Exile (35 page)

“How did I get here?” Even with the water, his throat felt dry. The voice that rasped out through it was rough and unfamiliar.

“A hunting group followed the din of the wild dogs you killed and found you unconscious. They would have left you there, but Rhiak recognized you from his journey to Yiroth with Suac Chozai. He said you were the Lyran Emperor and that Lyra might want you back, so they brought you here.” Her sour expression told him that she would have left him there.

He smirked. That was a bit of improbable luck. Not many in Kudan would have recognized him. Most of those who would probably would have left him there. He owed this Rhiak a considerable debt.

“Ilikah must want you alive,” the woman commented, reflecting his thoughts in her own terms.

When he went to speak again, his voice cracked and he eyed the water skin with longing. With her lips pressed in a bitter line, she gave him another drink.

“What’s your name?”

“Akiah un Rhiak,” she replied, marking herself as either the mate or sister of the man who had chosen to save him. “You are weak. Can you eat?”

He took inventory of his state and decided he could eat something. The weakness needed to be resolved as fast as possible. He couldn’t afford to stay here.

“Yes.”

“If you move slow, your head should not pain you so much.” She twisted around to pick up a bowl from behind her.

Yiloch did as she advised, rising with care this time. She shoved a few pillows around behind him, pushing them up against a support post and gesturing for him to lean against them. Once settled against the post he was in a better position to look himself over. The clothes he wore were the same clothes he’d been stranded in, now dirty and tattered. Bloodstained tears on one leg and arm opened to reveal bloody bandages wrapped around the wounds he’d suffered in his fight with the dogs. Heat and pain from those wounds was more intense than anything else, though his headache took a close second. The heat worried him. Bite wounds were quick to infect and it felt like these were well on their way.

When he was steady, he accepted the bowl from Akiah. It contained a cold soup with a bitter aftertaste. It wasn’t much to his liking, but he needed the sustenance so he choked it down.

“Eat slow or your stomach will turn,” she added, supervising him with hawk-like intensity as he sipped from the bowl. Despite her apparent dislike for him, she appeared determined to care for him as her patient.

Now that he was sitting, he noticed she was rather slight and not very tall for a Kudaness woman. Her face was rounded, not from fat, but from a wide jaw and shallow cheekbones. She was pretty in a rather childlike way, though the black tattoo of her tribe gave a touch of severity to her features.

“How long have I been here?”

“You clutter my floor for three days.” She held up three fingers as she might for a child.

Alarm swept through him, making his head spin again and his stomach twist. He placed a hand down to steady himself and Akiah reached out as if to add support, then hesitated, torn between racial aversion and a strong nurturing instinct.

Three days? The army would be well ahead of him by now if they kept up their pace. He had to get moving and fast.

“You will only kill yourself if you try to catch them like this.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, disturbed by her perceptiveness.

She responded with a tight smile. “The Gray Army passed through Murak lands not long before you came. We were not here when they came because Suac Chozai gave warning, but they ransacked our homes. The suac said they would continue to Lyra. I assume that is what worries you.”

“The Gray Army?” He questioned the title, grimacing as he closed his eyes and bowed his head to focus on settling his stomach and quieting the throbbing in his skull.

“Yes, the men and their mounts are all alike. They are not pale like your people, dark like us, or even golden like the Caithin.” Yiloch groaned when an image of Indigo with her soft bronze skin jumped to mind and he opened his eyes. Akiah winced in sympathy, probably attributing the sound to his current physical condition. “These men are more a gray shade, so we named them the Gray Army. How did you come to be here?”

The soup was soothing his throat, making it less painful when he answered her. “I was stranded in the Denilik lands by a Caithin adept,” he said, hoping it would be enough of an explanation.

Her eyes narrowed with hatred at the mention of an adept. “Alone?”

The pain of Ferin’s loss struck him anew, as though it had happened only seconds ago. He ground his teeth and closed his eyes. In his weakened and feverish state, it took all his will to fight off tears. There was a quick touch on his arm, like the wings of a passing insect. He opened his eyes. Her brow furrowed with concern, that strong mothering instinct in her overwhelming everything else in that moment.

“The Silik killed my companion. I might have managed better otherwise.”

Closing her eyes, she waved her hand in front of her face once, palm turned in. It was a quick gesture to honor the dead and it touched him, bringing the sting of tears to his dry eyes again. The salty moisture was strangely welcome, though the uncommon lack of emotional control grated at him.

She was silent for a few minutes after that, waiting while he struggled to control his ailing body and continued to work on the soup. The slight bitterness tasted familiar somehow, but his mind wasn’t clear enough for him to place it.

“You know I am right,” she said, taking the bowl when it was empty. “You need to rest and heal or your efforts will only kill you. The army will slow. You might still have a chance to catch them.”

“Why do you say that?”

She gave him a look that said he was being obtuse, but he couldn’t think past the fog of fever and the pain. She sighed. “They did not linger in Kudan. There is little to keep an army of that size flourishing here. They will be weary and in need of replenishment after their hurried passage through the desert. The men and the animals will need considerable rest, water, and food to restore them. They can get that more readily beyond the Lyran border. Once they are rested, they will not drive as hard. They will want to stay strong for when they encounter your warriors.”

She was right. The desert couldn’t have supported their force for long. They knew that, so they pushed through hard and fast, perhaps counting on their strength to keep them going until they reached more hospitable lands. They must have sent scouts ahead to find out how long it would take to get out of the desert.

Akiah nodded. “See. This you know. I see it in your pureblood eyes.” She touched his jaw, turning his face to one side and frowning at his cheek. “I do not see the mark of the warrior on you, but I think it is there, hidden beneath the skin. A true warrior must be wise. He must know how to read his enemies. More importantly, he must know how to read himself.”

Yiloch wanted to argue with her. He needed to move on, yet he knew she was right. It was also pointless to argue, he realized too late. The something familiar that he tasted in the soup was the same foul liquid they had given him earlier. Its effect wasn’t as instantaneous in this diluted state, but it was now making him very sleepy, very quickly.

“What time is it?” He asked, noting that his voice slurred a bit, the effect of the drug relaxing his muscles.

“It is late afternoon.”

“One more night,” he conceded, as though he had any choice now. The drug muted his thoughts so he couldn’t even manage to be angry with her for giving it to him again.

“Rest,” she ordered. “When you wake again, we will clean you up. You stink of rot. While you sleep, I will tend your wounds.”

She waited until he lay back down on the blankets, adjusting the pillows for him, and then stood, carrying the bowl from the hut. The faster he recovered, the faster he could resume his chase. He closed his eyes, letting the drug drag him into dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

They rose from camp well before dawn and continued south. The sky overhead was still bright with stars and the air brisk. By noon, they would have been sweltering without ascard to protect them. After dropping the illusion the previous day, Ian had created a different barrier around them that kept the worst of the heat and harmful light away. It felt like an almost sinful luxury, but Indigo and Ian weren’t at all accustomed to the harsh desert climate. Before they left the prior evening, they had bartered with the Murak for wraps that would keep the bright sun off their skin during the early hours so they could save Ian the effort of using ascard all day. There was always a chance he would need his energy for something else.

Indigo’s anxiety eased some now that she had survived an encounter with the Kudaness in their own lands. The welcome, while not warm, could have been much worse and she’d impressed herself by standing her ground with the suac. She was now far more curious than afraid. The strange whitening of his eyes and apparent soothsaying without using ascard in any way that she could discern was frightening and fascinating.

Even with the urgency of their journey, she had a strong urge to go back and talk to the unpleasant suac again, though some of that was probably a manifestation of her reluctance to face Yiloch after all that had happened, especially if Ferin was dead. As the one who stranded them here, she expected he would hold her at least partly responsible for that loss. The more she thought about it, the more she felt like she was putting her life at risk for him now more than she ever had before, only this time he was the one most liable to end it.

Opening herself to her ascard connection almost completely, she took comfort in the flood of nearly overwhelming power. It might be a false comfort to a degree, but he would have to catch her by surprise to do her any physical harm, unless he used Ian against her.

She watched Ian for a while then, wondering if the young creator would harm her on Yiloch’s orders. After poking around his emotions for a bit, she decided that, even if it meant defying Yiloch, Ian would never hurt her. It wouldn’t be easy for him though. He was loyal to Yiloch. She felt a twinge of guilt for the position the young creator could end up in soon. Perhaps she should go back and let them find Yiloch without her.

Her horse began to slow and she realized she was pulling back on the reins. Ian also slowed and glanced back at her.

“Is something wrong?” His sudden tension said he expected danger.

He would believe anything she said, she realized. He trusted her. She couldn’t let him down.

“No. I was just looking around.” She urged the gelding up to a faster walk. They were walking more here because of the soft footing and the heat that would wear down the horses even with ascard intervention.

Cadmar slowed to fall back next to her and pointed to their right. “Did you see our shadows?”

She peered in the direction he indicated, seeing nothing but dry, thorny shrubs and odd-looking cacti. Reaching out with ascard, she found the signature of a wild dog. Once she knew where it was, she managed to pick it out of the surroundings. It was standing still as stone, watching them in return. An ascard sweep found several more of the animals even further out. Beyond them, a lone scavenger bird sailed through the hot air.

“They wait for one of us to fall. Game must be scarce.”

She shuddered at the thought, and Cadmar, noticing her response, shrugged his big shoulders. “It is the way of life out here. You spend too much time in cities, my lady.”

They urged their mounts on again and this time she kept pace with the others.

“I find it hard enough to survive in the city of late,” she commented.

Cadmar glanced at her. “Sometimes it is harder in the city. The predators there can be far more devious.”

“All too true,” Ian agreed.

A few hours later, Cadmar announced that they were nearing the southern border of the Murak lands. That meant they should encounter Yiloch soon if Suac Chozai had seen accurately. She reached out along the link to him and was surprised, despite the suac’s words, to run up against his presence at the other end. Her pulse sped up and she struggled to keep her breath from quickening.

“He’s not far now. I can feel him through the link.” Her mount began to dance about in response to her apprehension.

“Can we go faster?” Ian asked, his horse also starting to prance, betraying his excitement.

“No,” Cadmar insisted, punching cold reality through their enthusiasm. “We cannot move the horses faster. They aren’t accustomed to this terrain and will injure themselves.”

Indigo nodded. Cadmar was right. Ian sighed, grinding his teeth, but he brought his mount back under control, perhaps a little too firmly in his disappointment. They proceeded with Indigo leading now, following the link to Yiloch.

“It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it,” Ian remarked into the silence a short time later.

Indigo glanced at him, puzzled.

“That whole prophet thing with the dramatic voice and white eyes.” He wiggled his fingers in front of his eyes. “That man’s been right about almost everything he said so far.”

She smiled, but couldn’t maintain the pretense of good humor for long. Looking down at her hand, she ran a finger around the pearl in the ring. Did Yiloch hate her as Suac Chozai said? If Ferin died because of where she had stranded them, intentionally or otherwise, he might hate her now as passionately as he had loved her before. Ian’s comment only made it seem more likely. From Yiloch’s point of view, she had betrayed him and, in some sense, it was true.

“Are you all right, Indigo?”

She ignored Ian. Her attention was on the village that had appeared upon the horizon in the stark light of late afternoon. Yiloch was there. She could feel him. He was awake and, now that she was closer, she could tell he was not well. They would need to be closer still for her to discern what was wrong. He wouldn’t be aware of her unless she wanted him to be. Perhaps it was better that way. This way he wouldn’t have time to consider how angry he was with her before he saw her. She drew back from him, figuring it might also be better for her not to be too aware of his feelings when he finally saw her. Once that initial encounter was over with, she could deal with whatever illness or injury afflicted him.