First, he was alive, a circumstance that rather surprised him. His head ached, and he had a massive lump on one side. His left leg felt weak and painful, but no worse than it had yesterday, and he thought, though he couldn't be sure because he could not move his hands to check, that there were a few more ribs cracked. And that brought up the last point - he couldn't move his hands.
They were tied behind him.
For a few moments, he wondered if the White Raiders had merely tied him up and left him for the scavenger rats. But a drift of smoke reached his nostrils from the other side of the cut brush that walled him in, and he heard the muted nicker of horses. He lay face down in some kind of brush shelter; that much he could gather, but his face was turned toward the wall, and all he could see was the tangle of grey-leafed twigs and the chain of ants that crawled inoffensively along them. He wondered if he was alone, but didn't particularly want to give
himself away by looking.
He listened instead, letting his mind grow quiet and his breathing still. He found that this emptying of the thoughts was easier after the days he had spent in the loneliness of the desert. All things receded except his sense of hearing. Slowly the sounds came to his listening ears -the soft scritch of dry grasses in the wind, the clicking of dead leaves, the infinitesimal whisper of feet passing close to his shelter, and the silken, crinkling shear of a skinning knife separating hide from flesh, accompanied by the sudden strong renewal of the blood-smell. Skinning the mammoth? There was a faint stirring of a garment nearby, and the thin creaking of leather as the guard at the door of his shelter shifted his weight. So there was a guard.
Rudy extended his senses, sending them like runners along the ground, blindly seeking by touch the nature and bounds of the camp. Some sounds made no sense to him soft little shaving noises and then the muffled tap of rock on wood. He became aware of more feet and the smoke and wood smells of a fire being stirred. A gust of wind chilled through the camp, bearing a distant scent of snow, and he heard a kind of glittery clinking sound that he thought was familiar, like a wind chime made of bones.
For some reason, the sound frightened him.
Soft feet swished in the sand, with a smell of feral grime and sweetgrass. He heard another, almost soundless creak of leather as a second guard stood up. He heard no voices maybe they talked in sign? - but he knew the roof of the shelter was too low to stand under. They would both be outside. He turned his head cautiously to be sure and saw two pairs of soft-booted legs visible through the low arch of the shelter's opening; beyond was the ghostly flickering of a pale daytime fire. On the other side of the fire stood a glass-festooned magic-post, its streamers twisting faintly in the wind, like a scarecrow set to frighten away the legions of Hell. In front of it, a woman warrior with long barley-coloured braids was driving stakes into the ground for a sacrifice.
Rudy had a bad feeling about whom they'd elected for that.
Stay calm, he instructed himself over a blinding rush of panic. Ingold taught you an undoing-spell, and it worked fine back at the camp. Nevertheless, it took him three tries that nearly cut off the circulation in his wrists before he finally felt the bindings slip and was able stealthily to work his hands free. His ankles were bound as well, but it was quicker to work the knots loose by hand. He kept his movements to a minimum, aware of the guards still standing outside. He felt almost smothered with apprehension. He knew already what he had to do.
They'd taken his knife and sword, along with his cloak and gloves. But if he could get to the horse lines undetected, to steal two for himself and cut the rest loose, he stood a chance of getting clear away - and mounted, maybe making it all the way to the Seaward Mountains after all. Even covered by a simple illusion-spell, he knew it would be impossible to sidle between the nearer guard and the one standing by the front door, but the shelter was merely a kind of yard-high pup tent made of cut mesquite, open at the front and only loosely covered at the back. He could hear nothing close by.
The illusion-spell was simple, as all illusions were. Stinkbug, Rudy decided. Harmless, black, little, trundling along minding its own stinkbug business. Who the hell looks at a stinkbug? He had practised illusion under Ingold's critical eye and had been rather proud of the results. To wear an illusion was to feel against his skin a wind made of cold fire, a soft, glimmering cloak of misdirection that made him appear, as so many things in this world appeared, to be something he was not.
He pushed the brush aside and slipped through.
If he hadn't been standing in the middle of the camp, he would hardly have known a camp was there. It was situated in a sagebrush flat, and the brush shelters blended with the surrounding mesquite, identical in positioning and size. From where he stood, only one fire was visible, but he could smell others, made of smokeless wood and half-buried in sheltered
holes, as Ingold habitually made fires. There were White Raiders in evidence, men and women both, though the women, Rudy saw at once, were like Gil - virgins of war, clothed and armed like the men and as cold-eyed as combat troops. They were dressed alike, in close-fitting tunics and trousers of wolf or cougar hide, the greys and golds merged with the colours of the ground. Some of them wore close-fitting coats of wolf or buffalo hide. All of them were armed with knives, bows, and a form of bolo. In front of several shelters, he saw spears stabbed into the ground, the shafts ready to hand. As he'd seen before, the magic-post stood in the centre of the camp. An old man was decorating it like a Christmas tree, with strings of bone and braided grass, broken glass, and flowers, and at its foot a woman was sharpening a long skinning knife. Beyond lay the horse lines, the mustangs grouped so as to resemble to the casual eye a wild herd grazing.
With utmost stealth, Rudy the stinkbug began his walk across the open ground of the camp.
He moved slowly, staying within the parameters of the illusion. He passed a guard talking to one of the women outside his former prison at a distance of a few feet, and neither gave him a glance. High and pale, the silver disc of the sun had appeared, for the first time in many days, and the shadow that it threw on the dirt was an insect shadow, perfect of its kind. The chill desert winds tangled in the braided ropes of the magic-post, fluttering the petals of the winter roses twined through the eyes of the skulls. The Raider finished twisting feathers around the crossbeam and stepped back. He was an old man, his hair so white as to be almost blue and his face like an age-blackened oak burl. Rudy stopped to let him pass.
But he didn't pass.
Rudy's blood turned to ice water in his veins. The ancient warrior was looking down at the ground where the illusion of the stinkbug would be, and there was a hint of puzzlement in that leathery, impassive face. Then, without removing his eyes from. Rudy, he took a step or two toward one of the shelters and
signed to a man and woman nearby to come. They did, bringing spears.
Rudy broke into a cold sweat. Hey, come on, you can't suspect an innocent little bug... But of course, now that he remembered, the Icefalcon was suspicious of everyone and everything. Rudy walked as much faster as he dared, circling to get around the old man. But the three Raiders held a quick, silent conversation in finger signs and half-whispers, then moved in front of him once more. This isn't fair! Rudy thought frantically. He looked about for something to use as a weapon. He made one last try to get around them, and the old warrior stepped across his path again.