Blackdog

by K V Johansen

  “Hold still.” Jerusha rolled up the cuffs until their hands were showing. “At least your hands look like you do a bit of work,” she said. “But with your hair all hacked off under your ears like that no one will believe you belong to the road. Maybe…”

  She transformed their shawls to scarves, wrapped around their heads, a fold over the face.

  “Not bad. It’s windy out,” she explained. “Dust is a good excuse to cover your faces. You’ll do. You might pass as Marakanders. They’re a real mix of blood. Wait here, and I’ll go see what Davim has to say about town. No point you walking into a riot.”

  They waited anxiously, straining their ears to catch any noise of distant fighting or murmur of conversation, but all was still. Jerusha returned quite quickly.

  “Your damn Tamghat,” she said. “Causing trouble, as expected. But you’re in luck. Master Baruni’s decided to clear out this afternoon instead of tomorrow, in case things get worse. His merchants are nervous. You can go with him. If you do come back someday—this is Mooshka’s caravanserai. You can tell it by the big mulberry trees along the wall by the gate. For Sera’s sake, don’t ask the way unless you can manage a better disguise.”

  “You’re sending us with a caravan?” Attavaia asked. “Will they mind?”

  “Baruni? No. He’ll think it’s a good joke. Revenge. Tamghat’s Sevani lapdogs claimed about a sixth of the furs and unfinished Northron blades his merchants are taking to Marakand, and they’re demanding he make up the loss.”

  Attavaia snorted in disgust. “Blades. I bet I asked him about them, too. I bet he’s the one who told you? Big man, really light eyes and no tattoos?”

  “That’d be him.” ‘Rusha grinned. “The merchants wouldn’t have sold anyway. These are set down for the city guard or something, that’s part of the problem—they can’t just raise the price when they get home to cover their losses.”

  “Camels,” Enneas said. “This is going to involve camels.”

  “Damn right. Pretend they’re giant cows, eh? A supposed village woman like you should have no problem with that.”

  “Swords,” Attavaia said, no longer thinking of the ones she ought to have purchased. “If we’re dressed like caravan-guards, we should be armed. Especially if they’re fighting in the streets.”

  “Swords in the hands of a couple of girls who don’t know what they’re doing will be worse than camels under a couple of girls who don’t know what they’re doing,” Jerusha said flatly.

  Attavaia took her by the shoulder and slammed her into the wall, pinning her there with knee and shoulder, the side of her wrist pressed against her throat.

  “We’re not children,” she said. “We’re not farmers. We’re not riders. We’re young, yes, but we’re sisters of Attalissa. We fought on the walls when the temple fell, and we swam the lake with the temple burning behind us. Weapons, we do know.”

  She let the woman go, backed away, shoving her shaking hands into the coat’s pockets. Attalissa help her, this was no time to lose her temper. If Jerusha tried to hit her, she probably had a right.

  The Serakallashi just flexed her shoulders and grinned again, rubbing her throat. Enneas relaxed, took her own hands out of her pockets, leaving the knife behind.

  “That’s better. I was thinking it’s no wonder Tamghat walked all over you lot, for all your fame as mercenaries. I’ll see what I can do. Weapons don’t pile up like old clothes, but I guess you’ve paid for ‘em if I can find ‘em, and I’ll sort it with Treyan later. Now, come on.”

  They eyed one another, and Attavaia shrugged. “Lowlanders,” she murmured, as they followed Jerusha out into another room where an older woman was taking scrolls from a shelf and packing them into a metal-sheathed trunk. “Account books,” ’Rusha explained. “And my mother’s collection of Marakander poetry. Just in case. She’s long gone and no one else in the family reads it, but Great Gods help us if the poetry’s looted. Wait a moment.” A brief pause, while she uncorked ink and found a pen, to write, on a small sheet of thin Nabbani paper in looping Marakander script, the tally of the turquoise as Attavaia declared it, and again, and to have all four of them, the recorder-keeper as witness, sign both copies with the first initial of their name. She ripped the paper in half, handed one copy to Attavaia. “Treyan’s honest as the Great Gods themselves,” she said with a shrug, “but business is business.”

  A heavy door opened onto a scene of chaos, men and women shouting, moving in haste, mountains of canvas bundles and baskets being brought from doorways in the shadows of a long arcade, camels groaning and gurgling like water in a clogged drainpipe during a thunderstorm.

  There was order to it, eye and ear picked it out. No one ran to undo what another had done. The shouting was merely to be heard over all the other shouting.

  They stood under an archway, one of many fronting the building or buildings, hard to say which, that enclosed a great square of beaten earth with a central well and watering-trough. Camels lay folded up neatly, strung together in fives or sixes, being loaded with the incredible mountains of goods.

  Mooshka Rostvadim and Treyan Battu’um stood talking with a handful of other Serakallashi. A pretty girl of fifteen or so, her tattoos bright and new-looking, her braids dyed with henna, clung to the sept-chief’s arm. There was a smear of blood on her hand. After a moment Attavaia recognized her as the girl who had been so eager to get to the market—the Lady Davim the servant had mentioned? The woman at her shoulder looked more battered and dusty than she had before. She recognized Attavaia, too, and gave her a nod.

  “But who actually started the fighting?” Treyan was asking.

  “…someone started shouting that her son’d go to the mountains only over her dead body, and Siyd lost her temper, you know what she’s like, and said that could be arranged, but there was no knowing whose sons and daughters would go, it would be a fair lottery, and that’s when they started throwing things. Fruit and eggs, first.”

  “Typical Siyd, making an announcement like that right there in the market, with all that ammunition to hand,” Mooshka remarked.

  “Davvy, you’re hurt. You should have said!”

  The girl turned to smile at Jerusha and give Attavaia and Enneas a long, curious look. “Just scratched. People started shoving and I fell.”

  “You shouldn’t have been there,” Treyan said.

  “I know, Papa.” Obviously old ground retrodden.

  “What’s happened” Attavaia asked.

  It was Treyan Battu’um who answered. “The leading Rostvadim chief, Siyd, and her fellows have decided Serakallash will send two hundred of its youngsters between fifteen winters and twenty to serve with Tamghat’s warband. As the chosen chiefs of the goddess, they say it’s their right to make such decisions.”

  “Devils take them!” Jerusha added.

  “At least she got a clod of horse-dung in the face,” said Davim.

  “It’ll be another hundred next year, I’ll bet you.”

  “They’ve been conscripting boys from Lissavakail and the villages, too,” Enneas interjected.

  “Just boys?”

  “Well, in the mountains, girls don’t fight, unless they’re Attalissa’s. He’s taken lots of young girls as well, hostages from every valley. He calls them novices, though he isn’t training them to be anything but servants. Some of the older ones have ended up concubines for his male vassals, his noekar.”

  “What happens to the conscripts?” Davim asked. She sounded anxious. Young enough to be at risk.

  “It seems harmless, just training them to weapons,” Attavaia answered her. “But they send them out with the tax-gathering parties, and to make inspections for anything suspicious. In a few months most of them are talking about the stupidity and greed of peasants, the superstition and backwardness of mountain folk. How great a man Tamghat is, how the priestesses lived off the labour of the villages and never did anything for them, and kept the goddess an impotent prisoner, and how Attalissa’s promised to w
ed Tamghat when she returns and together they’ll make Lissavakail great, a power to rival Marakand, ruling all the desert road.”

  Yes, give Serakallash that to worry about, show them how important it was they help oppose the Lake-Lord.

  “And some of them have joined that cult of his, worshipping bears,” Enneas added, her lip curling with disgust. “My stupid brother, he scarred his own face in some barbaric initiation ceremony. My mother’s scared to have him in the house, and too scared to forbid him.”

  It was perhaps not a politic question, but, “Has anyone asked your goddess what she thinks?” Attavaia wondered.

  “Of course,” said Jerusha. “Sera’s said before that Tamghat has no rights here and Siyd Rostvadim lies when she says she and her cronies act with divine approval.”

  “But Sera hasn’t done anything to stop it? Hasn’t deposed these chiefs?”

  Treyan Battu’um frowned. “No,” he said. “The chiefs govern by right of blood and it would be a grave matter for Sera to act against one. It hasn’t happened in generations.”

  “It’s time it did again. Doesn’t she understand the danger?”

  “Your goddess fled,” Jerusha said pointedly. “Perhaps Sera sees the danger all too well.”

  “It’s not a matter for outsiders, Sister,” added Treyan. “Leave our goddess to us.”

  “She can act where Attalissa couldn’t,” Attavaia persisted. “If she doesn’t support her people against those willing to bow to Tamghat, she risks being overwhelmed by him. He’ll take Serakallash little by little, until you’re a mere tributary of his false temple wondering how it all happened. Can’t she see?”

  “Sera’s will is our affair,” Treyan repeated, with finality. “Mooshka, if Master Baruni’s riding out, I think I and my folk should go with him. The sooner the outlying septs hear of this the better, and I don’t want to be delayed by Siyd’s games. She might try to prevent me alone, but they’re not such fools they’d try to stop a whole caravan leaving.”

  “Yes, and I’ve got Baruni two new cameleers,” Jerusha added. “Lucky man.”

  She hallooed and waved, until a burly Marakander crossed the yard to them, still shouting back over his shoulder to some of his folk. Jerusha dragged Attavaia and Enneas forward.

  “These are some friends of ours who need to get out of town without being noticed,” she announced. “You’re taking them. They’ve never ridden a camel, but if you get cornered, they can fight with their feet on the ground. Damn, swords, I forgot. Papa—we’ve got something they can use, don’t we? Find them swords.”

  Mooshka rolled his eyes and disappeared back into the house doorway.

  “’Rusha bosses him terribly,” Davim told them, with the air of one sharing a secret.

  “Someone has to, or nothing would ever get done around here.”

  Master Baruni looked them over rather as though he was being asked to purchase them at market and was prepared to start haggling. “Ah, yes, the ladies looking to buy iron and tin and swords. I don’t know, ‘Rusha.”

  “It’s important.”

  “Yes, well, important means dangerous if they’re caught, right?”

  “More dangerous for us than for you,” she said tightly. “And why should they be caught? Anyway, I thought you wanted to get back at that bastard wizard up there for all his plundering. Get them out of town and you’ll be doing that. Just take them and don’t argue.”

  “I see ‘Rusha bosses everyone,” Enneas whispered to Davim, and drew a giggle from her.

  Baruni scratched his beard, still considering them. “How far am I taking them?”

  “Just out of sight, so they can head back to their mountains and their demon cows.”

  “Demon cows?”

  “We don’t have any demon cows,” Enneas said.

  “Pity. They might be useful. Just get them out of town, Baruni, that’s all.”

  Master Baruni sighed. “It’ll save arguing if I say yes, am I right?”

  Jerusha grinned.

  He offered both hands to Attavaia and then to Enneas. “Welcome to the gang. If you fall, act drunk. I wasn’t planning to leave till tomorrow morning, so,” and he directed a glare at his assembling caravan, “you won’t be the only ones.”

  Mooshka returned with two swords, their sheaths slung from rather worn-looking leather baldrics. Attavaia examined hers critically. It lacked the curve of the desert sabre, but was short and single-edged. A blade for slashing, not stabbing. The simple scrolling work on the hilt looked Northron. She wondered why a caravanserai master would have such a thing, but perhaps with so many travellers passing through he bought and sold goods himself, or played pawnbroker—a bit of a trading post for mercenaries needing drinking money or a new coat. Or perhaps she was not the only one moved by Tamghat to begin stockpiling weapons.

  “It’s a sax,” Mooshka said, with a shrug. “You’re used to short blades in the mountains, right? You’ll be able to protect yourself on the ground, anyway. You ought to have a lance, too, if you’re a caravaneer, but I think the less you’ve got to unbalance you the better, up there.”

  The caravan seemed suddenly to have settled into readiness. A handful of Serakallashi women and men, Treyan’s retainers, led up sleek and leggy horses and the Battu’um party mounted.

  Enneas watched enviously. “I wish they’d had spare horses,” she murmured. “Or how about riding double with Treyan, Attavaia?”

  “Shut up,” Attavaia advised.

  “Come on then, ladies,” Baruni said. “We’ll get you loaded on somewhere. What are they worth to you, Mooshka? A day’s fodder, maybe?”

  “I’ll write it in against next time,” the caravanserai master promised. “So long as you get them out without losing them.” Mooshka gave them each a pat on the shoulder. “Sera keep you safe,” he wished them.

  “Sera keep you mounted,” ‘Rusha added.

  It was terrifying, exhilarating, the power of the animal beneath her surging up, snapping her forward and back not once but twice. The whole herd of them rose, and the cheerfully shouted commands of “Up! Up!” seemed mere formality, every one of them obedient to the caravan-master’s lead. Attavaia kept the nose-rein loose in her hand, as instructed, a tighter hold on the rope from the halter, for at least an illusion of control, and clutched at a strap to keep herself from pitching off. There was nothing resembling a saddle on this baggage camel, just what seemed to be bundled goods, a snail’s house of them, among which she was crammed. Hard even to tell the beast had humps, it was so laden. She gripped with her legs and tried to keep her weight balanced. Her camel was not led, because that would attract comment, but camels, Baruni and Jerusha both assured them, followed.

  “Does the camel know that?” Attavaia asked.

  Jerusha laughed up at her, slapped her ankle. “Good! Now just stay there, ‘Vaia, and we’ll see you again sometime.”

  Enneas was somewhere behind, with a homely but hopeful young desert man trying to impress her with his advice.

  “Leave her alone, she’s not your type,” Jerusha called, heading that way.

  “What’s his type, ‘Rusha?” another woman called.

  “Desperate!”

  “Sera’s blessing on our road!” Baruni called. Mooshka’s servants opened the heavy gates and the big yard emptied. The camels yawned and groaned and gurgled.

  Attavaia’s camel swung from side to side as it walked, plunking each foot down with deliberation. It seemed resigned to the human presence on its back. She was just one more piece of baggage, a lump to be carried on to Marakand.

  She tried to move with the camel’s movements, sitting into it, not perching rigidly. But every muscle tensed, regardless. It was a long way down. Glancing back, she couldn’t see Enneas; there was a string of camels between the two of them, led by the young man who’d tried to be helpful. He winked at her and, blushing, she faced ahead.

  They wound along the crooked road through the caravanserais, but before they had gone far the
pace of the clanking bells slowed, camels groaned, and voices were raised. Attavaia could see nothing of what hindered them, just the walls to either side and a wall ahead, where the road took another twist. They shambled to a stop and her camel moaned as though it was about to die beneath her.

  Davim cantered back on a bright yellow-gold horse and reined in beside Attavaia.

  “There’s Sevani and Rostvadim warriors up there,” she reported. “Chiefs’ guards. They stopped another caravan, said no one was to leave town. They’re poking through all the goods, the caravan-master’s livid because he’s already been looted once for their tolls, and they claim they’re looking for smuggled weapons.”

  “Or for us?”

  “Probably. Probably makes a good excuse to see what they can take, though. Master Baruni says he’ll fight before they touch his caravan again, but he hates fighting, so hold on tight and follow the woman ahead of you when we start to move.”

  The girl flashed a grin that was no doubt meant to be reassuring and kicked her horse into a canter again. “Be ready to ride!” she called to the man behind as she passed. Attavaia looked back to see she had reined in again by Enneas, repeating the more detailed explanation.

  The caravaneer ahead looked back at her, over a line of five camels. “That lady you’re riding is used to being in this string,” the woman called. “Just hold on. She’ll follow. And I know where we’re going.”

  “Where?” Attavaia called back.

  “Down the ridge!” The mercenary said it like it was some delightful treat. “No wall around Serakallash.”

  The distant voices rose into shrill outrage.

  “Attalissa watch over us,” Attavaia prayed aloud, and the camel twitched an ear.

  One of the Battu’um retainers flashed along the street, and then another on the other side, or was that Treyan himself? The camels ignored them, used to the reckless haste of horses, perhaps. Rear guard? Someone to pick up any battered and broken priestesses?