That freed her mind to concentrate on causes. Moving through the endorphin-induced haze, she took inventory of her head and found the lump on her crown. No wonder she was in pain! She moved busily but deliberately, mending damaged capillaries, draining the blood that had pooled, and generally restoring the site to its normal condition.
As the pain eased, she was freed to wonder what had caused the bruise—and memory came flooding back: a horde of painted, kilted, unkempt savages. But where were they? Come to that, where was she?
Finally she turned her attention to the outside world—and recognized laughing, boastful conversation, and a general party atmosphere. The accent was thick but she knew she could puzzle it out. Even if she couldn’t, she could read their minds—when her headache was completely gone.
But if she found herself in the camp of her enemies, how free could she be? She pushed with her arms and, sure enough, felt restraints. Another push with her feet told her that her ankles were lashed together—and, now that she thought of it, there was pressure on her mouth, considerable pressure, and a knot pressing the base of her skull—a gag, then.
So they knew her for a witch and were taking no chances.
But how alert were they? She let her eyelids flutter, parting them just enough to peer through her lashes. One of the mountaineers was sitting beside her with a warclub on his knee—but he wasn’t looking at her, was instead laughing and raising a wooden mug in a toast to something someone else called out.
Allouette looked to the side and saw his friends—silhouettes around a campfire. She could dimly make out faces on the other side of the flames.
Now she bent her attention to trying to decipher their accent and let her endorphin level ebb so that she could concentrate a bit better. The headache increased, but it was nowhere nearly the crippling pain that had awakened her. Allowing for gutturals where there should have been H’s and K’s, for missing L’s and TH’s, and for some oddly distorted vowels, she deciphered their accent and realized they were saying:
“Aye, Zonploka will be greatly pleased with us, that’s sure!”
“Well, he should be! The young wizard’s lover? The lad will dare not move against us while we have her—and will keep his whole family at bay!”
“Aye, the High Warlock, the High Witch, and all their brood! Then, too, mind you, this one is a doughty witch in her own right.”
“Not with that gag on her mouth, she’s not! How’ll a witch work a spell without speech, eh?”
Very well, actually, Allouette thought, but she wasn’t about to let her captors know that espers didn’t need to be able to talk to read thoughts, make objects move, make people think they saw things that weren’t really there, or feel emotions they’d never known. In fact, the more helpless they thought she was, the greater her advantage.
So she lay still, listening to the mountaineers crow over their victory.
“Not just keeping the Crown’s witches and wizards away!” one boasted. “If Zonploka is right, we’ll be able to bid them clear the county of all the folk around these mountains, peasants and nobles alike!”
“Aye! Then we’ll rule the lands our ancestors held!”
“We, and Zonploka’s people,” another reminded.
“True, but he only means to gather his army here. They’ll not stay, they’ll move out to conquer the land—but we’ll hold the county! Zonploka has promised it!”
Some renegade sorcerer, then, who had promised them dominion for helping his treachery against the Crown and the people—and they expected him to keep his promise? Allouette could have pitied these poor naive peasants if it hadn’t been for the pounding in her head.
But who, she wondered, was Zonploka?
There was no way to tell, and not enough information to work it out, though she did puzzle at the matter while she waited for the celebration to wind down and the mountaineers to fall asleep. She tried to project a thought to Gregory to reassure him she was well, but found the effort made her head ache worse and seemed to do no good. She would have to wait for the minor concussion to heal, then. She did manage to read the minds of the people near her and gained a good deal of information about their daily lives, including who lusted after whom and who had promised her favors to whom else, but she had to stop because even that slight effort increased her headache again.
So she lay still, working at lulling the headache into absence as, one by one, the mountaineers sought their beds of bracken. Some went two by two but were too thoroughly drunken to stay awake—and at last, Allouette was the only one conscious, hearing nothing but the breeze in the leaves and the noises of the small animals who inhabited the heights.
She reached out with a tendril of thought, exploring the lashings that held her hands. Yes, they were knots she knew. The effort wakened her headache again but this time she ignored it, making thong slide against thong as she lifted her head, opening her eyes to watch the knots untying themselves. When the leather fell away, she chafed her wrists to restore circulation, then flexed her fingers until the pins and needles had stopped. Finally she sat up—slowly, carefully, so as not to make the headache worse—and untied the thongs that bound her ankles. It took longer than telekinesis but didn’t increase the pain in her head. Then she chafed her ankles, flexing her toes and making circles with her feet. She almost groaned aloud as the prickling began but clamped her jaw shut, waiting and massaging until she was sure her legs would bear her. Then, finally, she pushed herself to her feet and crept off into the night.
She would have made it and done no harm to anyone, but as she stepped over one man, he happened to turn in his sleep, tripping her. She fell heavily, then scrambled up—but a rough basso voice called, “Who moves?”
Allouette cursed; one sentry had stayed sober. She ran for the trees, but he saw her and ran after, shouting, “Waken! Catch her! Don’t let her get away!”
Half the camp woke; ten of them made it to their feet and blundered after her in the dark, shouting and bellowing, for all the world like hounds on a scent.
Allouette kept stumbling toward the trees, but her legs still weren’t working properly. When she heard the heavy thudding of feet behind her, she turned. The sentry shouted with triumph, swinging a warclub at her head. She pivoted, caught the arm and a handful of tunic, shoved out her hip, and threw him headlong into the bracken.
But it had delayed her long enough for the pack to catch her. A woman in the forefront swung her own warclub; Allouette blocked, but pain seared through her forearm. She caught the weapon with her other hand, twisted as she kicked the woman’s feet out from under her, and turned to fend off another blow left-handed. She knocked it aside and recovered to crack the man’s pate, but saw a quarterstaff swinging down at her right side and another warclub swinging from her left and knew with despair, even as she whirled aside from the staff and swung her own weapon to block the warclub, that they would bear her down by the weight of sheer numbers.
Then a double scream split the night, female voices howling in rage, and two furies leapt in among the mountaineers, one whirling a quarterstaff like a windmill, the other laying about her with a sword and smashing her shield into a bearded face.
Allouette froze for a second’s disbelief, then realized that she still had a chance of escape and leaped into the fight with elation.
In minutes, the three women were back to back in a tight triangle. The mountaineers charged them en masse—once. Allouette felled one with her warclub, but another’s fist cracked against her cheek. She staggered, the night suddenly filling with sparks, but through the roaring in her ears she could hear the furies’ scream. When her vision cleared, she found herself staring at the woman who had struck her—now lying flat on the ground.