Winter Warriors (31 page)

Little Sufia sat in the doorway of the tent, staring wide-eyed into the interior. Conalin walked over to her, lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the wagon. The child was nervous and frightened. “They are hurting her,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

“No they are not,” Conalin said soothingly. “A baby is coming. It’s inside her, and it is going to come out.”

“How did it get inside her?” asked Sufia.

“It grew from a very small seed,” said Conalin. “And now it is ready to live.”

A long shriek came from the tent. Sufia jumped. “Why is she hurting?” Sufia began to cry.

Kebra walked to the wagon. “It is all right,” he said, ruffling the child’s blond hair.

“She wants to know why the queen is in pain,” said Conalin.

“Well,” Kebra began uneasily, “she’s … slim in the hips and—” Sufia’s bright blue eyes were locked to Kebra’s gaze. “—and …” He swung and called for Nogusta. “The child has some questions,” he said brightly.

“Answer them,” said Nogusta, walking away toward the stream.

“Thank you so much,” Kebra called after him. He turned back to Sufia. “I can’t really explain,” he told the child. “Childbirth is sometimes painful, but soon the queen will be well, and you will be able to see the baby boy. That will be nice, won’t it?”

The queen shrieked once more, and Sufia dissolved into tears.

Kebra moved away and began to prepare breakfast. Sitting beside the stream, Nogusta and Dagorian talked in low voices. “Does Bison know what he’s doing?” asked the young officer.

“Yes. Believe it or not, many of the camp whores request Bison when they are ready to deliver.”

“I can’t think why.”

“Maybe he fathered most of the children,” ventured Nogusta. “But I believe she is in safe hands.”

“Safe hands? How safe are any of us?”

Nogusta heard the fear in the young man’s voice. He was concerned, for he had noticed the growing tension in the officer ever since the wolf attack. “Nothing has changed since you rescued the queen,” he said.

“I didn’t rescue her—Ulmenetha did that. And the children. I just came later. And we would all have been killed had you not arrived to kill the lancers. I don’t feel that I have been of any real use.” Dagorian sighed. “I am not like you, Nogusta, or the others. You are tough men. The stuff of heroes. I …” He faltered. “I am just a failed priest.”

“You do yourself a disservice,” said Nogusta.

Dagorian shook his head. “You remember when you warned me about an attempt on Banelion’s life? I went to him, as I told you.”

“Yes. He advised you to stay away from him. That was good advice.”

“Maybe it was, but a hero would have disobeyed him. Don’t you see? I was glad to be relieved of responsibility. I thanked him, and I left. Would you have done so?”

“Yes,” said Nogusta.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Dagorian.”

“But would you have felt relief?”

“You are torturing yourself unnecessarily,” said the black man. “What is really at the heart of this?”

“I am afraid.” He looked into Nogusta’s face. “What is it that you have seen? I need to know.”

“You do not
need
to know,” Nogusta assured him. “And it would serve no purpose to tell you. This gift I have is like a sharp sword. It can save a life, or it can take it. At this moment you and I are alive, and we have a mission. All we can do is try to stay alive. What I have seen or not seen is irrelevant.”

“That is simply not true,” said Dagorian. “The future is not set in stone. You could, for example, have seen me walking on a particular cliff top. The ground gives way, and I fall to my death. But if you warn me, I will not walk on that cliff top. Then I will live.”

Nogusta shook his head. “I told you once before that the gift is not that precise. I do not choose what to see.”

“I just want to know whether I will survive,” said Dagorian. “Have you seen that, at least?”

“Ultimately no one survives,” hissed Nogusta. “That is the way of life. We are born, we live, we die. All that counts is the manner in which we live. And even that does not count for long. History will forget us. It forgets all men eventually. You want certainty?
That
is certainty.”

“I fear I may be a coward,” said Dagorian. “I might run from this mission.”

“You will not run,” said Nogusta. “You are a man of courage
and honor. I know you are afraid. So you should be—for so am I. Our enemies are great in number, and our friends are few. Yet we will do what we must, for we are men and the sons of men.”

The queen cried out again. Dagorian jerked at the sound, then pushed himself to his feet and walked from the camp.

For more than an hour the group waited, and there was little sound from within the roofless tent. Then Bison emerged, wandered to the fire, and ate some of the hot oats Kebra had prepared for breakfast. The bowman approached him.

“What is happening?” asked Kebra.

“She is resting a little,” the giant told him.

“How soon will she have the child?”

Bison shrugged. “The water sac has burst, and the baby is on its way. How long? I don’t know. Another hour. Perhaps two or three. Maybe more.”

“That’s not very precise,” snapped Kebra. “I thought you were an expert in this.”

“Expert? A few times doesn’t make you an expert. All I know is that there are three stages to birthing. The first is under way. The baby is moving.”

“And the second?”

“The contractions will become more severe as the child enters the birth canal and moves on into the vagina.”

Kebra smiled. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you use the correct term.”

“I’m not in the mood for jokes at the moment,” said Bison. “She’s a slim girl, and this is the first child. There’s likely to be a lot of torn flesh. And I know little of what to do if anything goes wrong. Has anyone tried again to wake the priestess?”

“I’ll sit by her,” promised Kebra.

“You do that. Smack her face. Pour water on her. Anything.”

“As soon as she wakes, I’ll send her to you.”

Bison rose and ambled back to the tent. Kebra moved to the sleeping priestess. She was no longer bathed in sweat. Her skin was clear and firm, and Kebra was surprised to see how pretty she was now that the excess flesh was gone. And
she looked so much younger. He had thought her to be in her forties, but now he saw she was—despite the gray in her blond hair—at least ten years younger. He took her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Can you hear me, lady?” he said. But she did not stir.

The morning wore on, the sun climbing toward noon. Nogusta, normally so cool and in control, was pacing the camp. Once he approached the tent and called out to Bison. The response was short, coarse, and to the point. Nogusta strode to the stream. Kebra, still unable to wake the priestess, joined him there.

“We are losing the time we gained at the bridge,” said Nogusta. “If this goes on much longer, the enemy will be upon us.”

“Bison doesn’t know how long the labor will last. It could be hours yet.”

Nogusta suddenly smiled. “Would you want Bison as the midwife to your firstborn?”

“It is a ghastly thought,” admitted Kebra.

9

N
O NIGHTMARE EVER
suffered by Axiana had been worse than this. Her dress removed, her bare feet pressing into the damp earth, her lower back a rhythmic sea of pain, she squatted like a peasant beneath an open sky. Her emotional state had been fragile ever since the horror of the events at the house of Kalizkan, and everything since had conspired to fill her with terrible fear. Her husband was dead, her life as a royal princess a diminishing memory. All her life she had been pampered, never knowing hunger or poverty, the heat of summer kept from her by servants with peacock fans, the cold of winter barred from the palace by warm fires and fine clothes of wool.

Only days earlier she had been sitting in a padded satin chair amid the splendor of the royal apartments, servants everywhere. And despite her husband’s disdain of her, she had been the queen of a great empire.

Now, naked and frightened, she squatted in a forest, wracked with pain and waiting to birth a king in the wet and the mud.

Beside her the giant Bison was supporting her weight. His ugly face was close to hers, and when she turned her head, she could feel the coarseness of his bristling mustache against the skin of her face. His left hand was rubbing gently across the base of her spine, easing the pain there. Back in Usa Ulmenetha had shown her the satin-covered birthing stool and quietly explained all the processes of birth. It had almost seemed an adventure then. Fresh pain seared through her, and she cried out.

“Don’t breathe too fast,” said Bison. His gruff voice cut
through her rising panic. The contractions continued, the rhythm of pain rising and falling. The girl Pharis lifted a cup to Axiana’s lips. The water was cool and sweet. Sweat dripped into Axiana’s eyes. Pharis wiped it away with a cloth.

Cramp stabbed through her right thigh. She reared up against Bison and screamed. “My leg! My leg!” Lifting her easily, he turned her to her back, leaning her against a fallen tree. As he knelt beside her, his huge hands began to rub at the muscles above her knee. Pharis offered her more water. She shook her head. The humiliation was colossal. No man but her husband had ever seen her naked, and on that one night she had bathed in perfumed water and waited in a room lit with the light of three colored lanterns. The light now was harsh and bright, and the ugly peasant was rubbing her thighs with his huge callused hands.

And yet, she thought suddenly, he cares! Which is something Skanda never did.

Axiana remembered the night the king had come to her. He had cared nothing that she was a virgin, untutored and unskilled. He had made no attempt to ease her fears or even arouse her. There had been no pleasure in the act. It had been painful and—thank the Source—short-lived. He had not said a word throughout, and when he had finished, he had risen from her bed and stalked from the room. She had cried for hours.

Axiana felt dizzy. She opened her eyes to see bright lights dancing before her vision.

“Breathe slowly,” advised Bison. “You’ll pass out else. And we don’t want that, do we?”

Pain flared once more, reaching new heights. “There’s blood! There’s blood!” wailed Pharis.

“Of course there’s blood,” snapped Bison. “Just stay calm, girl. Go and fetch some more water.”

Axiana moaned. Bison leaned in to her. “Try to think of something else,” he said. “One of my wives used to chant. You know any chants?”

Anger replaced the pain in Axiana, roaring up like a forest fire. “You oaf! You stupid—” Suddenly she let fly with a
stream of coarse and obscene swear words in both Drenai and Ventrian, words she had heard but had never before uttered, would never have believed herself capable of uttering. It was, as she had always believed, the language of the gutter. Bison was completely unfazed.

“My third wife used to talk like that,” he said. “It’s as good as a chant,” he added brightly.

Axiana sagged against him, exhausted. All the years of nobility, the education, and the instilled belief that nobles were a different species from mere mortals peeled away from her like the layers of an onion. She was an animal now, sweating, grunting, and moaning, a creature without pride. Tears welled as the pain soared to fresh heights. “I can’t stand it!” she whispered. “I can’t!”

“ ’Course you can. You’re a brave girl. ’Course you can.”

She swore at him again, repeating the same word over and over.

“That’s good,” he said with a grin. Her head sagged against his shoulder. His hand pushed back the sweat-drenched hair from her brow. More than anything else this one small gesture restored her courage. She was not alone. The pain eased momentarily.

“Where is Ulmenetha?” she asked Bison.

“She’ll be here when she wakes. I don’t know why she’s still sleeping. Nogusta thinks it’s magick of some kind. But I’m here. You can trust old Bison.”

Pharis leaned in and wiped her face, then offered her more water. Axiana drank gratefully.