by Diana Rivers
It was finally decided that a group of Muinyairin, Hayika, Kilghari, Daijar, Noshir, Zari, and two or three others I did not know, would go on ahead so we could be assured of the place if possible. If it was already occupied they would ride back with word. Rishka planned to stay with the line of march and be our guide.
With a touch of envy I watched them get ready. At the last moment Kilghari turned to me and asked, “Why not come with us, Tazzi? Your Dancer is as fast as any of our horses. It grows wearisome after a while plodding along in a line with this vast number.”
I was about to shake my head. I had not, after all, spent much time plodding along being bored. I might even have gotten some sleep that way. Instead, much to my surprise, I found myself saying, “Why not,” as if this was the most natural thing to do. I was wearied beyond all sense and reason, but something in me was restless. Besides, truth be told, I was enormously flattered to think I was good enough to ride with the Muinyairin. I went to find Dancer among the extra horses. For her part, she was overjoyed to see me again and ready to be off.
Pell shook her head and shrugged when I told her of my intent. “Well,” she said, “I have dragged you backward. I suppose I cannot begrudge you rushing forward, though it seems a piece of utter foolishness. Go, go then, have your fun with the ‘Wild Ones.’ I do not need you here for now.” It was clear she did not want me to go and would not order me to stay.
The Muinyairin teased and raced and sang their wild songs the whole way. They even traded horses at a run. Once Daijar reached out too far doing this and rolled off her horse. We had to stop and swing back for her. She got up laughing and dusted herself off, seeming none the worse for it. I could not begin to match their reckless games. The most I could do was try to keep up with them. I understood little of what was said, but I was glad enough to be riding with them. My heart felt lighter than it had in weeks.
For a while the vegetation had been growing sparser and more bristly. We reached the edge of the drylands toward late afternoon just as the shadows were beginning to lengthen. Of one accord, the Muinyairin stopped their horses to gaze out at tha vast stretch of rolling sands.
“Ochabi Briathi, the Drylands Crescent, the Sea of Sand,” Kilghari said, after a moment’s silence. “Home to Muinyairin tribes since time remembers.”
“Mother’s curse to the lot of them,” Hayika muttered. She suddenly urged her horse forward and the rest of us followed.
Soon after we crossed into the drylands I started to be uneasy and after a while my skin began to crawl. It felt as if we were being watched or followed, yet when I turned to look I could see nothing. And where was there to hide in that ‘sea of sand’? But the feeling persisted. Finally I rode over next to Kilghari. “Something...,” I said with a shiver, “something—I cannot explain what...”
“Yes, I feel it, too. It makes the back of my neck prickle.” She called Hayika over and spoke in her ear. Hayika nodded as she listened. Then she gave a sharp cry, Muinyairin style, to gather the others. As if that had been the signal, a horse whinnied from somewhere ahead, a cry rang out in the empty space around us, and horses and riders sprang up out of the sand to charge straight in our direction. They had evidently been hiding in wait in a pit behind a hump of sand. They rode at us with terrible screams and cries, flashing their curved swords. At the last minute they swerved and began to circle us at a run, shouting threats to our lives, taunts and insults to our ‘manhood’. Some of this was in Kourmairi, no doubt for my benefit. All of it was interspersed with high shrill yells intended to terrify. There were ten or twelve in all, no more than that, but at that speed it seemed like thirty. From what I could gather they were saying that we had no ‘rods’ and peed squatting down, true enough though clearly they thought us to be men and meant it as insult, not as fact. It might all have been funny if they had not looked so threatening.
I heard Hayika saying, “Have no fear for the horses. It is the horses that they want. They will be very careful of them. Just be glad for the powers we have to protect our own skins.”
As she spoke, the one who was leading the circle and seemed to be more daring than the others, turned and charged straight at Hayika shouting, “So you are the leader, eh? I will pick you off first. With you gone the rest of these draiga will fall to their knees.”
“Well, you are welcome to try,” Hayika said as she urged her horse forward so that she was directly in his path. She did not even flinch when he raised his sword and swung at her with a terrible yell.
In an instant he was slumped over his horse. His yell had turned to a cry of pain. As the horse dashed past Hayika, the rider toppled off and flopped on his back in the sand, blood spurting from his neck. Hayika grabbed the horse’s reins as it ran and whirled it around, shouting, “Ours!” With loud yells of rage the other men were turning to charge at her. As she spun to face them, she raised her hand, much as I had seen Alyeeta do. Pointing at the first of them, she called out, “You are next. Are you ready?”
“Witch!” he spit out with a cry of fear. Suddenly he veered away. The others slowed and drew back to consult with each other. It seemed we were not going to be such easy prey after all.
While those men circled together, Hayika took off her shirt and laid it over her horse’s neck. Her breasts shone copper red in the setting sun. When the men turned back they began pointing and yelling in surprise, “A woman! A woman!”
“We are all women,” Hayika called out over the uproar.
“Then we shall have your bodies as well as your horses.”
“You think so? Ask your friend there, but first pull him into the shade of your hideaway and stuff that hole with a clean rag before his life’s blood leaks away in the sand. Then we can better talk of who will have whose horses or whose bodies or whose lives.”
Both sides waited in silence while four of the men dealt with their fallen leader. When they returned and remounted, a big hulking man whom the others called Zanark seemed ready to take his place. He rode right up to Hayika, looking straight at her breasts and saying in an insolent way, “Well, Witch, what have you to say?”
“There is no use to all this bloodshed. I call a challenge instead.” She threw her shirt down in front of them with a flourish. “I challenge the best of you to single combat, mounted, no weapons, no saddles. The first to be unhorsed is the loser. If you win you can have our horses, our bodies, and our goods. If we win we want four horses, those four,” she said choosing and pointing, “as well as the one that is already mine by right of contest. In addition to that, four tents, some food and no further obstruction from any Muinyairin from here to the end of the drylands. Now you must talk among yourselves. If you accept, you need to choose your man. Meanwhile, I must ask my women if this plan suits them as well.”
Zanark gave a signal. With some contemptuous words for shameless naked women, the men spun their horses about and rode off a short way.
Hayika gathered us together. “It is growing late. We need to be gone from here. This is the fastest way I could think of to be done with these fools. Do you accept me as your ‘champion’ or do you have some different plan in mind? Whatever we do, it needs to be something quick.”
“Do you ride as well as Rishka?” I asked her.
“Better,” she said instantly, not bragging, only stating it as a fact. “What if you lose?” Kilghari asked. “Do you intend to honor this pledge of our goods, horses, and bodies?”
“Do I look like some kind of a fool? No, I do not intend to turn over anyone’s horse or body to those men. But how can I lose? And if I do then we are only where we were before and no worse off. They will keep attacking us and end up killed or wounded. I, for one, have no wish to go to the Drugha-Malia over a pile of bloody bodies.”
“There is not much honor in all this,” Daijar said with a strange one-sided grin on her face. It seemed that she was joking and not joking with the same words.
Hayika gave a snort of laughter, “Honor indeed! Honor me this and honor me
that. I may be a Muinyairin but I am also too much of a star-brat for that. Having a price on your head changes your ideas on honor. I owe honor to those who honor me, not those who think to kill me at every turn. Why should we keep to their rules? We are not the ones who blocked their way and threatened their lives.”
“Will they keep to their part of it?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, yes of course,” Daijar and Kilghari answered together. Hayika added, “They would feel it a deep disgrace not to. It would be an offense to their precious manhood.” She looked around at us all. “Well, what do you say?”
“I say do it and get on with it and Mother’s Luck to you,” Daijar answered. “We have a place to ride to, we have work to do and time is rapidly passing.” The rest of us nodded.
Hayika turned and called out loudly to the men, “Are you ready?”
They came riding toward us. “We are ready and I, Zanark, accept your challenge.” This Zanark was the largest and most imposing of the men. I saw that his eyes were on Hayika’s breasts rather than on her face as he spoke.
Hayika did not seem to mind. In fact, she seemed to be displaying herself. She sat very straight in the saddle and answered with mocking insolence, “Aha, you have made a mistake. The big ones always fall harder and are not near so agile. You should have chosen that wiry little fellow over there or that one. But perhaps you chose this great hulk for his loud mouth or more likely his greedy eyes.”
“Argh!” Zamak growled, taking his eyes from her breasts for the first time. “Take off your saddle, woman, and let us see what you can do. The rest of you, down from your horses and clear the space. Get back in two lines to give us room.”
Zarnak and Hayika jumped down to strip their horses, keeping close watch on each other as they did so. “Throw down your shirt, man, if you really mean to do this,” Hayika called to him.
Zamak threw his shirt over hers shouting, “Done!” The rest of us stepped back in two lines while one man carried the shirts and saddles out of the way.
As if at a signal they both leapt onto their horses. Zarnak swung his horse about, making it rear up while the other men hooted and cheered and clapped. “Well, woman, I am glad to see you half undressed. It will save me the trouble. I have some good uses for the body you are about to forfeit.”
“Good uses, eh?” Hayika laughed. “You are not man enough.” She danced her horse quite close to him, prancing just out of reach, “First you must get your hands on me, but I think you are secretly afraid.” As he lunged toward her she swerved to pass in back of him. “Surely you can see I am the better rider. Too bad you men made such a poor choice. It will be a shabby show, hardly worth the bother. He thinks his strength will win him something, but here it will be of no use. What do you say, women? Should I ask for a better challenger? That one or perhaps that one?” All this time she kept her horse just clear of him so he could not close with her. “Where is your honor?” she called out as she swerved again. “We risk all in this while you risk so little.” By now the men were shouting and stamping, calling her a coward and a cheat.
“Who is a coward?” she shouted as if suddenly angry. “Not Hayika, the Muinyairin. I am afraid of nothing!” With that she rode straight at Zarnak. I could see the eagerness on his face, the hunger to get his hands on her body. At the last possible moment she swerved away again before there was contact. If Zarnak had not been so excellent a rider he might easily have lurched forward to a fall.
The men were jumping about wildly now, shouting in a frenzy, “Get her down! Throw her off! Tear her apart! Let us at her!”
Twice more Hayika rode by him in that way so that Zarnak was finally in a rage of frustration, turning and turning to keep her in sight. “Come closer so I can get at you, you bitch. You are the one who is afraid. You know it will all be over the moment we close in combat.”
“Lies, all lies, as you will see,” Hayika taunted back. She rode in again and this time her horse seemed to stumble, bringing her within range. I gave a gasp of fear, the men roared. Zarnak, seeing his chance, lunged hard at her, twisting his shoulder so that the impact would dislodge her without unseating him. In the next instant he was lying on the ground, gasping for breath with his horse galloping off and Hayika was grinning down at him from her horse’s back. “Be glad, fool, that it is not your body at forfeit as well as your horse.” Without turning she called out to us, “Catch that horse. It is one of ours now.” Daijar leapt on her horse and went speeding after the fleeing animal.
The other men were running forward shouting in surprise. Hayika was shaking her head, “Just as I said, the heavy ones fall hard. I told you you should have chosen someone more agile.” With those words she swung off her horse, went striding over to pick up her shirt, slung it over her shoulder and strolled back to the cluster of men who were helping up their fallen comrade. He was still gasping for breath. They were teasing him cruelly for falling before a woman, though I noticed none of them looked at her breasts anymore. They all occupied their eyes elsewhere. Now I could breathe normally again. The whole contest had taken less time than the talking on it had.
Hayika sauntered right in among them saying, “Now we have some business to discuss.” Several of them reached out to clap her on the back. I could hear them saying, “Well done!”
“Is that safe?” I whispered anxiously to Kilghari. “Is she safe among them?”
“Perfectly safe,” she whispered back. “Half on hour back it would have been deadly, but it is safe now. They will honor their pledge.”
Soon they were all sitting down and bargaining together with good-natured banter, Hayika and a circle of men who minutes before would have robbed, raped, and murdered us.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Drugha-Malia—in the setting sun the walls of the canyon glowed red, orange, and yellow in bands of color, the deep shadows lay purple at the edges and a stream flowed through, almost black with the reflection of the coming night. Trees, grasses, flowers; all seemed to flourish there in abundance, and clouds of small birds rose before us in a rush of feathered singing.
“What does that mean, Drugha-Malia?” I asked Zari, who was riding next to me. She blushed and would not answer, but from behind us Hayika gave a snort of rude laughter, and Kilghari said with amusement, “It means ‘Cunt-of-the-Great-Mother’ or ‘Great-Cunt-of-the-Mother,’ depending on which way you weight the words, but it is not nearly so rude in Muinyairin as in Kourmairi.” It was easy to see how it had gotten its name, this deep crevice in the earth that was lush and moist and welcoming, opening so suddenly out of the rolling sands.
As we rode down into the purple shadows, cool air rushed up to greet us, a blessed relief after the heat of the drylands. Some of the Muinyairin men had insisted on riding with us so that no “bad men”—their own words, truly—should bother us on the way. Hayika and Daijari had ridden along beside them, chatting like old friends till suddenly Zarnak had said, “Aha! So that is it. That is how you bested me so easily. You are one of those, one of the star-cursed, are you not?”
Hayika drew herself up very straight, “Yes, we are Star-Born, all of us. We are the Khal Hadera Lossien, but I did not use the advantage of my powers. There was no need for that. You gave it all away yourself in your eagerness to get your hands on this woman’s body. I only gave you a little help.”
The others roared with laughter. Zarnak himself appeared to be quite pleased with this turn of things. “Well, well, think of that, the star-cursed. That will make good telling sometime around a night’s fire.”
Hayika explained to them that we were expecting about twenty-hundred more, flashing her hands many times to give them some notion of the number. They seemed amazed at this and may not have believed her, but in the end they took away their own gear as well as several horses they had staked there, for they had been camping in the canyon. They even left us their cookfires and wished us well. By the time they left, these Muinyairin were swearing their friendship to us, even asking if we would give
them another challenge sometime, but only for horses and blankets they said, not for our bodies or our lives this time. Much impressed with our abilities, they promised to practice hard in the meanwhile if we would honorably pledge not to use our secret powers.
Hayika laughed about it afterward saying, “I wager that every Muinyairin tribe in the Drylands Crescent will hear this story sooner or later, not such a bad thing for us really. We will probably become a legend.”
Personally I did not feel near so friendly and was only too glad to see them leave. I had been afraid they would want to settle themselves down for the night to ‘protect’ us. Though it was already dark by the time they rode away, I instantly stripped off my clothes and waded out into the stream. Shivering in the chill, I scrubbed away, with soap-stone and fine sand, the crust of sweat and road-grime that coated my body from all those days of hard riding. Whatever the others may have done toward preparing camp, I knew nothing of it and did nothing for it. Exhausted by my double travels, I spread my sleep roll out on a grassy bank by the stream and lulled by its music, fell instantly asleep.
When I woke next it was bright and clear, and from the slant of the sun, already late in the morning, though my sleep place was still in shadow. Rishka was sitting by me, gazing into my face. She smiled when she saw my eyes open. “You are very lovely when you sleep, Tazzi. I have been watching you for some time now. My Muinyairin sisters must have given you a hard ride yesterday.” She pulled up a blade of grass and began slowly stroking my face and neck and the inside of my arms with it till I shivered with pleasure. “I hear all of you had a little encounter on the way with some Muinyairin men.”
“Little encounter indeed!” I exclaimed, struggling to sit up. “What they wanted was to rape us, rob us, and leave us for dead, all with some peculiar code of honor. But Hayika bested them and then made friends with them. I think she is even wilder than you are. Is it true she is a better rider?”
