Fall of a Kingdom (The Farsala Trilogy) (18 page)

O
N THE EVENING OF THE FIFTH
day after her return to the croft, with the moon just past the full, Soraya was ready to set out. She had napped in the afternoon, having already packed gear to camp in the desert and foodstuffs to pay off her debt.

Her first thought had been to hunt for the tribe, but they could hunt for themselves, and she was wary of carrying game until she was certain the jackals would no longer be a danger. Her next thought was to give the Suud the kind of goods they traded for in the markets: cloth, iron pots, steel knives, and spearpoints. But the croft had little to spare, and the peddler who might bring such things wouldn’t come again till spring.

The one thing Soraya’s household had in plenty was dried foodstuffs: beans, grain and flour, dried fruit and vegetables. Little could be grown in the desert, so perhaps this would be the best repayment. In any case, it was all she could offer, and she stuffed several satchels, despite Golnar’s disapproval.

It was dusk when she left, ignoring Golnar’s final frown; Soraya had told the family that it might take her several days to find the tribe and not to come looking for her till four days and nights had passed.

The burst of joy she felt, striding down the path to the canyon, made the heavy satchels seem lighter than goose-down pillows. At home she could never have given an order that would win her four days of freedom. Even married, in her own house, she wouldn’t be able to give such an order unless her husband was gone. Exile had some advantages.

It took longer to make her way down from the cliff top burdened with two heavy satchels, and Soraya had to stop several times to rest her shoulders. The moon, in its clear sky, gave her plenty of light, and the night had barely begun when she reached the canyon where she’d been trapped. A shiver passed over her skin as she looked up at the ledge. It really was as high as she’d remembered. But there must be some handholds, or she couldn’t have gotten up in the first place.

The tracks of the Suud hunters’ sandals going into and out of the canyon were plainly visible, and after some deliberation Soraya decided to follow the outbound tracks. It had been close to the middle of the night when they found her, she thought, but only a few candlemarks had passed between the time they left and the old woman’s arrival. Presumably, they had gone back to their camp by the swiftest route and sent the woman back. Presumably.

In the sheltered canyon the tracks were fairly clear, despite the passage of five days and the shadows where the moonlight didn’t reach. Outside the canyon the wind had had more play. Soraya often had to drop her satchels at the end of the trail and cast around for a long time before she found another track. Azura be thanked it hadn’t rained, or she’d never find them.

She was following a clear set of tracks that had lingered in the mud beside one of the streams when she spotted a girl even smaller than the old woman creeping around the side of a boulder. Walking backward?

“Hello,” Soraya called softly. This Suud might guide her straight to her tribe’s camp, if she could make her desire understood. “Do you speak Faran?”

The girl spun—a girl in truth, not more than ten or eleven years old, Soraya guessed.

“Shh!” the child hissed.

Soraya snorted. She was a Suud, all right.

The girl continued walking backward until she reached a patch of rock, then she turned and came toward Soraya; but now she jumped from one rock to another, never stepping on the soft ground…where she might have left tracks.

“You were making backward tracks!” Sure enough, the ground where the child had walked backward was muddy, her footprints clear.

The girl stopped, perched on a rock about two yards from Soraya. “Ebok addu lahasaha?”

Soraya sighed. “You don’t speak Faran.”

The answer was a string of bouncing, incomprehensible syllables.

“All right, you don’t want to leave tracks? Let’s try this.” She smiled, hoping her good intentions would show, and approached the rock where the child perched. The girl tensed, but she didn’t run. Soraya turned her back toward the girl and pulled the satchels aside. “Hop on.” She patted the small of her back, looking over her shoulder.

The girl’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

“No tracks,” said Soraya, pointing to the child’s muddy sandals. “Just my footprints.” She pointed to her own booted feet. “I carry you home.” She patted her shoulder this time.

The girl’s pale face lit with comprehension. Giggling fiercely, she swarmed onto Soraya’s back. The thin legs that locked around Soraya’s waist were surprisingly strong, but the small arms embraced her neck without strangling her. The girl was lighter than she’d expected, though added to the weight of the satchels, she was burden enough. Sudaba wouldn’t have approved of a deghass carrying a Suud urchin—she didn’t like it when Soraya played horse for Merdas. But Sudaba wasn’t here. If it got Soraya to the Suud’s camp, that was what mattered.

“Where to?” she inquired, setting off at a slow walk.

The girl giggled.

THE REINING SYSTEM they finally settled on wasn’t too bad, though it did leave Soraya with a certain sympathy for horses. Small, warm hands pressed her cheeks to turn her right or left. After one experiment with the girl pulling back on Soraya’s throat, they settled for a tug on Soraya’s hair to signal for a stop, and the child’s forehead nudging the back of Soraya’s neck set them in motion again.

Soraya’s arms and legs grew weary, but she began to enjoy the game—for whatever it was, it hadn’t stopped. The girl guided her over rocky stretches, in and out of blind gullies, and looping around spires, just like the Suud guides who’d taken Soraya through the desert in the first place.

Soraya only hoped that her small rider would take her faithful steed home instead of abandoning it when the ride was done; having seen her in action, Soraya wasn’t sure she could track this child if the girl didn’t want to be tracked.

But, no, it seemed the horse was to get its oats. Soraya caught the scent of smoke on the breeze and soon saw firelight flickering on the tall slabs of rock in front of her.

The Suud encampment was tucked in the broad, sandy bend of a stream, a bigger stream than any Soraya had seen in the desert. Judging by the green density of the trees and brush on its banks, it might run year-round.

The babbling conversations broke off as Soraya and her rider entered the camp. The Suud turned to stare, and then they began talking even faster, but Soraya cared little for their interest.

The camp wasn’t very impressive. Round structures that looked like a cross between a hut and a tent were scattered about—perhaps a score of them. Made of flexible sticks, covered with skins, and topped with patterned, oiled silk, which had obviously been purchased in Farsalan markets, the largest hutch couldn’t have been more than nine feet across, and not even a Suud could stand upright in it.

Most of the hutches had fires in front of them, with pots and the Suud’s rather beautiful baskets scattered around. Roughly in the center of the encampment a couple of men were erecting a spit made of iron rods over a crackling fire.

Though Soraya was obviously of considerable interest, no one approached her. On the other hand, no one reached for the spears that were propped against the tents or stuck into the sand. Good enough.

The child squirmed to get down, and Soraya knelt and released her. She ran, chattering, to a woman who picked her up and eyed Soraya warily. So much for a pail of oats.

“I’m looking for the old woman.” Soraya kept her voice carefully calm. “The one who helped me.”

“You want to do it over?” The aged, ironic voice came from behind her. “I think one time for the jackals is plenty enough.”

Soraya turned, gratefully dropping the satchels. “Good, you’re here.” She rubbed her shoulders where the straps had pressed. “I was afraid I’d have to follow you from camp to camp.”

“Why follow me at all, jackal girl?”

Soraya grimaced. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Then tell me your name. And why you come.”

“I’m Soraya. And I came to repay you, for helping me.”

“So-ray-ya.” The woman tested it on her tongue and nodded. “Good. Now you ask my name.”

Soraya frowned. She didn’t care what the woman’s name was, but…“Very well. What’s your name?”

“Maok.”

“Fine. I came to—”

“Say my name. If you say it wrong, I will tell you.”

Soraya scowled. “May-ok.”

The woman nodded. “Good. I did not ask you for repay.”

It took Soraya a moment to track the conversation back. “You didn’t have to ask. It’s a debt of honor.”

“Ah.” The old woman regarded her for a long moment, her wrinkled face unreadable. Her eyes were very bright. “We have no same word, honor. We call it a debt of the spirit. The word for spirit is ‘shilshadu.’ It means ‘the heart of a thing.’”

“Don’t you want to know what I brought?” asked Soraya.

“Say shilshadu.”

Soraya sighed. “Shilsadu.”

“Shil
sha
du.”

“Shilshadu.”

“So what repay did you bring, for your shilshadu debt?”

“Not a great deal,” said Soraya. “Some dried food. I thought it might be something you didn’t see much of.” She knelt and began unpacking the satchels as she spoke. The Suud, no more immune to the lure of gifts than anyone else, gathered round. The flour and grains were greeted with nods of recognition, the dried fruit and beans with exclamations of delight. She’d guessed well, it seemed. Debt paid. She could be back at the croft by morning. Soraya sighed.

“Stay,” said the old woman…Maok. “We will have your joining feast.”

“Joining feast?” Soraya asked.

Maok nodded. “A big feast, with what you bring.”

Soraya looked around. The camp was primitive. Of course, so was the croft. The camp was
more
primitive. “I don’t think—”

“We will eat jackal.” Maok’s ancient eyes danced.

Soraya grinned. “All right, I’ll stay.”

“Good.” Maok clapped her hands sharply and rattled off commands. The Suud laughed and scattered—all but one boy, who stood staring at Soraya. The rude boy. But he had sent the old…Maok back for her. Perhaps he hadn’t intended to be rude.

“I thank you,” said Soraya, “for sending Maok to help me.”

The boy smiled. “Little trouble. Maok talk rock best.”

Talk rock. Did he have “talk” confused with “climb”? But he’d used the word climb, hadn’t he? “Well, I thank you,” Soraya repeated. “Though I wish you’d told me you were sending someone. I was…I didn’t understand that.”

The boy’s grin faded; his gaze fell, then lifted again. “Sorry not talk about Maok. You scared. I know. Should have talked.”

Soraya frowned, trying to work this through. “You mean you deliberately didn’t tell me you were going to send help? Why? I was…concerned.”

The boy sighed. “Scared. I know. But
rude.
Make me angry. So not talk about Maok. Sorry.”

“I was not rude,” said Soraya.

The boy scowled. “‘Barbarian buffoo,’ you said.”

“You know those words?”

“Barbarian. Talk barbarian big, Farsala people.”

Soraya sighed. “I see.” Perhaps he had been provoked. “Very well, I accept your apology.”

“Apology.” The boy nodded. “Good. Now you apology.”

“I accept your apology,” Soraya repeated patiently. “I just said that.”

“No, you apology,” said the boy firmly. “About you rude.”

Soraya’s jaw dropped. “You want me to apologize? You were the one who stamped off and left me without a word. Why should I apologize to you?”

The boy’s skin was so pale, his flush of temper was visible even in the moonlight. A babble of words erupted. His hands gestured emphatically.

Soraya had no idea what he was saying. Oh, she knew it was insolent, but without knowing the precise content, she couldn’t reply in kind.

“I don’t understand you,” she said clearly, talking over his tirade. “If you want me to und—”

The boy turned and stamped off.

Soraya snorted.

“Men.” The amused voice came from behind her.

Soraya turned to meet the sparkling eyes of a girl about her own age, though she must have been a full handspan shorter. Soraya had been eye to eye with the rude boy, and he was tall for a Suud.

“Not men, really,” the girl went on. “Still boy. But finished bao’ok, so thinks man. Very…” Her hands waved, as if groping for the word she couldn’t find.

“Touchy?” Soraya suggested.

“Touchy?”

“It means quick to anger. Quick to take insult.”

“Yes! Boy just finished bao’ok is touchy.”

“What’s bao’ok?” Soraya asked, struggling with the unfamiliar syllables.

“Bao’ok is hunt-track thing,” said the girl.

“Important hunt-track. Boy makes man, girl makes woman.”

“So it’s some sort of hunt,” said Soraya. “And it’s also a test you must pass to be considered an adult?”