The real lapse in security is the obvious Blaskoye belief that no one from the Valley could survive a trip to Awul-alwaha, said Raj, much less that some Valleyman could walk right into town and request an audience with the great sheik himself. This will probably be the last time they ever make that mistake, however.
They’re letting me walk in with my rifle, Abel thought. This Rostov is either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.
It is a calculated gambit to shore up allegiance with so many recently conquered tribes, said Center. As we have witnessed, Rostov literally unmans those who resist. So he allows those who remain the illusion of self-determination, at least about their persons.
So they had infiltrated.
When he’d seen he had a clear shot, he’d considered shooting Rostov first, but he was not close enough to identify the girl for certain. He calculated that as soon as Rostov fell, pandemonium was likely to break loose. He needed that extra moment to be sure he had the right slave girl in sight. His girl.
So he’d gone for the nearby men-at-arms. Besides, they held rifles, and Rostov had only a pistol stuck into his belt-beside that gleaming silver knife.
One day, perhaps soon, I will regret not immediately killing Rostov, Abel thought, even as he pulled the trigger and the first guard fell.
Patterns indicate a martial buildup due to internal population pressures and intertribal rivalries resulting from uneven black-market trading between Cascade and Progar, Center said. Zentrum’s plans will take into account the loss of one leader, however valuable.
Center thinks you shoot down one Rostov, another will pop up in short order due to the powder-keg situation, Raj said. He may be correct on that score, but I, too, wish you could have taken the shot. Hang the girl.
No.
All right, Raj replied. You’ve got the girl caught up in a fate she never asked for now.The least you can do is take her and run!
The girl was nine, tall for her age. She was mostly skin and bones, however, as Abel discovered when he lifted her up and threw her across his shoulder. At first she resisted, until he said to her in Landish, “Stop now. You are Loreilei?”
A whispered “Yes.”
“I am taking you back to your family.” Instantly, she went still and grabbed tightly to his robes. Her breathing increased to rapid gasps, but she made no other sound.
Abel glanced back at Rostov. He was holding the plate by one side and over his head to fend off arrows. Two had already lodged in the wood’s exterior. With his other hand, he was aiming his pistol straight at Abel.
He’s got me dead to rights.
Then a musket butt crashed across the side of Rostov’s head, taking him and the platter like a club. The pistol cracked, smoked, and fired, but the shot was spent into the floor. Rostov stumbled, then raised the plate to ward off another blow.
It was Kruso, using his fired musket as a bludgeon.
“Leave off,” shouted Abel. “Take the boy and go!”
Kruso instantly obeyed, pulling up the boy like a sack of meal and holding him under one arm. They sprinted toward the entrance.
The doorguard, so easy to pass on the way in with a bit of subterfuge, were in no mood to let them out again. But five arrows found the two men and both were screaming and cursing as Abel and Kruso barreled between them. The entrance to the sheik’s tent lay not ten paces before them now. Abel risked a glance back.
Rostov was right behind them, his gleaming chrome knife in his hand. Trailing the sheik was Gaspar. The chief had found the strength to lift himself up and follow after, as if pulled by a magnetism he could not resist.
And behind Rostov were the Blaskoye, kinsmen by the look of their raiment. They had, it seemed, suddenly realized that their leader was under attack and were swarming to the offensive behind him.
“Now!” Abel shouted into the upper reaches of the tent in Landish. “Away!”
The Scouts disappeared from the vent holes and, Abel knew, had grabbed portions of tent fabric and were sliding down the side. There they would finish the work they’d begun before they ascended. Each went to the nearest anchoring stake to find the partially sawn rope that held tension on the enormous structure and complete the task of severing that rope entirely.
Even as Abel turned back to spring for the entrance and daylight, he saw the sides of the structure begin to sag. And when he burst through to outside, it was falling all around him, falling down upon the contingent of Blaskoye who were on the heels of Rostov.
He was in the dust of the pathway in front of the tent.
“Dashian!”
The scream came from behind him, and he spun around as Rostov burst from the tent. He quickly put the girl down, shoved her behind him, and turned to face the Blaskoye.
But Rostov stopped in his tracks, as if he’d run into an invisible wall.
What the hell?
Risk a quick look behind you, lad, said Raj, laughter in his voice.
Abel did so. His twenty Scouts were lined up with drawn muskets, each muzzle aimed at the heart of the Blaskoye.
Then Gaspar ran past Rostov and, as a man might snatch an insectoid from the air, Rostov reached out and snared the Remlap chief by the neck and yanked him back and to his side. Within a split second, he had his knife at Gaspar’s throat.
“Papa!” A small loud voice from nearby, and the slave boy was struggling in Kruso’s grasp and had broken free toward his father and the Blaskoye.
Rostov cut Gaspar’s throat with a practiced brutality and shoved the still stumbling man toward the approaching boy. Meanwhile, the Blaskoye ran for cover.
“Fire!” Abel yelled.
It was just enough distraction.
A hail of balls kicked up the dust and followed Rostov, but no one had tracked him quickly enough, and he was gone before any could reload.
Gone to get reinforcements, said Raj. Time to leave.
“Stay here,” Abel said to the girl behind him. He and Kruso darted out to the slave boy, who was standing over his father. Gaspar lay face up, his neck oozing. The boy was attempting the impossible task of staunching the femoral bleeding.
“Come tha away, youngen,” Kruso said gently. But his hand was firm as he pulled the boy back and led him toward the Scouts. Abel gazed down at the Remlap chief a moment longer. There was the trace of a smile lingering on his face. Perhaps his last sight had been the boy. Perhaps not.
Abel turned to the Scouts. “Home,” he said. He picked up the girl again. His men, now reloaded, made their way at a fast trot out of the encampment, back to the edge of the desert and to the corral where the donts awaited them.
There was no question of throwing off pursuit. This was going to be a race. He hoped his other orders had been obeyed. They would find out soon enough.
They rode west. For the first quarter-watch, he had the donts running on two legs, but the creatures could not sustain such a pace, and eventually he ordered everyone to a more endurable gallop.
He’d been right about the pursuit. Within a half watch, a glance behind revealed a cloud of dust rising on the horizon-a large one, at that. Abel estimated it would take at least a hundred riders to kick up such a fury of redness.
And so it went for two days of hard riding. They stopped only to water the donts, and then only to let them slurp at soaked sponges, nothing more. Abel slept in the saddle, and had to tie the girl to his back at points so that she could slumber and not fall off. They traveled by day and by night. There was no question of a pause, a rest. Not yet.