Black Spice (Book 3) (7 page)

Kyric
danced away from another thrust — this was so much better than fighting on a
pitching deck.  The hunter thrust again hard, straight for his heart, but Kyric
moved first, sliding past it even as the man tried to backpedal, and cut him
across the ribs on his unshielded side.

He
felt so completely in control.  He could sink like a stone, or float like a
feather.  This wasn’t like practicing with Aiyan — it was
easier
.  And
he had been so afraid.

Then
there was only one left.  Kyric backed him against the enclosure with a series
of feints.  Someone inside took hold of his spear.  Another hand grasped his
ankle.  He shouted in his pig-tongue as they pulled him through the thorny
fence, his cries suddenly stopping.

Kyric
looked up.  Aiyan had leapt into the gap to help the Silasese move the barrier
log.  Lerica was checking the bodies to make sure no one was faking it.

“Yes,”
Kyric said, slashing the air with his sword to cleanse it.  They had done it.

The
Silasese came pouring through the gap, some of them taking the spears of the
fallen Hariji.  One of their leaders, a tall woman with greying hair and a tiny
starfish strapped to her forehead, introduced herself as Jascenda.  She asked
Aiyan what was happening.

He
had Kyric translate.  “We are friends of King Tonah,” he said.  “We slipped
past Soth Garo’s army, but there is only us.  You must all flee before the
alarm is sounded.  Run down the road all the way to Mantua if you can.”

Kyric
paused as something came to him.  A figure in his mind’s eye.

“Aiyan. 
It’s the moment of the seahorse.”

Jascenda
looked at him, suddenly hopeful.  “Do you mean that they have not taken our
boats away?  Then we can escape by way of the sea.”

“Hey,”
Lerica said, “Should we go look for Mahai?”

As
if to answer her, a shout came from the town.  Mahai came around the corner of
a house, still running, the Hariji hunters still chasing him.  When they saw
that the Silasese had been freed and armed, and their fellows killed, they came
to a sudden halt.  Mahai turned and shook his war club at them, and they
scattered back into the village.

“Are
the Silasese’s boats still there?” Kyric asked him.

“The
double outriggers,” he said between breaths, “are at the north beach.  Some
twin hulls are there too.”

“How
many people can they hold?” Aiyan said.

“Maybe
half of those here.”

Jascenda
raised her hands and spoke to her people in Silasese.  They broke into groups
and made for the north side of the town.

“Many
are our sailing canoes are hidden,” she explained.  “We have sheds along the
docks and in the forest, and there is a secret cove north of the beach.  There
is enough for us all to get away.  But they took the whale singers to another
place, and we cannot leave them behind.  They are most precious to our hearts.”

“The
wedding house,” Mahai said.  “I know the back way in.”

“Get
your boats in the water and get your people to sea,” Aiyan said.  “We will
fetch your whale singers.  Have your fastest vessel waiting on the beach.”

“It
will be there,” Jascenda said, turning to speak to her people.

Mahai
led them along the cliff until they came to a very steep cut with a ladder laid
over it.  “Up there,” he said, “a little way down the path and you come to a
small clearing with the wedding house.”

“You
know,” Kyric said, “I still haven’t heard any kind of — “

At
that moment a metallic banging rang out from the town.  A horn sounded in reply
from the camp down the road.

“
— alarm.”

“Quickly,
now,” Aiyan said, scrambling up the ladder. 

They
all followed.  He was waiting for them inside the woods.  “Get your pistols out
and see if they’re still dry.”

Kyric
pulled Lerica’s flintlock out of her pack and handed it to her.  “Looks
alright,” she said, slipping it into her sash.  She dug into Kyric’s pack for
his double barrel.  “Some dampness along the back of the grip, but the barrels
and the dogs are dry.”

“I’ll
take that,” Aiyan said.

They
went quickly but quietly down the narrow path, flanked by trees and thick
shrubs on either side.  When they saw the trail opening into a clearing, Aiyan
led them into the underbrush.  Signaling them to stay, he crawled away, was
gone for a only a moment, then crawled back.

‘
No
words
,’ he signed in Cor’el and they all nodded.  ‘
They are still there
.’
 He pointed to Kyric and Mahai.  ‘
We three will come out of the woods at the
same time.  I will try to shoot the sorcerer.  You two keep the death guards
busy — do not allow them to enter the house where they can harm the singers
.’

Lerica
wrinkled her nose.  ‘
Am I just supposed to watch?
’

‘
You
must guard our escape route.  Fire your weapon if they come in force or you see
him
.  No time to argue.  Here we go
.’

They
spread out on either side of the path and crept to the edge of the clearing.  The
woods lay eerily quiet, punctuated by the sound of water dripping from the
trees.  Ziddgan stood between the two death guards in what looked like a toga
covered in black mold.  His headdress had nothing of the boar to it.  It was
rimmed by desiccated snakes and topped with the head of a bat, its fanged mouth
wide open.  In one hand, writhing freely, its tail wrapped around his wrist,
lay a blue and yellow viper.

Immediately,
he stiffened and looked right at them.  Aiyan stepped out from behind a tree
and sighted down the barrels of the wheel-lock.  Ziddgan raised the hand
holding the snake, but Aiyan had already squeezed the first trigger.

The
wheel spun against the dog, but there was no spark.

The
sorcerer held the viper against his free hand, and it instantly struck.  Aiyan
suddenly dropped the pistol, crying out pain, his hand twisted into a claw.  Ziddgan
brought the snake up to his neck and it bit him again.  The death guards had
drawn their sabres and were moving, not for the door of the house, but to
protect the sorcerer.

Mahai
charged right at them, with Kyric a half step behind.  Then another death guard
came around from the back of the house, obviously surprised at what was
happening.  If Kyric charged with Mahai, this man could easily flank them, so
he swerved toward him, hoping to get to him before he could draw his sword.

But
the fellow moved unnaturally fast, reaching for his sabre and nearly cutting
Kyric on the draw.  Blades clashed as Kyric slid past him and they turned to
face each other.

Aiyan
took an agonizingly slow step forward, as if in irons.  He drew his sword slowly
with his left hand, raising it like a knife.  The pair of death guards in front
of Ziddgan attacked Mahai together, driving him across the clearing.  He
blocked a slash from one and sprang away to keep the other from getting behind
him.  He couldn’t even get a swing at one of them — it was all he could do to
hold them off.

The
man in front of Kyric exploded with a fleche attack, usually a bad idea with a
sabre, but it surprised Kyric completely, and he had to backpedal for his life,
his parry thwarted as the Baskillian dipped his point and brought it up on a
new line.  It left a gash in Kyric’s armor as he spun aside, his own blade
slashing only the air as his opponent leapt away from the counter blow.

Aiyan
and Mahai were in trouble.  Kyric needed to down this man quickly and go to
their aid, but his spirit had been thrown off balance.  This man was no pig
hunter.  He was a skilled swordsman, armored in a silk and leather corselet
beneath his tunic of bones, and he was familiar with the circular style of
fighting.  Every time Kyric seemed to have him, he knew what was coming and
dodged away, daring Kyric to make a more committed attack.

He
had to end this fight and this man.  He reached for the unseen tether, making
himself a mirror for his enemy.  They moved in the slowest of dances.  Kyric
summoned emptiness.  He raised his sword, pulling the tether, the death guard
mirroring him as they stepped toward each other, swords held high.  Then it was
the eternal moment, and Kyric swung first.  He cut through the man’s headpiece
and into his skull.  The Baskillian collapsed like a broken squeeze-box, but
even so, his sabre glanced off Kyric’s helmet and sliced into the shoulder
piece of his armor.  It had been too close.

Aiyan
had dropped to one knee, his eyes wide with pain.  He seemed unable to move. 
One of the death guards broke away from the fight with Mahai and circled to
come up on Aiyan’s blind side.

Kyric
sprinted to intercept him, but he was too late.  Aiyan was able to turn his
head.  The Baskillian raised his sabre.  Unable to move his sword arm, Aiyan
watched his death coming — and he smiled.

A
sharp crack shattered the quiet.  Lerica stood on the roof of the house in a
plume of smoke, her pistol in her hand.  The sorcerer lay face down on the
ground below, his headdress in bloody disarray and part of his skull missing. 
The snake slid away, into the tall grass.

Aiyan
spun to his feet, and the attacking Baskillian changed his mind, pulling up
short.  Aiyan went at him and he fell back.  Under a furious press of feints
and cuts, he retreated until he backed against a tree, then Aiyan plunged
Ivestris into his chest, the light Baskillian armor useless against it.

Kyric
looked for Mahai and found that he had vanquished the last guard, the man
running down the path to the large clearing, holding an arm that hung at an odd
angle.

Lerica
jumped down and flung open the door to the house.  The first room was empty. 
Behind a second door sat three teenagers and an Hariji woman who began
screaming like an animal.  When Lerica tried to shush her, she screamed even
louder, so she punched the woman in the nose and in the eye.  That quieted her.

There
were two girls, a short one with curls and a button nose, about fourteen years
old, and a willowy seventeen year old with sharp cheekbones and long straight
hair.  A boy with wide, curious eyes, maybe thirteen, sat between them.  They
all scooted away from Lerica, but they brightened when they saw Mahai in the
doorway.

Speaking
in Avic, Lerica said to Kyric, “Ask them if they drank his blood.  We need to
know.”

“Even
if they did,” Kyric said, “we’re still taking them.”  But he was afraid to
ask.  If he had lost his gift he didn’t want to know right then.

“You
must come with us,” Mahai told them in Baskillian, “those who are free are
taking to the boats.”

The
older girl asked, “Where is Tiblan?  They moved him to another room yesterday.”

“He
married a Hariji girl,” said Lerica without looking at her.  She hauled the
younger girl to her feet.

“They’re
coming!” Aiyan called from the front door.  “We have to leave this very
second.”

Mahai
took the older girl’s hand, and Kyric grabbed the boy by one arm, and they went
out of the wedding house with the Silasese singers in tow.  They trotted down
the path they had come by, Aiyan bringing up the rear.  He had recovered
Kyric’s pistol, and he pointed it down the path to the big clearing and pulled
the second trigger, with booming success this time, dropping the first hunter
in line.

“That
will give them something to think about,” he said.

“What’s
your name,” Mahai asked the older girl.

“I’m
Dinala.  This is Meithu and Rillah,” she said pointing to the boy and girl.

As
they approached the top of the ladder, Mahai yanked Dinala into the underbrush
and they all followed his lead.

‘
Death
guards coming up the ladder
,’ he said-signed.  ‘
Too many to fight
.’

Aiyan
pointed to the north, away from the big clearing.  ‘
Go that way
.’

They
pushed through thick shrubs with leaves the size of elephant ears, but they
only went a hundred paces before they came to the edge of the cliff.  It had
made a sharp turn to the west once it passed the town.  The drop to the forest
floor was nearly a hundred feet.

They
followed the cliff edge back toward the ocean, looking for a way down and
finding none, and came to where it thrust out before bending around to the
south.  Behind them, Kyric could hear dozens of men beating the bushes.  Out on
the bay, a small flotilla of outrigger canoes were setting sail.  To the north,
scores of Silasese pulled double-hulled boats from their hidden sheds along the
tree line and hauled them toward the shore.  A long, sleek double outrigger
waited on the beach, only fifty yards away if they could get down to it.

“Should
have gone the other way,” Aiyan said.  “Could have got them out overland.”

Lerica
stood looking down on a tall palm tree growing close to the cliff.  The top of
it came to within thirty feet of where they stood.

She
grinned at Kyric, kicking her boots off and tossing them over the cliff.  “I’ll
be back shortly,” she said.