He stepped close to her, looking down at her guileless dark brown eyes which were searching his for some sort of answer. Not shrinking from a job they both knew would be just as hard as the burial and march. "Lady knows the way," he said softly. "Just keep the sun on your left, when you can see it."
"But, Carey—"
"If I go—if I leave you alone—you're all dead." He closed his eyes at the impossibility of it all and said, "Please, don't argue. You're the only one besides me who can ride bareback, and whom Lady trusts enough to obey without a bridle."
"Jess trusts me," Jaime said. "We still don't know how much of her—" But she stopped short at the look on his face and said, "Okay. I won't waste any more time. Keep the sun on my left. What else?"
"There are a number of good roads—well, what passes for a good road in those woods—that will take you there. Head into the sun for half an hour or so and then put it on your left and go into the woods. Lady'll keep you going right, and you'll hit a road sooner or later. Don't waste time second-guessing yourself and blundering around looking for one. Got it?"
"Got it," she said, smiling wanly. "At least I've got my breeches on."
A small attempt at a joke but he appreciated it anyway. "I'll give you a leg up," he said, and gave the short whistle that would call Lady to them.
* * *
The first few moments on Lady's back were bizarre ones, as Jaime tried hard to think of her as just any other horse she was sitting on for the first time—in Ohio, not Camolen. The dun mare, too, had reservations; her ears went back flat, hidden in the thick mane, and her back humped up under Jaime's seatbones.
"Lady," Carey said sharply, and Lady lowered her head and snorted in what could only be called disgust, nearly jerking the halter twine out of Jaime's hand. Jaime stroked her neck and gave Carey, then her brother, one last look.
"Good-bye, Eric," she said, and gave a gentle squeeze of her calves. It had only then occurred to her that she would miss the important ritual of formal good-bye, and she felt unanticipated sorrow about it. But Lady was moving forward, a hesitant walk with her head held high and bobbing uncertainly, awkwardly turned to keep one cautious eye on Jaime.
"Straighten out, Lady," Jaime said sternly, using her back and hips and a squeeze on the halter lead in a half-halt that surprised the mare. She asked for a trot, twisting her fingers in the long black mane to help her weather the inevitable stumbles from the uneven ground. Lady obliged, but clearly expressed her opinion about the strange situation by making it an uncomfortable, hollow-backed gait.
Another half-halt, ineffective. "Quit!" Jaime snapped, thinking that the ride was going to be torture if she couldn't get more cooperation than this. She grasped a hank of mane and pulled herself up over the tense neck. Speaking right into the mare's ear, she said, "Jess, whatever part of you is left in there knows that this is nonsense. We're not leaving Carey, we're trying to save him. And you damn well know that I'm not going to do anything to hurt you. I want you to round up and put yourself into a good frame, or I won't have the only sore ass around here!"
The mare stopped short. They were only just out of sight of the truck, and Jaime held her breath, knowing that if Lady chose to wheel around and run back to Carey, there was nothing she could do to stop it. But they just stood there, the black-tipped ears swiveled back at Jaime. Thinking. Then came subtle differences in the body beneath Jaime. The mare's neck lowered, her head adopted a vertical angle, and her back rounded gently into Jaime's seat. Then, without waiting for the request, she moved into a springy trot, picking her way around the dips and bumps in her path.
"Jess," Jaime breathed. She's still there. Some part of her is really still there.
* * *
Dun Lady's Jess moved steadily onward, having transmuted her human trust into equine acceptance of Jaime's requests. Her sturdy hooves found good footing on the uneven ground, and her muzzle—whiskers and all—twitched at the delightfully intense smells of the world around her—smells which told her of the cool woods long before she and Jaime actually reached them.
Out in the open there had been little sign of travel, but once under the trees they hit a wide, relatively smooth path after only a short while of stumbling, catching hoof and fetlock in fallen branches and skidding off leaf-hidden rocks. Small birds chittered at them and fluttered away through the underbrush, leaving the woods silent around them.
Dun Lady's Jess knew this path and knew where they were going. At Jaime's quiet signal, she swung into a smooth, steady canter, glad for the distraction of work.
For some part of this no longer fully equine creature was coming out of the shock of transition and moving into a deeper shock. The thoughts she was trying to process were beyond her, and the emotions she felt were far more complex than had ever assailed her before. She was afraid for Carey, trying to comprehend the loss of Eric, and nearly panicked over the fate of a certain human named Jess.
The mare leaned into the thin twine halter, ignoring its bite, and lengthened her strides. No time for the perplexing muddle of human thoughts in a horse's mind. No time for the fear and distress the half-formed thoughts created. Time only for running, running until her breath came harshly in her throat and her muscles burned. Running until Jaime's gentle cues with the biting twine became insistent demands, and Dun Lady's Jess slowed to a fast walk, sweating with far more than the efforts of her ground-eating canter.
* * *
"I wish I knew how far this place is," Jaime grumbled, and Lady flicked a quick ear back to listen. "You know, I'll bet." She wiped her sweaty face on the hem of her now thoroughly grimy shirt and suggested, "How about a trot, kiddo." Lady moved out without complaint, starting the first in a series of walk-trot-canter cycles that found the path growing almost wide enough to be called a road, but with no sign of their goal.
Or of anybody else, for that matter. Although filled with urgency and a constant harangue from the doubtful inner voice Carey had told her to ignore, Jaime stopped Lady at the small creek that crossed their path, and slid off the sweat-backed mare to splash her own face and take the drink she'd been waiting so long for. She added a couple of quick stretches and then made a clumsy bareback mount, thanking Lady for her rock-steady patience.
Back to the trotting. The spring had gone out of Lady's gait, and Jaime grew spooked as she realized how alone they were. Dark green shadows in mottled sunshine gave her imagination plenty of places to hide bad guys, but it wasn't until she closed her eyes to chase away the illusory threats that she truly ran into trouble.
Voices.
Her eyes flew open as Lady tensed beneath her; together they located the backs of a small group of men ahead of them, just coming into view in the slightly wandering path. One of them must have heard her, for they all turned to look, and then stare, at her.
Maybe she should just trot right by them, give them a nod and nothing else. A standoffish kind of bluff. It was no business of theirs what she was up to.
They must have read her mind for they moved apart, and three abreast was all it took to block her way. Lady geared down to a walk of her own accord, and they were close enough so Jaime clearly heard it when one of the men said, "Well, burn my balls! What kind of a woman we got here?"
Suddenly Jaime remembered the strange expression on Carey's face the first several times he'd seen women in form-fitting breeches, and she felt as good as naked. A tiny stiffening of her back brought Lady to a halt, a safe distance away. People. There really were people in this other world, and their clothing, although normal enough to her eyes—pants, soft-soled ankle boots and shirts in an assortment of sleeve lengths and collar styles—was somehow subtly off. The colors weren't quite what she was used to—too deep a green, an odd iridescent teal . . . she took a deep breath. We're not in Kansas anymore. . . .
What's more, the men were well-armed with knives and short curved swords, and wearing identical leather armbands with some sort of device painted on them—probably enough to tell her whether the
y were friend or foe, if she'd known what to look for. They stared at one another for a moment, until she hazarded a tired sounding, "You're not just going to let me pass, are you?"
"Depends on who you are and where you're going," one of the men replied promptly.
"My name is Jaime Cabot and I'm going in this direction," she said, just as promptly.
A snort greeted her pronouncement. "Bullshit if I ever heard it."
"That's because," Jaime said, carefully neutral, "I don't suppose it's any of your business. I don't mean any harm and that's what matters, isn't it?" She wondered if it might be worth chancing the whole truth. If they were from Sherra's, they might actually help her.
If they weren't, they might kill her.
The third man, the one who'd been silent all this time, finally spoke, and Jaime realized with a start that the tall, sturdy figure was in fact a woman, her lanky figure hidden in her loose sleeveless shirt, her waist obscured by the weapons and equipment on her belt, just like women cops at home. "That's not good enough, not in these times," the woman said. "Especially not with an odd-looking package like yourself." She put a hand on her knife hilt and eyed Jaime pensively. "I don't think we can afford to let you just wander on your way—no matter who you're for. Too many questions about you, woman."
"Look, I'm not trying to make trouble. I just want to get by," Jaime said warily. And somehow, before she even thought about it, she found her mind was made up, and she was startling Lady with abrupt heels. The dun hit a gallop in three strides and the men-at-arms jumped out of her way—but not before one of them got a good hold of Jaime's ankle and pulled her right off Lady's slick back.
Jaime landed gasping on the relatively soft form of her assailant and was struggling to get away from him even as she finished falling, clawing her way across his body. Her fingers found and grasped the hilt of his long knife, but before she could brandish the threat someone else jerked her head back by the short, thick braid of her hair. She cried out in surprise and pain, a yelp that was echoed by someone behind her as Lady's hoofbeats grew loud and close again, and were punctuated by the solid sound of hoof against flesh.
Jaime's head was free and she was on her feet, whirling to locate all three of them. One was down, clutching a hip, the other was rising, his hand slapping at the empty knife sheath, and the woman was—was behind her! Jaime turned just in time to see the heavy pommel of a huge knife heading for her head, too close to avoid. Then dancing dun horseflesh flashed behind the woman and strong white teeth snatched that knife-wielding shoulder, lifted the woman off the ground, and tossed her effortlessly aside.
Jaime ran to her champion and threw herself astride in a mount she wouldn't have dreamed she could make, and Lady thundered down the path, taking them far away from any feeble foot pursuit. She was still running full tilt when the path abruptly opened into a narrow swath of cleared ground that rimmed a thick log wall.
Jaime almost fell off then, clutching mane and riding air as Lady pivoted to follow the wall without cutting her speed. When they reached the thick path that was clearly a main entrance, Jaime was ready for the equally sharp turn into the gate, and rode it much better—which didn't make any difference in the long run, for to Lady's obvious surprise, the gate was closed, and although she reared up in an effort to stop in time, they both crashed hard into the stout wooden structure. A face full of flying black mane swept Jaime into oblivion, but not before her mind's eye flashed her a picture of Carey, Mark and Dayna running into three very annoyed men-at-arms.
* * *
Carey, tired and grim. Dayna with a dirty, tearstained face going pale with exhaustion—a body pushed to the limit. Stumbling. Mark, catching her, speaking to her, holding a branch out of her way. But where was Jess?
"Carey!" Jaime called. "Carey, where's Jess?"
"You're all right."
It was a calm androgynous voice, a voice that knows it has things under control. Jaime immediately felt better about everything, and then opened her eyes in alarm as she remembered just what "everything" was.
"Carey's out in the woods!" she said, even before she had completely taken in the plump, middle-aged woman sitting cross-legged on the ground beside her in a subdued blue split skirt and long tunic. The woman had a cap of thick, greying, ash brown hair and remarkably calm brown eyes; she greeted Jaime's statement with a raised eyebrow.
"I thought I just saw him," Jaime started, then faltered, confused, "but that doesn't make any sense." She was on her back, and aside from the woman, could see little but the trees that towered above her, and it suddenly occurred to her that she was still in one piece, despite the hard fall she'd taken. Carefully, she rolled to her side, testing to see that everything still worked before she sat up—but she couldn't find any of the aches and pains that should have been assaulting her after such a hard collision.
She discovered she was just outside the now-open gate, but Lady was nowhere in sight. Within the walls there were plenty of people going about their business, casting an occasional curious glance their way but leaving them alone.
"I—I'm afraid I'm confused," she confessed to the woman, looking down at her torn breeches and knowing she had not overestimated the seriousness of the fall. And I know I saw Carey, Dayna and my brother in the woods.
"I'm not surprised," the woman nodded; her earrings, two flat teardrops of bright peacock blue, swung with the motion. "Healing on a head injury often leaves the patient a little befuddled. It'll pass."
"Healing on a head injury," Jaime repeated without comprehension, and decided it was more important to get to the heart of the matter. "I need to talk to Sherra right away. Can you take me to her?"
"Easily," the woman asserted and spread her arms. "Here I am, in all my glory."
Jaime blinked, but wasn't taken aback for long. "I'm here for Arlen's courier, Carey."
"Ah, then that was one of his duns that you rode in on."
"Lady," Jaime responded immediately. "Where is she? Is she all right?"
"She took the collision with our gate much better than you did, dear. She's with my own head courier right now and wouldn't get better care if she were a princess."
"Carey needs help," Jaime blurted, at once overcome with the complexity of the situation. "He's out in the woods with some friends of mine, and he's got Arlen's spell. They're on foot, and he's sure some of Calandre's men are after them." For a sudden instant she wondered if she'd said the right thing, if this woman might not be Calandre instead, a very clever Calandre. But there was something about those eyes that reassured her . . .
"I felt him arrive," Sherra nodded, more to herself than to Jaime; then she focused on Jaime again and smiled. "Or should I say I felt you all arrive. Please don't worry about him, or your friends. When I felt a spell of such magnitude, I thought it might be Carey; I alerted all my people to watch for him. Now I can tell them he'll be with friends—and that Calandre's annoying little minions will be snapping at their heels." She stood up and held out a hand for Jaime, who was still feeling dazed enough that she did not question, but reached for the warm, strong grip—and then was glad of it when the world reeled around her.
"Slowly, dear. Head injuries are nothing to fool with, not even with a superb healer such as myself attending the wound."
"That's the second time you've said that," Jaime said, resolutely willing the trees to be still, and relieved when they obeyed. "My head feels fine."
"It is fine," Sherra agreed. "Much better than it was half an hour ago."
Jaime frowned. "I don't like the sound of that." She closed her eyes and felt again the labor of her friends, saw their strained faces. "Poor Dayna," she murmured. Then she looked straight at Sherra and deliberately stopped, midway through the gate. "Please tell me what happened here."
Sherra eyed her back and said simply, "All right. You and your horse galloped straight into my closed gate. I don't imagine she was expecting that—until recently, it hasn't been closed in years. She was lucky and came away wi
th some bad bruises. You, on the other hand, must have hit the gate headfirst. Your skull was broken and you were well on your way to dying by the time I got here."
"What?" Jaime couldn't help the gasp that escaped her; something too deep to question knew that Sherra spoke the truth.
"You're not going to faint? No? Good. Tell me, do they have magic on your world?"
"No," Jaime said, her mouth on automatic while she tried to assimilate near death that had passed so quickly she'd all but missed it. Somewhere along the line, perhaps upon learning that some messages still traveled by horseback in Camolen, she had classified Carey's world as less advanced than her own—but now that rather conceited assumption began to waver, as she realized she probably would not have survived this fall back in Marion.
"I'd like to hear more about it," Sherra said firmly, tugging on Jaime's hand. "But over a cup of tea, dear, not out here where we're blocking the gate."
In a daze, Jaime allowed herself to be escorted into the hold. The first story was mortared stone, but the second was a solid log structure that radiated a homey sturdiness. On a second-story balcony, Jaime and Sherra were served tea by a woman who was obviously more friend than servant. Jaime found herself staring after the woman, futilely trying to classify what she saw into some societal structure she was familiar with. Some of her thoughts must have been evident, for Sherra spoke to them.
"Everyone's different," she said casually, sipping her tea with a satisfied nod; the purple earrings dipped and danced. "Don't form your opinions of us from what I call home. If you were up north in Camolen City, you'd find yourself looking out at tamed lands, with roads that are spelled so they never rut out, and cities that hold more people than ought to be together in any one place. The wizards are thicker up there, too, and they tend to specialize more tightly—in tall building construction, say, or traffic guides. Down here, we like a little room to ourselves; we take life at a slower pace." A wry expression crossed her face. "Usually."
Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess Page 18
