He caught her arm in a hard grip. “What you think you doin, woman?”
“Hunting a real man,” she crooned to him. She stroked her fingers along his hard sinewy arm, then flattened her hand out on his bare flesh and sucked the life out of him.
As he fell, she leaped back wrenching her arm free. In the boulders a man screamed: others came rushing at her, knives and swords in hand. She danced and dodged, felt a burn against her thigh as a sword sliced shallowly, slapped her hand against the first bit of bare flesh she could reach, pulled the life out of that one, More pain. She avoided some of the edges, took a knife in the side, touched and killed, touched and killed. Twin silver wolves slashed at legs, bringing some of the men down, blurring as steel flashed through them, wolves again as swiftly. Three men drained, two men down, crawling away. Touch and drain. Man on one leg lunging at her, knife searing into her side. Touch and drain. Touch and drain. All six dead.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she jerked the knife free and tossed it away, the wound healing before the knife struck stone and went bounding off. She straightened, felt the tingle of the life filling her. The wolves changed. Yaril and Jaril stood before her, held out pale translucent hands. They had expended themselves recklessly in this chase and the drain of it had brought them dangerously close to quenching. She held out her hands, let the stolen life flow out of her into them, smiling with pleasure as the mountain’s children firmed up and lost their pallor.
When the feeding was complete she looked around at the scattered bodies, felt sick again. I’ve saved Slya knows how many lives by taking theirs… She shook her head, the sickness in her stomach undiminished. Shivering, she strode back to the stone circle, Yaril and Jaril trotting beside her, looking plumper and contented with the world. She pulled her hands back over her hair, darkening the shining silver to an equally shining black. She stepped back into the trousers, pulled the laces tight and tied them off, wriggled into the tunic and smoothed it down. Suddenly exhausted, she leaned against the stone wall. “I’m going to sleep like someone hit me over the head. Any chance we’ll get more visitors?”
“Not for a while,” Yaril said. “I didn’t see any more bands close enough to reach us before morning, but I’ll have another look to make sure.”
Brann nodded and stood watching as two large owls took heavily to the air. She watched them vanish into the darkness, hating them that moment for what they’d done to her, for what they made her do. A lifetime of draining men to feed them and Slya knew what that word lifetime meant when it applied to her. The flare-up died almost as quickly as it arose. There was no point in hating the children; they’d followed nature and need. And as for living with the consequences of that need, well, she’d learned a lot the past months about how malleable the human body and spirit was and how strong her own will-tolive was. Like the children, she’d do what she had to and try to minimize the damage to her soul. Like them too she was in the grip of the god, swept along by Slya’s will, struggling to maintain what control she could over her actions. She followed the high stone wall around to the gate and went in.
Taguiloa sat by the fire, breaking up chunks of coal with the hilt of his knife, throwing the bits in lazy arcs to land amid the flames. He looked up as she came into the light, then went back to what he was doing. She hesitated, then walked across to stand beside him.
“How many of them?” he said.
“Six. How did you know?”
“Figured. Got them all?”
“Yes.”
He tossed a handful of black bits at the fire, wiped his hand on the stone flagging. After a moment he said, “The three of you were looking washed out.”
“We wouldn’t hurt you or any of the others.”
“Hurt. I wonder what you mean by that.” He began chunking the hilt against another lump of coal, not looking at her. “What happens when we get to Durat?”
“I don’t know. How could I? My father, my brothers, my folk, I have to find them and break them loose. You knew that before you took up with me. I don’t want to have to choose between you… and the others… and my people, Taga, keep you clear if I can. I’ll leave you once we get to Durat, I’ll change the way I look.” She shrugged. “What more can I do? You knew it was a gamble when you agreed to bring me to Durat. You know what I was. You want to back, out now?”
“You could destroy me.”
“Yes.”
“Make it impossible for me to work where there are Tem uengs. “
“Yes.”
“You knew that in Silili.”
“Yes.”
“You know us now. We’re friends, if not friends, then colleagues. And still, if you have to, you’ll destroy us.”
“Yes.”
“All right. As long as it’s clear.” He smiled suddenly, a wry self-mocking twist of his lips. “You’re right. I gambled and I knew it. Your gold to finance a tour and a chance for the Emperor’s Sigil against the chance you’d get us chopped.” He touched his shoulder. “Tungjii’s tough on fainthearts. I go on. As for your leaving us, could cause more talk than if you stayed. You’re part of the troupe the Duratteese are waiting to see. Until we perform at the Emperor’s Court, if we ever do, you’re part of the troupe, remember that and be careful.”
She lifted her hands, looked at them, let them fall. “As careful as I’m let, Taga.”
5. Brann’s Ouest-Andurya Durat: The Rescue and Attendant Wonders
TAGUILOA STOPPED the wagon at the top of a stiff grade, sat looking down a winding road to the oasis of Andurya Durat. Dry brown barren mountains, ancient earth’s bones sucked clean of life and left to wither, two files of them blocking east and west winds, funnelling south the ice winds of the northern plains. Andurya Durat, doubly green and fecund when set against those mountains, steamy damp dark green, lush, born from the hot springs at the roots of Cynamacamal, the highest of the hills, its angular symmetry hidden by a belt of clouds, its cone-peak visible this day, splashed thick with blue-white snow.
Absently stroking and patting the neck of her fractious mount, Brann stared at the mountain, feeling immensely and irrationally cheered. It was a barebones replica of Tincreal; she felt the presence of Slya warm and comforting. She would win her people free, she didn’t know how yet, but that was only a detail.
Taguiloa watched her gaze at the mountain and wondered what she saw to make her smile like that, with a gentleness and quiet happiness he hadn’t seen in her before. He turned back to the road, frowned down at the dark blotch on the shores of the glittering lake, sucked in a breath and put his foot on the brake as he slapped the reins on the cob’s back, starting him down the long steep slope, wishing he could put a brake on Brann. Godalau grant she didn’t run wild through those Temuengs down there.
ANDURYA DURAT. Stuffed with Temuengs of all ranks. Glittering white marble meslaks like uneven teeth built on the shores of the largest lake, snuggling close to the monumental pile still unfinished that housed the Emperor and his servants, vari-sized compounds where the Meslar overlords lived and drew taxes from the Jamars in the south, the Basshar nomad chiefs in the north. Along the rivers and on the banks of the cluster of smaller lakes, there were Inns and Guesthouses that held Jamars from the south come up to seek an audience from the Emperor so they could boast of it to their neighbors, to seek legal judgments from the High Magistrate, come up to the capital for a thousand other reasons, and there were tent grounds and corrals that held the Basshars and their horse breeders down from the Grass with pampered pets from their tents to sell for Imperial gold, with herds of kounax for butchering, with leatherwork, with cloth woven from the long strong kounax hair, with yarn, rope, glues, carved bones and other products of the nomad life. Scattered among the Farms that fed the city were riding grounds for the horse and mallet games played with bloody kounax heads, a noisy brutal cherished reminder of the old days when the Durat Temuengs were nomad herders on the Sea of Grass, ambling behind their blatting herds, fighting little wars over water and wood. Times the old men among the Meslars spoke of with nostalgia, celebrating the ancient strengths of the People. Times even the most fervid of these celebrators hadn’t the slightest inclination to recreate for themselves.