Empire of Dust (14 page)

Standing in the doorway in his rumpled, travel-stained tunic and disheveled hair, he reminds Kat of the baker's lost dog who came limping and matted back to Erissa. Her anger softens into new awareness: Heph, too, has suffered loss. He, too, has been forced to go on. Was it really so awful for him to reach out and try to find comfort and hope? Maybe she is not angry at him for kissing her, but angry at herself for kissing him. And Jacob... The Jacob she knew is gone now. She saw that for herself on the battlefield as he tore into Macedon's armies with Aesarian iron.

“I don't think we should stay here tonight,” Kat says, and she's pleased to hear that her voice sounds closer to normal as she walks to the door. “If it was dangerous for Ada, it could be dangerous for us, too.”

Heph nods. “The place feels evil somehow, as if it has been cursed. And cursed things often fear the light of day but gain power in the night.”

For a moment, she's back in the spider's mind, moments before it was blinded. “I agree,” she says. “We must leave well before sunset.”

* * *

As the sun slides toward the horizon, Kat descends the steep path.
No more breaking down
,
she thinks. She is Katerina, daughter of an oracle, sister to a prince, friend to a sorceress. More than that, she is Snake Blood, and the blood of a god pulses in her veins. No more will she be a crying girl brought down by her grief. No more will she let her heart take her this way and that.

They scramble around a twist in the track, and she sees Halicarnassus in the distance, a jewel of a city embraced by thick walls. In the center, the white marble Mausoleum, the tomb of the last king, juts a hundred and fifty feet into the air, the dozens of bronze figures on top shining like pure gold. Below it, the circular harbor bustles with brightly painted ships, and beyond, the sun glistens like fire on patches of the cobalt blue Aegean Sea.

And there are ships, there, one of them waiting for her, ready to take her south into an exotic land of ancient mysteries.

Chapter Thirteen

THE COARSE MANE
wraps around Zo's fingers, making her hands ache. It wouldn't be hard to untangle them, but Zo would rather have her fingers go numb than risk falling off the horse. The scarf drawn tight over her eyes has not only taken away her sight, but also some of her balance.

Ever since she sent the message to Cosmas, Ochus has blindfolded her during their travels, chaining her up at night to a tree, pocketing the key, and sleeping out of her reach. The scarf cuts into the bridge of her nose, but at least it keeps the sweat from dripping into her eyes. The sun hammers the top of her head like a hot fist. Without sight, Zo is forced to sharpen her other senses. She counts the strides of the horse, counts away the seconds, minutes, hours until they reach...what?

The fake Pegasus? The Spirit Eaters?

Will the adventure end when the child in her belly grows bigger than a secret? Or will it end when a gallant Cosmas appears to rescue her? Even if her message did somehow manage to get to him, she wonders how, in all these countless miles of farms and fields, woods and hills, he could ever find her.

And then there's the mysterious evil force out there, said to be killing off, even devouring, people and horses, leaving behind fields of bones—if the gossiping couriers she's overheard along the way are to be believed. Not long ago, Zo's entire life was contained within the gates of Sardis, but in the last few weeks she has grown aware of just how vast the empire beyond her protected city really is—and how deadly. They are maybe a third of the way to Persepolis, but now, with her eyes blindfolded, she feels more than ever that the world is so immense she could travel forever and never reach its end, that she, Princess Zofia of Sardis, is in fact infinitesimally small. The thought is unsettling, silencing.

With a clanking of manacles, Zo lurches forward as her horse, which has been favoring its right front leg the past few days, suddenly stumbles and stops altogether. For a terrifying moment, she fears she'll somersault over her horse's ears, but her hands gripped in the mane root her.

“Ochus?” she calls. From the crunch of his mount's hooves, she knows that her captor must only be a few lengths ahead. “I think my horse has gone totally lame this time.”

As he curses, she can almost picture his scowl—his dark brows knitting together over flashing eyes the color of honey—and the beat of the hooves stops and comes back toward her. A second later, she hears the jangle of a bit and feels a tug on her horse. Ochus must have leaped to the ground and taken the reins while he examined the leg, but he'd been so quiet, she hadn't heard him hit the packed earth. It continually astonishes her that a man of such burly strength can move about with such deep silence, like the enormous wildcats of the mountains said to stalk their prey soundlessly.

“Get off,” she hears him say gruffly.

Zo lets out a wry chuckle. “Easier said than done. Tell me, have you ever dismounted blindfolded?”

Suddenly she feels hands around her waist and a hard tug pulls her to the ground. She gasps as Ochus catches her an instant before she would have landed in the dirt.

Heart beating wildly, she silently thanks the old eunuch Bagadata for the lessons in diplomacy she received all her life. Though she rarely paid attention to the customs of foreign nations, the one thing she does remember is never to let her face betray her fright.

“So I suppose we are going to walk all the way to the mountains?” she asks sarcastically instead. “Such an easy task with this blindfold.”

He snorts. “It's an easier task than trusting you.” Then his hands are around her again, and her stomach swoops as he throws her onto the back of what she assumes must be his horse. Awkwardly, she grips the mane and swings her leg around the other side.

“And to answer your question...” Ochus's voice rises up to her from somewhere on the ground. “We are going to buy horses at the next farm and leave these there. My horse needs a full day's rest before going on, and that's a luxury we don't have.”

“Buy horses?” she asks. “In that case, you had better take off this blindfold so I can pick good ones.”

She's surprised when she hears a bark of laughter come from him, but the scarf remains on.

“Sit back a few handsbreadths so I can mount in front of you.”

Zo tries to scoot backward, to the far rear of the saddle, but loses her balance and almost topples off the horse. Strong arms stabilize her.

“Watch what you're doing,” he barks.

“How can I watch anything when you have me blindfolded?”

“Quiet,” he says. “Or I'll gag you as well.”

She opens her mouth to respond, then thinks better of it.

She feels him swoop up in front of her, brushing against her, and hears the creak of the saddle as he settles. She grabs him to steady herself, one arm gripping his biceps, the other clutching at the back of his tunic.

She breathes in his scent: a salty tang of sweat, smoke from last night's campfire, fresh country air, and something all his own. She pulls her head away from his neck.

They are riding more slowly now, the lame horse on her left side, trying to keep up. She hears the warbles of birds, the buzzing of insects, and the murmur of trees. She licks her lips; they taste of sweat and dust.

“There's a farm up ahead with horses in a paddock,” he says as they stop. He helps her off the horse and removes the blindfold. The light is so bright, it hurts Zo's eyes. She rubs them, her chains clinking, and sees broad fields and a gated compound of small wooden buildings. On one side, three large horses nibble grass in a paddock.

Ochus digs into his saddlebag and pulls out his cloak, which he throws over Zo to hide her manacles.

As they approach the house leading their horses, two men march out of the gate, one holding a pitchfork, the other a large kitchen knife.

“Can we help you?” asks the tall one with a face like a hatchet.

Ochus spreads his hands to show he's not holding a weapon, though the farmers can't miss the sword hanging by his side. “I mean you no trouble. My wife's mount has gone lame,” he says, and the brown mare, as if on cue, holds its right front leg a bit above the ground, “and mine is exhausted. I would like to buy two of yours. I have gold and will pay well. You can keep these horses, too, for your trouble.”

The smaller man, tan and wrinkled, shakes his head. “Horses are worth their weight in gold these days,” he says. “At night we bring ours into the house with us. And these are farm horses, larger and sturdier than yours. We need them to run the farm. I'm sorry.”

He stares at Zo with his beady raisin eyes, a hard gaze that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and turns to Ochus. “Do you come from the far west? Sardis, perhaps?”

“No,” Ochus barks. “Gordium.” He grabs Zo's elbow and says, “Come.”

Sardis. How did the farmer know she was from Sardis? Has someone been out here, in the middle of nowhere, asking for her, the lost princess? Impossible, that a farmer—a complete stranger—might suspect her true identity, while the captor who has been escorting her for weeks has no clue. Once again, she wonders how it's possible that Ochus, who claims not to trust her, still believes in her story of being a lost horse breeder's daughter in search of the last Pegasus. She wants to talk to Ochus about the farmer's comment, but she would have to tell him she's been lying to him this whole time, and surely he'd kill her just as easily as he has bound her.

She walks beside him as he leads the two horses to the road and asks, “What are you going to do now?”

“We are going to wait a while behind those trees, and then I'm going to go back and steal two horses.”

They sit in patches of dappled sunlight within sight of the farmhouse. After a time, Zo asks, “Why did they ask if we came from the west? Sardis, in particular? That was a strange thing to ask, way out here.”

“Who knows? It doesn't matter.” But from the tension in his face, she knows it does.

Finally, Ochus takes the saddles and saddlebags off the horses and picks up their halters.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Leaving them at the farm. Payment. Also, I don't want you riding away without me.”

She peers through the trees as Ochus marches the horses up to the paddock, opens the gate, and leads them inside. But shouts echo from the house, and suddenly six men pour out bearing makeshift weapons and sweep into the paddock. Ochus unsheathes his sword as the horses whinny in terror. Zo hears men's cries and grunts, thumping and thwacking, and sees horses race out of the paddock and into the fields.

“You killed my brother! And my uncle!” one man cries, knocked to the ground but brandishing what looks like a rusty rake. “May the gods punish you!”

Ochus leaps on the sole remaining horse, a bay mare with a white star, and gallops toward Zo. He jumps off and, keeping one eye on the farm—where women are now rushing out of the house and shrieking—throws on the saddle and saddlebags. Without fastening them, he mounts the horse and clumsily pulls Zo up behind him.

“You killed them?” Zo asks, the words like cold spikes in her throat as she's jolted forward.

Ochus kicks the horse hard and they race down the road. “Only the two who saw you,” he says.

“Why?” she asks, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

He does not reply.

“And we still only have one horse...”

“But it's a fresh horse.”

“Let me rephrase that,” she says, indignation mingling with her fear and turning it into a fire in her gut. “You
murdered
two innocent people and we still have one horse.” She's seen him kill before—murderous slave traders—but these were harmless farmers.

“Shut up and pull down your blindfold.”

She does. The choice between obedience and death is an automatic one.

After a time, they slow and she feels coolness and shadows. The air is fragrant with pine, soft loam, and sweet decay. Her sense of smell seems to be increasing by the day. She hears birds flapping out of branches and small brown creatures darting out of their path and diving into leaves. Now she can make out a small sliver of light directly under her nose. It's not much, but it's better than total darkness. She looks down and sees her travel-stained blue tunic and, when she leans left, her leg against the horse's belly.

After what seems like hours, she feels the sun on her face again as Ochus pulls up. “Found it,” he says. “The road from the ancient city of Hattusa, which will lead us away from the Royal Road and north.”

“Away from the Royal Road?” Zo asks. “But we haven't been on it for days.”

“We've been on a track paralleling it,” he says.

Zo can hardly believe her ears. “Sleeping in the dirt instead of beds? Eating berries and dried leathery meat instead of hot food in the posting house taverns? Are you crazy?”

She feels the muscles of his back tense, but he doesn't answer.

Zo looks down and sees reddish earth and pebbles. “I'm exhausted,” she says. “Can I have some water? Do we have any food left? Where are we going to sleep tonight? Can we go back to the Royal Road? Or is there an inn or a farmhouse out here where you won't have to kill people to get us a bed?”

Ochus sighs. “May the gods have pity on me.”

She feels him slip off and place warm, calloused hands on her waist. She leans into him and he sets her on the ground. She smells something sweet, something that reminds her of... She inhales deeply, but the scent is gone as quickly as it arrived.

Then she feels a goatskin thrust between her shackled hands and drinks, saving some for him, though she wonders why. She hears him drink the rest. “We need to find water,” he says.

“And I need a place to...get rid of some,” she says. Her bladder is pinching her sharply.

“Again?”

She rolls her eyes, even though he can't see them behind her blindfold. “Yes. Again.” The pressure of her belly has started to increase noticeably. Even if she still can't see much of a difference in the shape of her body, she
feels
it changing, and believes more than ever that the old seer Kohinoor was right. There is no doubt in her mind that she is carrying Cosmas's child. “Please remove my blindfold so that I may relieve myself.”

“No.”

“Oh, for the love of Anahita, why not?”

He yanks the blindfold off her head. She watches as he pulls a long coil of rope from his bag, which he ties to her manacles. “All right,” he says. “I'll wait here.”

Zo looks in disgust at the makeshift leash, but she's too tired to argue more. Looking around, she sees dark trees spread out on both sides of the track. The road isn't nearly as wide or well-maintained as the Royal Road. It's full of potholes; if the horse goes faster than a walk it will probably break a leg. Vegetation has grown across part of it, making it narrow in spots.

Shaking her hair, she wanders into the trees, prepared to suffer once again the indignity of peeing while attached to Ochus with a rope.

But just before she ducks behind a bush, she spots something shimmering on the ground. She bends over, mystified, and picks it up. It's a solid gold hair comb made of six thick prongs topped by a band studded with garnets. Tiny statues of goddesses stand on top, holding long golden chains in their minuscule hands that loop over one another several inches below.

“By all the gods...” she murmurs.

“What is it?” Ochus growls over his shoulder, tugging on the saddlebags he is fastening to the horse.

“Look what I found,” she says, holding it up.

He marches over, scowling. “Where did you find it?” he asks, running a hand through his sweat-damp brown hair. “Did it tumble out of your pants, like the other gold jewelry?” he asks, bemused, reminding her of the moment he discovered that the girl he had freed from slavers had been hiding a small fortune in her garments.