Miami Days and Truscan (18 page)

The morning was interminable; the afternoon was no better. The night was a horrible dark eternity with no end in sight. No word came from Krenor, and no one had really expected it to. By the second afternoon, I could stand no more, and I sought Kiera out and told her I was going riding.

She was not pleased.

“You should not! If the Prians have crossed the border—”

“The Prians are above Krenor. And I’ll take somebody with me.”

“But all the Tornans rode with Dalph, and all the regular guards are out in roving patrol around the city!”

I knew she was right, and I knew it was not impossible that a small detachment of Prians might try to slip past the roving patrols and further, that they just might be able to do it. I think it was at that moment I first considered the possibility that the attack on the Krenorian Torans might, in fact, be not so much an ambush as a decoy. Suppose the real target was Trussa and not Krenor? Then I knew that Dalph had considered that possibility as well, else why were all the guards deployed around the perimeters of the city? But in any event, I was suffocating. I had to get out of the Rata walls; I had to get out of Trussa, just for a little while.

Toron. I would take the stable-master with me. Toron had been a formidable warrior in his day, a lieutenant in the regular guards. He would undoubtedly still be in the guards were it not for the broken leg he had suffered some five years or so before which had not healed quite properly. Unable to face the thought of the Truscan equivalent of a medical retirement, he had opted to use his military knowledge to train the battle horses. And I wouldn’t go far. I was claustrophobic at the moment, but I wasn’t
crazy.

“I’ll take Toron with me,” I said firmly. “I won’t be gone over an hour or so.”

Kiera turned and muttered under her breath in Truscan. I didn’t catch all of it, nor was I, as yet, overly fluent in the language, but I thought I detected some reference to the “craziness of the women from Beyond the Door.” I grinned. From what I had learned of Madeline, I certainly didn’t mind being placed in her category.

“I’ll be careful, Kiera,” I promised, and rushed out into the Courtyard, heading for the stables, breathing gratefully in the open air. Just a short ride and I’d feel much better.

My Truscan was, by this time, sufficient to express my wishes, particularly if I had the time to think my words out beforehand, and I had no trouble making my request understood. Actually, having immersed myself in the language for the better part of every day for the last four weeks, I
could
have made myself understood with a great deal more fluency than I did; however, I was ever mindful of Dalph’s admonition not to demonstrate my growing prowess with the language.

Toron understood me well enough, but he was not overly enthusiastic. In fact, he declined the proposal entirely, speaking slowly, so as to be certain I understood his response.

“It is too dangerous, my Queen. The King would have my head were I to take you out and anything befall you.”

I wanted to give an enlightening lecture on the subject of free choice for women and queens, but my Truscan really
wasn’t
sufficient for that, so I spoke one sentence instead.

“Then I will ride alone.”

“You cannot!”

“Then you will have to stop me. Won’t you?”

A flood of conflicting emotions showed on his face, and I knew I had placed him in a classic Catch-22 situation. If he went with me and we ran into trouble, Dalph would be most irate. If he did not go with me, I would go alone, and Dalph would be livid. In order to stop me from going alone, he would have to physically restrain me, in which case I, his Queen, would be outraged, and such activity might also displease his king, as such would be insubordination of royalty, even if royalty in this instance consisted of a mere female. And besides, I was the chosen, sent by the gods through the door from the world beyond, expressly to take my position as Queen of Trusca. I sympathized with his predicament, but not enough to back down. I only wanted a short ride; it shouldn’t be a matter of state import.

“I will have the horses readied,” he said finally and, shaking his head, moved into the stable.

Andromeda cleared the gates, moving at an easy canter. I felt her strain and knew she wanted more than to stretch her legs; she wanted to break free and gallop. I wondered if she missed Pegasus. Poor Andromeda; her mate was gone, too. I leaned over and whispered in her ear.

“Take over, girl!”

She needed no further encouragement, and broke into a fast gallop that still didn’t take her to her limits, but left Toron behind in a cloud of dust. I heard him shout behind me, but what the hell? We were on the open pastures right in front of the city walls. Andromeda headed for the woods on the left, homing in on the wooded path Dal and I frequently traveled on our afternoon rides, the one that led to the little stream where Dalph had recounted for me the legends of the birth of this world. The stream was only a few miles into the woods; roving patrols were guarding the perimeters of Trusca. I would let her gallop to the stream, and then I would rein her in and wait for Toron. What could happen?

I turned her around, with my back to the stream, and kept her standing as I waited to catch sight of Toron. The movements came from behind me, and I wheeled around in panic, but relaxed at the sight of the uniform. It was one of the guards, mounted on a large black gelding. Kiera and Toron were worry-warts; I knew the guards would be all over the woods.

“Danta, Kabra,” I said, extending the Truscan greeting. The guard was a Kabra, roughly the equivalent of a Sergeant, but I didn’t know the guards well enough to put a name with the face.

“Danta, my Queen,” he responded, and it was then that I heard the sounds from the other side, but not soon enough to prevent the folds of cloth from covering my mouth. I felt Andromeda’s muscles bunch under my legs, and knew she was gathering herself for a wild buck, but the tone of the Kabra’s voice as he spoke one word—”Look!”—brought my attention to his hand, and I saw the short sword in his hand, the point firmly held at the base of the falton’s neck.

“Stop her,” he said shortly, and even had I not been able to interpret the Truscan, the meaning was clear; he would kill her before she could initiate the battle movements in which she had been trained. I jerked firmly on the reins, sending her the message—no—and she stood still, but shook in protest.

I felt the bonds of the cloth tighten, and knew that whoever had slipped the gag over and around my head had now tied it in a hard knot. The Kabra grabbed Andromeda’s reins from my hand, his other hand still holding the sword in position at the base of her neck. He was controlling his own mount by his knees, and I tightened my legs around Andromeda’s sides. Her muscles were still straining, and I knew she was about to explode with her desire to break into the battle moves in which Toron had so skillfully schooled her, but those moves would do nothing right now except get her killed. Perhaps later an opportunity would arise. I tightened my leg muscles until they screamed in protest, sending her the silent message.
Not now.

Other hands grabbed mine, to be tied, I knew, and I glanced down. My eyes widened as my brain refused to interpret what I saw, and I jerked my head around.

This was my first sight of a Prian, but Johnny had nailed it perfectly. They were
ugly
motherhumpers. I took in the wrinkled skin of the face, mottled pink and brown, the low forehead, the nose that was more accurately speaking a snout, the wide mouth. The hands had only four fingers, short and stubby and tipped with broad chitinous growth that bore as little relationship to human nails as human nails bore to hoofs and claws.

I heard noises in the undergrowth from beyond the creek, and another Kabra swirled into the clearing. For a moment, I held some faint hope that this Kabra was a
real
Kabra, one of Dalph’s men, but that hope died at his first words.

“By Trusco’s sword! We
cannot
be this lucky!!”

Then I heard the other sounds, of a horse and rider coming down the path toward the stream’s clearing, and I tried desperately to shout a warning to Toron, but only succeeded in producing a muffled croak through the gag. The new Kabra, the one who had just entered the clearing, sent his own sword flying out of his hand, and implanted it, deeply and unerringly, in Toron’s chest. He fell without a sound, and I could see the point of the sword as it protruded obscenely from his back.

I moaned. My fault, all my fault. My damned harmless ride had killed him.

The newest arrival moved his own mount swiftly toward Toron’s horse and captured the reins, preventing the animal from fleeing back to the Rata, and my three captors now argued fiercely amongst themselves; the Truscan flowed in torrents, and I concentrated, making no attempt to understand them word for word, but merely attempting to garner the gist of the argument.

The Kabra who still held his sword on Andromeda’s neck wanted to kill her and transfer me to Toron’s mount. Smart Kabra; he must know she was my only weapon and a very dangerous one at that, should the opportunity arise.

But the Kabra who had so skillfully planted his sword through Toron’s heart would have none of it.

“No!” he protested. “When she does not come back, they will search.” He dismounted, handing the reins for both his horse and Toron’s mount to the Prian, who didn’t seem to care
what
they did as long as they did it quickly. His Truscan was quite good, though; certainly better than mine. The second Kabra moved to Toron’s body, dragging it over to the rocks. He shoved Toron under a large outcropping and, searching for smaller stones, proceeded to cover the body.

“This old fool, he is easy enough to cover,” he explained as he paused briefly in his activity. “We do not have the time to hide the falton’s body, and a dead falton announces to the rest of the guards that the woman is in deep trouble. This might give us a few more hours, they will think she has moved too far in front of her guard and is lost. Keep her with the queen.”

“The falton is dangerous!” the first Kabra protested. “As dangerous as a Tornan!”

“When ridden by a
woman?
Please, I do not have the time to laugh!” He finished his task and remounted his own horse, grabbing the reins for Toron’s horse from the Prian.

“She has saved us much time. No need to sneak around the Rata in the night’s shadows. We have what we wanted. We ride!”

And as they plunged across the stream, back into the depths of the forests, ignoring the paths that threaded through the trees, heading north, back toward Pria, I held on to the saddle horn, balancing myself carefully as the first Kabra maintained control of Andromeda’s reins, and thought furiously.

At first my thoughts were hampered by the vision of Toron toppling from his saddle, the sight of the sword tip protruding from his back. I pushed the vision firmly aside. Toron’s death was my fault; I had insisted on this
harmless
short ride. My abduction was also my own fault and no one else’s. But to dwell on either the abduction itself or Toron’s death served no purpose at present.

The group was moving too swiftly to engage in conversation, but I reviewed the conversation that had transpired in the clearing. I had saved them much time, had I? Saved them from sneaking through the Rata in the night. Ergo, I had been the target. I was not a viable target under ordinary circumstances, not when Dalph and the Tornans were in residence at the Rata, and therefore, it had been necessary to make certain that they were not present. But that didn’t make any sense, because all of Trusca knew that the Tornans rode monthly night patrols and that one such patrol was imminent. All they would have had to do was wait. But getting them out a night earlier did take them that much further from Trussa, giving the renegades just that much more lead time. They’d sent the Truscans straight into an ambush, high in the hills overshadowing Krenor, their minds on nothing but the Krenorian Tornans.

Also, of course, the regular guards were now deployed
away
from the Rata, in roving patrols, with a minimal number left on the walls, whereas, during an ordinary night patrol, they would be mostly deployed throughout the Rata, with a minimal number in roving patrol. This would have been perfect for my abductors had they, in fact, had to take me from my own chambers, but must be causing them some degree of heartburn at the moment.

Hence their current haste to put as many donas between us and the Rata as possible. But why me? Because I was the chosen of the gods, sent expressly through the door to Dalph? A queen for a Power Stone. Good leverage. And how much better that leverage was if the king did, in fact, love the queen? I had now reached the conclusion that Dalph and I had been in love ever since we met, and that everybody else in the world had known it but me. What they didn’t know, however, was that Dalph didn’t have the Power Stone. Or that if he had it, he wouldn’t sacrifice the country to get me back, though he would certainly die himself attempting to do so.

I had, in the back of my mind, had the thought that perhaps there was something I could do when they stopped for a short rest period, but now I knew they would not stop until they absolutely had to, not for many hours, not with the roving patrols. I dared not attempt to use Andromeda as the formidable weapon that she was; one of the Kabras rode next to her, the one who had killed Toron, and he would cut her down at the first sign that she was attempting to move into any battle stance. But if she could get away, if she could race back through the woods, back to the Rata, unencumbered by my weight, before we moved too many more donas from Trussa, there might be a chance. I didn’t like it, but it was all I could think of. Our speed was not an open gallop, not through the trees, but it was certainly considerably more than a trot. This wasn’t going to feel particularly good, but so what? The Prians weren’t going to make me feel particularly good, either.