Oathblood v(vah-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  The only man totally unaffected was the leader, probably because he had his own private stock of food, and now Kira got a good look at him. There wasn't much that was memorable about him; of average height, weight, and coloring, brown hair and brown eyes, and only his air of authority and the fine cut and fabric of his otherwise plain garments marked him as different. Even so, there was no way to tell that he wasn't what he seemed, either a prosperous merchant, or some other well-off professional, such as a sheriff or an alderman. At the moment, he scowled so furiously that Kira was very glad she wasn't under his command. He was taking the illness of his men very personally, as if they were doing it to make trouble just for him.

  She looked around, making certain that she didn't attract attention to herself by moving too much, but there wasn't much that was memorable about this place. Just like the last spot, they had stopped in a cleared place at the side of the road, this time in a little depression between two hills. She had no idea where they were, and there was no sign of any habitation, not even a thin stream of smoke rising from some far-off farmhouse chimney. There were low, scrubby trees and thick bushes, a thin cover of ankle-deep snow, and not much else. The hills themselves were bare of significant cover, which would give anyone atop one a good view of the countryside. She wondered if any of the men would have the strength to climb up there to stand sentry, and privately doubted it.

  If I just had some idea where to go, we might be able to get away tonight, she thought with rising hope. Maybe if we just stuck to the road, we'd be able to find an inn or a farm or something....

  A hint of movement atop the hill to their rear caught Kira's eye, and she withdrew a little into the wagon so the leader of their kidnappers wouldn't see her interest. She waited to see if something appeared again. She tried to tell herself that it was only a far-off animal, perhaps a wild cow or donkey; tried not to get her hopes up too much. But she thought there had been something familiar in that half-seen shape and the way it had moved.

  Would it appear again, or was it just a trick of her eyes and the hope that someone would come to save them? As she watched, holding her breath, that half-familiar silhouette did appear, just for a moment, leaping up onto the top of the hill and back down again. Her heart jumped into her throat, and when it happened a third time and she was sure of what she'd seen, she stuffed her fist into her mouth to stifle an inadvertent cry of joy that would surely have betrayed them.

  No sound escaped, but Meri grabbed her shoulder, seeing her excitement. She motioned for silence, curled up into the fur and Meri cuddled up with her, then she pulled the fur over their heads to muffle her whispers. She didn't dare take a chance that there might be someone near enough to the wagon to overhear them.

  "Warrl's out there," she hissed. "I saw him." That was all Meri had to hear; she knew what it meant. Warrl meant Tarma, and Tarma meant Kethry. If anyone could get them out of this, it would be their teachers! Meri hugged her hard in a fit of repressed excitement.

  "Let's see if they'll let us use the bushes," Meri hissed. "That way you -- know will see us and know we're all right, and they'll know we're in the wagon. If we get locked in tonight, they'll know where we are." Now that was a good thought, and after a moment or two to make sure she wasn't going to betray herself by looking healthy and excited, Kira went to the door of the wagon and slowly lowered herself to the ground. Actually, her stomach muscles still ached, and she was so stiff from being cramped up on the floor of the wagon that she didn't have to feign that much.

  No one said anything, and Meri followed her. Holding onto each other like a pair of feeble old women, keeping their eyes on the ground and avoiding looking at anyone or anything, they moved cautiously toward a stand of the thick evergreens they'd used this morning. They stayed there just long enough to seem convincing, then, with their heads still down, plodded wearily back to the wagon.

  We're such meek, obedient little things -- and sick, very sick. We're no threat, we'll be no trouble, we're harmless, absolutely harmless.

  Suddenly there was a pair of shiny, expensive black boots between them and the wagon.

  Kira raised her eyes, slowly. In the boot were legs, clad in fine woolen trews of charcoal gray. The legs merged into a torso wrapped in a handsome fur-lined cape of matching wool. Her eyes traveled slowly up the chest to the face, a face with angry eyes and a bitter mouth, wearing a scowl that froze the blood in her veins.

  The man who was responsible for their current predicament had taken an interest in them, and it wasn't out of concern for their health.

  She felt blood draining out of her face, and had the irrelevant thought that at least she wouldn't have to try and feign being pale and ill. Her knees shook so hard that she was afraid they might to go jelly at any moment. What did he want? Why was he looking at them like that? Surely he didn't suspect that she had poisoned the food! After all, she and Meri had been the very first to be ill, and their "symptoms" were the same as the men's.

  She felt herself starring to shake as those eyes, so full of anger, looked her over as if she was a particularly shabby bit of merchandise that he might keep or might discard.

  She didn't want to move, didn't want to do anything that would cause him to focus on her. Nevertheless, she had a duty; she interposed herself between the man and Meri, and met his cold, cold eyes.

  He spat something that could only have been a curse, though it was not in a language that Kira knew. She stood her ground, still looking up at him, but doing her best to look fragile and pathetic, rather than combative. "Fragile and pathetic," wasn't her strong suit, but she leaned heavily on remembering times when Meri had managed to get out of trouble by doing just that. How had she looked? What had her expression been? Meri was better at this than she was....

  She opened her eyes as wide as they would go, let her lower lip pout out a little and tremble, and thought desperately sad thoughts -- that they might never see home again, or the school, the horrible fight, how afraid she was. The last wasn't very hard to do, with that awful man glaring at them as if he held them personally responsible for everything that was going wrong.

  Of course they were, but that was beside the point. I need to cry, but not blubber. A runny nose and red face is just going to disgust him. Tears, but artistic ones. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she was certain of it. By widening her eyes and tilting her head so that the dry breeze hit them, she managed to get them to water, which would pass very nicely for tears.

  One huge, fat drop rolled down her right cheek. Two more followed, one on the left and another on the right.

  He was unmoved. She sniffed delicately, and another couple of tears coursed in the paths of the others. He was never going to feel sorry for them, but maybe, maybe, she might awaken a tiny twinge of shame for picking on two little girls and making them miserable. She let the tears flow, keeping her eyes glued to his the entire time.

  It seemed to work. He cursed again, and looked away -- then angrily turned and stalked toward on of his men that was still standing. For a moment Kira couldn't move, and shook all over. In his anger at being delayed, he was looking for some ready target to discharge that anger on. And she sensed that he might be rethinking his plans to match the current conditions.

  He was thinking about doing something awful. To us. Oh, Goddess, that was too close....

  From the way her twin sister was shivering, Meri also knew how close it had been.

  Finally, when she figured she could make her legs move without collapsing, she led Meri back into the wagon and they climbed slowly in, to hide in their fur robe. Maybe if they stayed out of sight and completely quiet, he'd forget about them for now.

  * * *

  The view from the top of the hill was excellent, and it was even possible to hear a certain amount of sound from the camp below. Scrubby brush made fine cover to a pair of experienced (if out-of-practice) scouts. "They aren't going anywhere," Tarma said at last, as she watched the leader pitch his own damned tent. "Whatever's made
them sick, it's keeping them here until tomorrow at best, and their commander is furious. And look at those three-" she pointed her chin at three recumbent forms wrapped in sleeping rolls. "They haven't moved at all since their last bout. I think they're going to need to sleep until noon tomorrow at the earliest."

  "Mmm," Kethry agreed, watching the activity below. For two former scouts of their experience, this surveillance was routine; although a civilian would have said that these hilltops were barren, there was more than enough cover for them to hide in.

  Everything was going exceptionally well, all things considered. The twins had seen Warrl, as Tarma had hoped they would when the door of the wagon eased open. Smart of them, to go out as if they needed to relieve themselves, but do nothing. That was as clear a sign that they knew help was out here as if they'd shouted and waved.

  Now -- how to separate out the kidnappers? Warrl's estimate appeared to be correct, and twenty was far too many for two women and a kyree to take on. No matter how sick they appeared to be, most of them were not as depleted as the three comatose beside the fire. If they thought they were under attack, it would be amazing how quickly they would recover.

  "If this was anywhere near a city, I'd be tempted to send you down there to shake your hips at them and lure them into the bushes one at a time, Keth," she murmured.

  Kethry snorted. "At my age? I'd need a hell of a glamour to pull that off," she retorted. "You'd better think of something else to lure them off. Even at my youthful best, I was never so stunning that men would chase after me with all the blood gone from their brains into their-"

  She stopped, and something in the silence made Tarma turn her head the little it took to see her face.

  It was dead white.

  What would turn her that white? There's nothing going on down in the camp ... if must be what we were talking about. How to lure the men out one at a time. And -- oh-- "You know what will get them to hare off," Tarma said instantly, as she saw the thought, too. "We'd have to wait until after dark, though."

  Kethry closed her eyes and clenched her jaw; this had to seem like one of her worst nightmares come true. But Tarma didn't see that they had any better options.

  "Warrl will be with her," Tarma reminded her. "You don't think I'd send her down there without him, do you? And she won't be that far from you -- and she's not only female, she's your daughter. If Need won't fight for her, I'll eat her scabbard without sauce."

  By now Jadrie must have known something was up, but she hadn't translated it for herself. It was a wonder she wasn't fidgeting right out of her clothes.

  "And that's the only reason I'd let her." Kethry let out the breath she'd been holding in a long hiss, and opened her eyes again. She looked at Tarma, doing her best to mask her fear, and failing completely. "You tell her; you're her teacher, and her commander."

  "Tell me what?" Jadrie whispered, a whisper as tense and electric as a shout.

  "You have a task, and it isn't to go back up the road and wait," Tarma said evenly, without removing her eyes from Kethry's. "We're going to need you to do something only you can do. We have to lure the men down there out one at a time, and for that we'll need bait. You're the bait."

  "Me?" Jadrie squeaked, her eyes huge and round. "What about an illusion? Can't-"

  "I think the man leading this group is a mage," Kethry said evenly. "And we don't want to give our presence away by using magic unless we absolutely have to."

  Tarma nodded. "You're going to make them think that either Kira or Meri is trying to run away. In the dark, none of those men will realize that you're bigger and older than the twins. All they'll see is a child trying to sneak through the underbrush." She saw the reasonable doubt in her pupil's eyes, and was pleased with it. "I'll explain later in detail why we think that the men will just chase after you instead of shouting for help; just trust that we're sure enough to bet our lives on it. It has to be you; neither of us is small enough to pull off a convincing imitation of a child."

  There was a long silence, then Jadrie nodded. "All right," she whispered. "Tell me what I'll be doing."

  * * *

  Kira and Meri stayed hidden in the wagon as their kidnappers slowly recovered. By nightfall the worst of their sickness was over, and although they probably felt weak as kittens and wanted to sleep for days, they weren't losing everything they put into their stomachs. The leader stopped cursing, and someone managed to get a pot of broth started. Both girls sighed, and relaxed a little.

  Kira had been afraid that their plan was going badly awry; after that single encounter in the snow, she had known beyond a shadow of doubt that if the kidnappers' plot looked in danger of falling apart, the leader would never hesitate to kill both of them.

  But now it was getting increasingly urgent that they actually do what they'd pretended to earlier. Finally, a long, weary time after full darkness fell, they couldn't wait any longer.

  No one stopped them, no one said anything to them -- in fact, as they crossed the snow, hand in hand, the camp seemed far too quiet.

  It made Kira, at least, very nervous, and if she hadn't had to go so badly, she'd have turned around and scuttled back to the dubious safety of the wagon. When they'd finished, they moved off a little deeper into the bushes, reluctant to traverse the dangerously open ground of the camp again. The darkness and the concealing brush were very tempting, as was the knowledge that there was help waiting out there.

  "Twin-" whispered Meri, "I wonder if we could get away while they're so sick-"

  "That," said a Jkathan-accented voice, "would be a very bad idea, little child."

  They whirled as one, and a shadow separated itself from the darker shadows behind them, taking on man-shape until it moved to where light shone on its face. Kira's face burned at the notion that he had been watching them all this time.

  "Then again," the leader continued, "if I were to rid myself of you troublesome little creatures right here, no one would ever know what I had done until spring. And by then, of course, it would be too late, I would be well away, and at least part of my plans would have been salvaged."

  Once again, Kira interposed herself between the man and her twin, although this time she made no effort whatsoever to look frail and pathetic. She felt detached from herself, and she watched everything he did as well as what he said, trying to predict what he was going to do in the next moment. What could she say or do that would make him leave them alone? She knew that all she needed was to buy enough time-

  "You won't get a ransom without us alive," Kira said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Father isn't stupid, and he isn't going to send ransom money without seeing us alive. You know that if you get rid of us, your men will know that, too, and they'll figure there's nothing to get a share of. They won't like that, and there's twenty of them and only one of you, and you've been awful mean to them."

  "Threatening me with the revolt of my own men?" The man sounded surprised, and his voice lost that faint trace of cruel amusement. "You're more dangerous than I thought." His tone hardened and took on an edge Kira would only recognize later, much later, when she encountered another man the world called "fanatic."

  "As it happens, ransom is the least of my interests. My intention is to prevent your filthy out-land sister from sullying the purity of the Blood Royal by wedding the Prince of our land. Ransom is secondary, and always has been, a mere convenience to offset certain expenses. If I need to change my plans to exclude the ability to ransom you, I would not hesitate to do so."

  "You can't-" Meri began, then clapped her own hand over her mouth.

  He leveled his gaze on her and she shrank to hide behind Kira. "I can, foreign child of a foreign whore," he said conversationally. "And although I would prefer to do so without taking your lives on my soul, I am beginning to think you are too dangerous to leave on this side of eternal judgment."

  * * *

  Jadrie moved in past the man relieving himself, creeping along on her belly like a rabbit under cover of t
he brush, freezing every time she heard a twig snap or thought she might have disturbed a branch. The hiss of liquid on snow covered her little mistakes, though, and it probably didn't hurt this man was still thinking more about the state of his stomach than about possible enemies. Now she was grateful for all of the hours spent learning to do this very thing, grateful that Tarma had taught her so well she could creep up on a dozing deer without waking it. Only when she was past the kidnapper and between him and the camp did she stand up.

  Then she began sneaking through the scrub the way a common child would -- moving slowly, but not slowly enough, and disturbing plenty of twigs and branches on the way. Sure enough, the man saw her movement, then saw only a child trying to escape, and cursed, leaping to exactly the conclusion they wanted.

  "Get back here, you brat!" he spat -- but not so loudly that he would alert anyone else. Jadrie knew why, another lesson in reading the state of an enemy camp. The leader of these men tolerated very little in the way of weakness, and nothing in the way of failure. This man and his fellows were already in disgrace because of their illness, and the leader's temper was in no fit state to be disturbed. The men were afraid of incurring further wrath, sick, and not thinking very clearly. This man, confronted by a harmless child running off, would not admit that he could not catch her himself. He would not raise a hue-and-cry, because that would cause the leader to punish all of them for allowing the child to escape in the first place. He would not want to waste time going back quietly for help -- time in which the child could escape. He was like a coursing-hound with a rabbit starting up just under his nose; all of him focused on pursuit to the exclusion of everything else.