Lhind the Thief (10 page)

Except for taking me against my will at the outset, all
three had been fair to me by their own code.

So . . . what about my code?

No
, my mind wailed back.
I’m free, and for the first time ever,
I’ve got enough take to live in comfort for two seasons.
Oh, the places I
could go . . . the freedom that was now mine . . . but then
treachery returned, in the shape of memory: Hlanan’s considered words, as if
our conversations had mattered. As if
I’d
mattered.

Thianra’s laugh, her lovely voice drifting through the soft
evening air.

Even a little rat of a
thief deserves a chance to fight for its life.

Well, one thing I’d learned during my years of wandering:
don’t stay mad at yourself for long, otherwise you’re at odds with the only
ally you’ve got.

I finally admitted that I wasn’t going to run off and leave
them to their fates, though every practical instinct clamored for me to do just
that. I knew I was going to find them, and free them, if I possibly could.

If I could.

Of course
I could
outsmart a parcel of boulder-witted warriors!

All right, so I’d think of it as a challenge.

I rolled over and splashed water over my hot face, wondering
how I’d go about finding them —

As soon as I thought it,
Hrethan
,
came the inner voice of that bird, straight into my head.
I am with them, and I will help you.

I fought against surprise—or more correctly the fury that
attends surprise—and managed not to lock Tir’s thoughts out. My instinctive
reaction of distrust dissolved when I remembered what the aidlar had vowed
about never harming “my kind”: one thing I’d found about creatures other than
human was that they never lied.

So,
Where
? I sent the
thought back.

No words came in answer. Instead, a mental picture of
moonlit fields, as seen from the sky. The black coach and its guard, still
riding in two militarily straight lines, was moving westward at a trot.

Westward: back toward the harbor.

We need to act now, or they’ll reach Letarj
before morning
,
I sent the thought to Tir.

I felt its agreement—and the confidence with which it
awaited my plan. For Tir was a bird, and planning was up to humans. It had
patiently flown with the carriage, and then when that was attacked, it flew to
warn Hlanan. Too late. That much I gathered from the swift flow of images.

So then it followed the cavalcade that had captured Hlanan
and the other two, loyally waiting for me to remember the three and concoct a
rescue, just as would others of its kind.

That thought made me feel queasy.

You stay with them,
and I’ll find a way to catch up,
I sent.

Again I felt Tir’s unquestioning acceptance, and I got to my
feet, wondering how I was to accomplish this. Their captors were riding
steadily back down the river toward the harbor again. Running all night—which I
couldn’t do—wouldn’t catch me up with them before they reached the harbor.

I walked slowly to the top of a little rise, breathing in
the soft breeze that had sprung up. Wisps of fog drifted some distant hills;
above, soft clouds rolled silently over the stars, blocking them from view. I
sniffed the air, sorting the scents. Water . . . almond blossoms
both sweet and bitter . . . citrus . . .
cedar . . . and the pungency of horse. Horses?

As I crested a hill, I saw a farm nestled alongside a stream
Clumped under some trees stood horse-shaped shadows, heads drooping. When I
took a few steps, a few heads came up, ears alert.

Rejoicing, I ran down toward the fenced pasture.

Stealing horses has always been easy. I send them friendly
thoughts, and the first one that responds, I climb on, hold the mane, and ride.
When I’m done, I always send them in the right direction for home. Soon I was
on the back of a frisky, freshly-shod young mare who was ready for a good
gallop. She cleared the fence in a leap that left several hand-spans to spare.

The horse knew a path that paralleled the river road. She
galloped happily, slowing when we encountered slowly drifting fingers of fog
rising off the river. We cantered over the countryside, Tir sending mental
pictures of the prisoners’ location from time to time. The aidlar’s position
remained in my mind like a fixed star, and I guided the horse steadily toward
it.

As I neared them, I wondered how I was to effect a rescue. I
had myself and a bird, and against me were twice-twelve warriors, all armed.
Rajanas, Hlanan and Thianra could not be counted on for anything; I did not
even know if they were awake. Hlanan certainly had not been when they dumped
him into that coach.

The obvious course was to use my shimmers somehow. But how?

My next thought was, I needed more allies.
Tir? Can you find Arbren and those other
servants?

I cannot hear their
thoughts as I can yours. I see no other humans near.

So the servants were out. I figured they’d probably ride for
home. As I recalled, none of them had been armed. But Rajanas’s six guards had
been armed. Where were they?

I remembered Hlanan’s worry about losing trace of them, and
I decided I’d better discount them.

All right, then. No human aid. Perhaps as well. No
questions, that way. How about non-human?

I was near enough now to listen without ears or eyes.
Digging my hands into the horse’s mane, I sat as steadily as I could and spread
my thoughts out ahead, sensing . . . and I saw little lights of
many colors, most but not all dim, as though asleep. Then I found Tir and the
others, and near them, the red mental presence of a warren of snakes.

Snakes?

I opened my eyes, fighting the moments of nauseating vertigo
that always clawed at my insides after that kind of exercise. As I scanned the
black line of forest that the swirling mist nearly obscured, a plan formed. I
nudged the mare into a gallop and dashed through the fields adjacent, until I
had passed by the gradually slowing cavalcade.
Tir! Can you fly ahead and show me the road?

The bird riding high overhead did just that.

Very close was a bend perfect for my needs. It meant I had
to act fast.

I called to the snakes, much the same way I did the horses.
They came at once, making me uneasy. Always when I used a creature this way, I
felt honor-bound to assure its safety. That was part of my own code. It was
always much easier to risk only myself.

When the snakes were in position just ahead of the bend,
waiting in mild curiosity, I slowed my horse and slid off into the tall grass.
Ramming my hands over my eyes, I stretched my hands out toward the road.

Tir! Road!

I saw the road below me, and the cavalcade moving steadily.
Directly ahead of them, where the bend curved, I shimmered a straight section
of road, blurring the real road.

The first pair of warriors rode without hesitation onto my
shimmer-road. Their pace checked slightly when they encountered rough field,
but they saw road, and mist swirled about them, so they kept going.

My heart fired with triumph as I ended the false road. I
sent a wordless command to the snakes. A heartbeat after the coach trundled
past them, moving slowly down the real road, the snakes rose up on either side,
hissing and waving their heads. The horses who’d been following the coach
reared, whinnying in fright. I heard the surprised shouts of the not-distant
warriors.

Shutting the distracting sound out, I obscured the snakes so
they could retreat into the grass and not be trampled, then I hid the coach
with shimmer-trees and made a false road again, this time bending inland, away
from the river alongside a feeder stream in a valley. The warriors raced along
it, trying to catch up with the rest of their group—and the coach was now
alone.

Not for long. I got up, fighting dizziness, and ran flat for
the bulky shape ahead.

“Hey! Where are you going?” the man on it shouted after the
last of his escort, but the thunder of hooves drowned his voice. He leaped
down, opened the door—

I don’t know what he would have done with the prisoners, and
maybe just as well. I launched myself into the air and landed on his back. We
both fell onto the floor of the coach, off-balance. The heavy man managed to
muscle me down onto the floorboards. He pulled back a fist about the size of a
melon—and then Rajanas’s boot heel whopped the man’s head with a solid thwack.

The soldier fell slumped unconscious to the floor of the
carriage, and I rolled free. “Come on!” I said. “They’ll figure out the dodge
soon.”

“Thank you, Lhind.” Thianra murmured, her voice warm with
gratitude.

“Here.” I reached for the nearest pair of hands, sawed at
the rough rope with my knife, then I pressed the knife into one of the palms
I’d freed. “Here. I’ll loosen the coach horses while you cut their ropes.”

I jumped out again, pulling the driver’s sword from its
sheath.

Cutting the harnesses free was easier than trying to deal
with ties and buckles. As I finished, the other three emerged from the coach,
ghostly forms in the gloomy fog. I called my mare to me, and she came trotting
out of the mist.

Rajanas started to speak, but Hlanan murmured something
softly, and he fell silent, handing me back my knife.

Hlanan and Thianra mounted on one coach horse, and Rajanas
took the other. We turned back upriver, and began to ride.

I called more horses when we passed another farm, for ours
were tired. Six responded. A good number, I thought. They’d look like a herd
let run loose, for I did not want Hlanan and the others to know I’d called
them.

The three seemed to accept the sudden appearance of
unsaddled or bridled horses as lucky chance, for Rajanas shouted to the others
to block them quickly. Thianra gave a pleased cry, and Hlanan said nothing. He
kept rubbing his head.

We let the tired coach horses go. Once they were out of
sight I sent my mare toward home.

As Thianra and Rajanas cut out three horses, Hlanan walked
up to me. He was still rubbing his head. “The outriders. How did you do it?
Your . . . your shimmer spell?”

“Yes. Told you it comes in handy.”

“How far did you extend the illusion?”

“Can’t do it far at all.”

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Rajanas loomed up, a silhouette against Big Moon, low in the
sky. “Can you ride?”

“Of course,” Hlanan said. But he didn’t sound so sure.

Rajanas didn’t say anything, but he rode behind Hlanan,
leaving Thianra to ride point. I rode alongside her, figuring she was least
likely to ask questions I didn’t want to answer.

Nobody spoke much as we rode through the night. The sun came
up as we made our way down a ridge above the river, which had widened
considerably, moving placidly over a shallow, rocky bed.

Rajanas kept his hand on the hilt of the sword I’d taken off
that coach driver, his eyes moving constantly back and forth, back and forth,
as our mounts waded slowly across the rushing water. Thianra sat, grim and
unsmiling, and Hlanan held tightly to his horse’s mane, his eyes squinted
against what must have been a fearsome headache. The bleak morning sun revealed
an ugly bump on the side of his head.

But nothing happened. If pursuit there was, it did not find
us. When we climbed dripping and tired up the ridge on the other side, it was
within sight of a small town. We rode in not long after, and there we found
Arbren and the other servants, and most of the baggage; Thianra pounced on her
tiranthe with a glad cry. The servants had been in the midst of trying to raise
some kind of search party that would be willing to recross the border.

By then I was so tired I thought my head would fall off my
body and roll away somewhere. We stopped at an inn, and I sank onto a bench and
watched Rajanas deal with his frightened, excited servants. If he was tired he
hid it, and his voice was amazingly patient. Hlanan went outside to watch for
Tir, who had been flying overhead, but then vanished.

Thianra sat down next to me, her instrument safely tucked
over her back. I remembered that innkeeper’s wife saying
She whom you bargained with.
“Do you know who sent those hired
swords?” I asked.

She gave her head a single shake. “Gear unmarked with
anyone’s device, and they spoke Chelan to us, and among themselves. Someone
local’s private force, on hire for just one capture. Possibly in disguise. That
would explain the lack of pursuit.”

“They’ll just go home and report it as a bad business?”

She lifted a shoulder in a faint shrug. “They might not have
known anything more about us than we did about them, except that one of us was
a scribe who could do magic. There are several people who could have told them
that much.”

“Is that unusual? I mean, scribes who are mages, or the
other way around?”

“No,” she said quickly. Her voice dropped a tone. “In
certain areas, scribes are even expected to learn some limited spells. Hlanan
got interested in magic, and left scribe training, so he knows more than most.
But he still works as a scribe.” She fought a yawn, and rubbed her eyes. “What
I wonder is, what happened to Rajanas’s own Guard?”

She did not answer her own question, and as I had no answer,
we fell into silence until Hlanan appeared before us. “We’ve food waiting, and
fresh horses.”

Thianra got up stiffly; I shook my head, unwilling to move.

Hlanan smiled, then winced as if his head hurt. “Come,
Lhind. You cannot part from us now.”

“You don’t understand,” I said hoarsely. “You mages might
not feel anything. But when I make a shimmer it tires me.”

A flicker of surprise lifted his eyelids, but he said only:
“I’ve something to add to our tea that will help. And we’re riding just for a
time. This town is still too close to the border.”