The air was clear, untainted by smoke or moonlight. He turned onto his back. The ginnies shoved into the gap between his arm and his body. With them pressed against him, he stared at the sky. Each star had a name and a classification in the lore of Beltak, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, but he did not know more than the two every believer must recognize or be subject to the lash. There: the Royal Road that spans the heavens. There, low and in the north: Iku, the Head of the King, around which the heavens spin.
Older tales whispered in his ears as if the trees were mocking him, reminding him of the Tale of Plenty and the Tale of Fortune. There came the Carter and his barking Dog, rolling slowly up out of the east. In the north, the Sacred Tree had fallen sideways. The Three Footsteps trod west. Tree cover hid the southern sky. But these were Hundred tales. They were all lies.
He dozed off, woke at the sound of hooves, but it was only a man walking a horse along the road. A normally shaped horse. The other vision had been a lie.
Next thing he knew, the butt of a spear slammed into his ribs.
"Eh! Aui!"
Magic clamped his jaws over the shaft.
"I wouldn't have to do it this way if those things didn't bite," said Twist.
"Let go."
The ginny let go, and Shai had to rub him to calm him down. Mischief "smiled," as if amused.
"Come on. Up! Our turn at watch."
Up he dragged himself, sticking close to Twist as they got their assignments.
"Smart of you to bring your bundle with you," said Twist. "Someone will steal it, and you'll never know where it's gone."
"Thanks."
It wasn't that he trusted Twist, precisely, only that he mistrusted him less than he did the others. They'd been assigned to the rear guard, and fortunately that meant the wagon barrier. He found a comfortable spot to sit, on the driving bench of one of the wagons, and wedged his bundle in beside him. The ginnies draped themselves over the bundle, snugged together, and closed their eyes. He amused himself by whistling under his breath to pass the time, every tune he could think of and then over again. Twist dozed, leaning against a wagon. A pair of other men paced, arguing in low tones about a bet one had lost and the other had won. After a while they fell silent and shared a smoke, off by the edge of the road, huddled close to hide the spark of its burning.
The night wind whispered its tale in the trees. The horses moved restlessly on the rope line. The stars remained silent.
A woman laughed.
He started up, but no one else seemed to have noticed. The pair sucked on their smoke. Its dizzy-sweet smell pricked his nostrils, and he shook himself. That laugh had sounded like Bai. He squirmed around, peering along the stretch of road. The shelters had been strung off the road, along the cleared ground and back under the woodland cover. The horses formed an irregular line of shadow along the river side of West Track, although the river lay too far away from the road in this spot for him to hear its running. He could not see the other barrier. The road had a strange quality in the darkness, the barest hint of a shine that made it possible to travel at night, even during the dark of the moon without lamp or candle or torch to light your way.
He yawned, sucking in a sudden cloud of sweet-smoke that had drifted his way. The flavor punched into his lungs and sent him soaring.
He is aloft. Alone. The wind is a high road under his feet, under the hooves of his mount, which gallops on air as easily as if it were on earth. Its great, slow wings are like bellows pumps, displacing air with each squeeze. The beast nickers, alerted to horses below, dark shapes moving in the night through the trees. "What's there?" a man's voice mutters. "Best we go check." They begin to turn. Shapes scatter along the ground below as the winged beast snorts.
The hells! The nightmare just would not leave him!
Then comes the kick of surprise as the man swears under his breath. "How can it be? How came Shai here?"
"Hei!" Twist shoved him hard in the ribs with the butt of his spear. "We'll get whipped if they catch you sleeping! Here they come. Thank the gods! I was ready to doze off myself."
Keshad looked up at the sky, but nothing disturbed the spread of stars. Nothing flew overhead. Reeves couldn't fly at night anyway. Nothing could, except owls and nighthawks and such creatures. He was just dreaming. Shaking, he clambered off the wagon as their relief walked up rank-smelling and yawning and belching to take their place. There was Rabbit, scratching himself.
"Heh. Heh," he said by way of greeting, when he saw Twist and Kesh. "I'm hungry. When we going to eat them lizards?"
Magic bobbed his head aggressively, but Rabbit never noticed. Kesh gathered up his gear, and the ginnies, and followed Twist.
"Did you hear a woman laughing?" Kesh asked as they walked back to their doss.
"Whew! You're dreaming! There's a couple of bitches marching with the strike force, but they'd as soon cut off your cock and cook it for their dinner as pay you any other kind of mind. Best get some rest. If we're lucky, we'll see action tomorrow. Earn some pickings."
Kesh picked a spot at the edge of the group, outside the sprawled bodies. With some difficulty he convinced the ginnies to curl up inside his cloak, with their heads peeking out one end and tails from the other. He lay on the ground with grass and twigs and stones poking into him. From this uncomfortable bed, he monitored Twist's breathing. After a long while, he rolled to one side and levered up onto a knee, testing the air and the silence. He rose to his feet, tucking his bedroll and pouches under his arm. The ginnies he slung over his back, already trussed up in the cloak. As if they knew what he was about, they remained quiet.
"Any problem?" said the sergeant in a low voice, off to his left.
"Got to piss." Kesh was surprised at how cool he sounded when for an instant all he could see was a flare of bright red anger, and the shadow of a twisted black fear.
"Need to take your gear with you to piss?"
"Twist says if I don't carry everything with me, it'll be stolen when I get back."
"Huh. That's true enough. I'll come with you." The sergeant was a stocky man, almost a head shorter than Kesh, the kind of man you never dared grapple with. The kind who could likely rip your arm from its socket, and would.
"Always a pleasure," added Kesh, "to piss in company."
A Sickle Moon was rising, its fattened curve lightening the eastern sky. A cloaked man walked along the road, leading a horse burdened by panniers. Or maybe those weren't panniers. Maybe those were folded wings. He shuddered. The horse line was still restless, as he was. He grunted in surprise as a hand slapped onto his shoulder.
"You coming?" muttered the sergeant, who paused to survey the road, then turned away in disinterest. For once, Kesh was glad to follow him, to turn his own back on that sight. The wind crackled in branches. The air smelled of the coming dawn, floating a memory of yesterday's heat. A bird whistled its morning tune, but there came no answer to that call. It was still too early for waking.
They pushed a little way into the woods and found a stand of young pipe-brush that rattled a friendly chorus as they peed onto them. The sergeant said nothing. He didn't need to. As they finished their business, Kesh wished that for once things could run in his favor. Had he heard Bai's laugh? He'd been separated from Zubaidit for so long that it was more likely he couldn't recognize her laugh at a distance, at night, in strange circumstances when he was wishing more than anything that she would return and get him out of this. Was she even coming back to get him? This means of escape obviously wasn't going to work, but if Bai was in camp searching for him, he had to go back and look for her.
The sergeant grunted. His knees sagged, and he folded over. Kesh blinked. The sergeant crumpled into the stand of pipe-brush, snapping stalks as he went down. Magic stuck his head out of the sling made of the cloak and closed his mouth over Kesh's elbow. The pressure was less than a bite but more than a kiss, enough pain that Kesh dropped to his knees as he hissed out a curse and reached for the lizard's crest to dislodge him.