Dead Rivers - Freedom's Gate Part 24

Well. I could just tell Kyros he'd have to find other tasks for me. Hunting down slaves was never one of my more frequent duties-I carried messages, more often. Spying on garrisons of Greek soldiers, more or less openly. Kyros could send someone else out to hunt his slaves. Myron, for instance. It wasn't a specialized task-not like spying on the Alas.h.i.+, which only someone with Danibeki blood could do.

Though I was half Greek, and so was Tamar, and enough of the Alas.h.i.+ had Greek blood that the escaped slaves and the freeborn Alas.h.i.+ were not easily distinguishable, at least not by appearance. A full Greek like Myron could probably claim to be an escaped slave as well, and be taken in, though Myron could never convincingly pose as a slave; he radiated the privilege of the Greek from every pore of his skin.

But Kyros knew I could do it- he knew I could convince the slaves of Sophos's harem, and more important, the Alas.h.i.+, that I had been a slave. Why? How could he know?

Because he knew that Sophos would rape me.

The answer came to me like an arrow in my heart and I gasped. The smell of s.h.i.+t filled my nose and gagged me, and the thought of Kyros's betrayal gagged me as well. Turning away from the almost-filled basket of s.h.i.+t, I fell to my knees and threw up on the ground. Someone saw me vomiting, and a few minutes later Tamar and Zhanna and Maydan came running to take the basket away and help me over to the river to clean up. "You should have told Janiya that you weren't feeling well," Maydan scolded me.

"No one would have expected you to do s.h.i.+t-pickup duty while feeling poorly."

I didn't even try to explain; I just let her wash me, as I had let Tamar wash me when I arrived at Sophos's harem. I could still smell s.h.i.+t when she was done, but at least it wasn't harem perfume. It was still hot, but I s.h.i.+vered in the wind, and went into the yurt to wrap up in a blanket when we got back to the camp. I had no appet.i.te for supper and didn't want to talk to anyone-not even Tamar. I lay awake until I'd heard everyone else settle down in the yurt, and then went outside to sleep by the fire. I knew I was going to have nightmares, and there was no point in waking everyone else up.

Perhaps, I thought, as I lay looking up at the skies, I was wrong. Kyros may simply have had faith that I could make it work somehow. But Sophos knew. You may realize later how necessary this was. It wasn't l.u.s.t, it wasn't just the desire to rape someone he had no right to touch. Sophos knew that the Alas.h.i.+ would see that rape when they looked into my eyes. He knew that it would ensure the success of my mission.

Did Kyros know?

If he didn't know, it was because he closed his eyes and covered his ears instead of looking at what was right in front of his face.

I expected to dream of Sophos, when I finally fell asleep-or Kyros, pleading with me to believe that he had never given Sophos permission to rape me. But instead I dreamed of a sorceress, one of the Sisterhood, standing before her loom and speaking to the bound djinn that trembled before her. Tell them I want this mission to succeed, she said. All our spies in the past have been caught. We can't afford another failure: the soul-stone supply is almost depleted. This time, I want it to work. Do whatever you need to do to make it work. The djinn turned and hesitated for a moment as if I truly stood in that room, and it could see me waiting. Tool, it hissed, and the dream faded into silent mist.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

I woke from my dream well before dawn. I was stiff from the cold even under my blanket, and as I looked up at the stars, I thought about winter. Penelopeia was a warm city, or so I'd been told, but in Elpisia, the snows came early and deep, and the winds cut through every c.h.i.n.k and crack that wasn't stuffed with wool. Kyros sometimes sent me out on winter missions, well wrapped against the winds, but more often I stayed home, gathering with his family and his other trusted servants in his great hall, which was shuttered against the winds and kept warm with a roaring fire, tended by his slaves.

It was hard to imagine that a yurt would really keep anyone warm during a steppe winter, but the Alas.h.i.+ had survived this way for generations. Of course, if I woke everyone up with my nightmares in midwinter, I couldn't just move out of the yurt. I'd have to be certain that I wasn't sharing a tent with Ruan.

I wondered how the sisterhood would scatter with the end of summer. We had a sponsor clan-would we all go to live with that clan for the winter? Presumably the women born Alas.h.i.+ would live with their parents or their lovers, but where would Tamar and I live? Would we be allowed to stay together or would they want to split us between families? Maybe Zhanna's family would take us both, since we were Zhanna's apprentices.

First, of course, there would be the big fall gathering, like the spring gathering we'd found our way to a few months ago. All the sword sisterhoods and brotherhoods would return, and we'd probably see the eldress again. Tamar might still be fretting, but I'd stopped worrying that we wouldn't be accepted as Alas.h.i.+. There would probably be some sort of initiation ceremony, for us and for any other blossoms we might not know about. Probably not Zosimos, just yet. I wondered what the ritual would involve. I hope I don't have to get soaked in cold water again, I thought, s.h.i.+vering.

"Lauria? What are you doing out here?"

It was Zhanna, stumbling out to relieve herself, probably. "I was thinking I'd have nightmares tonight. I didn't want to wake anyone up."

"You shouldn't be out when it's this cold-especially not when you're sick! Maydan would be furious.

Go in the yurt."

Feeling foolish, I picked my way to my usual spot near Tamar. It was very warm inside the yurt, and moist from the communal breath. I lay down, feeling my s.h.i.+vering ease, and thinking, I guess winter won't be so bad.

I hesitated on the edge of sleep and thought, That's it. I've made my decision. Then I thought, I haven't told anyone- I could still change my mind, betray the Alas.h.i.+ and go back to Kyros. And then: I'd rather cut out my own heart. I'm staying here.

A blast from a horn shook me awake in the morning; I scrambled out of the yurt with everyone else to see a strange man waiting by our campfire, a white flag in one hand and a horn in the other. Greek, I thought. But not a soldier- perhaps a bandit. "I have a message for you ladies," he said, with a mocking bow, and I decided that I was quite certain that he was a bandit.

"We have your leader-the woman with the graying hair." Janiya. I looked around for her, and didn't see her. "Oh yes, feel free to look for her in your tents, but don't try to leave camp, any of you. We have someone watching your camp, and he can signal the people holding your 'sister' to cut her throat." I could hear the rising panic around me, and the bandit blew a blast of his horn. "Shut up, all of you! Listen to me. You can have her back. There's just one thing we want-a piece of jewelry you stole from us. A necklace of stones threaded on chain, fairly plain looking. That's all we want. As soon as we have that, we'll let your friend go." He gestured benevolently. "The gems you took from us, the silk, the livestock- those you can keep."

They want the spell-chain. I glanced around at the other sisters, not certain anyone but me would even know what he was talking about; their faces were white and set but also confused. I would have expected the spell-chain to be around Janiya's neck, but surely they'd have looked there... "We need time to look for what you're demanding," I said, raising my voice to be heard.

"Start looking. And don't leave the camp."

"How do we even know she's still alive?" From the yurt, I heard someone catch her breath, but we had to ask.

"Ask a question. I'll have an answer for you in a moment."

I glanced at the women crowded into the doorway of the yurt, at a loss. Ruan spoke: "Ask her what sort of lapdog Ruan would keep as a pet."

The bandit shouted the question to someone at the edge of the campsite. A few tense minutes pa.s.sed, and then the answer was shouted back: "A nice meaty one."

Ruan gave a slight shrug. "She's alive."

"We'll look for it," I said to the bandit, and stomped into the yurt where Janiya slept, the other women following me.

"Who the h.e.l.l was on sentry duty last night?" Ruan demanded, glaring at me venomously.

"Janiya was," May dan snapped.

"What is it he wants?" Saken wailed.

"It's a spell-chain," I whispered. "You can use it to summon a djinn and order it to do things. Janiya knew what it was; she's been using it since we took it from the bandits. Remember the apples? That's how she got them. Where does Janiya keep valuable items?"

No one was sure. There was a chest opposite the door, kept latched, and we rooted through it quickly; it held money, but not the spell-chain. The other women scattered through the yurt to hunt through other boxes and bags, occasionally bringing a necklace out for me to see, but no luck. On impulse, I checked the spot where Janiya slept-and there, under the blankets, in a little hollow of sand, was the spell-chain.

I wasn't certain whether it had slipped off her neck, or if she had placed it there on purpose.

No one was looking at me, and I curled my hand around it, taking a moment to think. If I showed it to everyone else and invited discussion of what to do next, the bandit would hear that something had changed inside the tent, and would at least come in to see what was going on; at worst, he might signal the other bandits to kill Janiya. No, I had to think this out for myself.

The bandits seemed to have a.s.sumed that we would not know what a spell-chain did, even if Janiya knew. They would not be expecting a rescue. If I summoned the djinn, I could send it to rescue Janiya, and potentially yank her out of harm's way before the bandits could do anything. Potentially, that was the key word. If she was being held with a sword literally at her throat, which seemed likely, could the djinn get her out without letting her get hurt? Would it choose to, even if it could? Would I be able to phrase my instructions in an explicit enough way without the bandit overhearing? Would Janiya even want me to try this, or would she want me to just hand the spell-chain over?

I thought she'd want me to try. Of course, if she ended up dead, the other sisters would blame me for it.

For a moment, the knife was within my grasp ...

I said, "I'm going to go search the supply yurt." On my way out, I whispered to Tamar, "Keep everyone searching here, but be ready for a fight." She glanced up, wide-eyed, but gave me a single, emphatic nod.

The supply yurt was empty. I stepped back into the shadows and took out the spell-chain. "Aeriko," I muttered. "Show yourself."

The djinn appeared. "The bandits that used to hold your chain now hold Janiya," I whispered. "You are bound either way; would you rather that we continue to hold your chain, or would you like us to return you to the bandits?"

The djinn glimmered brightly for a moment, so brightly that I was afraid that the bandit would see something strange going on inside the tent. There was a long pause, then it hissed, "You ask me to make a choice?"

"Only if you care," I said. "If all human masters are the same to you-well, I won't tell you that you should feel otherwise."

Another moment of intense brightness, and then: "I would stay with you."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Right then. The bandits are holding Janiya hostage. We need to get her out, and back here, alive. I want you to go see what the situation is, and if you can grab her without her getting hurt, bring her back here. If you can't, come back and tell me."

The djinn hesitated for a moment, then said, "Without her getting hurt, or without her getting killed?"

The strangeness of having a djinn offer a helpful suggestion made my head spin for a moment. "Superficial injuries only.'"

The djinn winked out. I slipped the chain back into my sleeve, then stepped out of the supply yurt and shrugged apologetically at the bandit, still holding his white flag. I went into the sleeping yurt. Tamar had done her work well: the sisters had picked up their weapons and were waiting inside, tense and ready, though a few were continuing to root through boxes randomly, throwing desperate-sounding words back and forth for the benefit of the listening bandit.

"What's going on?" Ruan hissed.

"Trust me," I whispered back. I stepped back from the door and peered out as discreetly as I could. If the djinn could deliver Janiya, it would probably drop her off at the center of the camp. I retrieved my own sword, and Janiya's, which was jumbled with some of her other possessions along one of the walls of the yurt. I slipped the spell-chain around my neck.

My heart hammered in my ears. Time pa.s.sed. How long could this possibly take? Either it could get her or it couldn't. Dammit! Where are they?

And then, a whirl of light, and Janiya stumbled, alive and unhurt, in the center of camp.

" Now!" I shouted, because just as I'd expected, as soon as they'd lost their hostage, the bandits simply attacked our camp.

I thrust the hilt of Janiya's sword into her right hand and grabbed her left, dragging her toward the horses.

She was almost certainly dizzy and disoriented from her trip, but I didn't dare give her time to get her bearings on her own.

Unfortunately, some of the bandits had been posted by our horses while the sisters were all contained in camp, unable to leave, and on the signal that Janiya had escaped, they'd sent in their dogs to scatter the horses. Ruan managed to catch her horse, and so did several other sisters, but Janiya and I saw the horses running and turned back to camp. Janiya didn't have her signaling horn, but she popped two fingers into her mouth and blew a piercing whistle-a long blast and then two short blasts. "Just so everyone knows I'm still alive," she said.

As we ran, I tried to think whether there was anything I could order-ask-the djinn to do for us right now. I couldn't tell it to kill the bandits; that would break the spell and probably result in my death.

Having the djinn catch and return the horses would only result in horses that were catatonic with fear rather than merely panicky. Weaponry, though-I grabbed the necklace as we ran and spoke into the air. "See if any of the sisters are without weapons, and provide them with weapons if they're lacking.

Make sure Tamar has a bow and arrows."

"Is that-explicit enough?" Janiya asked.

"I think so. I'll explain later."

"You may consider it an order that you survive this fight and explain." Janiya gave me a grim smile as we reached the heart of the fight.

Most of the bandits were on horseback. Most of the sisters were not. It made for an ugly situation. I pulled my sword out of its sheath and stood my ground as well as I could, slas.h.i.+ng at horses more than riders; I hated to hurt the horses, which couldn't help being ridden by bandits, but the riders were out of reach and getting them off their horses as quickly as possible seemed the best strategy for staying alive.

I found myself in a sea of horses' legs and booted feet, trying to defend myself from blows coming from above. I slashed the flank of a roan horse, and then dodged out of the way as it reared in terror and pain; the rider lost his seat and crashed to the ground. I struck at him before he could get up, and he lay still; I turned, to find a spear leveled at me, and dodged aside desperately, using the flailing horse as cover. At least it isn't aiming for me. I hadn't injured the horse badly-could I get onto it, calm it? That seemed like a bad idea, but no worse than staying here on the ground. I could reach the stirrup, barely, and the saddle, and I hoisted myself on.

The bandit with the spear jerked back as he found my sword suddenly in his face. I pressed the advantage, and he recovered quickly, realizing that his spear was longer than my sword. I dodged aside but I couldn't get close enough to whack at anything other than the spear itself, and he just whipped it out of the way. Without warning, the shaft of the spear suddenly cracked in half- the djinn, I thought, and laughed out loud-and the bandit threw it away in horror, backing away from me as if he thought I'd done it. I took time for a quick look around.

This does not look good. Most of the sisters were fighting from the ground-those still standing. Ruan was still on horseback, and I saw her unhorse one bandit and turn desperately to the bandit beside him.

Janiya fought from the ground, dodging both a sword and the hooves of the bandit's horse. I didn't see Zhanna or Maydan. As I turned, though, I saw Saken huddled on the ground, not moving, in a pool of spreading black blood.

"Could you move them?" I asked desperately, speaking to the djinn. "The bandits, I mean? Somewhere else? Somewhere far away?"

A pause, then: "It would be risky. For you. It is difficult to move someone-uncooperative."

This, of course, was why the Sisterhood of Weavers couldn't simply send djinni to the steppe to move all of the Alas.h.i.+ to some distant mountaintop, and why this tactic was used so rarely in battles. Moving people around was a delicate business, and the djinni did not excel at delicate tasks, particularly when they didn't wish to. If a djinn killed a human, even by accident, that broke the binding and freed it-killing the sorceress and usually the holder of the spell-chain in the process.

As I looked around, though, I saw Saken, huddled on the ground, her blood spreading out in a black pool. "If I die, it's worth it," I whispered. "Djinn-"

"Wait," it said. "Listen. Free me first, and then I will help you. You won't be at risk then. Free me, and I can take the bandits away from you, far, far away, and if some of them die, it will be nothing to you. I can return to the starlit land without pa.s.sing through your heart." I must have looked uncertain, because it went on, taking on an almost wheedling tone: "I'll have to take them one at a time. If I'm bound, and I drop the first one, that won't do you much good, will it? You'll be dead, and the other bandits will still be here."

Free the djinn. But then it won't have to help me. I wondered if it were an act of cowardice, freeing it this way instead of ordering it to remove the bandits and accepting the risk of death, but I was quite certain that Janiya would approve. "How do I free you?"

"Smash the soul-stone from the spell-chain," it said.

I pulled it out and looked at it. Sure enough, one stone glittered darkly in the sun. Karenite. I would need to get off my horse to do this, so I jumped down, set the stone on a rock, and smashed it with the hilt of my sword before I could change my mind.

Thank you, the djinn howled into the wind around my ears, and a heartbeat later, the bandits were gone.

All of them, in the blink of an eye. It lied to me when it said it would have to move them one at a time, I thought, and felt a faint smile rise to my lips. You don't owe the truth to a slave-holder. I had clutched the spell-chain in my fist so tightly, I had ground the stones into my palm. I released it slowly, dropping it to the ground, then ran to Saken.

The other sisters were looking around frantically. "Where's Maydan?" I shouted. "The bandits are gone; they're not coming back. Someone find Maydan. Saken's hurt really badly."

"So is Maydan," Ruan said, and my heart sank.

Saken's eyes were closed and her skin was waxy. The wound was in her back, I realized, which was why I could see no injury the way she was lying, only the spreading stain of blood on the ground. I dropped to my knees beside her and whispered, "We should have just given it to them."

The other women gathered around Saken. "Maydan is alive, but unconscious," Zhanna murmured. "I don't think she'd be able to do anything for her anyway." She held one hand to a wound in her shoulder; blood welled up around her fingers.

"Erdene should be here," Ruan murmured, and knelt beside Saken to hold her hand.

If Saken was aware of her best friend's absence and of Ruan's presence, she gave no sign. I heard a hint sob from someone behind me-Tamar. After a few more moments, I realized that Saken was no longer breathing. Ruan bowed her head and lowered Saken's hand gently to the ground.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Janiya pick up the spell-chain, or what was left of it. She touched the smashed stone, and looked at me. "This is what they wanted, yes? And they took me as their hostage."

"I had the djinn rescue you," I said miserably. "I asked it if it preferred to stay with us, or to go back into the power of the bandits, and it said it wanted to stay with us, so I told it to get you out if it could."

"That's why you could give it vague instructions; it was an ally, not merely a slave."

"Yes." I looked down at Saken. "If I'd just given it to them..."

"They'd have attacked us anyway," Ruan said.

"You really believe that?"

She shrugged. "I certainly don't trust that they wouldn't have. If I'd found the spell-chain, if I'd known how to work it-well, I don't think that you did the wrong thing."

"How did you kill the bandits?" Zhanna asked.

"I don't know if they're dead or not," I said. "The djinn said that if I freed it, it would move them. To...