. After several hours, the pattern had become predictable and Gilan and Halt had been able to ignore several of the false trails and keep on a more direct route, picking up the real trail some kilometres further on. It had also quickly become apparent that when they laid a false trail, they would take less effort to cover it. They we
re good, as Gilan had noted. But they lacked the important element of subtlety.
Of course, it helped that Halt and Gilan could work as a team. When they reached a diversion, Gilan would follow it for a short time, as insurance, while Halt led the Arridi party along the path the enemy had been taking previously. The fact that the pursuing party was travelling in the early morning or late afternoon was another piece of luck. The oblique, low angle light made it easier to sight the disturbances and faint hoof prints left in the thin sand covering the desert.
So far, whenever they had adopted this tactic, they had rediscovered the real trail within a few kilometres, at which point Gilan would rejoin them. Fortunately, the terrain was flat and they were able to maintain line of sight communication for considerable distances.
As Halt had said, this had put them half a day closer to the Tualaghi. But he wanted to get closer still. He looked up at the sun, shading his eyes with his hand. It was getting close to the middle of the day, when they'd have to rest from the heat.
'I'm thinking,' he said to Selethen, 'that this afternoon, the three of us might push on ahead. We'll move more quickly that way and we can leave clear signs for the rest of the party to follow. I want to get close enough by tomorrow night for Gilan to take a look at these Tualaghi.'
Selethen nodded agreement. The suggestion made sense. With a party of fifty men, they were limited by the slowest horse in the group. And the continual stop-start nature of their progress, when Halt and Gilan had to search for tracks on the hard ground, added to the time they were taking. Each time they stopped, it took that much longer to reassemble a large party and get it under way again. There was always a girth to be tightened, a stone in a horse's hoof, a piece of equipment needing adjustment, another drink to be taken from a water skin. It might only be a few minutes here and there but it all added up over a day.
'We'll keep going for a few more kilometres,' he said, is 'then we'll rest. This afternoon, the three of us will go on ahead.'
It was a significant indication of the change in their relationship, Halt thought. After his initial suspicions at the scene of the massacre, the Wakir had placed his trust in the two Rangers to guide his party. Now he was willing to isolate himself from his own men and ride ahead with Halt and Gilan.
For his part, the Wakir felt a growing satisfaction at the prospect of dealing a telling blow to the Tualaghi tribesmen. The nomads knew that he had no Bedullin trackers working with him and they were overconfident, as the bearded Ranger had explained. If he and his warriors were able to stage a surprise attack sometime in the next few days, the old enemy might not be so ready to raid in future with their apparent ability to disappear into the desert wasteland undermined. They would never know how he managed to track them across the desert and he would make sure the knowledge never reached them.
He was in some awe of the ability of the two northerners to read signs on the ground. They had shown him several times what they were looking for, and what they sighted: a faint indentation in a softer piece of sand; a slight scrape of a hoof on a piece of stony ground; a thread from a saddle blanket or robe caught on one of the ever-present scrubby bushes. Tiny signs that he would never notice. Yet their keen eyes read them as if the facts were written on the ground in large letters. He also reflected wryly on his willingness to ride off alone with them. He had been tempted to take one or two of his troops as well. But he rejected the notion. It was important, he felt, to show these men that he trusted them.
Gilan was swinging down from the saddle again and running a few paces ahead, staring down at the ground. His bay horse followed obediently behind him, saving him the time needed to run back and remount. The young Ranger reminded Selethen of a searching hound with his energy and eagerness to follow the trail of the Tualaghi.
'This way,' he was calling, pointing slightly to the left, and the Arridi party swung their horses to follow the direction he had indicated.
***
After resting through the middle of the day, Selethen and the two Rangers moved ahead of the main party, having arranged to leave signs behind for the others to follow. At every change in direction, they would scrape a large arrow in the ground. Or, if the ground were too hard, they would form an arrow with stones and rocks.
After the first two hours, it was obvious that they were moving more quickly than Selethen's troopers. The small cloud of dust raised by the body of horsemen was barely visible on the horizon. Halt frowned thoughtfully as he studied it.
'Best keep that in mind when we get within striking distance,' he said. 'We don't want them to know we're behind them.'
They pushed on through the late afternoon, until the sun was virtually on the western horizon and the light was too uncertain for tracking. Selethen had noticed that the Rangers had increased their pace, sometimes trotting and even cantering when the trail was easier to follow. The sturdy horses they rode showed no discomfort at travelling faster than the slow walk they had been reduced to formerly. His own mount was unbothered by the change in pace, but he was a thoroughbred, from a long line of some of the finest horses in Arridi. Selethen knew that some of the lesser horses ridden by his troopers would have baulked at the increased tempo and he looked more carefully at the Ranger's shaggy mounts. Alongside his beautifully formed and groomed Arridi horse they appeared nondescript and shabby. But they had enormous endurance and amazing speed, he thought. In the short term, he believed that his stallion, Lord of the Sun, would probably outpace them. But then their ability to maintain speed kilometre after kilometre would probably begin to tell.
Perhaps I should find out more about these horses, he thought, as he considered the advantages of having cavalry equipped with such uniformly fine mounts.
The main party was well out of sight by the time the three stopped for the night.
They unsaddled, tended to the horses and made camp. Selethen set about gathering firewood for a small signal fire. Halt and Gilan moved to help him but he waved them aside.
'You've been working all day,' he said. 'I've been a passenger.'
He saw the slightly surprised look that passed between them and felt secretly pleased that he had earned their gratitude and, perhaps, a little respect. They were not men to stand on ceremony, he thought, and they knew that true authority came from sharing the hard work, not attempting to place oneself above it. He soon had a fire going and it threw a bright circle of light around them. It would be visible in the darkness for quite a distance, he knew. The following party would have no trouble finding them in the dark.
'That's another thing we'll have to watch as we get closer,' Halt said. From five or six kilometres away, the fire would be a bright pinpoint. And before the moon rose, its glow might well be visible in the sky from much further away.
They ate when, the main party finally joined them, three hours after nightfall. As the troops relaxed after their meal, drinking coffee and talking quietly, Selethen moved among them, as a good commander should. He would stop by each small group, dropping to one knee and talking quietly, appraising them of the progress made during the day, checking to see if they or their mounts were having any problems.
Halt and Gilan had been joined by Svengal and the other Araluans. They watched Selethen approvingly as they enjoyed the rich Arridi coffee. They knew the Wakir must be tired and longing to sprawl comfortably on the still-warm ground with a cup of coffee. But he continued to move among his men, with a joke here for an old companion or a word of advice or concern there for a young recruit.
Finally, the tall, white-robed figure completed his rounds. Somewhat to their surprise, he walked towards the spot where they were sitting.
'May I join you?' he said.
Halt made a welcoming gesture. 'Please do.'
Horace began to scramble to his feet. 'I'll get you a cup of coffee,' he said, but Selethen waved him back down.
'Sidar will see to that,' he replied and they realised that one of the troopers, anticipating his leader's needs, was bringing a
cup from the single small fire. As Selethen sat down, he sighed contentedly, then accepted the cup from his soldier.
He sipped deeply, then sighed again — the contented sigh that comes from sore, tired muscles that are finally allowed to rest.
'What would we do without kafay?' he asked them, using the Arridi name, and the original name, for the drink.
'If you're a Ranger, very little,' Horace replied and they all grinned. Selethen had already observed that the Rangers were as keen on the drink as any Arridi. The tall warrior seemed to share the same near-addiction, whereas the Skandian usually grumbled over his coffee in the evening, wishing instead for the dark ale of his homeland. As far as Svengal was concerned, that was the only beverage worth drinking after a long day.
'Don't know how you all keep going without a good drink of ale,' he said. 'Settles the mind in the evening, ale does.'
Evanlyn smiled at him.. 'Feeling homesick, Svengal?' she asked. The big pirate studied her for a moment, considering his reply.
'To tell the truth, your majesty,' he said, 'I'm not built for this climate.'
Svengal insisted on calling Evanlyn your majesty. This was in spite of the fact that she had asked him repeatedly to call her Evanlyn or Cassandra. She had even pointed out that as a princess, she should correctly be addressed as your highness, not your majesty. But Svengal persisted. She suspected that it was a not-too-subtle form of Skandian leg-pull and an assertion of the Skandian egalitarianism that rejected the idea of royal lineage and hereditary kings pre-destined to rule by the mere fact of their birth. Skandians elected their leaders for their ability and popularity, she knew. And, looking back on some of the kings that Araluen had put up with in its history, she wasn't altogether sure that the Skandians didn't have the better idea.
ERAK'S RANSOM Page 19
