"No more than they approve of you, Xylina," Wara said, tossing her hair back, and smiling. "You and I could have been born sisters; we are certainly a match in looks." She laughed as if at some secret joke, and then let Xylina in on it. "If circumstances were different, and we were not in such haste-or if you were not the woman I love, but some friend-I could wish that you and I could stay this way for at least a little time. We could cut quite a figure among the swains of the Lgondian city-state, for instance." Her eyes twinkled with flirtatious amusement. "It would be great sport, and a kind I think you might enjoy, once you got used to it. In fact, we would, between the two of us, break every male heart in the city."
"Well I, for one, am glad we are not going to remain in this awkward set of circumstances," Xylina replied with a touch of acidity. "After last night, and sharing my bed with you, I have to say that I prefer to see Wara as little as possible!"
Wara tossed her head back and laughed throatily, and Xylina found herself oddly liking the demon all the more for being female. It was, as Wara had said, rather like having an unexpected sister-she had sometimes wished for such a sister, in the long-gone days of her childhood. Wara was as attractive in her own way as Ware was. In fact, she could not imagine how any mere male could resist the succubus.
But she would rather have Ware, she thought stubbornly. No matter how attractive Wara was, she wanted and needed Ware. And the sooner he returned, the better pleased she would be.
"I can understand that completely," Wara replied, "and I sympathize. So, I suspect that I had better go, before you either murder me with impatience, or Faro comes to see who is whispering to you in your tent."
Xylina nodded, and impulsively leaned over to kiss Wara. "Return to me quickly," she said, blushing.
Wara nodded, then winked. "And male ," she said, before she faded out.
And once again, Xylina was alone.
She told the others that Ware was scouting ahead; she was not certain that they believed her when she made up some tale about his going in dematerialized form to try to find some kind of help for them among people he knew here, but they seemed to accept his absence as unquestioningly as they had his presence, and that was all that mattered. So long as no one suspected what had really happened, it did not matter what the men thought of Ware's absence. Even if they suspected that he had deserted, his return would eventually disabuse them of that notion.
She felt horribly alone and uncertain once he was gone, although she did her best not to show it. For the first time she was without Ware's advice, and she had not realized until that moment how much she had come to depend on that advice. It was something she was going to have to adapt to, and quickly.
But more, much more than she had come to depend on his advice, she realized she had come to depend on his company. That was far harder to adapt to. The men were useless when it came to conversation; they might well be very intelligent and have varied interests, but they clearly felt inhibited in her presence. Faro was no substitute, for his conversation was limited when it came to discussing anything having to do with the Mazonites. He hated them so much that there was nothing he could find that was admirable about them.
And that was a pity, for although the Mazonites had many faults, they also had many virtues, particularly when it came to martial matters. Ware had been able to advise her on how best to handle the men-who were, after all, trained in the Mazonite-army way of doing things when it came to any kind of organized defenses and moving in hostile territory. As one of the men had once said, dryly, there were three ways of doing things: "the right way, the wrong way, and the army way." When Ware had advised her to deviate from the things that were ingrained in their thinking, he had also been able to give her the best way to explain the situation to them in terms that they would understand and agree with. Faro, who had not had Mazonite military training at all, could not. His training had been for the arena, a rather different matter. Arena fighters were always single, trusting no one. She had found that, on the whole, it was better to explain things to the men and then give them their orders; it made it seem as if she was being something other than arbitrary. Perhaps that would not have worked in the army, but this was not the army, and she was not a trained commander.
Still, she managed to muddle through, finding ways to explain why they were camping in low areas rather than on the high ground, and why it was best for the scouts to keep below the level of the grass when checking over the top of a ridge. She made some mistakes-but they managed to pass an entire week, and come out of the grasslands into more wooded country.
They also managed to avoid some obvious trouble- three separate sets of armed men, all looking for something. Xylina did not want to take the chance that these hunters might be hunting for her and her men.
They were all strange in one way or another. One of the sets was mounted on horses, one on bizarre lizard-like creatures, and one set of men rode on wheeled carts that propelled themselves across the grasslands by some kind of magic. It was the third set she feared the most, for she could not tell what kind of weapons they bore-they carried things that might have been crossbows and spears, but were of no make she recognized. Perhaps only Ware would have known what such weaponry could do, but she was not going to find out the hard way.
Her nights were tortured, filled with longing; her body ached with needs newly-discovered. And deep in the lonely darkness, she found herself wondering if Ware was ever going to return. Perhaps he had deserted. Perhaps this Thesius had found a mate-and had offered Ware a place in that household. Perhaps he had found a woman among Thesius's people who suited him better than Xylina. After all, his first mate had been from these folk.
Finally they made their first camp under cover of trees. And it was there that Ware found them.
She was tending to the dinner, under the direction of Horn, when she heard the sentry challenge someone and heard a longed-for, heartbreakingly familiar voice answering. She managed to keep from revealing everything that had happened between them by not impulsively jumping to her feet and flinging herself at him. That would have been incredibly stupid as well as obvious. Just at the moment, although she didn't particularly care that the Queen might find out about all this, she had another consideration. This was something that had occurred to her in one of the few moments that she was certain Ware would return. If the men discovered that she was a demon-lover, they might refuse to follow her. That would not only doom the expedition, it would doom her as well, unless this Thesius, if Ware returned with him, could be persuaded to bring her to his people.
So she waited until Horn's exclamation of greeting told her that Ware was in sight before looking up with a smile she hoped would not be read too clearly by any of the men. It was a smile of welcome, warm and happy, but not too warm, and not too promising. Ware and his escort came threading their way out of the shadows beneath the trees, and into the circle of light from the fire.
Ware looked-as he always looked, with the sole exception that he was dressed in better clothing than he had worn since the mage-storm. Even at the worst of times, he had never seemed tired or stressed for very long. But there was one surprise. He was leading a string of seven horses, each of them with a pack up behind the saddle. Beside him was another man, a stranger, who led seven more. Was this-?
"Xylina, this is my old friend Thesius," Ware said carefully. Carefully enough that she knew, instantly, that she was expected to read between the lines. "Everything was exactly as I had hoped, and he agreed to help us, and to come with us to guide us, all the way home if need be."
The man moved further into the light-and Xylina bit her lip. He was nothing like a Mazonite male. Now she realized why Ware had thought she might have trouble with that particular concept. There was nothing subservient about him; he gazed at her directly and proudly, exactly as another Mazonite would have, and she knew that he was going to judge her as a peer, and not as a mistress.