The Outworlder (15 page)

“Back in the days before the Dragon-Lords, we
traded with other worlds. We were on the cutting edge of these
kinds of technological advances…and then, one day, everything
changed. The Dragon-Lords came, and we lost all communication with
our friends and allies in other systems. It was over just like
that. Whatever advanced technology we had, we hid. We keep it only
for emergencies now. Better for the Dragon-Lords to think Albadir
is some backwards little village.” He grinned at her. “We’ve got
some surprises yet.”

Sahara glanced down at Rafe. His breathing
was deep and slow.

“Did he just go to sleep?” she marveled. “I
wish I could drop off like that!” She took another drink from her
water skin.

“He’s spent years perfecting the art,” Jared
said, a smile in his eyes.

Sahara was silent for a moment, feeling
suddenly awkward. She plucked at the string that connected the plug
to the mouth of the water skin.

“How do you know him?” she asked finally.

“Who? Rafe?” Jared chuckled. “We’ve been
friends for years. Since we were boys getting into trouble. We were
apprentices together for a time under Childir, until Rafe went
rogue and decided he liked street fighting better than herb
lore.”

Sahara glanced up at him. “You weren’t a
street fighter yourself?”

Jared laughed aloud. “Do I look like I was a
street fighter? I learned the arts of war the civilized way—from a
tutor and with blunted weapons. Rafe was schooled less gently. If I
told you the number of times he’s had a limb broken, you’d think I
was lying.” The smile faded from Jared’s face slowly, like the sun
setting, leaving its glow but not its brilliance. “What about you?
You’re skilled in blade work and have a good head in a fight—where
did you learn?”

Sahara felt a horrible burning lump mass
itself in her throat. She swallowed hard, but it did no good. “From
my father.”

“Your father taught you to fight?”

“He was a brigade commander.”

“But why did he teach you? Didn’t you have
brothers? Or was it customary on your world for women to learn to
fight?”

“I had no brothers. Well…none that survived
past infancy.” She clenched her teeth for a moment, and then
continued in a controlled voice, “And that was no fault of theirs,
either.”

Jared looked at her steadily for a moment.
“Whose fault was it?”

Sahara took a deep breath and met his gaze.
“When the Dragon-Lords invaded my homeworld and killed our king,
they decided soon afterwards that male children were a danger to
their fragile tyranny. So they rounded them up and took them away.
I’m sure they killed them all. My two brothers were among them.” A
strangled sob broke past her careful steadiness. “Jonah was two.
Deor was not yet half a year—still nursing at my mother’s breast.
Their deaths killed my mother.” She paused, struggling with an
upsurge of grief that threatened to tear her to pieces. “I was
eight.”

“My God,” Jared breathed. He reached out his
hand and covered hers. “My God, Sahara, I’m so sorry.”

“Well,” she said briskly, “after that, my
father and the other men of our city decided that the only way for
freedom to survive was to train the girls to fight. And so we
learned in secret. We learned the black arts of the
assassin—poisons, drugs, knife work, sleight of hand. We learned
the straightforward arts of combat—strategy, sword, archery,
riding, swimming, shooting.”

“A full military training.”

“Yes. And then it happened. When I was
fifteen, my father was killed in a desperate attempt to free our
land from the Dragon-Lords. The battle cost our city all that was
left of its men. Even without our fathers, brothers, husbands…we
continued to meet, to practice, to hone our skills. They all looked
to me to lead them, Jared! By the time I was eighteen I was at the
head of one of the deadliest fighting forces our world had ever
seen. All the more deadly because we were secret—no one ever
thought that beneath all the smiles and finery and glowing skin we
were trained killers.”

Her mouth snapped shut, and she jerked her
hand out from under Jared’s.

Jared was staring at her with an intensity
that made her avert her face. From her position within the tent,
she could see the northern edge of the dunes, stretching away to a
haze of shimmering forms on the horizon, which she guessed were
mountains. There was no sign of movement along the ridge, and she
sighed.

“Sahara,” Jared said, “I know this journey
will be difficult for you. If we have to go to the ship, I mean.
You can stay here if—”

“No.” Her eyes clashed with his. “I will not
stay here.”

Jared sighed. “Listen, you and I know each
other too well now for me to play games with you. Can you handle
this or not? Because if you have some kind of breakdown, we’ll all
die out here.”

Sahara arched an eyebrow. “I know Rafe thinks
I’m weak. That I’ll let you down. And I know I showed weakness last
night. I’m sorry for that.”

“You heard us talking.”

“Yes. But that was last night. This is today.
And today they will pay.”

At that moment, Rafe heaved a deep breath and
rolled onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow. “Ready?” he
asked with a yawn.

Jared grinned at him. “Glad you decided to
join us, sleeping beauty.”

“Hey, a man’s got to sleep when he can.” He
sat up and his eyes came to rest on Sahara’s face. “What about you,
sweetheart? You ready?”

Sahara smoldered at him. “Don’t ever call me
that again.”

Rafe’s eyebrows flew up in surprise, and then
his generous mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “I see we have our
feistiness back,” he remarked. “That’s excellent.”

Sahara gave her head a small shake, smiling
in spite of herself, and looked out at the dunes again.

There was something there now, very faint and
far in the distance. A speck. And it was moving in their
direction.

“I think we’re about to have company,” she
said. “You boys ready to play?”

Before she finished speaking, Jared was
unpacking their camo gear and tossing it to them. Rafe and Jared
wound turbans around their heads and over their necks and
shoulders, pulling the fabric so that only their eyes showed.
Sahara pulled her veil over her hair, crossing one corner over her
face and fastening it behind her ear. They tossed aside their
sand-colored mottled battle jackets and stepped into their
camouflage jumpsuits. Finally, they pulled covers over their
boots.

Weapons at the ready, they crept cautiously
out of the tent and positioned themselves in stages along the side
of the dunes.

Sweat trickled down Sahara’s nose. The
scout’s pace felt agonizingly slow, but he came on steadily. He was
on foot, and he seemed to be alone. Sahara stared hard at him, at
the mask of beaten and burnished metal that gleamed every now and
again beneath its dark cowl. Sahara wondered what he could—and
could not—see through that mask, and she wondered what lay beneath
the dark armor that coated his body like scales. As he approached
the place where they lay hidden, his steps slowed, and he drew his
sword. It was long and curved and cruel, like the one hanging in
Jared’s room, and the sun blazed along its edges.

Sahara hardly dared to breathe. Out of the
corner of her eye she noticed that Jared had his crossbow at the
ready. She focused once more on the scout, scanning his body for
any indication of a weakness. There was only one—a small place just
under his left arm where one of the scales of his mail shirt was
twisted out of place. It was only just big enough for a crossbow
bolt, and Sahara prayed that Jared had good aim.

The scout stopped suddenly, his boots just
above Sahara’s head. Jared was the only one with a clear shot at
him now—Rafe was too far in front of him to see the target.

Everything seemed to happen at once.

Jared fired his crossbow. The scout reeled
backward with a screech, his sword flaring in the sunlight as it
fell to the sand. As the scout struggled to regain his balance,
Sahara saw Jared’s bolt protruding from just below his left
shoulder. The mail had kept it from fully penetrating, and Sahara
knew it wasn’t a fatal wound.

Like some awful animal of prey, she launched
herself at the scout and caught him around the waist, hurtling with
him down the other side of the dunes.

She heard frantic shouts behind her and felt
a dull pain as the scout’s gauntleted hand smashed into the side of
her face. But then her dagger was out, and the next moment it was
buried in the scout’s chest up to the hilt. They stopped sliding,
the sand settled, and Sahara rose and staggered back against the
side of the dune.

Jared and Rafe were slip-sliding down the
sand behind her. Rafe skidded to a stop next to the scout’s
lifeless body, and Jared fell to his knees next to Sahara.

“You all right?” he gasped. “Sahara! Are you
all right?”

His voice sounded far away, and Sahara
blinked at him vaguely. “I-I think I’m fine,” she stammered. She
put a hand to her head and dragged off the veil.

“Good God! Let me look at that!” He leaned
toward her, turning her face to the side. “How did that
happen?”

“He hit me on the way down, I think.” Sahara
touched the spot gingerly. “Is it very bad?”

“Could be worse, I suppose,” Jared answered
with a wry smile.

Sahara jerked her head toward the scout. “How
are we going to get him all the way back to the city? Drag
him?”

“No,” Rafe said, rising and joining them. “I
say we take the head and the sword and leave the body.”

Sahara’s nose wrinkled as she stared across
the sand at the masked and hooded face. An effigy even in life, it
was utterly chilling in death.

“Can’t we just strip the armor?” she said in
a pale voice.

Jared nodded curtly. “I agree with Sahara.
Strip the armor and take the sword. That should be proof
enough.”

Rafe looked from one to the other, and then
said, “Whatever you say. I just hope that will be convincing
enough.”

He unbuckled the sword belt and tossed it
aside. As he started unbuckling the clasps under the scout’s right
arm, Jared headed back up the dune for the sword. Sahara joined
Rafe, knelt on the scout’s chest, and pulled out her dagger. A gush
of dark blood and a foul stench followed the steel.

“That was a brave thing to do,” Rafe
remarked. His eyes rested on her face for a moment and he smiled.
“This might have gone a different way if you hadn’t gotten the jump
on him.”

Sahara met his eyes for a moment and felt
that he understood. With a curt nod, she dropped her gaze and began
cleaning her blade in the sand.

“What will we do with the body?” she
asked.

“Leave it here,” Rafe suggested. “That way
the message will be sure to get to the Dragon-Lords.” He groaned
with the effort as he dragged the mail coat off the body. “This is
going to be fun to carry,” he remarked dryly.

Jared made his way back down the dune with
the sword and took the scabbard Rafe held out to him. As he slipped
the blade into the sheath, he glanced up at the sun.

“Let’s take what we need and get out of here.
We don’t have much time before the harbingers are out.”

*****

When they re-entered the city the next
afternoon, they headed straight to the council-hall. Sahara opened
the heavy wooden doors and stood aside for Jared and Rafe to enter.
Rafe dropped the armor on the table and Jared laid the sword on top
of the pile.

“My lords,” Jared said to the assembly, “it’s
done.”

Everyone rose and stared at the trophies.

“What happened?” asked Arnauld. “What can you
tell us?”

“We had success, as you see,” Rafe answered.
“We left the body on the dunes for the next scout to discover, and
we have brought you his armor and his sword.”

“Sahara slew him,” Jared added. “My bolt was
not enough for a fatal wound. She risked her life and sprang on
him…she finished him with her dagger.”

Everyone turned to stare at Sahara, and she
wished Jared had kept the bit about her near-suicidal attack to
himself.

“And that’s where that mark has come from, I
presume?” Arnauld asked, gesturing to her face.

Sahara’s hand slowly traveled to her bruised
cheekbone. “Yes, my lord,” she answered.

There was silence in the hall for a moment,
and then Arnauld looked away from her and around the table. “So,
gentlemen, the die has been cast.”

“And now what do we do?” Marcus asked. “Sit
around and wait for their retribution?”

“I don’t think so,” Jared said. “We aren’t
ready to fight them yet. We need to prepare in earnest for battle,
if and when it comes to us.”

“I agree with Jared,” Rafe seconded. “And
there’s no time to lose.”

Arnauld nodded slowly. “Let it be as you
say.” He looked at Sahara. “And I want Sahara to supervise all
preparations and training. She will lead our armies if it comes to
a fight.”

Jared and Rafe both started in surprise.

“Her?” Rafe cried, unable to keep the shock
out of his voice. “But, my lord…” He fumbled for words for a moment
and then concluded lamely, “She’s an outworlder!”

“My lord,” Jared said at the same moment,
“isn’t this a hasty decision?”

Sahara said nothing, her eyes fixed on the
heap of trophies on the table. Part of her was leaping in
exultation. She had her validation at last—finally, after
everything, they believed she could do what she said she could do.
But something about this didn’t feel right, and the worm of dread
coiled itself in her gut.

Arnauld glanced from Rafe to Jared and then
back. “You question my choice? You yourselves just told us all who
made this mission a success! You told us who had the courage to
engage the enemy in hand-to-hand combat and the skill to emerge
victorious. No, my lords, my decision stands. I appoint Sahara
Acwellan to lead our army and direct its preparations. Look to your
houses, my lords, and ready your people. We have no time to
delay.”