Oathblood v(vah-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  Right, and how do I look Tilden in the face again, if all I do is that? Hellfires, how do I look at myself in the mirror? No way am I going to abandon them, and neither is Keth, and with Need to guide us, we're the best chance those girls have got.

  She beat Keth to the riding arena by a few moments, but no more -- just long enough to see with relief that Jadrie and the boys had gotten things exactly right--

  And that Jadrie and her brothers were sitting on their own horses, with packs tied on behind that were identical in every way to the packs she and Keth were taking.

  Her mind hadn't quite grasped that, when Jadrek and Kethry reached the door of the arena. Jadrek was the first to react in any kind of sensible fashion.

  "Just what do you children think you're doing?" he thundered, in his best wrath-of-the-gods voice.

  The boys winced a little, but Jadrie was unimpressed. "We're going with you," she stated flatly. "You need us."

  Tarma covered the distance between herself and Jadrie in a mere blink of an eye, grabbing Jadrie's ankle and looking into her eyes with a glare that full grown men could not face. "Jadrie," she said, her harsh voice made even harsher with anger. "This is not a game. And it's no time for playing stupid tricks."

  To her surprise, Jadrie did not back down, though tears of anger and frustration started from her eyes -- anger at being misjudged, and frustration at being thought a mere child with no understanding. "Don't you think I know that?" she cried. "Don't you think Lyam and Laryn do? They heard you, heard you telling Mummy and Da what went wrong, and they came to tell me! It's Kira and Meri who are in trouble, and I swore to help them, Clanmother, I swore it, sword and hand!"

  The words hit Tarma like a blow to the heart, and she cursed under her breath.

  She swore the oath. Damn her, she's of the blood and she swore the oath to her friends. It's sacred; she knows it and I know it and the Star-Eyed knows it. That was the only thing that could have persuaded her to allow Jadrie to come within a thousand leagues of this rescue mission -- and how had this infuriating little Clanswoman known it? And why did she swear the Oath of Sword and Hand to a couple of outClan children?

  Kethry and Jadrek had been among the Shin'a'in long enough to know how serious the Oath was -- and what were they supposed to do? Tell Jadrie that she was too young to know what she was doing, when she plainly had? Tell her that oaths sworn by not-so-little girls didn't count? What kind of an idiot would do that to a child?

  What kind of idiot would make a child into an oathbreaker?

  Tarma turned, and saw the same conflicts warring within Jadrek and Kethry. Finally, it was Kethry who spoke.

  "You're her teacher," Kethry said flatly. "Can she help?"

  Tarma closed her eyes, and tried to forget that the youngster before her was the firstborn of her best friends, the firstborn of Tale'sedrin. Jadrie was no younger than many Shin'a'in children on patrol now at the edge of the Plains, or guarding herds from predators, or performing any one of a number of "adult" tasks. She was as well-trained, or better, than all of them. "Yes," she said finally, flatly. "She has the skills to be very useful."

  She opened her eyes, and saw fear and pride warring in her friends' faces, and it was Jadrek who looked up at Jadrie, and said, "Very well. Because you swore an oath, you can go."

  Jadrie had the good manners not to cheer, but the twins didn't. And Jadrek cut them off.

  "But you two didn't swear any oaths, and you are staying here!" he barked.

  "That's an order," Kethry added in a voice of steel.

  "And if you dare to try and follow, you lose the use of your horses for the rest of the year."

  That was more than enough threat to keep them safely behind, as their stricken looks proved. Crestfallen, the boys slid off their horses, and meekly led them back into the stable.

  Kethry turned to her daughter, and still using that same cold voice, addressed her in a way that made her turn a little pale. "I am not pleased with this," she told the girl. "I am not particularly pleased that you decided to use an oath that serious without thinking of the consequences. You have a chance to redeem yourself if you follow every order we give you to the letter, with no argument, and no hesitation. If you cannot keep up, you will return home on your own; we won't have time to take you back. This is going to be the hardest thing you have ever done, and there will be no room for thoughtless acts. I am not your mother on this trip; Tarma is not your foster mother. We are your commanders, and if you make a mistake, it could be fatal, not just for you, but for all of us. If there is fighting, you will stay clear unless otherwise ordered. If you bring danger on us, we will save you if we can, but it is not only possible but likely that we cannot. Is that understood?"

  Clearly this was a side of her mother that Jadrie had never seen before. She was as pale as a spirit, but her chin was set firmly, and she replied in a voice that was as steady as Tarma could have wished. "Perfectly, commander."

  Now Kethry looked at Tarma. "Let's get in the saddle and get moving; we'll meet Warrl on the way, and save him a little running. We need all the daylight we can get."

  "Right." Tarma heaved herself up into Hellsbane's saddle, and Kethry got herself in place on Ironheart, leaning down to kiss her husband when she was secure.

  "Go-" he urged. "I'll take care of things here -- as soon as the rest get back, I'll send Ikan up to Tilden; better this comes from a friend than a strange messenger."

  She needed no more urging than that, and neither did Tarma; lifting the reins, the two battlesteeds loped out into the gray light of afternoon, followed by a much subdued Jadrie on her mare.

  * * *

  Kira had created plenty of daydreams about bandit raids and kidnappers, and had imagined herself being heroic and triumphant in all of them, but when attackers really struck, it wasn't anything like her daydreams.

  It was all so sudden she barely had time to react, much less act in a heroic fashion. The guards were all calm, talking and joking, and no one was at all wary and watchful. She had the impression that this had been considered a "soft" job, and the men with her were very much envied by their peers. There was no indication that there was anything to be worried about.

  The very first sign that something was wrong was when one of the more nervous horses stopped, snorted, and twitched his ears forward.

  There was no other warning. Before even the horse's rider had a chance to do anything, a guard at the front of the escort suddenly screamed and fell off his horse.

  For all of her reading, this was the first time that Kira had ever seen a man die, and this one was dying right in front of her; at first, it didn't seem real. Before she could do more than stare stupidly at the arrow in his back and the spreading scarlet stain in the snow as he writhed there, two more of the guards made horrid gurgling sounds and fell off, too, with arrows sticking out of their throats.

  She sat there on her fat little pony, paralyzed with a mixture of fear and horror, wanting to throw up and run away at the same time. The only thing that came into her mind was that there was never any blood in her daydreams....

  Meri screamed, startling her out of her shock, at about the same time as chaos erupted all around them.

  Their ponies were shoved aside by more of their guards, as the men made a wall of themselves around their charges. But that wall didn't last long; ignoring armored men, the attackers cut down the horses with their arrows, sending screaming animals to drop under their riders. Behind the volley of arrows came a charge, then there were frantically running men and horses, screaming and shouting, and swords cutting everywhere. Confused and frightened, the pony only thought to flee; he bolted between two screeching, bleeding horses into the first open space he saw.

  Suddenly she was sitting on her pony in the middle of the open road, and there wasn't anybody standing protectively between her and a rough-clad man who was riding straight for her.

  She thought, belatedly, of her knife at her belt -- her pony tried to bolt as she gave him confus
ed signals -- then the stranger was right on top of her. He snatched her out of her saddle with an impact that drove all the breath out of her and made her see stars.

  He paused just long enough to rob her of her knife, then dumped her across the front of his saddle, facedown -- as the horse galloped off, she thought she was going to be sick. The pommel of his saddle jolted into her stomach, and she had a terrible time just getting a full breath between jolts. The whole world was reduced to lashing hair and snow-covered ground, and the pain of an ever-increasing number of bruises.

  The next thing she knew, he'd stopped as abruptly as he'd started. He grabbed her under the arms before she got a breath, and threw her toward a -- wagon? Whatever, she was flying through the air, straight for it. Before she had time to brace herself, she landed inside a darkened boxlike structure, and hit her head against the wooden floor. Meri landed on top of her in the next moment, then something bulky and heavy flew in after them. The door they'd been tossed through slammed shut, there was the sound of a bar dropping in place over the door. Before either of them could move, the box began jolting around, bouncing and bruising them both unmercifully to the sound of wheels and galloping hooves.

  We're in a wagon. A prison-wagon, or a treasure-wagon, they're about the same-

  That was all the tiny, still-sane part of her could think, as she and Meri clung to each other, and screamed and cried until they were hoarse, sore of eye and of throat, as well as battered and bruised.

  Eventually they managed to brace themselves so that they weren't bouncing around quite so badly, and long after they'd cried themselves out, the wagon finally slowed to a reasonable pace.

  "What happened?" Meri asked tearfully, in a hoarse whisper.

  "I th-think we've been kidnapped," Kira stammered back.

  "But-why?" Meri wailed. "Who would want to kidnap us?"

  Kira ignored that question; obviously their father was under the impression that someone would want to, or he wouldn't have sent guards to escort them home for the holidays. She knew, beneath her own fright and nausea, that somehow she would have to come up with better questions than that. You had to have questions before you could have answers -- and oh, she needed answers now!

  A voice out of memory interrupted her chaotic, fear-filled rambling.

  "Think things through."

  She started; for a moment the memory of Tarma's voice was so clear that it seemed as if she'd really heard the words.

  "We have to think, Meri," she whispered fiercely. "Like Tarma always says." She screwed up her face in concentration, and tried to dredge up other memories that might help.

  "Start with what you know, and go on to what your resources are. Don't waste the first few moments on speculation."

  She licked her lips. What she knew -- well, they'd been kidnapped. They were in a wagon, being hauled rapidly away from where they'd been taken. And she knew that sooner or later, someone would come looking for them.

  How soon? No, that's a speculation. There was nothing to tell her who it was that held them captive. But at the very least, she should begin by examining their prison.

  There wasn't much to examine; there was enough room on the floor for both girls to stretch out at full-length, but not much more than that. The walls were straight and unadorned, and would permit an adult to stand erect. There were no windows, no benches to sit on, but light did leak in through a couple of chinks and knotholes. No help there.

  She examined the bulky objects that had been tossed in after them by touch, and discovered to her joy that it was their packs! But it was obvious that they'd been opened, and a quick feel through both proved that nothing in the way of a weapon had been left to them, not even a pair of Meri's scissors. She still had the tiny knife in her boot, but it wouldn't be of much use.

  Resources. Clothing, Meri's embroidery, beads and jewelry they didn't steal, and my journal. I suppose we could use drawstrings to strangle someone, provided he held still and cooperated-

  She stifled a hysterical laugh. Concentrate! What came next?

  "Father will send someone to find us, won't he?" Meri asked, her voice trembling just a little.

  "Once he knows we're gone. If he can find us." There didn't seem any point in telling her twin less than the truth. "That could be hard. I don't know where they're taking us, but it's probably far away. And they've got us locked up in this wagon, I bet, so we don't attract attention. If they get onto a trade road, it's going to be awfully hard to track us."

  Meri took a shuddering breath, but kept herself under control. "Couldn't we -- leave a trail of something? Like the goose-girl and her pocket of pebbles?"

  Kira almost dismissed that as desperate babbling, but something in her seized on the idea. A trail -- maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. There was a chink in the floor, and they could drop something small out of it without much trouble. But what? And how could they keep what they dropped from being seen by their captors? Almost anything they dropped would stand out in the snow--

  --snow. White snow. White silk! Silver beads!

  "Meri, I need the white silk you got from Jadrie, and the silver beads," Kira said urgently. "Can you find it in here?" She shoved Meri's pack over to her, and hoped that the silks hadn't been looted.

  "I think so." Meri rummaged around in her pack in the semidarkness, and finally came up with a handful of skeins of thread that shone pale as moonlight in her hand, and a little box that rattled. "Here. What are you going to do?"

  "Leave a trail for people to follow," Kira replied, carefully finding the end of one of the skeins, then snipping off a short piece with her tiny knife. "They should have dogs. They might have Warrl! When they find this silk, they'll know it's us."

  Carefully, she fed the silk through the chink, doing her best to keep it from snagging on a splinter. It took three tries, and three pieces, before she hit on the idea of making a funnel with a piece of paper from her journal, but at last she got one to drop all the way through.

  Meanwhile, she kept thinking. "We've got to figure out a way to slow everything down," she said, as she continued to thread bits of silk through the wooden floor, alternating the silk with silver beads. "Think, Meri! What can we do to make it hard for these people?"

  "Should we try to run away when they take us out?" Meri asked doubtfully.

  "They're a lot bigger than we are, and there's more of them," Kira reminded her. "And I don't think they care if we get hurt a little." Or even a lot. "Besides," she continued, "If we try to run away, they won't ever let us out again."

  "Could we do something to the horses?"

  "Only if they let us get near them." Kira thought about it a moment, pondering the possibilities of burrs under saddles, or crystal beads lodged in hooves, then shook her head regretfully. "I don't think they're going to do that. If we were bigger, we could probably loosen the wheels on the wagon or something -- if we had wine we could get them all drunk-"

  Meri thought for a while longer, then said, reluctantly, "What if we got sick? Wouldn't they have to stop so we wouldn't die?"

  "They'll know if we aren't really sick, and anyway, they could just leave us in the wagon."

  "Not--" Meri bit her lip, and Kira could tell her twin was blushing by the tone of her voice. "Not if it's -- stomach troubles. And lower."

  "Stomach grippe? What are you thinking of?" Kira asked sharply.

  "Remember my black beads? The ones Kethry told me never to let the baby play with, because they'd make him sick? They took my good jewels, but not those." Meri rummaged in her pack again, and came up with three long ropes of small, dark beads. "They're not really beads, they're seeds, and Jadrek helped me to find out what they were. They don't taste like anything, and if we eat three or four, we'll get sick. Then they'll have to stop to let us -- be sick. Won't they?"

  Kira looked at her twin with sudden admirahon. I would be willing to get sick to slow everything up-but I wouldn't have thought Meri would! "I think so," she said, with another thought coming into h
er mind -- but one she would save, until she had a better idea of what their situation was. "It's worth a try."

  * * *

  Blood everywhere. I'd thought I would never have to deal with a situation like this one again. Tarma surveyed the carnage impassively, but with a sinking feeling in her heart. The bodies of the ten guards that had lately left the school with Meri and Kira now sprawled in ungainly poses over about a quarter of an acre of trampled snow. Three were down on the road itself, four lay in a ragged line under their dead and fallen horses and had clearly never gotten the chance to struggle free before they, too, were killed, and the remaining three were in a line behind them, where they had made a final stand afoot. Blood stained the white snow red everywhere, and liberal trails of more blood heading off to the south and west showed that the kidnappers had not gotten away completely unscathed.