by Diana Rivers
With Pell swearing to our swift return, we left the rest of them on their way west to Yaniri’s under Kazouri’s leadership. This time we did not go on the open road. We went stealthy and silent, following where Pell led. Or perhaps where Torvir led. Though she had told me to let Dancer rest, she had taken her own horse. He was snaking his way through the woods on paths and trails I could not even see. Not for the first time, I wondered if it was really the horse who knew the way instead of Pell. Alyeeta did not once complain of her horse or lack of food and sleep, or the hard road, or of anything at all, for that matter. In fact, she took Pell’s guidance in everything, with no mockery and no question. I had never seen Alyeeta so subdued.
When we drew close we used the utmost caution, stopping often to ‘sense’ the way ahead as well as to listen and watch for signs. By the time we were on the last stretch of the path from Hamishair, the sun was going down. Long before we reached the clearing I heard Alyeeta’s silent inner cry, Gone! All gone! All gone! Soon we could smell smoke and a sharp acrid odor that burned the nose and throat and made the eyes water.
“Fastfire,” Pell hissed.
Before we went around the final bend we dismounted, leaving the horses to guard our path. From there we crept forward cautiously on foot, but could sense no human presence nearby. As we came within sight of the clearing our way was blocked by a chaos of crisscrossed branches whose leaves were already wilting. Some of the giant trees that had ringed the clearing had been cut and toppled. Their huge trunks lay across our path. Beyond them we could see the charred ruin of Alyeeta’s shelter, still smoldering and burnt to the ground. We had to fight our way through the tangled barrier of branches to reach it.
Alyeeta’s face, as she stared at it, was all twisted with anguish. She looked suddenly old and incredibly weary. “Humans,” she spit out with contempt. “They are so good at destroying. It is in their blood. Even the trees were made to suffer. Nothing left, nothing of all those years...”
“If not for Hereschell’s warning...” Pell said in a grim voice, leaving the rest unsaid.
Alyeeta pulled herself up with one of those sudden changes of hers. “Well I said I wanted to know, and now I know. Now I will not have to wonder. It is finished, all gone and done with, nothing ever to come back for. At least it was only a little hut in the woods, not a whole convent full of books and paintings and treasures, only a little hut, not years of pride, glory and learning all pulled down in ruins without...” She shook her head, “Not a whole convent full of young lives lost to...” Then abruptly she turned her back on what had been her shelter. “At least I have my books,” she said in a flat hard voice with a terrible tone of finality.
I was circling the shelter to see what, if anything, remained, when I saw it, a hand as charred as the wood around it. I had to cover my mouth not to cry out. It was hard to see in that fading light. Until I was right beside it I had thought it to be only a burnt branch, a part of the ruin.
Pell and Alyeeta were instantly at my side. This nameless one was buried in the debris. Mindlessly we all three began trying to free her, pulling away charred wood with our bare hands, some of it still hot and smoldering. Soon we were coughing and choking from the fastfire. Then Alyeeta gave a cry. “A second one! They must have died together.”
Abruptly Pell straightened and grabbed my arm. “Leave off! This is madness! We are no use to them now. Dead is dead. They do not care where they lie.” She wiped her hands off on her pants and shook her head, “They must have come here looking for us and been trapped by the guard. We should have left a watch.”
I knew she was accusing herself now. “We left signs,” I said quickly. “Not enough, as you can see. It is as if I had done this myself. What good is a leader if she cannot think ahead.”
“Pell...” I reached out a hand to comfort her.
She looked away as if she had not noticed, then suddenly she bent down, picked up something from the rubble and wiped it on her pants.
There was a flash of metal. A bracelet, blackened, twisted, and partly melted by the heat lay in her hand. With a grimace of effort she bent it back into shape and slipped it on her wrist. “To remind me to do everything that needs doing. To remind me that forgetting may mean someone’s death.” With that she turned away from the smoking ruin and said harshly, “Time to leave. We have seen what we came to see. Now we must think of the living.” Then she touched that twisted bracelet, turning it on her wrist, a gesture I was to see many times. A look came across her face of such naked rage that I stepped back in fear. “Those guardsmen,” she hissed through her teeth, “at this moment I would like to have a sword through their guts or better yet see them struggling helpless in a fire, looking at their own deaths.”
“You sound almost like Rishka,” I whispered. I may only have thought it, I may not even have said it aloud, but she answered instantly, “Rishka is not always wrong though she is often mistaken.”
As we remounted, Pell said in a calmer voice, “Now we go to find the guard. Since we cannot use swords or fire we will have to think of some other way to reward them for this ugly work.” She sounded like herself again, but under that light mocking tone I felt her terrifying rage.
Finding the guard was easily enough done. They, of course, felt no need for concealment and were openly camped on either side of the Great Road. It had just turned true dark when we found ourselves sitting on our horses at the top of a small hill looking down at their camp, watching the last of the flares being lit.
“Well, Alyeeta,” Pell said at last, “you are far better with numbers than I am. What do you think?”
“Less than a thousand and more than five hundred, seven, eight, something like that. You are more than twice their number and with more waiting at Yaniri’s.”
“I think they have no idea of our numbers. Perhaps we should simply stop and face them. I for one am tired of running.”
“No!” Alyeeta said sharply. “You are not yet ready. Soon, but not now. You need this coming winter together.”
I was shaking my head, remembering Marshlegs’s death. “Pell, they would shoot our horses out from under us and continue to harry us and increase their numbers till they matched ours. We can face them down once, perhaps twice, but it will not buy us peace or time.”
“Yes, yes, all true enough,” Pell said impatiently. “But someday, someday we shall find a place to stand, a line of safety from which we will not have to run. Someday soon, I hope. I want to see it in my lifetime. I have lived as a fugitive long enough. I want the luxury of living as a free person.” She dismounted and went forward to look over the edge, then she beckoned to us, “Look how they have their horses penned. A neat enclosure as if made by the hand of the Goddess Herself.”
Most of the horses were being held in a natural enclosure between high rock walls of which our little bluff formed one side. The front of it was closed off by some posts and what looked to be rope strung between them, a fragile gate, but well guarded as I could see.
Pell was nodding as if to herself, muttering, “Good, good, very good.” Then she said speculatively, “There is but a little rope between those horses and freedom. That is easily taken care of. It would surely foul their plans if their horses were all loose and running about the country side.
“No, Pell,” I said quickly, putting my hand on her arm. “No, please, we are three to some eight hundred men. I have no stomach for this, not after Eezore.”
She shook off my hand and said with a kind of fierce pleasure, “But I have the stomach for it and more than that, the heart for it. Since this is the only kind of revenge we are allowed let us do it well. Besides I can already see the way. You will only have to stand watch and make sure I get safely out.”
“Please, Pell,” I begged. My stomach was in knots. I could see her body mangled and battered on the floor of the horse pen or even worse, falling in flames as Askarth had.
“Enough, Tazzi,” she said impatiently. “Do I stop you from doing what you must
do? I need you now. I need your willing help, not your well-meant cowardice. Besides I believe you owe me this one.”
I nodded, mutely remembering all my wrongs.
“Alyeeta, what do you say?”
“A clever plan as long as it is you, not me, climbing down that bluff wall.”
We drew back and tied our horses in the woods, well away from the edge. “Fasten them securely,” Pell said. “They may be frightened by the noise. It would not do to lose our own horses in this little game.”
With the utmost care we crept to the edge of the bluff to peer down into the horse pit below. At one point the rock face curved in sharply. The area of the fence was the narrowest part of the enclosure. In that curve was a crack or crevice partly hidden from the guard. It appeared to run almost to the ground.
Pell pulled a coil of rope from her pouch. “Here is a good stout tree to tie to. Not for nothing was I a thief all those years. It is about to serve us well.” Though I could not see her face I could hear in her voice how much she was enjoying this. “It will delay the guards for a while if they have to walk about like common folk. They think themselves so well protected, but all their numbers will not save them from one spider in the night.”
After she had the rope securely tied, she judged the distance and made a foot loop in the other end of it. “Now, keep a wrap around the tree and let me down smoothly but swiftly,” Pell cautioned. “This is much easier and faster than trying to climb the rope though I could do that, too, if I had to. Be ready when I signal you to pull me up fast. That will be the hard part. I will tug on the rope to let you know, so no matter what else happens, always keep a hand on it. Here, wrap some rags around your hands or the rope will burn your palms going through.” Saying that she took her knife, made a little cut near the hem of her tunic and tore a wide strip from it. After giving us each a piece of cloth she slid her knife back into its sheath in her boot. She pulled it out and put it back several more times as if to assure herself it would come easily to hand.
While we wrapped our hands, Pell crept to the edge again. She watched intently for a few moments and then came back to say, “There are many guards before the gate but only one who really patrols there, walking back and forth.” She rubbed her hands together briskly as if to get ready, and then drew a pair of gloves from her pouch and pulled them on, fitting them snugly and with care over each finger. This was the first time I had ever seen Pell wear gloves. That done she took off the bracelet, slipped it in her pouch and handed the pouch to me. “Strap that on to keep for me, I need nothing to encumber me now.” She beckoned us forward, “Are you ready? Get a firm grip on the rope and be ready. Good, now he has turned his back.” Pell slipped her foot into the loop and wriggled to the edge. “Hold tight,” she warned us as she vanished into the darkness. Alyeeta and I braced ourselves, and I felt Pell’s weight fall against my hands. The rope seemed to whistle through my palms. I was afraid we would drop her. Then I heard Pell hiss in the dark, “Faster, faster, give me more rope.”
My arms felt stretched to the breaking point when suddenly the rope went slack. After that I could hear nothing of Pell over the noise of the encampment. I kept my eyes glued to the guard who had turned and was coming back our way. When he turned back again he had an extra shadow. My heart was in my mouth, but even as I watched I kept my hand on the rope. I saw Pell slip forward. Just for an instant her knife flashed. Once, twice, three times, four times. The ropes of the fence went slack and the shadow melted back again into a pit of shadows.
The guard was halfway back when he gave the cry, “The ropes! The gate! ‘Ware thief!”
The savage cry of the Oolanth cat ripped the air, twice and then twice more. With wild cries and snorts of terror, the horses dashed about in panic, then turned as if at a signal and rushed for the opening. Guards ran forward shouting, “Stop them! Catch them!” while at the same moment other guards leapt out of the way of the galloping horses, colliding with each other in the confusion. There were screams and shouts and the thundering of horses running. I felt a tug on the rope.
“Now,” I hissed to Alyeeta and we both threw our weight against the rope, groaning with effort, hauling it up hand over hand with Pell dangling somewhere in the darkness below.
More and more flares were being lit. Pell was only part way up when the wall was caught in the light of the flares and someone shouted, “There he is! The horse thief! Up there climbing a rope.” There was a series of loud commands, then a shower of flaming arrows that went far wide of us. I could feel the swing of Pell’s weight. Then there was another command and a second volley of arrows, much closer this time. Alyeeta and I were struggling to pull and keep low at the same time when from below I heard one of the guards shouting, “The rope! The rope is burning! We have him now!”
“Hurry, Alyeeta!” I shouted frantically. “Faster! Hurry!” Almost immediately the rope went slack and in the next instant we staggered back with the burning rope end at our feet. I was tensed for the cry and the sickening thud when I heard Pell’s voice coming from close by.
“Give me a hand here. Bring the end of the rope.”
The deepest part of the crevice itself was still in shadow. Crawling quickly to the edge and leaning far out I could just make out her dark form below me there.
“Make another loop and snake it down to me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I cannot let go my handholds to do that.” Her words were scarcely audible over the uproar rising from the guard camp. Trying to control my shaking hands, I rushed to do as she said, lowering the rope into the darkness. In a moment I felt a slight tug on it.
“Now, very slowly, haul me up and do it straight up on this corner. I do not wish to swing out in the light of their flares and have to test my powers by being a target for a hundred flaming arrows.” My arms aching with effort, we hauled on the rope again. “Slowly, slowly now, easy, very good, just so, keep steady,” Pell kept up a constant stream of encouragements and cautionings. From behind me I could hear Alyeeta’s ragged panting breath and now I could see Pell rising out of the shadows under my feet. She swung her arms over the top. With a groan I reached out and grabbed her shoulder. With Alyeeta helping on the other side, we hauled her up over the edge and pulled her to her feet. Her hair and clothes smelled singed. She shook her foot free of the rope. The rope swung out in front of the bluff face and there was a loud shout from below, followed by another round of arrows. Most of them fell short but some lodged in the trees around us, lighting up the woods. “Keep low and run for the horses,” Pell hissed at us.
In my one quick glance below I saw that most of the horses had poured out of the horse pen. The guard camp looked like an overturned ant hill with men and horses rushing in all directions. Whoever had ordered those shots at Pell had done well to keep his head in that tumult.
When we reached our horses they were snorting and throwing their heads, pulling nervously against their reins. Pell was laughing and panting, both at the same time. “Not a bad job of work, eh?” she managed to gasp out. “Not bad at all. We are all alive, our horses are here waiting for us. I have no bruises that will not heal in a day or so, and the guard will be too busy chasing horses for the next few days to think of chasing star-brats. I even got to use my knife for vengeance.” Then she turned her attention to our horses, petting, and soothing them. Torvir calmed instantly, rubbing his bony head against her arm.
I was breathing too hard to answer her. Alyeeta, when she could catch her breath said sourly, “You are gloating now, but you could have had us all killed with your tricks. If I had known what kind of games you planned I would not have come along with you.”
“So, the Witch is too good to ride out with the horse thief? Well, you were not the one at risk, dangling there on the end of a rope. It was my hide that would have been full of burning holes, not yours. Besides, do you think it was safe and sensible to go back to your clearing right after a guard raid? What if they had left watchers for us? We might have been trapped like...” Her w
ords stopped abruptly. She reached out to me for her pouch, groped about inside for the bracelet and slipped that twisted metal on her wrist. “Let us be gone from here before they find the way up.”
I had to help Alyeeta onto her horse. “I am much older than I look. This is not a healthy way for me to live. Now I suppose we are to ride night and day again,” she grumbled.
“Is there any other way to go?” Pell asked jauntily.
This time I had no wish to stay and watch. We rode as hard as horse and rider were able to go. Even so, when we reached Yaniri’s, the others had already gone on. Even Yaniri herself had left. Her shelter and clearing looked as abandoned and tramped as Alyeeta’s had when we departed. The sight of it made my heart ache. Two women Pell knew from the northern gathering were waiting for us with fresh horses and news of the others. I unsaddled and freed my poor weary beast and went to greet Dancer, but she was not there. They had taken her with them and left me another in her place.
We slept that night in the abandoned shelter, slept hard and heavy and were up again by dawn. By late afternoon of the next day we caught up with the rear guard of the Khal Hadera Lossien to loud cheers of welcome. Pell soon wove her way up to the front. Not long after that a halt was called to rest and make plans.
We were fast approaching the Drylands, that difficult and dangerous crescent of rolling sands that runs up and down the length of Garmishair and is home to most of the Muinyairin. Rishka assured us that the part we were about to cross was under the domain of a particularly wild and ruthless band of tribes. Whether she spoke in truth or for mischief I could not tell. Even without that added worry, the Drylands were too dangerous to travel through in the heat of the day, nor were there many places safe to camp. One possible place, Kilghari told us, was the Drugha-Malia. “That deep canyon has grass, shade and a stream at the bottom of it,” she said. “There we could feed our horses and claim a night’s shelter, if it was not already in use.”
