Cordimancy (25 page)
Authors: Daniel Hardman
Malena laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're not alone," she said. "And we don't know about Shivi, yet." If trusting her heart had killed Shivi or her husband...
The
rush and chattering of water buffeted Toril’s ears. His feet were submerged. Gradually, he noticed how the soggy cold at his toes contrasted with clamminess above his waist, how gravel poked at his cheek, and he came to the conclusion that he was lying mostly on the riverbank.
He opened his eyes.
The moon was out; a large measure of the night had passed. He caught a flicker of motion in the gray dapple along the top of the bank, heard whispers.
Shivi’s limp form was not on solid ground beside him. He remembered making it to the shallows with her body, his strength so depleted that he’d collapsed trying to lift his own weight out of the water. Had he passed out and allowed her to float away?
His heart ached.
What would Paka do? What about Malena?
How could he face either of them, when his counsel had led to this?
As he rolled onto his knees, a boy-sized shadow flitted down a tree trunk sloping into the gravel.
“Welcome back, stonecaster.”
A small hand reached out. Toril pulled against it and swayed to his feet.
“I lost Shivi,” he croaked.
“We’ve been warming her. You were breathing fine, and you weren’t even shivering, so she was our focus.”
Toril blinked dully for a few heartbeats until the import of Oji’s statement sank in.
“She’s alive?”
“Waterlogged and blue, but intact. Come see.”
Toril closed his eyes and exhaled.
Twenty paces from the river, cocooned by curving willows, dark shapes knelt. Malena’s shoulders shifted, but she continued to crouch, her arms around a smaller shadow. Paka stood and embraced him.
“You brought her back to me.”
“I put us in the river in the first place,” Toril said bitterly. “If I hadn’t insisted...”
“You were right,” Shivi interrupted, her voice sounding tired but calm. “Tell him, Oji.”
Oji cleared his throat.
“My clan brothers were hiding, watching the trail only a short distance beyond where you entered the river. If we’d ridden any farther, they would have ambushed us. I might have been caught myself, if it weren’t for Hika.”
Toril noticed for the first time that the dog was curled in Shivi’s lap. Without a fire, the animal’s fur and body heat—and an embrace from Malena—were the best response to a frigid soaking. He was glad Shivi was getting some help, but he felt a flicker of resentment that Malena offered nothing to him.
He shivered.
“I noticed the dog’s nose twitching,” Oji continued. “And she kept shying to the right, off the road. Smart, smart dog. I got suspicious and sat for a while, until I caught the scent myself.”
“They were waiting? How did they know we were coming?”
“Scouts, maybe. Gorumim’s no fool. He’s known we were on his trail since the wolves. We should have assumed we weren’t invisible.”
“Are we invisible now? Did they see you go past?”
Oji snorted. “I left them crouched in the weeds, wondering when their stupid half-sighted human victims would come along. By now maybe they’ve reported their failure to Gorumim.”
“He wouldn’t accept that report. If they’re not still hiding, then they’re looking for us,” Malena broke in.
“If so, they’ll search behind, not ahead,” Paka said.
“Yes,” Oji agreed. “They know a young woman is in the group they seek, and all of my people recognize that scent. Since they haven’t smelled their quarry, they’ll assume she’s still downwind. They won’t consider what a dousing in the river might do, because none of them would dream of getting in the water themselves.”
“But I’m out now,” said Malena.
“We’re almost two leagues beyond them at this point,” Oji said. “And the breeze is gentle. I didn’t want to risk a fire, but I think we’re safe.”
“Then let’s press our advantage,” Toril said. “We’re within a few hours of Two Forks. Shivi, do you think you can walk?”
Kinora
crawled toward the unmoving toddler, rocks and weeds tearing through rips in the knees of her pantaloons. She shivered; the sun was not yet high enough to dispel the morning chill.
Dried mucus crusted one of his cheeks; the other was grimy except where tears had washed a trail through the dirt. His upper lip was split and swollen.
The glaze on his eyes terrified her, but as she got close Kinora could see his chest moving, ever so slightly.
She sat beside him, pulled his head into her lap, and began to stroke his hair. So little—not much bigger than her brother Maco had been, when he first walked across the room to her...
His feet were still soft. It had been half a summer, maybe, since he’d been crawling—not long enough to form calluses, yet.
“Do you have a name?” she whispered.
He just stared at the sky over her shoulder.
“I heard them say that someone’s coming. Coming... to help us.” Kinora heard her voice grow hoarse, swallowed hard, tried to smile. “Someone the bad men are afraid of.”
She watched moisture swell around his eyelids.
“Maybe it’s your tat. Can you tell me about your tat?”
More stroking of the hair.
“You were making a funny noise last night while you slept,” she murmured, forcing a curve onto her lips. “Sort of a snore with a little chirp at the end. I liked it. Can I hold you tonight and let you be my little cricket?”
How could he go so long without blinking? Why wasn’t he responding at all?
His arms and legs were totally limp.
“You have to sit up,” she hissed. “If you won’t, they’ll just..." She swallowed. “And then I won’t have my cricket tonight.”
She sniffled. The distant rushing of the river filled her ears. Dappled shadows from the trees slid back and forth. Overhead, an eagle’s cry faded into the wind.
“Are you hungry?” She held up the stem of a cattail that she’d broken off and begun to suck. The pith was fibrous and unappetizing—not as good as the soft, almost crisp sweetness that her father had showed her once, in a green reed he’d selected after some searching along a river bank. But she was sure it was edible, and having anything in her mouth felt like heaven. Hunger twisted in her belly.
He
needed
to eat.
She demonstrated grinding the stalk between her molars, showed how to drain the slippery syrup from the plant, crush the starch, and spit the pulp out. When he made no move to accept it, she bit off a piece and pressed it to his mouth.
A shadow fell across her shoulder.
“Water,” said a gruff voice. “Last you’ll get till we’re on the boat. Don’t waste it.” A flaccid leather pouch landed in the dirt by her knee. Feet scuffed away, then turned back.
“He still alive?”
The sick dread filling Kinora’s stomach redoubled. She ducked her head in affirmation.
“Kid.” A muddy boot prodded his toe. “You want to be buzzard food?”
He didn’t react.
“He’s just tired,” Kinora said quickly. She lifted a knee and rolled his head slightly.
And he blinked.
“Well, do your business and get ready to ride again. And get him moving. The buzzards might wait for you, but we won’t. We’re in a hurry.”
The boots walked off.
Kinora took a shaky breath, then allowed herself some swallows from the pouch. After, she put the leather to the boy’s lips. He tried to bury his face in her thigh, but she held him, splashed a few drops.
“Come on, little cricket,” she whispered, hands trembling. “You need to drink something.” She stared at the bottomless brown of his eyes.
A
stab of morning sunlight on steel, and the whistle of slicing air, were Toril’s only warning.
By the time his eyelids began to close, an after-image of Oji’s hand had already intersected the rotating blade and deflected it from his throat to the dust at his feet.
“Cowards,” the golden warrior spat, eyes fixed on a clump of saplings a dozen paces up the trail. “Come out and face us.”
Toril straightened from his flinch, his heart galloping as fingers tightened on his staff. He saw a flicker of tan in the shadow. Behind him, Hika growled, and he heard Malena draw her breath and step closer to him.
“Cowardice is being afraid to follow your cacique,” snapped an unfamiliar voice. Three osipi warriors, ivonas glittering around their necks, slunk onto the path ahead. “We already taught you that once, Oathizhi.”
Oji stepped toward Toril. “There’s another one circling uphill to our right,” he murmured, with scarcely a flutter of his lips. Eyes still forward, he lifted his chin and returned to normal volume. “On second thought, maybe you’re getting braver. Last time you jumped me with ten of your buddies, beat me unconscious, and left me for dead. Now you’re back with just a pair of moldy-brained chickens for escorts.” He drew his shortsword and smiled at the vulgar gesture from one of the ahu.
Toril’s mind raced. Shivi and Paka had been lagging since sunup. They were out of sight, at least a hundred paces back on the trail; perhaps the ahu weren’t aware of them, yet. He couldn’t expect any help from the older couple, but they might be spared a battle.
That left him, Malena, and Oji against four osipi? Four
ahu
?
Were there more?
“You didn’t take the bait,” a different ahu muttered, as he began circling to their left. “We let you see us, back in the valley, yesterday afternoon. We left the rock pile. You were supposed to chase Gorumim straight down the trail into our trap. We waited on our bellies in the bushes for an eternity.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Toril saw Malena bend to retrieve the dagger that had fallen to the ground. He reached back and tugged on her arm to pull her between him and Oji. If Gorumim’s priorities were unchanged, she was the first target.
“So when we didn’t show, Luim sent you scouting.” Oji surmised. “Most went back, but the four of you came ahead.”
Toril saw the visible ahu stiffen at the casual reference to their hidden companion. He felt Malena twitch in surprise at his side.
“Something like that,” said one of the golden men. “Bad luck for you.”
“I thought ahu had a code of honor,” Toril said. “Maybe dueling a couple men fits, but how about murdering an innocent woman? And why the ambush? Afraid of a fair fight?”
Oji thrust out his chin, adding his own challenge to Toril’s. “You imagined you’d have a nice spree of murder and then slip back for more fun abusing children. Bad luck for you. Instead you’re going to buy yourself a lonely death on a road to nowhere.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way, Oathizhi,” said the ahu that hadn’t yet spoken. “You could still come back with us...”
“Hah!” Oji snapped. “You think Luim would let me walk back into camp, alive?”
“Your father could forgive a lot, if you came with the blood of the woman on your blade. It would bring honor in the eyes of Gorumim.”
Oji turned to look at Malena. Toril saw a look of sadness on his face—a hollow expression of loss—and sudden doubt of Oji’s loyalty swept over him.
Luim was Oji’s
father
?
How could he have failed to mention
that
detail?
Malena’s eyes were wide with terror.
Hika growled, her ears flat.
“I have no interest in Gorumim’s approval,” Oji said flatly, after a long pause. “Nor in Luim’s idea of honor.” He turned his eyes back to the trio of warriors that were now closing in. “Yet to respect the friendship of this stonecaster, and his wife, and to save the children you plan to murder, I will die today with a smile on my lips. After I kill all of you.”
The strike would have taken Toril’s breath away, if he’d had time to think about it. But adrenaline was coursing through his veins, and hours of drill with weaponmasters took over, plotting thrust and parry at a pace beyond conscious thought. He caught a flash of gold as the fourth ahu broke from the trees, saw Hika leap, and managed to swing the staff to intercept a kitar just in time.
At the periphery of his vision, blurs of gold erupted as Oji joined battle with the other three ahu. He felt the wind generated by their movements—but he could spare no attention for threats from that direction. Death demanded his full attention from head-on.
The kitar was a weapon made for lightning thrust at close quarters, and if ahu got close enough to use it, it was lethal. One punch from the blade above an osipi’s fist, and your heart stopped beating forever.
Osipi liked the kitar because it was easy to carry and didn’t require brute strength. Velocity usually negated the need for choreographed defense.
Toril had no halberd or pike to keep the osipi at bay, but his staff and height gave him superior reach. And as with the wolves, Hika’s reflexes were fast enough to compensate, a little, for Toril’s tardy reactions.
Even so, he was in trouble.
The osipi hurdled the staff and slashed at Toril’s throat, blade halfway to its mark before his feet touched ground again. Toril leaned back violently, skewing the momentum of his blow, and felt a burn across his chin as metal whipped out of his field of vision.
Hika snapped at the ahu’s ankle and destroyed his balance; Toril tried to capitalize by using the back half of his stroke to crush a leg. The blow was well aimed, but by the time it arrived the ahu had converted his stumble into a handspring, and Toril was ducking a second time.
He felt Malena’s hands against his back.
He feinted, slid wrist over wrist, and shoved the tip of the staff outward. Anticipating the sweep but not the thrust, the ahu’s shoulder took the blow, and Toril saw him wince as his collarbone cracked.
But the golden warrior didn’t slow down. In a blur, he pulled a knife with his other hand, kneed Hika, and flicked his wrist.
Toril threw himself sideways, twisting his torso out of the way. Instantly, he knew the flying knife would miss—but in the moment he had to absorb this fact, he also realized that he had lost. The osipi was spinning in the opposite direction, looking past Toril.
Looking at Malena.
Toril saw the fear frozen on his wife’s face as she knelt, a dagger clenched in white fingers. Beyond her, Oji flashed, seemingly six-armed, battling three opponents at a dizzying pace.
“No!” Toril shouted.
As he crashed to the ground he flung the staff, desperate to distract his opponent. Then something collided with his head, his vision dimmed, and for a moment he almost lost consciousness. He felt himself tumble down the incline at the edge of the path.
His fingers grasped at weeds, dug into dirt and gravel. The horizon spun, darkened, then righted itself. He scrambled up the slope, stumbling in his haste, in time to see Hika between the ahu and Malena, collapsing from a blow. He tugged at his belt.
One of Oji’s opponents was twitching feebly on the ground; another limped in an arc along the edge of the trail. Oji’s chest was heaving. He stood between his adversaries and Malena, but apparently hadn’t noticed Toril’s absence; he made no effort to guard the man who’d attacked Toril and just disabled Hika. The neglected ahu leapt toward Malena, kitar outstretched.
Toril whipped the sling with every bit of power he could muster.
The stone hummed out and intersected the ahu’s head behind the near ear, making a neat hole. The warrior’s lunge continued, but it was a lifeless arm that held the kitar, and it plowed into soil, missing Malena’s chest by a span.
At almost the same instant, Oji blurred again. Gold knotted around the nearer of his remaining opponents, sprang away, licked the other briefly, and then re-coalesced into a figure moving at normal speed. Both of the other ahu fell lifeless to the ground. Then Oji pitched forward as well, and all was still except for Toril’s ragged breathing, and a whining from Hika.
Toril
dropped one knee into the dirt and stretched a hand toward his wife’s shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her face pale. She rocked back and forth, both hands clasping the dagger point-down in a white-knuckled death grip. He saw her arms tremble.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, then jerked back as the dagger slashed wildly toward his face.
He caught a forearm and a wrist as the blow went wide, felt the iron in her tendons as she jerked around and aimed at his heart.
“It’s me,” he said again, his breath escaping in a gasp at the exertion of arresting the blade. “Malena, it’s Toril.”
Her eyes opened, but she showed no sign of recognition or understanding. Her expression was feral. She leaned in, putting as much weight as she could muster behind the knife. The point hovered a handsbreadth from Toril’s chest, trembling under the tension from both directions.
“Malena!”
Gradually he forced her arms back.
“Drop the knife!” he grunted.
Her breathing turned to sobs, and Toril felt the pressure in her arms begin to fade. Then, without warning, she jerked away, coming close to slicing his hands as she tried to tear free.
“Let go of me!” she screamed. “Let go!”
“I’ll let go when you drop the knife,” Toril said. He shook her wrists. “Drop the knife. Drop it!”
The dagger thudded into the dirt.
Toril let go.
Malena rolled onto her side, curled up in a fetal position, and began to shiver silently.
Toril tossed the dagger out of reach, then sank into a seated posture at his wife’s back.
After a few moments, he touched her shoulder.
She did not react.
One strand at a time, he pulled back hair plastered to her cheek. “You are not alone,” he whispered. “I’m here.”
When at last she grew still, Toril felt her reach up and put a hand over his, pressing his fingertips against her cheekbone.