Luca slid into the thicket where Wintshikan waited, sitting cross-legged on her blankets, her back against the trunk of a small tree, Zell crouching beside her. “Where is he?”
“Back by the stream with his yuzz. Hidan is watching him. Xe’ll let Zell know if he moves.”
“He’s a spy. Didn’t even bother trying to cover his trail. He circled round to come from the east, but he started west. There’s a camp about half an hour down-road. Five mals, armed. Not a phela, sneak thieves and bandits, making more of themselves than is there. Sitting round the fire drinking stilled phuz and boasting what they’re going to do to us.” Luca closed her eyes and shuddered. “Ferns ‘11 be dead when they’re fmished, but they’ll keep the femlits and the anyas to sell. There’s a roaring market for healthy anyas. And the Freetowns are always looking for new, clean whores.” Her voice shook. “Seems like the ones they have don’t live very long.”
“Good work, Luca. Did they say when they’re coming for us?”
“Tomorrow night. The spy’s going to stay with us, make sure that all the arms we have are a few knives.”
“Yes. How drunk are that lot?”
“They’re celebrating pretty hard. In another hour or so, you could kick them in the face and they wouldn’t know it.”
“Do you think it would be worthwhile to rob the thieves?”
“Ahhhh.” Luca pressed her hand across her mouth to keep in the laughter. Eyes dancing, she nodded.
Wintshikan rose to her feet, took the Shawl Zell handed her, flung it round her shoulders, and spoke in formal mode as Heka of the Shishim ixis. “For the crimes of planned murder and enslavement, I declare Bukha the Needle Mal neither Pixa or Impix but beast, and I require of that beast its life.” Sighing, she dropped the Shawl on the blankets. “All very well, these grand pronouncements. Now I have to decide how to do it.”
“Leave it to Wann and me. We can cut the bhasit’s throat while he sleeps.”
“No, Luca. This must be execution, not murder. And he must have his chance to make peace with God.”
“Why? Would he give us a chance?”
“This isn’t about him, it’s about us. Do you really want to use that lot as your standard?”
Luca scowled, then stalked off.
Zell touched Wintshikan’s arm. +She’s hurting and filled with rage, Wintashi, I can feel it. She’ll leave us if we push her too hard.+
+I know. Seems everything I try is wrong. Has Wann?+
+Wann will not speak to us. Xe has given pledge to Luca.+
+Why didn’t they tell us, let us bless them?+
+They will not accept a blessing. What Wann has said to us in anyabond is that it would be a blasphemy, and that they will not do.+
+It is the war, Zizi. Why was I so slow to see? I find myself standing too close to Luca’s ground, too often tempted to hurl curses at God for letting such horrors happen.+ Wintshikan rubbed the sudden rush of tears from her eyes. “So let us go, my sister, my love, and do a horror of our own.”
Bukha came awake fast and fighting, but Wintshilcan cast herself across his middle, pinning him to the ground, Luca and Wann got ropes on his wrists, Nyen and Hidan caught his ankles, first one, then the other, and tied them together.
Wintshikan levered herself up and stepped away from him. “We tracked you to your friends and listened to them boast, Bukha the Needle Mal. Out of their mouths you are condemned.”
“What is this? What right…?”
“God’s right. And by God’s Law as spoken by the Prophet, you may have a thousand heartbeats to be mindful of your transgressions against that law. Make yourself right with it before you die. Gag him, Luca. Nyen, make the rope ready. Cleanse your soul, oh, Bukha, for on this night you face your judgment.”
He did not die easily; he fought his bindings as Nyen tied the end of the rope to the yuzz’s packsaddle, made hideous sounds past the lump of waybread Luca bound in his mouth to gag him. When the beast took its first step under Nyen’s urging, his muted howl was an ugly thing.
Wintshikan walked to Kanilli and Zaro who stood with Zell, watching with wide eyes and frightened faces. “You have shared in the judgment of the Remnant. Have you questions?”
Kanilli looked down, but Zaro lifted her head with a touch of defiance and said, “I thought he was a nice little mal. I know he meant bad things for us, but why? Why would he do such a thing?”
“For gold, Zaro meami. Perhaps for the pleasure of it. Use this as a warning when we reach the lowlands. You can’t trust anyone there. They have all kinds of excuses for what they do, but mostly it’s just to pleasure themselves or fix’ the gold they worship.”
Kanilli raised her head and shied as the hanged mal groaned and twitched; she fixed her eyes on Wintshikan’s face. “Then why are we going there? Why can’t we stay in the mountains?”
Wintshikan sighed. “Death is a part of the compact with God, but it must come in its own time. To stay would be to go seeking for death and that is forbidden.”
“But…”
“We’ll talk more tomorrow, I promise you, little sister. Now you go with Zell and get things packed up so we can leave. We have to be past the bandits before the sun comes up.”
She watched them follow the anyas into the gloom under the trees, sighed heavily as they vanished. Words WORDS! Oh, God, help me. My faith is slipping from me. I don’t understand anything now. If You leave me, what have I got left?
“Heka.”
Wintshikan turned. “What is it, Luca?”
“We tied the rope to that other tree. We want to leave him hanging there as a warning.”
He was still jerking a little, not quite dead. Wintshikan twisted her mouth and turned away. “Yes. Off the Trace like this, anyone who sees him will be his own kind.” She made the avert fork with fore and middle fingers of her heart hand. “May his ghost be turned from us.”
“Xaca’s going through the pack to see what we can use: she’ll toss the rest, but we figure the 3/117.7 will be handy for carrying some of our own load. Nyen and Hidan want to come with Wann and me to see what we can lift off the bandits.”
“Luca, nothing they have is worth your lives. Remember that.”
The young fem grinned. “I’ll remember,” she said and went gliding off with that easy soundless stride she’d learned somehow since the Remnant had gone hohekil.
Wintshikan forced herself to look up at the hanged mal, sickened by the puffy blackened face and protruding tongue. “Your soul will peel away and vanish like fog on a spring morning. May it find peace.”
Zaro squealed at the crack of a shot that went echoing around the mountainsides, following by others so close together they were like the sputter of frying maphik. The yuzz jerked on the lead line and tried to run, almost pullhig Kanilli off her feet, but Xaca caught hold of the rope behind her and their combined weight was enough to hold him while Zell used xe’s thinta to soothe him.
When Wintshikan spoke, her voice was high and shaky. “Zell, are they…?”
+By thinta they are alive and well, all four. I thin death, but it isn’t ours.+
“I told her…”
+Hush, Wintashi, Luca’s no fool. Don’t judge her till you hear her reasons. It’s better if we keep moving.+
Wintshikan straightened her shoulders. She was Heka, and it was time to remember that. “Kanilli, you and Zaro go ahead now; take the yuzz and don’t look back. Xaca, go with them. Zell and I will follow. The others will come when they come.”
And come they did, Luca and Wann, Nyen and Hidan on riding jomayls, rifles strapped to their backs. Nyen and Hidan were leading three more laden with canvas-covered packs.
Wintshikan felt a coldness at the bottom of her belly.
Not yet, she thought, but soon, it’ll be time to pass the Shawl to Luca. God guide her, I cannot.
3. Settling into Linojin
Clutching the luth in her left hand, Yseyl turned from the table, shied as a novice in brown opened the righthand door for her. As she stepped through, she heard the Brother’s voice droning through the same set of questions for the next in line.