The mercenary company was moving at a slug's glide. It was easy to get a comprehensive view of their line of march and of the road stretching before and behind them. There was the usual traffic, slowing to a trickle as it moved into the heat of the day. Trust the stupid outlanders to march right into the worst. They trudged along in a torpor. They were pushing in the correct direction, anyway. Maybe the captain was sorry, now, that he'd sold off his pretty wife. That was something to laugh about.
He circled wide, catching an updraft off the escarpment and banking wide to get a view of West Track more or less parallel to the east-flowing length of the wide River Olo. The river looped and curved along the plain, but West Track ran straight as a spear. There were little villages and fields and swales and low ground and hills hidden by old trees too difficult to chop down. The heat had melted the locals. The villages were quiet; the householders seemed early to their afternoon Shade Hour. He saw no one on the road except a pair of peddlers with packs slung over their backs, a single man leading a horse, a trio of women with the jaunty swagger of entertainers, and-yes!-a woman mounted on one horse and leading two others.
He spotted open ground a distance ahead, circled her until he was sure she'd seen him, and flew ahead for an easy landing. Soon enough, she appeared along the empty road, the only creature abroad. He waited in the shade of a massive old oak tree, while Tumna perched in the sun with wings spread. As everyone did, the woman kept her distance from the eagle, but she tethered her horses across the road and sauntered over.
"I thought you had abandoned me yesterday," she said, raising her chin with a challenge. "You sure were cold. Out on patrol again?"
The sheen of sweat on her made her glisten. A man could go crazy looking on a woman who looked the way she did, with her vest bound so loose you might glimpse anything through those lacings but never quite did, with her linen kilt sliding along taut thighs. She considered the eagle.
"I wonder what she would do," she said, "if I were to tie you up. Would she attack me? I think she could rip my head right off."
In the Tale of Discovery, the shoemaker had been literally blinded with lust, and Horas suddenly wondered if he was about to undergo the same transformation. The sun was so bright, and the pale colors of the dry landscape filmed away into a haze. He was slick with sweat, and so tight he actually could not get a word up out of his throat. But he could move his arm, giving the hand signal for flight and return. Tumna shook herself and kekked irritably, but she took off with a massive thrust and a storm of wing, and vanished over the woodland to find a more peaceful place to sun.
"I suppose that's my answer," she said, watching the eagle go. "Wait here."
She walked back across the clearing and over the road to where she had tethered her horses, and just to watch that shapely rump sway was enough to make his throat dry and his gaze blur. Into the woods she disappeared, leading the horses, and reappeared a bit later without them. With a faint smile, she returned to him and grasped his wrist. He was choked with desire.
She led him deep into the woodland, close beside the river where there was lots of cover and plenty of twisted trees that made perfect hitching posts, to which she tied him.
After a long time, she asked him if he wanted her to stop, and he gasped, "No."
A while after that, she asked him again, and he whimpered, "No."
Not that he could have stopped her anyway. Not that he would have wanted to.
Even later, she said she had to go get more water, and he needed a break by that time, because it was hard work, as the Merciless One knew. The slow heat of the afternoon drowsed around him. His hands began to tingle and go numb, but he couldn't relieve the pressure of the rope. He began to lose feeling in his feet. He cooled, and withered.
The colors within the trees changed as shadows drew long under the branches. It was about the time he realized that he was too effectively trussed up to free himself, and too far from the road for his voice to carry the distance, that he also discovered he had lost his bone whistle. Even if it was concealed beneath the pile made by his clothes and gear, he could not reach it.
It was getting dark fast, for night always came quickly.
He heard male voices, laughter, in the trees, but when he called after them, no one answered.
That's when he understood that she wasn't coming back.
44
Keshad was tired of trudging. Mostly he thought about how he was going to get away from Rabbit, Twist, and the rest of his new comrades, all of whom were the kind of people you never ever did business with unless you were already on your way out of town. It was as if someone had swept up the worst criminals into one band, on purpose.
What was he even thinking? That was exactly what had happened.
It was almost dark when they caught up with the strike force, a group of several hundred soldiers. This was the group Bai had counted two nights ago. Three hundred and twelve, she had said, but as he walked into the rough encampment the soldiers were setting up alongside the road, he wondered if there weren't more. Canvas was rigged up along ropes to form shelters. Grooms walked the horse lines. Men piled hay along the rope line, feed filched from village storehouses. Although dusk was falling, no one had lit any fires. Wagons were driven across the road to form barriers before and behind the line of march.
"Heya! Second Company! Over here!" A captain called out their sergeant. "We'll reach Olossi tomorrow. The last village we came through was already abandoned, so it seems someone had news of our coming. We're covering three watches, not two, tonight. On high alert. Your men will take all the watches. Double your normal numbers."
"That's not fair!" Twist muttered. "They always give us the watches, like we're not worth any other duty. Aui! I liked it better when we were on our own."
Keshad forbore to remind Twist that he'd been complaining all day about not getting first pickings with the rest of the strike force.
How had his luck changed so fast? He had gambled, and won freedom for himself and for Bai, but now he was no better than a captive in enemy hands. They'd as happily cut his throat and rape his corpse as give him a handful of rice, and certainly no rice or even a hank of stale flatbread was forthcoming tonight. Nor dared he try to purchase anything, which would mean he'd reveal his coin. Stomach grumbling, he stuck close by Twist as they found a bit of ground to rest on. When Kesh rolled out his blanket, the others hooted and called him names.
"Very particular!"
"Quite the merchant's son. Southern silks never too good for you!"
"Nah, he's hoping for a bit of company."
"Rabbit here won't do it. You're too wiggly for his tastes."
One thing Keshad had learned in the marketplace was not to let your opponent smell blood or weakness. "I'm wanting a bit of sleep, if you don't mind!"
"Oooh. Isn't he particular!"
The ginnies opened their mouths to display their wicked teeth. The men looked away.
"Just shut up and leave the lad alone," added Twist. "And if you don't mind my saying so, I can't sleep with your chatter. So just shut it, all round."
They settled down, but Keshad could not sleep. As soon as he shut his eyes, he saw that hideous, distorted creature descending out of the night sky and onto the road. Yet when he opened his eyes to banish the vision, there were a dozen snoring men scattered around him, lying on the ground at all angles like a crazy fence, trapping him. There was no way he could escape.
And they all stank.