Snare (66 page)
Authors: Katharine Kerr
‘Up!’ the female said. ‘Food. Rest.’
She climbed out of the cart and onto the platform, then gestured at the H’mai to follow her. The ChaMeech males in front began unharnessing themselves. She tossed her head back, filled her throat sac, and thrummed long and hard. From somewhere above Warkannan heard creaks and scrapes. A thin crescent of sunlight
appeared and slowly waxed, revealing a ramp leading up to a circle of light and air.
‘Thank God,’ Zayn muttered.
This time the horses showed no fear of the ramp. They walked up quickly, switching their tails, as if they knew that real ground and grass waited ahead of them. Getting them off the ramp and onto solid ground took some manoeuvring, but at last all the H’mai, horses, and ChaMeech stood in a wild meadow. While the female thrummed the entrance shut, the H’mai led their horses a few paces away. The spear-carrying males followed, scowling. Warkannan turned slowly around, scanning their location – bluish grass and sunset sky as far as he could see. The jagged horizon of hills seemed a little closer, a little darker.
‘What’s that, I wonder?’ Jezro was pointing off to the west.
Warkannan could just make out something tall glittering in the sunset. ‘Flexstone, I suppose. I wonder where we are?’
The female came up beside them and pointed at the gleam.
‘Pillars,’ she said. ‘We meet there.’
‘Meet whom?’ Jezro said.
‘More us. Rest, food, all. Horses need-now eat lots. New Chur pull-next, push-next.’
‘I think I understand her,’ Jezro said. ‘We all get to eat and rest, and they’ll let the horses graze. Then it’s back in the cart.’
Two white pillars stood close together, and at their bases over a dozen ChaMeech males stood waiting, some wearing yellow kilts, others naked except for yellow scarves around their necks. Behind them a meadow stretched to a shallow river, running east and west, bordered by Midas trees. The little female allowed the H’mai to tend their horses and take food from their saddlebags, then made them sit between two armed guards while she talked with the largest male present. Warkannan could hear only the occasional burst of their conversation, not that he understood any of it. Warkannan laid a hand on Zayn’s shoulder and found he’d stopped trembling.
‘Things are different now,’ Warkannan said. ‘Dead hostages won’t do them any good.’
‘Yes, I figured that out.’ Zayn managed a smile. ‘I’m sorry. I feel like the biggest coward in the world.’
‘Don’t! It’s that memory of yours, isn’t it?’
One of their guards made an audible thrumming noise and poked his spear in their direction.
‘No talking in Kazraki,’ Jezro said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘It upsets our hosts.’
‘Apparently so,’ Warkannan said, also in Hirl-Onglay. ‘They seem to understand this language well enough.’
‘Better than they can speak it, much better. Huh. I wonder why?’
Neither of their guards deigned to answer.
The Spider was just rising when the female chose a new set of males to propel the cart. By the glow of two lightwands she herded everyone onto the road and started moving them back to the white sphere marking the tunnel entrance. The men walked, leading their horses, and decided to risk some conversation.
‘Idres?’ Zayn said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘For a while there I couldn’t make my mind stop remembering. From something I heard in Sarla, I’d guess that the Inborn got some kind of special training. I’ve never had it.’
‘Stands to reason you wouldn’t, yes.’ Warkannan switched to Kazraki and dropped his voice. ‘Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea. Can you frighten yourself again?’
‘What?’
‘Can you work up that cold sweat kind of terror? Maybe we can get –’
One of the males grunted and waved a spear in Warkannan’s face, a bare few inches from his skin. Warkannan stopped talking, but he’d said enough. Zayn nodded to show he’d understood, then took a deep breath. Warkannan could see Zayn’s eyes move as if he were studying a picture until he caught his breath with a choking sound. He began to shiver, but sweat ran down his face as well. In a few seconds the sweat began soaking through his shirt.
Up ahead the female stood ready to thrum and open the way down. Warkannan handed a startled Jezro the reins of his horse, then strode up to her. When he tapped her on the shoulder, she swung her head around, and the males moved closer, raising spears.
‘My friend is sick,’ Warkannan said, pointing to Zayn. ‘Two hostages are enough. Let him go. He is sick. Maybe we all get sick if he is here.’
The female lowered her head to look him in the face with her doubled blue eyes. Warkannan cleared his throat and repeated everything a good bit louder. ‘Two hostages good,’ he finished, bellowing. ‘Three sick hostages no good.’
She raised her head and glanced at a male who wore a twist of yellow trade cloth around his middle. He inflated his throat sac, his long mobile lips moved, but Warkannan heard nothing. She walked over to Zayn, then swung her head close and seemed to be sniffing his clothing. For a moment Zayn staggered as if he would faint, then recovered himself.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very sick.’
The same male stepped closer and spoke, again far too low for Warkannan to hear.
‘Yes,’ the female said. ‘Know-now us hurt-not.’ She pointed at Zayn with a lightwand. ‘No down. Go home.’
Zayn turned to Warkannan. ‘I can’t desert you,’ he stammered in Hirl-Onglay. ‘It’s bad enough that I’m a coward –’
‘Shut up!’ Warkannan barked. ‘It’s not cowardice. You’re ill.’
‘Captain Hassan, I’m giving you a direct order,’ Jezro said in Hirl-Onglay. ‘The border fever you’ve got is dangerous. Why, it could even infect the ChaMeech.’
The female turned sharply to her group of males; throat sacs fluttered as they all spoke at once, though silently to Warkannan’s ears.
Jezro switched to Kazraki. ‘Get back to Burgunee and bring help. You idiot, this is our chance. Now go!’
‘Yes sir.’ Zayn saluted him. ‘At your orders, sir.’
The female escorted Zayn part of the way back to the pillars. Warkannan could just barely hear her calling to the other ChaMeech – telling them that Zayn was being released, he supposed, because when Zayn mounted up and rode back west, none of them did a thing but watch him go. The female stayed out in the road, waiting until Zayn had ridden a fair ways off; then she turned and trotted back to the white sphere.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Hurt-not sick friend.’
‘You’re a good little ChaMeech,’ Warkannan said. ‘Thank you.’
By the glow from the female’s lightwands, Warkannan could see Jezro, smiling at him.
‘Not bad,’ Jezro muttered in Kazraki. ‘You always could think on your feet.’
‘I’m surprised it worked, frankly.’ Warkannan returned to speaking Hirl-Onglay. ‘Now, we’d best follow our lady friend. I don’t like the look of those spears her escort is shoving at us.’
Zayn’s sorrel gelding had rested, in a way, during their ride through the tunnel, but only in a way. Standing on an unstable moving surface, surrounded by meat-eaters, enclosed in a dark space with no long view nor room to run – the sorrel had experienced an equine version of Hell. As soon as he was well out of sight of the ChaMeech, Zayn dismounted. He unlaced his saddlebags and slung them around his own neck to spare the horse the weight, then walked on west, leading the gelding. He felt as exhausted as the horse, and for similar reasons, but he could push himself to keep walking, he figured, for a couple of hours at least.
Leave it to Idres, Zayn thought. He’s like Mullah Nasrudin in those old stories, always something up his sleeve. Still, he wondered how he was going to make Idres’ trick pay off. Get help, the khan had said. Where, and from whom? Certainly not from the mayor back in Shairb. And how far away was the Burgunee border? They might have travelled fifty miles or a hundred while underground, for all he knew. Fortunately, he could call up his memory of the map. Sarla lay closer than Kors, and there he could count on help from people who didn’t turn a profit trading with ChaMeech.
Zayn kept walking until the galaxy began to set and take its pale light away. Down by the river that ran parallel to the road, he saw a faint glow of phosphorescence from among the Midas trees. When he led his horse over to investigate, he found glowing mosses and algae floating in a backwater near shore. Fumbling in that scant light he got his horse tethered and his bedroll down from behind his saddle. He spread out the blankets, knelt down, and felt the imp hit against his chest. The imp. All afternoon they’d travelled in darkness. He’d not exposed it to the sunlight for a long time, not since their walk around Shairb.
‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘What’ll you bet it’s stopped working?’
He lay down, wrapped himself in a blanket, and fell asleep before he could worry more.
At dawn Ammadin inspected the remains of their night visitors. A roiling mass of tiny worms, striped red and purple, covered the second dead yap-packer and the skin and offal from the first. As the light brightened, long-beaked birds flew shrieking to the carrion. Wings of pale blue skin slapped the air as they dropped
to the feast, then wrapped around their owners with a last flutter. The largest birds tore at the flesh with ivory bills and gobbled it down, worms and all, while the smaller, wings still akimbo, dragged themselves on four tiny legs around the circle, pecking and shrieking as they tried to fight their way in.
Loy got out a notebook to write down a description of the scavengers – for old Onree, she said. Ammadin left her to it and brought out her crystals. Water Woman answered her signal immediately.
Much news,
Water Woman said.
Sibyl tell-then-just-now me much. All bad.
‘Could she find Zayn?’
Yes, she see-many-times Zayn. I writhe-now in shame, I hide-then too much, I be bad bad person, soul of Chur not Chiri Michi be in my heart, I writhe and grovel with my neck bent. I piss on my own feet.
‘Water Woman, please, what’s happened?’
I start-now at the beginning. Three Karshaks Sibyl see-many-day-past riding on Burgunee road. They head-then east, turn-now south. One Karshak ride-then-before with Soutan. Two Karshak, Zayn. Three Karshak, not ride-then-before.
‘Three Kazraks. Warkannan, Zayn, and Jezro Khan – it could be. Did Sibyl say that one of them looked like a prisoner?’
No, Sibyl say-then that they laugh-then-day-past all together, talk-then together when they ride. Sibyl say-then that one wear-always imp. She jam-then imp, see-then him. Zayn wear-always imp not wear?
‘Yes, that’s Zayn.’
So, all well-then. Then not now. They ride-then east to Shairb. They leave-then Shairb, go-next to old road. On the old road many Chof come-then, surround-then them and take-next away.
‘They did what? What happened?’
Many us – Chof – six Chur and one Chiri Van – capture-then the three Karshaks. Take-then them as hostages. Carry-then-next them on secret roads east.
‘Six Chur? Soutan’s spear servants?’
No, not Soutan, he be too stupid to think up something like this. I grovel-next-soon, I writhe-always in shame. I tell-not you enough, I warn-not your friend Zayn.
She began to moan into her transmit crystal.
Ammadin’s heart started pounding. ‘Water Woman, it’s that
other group, isn’t it? The faction you told me about once, the ones who want Sibyl to give them weapons.’
Yes, yes, that be the truth. I think-never they grow-never so brave. They take-then on lastday the three Karshaks. I know-not what they do-next-soon, but I think-maybe they try trade Karshaks for the location of Sibyl’s cave.
‘Trade them to who, though? You?’
Maybe me, maybe the Great Mother, I know-not.
‘That doesn’t make any sense. Your people aren’t going to care if this faction kills their hostages.’
I care. No more death, Ammadin Witchwoman. I want-never no more death, not Chof not you not even Karshaks. Especially not this important male Karshak, Jezro Khan. I ask-then Sibyl about khan, what it mean, this word. She tell me, very important, very holy, marked by Karshak god. If a khan die, his people come-next with an army and kill-next-soon us all.
Ammadin decided that Water Woman didn’t need to know that Jezro was a powerless exile. ‘All right, so this faction wants to trade the Kazraks for the location of Sibyl’s cave.’
I think-only this be true. I know-not. They send-maybe soon message to me or to Great Mother. We know-next if they send. If I know I tell-next you about Zayn.
Ammadin squelched a brief impulse towards tears. ‘What about Soutan? Has Sibyl seen him?’
Sibyl tell-then me – yes, I be foolish and forget-now to tell you. Here be bad more news. Soutan and that young Karshak, they ride-still east on the old N’Dosha road. Six of our men walk-now with them, the renegade men that I tell-then-long-time-ago you about. Sibyl fear-now that Soutan make-next ambush.
‘You know, if Soutan has an ounce of sense, he won’t come near Loy. She’s a very powerful sorcerer, she hates him, and I think he knows it.’
Good. Let him fear. You keep-now travelling and get to the white cliff. We come-soon. I call-next my men, my servant spears. We reach-soon you.
Abruptly she closed down, leaving only the sound of the illusory sea whispering on the non-existent beach. Ammadin came back to camp to find that Loy had finished with her writing. She’d taken out her own crystals and had some news of her own.
‘My spirits did finally manage to reach Master Zhoc,’ Loy told
her. ‘It sounds like the zhundars in Burgunee have finally seen reason. They’re honouring that warrant for Soutan’s arrest.’
‘Too bad he’s not still in the Cantons, then.’
‘Yes. How I hate him, the wormy little sheep cunt!’ Loy hesitated. ‘Happier thoughts: was there news of Zayn?’
‘Oh yes. He’s probably still alive. He was yesterday. He rode across the Burgunee border with Warkannan and Jezro Khan. Come to think of it, they were probably trying to find Warkannan’s nephew, but anyway, they’ve been kidnapped by a rival faction of ChaMeech.’
Loy opened her mouth, but no sound came.
‘Yes,’ Ammadin said. ‘Not the kind of news I was hoping for.’