Lamarchos (20 page)

He was silent a while, brooding over the bobbing rumps of the horses, forgetting his nervous attention to the landscape, until a rock cat wailed again and whimpering answers came pulsating around the rock chimneys. He jerked upright. “They're getting closer. No question now.”

Aleytys pulled at a piece of her hair and stared uneasily around at the dust-hazed rock. “Lakoe-heai,” she whispered. She brushed at her face.

“Well?”

“I don't know. Maybe they'll jump us in the stonelands, maybe wait till we camp. What did you mean, I won't let you go?”

“You don't know you're doing it.” A hot blast of gritty air shot around the side of a butte and scoured over them. Stavver spat and rubbed the rag over his face. “Another talent, woman. When you need a man, you reach out and bind him to you.”

Aleytys shivered. “I hope not.”

“Hope.” He shrugged, his mouth curving down in an ugly sneer.

“I don't believe you.”

“So? That change anything? I'm stuck with you, Leyta. Until you stop needing me.”

“I won't believe you. You're just digging up excuses.”

He turned his shoulder on her. “For what? What do I get out of this?”

“Not me. I'm not worth … I'm a sometimes pleasant convenience. The poaku. And Maissa. That's it, isn't it.”

“You want to believe that.” He shrugged and wouldn't say anything more no matter how insistently she probed.

The road wound interminably through the desolate dry stone, the dust haunting them. Hovering around them as if they travelled in the center of a vortex that kept the powdered stone whirling around them. The flies came back, riding the dust storm, landing, feet pricking in a maddening dance over her dirty sweaty skin. Absently, automatically, she brushed them off her face, while she huddled miserably into the quilt. The heat, the monotonous creaking of the caravan, the steady thud of the hooves combined with recurring sick anxiety about her baby to weaken her defenses until she sank once again into a lethargy where hope was a distant concept cold as a winter sun.

“Leyta!” Dull and distant Stavver's voice came through the haze.

She looked over at him, still brushing, brushing at the flies crawling around her eyes and mouth. “What?”

“Get in back. Get some sleep.”

“I can't.”

“You're half asleep now.”

“No!”

“Aleytys!”

“I don't dare. I'll dream.…”

He pulled the horses to a stop, kicking in the brake to keep the caravan from rolling on down the slight slope. “Get in back. When you're tucked in, I'll go on.”

“No.…”

Overhead, thunder rumbled in mocking laughter from a cloudless sky where the streaks of pastel color visible through the swirling dust twisted themselves into slowly changing knots. Aleytys shivered.

“Leyta.” He paused to wind the reins around a cleat, his eyes continually scanning the layered ledges of stone hanging over the rutted track. He stood up. “Lee, you look terrible. Those damn flies. I tell you, woman, if you don't move, I'll carry you.”

“I don't dare sleep.”

“The rock cats are keeping away. I'll wake you if they get too close.”

“Not that.” She touched her face with trembling fingers. “You're right. I must look disgusting.”

“Never that, love.”

“It's the nightmares, Miks. I'm afraid. I've hurt too many people. The faces of the dead … too many dead … because of me … because of me.…”

“Aleytys!” He pulled her onto her feet, the lines cut deep in his face drawn into a web of disgust. “Maudlin nonsense. Healer, heal yourself. What are you trying to do, punish yourself for some imaginary guilt?”

She tried to jerk away from his hold. “Damn you.”

His hand slapped across her face, stinging painfully. “Stop it, Lee.” His voice was cold and demanding, hammering at her. “Damn masochistic baby. Because of you? What makes you so damn egotistical! So damn selfish! Let us have our manhood. We're not figments of your sick imagination. We have a right to make mistakes, to make decisions. What right have you to take this away from us? Guilt? Phah!”

She collapsed against him sobbing weakly. He lifted her and swung her over the back of the seat. “Pull yourself together, Aleytys. Hand me out a quilt. This damn sandstorm is stripping my skin off.”

The inside of the caravan was stifling, the hot air drained and lifeless. Aleytys groped to a bunk and leaned against it. Her body ached and her mind sank slowly through sloshing waves of fatigue. It would be so good to lie down … lie down and sleep … sleep … She splayed her fingers out over the hard surface and leaned on her arm, her dirty sweaty hair falling forward over her face Sleep … and dream … no … why can't I let them be … because of that thing in me, Miks said. The faces paraded through her mind. Vajd … eyes torn from his head, exiled … Zavar, little one, exiled … Tarnsian … dead … Raqat … dead … the nine nomads, dead.… NO! She straightened and pushed her hair back. “No! Miks is right. It's stupid to punish myself.” She snatched a quilt from the bunk and climbed back onto the bench seat.

“I thought you were going to sleep.”

“Later, Miks. Please?” She held up her hand palm out. “I couldn't sleep. Really. I know you're right about my stupidity.”

“That's something. Here.” He handed the reins to her and wrapped the quilt around his upper body. “That's better. Give those back, Lee, and heal your face.” He chuckled. “I prefer to look at your face without a decoration of fly bites.”

A while later Aleytys glanced uneasily at the sky. The glow spot of the sun was directly behind, throwing diffused shadows out before them like black stains on the rock. The banded swarms of aerial bacteria were beginning to coagulate into the false thunderheads, baring narrow stretches of blue sky along the eastern horizon. “How much longer?”

“Another hour's driving.” As the track ahead turned between two towering colossi of rust-streaked, bluish-grey stone, he straightened his back and began scanning the ledges spiralling up their precipitous sides. “Haven't heard the rock cats in a while.”

Aleytys closed her eyes and searched. Red thoughts of blood hunger prowled in shifting circling patterns. She sensed a waiting. “They aren't ready to strike yet.”

“They'll follow us out of the stonelands?”

“Left to themselves, I doubt it. Predators have more sense than that.”

“Then there's nothing to worry about once we're past those.” He pointed to a pair of needle chimneys like dittos against the pale blue horizon line.

“No. They'll follow. Probably attack when it's dark.”

“Lovely. Think you could control them?”

“I wouldn't count on it.”

“Hm. I could hit something big as a horse if it was standing still. How about you? Know anything about those crossbows Kale stuck under the seat?”

“Man's work, Miks. With my people, anyway.” She leaned back hugging the quilt around her. “Not so skewed against women as this world. Still.…”

“Poor planning, Leyta,” He chuckled. “You should have learned to shoot.”

“Hindsight.”

“Then you better figure something else out, my love.”

“Don't worry. I have.”

“I don't relish the thought of providing exercise for a lot of teeth. It better be good.”

“I suppose the diadem can handle a crossbow. It seems to be good at that kind of thing.” She tapped her temple and pursed her lips into a pout as the faint chime answered her touch.

“If killing those four-legged appetites bothers you so much, why don't you just send them away?” He nodded at the horses. “I've seen what you can do with animals.”

“Ordinarily.…” Aleytys shifted uneasily on the seat. “Miks …”

“What?”

“Maissa won't hurt Sharl, will she?”

“I don't know.” He moved his shoulders impatiently, irritated by her constant preoccupation with the baby. “Drop it, will you?”

“Why'd she take him, Miks?”

“How the hell should I know. Look.” He pointed to the east.

“Where?”

“There. See the green?”

“I remember now. We camped there. Are you going to stop?”

“We've got a little light still. No use wasting it.”

As the caravan passed through the enormous pillars of stone marking the boundary of the stonelands, they heard the rock cats howling behind.

“How many?”

Aleytys wiped the dust from her face. The flies were gone again as if the Lakoe-heai had recognized their uselessness when she had repeatedly healed her face, the stimulus from the healing actually serving to pull her from each relapse into lethargy. “Five,” she said slowly.

“All as big as that red horror we saw on the way in?”

“Hard to tell size. They're all hungry.”

“Oh lovely.”

The sparse grass thickened and deepened to a darker green while the air lost some of its leeching hunger for the water in their bodies. When the sun was an orange-copper point on the horizon Stavver pulled the caravan off the trail.

“This is as good a place as any. Water and wood. Stream down there.”

She glanced at him. “You want to build fires.”

He nodded. “How close are the cats?”

“About an hour behind. They don't like the grass.”

“You sound sorry for them.”

“They don't want to be here.”

“Hah! Well, I don't want them to be here myself. Why don't they go home?” He slid off the seat and held up his hands to help her down.

“I told you to push me off the wagon.” She swung down, steadied by his hands. “The light won't last long. We better get the wood.”

“Wait a minute.” He reached a long arm under the seat and pulled out a crossbow. “Maybe you'd better take this.”

“What'd I do with it?” She walked away, shoulders slumped, feet stumbling because her legs were too tired to lift them over the clumps of grass. He tossed the bow on the seat and followed.

Aleytys dragged the heavy limb into the camp and dropped it beside the pile, then dusted her hands and straightened her aching back. “You think that's enough?”

He dumped his load beside her. “It better be.”

“If you'll build the fires, I'll take the horses down to the stream. Deal?”

“Deal.”

When she returned, he dropped the hatchet and rubbed his back. “How's the time?”

She closed her eyes. “They're circling out there.”

“And …”

She shifted irritably. “How should I know? They still aren't ready to attack. That's all.”

“Go sit on the seat up there while I light the fires.”

“Fire won't stop them.”

“They're not afraid of fire?”

“They're afraid. But it won't keep them off for long.”

He looked up from the stacked wood. “Stop playing Cassandra, Leyta. Nothing's that bad.”

She groaned and pulled herself slowly onto the driver's bench. “What's a Cassandra?”

“Don't ask me. Old word I picked up somewhere.” He frowned at the stubborn wood. “Burn, dammit.” He shaved off a few splinters with his knife and thrust the firelighter into them. “Means someone consistently pessimistic about the future.”

“Dear, dear. A walking dictionary.”

He looked up from his firemaking and grinned at her.

Aleytys bent over the back of the seat and fished under it for the second crossbow. She set it down leaning against the slatted back of the seat and watched the fires bloom in a circle around the caravan. One … two … three … four … five.…

Stavver climbed up beside her “Any quarrels for these?”

“Hunh?”

“Arrows, love. When you use them in engines like these, they're called quarrels. Or bolts.”

“Dictionary.”

He laughed. “Get up on the roof. I'll hand up the bows after I dig out some ammunition.”

“Give me a push.” Holding onto the gingerbread carving that decorated the top and sides of the caravan, she climbed unsteadily onto the top slat of the seat back. “My legs aren't working so well.”

When he came out of the caravan with a pair of quarrel cases, Aleytys leaned over the edge and called, “Shouldn't we have some wood up here to keep the fires going?”

“I thought you said fire wouldn't keep them off.”

“Well, it will for a little while. Besides we need the light to see.”

He handed her the cases. “How long before they attack?”

“Not long. I can feel them working up nerve to come in.”

“Then we won't need wood.” He swung up beside her. “Try getting through to them.”

“I don't think it'll work.”

“Try.”

Aleytys stretched out on her stomach and closed her eyes. Breathing rhythmically, she stilled her throbbing nerves and reached out for the minds of the prowling predators.

Like knobs of glass they slid away from her touch, impervious, unreachable. She tried again and again to find an opening, then gave up. “They're protected too well,” she said quietly. “I can't reach them.”

He cocked the crossbow and slid a quarrel in the slot. “What about the diadem?”

“I wish—” She pushed herself up until she was standing. “Give me that thing.”

A crimson feline paced slowly into the ring of light cast by one of the fires and stood staring up at them. Edging along, a careful distance from the fires, amber eyes glaring at them, the cat circled the caravan, looking for a way to get at them. Aleytys fumbled with the bow. “Oh damn,” she whispered. “Go away, cat.”

A second cat stalked into the light. Then a third. And another. And another. Until five redly glowing rock cats paced restlessly around the ring of fire.

The first one loped away suddenly then came running back through the gap between the fires, in one side and out the other after circling the caravan inside the ring. “They're going to jump any minute now.”