The Cyber Chronicles Book II: Death Zone (22 page)

"We'll aid
him, Queen Tassin, never fear. As you say, after all he's done for
us, he has earned our help."

Tassin closed
her mouth with a snap, glaring at Mishra. Sabre opened his eyes,
then closed them again with a grimace and groaned, "Oh, no."

Tassin turned
to him. "Are you okay?"

"I've been
better."

She smiled.
"You've looked better too."

Sabre glanced
down at himself. Those parts of him that were not crusted with
dried gore were smeared with a mixture of blood and mud. "They
fought dirty."

"The Andorans
will help us back to the village."

He swept the
band of stony-faced women with sceptical eyes, which came to rest
on Mishra, who glowered at him.

"Where are the
Oroka?" she demanded.

"Mostly dead,
I'm afraid."

She thumped
her spear butt on the ground. "That's impossible! The girls said
there were over thirty of them!"

He nodded and
winced. "Thirty-two, actually. Some were just unconscious when I
left, and two ran away."

"We lost
fourteen warrior women to kill eight of them, and you say you
killed thirty, alone?"

"Like I said,
some of them were just unconscious."

The Andoran
princess looked incensed. "You lie! That's not possible! You ran
away, and lost them in the forest."

Tassin rounded
on the princess. "Sabre doesn't lie! If he says he killed them,
then he did."

Mishra
subsided under Tassin's wrathful glare, shooting a scathing glance
at Sabre, who lowered his eyes and fingered the crusted scabs on
his stomach.

"I didn't kill
all of them," he muttered again.

Shizana
gestured to two women, who approached him with obvious reluctance,
handing their spears to others. They gripped his arms and helped
him to his feet, supporting him as he hobbled after Tassin and
Shizana. Plainly they considered him so loathsome that they would
only touch him under duress, but Sabre seemed glad of their
support.

The journey
back to the Andoran village took two days at Sabre's slow pace, and
sapped the last of his strength. The women provided fresh meat each
night and blankets to sleep on, looking shocked when Tassin curled
up beside Sabre. He was not all that keen on the idea himself, but
did not have the energy to argue with her about it. He cited his
wounds as a reason to keep her from cuddling up to him, which was
not altogether unfounded.

When they
shuffled into the village under the curious stares of the women who
came out to watch the procession trudge in, Sabre could barely put
one foot in front of the other.

A furore
erupted when Shizana refused to allow Sabre into Tassin's new hut.
He sat on the ground with his head in his hands while Tassin argued
that he needed rest, a soft bed, good food and medical attention.
Shizana would not be moved, but when she could take no more of
Tassin's barrage, she sent a warrior for the Andoran Queen. Molla
arrived with her bevy of advisors, looking annoyed at being roused
from her comfortable chair. Tassin turned to vent her wrath on the
Queen, but Molla held up an imperious hand.

"There's no
need to lecture me, Tassin. I'm glad you have returned safely." She
looked down at Sabre, eyeing the blood that seeped from his thigh
wound. "He's fulfilled his promise to my daughter, and now he's
freed our young girls who were captured by the Oroka and avenged
our warriors who were slain." Molla glanced at Mishra, who stood
grim-faced beside her. "Therefore, he'll be allowed to stay with
you, and the midwife will attend him. When he's recovered, he'll be
banished once more."

Tassin nodded.
"Fair enough."

Molla slipped
an arm around Mishra's slender waist. "We're grateful, Tassin, even
my daughter, though she does not show it, is thankful. It would be
truly churlish of us to deny him aid now, after all he's done." She
shot a hard glance at Shizana. "We may hate men, for reasons of our
own, and shun their company, but we'll help those who help us."

Shizana bowed
and strode away.

Molla gazed
after her. "She is proud. As chief of the warriors, she must be. I
think it shames her that a man succeeded where she failed."

"But it was
Shizana who helped him in the forest when Mishra would not."

"Ah, yes."
Molla nodded. "Shizana is fair, and doesn't hate men the way Mishra
does. She was willing to aid the man, but not so far as to break
the rules. That's why she's a good warrior. She was helping as much
as she could, you understand?"

"Without
breaking the rules."

"Exactly. I'll
have the midwife come to you, but you had best get him onto the bed
before he passes out. Few will be willing to carry him." Molla
dismissed the crowd with a regal wave and led Mishra away.

Tassin helped
Sabre into the hut, where he sat on the bed with a sigh. She
removed the muddy harness and heated water, using it to wash off
the worst of the dried blood. Her stomach knotted at the sight of
the wounds she found under the crusts, amazed that he had survived,
never mind walked away. Sabre sat with his eyes closed, and only an
occasional twitch betrayed the pain she inflicted, although she
tried to be gentle. As she was throwing out the dirty water, the
midwife and her two apprentices arrived.

The large,
motherly woman shook her head while she inspected Sabre's injuries.
She ordered him to remove his boots and trousers and sit on the
floor. The Queen slumped on the bed while the midwife took charge,
sending her apprentices for more water, which she used to slough
the dirt from his wounds.

By the time
she was satisfied that they were clean, water ran out of the door.
Sabre sat on the bed while she stitched the wounds on his back,
then he was allowed to lie down. He closed his eyes and seemed to
drift into an exhausted doze in spite of the pain. Tassin watched
him with deep concern, noting that there were an abnormal number of
flashing red lights on his brow band. When she finished her
needlework, the midwife smeared the wounds with a strong-smelling
green paste, leaving some for Tassin to apply later. She bound the
Queen's ankle with a strip of cloth and ordered her to rest it,
then gathered up her bag of medicine and left.

An older woman
brought a pot of broth at dusk, and Tassin shook Sabre awake. His
eyes kept closing unless she continued to shake him, and it took a
great deal of prodding and persistence to feed him a bowl of broth.
She settled down on the extra straw mattress Shizana had brought,
satisfied that she had done all she could for him. In spite of
this, images of him beaten and bleeding to death invaded her
dreams, making her toss and turn.

Gearn glared
at Murdor, who leant on his broom, scratching his armpit. After the
brawl in the square, they had languished in the Orokan dungeons for
two days before being brought before the judges. When two warriors
returned from the party sent to track down the girls and informed
the judges that the man with lights on his head had freed them,
Gearn and Murdor were acquitted of the charge. Blood had been spilt
in the brawl, however, even though no one had been killed. Murdor
was blamed for it, with Gearn as his accomplice.

The sentence
had been four days of service, which involved sweeping streets and
hauling garbage. Their first job had been to scrub the blood from
the square's stones. Murdor did little, leaving Gearn to do the
bulk of the work. Gearn had never done so much hard labour, and his
healing spells gave him little relief from his aching back. He now
hated this city's cleanliness, convinced that he was the only
person keeping it that way.

Without his
bag of potions and magical items, he could not cast a spell
powerful enough to free them. Nor could he conjure his bag without
the potion he used for that. Even if he could, the only spell that
would ensure a clean getaway was the translocation spell, which had
proven fickle when he had used it to circumnavigate the Death Zone.
He could cast a confusion on the guards to facilitate their escape,
but Murdor would still have to fight his way out of the city, and
Gearn doubted that even the giant would be able to do that.

According to
the rumours that circulated amongst the soldiers in hushed tones,
the warrior mage had defeated thirty men and slain seventeen of
them, which made Gearn wonder afresh if Murdor would be able to
vanquish him. Sighing, he pushed the broom again as the guard
scowled at him. Just a few more days, and they would be free.

Sabre spent
most of the next week asleep, rousing only to eat and drink before
dozing off again. Five days after the fight, Tassin, who sat vigil
at his bedside, noticed the brow band's flickering pattern change.
Two new red lights flashed, and her concern grew when his skin
became flushed and sweat poured off him. He groaned and muttered in
a strange language that she assumed was his own tongue. She laid a
hand on his brow, and snatched it back in shock when she found his
skin burning hot. When the midwife arrived, she was convinced he
would die, and ordered buckets of water to be poured over him in an
effort to cool him.

Two hours
later, the fever abated as suddenly as it had developed, leaving
him weaker. After that, his wounds healed swiftly, which surprised
the midwife, who spent a great deal of time grinding leaves and
bark to make the pungent ointment Tassin smeared on the wounds.
Tassin spent most of her time with Sabre, leaving only for an
occasional walk or to do chores. She would sit beside the fire and
watch him sleep, comforted by the sound of his breathing. To her
surprise, Mishra often came to stand beside the bed and stare down
at him, strange expressions flitting across her face, as if she was
trying to come to terms with him.

Tassin was
darning a tear in the tattered pink dress, and Sabre snored softly
as usual, when Mishra broke her habitual silence.

"The day after
we returned with you, I took a patrol to the place where he
fought."

Tassin glanced
up. "Oh yes?"

Mishra's
expression was a mixture of puzzlement and awe. "We found seventeen
bodies."

The Queen
smiled, returning her attention to her sewing. "He did say he
didn't kill all of them."

"Seventeen! We
killed eight, at a cost of fourteen warriors, and he killed
seventeen on his own!"

"And he wasn't
even trying."

"What do you
mean?" Mishra turned to frown at her.

"Sabre hates
killing people. He would rather just beat them unconscious if he
can. Against so many, I suppose he had no choice. It was him or
them."

Mishra eyed
the sleeping cyber. "It must be strange to know a man so well."

Tassin smiled
again, her sewing forgotten as she too gazed at Sabre. "I hardly
know him at all. He's an enigma to me. I do know that he's gentle
and kind, but that's about it."

"From my
experience, that's not normal for a man."

"It depends on
how they're raised. If they're taught to respect women, they don't
treat them badly."

Mishra
wandered over to the fire in the corner, where a pot of broth
bubbled, and stirred it. "They're not like us. They have no
feelings. They enjoy inflicting pain and dominating women."

Tassin tended
to agree, remembering Rai's brutality and Torrian's reputation, but
then she thought of Sabre's gentle ways and shook her head. "No,
not all of them. There are good men, like Sabre."

"Certainly if
we had men here, the Oroka would not be able to steal our young
girls."

"That's true.
Why don't you keep your sons, instead of sending them to the men's
village, where they're taught to despise women? Then they return to
abuse you as men."

Mishra shook
her head and blew on a spoonful of broth. "We don't trust them.
They could rise up and enslave us again."

"Is that why
you became autonomous?"

Mishra glanced
at Sabre as he shifted and sighed, relaxing when he resumed his
soft snore. She tasted the broth and stirred it again. "Yes. Many
generations ago, we were slaves. We tilled the fields, hauled the
water and wood, bore the children and cared for them. Women were
bought as wives or mistresses. Fathers sold their daughters. Men
had as many wives as they wished."

"What did they
do?"

"They hunted,
sold the skins the women prepared, the produce they grew, and the
daughters they bore."

"So the more
wives a man had, the richer he was?"

Mishra nodded.
"We rebelled. We ran away one night, all of us. They hunted us, and
there were some terrible fights. Many women were recaptured, many
more were killed. Of the two hundred and eighty-six who ran away,
only fifty-two made it here."

Tassin was
stunned. "Were the Oroka your tribe before?"

"No." Mishra
snorted. "They're just savages who discovered that we have no male
warriors to defend us. The men who enslaved us, we left very far
away."

Tassin resumed
her stitching. "Despite what you went through, male warriors are an
advantage. You've seen what Sabre can do, although he's
exceptional. If you kept the tribe a matriarchy, and made sure any
trouble-makers were cast out, you shouldn't have any problem with
your sons."

"How will we
be able to throw them out when they're so much stronger than
us?"

"The good ones
will help you, just as Sabre did."

"It's an
interesting notion," Mishra said. "The boys cry when we send them
to the men's village, sometimes the mothers cry too. They want to
stay with us; it is we who are afraid to let them."

"If you told
them that story, and raised them to respect women, I'm sure they'd
be good to you. Boys love their mothers just as girls do. It's only
when their fathers teach them that women are worthless that they
lose respect for them. With no men to influence them, your boys
would grow up to be good."