Karavans (31 page)

Davyn had yanked her out of harm’s way, but she had seen that much. She had seen more.

A man who was killed had risen from the dead
.

“Here. Let me.” Davyn picked up the tea cloth and knotted it deftly, then put it into the kettle. She noted that his hands did not shake as he set the fire-blackened kettle onto the wood that would soon become coals, that his body didn’t tremble. Was it so much easier to be a man?

But the tea kettle was not the only thing he put in the fire. Carefully he untied the knot in his shirt’s hem and unwrapped the Hecari dart. It looked innocent of intent or danger, merely a slender metal tip ground to a point, and a feathered wooden shaft. She saw no stains, either of blood
or poison. Such an inconsequential thing that had, nonetheless, killed a man.

Who had somehow risen from death.

Davyn set the dart into the fire. Audrun, transfixed, watched it burn.

“We will go on,” he said. “I promise it.”

She roused, blinking hard, and looked from the fire to her husband. She could not make herself ask the question. Had she heard aright?

“We will go on,” he repeated; yes, she had heard him aright. “To Atalanda. We won’t return to the settlement.”

Audrun could not suppress the flicker of startled relief that kindled in her belly. Still, she had to make the effort to weigh the alternative, to let him know she didn’t leap upon the offering instantly, without thought for their safety. “Should we risk it?”

Davyn said simply, “We must.”

THE SUN HAD set. Cookfires flamed. The scent of meat roasting permeated the karavan campsite. But it was not the easy evening of optimistic and adventurous families on their way to a new land talking over plans and hopes. The experience with the Hecari patrol and Jorda’s decision to return to the tent settlement had left them pensive, unhappy, conversing quietly with eyebrows knit together in frowns and tense expressions of worry.

Despite the sharp discussion with Jorda after the burial, it remained Rhuan’s task, with Darmuth, to ride the perimeter of the encampment, then to walk among the wagons on foot patrol, but with Darmuth still absent all was left to Rhuan.

To the dead man.

To the man who
had
been dead, but inexplicably was no longer.

Outright stares and more discreet sidelong glances followed Rhuan as he rode by the wagons. People stopped what they were doing when they saw him. He heard low-
voiced murmurings, the thick, almost whistling sibilance of the race’s name whispered among many as they saw him:
Shoia
. Different. Alien.
Sorcerous
. How else could a man rise up from the dead?

Only one person had ever appeared to take that feat in stride, with no assumptions made; only one had witnessed a revival and then quietly accepted his explanation with no expression of shock, bafflement, or outright disbelief. But Ilona, of course, had her own measure of personal talent. Rising from the dead might be considerably more dramatic in nature than reading a man’s future in his hand, but it was no more unique than any diviner’s ability.

A lopsided smile twisted Rhuan’s mouth. He rode with an Alisani demon, but the humans all believed
he
was the odd one, the alien one, the dangerous one. Rhuan knew quite well the kind of stories passed around concerning Shoia. That some of them were true was an exquisite irony.

He looked up into the darkness of the Orphan Sky lit only by stars. “Will I ever understand them?”

Unlike Brodhi, he wanted to.

Rhuan glanced at the nearest wagon as he rode by: Ilona’s, with a small tin lantern hanging from a wagon rib to cosily illuminate the door and steps. But though her table and accoutrements were set out for divining with tea brewing over a small fire, she herself was not in evidence.

Then the door lantern fell, spilling oil and flame down the wooden steps into grass.

Rhuan was off his horse in one agile, twisting dismount and reached the wagon in three running strides. Without hesitation he yanked the rug from beneath Ilona’s table, overturning it as well as upsetting her stones and sticks and tea makings, and threw it over the burning steps. On hands and knees he smothered the fire, patting the rug down so no air reached the flames. Fortunately the small lantern had used up most of its limited supply of oil, and it burned off the spilled fuel quickly enough that none soaked the rug and caused it to catch fire.

He intended not to call to Ilona until the flames were out; he didn’t want her opening the door and stepping into
fire. But then he heard a crash from inside the wagon and felt it shift beneath an unknown weight.

The rug smoked, but the flames had died. Still, he didn’t trust the blackened steps to hold him. Blessing his height and the length of his arms, Rhuan, from the ground, reached for the latch and pulled the door open. “’Lona?”

The images, confused as they were, stamped themselves into his mind’s eye the instant he saw them. Ilona’s heels digging at the floorboards, knees bucking, thighs straddled by a man’s. Her skirt torn away to bare naked legs. And a man,
a man atop her
, twisting his torso to see who had pulled open the door in the midst of what could only be described as an assault.

Then the man was up, turning, lurching toward the door even as Rhuan planted a foot on the potentially precarious lowest step. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and his stub-bled face was set in a rictus of startlement and fear, and a frustrated anger.

It was one fleeting moment, no longer, as Rhuan’s mind registered movement, intent, desperation. The man, sweating, swearing, hurled himself through the door, all his weight and impetus knocking Rhuan sideways. The charred bottom step broke beneath his booted foot.

The man fled into the darkness, but Rhuan did not pursue. Instead he caught hold of the door jamb and levered himself up into the wagon.

“’
Lona!
”

THE STRANGER’S WEIGHT and intensity were terrifying as he leaned down over Ilona, so close his gusting breath touched her face. But it was more than simple fear, more than panic, that seized her body even as his hands did. It was a complex layering of emotions and reactions, including foremost among them blank surprise and utter disbelief.

She tried clawing him; he imprisoned and pinned her wrists over her head with one wide hand. She tried biting
him; he was quick as a snake in avoiding the attempt. And his weight and strength were such that she could make no inroads on her imprisonment. She had never known herself so helpless, so impotent in the face of physical danger. In her experience karavaners simply did no such thing as assault a woman, and a diviner at that. She had always supposed there were men in the tent settlement who might stoop to such action, but someone from the karavan, usually Tansit when the guide was still alive, accompanied her there, and Mikal allowed no improper overtures in his ale tent if she were alone, as sometimes happened.

Now she lay pinned against the floorboards in her own wagon with a stranger atop her, a man who even now tore her divided skirt from drawstring waist to hem. She smelled him now, the sharp, pungent tang of sweat and grime.

And she
could not scream
.

Could not so much as whisper.

Mute, she fought … her desperate movements knocked something down from one of the rune-carved wagon ribs arching overhead. Then she smelled oil and smoke overriding the man’s odor. She heard the latch rattle as the door was pulled open.

And heard her name called.

She mouthed
his
name, though no sound came of it. Abruptly the stranger pushed up, pushed away, relieved her of his weight as he twisted; there was a momentary pause, and then he thrust himself forward and leaped for the door despite the person in it.

Ilona rolled onto her left side, reaching with her right hand for anything that might be used against the man should he turn back. She found nothing save spilled willow bark tea and a pot that had fallen.

“’Lona…”

Hands were on her again. She tensed, teeth bared, her own hands striking out, then scrambled backward, unable to suppress the reaction until her mind recognized who it was, and recalled that he would never harm her.

Embarrassment heated her face. She had never believed herself a woman who would lose self-control.

Rhuan helped her into a sitting position. Her coiled hair had come loose of its anchoring sticks, spilling down over her shoulders. She looked into his face and saw concern in his eyes, but also a coldness in the lines of his face that shook her.

“’Lona—are you all right?”

Her hands touched her throat.

He pulled them aside gently, searching for the expected finger marks that would bruise by morning. But Ilona shook her head and mouthed the words
I can’t talk
, and
a charm
, hoping he would understand.

He did. And the anger in his eyes shocked her with its heat.

Eyes glinting
red
.

T
HE INTERIOR OF Mikal’s ale tent was illuminated by a single discolored tin lantern. Brodhi could have seen just as well with no light at all, but the humans would have found it strange—yet another oddity to attribute to the Shoia courier—and so he lit the wick, placed the lantern on the plank bar, poured a tankard of ale, and seated himself at a table.

The tent was empty of Mikal, empty of customers. Brodhi sat alone and drank in flickering sepia light, while the keening laments of the women outside slowly died away into the occasional raised, wailing voice, and the deeper shouts of the men attempting to bring order to the evening, order to the dead.

Brodhi had dropped the door flap for privacy. Now it parted; a small, slender form slipped through, and the lantern light glinted dull saffron off brass ear-hoops.

Bethid.

The bottom half of her tunic was soaked with water, and a smear of soot stretched from nose to ear on the left side of her face. As usual, her cropped hair stood up in haphazard spikes and tufts sculpted by a scrubbing hand, though its fairness was now colored with a patchwork of grime and blood and soot. An empty wooden bucket with a hempen loop handle swung from one hand.

“What are you doing in here?” Her tone was sharp, shaded by disbelief.

He felt it self-evident and offered no answer, merely lifted the foaming tankard to his lips and drank.

“Mikal said you were here … I thought perhaps you’d come for a spare bucket. But you didn’t come back.”

Brodhi remained silent.

Her expression was incredulous. “Are you
drinking
in here? Just sitting here
drinking
?”

With delicate irony, he observed, “You have a gift for stating the obvious.”

Bethid, never even when happy able to keep opinions to herself, was notably less self-contained when she was angry. She stared at him. In dim light the angles and hollows of her tired face stood out in gaunt relief. “There are people outside, people who are dead, Brodhi. Some of the tents are still smoldering!”

He asked a question with arched brows.

Bethid strode across the space between the door flap and his table and slammed her bucket down on the knife-scarred surface. “The people,” she said with the kind of precision in enunciation and tone that underscored the intensity of her anger, “need your help.”

Brodhi shrugged. “You asked me to aid the karavan. I did so. Mikal asked me to help search the burning tents, and I did so. For a while.”

It astounded her. “There is a limit to the amount of time you’re willing to help?”

Oaths, vows, and promises. Traps along the way. Brodhi said, “This is not our duty.”

“It is our duty,” she retorted. “It’s the duty of any decent human being to help another in a tragedy like this.”

“But I’m not,” Brodhi said; and when she didn’t understand, added, “not human. Remember?”

For a long moment she was speechless, staring at him. The flesh of her throat leaped as she swallowed with effort, as if on the verge of tears. Her voice was thick. “Do you know, I have always stood up for you. Always defended you when other couriers had nothing decent to say about
you. And I’ve always reminded them that you likely have reasons for what you do and say …but now?” She shook her head slowly, jerkily, as if dazed. “Now, I begin to believe they are right. You are a cold bastard, Brodhi.”