Stormrider (13 page)

Chapter 10

It did happen again. There had simply been too many of them for her and Song Dog to stand a chance. That was the way of it with slavers. They rarely did anything alone, rarely faced discomfort. They certainly wanted nothing to do with facing death to accomplish their evil ends. Of course that didn’t mean they wouldn’t fight like the bloody half of the Goddess, like the destruction of the world itself was at hand, if it proved necessary.

Tanith sighed. It had proved necessary. She had fended off the first few through the arch, finding a balance, a centered quiet spot within herself she had not even realized she possessed. For a few moments, with an exhilarating sense of incredible power, she had felt she could stand them all off. She had fought with knife (now in the possession of one of the slavers who had had the dubious pleasure of being presented with it in his flesh and would no doubt have since removed it), and bare hands. And beside her, like the cub of one of the great bears, Song Dog had acquitted himself well.

Still, they had lost.

Both of them battered and bruised, they were undoubtedly being taken to the camp they had planned to raid. Her training bone-deep, Tanith would not have been too concerned about that had it not been for Strongheart.

She had heard no more from the great silver wolf since he had sounded the alarm. Nor had she felt his presence or been the recipient of any of his thought-projected words or pictures.

“You do not feel the great wolf?” Song Dog was a very perceptive young man. He was also conscious after having been knocked unconscious in battle.

Tanith shook her head. “Are you a11 right?”

With both of them trussed up with rigid wire like game ready for the spit, Tanith had not been able to so much as reach across the tiny distance separating them to make sure the young warrior still lived. The occasional rise and fall of his narrow chest had been her only reassurance.

“I am a warrior of The People. I am not dead. Therefore I am all right.”

Young warrior logic. It was not necessarily so, but with such bravado still evident in the young lad, Song Dog had plainly suffered no worse than a good knock on the head. He was young. The young seemed to have the ability to bounce.

Tanith did not press the issue. She had to think. She was in an awkward position. One which could well sidetrack her from her mission. One which, if it delayed her enough, could keep her from locating the Amulet of the Suonetar until the next year’s festivities since it would disappear among the clans once the celebrating was at an end.

Glancing around the inside of the craft which bore them swiftly along, Tanith did not see anything unusual. The interior was tiny, confining, capable of containing no more than four or five tightly cramped people. Since she and Song Dog in their supine positions, took up even more space, there were only two others inside the craft. Both at the front, both at the controls, both paying little attention to their passengers.

Daylight still poured through the windows which encircled the craft, shadows from the upright posts between windows moving back and forth over Tanith and Song Dog as the craft cruised a substantial distance above the ground. A good pilot was obviously at the controls; the craft was rock steady. Tanith turned her head, straining to see something out the window other than the brilliance of Nashira’s day. She was rewarded in her efforts by the sight of another craft, clam-shaped and no larger than their own, dipping off to the north, swaying gently. Another was close behind.

They must have used a veritable swarm of small fliers to come after Song Dog. The usual slaver overkill. And even though he had not been counted, he must have had a marker placed upon him at his capture. One he had not been aware of. One she had not known to look for. One they had used to find him—and by default, to find her. Stupid. The
Jaiqi
were not to be taken for granted. Nor were they to be underestimated.
 

“I let you down.” Song Dog’s remark came from the fourteenth moon as far as Tanith was concerned. “Worse. They have captured you because of me. What will they do when they see the mark on your neck?”

“I don’t know.” It was a question Tanith had never planned on finding out the answer to.

She was not accustomed to soothing adolescent young men and buttressing their pride, but decided in Song Dog’s case to take a shot at it. “You let no one down. You are a warrior of The People.”

“As such I should have prevailed.”

Tanith shrugged and grinned. “Do all warriors prevail in every battle? It isn’t so bad. They’re taking us where we desired to go. We are warriors. That makes it easier for us.”

Song Dog appeared skeptical, but did not continue on in that vein. Whether he had decided there might be a grain of truth in the nonsense she had uttered or whether he had decided to keep his sense of dishonor to himself, Tanith didn’t know.

Being in the presence of extreme youth accompanied by extreme inexperience, she decided, made her feel very old.

“We are slowing,” Song Dog observed, remarkably unflustered for one of a ground-based culture such as The People and suddenly thrust into the high-tech world of the slavers.

Of course, it was not his first ride since he had been taken before.

The sudden slowing brought Tanith’s stomach to her throat. She never had liked riding in these things without being at the helm. They were too small like tiny craft upon a wide ocean. With the slowing the flier began to rock. So much for the pilot’s abilities.

Another few moments brought them to standstill. The doors were thrust open at the side and Tanith and Song Dog were unceremoniously tossed out. The ground was soft and sandy, but not soft enough. They landed awkwardly. It was undignified.

It was meant to be demeaning, to ruffle the pride of such as The People. With Song Dog, it worked. He turned his face from her and would not meet her gaze and considering they were both still bound and only a few inches apart, that was not easy.

Tanith remembered the pain of the feeling he was experiencing now. She too had possessed the tremendous pride of The People when she had been taken. She too had been hardly more than a child, even younger than Song Dog was now.

For a child, a girl, it had not been the same as it was for this young man who considered himself already a warrior. It had been no easier, just different.

Tanith rolled enough so that she was not face down in the dirt and therefore able to glance around the camp, not to mention breathe more easily. The slavers, as a group, had not changed much over the intervening years. They certainly were a physically fit people and Tanith could not recall ever having seen a fat slaver. Their occupation called for a lot of physical activity. All that running, chasing, wrestling . . .
 

Their dress had not changed much either. While she could not say they wore a uniform, they dressed pretty much uniformly. Mostly they wore black pants with a few dark brown ones thrown in here and there, all made from a bonded fabric impervious to most assaults. Then there were the boots, knee high, black and molded to the calf, ankle and foot like a second skin. They would protect in any terrain against virtually any kind of unexpected creature or wound. And finally, the shirts, slick over finely developed musculature of male or female. It was the one place any of them dared to express any originality. Most wore bland colors of gray, black or brown, but a few dared brighter colors and fewer still dared jewelry of precious stones or metals.

From Tanith’s point of view at ground level, the only thing clearly visible were boots, lots of black boots gathered about. The interest was not surprising. It wasn’t every day the
Jaiqi
brought back a slave such as Song Dog, who had succeeded in slipping away before the count. Because a slave hardly ever succeeded in so much as escaping the camp’s perimeter, Song Dog would be an object of curiosity. For the moment she would be only an added prize. That, of course, would perversely add to Song Dog’s humiliation. Tanith did not ponder much on what she would be once the scar on her neck was discovered.

This was not the time to struggle since the wire binding their hands behind their backs and ankles together was tight enough to cut off circulation. Tanith’s brain was churning, blocking out the low rumble of voices around her, planning, sensitizing herself to her surroundings and developing what course she must follow. She was no longer a frightened child of The People. She was well taught and well trained. It was doubtful the slavers had ever found themselves with a Janissary in their net before.

She relaxed, conserving energy, allowing her strained gaze to drop back to the ground before her, feeling strangely divided, split, as she searched, mentally probing for Strongheart. She had come to feel less than whole without him. She could not believe he was dead. She sent out another query, probing, in her mind’s eye, the glittering, empty city of the Ancient Ones. Suddenly a reply snapped back.

We are here.
One Eye’s short response.

Strongheart? Littlefoot?
Tanith shot the question back.

One Eye, impatient.
I have said we are here. Littlefoot is with me. Strongheart lies at the bottom of a large, round room with no roof. He stirs, but has not answered us. It is puzzling. We have not found a way to descend.

Tanith closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Wolves had no hands or ladders. How would they reach Strongheart?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the heavy tread of approaching footsteps. Her eyes wide open again and a voice, familiar as the wind and as subtle as a concussion bomb, throbbed in her ears and the sound sent her stomach careening against its nearest neighbor.

Words, heavy, superior, thick with disdain lashed out at Song Dog. “So,” the single syllable was husky, in a voice like sandpaper, “this is the puppy who thought he could make it on his own?”

Tanith knew that voice. Carefully, heart pounding, she raised her eyes and as she did, the one who spoke turned his gaze toward her. For a moment suspended in eternity their eyes locked and Tanith knew the exact second, the precise breath when recognition flared in black eyes regarding her.

The Maven.

The closest thing the
Jaiqi
called a leader.One who held the position by force and willingness to face all challengers at any time. One who still retained the position after all this time among cutthroats and killers. One who was among the worst of the
Jaiqi
known by The Council of Nine.

By the Goddess, what fate had thrown her back into the hands of the very
Jaiqi
she had escaped those long years before? Her breath caught on cartwheeling emotions as she stared up into his broad face with its slender ferret features. He looked no different than the day she had escaped him. Pinched nose, thin lips, narrow eyes, but a chin like a cross-ways brick. All his features were the same with perhaps an extra scar or two around the mouth and eyes. Dark skinned and dark featured, he towered without trying, but the tall, massive, granite slab of a man never hesitated to use his size to advantage.

Slowly, obviously relishing each moment, The Maven turned his entire attention in Tanith’s direction. Song Dog was completely forgotten—for the moment. Black eyes glittered and his long, tight black braid slung itself over his shoulder, draping below neatly sculpted beard as he reached for her.

Tanith heard every scrape of pebble against boot soles as he pivoted away from Song Dog. She felt the heat of her blood rushing through her veins and steeled herself not to cringe at his touch though bile rose in her throat. Memories thrashed and pounded against the dam so carefully constructed by Tanith in self-defense so long ago as the Maven’s hand reached for her.

With infinite, frightening gentleness he cupped her head with one hand, supporting it, while with the other he raised the generous bounty of her distinctive hair exposing the old bluish scar.

“Ah.” The Maven’s word of knowing, his expression of triumph.

She blinked, aware of the touch of his hand against her like a dirty crawling thing. He was not dealing with what he had dealt with before in her. He would have some surprises coming.

Tanith looked past him, beyond him, and straight into the golden fox eyes of Raptor Simic.

Chapter 11

Song Dog spewed a few low curses.

Tanith’s green eyes shot flame.

Raptor gave a lazy grin.

The Maven’s large, rough hand caressed her and Tanith tamped down the scream of rage building within, trapping it there where it echoed in her mind, echoed, bounced, and somehow found Strongheart.

Stormrider!
Pained response to her silent outcry that distance could not dim.
Stormrider, where are you?
His mental volley was nearly an assault.

He projected a flood of pictures—the city of the Ancient Ones, glistening, sparkling, empty save for three wolves. Sunshine overhead. Rounded walls of an enclosing pit. Littlefoot and One Eye peering anxiously down from overhead. Scents—air crisp and fresh. Faint tinge of wildflowers wafting from somewhere. Sensation—pain, bruises. Apprehension—the pit is so deep. Stormrider is far. Wolves do not come equipped with hands. Stormrider in danger . . . A grayish muddle.

Tanith steadied herself, drew down the calm inner wellspring. She touched Strongheart through the bond with reassurance and attempted to hide from him that horror writhing within her like a nest of snakes. She ground her teeth. She was helpless—so was he. She projected to the silver wolf the image before her, Raptor Simic.