The Scarlet Empress (11 page)

Cam sighed. A couple of yaks raised their heads to stare at her curiously. “Y’all have to try it,” she insisted, but the animals went back to grazing. The grass was matted and brown from a recent snow, the first of the season. The snow should have been ten feet deep by now at this northern latitude. Global warming in the midst of supposed nuclear winter? It was just one of the many pieces of the puzzle that didn’t make sense.

“Cam!
Cam!
”

A young woman ran toward her, black braids flying. Cam’s spirits soared. Zhurihe had returned, bless her heart! Her eyes stung. The girl was her only friend in the entire world. Sometimes the gut-wrenching loneliness hurt more than Cam’s healing muscles and bones.

But when Zhurihe arrived, Cam could see that her friend was upset. “You must run!” The girl grabbed her arm and tugged. “Go!”

To keep her from passing out from hyperventilation, Cam complied, throwing a gaze up at the sky, half in fear and half in joyful anticipation of seeing another aircraft.

“Not a plane.” Zhurihe gasped, running alongside her. “I heard that they were coming, and now I see them with my eyes. Horses. They’re coming up the road. Rim Riders!”

Sure enough, in the far distance along an undulating ribbon of road, a cloud of smoke told of approaching riders. Rim Riders. Minions of the barbarian emperor.

Dread chilled Cam to the bone. Rim Riders, she’d found out with a little research among the farm’s other workers, patrolled the backwoods of the barbarian emperor’s realm the old-fashioned way. At the monarch’s
orders, they exacted frontier justice when they thought it necessary and hauled off alleged troublemakers for handsome bounties when it suited their fancy. They were favored by the emperor, and he indulged them, making it dangerous—and stupid—to cross them.

Zhurihe no longer had to push Cam along; she was hurrying under her own power now. Much faster, though, and her muscles would begin to cramp. In the past, the pain could be so intense that she lost consciousness. “Zhurihe, this is my max speed.”

“But they are coming, coming
now.
”

Cam felt a little sick. She didn’t feel like ending the day as the emperor’s new clothes. She picked up her pace, despite the consequences. “What do they want from us? The food? The livestock?”

“No.” The girl’s eyes flicked wildly in her direction. “They want
you.
”

At the top of a wooded rise above the farm, Prince Kyber pulled his horse to a standing halt. Beast reared back, ejecting steam from his flared nostrils. “Easy, easy now.” Eyes narrowed, Kyber surveyed the farm below. Its inhabitants belonged to a cult that reviled technology. The scene before him could easily have been taken from three or four centuries earlier. Why some preferred to live this way eluded him, but as a prince, he allowed it in the name of tolerance. His subjects could do as they wished, as long as it wasn’t at cross-purposes to his goals.

Most of the people from the collective were in the fields, he surmised from what he’d observed along the way. A single man sat at a tollbooth, where a usage fee for the hot springs would be collected. Having received
advance word of their arrival—the primitive system of lookouts in this area was unmatched—a gatekeeper would have rushed to man the entrance; Kyber wasn’t surprised in the least to see the welcoming party of one.

He urged his mount forward, Nikolai cantering along at his side. “Good day,” the chief called out to the gatekeeper.

“Good day to you, Rim Riders.” The man’s eyes tripped over the sight of Kyber’s face.

Kyber expected no less. The lenses masking his eye color might not warrant a second glance, but the intricate facial tattoo that covered more than half of the exposed skin certainly would. The pigment existed on the cellular level, nanocomputers that he could turn off and on at will. To further disguise his appearance, he wore his hair loose. Long and thick, it fell around his shoulders. He felt so comfortable in his role as Kublai, Rim Rider, that sometimes he couldn’t help wondering if this was closer to what he really was than the outwardly civilized ruler. There were enough barbarians, European and Asian, in the family tree to support the claim, at any rate.

“We would like to have a look around,” Nikolai announced.

The gatekeeper’s nervousness was mute but obvious to Kyber. He was hiding something. Fortunately Kyber already knew his little secret.

The gatekeeper stepped aside. “You may water your horses there.” As was typical of a citizen of this region of ancient horsemen and open steppes, he gazed at the horses with covetous admiration. “Fine animals.”

Kyber grunted. “Touch them and I will slit your
throat.” Good cop, bad cop—the routine he used with Nikolai often worked well.

The gatekeeper’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His gaze flicked from Kyber’s unhappy expression to the weapons he wore, the armor and rugged riding boots. “We do not steal horses here, Rim Rider.”

“What do you steal, then?”

“We—”

Kyber thrust his arm out and snatched the gatekeeper’s collar. “You are innocent, you say?”

He sputtered, clawing at Kyber’s leather glove.

Nikolai stepped to Kyber’s side. “Perhaps he knows nothing, Kublai.”

Kyber pretended to let his temper flare. It was easy to do; he was furious that these borderland people would choose to consort with rebels rather than support an empire that had performed countless benevolent acts in the region. Their duplicity and brazen disregard of national security left a red haze of anger over Kyber’s vision. “Is this true? Have you nothing here that doesn’t belong to you? Is there no one amongst you who must lawfully be reported to your magnificent and generous emperor who loves you?”

At that, Nikolai made a small sound in his throat.

The gatekeeper’s face had gone from pink to purple. “I have done nothing,” he choked out.

Kyber smiled thinly and set him down. “We shall see, gatekeeper.”

“Let us partake of the pleasures of the spring first,” his security chief suggested. “We have had a long many days of riding. We have been out on patrol for many weeks.” In truth, they’d traveled by magcar three-quarters of the
way from Beijing, circumventing the Gobi Desert and leaving the vehicles in a secret location at the border of the forests for the few days it would take to complete this round-trip. A full journey on horseback would have taken weeks, a luxury neither man could afford. If not for the nature of this particular task, fetching the wayward pilot, Kyber would not have abandoned his duties at all.

“Come this way, please.” Robes filling his arms, the gatekeeper led them toward the shrine.

Kyber frowned. “We said the springs.”

“Ah, but you must purge your sins first, Rim Rider. It is what we require of all pilgrims before they take their pleasure in God’s water.” It was a delaying tactic; Scarlet wasn’t anywhere near the shrine or the gatekeeper would not have brought them there.

“In that case, a quick prayer.” It was a small peacemaking effort, and nothing more, to acknowledge local custom. As much as he wanted to strangle the man for his disobedience to the realm in sheltering a woman he should have reported to his district overseer, so too was Kyber reluctant to start rumors of abuse traceable back to himself.

Offerings, old and new, littered the ground near the entrance to a large round tent constructed of thick hides lashed together with yak sinew. Kyber and Nikolai’s smiling guide waved them forward. “Please. Go inside.”

Nikolai’s hand moved out, slightly, his fingers spread. A signal to hang back, to be cautious. The back of Kyber’s neck prickled.

Kyber’s own hand slid over his pistol. For the first time he felt the danger of the situation, of moving freely out of reach of his enviable security forces.
You have no heirs. To whom would the crown pass if you died this day?

D’ekkar. Kyber almost snorted. No one outside the royal family and its closest advisers knew that it was fact, not a rumor, that D’ekkar Han Valoren wasn’t the emperor’s blood son. Since Kyber had no heirs, his half brother, the bastard son his mother bore her lover, was technically in line for the throne. The thought of Deck ruling in his place was enough to keep Kyber alive through anything the troublemakers here might throw at him.

Nikolai moved aside the tent flap. The odor of incense rushed out. Kyber had only to inhale once before his body reacted: dizziness, then lingering, distinctly agreeable buoyancy. It would take only another few breaths for him to want to lie down and lose himself all day in the sensation.

He jerked backward, pulling his chief with him, and whirled on the gatekeeper. The man cowered. This time he wasn’t sorry for intimidating him. “The incense is drugged!”

“It is only mildly hallucinogenic.”

“Mildly, my ass. It nearly took my wits with the first breath!”

“It will heighten your pleasure.”

“When I want to take my pleasure, I do so with women—not narcotics!”

Nikolai’s eyes were a bit glazed, but his manner was as crisp and efficient as ever. “Do you wish us harm, good neighbor? Do you not respect the emperor to whom we owe our allegiance?”

“No! No harm. None at all. I sought only to bring you closer to God.”

“More like closer to unconsciousness,” Kyber muttered
as his head cleared. “It would seem as if you are hiding something—or someone.”

“Please. Only my family and I live here.”

“No one else?” Nikolai asked as Kyber flexed his gloved hands, cracking his knuckles.

The gatekeeper’s mouth worked nervously. “People, they come and go in these lands. Lost souls. You know how it is.”

“Female. Tall, slender, blond,” Nikolai went on. “With an odd accent.”

“And pretty. A pretty woman.” Kyber punched a fist into his palm, and the gatekeeper jumped. “Would you know of anyone fitting that description?”

Nikolai made a soft clicking sound of warning at the same time a flash of brightly colored clothing caught Kyber’s eye. On the road leading to the springs, a lone figure hurried along, her gait uneven. She had a blanket thrown over her head.

Kyber’s pulse jumped. Scarlet. He was sure of it. “Who is that?” he bellowed.

The gatekeeper’s words tumbled out. “My daughter . . . she brought home a friend. She was ill—ill for many weeks, this one, but she’s a hard worker. She didn’t do anything. We didn’t . . . I swear—”

Nikolai grabbed for his weapon. “You there—halt!”

Another woman, this one smaller, had unhitched the horses. She slapped them hard and sent them galloping away before she herself ran off, braids streaming behind her.

“Horse thief!” the gatekeeper yelped. “You must go after your steeds.”

“That was no horse thief; it was a well-timed distraction.”
Kyber drew his neuron fryer and aimed it at the gatekeeper. “And the oldest trick in the book.” He fired.

The man crumpled and fell.

“You won’t remember anything of this. Trust me.” Hastily, he shoved the cooling weapon back in his pocket. “You take care of our friend, Niko, and I’ll go after the woman.”

As the chief dragged the body into the temple to leave it “napping” on one of the pews, Kyber ran down the hill leading to the springs.
Stay put, my little American. I’ll soon be joining you.

He stopped at the shore. Steam rose in billowing puffs from the water. The faint scent of sulfur floated in the air. He unbuckled his weapons belt and peered at the craggy outcroppings of rocks for a sign of the woman. She was nowhere.

A feeling he didn’t like slithered down his back. Where did she go? Would he lose her, too, and feel once more the humiliation of defeat? He stripped off the heavier pieces of his body armor and his shirt, then discarded his boots. He took out his breather, wedging the device between his teeth. It would allow him all the time he needed to search the springs

They’re coming for you!
Zhurihe’s warning clanged like a fire alarm in Cam’s head.
Tell no one who you are. You don’t want the emperor to learn of you.

Hidden behind a couple of boulders and a shifting wall of steam, she watched the bigger of the two Rim Riders strip down to his tight black pants. Hollywood had made a cliché of depraved tyrants who kept legions of muscular, badass minions on the payroll. Cam was
not
happy to see it was true. Dark swirls of tattoo covered more than half his face, but his body was clean of any ornamentation aside from an impressive set of abs. This man knew how to fight; his musculature told her that. And maybe he wasn’t quite as stupid as she’d thought. Zhurihe’s little horse-stealing stunt hadn’t fooled him.

The only thing worse than a brute was a smart brute. She had the feeling this wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d thought.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Show yourself!”
His baritone carried over the water. When she didn’t answer, he tried again. “Don’t fear me. You’ve been held here illegally. I have come to rescue you.”

Rescue
her? It was the last thing she’d expected to hear.

The Rider tipped his head and listened to the silence that was her response. Then he tried again. “No tricks, I promise you.” His voice had lost its edge.

She ducked down lower in the water, waiting to see what he’d do. “Ah, why do you make me come after you?” he asked almost tiredly. Then with the barest of splashes the man dove into the springs. For a big man, he had a lot of grace.

Hot water licked at her chin. Hefting a rock in her hand, she waited. The healing springs had stolen her aches and pains, and without gravity sabotaging her muscles and bones, she felt agile and light. And ready. No wonder Zhurihe had sent her here: the water evened the odds.

She wasn’t as sure anymore if he meant her harm or not. Until she knew for sure, she wanted to keep him at a distance.

This needed to be a hit-and-run, then.

Summers spent swimming with her brothers in an assortment of swimming holes had taught her a thing or two. You were least prepared when you surfaced for a breath. When the Rim Rider did, that was when she’d act. Conk him on the head with the rock and make a mad dash to shore. In the forest she knew of a hundred places to hide. She’d be slower on land, more clumsy, but if all went as planned, she’d have one hell of a head start.