The Horsemasters (53 page)

Siguna said with dignity, “I will be happy to help with your discussion.”

“Thank you.”

Nel said firmly, “I think we should eat before you begin to discuss anything.”

Ronan slipped his hand under her braid and rested it on the nape of her neck. “Did you bring some cooking herbs?” he asked hopefully.

She smiled up at him and shook her head. “I brought medicine herbs.”

He sighed.

Listening to the exchange between Ronan and Nel, Siguna felt as if a great weight had rolled off of her chest. Ronan was going to make a bargain with her father. There was not going to be a slaughter. Fenris would be safe. She gave a tremulous smile and asked, trying to emulate the lightness of their tones, “Who is cooking for my father?”

“The same men who are cooking for us,” Ronan replied gloomily. “Ask him how he likes the food.”

Siguna turned to Fenris, her face bright with relief and joy. “Ronan wants to know how you like the food, Father.”

The kain looked astonished. “How I like the food?”

“Yes. He is missing the hand of a woman in his food.”

Fenris suddenly grinned. “He speaks true,” he said to his daughter. He looked at Ronan and nodded. “The hand of a woman is noticeably missing,” he said.

“There has to be something growing along the river we can use to season their food,” Nel said to Siguna. “Come along with me, and we’ll look.”

“All right,” Siguna agreed. She turned to Fenris. “Nel and I are going to look for some herbs for your food. I shall be back soon.”

Fenris looked from his daughter to Nel to Ronan, then back again to his daughter. He shook his head in bewilderment. “That is good,” he said. He looked again at Ronan.

Ronan said, “We talk. After.” He made a gesture as of eating. All the amusement had fled from his face. It was perfectly sober.

Fenris nodded. “Sa,” he said in Kindred speech, “We talk.”

* * * *

Nel said to Ronan, “What are you going to do with them?”

They had finished eating and were walking slowly along the river in the direction of the herd of mares. He did not answer her question but said instead, “The men think I am mad not to have slain them all. I had a fight with the chiefs over it. Neihle stood by me, and finally Haras did also.”

She slipped her hand into his and curled her fingers around his thumb.

“I told them that the fight in the gorge was different,” he said. “I had no choice there. We were still in danger. I could not afford to take prisoners, and it was kinder to kill the wounded than to let them be eaten alive by hyenas. But this time…this time we finished them.”

Nel’s only reply was briefly to lift his hand to her cheek.

“I kept thinking of what you said to me when we took Vili,” he said in a sudden rush. “‘If we act as they do, then we are as bad as they are,’ you said.” His brows were knit as if in pain. “It is in my heart that you were right, Nel. If I kill all of these men, then I am no better than they were when they destroyed the tribes of the Fox and the Bear.”

The river was red in the light of the setting sun. On the opposite side a small herd of deer had come to the water to drink. On their side of the river, a few ravens were circling over a large pile of stones. Ronan said, his eyes on the stones, “We burned their dead and buried what was left. I had the stones heaped up to keep the predators from digging up the grave.”

Nel let out her breath. “How will the dead find their way to the underworld if they have been burned?”

“Fenris told me to do it. They were his men.”

They walked for a while in silence. Then Nel said, “They are strange people.”

“Sa.”

Nel asked once more, “What are you going to do with them?”

“I have been thinking I will send them back to the north, Nel, and make them settle there. There is no reason why they cannot lead a life such as ours, a life where they hunt animals and not men.”

“Back to the frozen tundra?” Nel asked incredulously.

The sky to the west was streaked with red and black; against it Ronan’s profile was outlined in sharp relief. “Na,” he said. “I was thinking of the land near where the River of Gold flows to the sea. It was Kindred land, I know, but there are few men of the Kindred left there now. It is good hunting territory, minnow. The Tribe of the Owl lived a good life there until the Horsemasters came ravaging through.”

Nel nodded slowly. “There is only one problem. How can you be certain they will stay there? How can you be certain they will not start off on another journey of destruction the moment your back is turned?”

An utterly implacable look came over Ronan’s aquiline profile. He said, “I will keep their horses.”

Nel halted. Her fingers tightened on his thumb, turning him so he had to face her. The red sky rose behind his head like a halo. “Keep their horses?” she repeated.

“Think, Nel,” he said. “It is the horse that gave this group of men their mobility. It is the horse that gave them their chief weapon of terror. Take away their horses, and they become like any other tribe.”

There was a breeze blowing off the river, and it ruffled through his black hair, blowing a few strands forward across his cheek. Nel said, “They can tame new horses, Ronan. They have the skill of it.”

“Perhaps. But it will take them a very long time to catch wild horses and tame them. They will not have the valley, like we did.”

There was a thoughtful silence. “That is so,” she said. She nodded twice, then repeated slowly, “That is so.”

In a single harmonious movement, they turned and began to retrace their steps toward the camp. “What of their women?” Nel asked after they had gone a little way.

“The captive Kindred women will stay with us. They will be welcome within any of our tribes, or, if they have family in any northern tribes that are still intact, they can return there.”

Nel smiled up at him. “It is a good plan,” she said. “I have been thinking and thinking ever since I heard of the captives of what we could possibly do with them, and you have found the answer. You always do.”

“I must get Fenris to agree, of course.”

Nel said, “He will have no choice.”

* * * *

It did not take the kain long to come to the same conclusion as Nel, and he agreed to Ronan’s terms.

“They will keep our horses?” Vili asked in horror when he learned of the terms of the agreement the following morning. “But without our horses we will be just like anybody else!”

“That is precisely what he wants,” Fenris said wearily to his son. “He does not want to give us a chance to ride over his land any longer.”

“Father!” Vili’s gray eyes glittered. “All we have to do is pretend to go north. Then can we double around and steal back our horses from them.”

“Ronan has already thought of that, Vili. He is sending men to escort us.”

“He expects us to walk the entire length of the river?”

“Yes.”

“It will be winter before we reach the country he is speaking of!”

Fenris shrugged. After a minute, he added, “He is also taking back our captive women.”

Vili snarled, “This is outrageous.”

The kain lifted a shaggy blond eyebrow. “It is an amazement to me that we are alive, Vili. Think you more on that, my son. If this Ronan were a man like me, we would all have been fed to the flames some days since.”

Vili scowled, encountered his father’s steady gaze, and dropped his eyes. When he raised them again he saw to his astonishment that Siguna was approaching them, and Arika was at her side.

“Name of the Thunderer,” he muttered, “what is she doing here?”

“Father,” Siguna said as soon as she had reached their side, “here is the Mistress of the Tribe of the Red Deer, who wishes to meet you.”

Fenris gave his daughter a questioning look. “Mistress? What is a Mistress?”

“The Red Deer has a woman chief,” Siguna said. “That is what she is called. Mistress.”

Fenris said nothing, merely turned inscrutable gray eyes toward Arika’s face. She met his gaze unflinchingly and remarked, “So this is your father, Siguna.”

Fenris continued to regard the woman before him. Arika’s aging skin could not completely mask the beauty of the sharp bones beneath, and her gaze was utterly ruthless. Very slowly, Fenris began to smile. “A woman chief,” he said softly.

Siguna opened her lips to translate the remark, but he put his hand upon her arm to halt her. He addressed himself directly to Arika. “You are kain?”

Arika inclined her head. “Sa. I am kain.”

Fenris looked at his daughter. “Truly,” he said, “these people will never cease to amaze me.”

* * * *

Vili stood by the river and gazed with burning eyes at the herd of horses grazing at the far end of the meadow. As he watched, a rider on a gray horse came out from beneath the shadow of the mountains and galloped toward the herd. It was Ronan, riding his young stallion.

The horse was magnificent, Vili had to admit that—taller than their own horses, with a long flowing mane, not the short, stubby one common to the horses Vili was familiar with.

The stallion was growing excited as he approached the mares, but Ronan was managing to keep him to a direct, steady, forward gallop.

Name of the Thunderer, Vili thought, that was a horse!

A girl’s voice sounded from behind him, and Vili swung around to find the black-haired girl of the Red Deer standing there. He saw immediately that she was unarmed and alone.

They stared at each other, Vili noticing with surprise that her eyes were not brown, as he had always thought, but dark blue. He gestured to her hand and asked sarcastically, “Where spear?”

She shrugged. “I do not need it.”

She was very beautiful, he thought, and his young male body immediately roused. It had been a long time since he had lain with a woman. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at her speculatively. Why had she sought him out?

She smiled at him with perfect frankness. “You look good,” she said. She looked him up and down. “You show me how good.”

He blinked. Had he misunderstood? She held out her hand. “Come,” she said. “I will take you.”

Vili never hesitated. He grasped her hand in his and let her lead him away from the camp and toward the sloping side of the mountain. Her hand was callused like a boy’s. He heard someone behind them shout, and she turned and called something back. When she faced forward again, she was laughing.

They progressed steadily toward the shelter of the mountain and the trees. Vili could feel the blood pulsing in his veins. The thought flitted across his mind that perhaps she had hidden a weapon somewhere and was going to kill him.

He didn’t care, so long as he could have her first.

They had reached the lower slope of the mountain. She dropped his hand and began to climb, following the path taken by the descending men several nights before. Vili followed.

A quarter of the way up the slope, sheltered by pines and fully leaved birches, was a small glade where the hill leveled off briefly. The black-haired girl turned to him. “My name is Lara,” she said.

He pointed to his chest. “Vili.”

“You are very,” and she used a word he did not know. He frowned.

“Handsome,” she repeated. He shrugged impatiently, still not understanding. He was not interested in talking. He grasped her arm, pulling her toward him. She came willingly, raising her hands to draw his mouth down to hers.

As Vili kissed her, he ran his hands up and down her body. She rubbed against him. He groaned and with one swift movement threw her to the ground, immediately plunging after her himself. Straddling her, a knee on either side of her hips, he began to rip off his trousers.

“Na, na, na, na,” Lara said. She was a little breathless from hitting the ground so suddenly, but her blue eyes were very bright. He stared at her as she lay there beneath him. What did she mean, na? She was mad if she thought he’d stop now.

“Slow,” she said to him. “It is better. Like this.” She untied the thongs of her shirt, reached up for his hand and slid it under so it touched her naked breast. His fingers closed, and he felt her nipple stand up against his palm. She smiled. “Sa,” she said huskily. “Good.” Completely unafraid, she beckoned him to lie beside her, and, to his own amazement, he obeyed.

The next hour was a revelation to Vili. He had never dreamed that there could be so much more to mating than the simple act! Nor that such prolonged agony could be the source of such aching pleasure.

He could not wait long the first time, but the second time went on and on and on, Lara had skills Vili determined he would teach henceforth to every woman he ever lay with. And he himself found a pleasure he had never known before, when he saw that Lara was as hot and excited from his touch as he was from hers. He had not known women could feel that way. It was a decided improvement, he thought, over the brief and solitary pleasure he had known in all his previous encounters.

When it was over at last, and Vili lay on his back staring up into the blue sky, he thought of his father’s women, and how they would look if the kain should chance to glance their way. Vili had always thought it was because his father was as strong as a stallion. After today, he suspected that it was something else.

Chapter Thirty-eight

There was utter chaos among the women left behind in the Horsemasters’ camp when they learned of the defeat of their men. The first news had been brought by some of the Horsemasters who had managed to escape from the battlefield unharmed. Complete defeat: that was the word they carried. Three quarters of their men left dead or dying on the field. No one knew what the mountainmen would do with the men they had taken prisoners.

The women did not know what to do. Wives and mothers were frantic about the safety of their husbands and their sons. Captive women felt a spark of hope that the possibility of freedom might loom in their futures now that their captors were dead or defeated. But no one knew what to do.

* * * *

Two days after his discussion with Fenris, Ronan collected a handful of mounted men, and Siguna and rode south along the River of Gold to the Horsemasters’ camp to explain to the waiting women just what had been decided in regard to their future.