Shadow Gate (45 page)

The Vidrini headwoman smiled. “Do you mean to return to my cousin's nephew the pretty baubles he gifted you? I see you wear them still. I gave them to him myself, when he told me of his plan.”

Mariya ignored the laughter and gaily spoken taunts. She waited for a proper response.

“What can you offer us? We relieved you of everything of value, except the piebald mare. I hear it bolted when the gelding broke free.” The headwoman ran a covetous hand over the belly of the winged kur. Kirya found her teeth on edge, her jaw tight, wanting to crush that hand and knowing she could do nothing to get Feder's kur back.

Mari said, “We have cloth worth the ransom of the children. We'll trade it to you, in return for them.”

Her proud expression grew cunning. “Hu. I doubt it, but let's see. I'm willing to bargain. It would amuse me.”

The man smirked, and Kira had a sudden idea that these two were lovers, even though the headwoman of a tribe and her war leader ought not be engaged in such a way. Desire clouded judgment, everyone knew that.

“I need to see they are safe and unharmed before I make my offer,” said Mariya.

“Very well. Go get them.” Her war leader did not move, but a ripple stirred the assembly as someone else hurried off into the camp. While they waited, Kirya examined the man boldly, knowing he had no right to look directly at her. He was a very good-looking man, with golden-white hair and light blue eyes, an arresting face, broad shoulders, and lean hips. Although not as handsome as Orphan with his black hair and leaner face, he was a man in his prime. Had he lured the foreign woman
into the tribes with the promise of power and position? Or had she followed him out of lust, and ripped the leadership of the Vidrini tribe away from whatever hapless woman had held it before her? Feeling the pressure of Kirya's gaze, he glanced toward her and, with a frown, looked away.

“Kiri! Kiri!”

Kirya rose on her stirrups. The gelding sidestepped, sensing her spurt of joy and relief. “We're here.”

Three children came running, sobbing as they saw Mariya, and tumbled to a halt beside her. Her grim expression never wavered from the Vidrini headwoman.

“Three children,” said Mariya, without acknowledging them. “Where is the fourth? The older boy?”

Oh gods. Kontas.

The headwoman's smile was meant to wound. “We traded him away yesterday. Got a good offer for him from an eastern merchant who was passing on the Golden Road, south of here. They liked his gold-silk hair and pretty face.”

Kirya was off the gelding in an instant, but Mari's curt command slapped her.

“Kirya, stop there. Don't move!”

Shaking, Kirya found an arrow in her right hand and her bow gripped in her left. Men had pushed forward. She was not dead only because she was female; a man would have been cut down for the impiety.

“You must have known it was likely we would come after the children to redeem them. It goes against the laws of the gods to trade him away so quickly.”

“You are a foolish, foolish girl. We would have traded away the other boy, too, but the merchant only wanted the blond one. Now, take your complaining and depart, or make your offer and I will consider it.”

“The gods will punish you,” said Mariya, so gray that she looked half dead. But wasn't their tribe already half dead, thrashing about blindly as the lifeblood drained out
on the ground? Oh, gods, how terrified Kontas must be! And their mother dead in the fire—an honorable death, sent to the gods, certainly, but dead is dead. Kirya could not speak for tears, knowing herself half an orphan already although she had cousins to succor her. And yet what did she have to look forward to? Orphan was taken. What man would accept her Flower Night, now that her night with Orphan had been interrupted in such a illomened manner? The gods had cursed her. What did she have left?

Nothing.

“Mari, it's as she says, take it or leave it.” She had worn gloves as a precaution, and she unslung the quiver from her back and untied the bundle, heedless of those edging close to shield the headwoman, whom they all obviously feared and obeyed even if she was a foreign monster with demon eyes. She grabbed the cloak with her gloved hands and shook it free.

They shouted with dismay when the silver cloth snapped out like the unfurling wings of one of the gods' holy steeds. Only the headwoman and her war leader did not shrink back. The silk-adorned girl child covered her face and began to cry. Her mother grabbed the girl's wrists, pulled them down, and slapped the little thing in the face.

“Never snivel! Don't show fear.” She looked up at Mariya. “Give us the cloth. Take the children. It's a fair bargain. They're worth nothing to us, just more mouths to feed.”

“What of our other goods? The winged kur belonging to our war leader? The worth of those of our tribe members who have crossed the lines to join your tribe? We're owed something in recompense.”

“You're owed nothing. You are fortunate I am in a generous mood today.”

“Give the cloth to her, Kiri,” said Mariya without looking toward her cousin. “Children, start walking out
of camp. Stanyo, Asya, keep Danya between you, as she is smallest. Steady.”

Words filled Kirya's heart, but they would not climb onto her tongue. The cloth subsided against her legs, and she folded it, in halves, and halves again, until it was a manageable bundle that she wrapped in a scrap of dirty hide scrounged from the ruins of the burned camp. She took her time, so Mariya and the children could walk out of camp.

Deliberately, she tossed the bundle to the dirt. A young man had crept up behind her. The gelding kicked, hard, and he yelped and hobbled back. Ears laid back, the gelding sidled around, looking ready to clip anyone who had the temerity to approach. Kirya began walking in Mari's dust, hand on the reins, the gelding behind her.

The assembly remained silent for a few breaths, then burst into a babble of voices and exclamations and laughter and arguments. A man leading a horse pushed into her way, confronting her. She glared at him. When he did not move, her grief-blinded gaze finally saw him.

Estifio held the halter of the bay mare, the prize of their tiny herd. Without a word, he shoved the reins into her hand and slid away into the tribe. The mare settled in beside the gelding, content with this familiar place. Kirya kept walking, and somehow no one noticed because they had all crowded up to see the precious cloth the head-woman had acquired. Who cared about one more horse among the many the Vidrini owned? Who cared about the straggle of useless children, who were just more mouths to feed?

Precious mouths.

By the time they reached the grass beyond the camp, out of sight of the tents, Kirya was fighting sobs as rage and grief squeezed her. The gelding breathed hot on her neck.

Mariya halted. The children ran to her, huddling around, crying until she cracked stern words over their heads. “None of that, or we'll never get home! Hush
now!” She looked up, and saw the bay mare. The piebald greeted her companion with a friendly snort.

“Kiri! The mare!”

“Estifio handed her over to me while I was walking out. He ran away. I didn't talk to him.”

“He's not the one who betrayed us,” said Mari. She turned to the children. “Asya, you'll ride the bay. You're skilled enough to manage the trip bareback. Stanyo, you'll ride with Kiri. Danya, you'll ride with me.”

“No,” said Kirya. “I'm going after Kontas. You heard what she said. They traded him away just yesterday. I can catch up. The gelding is good for it. He's the toughest horse we have.”

“What will you offer this eastern merchant? He'll not care about the laws of the gods.”

“Neither did that motherless hag!”

“Hssh! Kiri! Of course she did. She doesn't dare spit on the laws of the gods. A foreign woman sitting as headwoman over one of the tribes! She had to make the trade, or be seen to scorn the laws of the tribe that took her in. What could we truly have done to her? Nothing! So she didn't have to give us anything, or even make the trade. That she feared looking like an outsider in the eyes of her tribe is the only reason we have the children back.”

“Maybe you're right. But she wanted that cloth.”

“They took Kontas.” Asya tugged on Mariya's arm. The girl had a black eye, and the grime of tears and dirt smeared on her face and arms, as if she'd been pushed into the ground. “I tried to hit them, but I couldn't stop them from taking him.”

“I know, dear one,” said Mari. “I know you did what you could. Now we're going home.”

“I'm going after Kontas,” said Kirya. “We can't abandon him, Mari. I can't. How will my mother ever rest at peace among the gods?”

Mariya rubbed her forehead, pretty face creased, and Kirya saw suddenly how much effort it had cost her
cousin to endure the taunts of the youth she had lain with, who had whispered endearments and promises which had all along meant nothing to him. How much courage it had taken her to stand in front of that crowd as if their sneers and scorn did not touch her, who had been taken so thoroughly for a love-struck fool and had her foolishness announced to everyone.

“Oh, Mari.” She dropped the gelding's reins, and hugged her beloved cousin fiercely. “I have to go.”

Mari glanced in the direction of the camp, but no one had come after them, not yet. “Asya, you'll walk with me. Stanyo and Danya will ride the bay, but we'll saddle it first. Kiri, you'll take the piebald, in the halter. Trade the gelding if you can, although why anyone would take that misbegotten beast I don't know, not once they've seen his temper. Trade the piebald if you must.” She tugged the three lapis-lazuli nets off her braids, and wept as they kissed. “I don't need these. Maybe they'll be worth something. We'll wait four days for you at the pond where we camped last night. Otherwise meet at the gar-deer sink. Now go. Go.”

Kirya's tribe had never ridden south to see the Golden Road, but she had heard tales of a path on which foreigners traveled east and west along the southernmost range of the vast grasslands roamed by the tribes. East lay the brutal Qin, and south lay the mud-feet, people who stank from living in their own garbage all year around. Sometimes the tribes raided them, taking what they could grab. Sometimes the mud people marched into the grass to take vengeance, but any tribe could simply pack up and move; even a child like Danya could outride the mud-feet's boldest warriors.

She paced the gelding, switching off to ride bareback
on the piebald at intervals. South of the Vidrini camp, the hills flattened and the grass changed variety, turning brittle with heat. She had a pair of filled leather bottles, but anyway she knew the signs that revealed sinks of water waiting a short dig beneath the surface; she could smell a swale or rivulet before she saw it. Now that she thought about it, Orphan had taught them a lot about surviving in the wasteland. Poor tribes were always driven off the best pasturelands, pressed toward the deadlands, and maybe Orphan walking into their tribe two years ago had been the gift of the gods after all.

Midway through the afternoon, a long upward slope brought her to a tipping point in the landscape, beyond which lay a dry lake bed so wide she could not see the far side. Clumps of brush dotted the flat. She searched for the golden gleam that must mark the road, but saw only ruts in the hard ground running east and west, so many crisscrossing the dead lake that they tangled like a child's unsteady weaving.

To the east spun a thread of dust.

To the west, a huge herd of sheep spilled over a distant rise, hounded by riders and dogs. Somewhere, west and north of here, a tribe had set up camp. A moment later, a pair of outriders galloped into view. The two youths circled her at a prudent distance and raced back to their tents. She debated whether to ask for shelter within their camp for the night, but she dared not stop. She had to follow what trail she had, lest she lose Kontas entirely. Turning the gelding, with the piebald in tow, she rode down onto the dead lake and turned east.

Hooves kicked up a fine dust, making her cough. Her eyes watered as particles stung her face. Sound echoed oddly, magnifying the fall of hooves into many more than two horses.

She looked over her shoulder. Four riders followed her, three male and the fourth dressed in female garb, long felt jacket reaching to her knees and a quiver slung by one knee.

“What do you think?” she asked the gelding. She wasn't in the sanctity of camp, but after all, what would they do to a lone girl? The laws of the gods forbade any insult done to women; that was how it had always been among the tribes. What if they had news of Kontas, or the eastern merchant?

She reined over and waited for them to catch up.

The males—two she recognized as the youths who had first scouted her—pulled up and let their companion approach, as was proper. She was not much older than Kirya, with her golden hair divided into a trident braid and a headdress adorned with silver atop her head to mark that she was married. She wore necklaces of gold and silver and bronze across her chest, displaying her family's wealth.

“Good riding, stranger,” she said, greeting Kirya. “I am cousin to the headwoman of the Orzhekov tribe. Are you one of the Vidrini?”

“No, I'm Moroshya.”

“I don't know you,” said the other girl in the formulaic way that meant she'd never heard of that tribe. “This is dangerous ground, between the grass and the border of demon lands. Why do you ride here?”

Kirya saw nothing to distrust in her open face. “The Vidrini raiders stole my young brother. I've brought a horse to trade for him, if I can catch the eastern merchant who took him.” She indicated the east and the dying thread of dust spun up from the darkening horizon.

The other one smiled with a twist that made Kirya uncomfortable. “Your tribe doesn't trade down here, does it?”

She shrugged, realizing how foolish she was, blabbing her errand to these strangers.