Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess (23 page)

"I think you're forgetting something," Dayna said firmly, looking squarely at Carey. "We're not just leaving Eric lying in there like that."

Carey steeled himself for a battle. "I don't think we have any choice, Dayna. We can take him out of the truck and find a protected place for him, but we don't have the time to—"

"We
do
have the time to!" she said heatedly. "He's dead and he can't even be buried on his own
world
—you can bet he'll be buried on this one! Until he is, I'm not going anywhere!"

Mark and Jaime abandoned their truck search to listen, and Carey felt frustration well up inside. "You don't seem to think I'm serious about any of this!" he exploded. "You want the truck clean before we put Eric inside. You want a map and a set of the rules before we start out. Can't you understand what I've been trying to tell you since you found me in that hotel? These aren't games! They aren't your TV stories, where you can turn off the set and go to your nice soft bed! We're dealing with a woman who
will not
hesitate to kill anyone who gets in her way—and who may have already killed one of the most powerful men in Camolen."

Dayna swallowed visibly, but crossed her arms over her stomach and stared defiantly at him.

"Damn!" Carey swore, turning away from her, closing his eyes and trying to get a handle on a temper that was just about out of control. When he turned back to her, his eyes were hot and his voice too level. "Listen up. We will find a secluded place for him, and we will cover him with rocks. The moment I see you slacking off, that's it—we're done, even if I have to carry you away from here kicking and screaming. Afterward we'll be marching double time, and we're not going to be able to stop until we reach Sherra's. That's a choice you'll be making for all of us here, if you won't change your mind about this."

Dayna looked uncertainly at Mark and Jaime, who were visibly alarmed by Carey's frustrated explosion; they, it was obvious, believed him, and had been infected by his urgency. Then she looked away from all of them, and her face crumpled. "He was my friend," she said through a sob. "No one just let me be . . . me, like Eric did."

"All right, Dayna," Jaime said softly.

Mark exhaled a deep breath. "It's not going to be easy. C'mon, Carey, let's get to it. Dayna, find a spot you like and start picking up rocks."

Dayna didn't hesitate. She walked briskly into the thickening brush while Mark went around to the back of the truck and Jaime gathered the booty from the truck and dropped it into the empty grain sack that had been there as well.

"It's a good thing I never clean this thing out," she muttered, coming around to help the men as she tied the bag closed with another length of hay twine. "We've got a flashlight, a couple flares, my old jackknife . . . a fishing lure and some almost tangle-free line—"

"Later, Jay," Mark grunted, trying to handle Eric's stiffened body, his face a stoic mask—or trying to be.

"I found a place!" Dayna announced from a hundred yards away, jumping so that she momentarily appeared above the brush. "Over here! You got it? I'm going to start on the rocks!"

"And work gloves," Jaime said with satisfaction, slapping them down on the lowered tailgate. "I'll take 'em first—you want second dibs, Mark?"

"I'll take them," Carey said, shaking his head when Mark looked at him for the nod to pick up Eric. "You've got another job, Jaime. Maybe the hardest one."

"What?" she asked blankly.

"Get on Lady and go," he replied shortly. "We've cut our chances in half—hell, to practically nothing—with this foolishness. You've got to tell Sherra we're here. She'll send someone out to meet us, and if they get to us in time, maybe we'll make it after all."

"Me?" Jaime said in total shock. "
You're
the one who knows the spell, Carey.
You're
the one who knows the territory. And you're the one we can't risk, not if we take this as seriously as you're trying to get us to."

He stepped close to her, looking down at her guileless dark brown eyes which were searching his for some sort of answer. Not shrinking from a job they both knew would be just as hard as the burial and march. "Lady knows the way," he said softly. "Just keep the sun on your left, when you can see it."

"But, Carey—"

"If
I
go—if I leave you alone—you're all dead." He closed his eyes at the impossibility of it all and said, "Please, don't argue. You're the only one besides me who can ride bareback, and whom Lady trusts enough to obey without a bridle."

"
Jess
trusts me," Jaime said. "We still don't know how much of her—" But she stopped short at the look on his face and said, "Okay. I won't waste any more time. Keep the sun on my left. What else?"

"There are a number of good roads—well, what passes for a good road in those woods—that will take you there. Head into the sun for half an hour or so and then put it on your left and go into the woods. Lady'll keep you going right, and you'll hit a road sooner or later. Don't waste time second-guessing yourself and blundering around looking for one. Got it?"

"Got it," she said, smiling wanly. "At least I've got my breeches on."

A small attempt at a joke but he appreciated it anyway. "I'll give you a leg up," he said, and gave the short whistle that would call Lady to them.

The first few moments on Lady's back were bizarre ones, as Jaime tried hard to think of her as just any other horse she was sitting on for the first time—in Ohio, not Camolen. The dun mare, too, had reservations; her ears went back flat, hidden in the thick mane, and her back humped up under Jaime's seatbones.

"Lady," Carey said sharply, and Lady lowered her head and snorted in what could only be called disgust, nearly jerking the halter twine out of Jaime's hand. Jaime stroked her neck and gave Carey, then her brother, one last look.

"Good-bye, Eric," she said, and gave a gentle squeeze of her calves. It had only then occurred to her that she would miss the important ritual of formal good-bye, and she felt unanticipated sorrow about it. But Lady was moving forward, a hesitant walk with her head held high and bobbing uncertainly, awkwardly turned to keep one cautious eye on Jaime.

"Straighten out, Lady," Jaime said sternly, using her back and hips and a squeeze on the halter lead in a half-halt that surprised the mare. She asked for a trot, twisting her fingers in the long black mane to help her weather the inevitable stumbles from the uneven ground. Lady obliged, but clearly expressed her opinion about the strange situation by making it an uncomfortable, hollow-backed gait.

Another half-halt, ineffective. "Quit!" Jaime snapped, thinking that the ride was going to be torture if she couldn't get more cooperation than this. She grasped a hank of mane and pulled herself up over the tense neck. Speaking right into the mare's ear, she said, "Jess, whatever part of you is left in there knows that this is nonsense. We're not
leaving
Carey, we're trying to
save
him. And you damn well know that I'm not going to do anything to hurt you. I want you to round up and put yourself into a good frame, or I won't have the only sore ass around here!"

The mare stopped short. They were only just out of sight of the truck, and Jaime held her breath, knowing that if Lady chose to wheel around and run back to Carey, there was nothing she could do to stop it. But they just stood there, the black-tipped ears swiveled back at Jaime. Thinking. Then came subtle differences in the body beneath Jaime. The mare's neck lowered, her head adopted a vertical angle, and her back rounded gently into Jaime's seat. Then, without waiting for the request, she moved into a springy trot, picking her way around the dips and bumps in her path.

"Jess," Jaime breathed.
She's still there. Some part of her is really still there.

Dun Lady's Jess moved steadily onward, having transmuted her human trust into equine acceptance of Jaime's requests. Her sturdy hooves found good footing on the uneven ground, and her muzzle—whiskers and all—twitched at the delightfully intense smells of the world around her—smells which told her of the cool woods long before she and Jaime actually reached them.

Out in the open there had been little sign of travel, but once under the trees they hit a wide, relatively smooth path after only a short while of stumbling, catching hoof and fetlock in fallen branches and skidding off leaf-hidden rocks. Small birds chittered at them and fluttered away through the underbrush, leaving the woods silent around them.

Dun Lady's Jess knew this path and knew where they were going. At Jaime's quiet signal, she swung into a smooth, steady canter, glad for the distraction of work.

For some part of this no longer fully equine creature was coming out of the shock of transition and moving into a deeper shock. The thoughts she was trying to process were beyond her, and the emotions she felt were far more complex than had ever assailed her before. She was afraid for Carey, trying to comprehend the loss of Eric, and nearly panicked over the fate of a certain human named Jess.

The mare leaned into the thin twine halter, ignoring its bite, and lengthened her strides. No time for the perplexing muddle of human thoughts in a horse's mind. No time for the fear and distress the half-formed thoughts created. Time only for running, running until her breath came harshly in her throat and her muscles burned. Running until Jaime's gentle cues with the biting twine became insistent demands, and Dun Lady's Jess slowed to a fast walk, sweating with far more than the efforts of her ground-eating canter.

"I wish I knew how far this place is," Jaime grumbled, and Lady flicked a quick ear back to listen. "
You
know, I'll bet." She wiped her sweaty face on the hem of her now thoroughly grimy shirt and suggested, "How about a trot, kiddo." Lady moved out without complaint, starting the first in a series of walk-trot-canter cycles that found the path growing almost wide enough to be called a road, but with no sign of their goal.

Or of anybody else, for that matter. Although filled with urgency and a constant harangue from the doubtful inner voice Carey had told her to ignore, Jaime stopped Lady at the small creek that crossed their path, and slid off the sweat-backed mare to splash her own face and take the drink she'd been waiting so long for. She added a couple of quick stretches and then made a clumsy bareback mount, thanking Lady for her rock-steady patience.

Back to the trotting. The spring had gone out of Lady's gait, and Jaime grew spooked as she realized how alone they were. Dark green shadows in mottled sunshine gave her imagination plenty of places to hide bad guys, but it wasn't until she closed her eyes to chase away the illusory threats that she truly ran into trouble.

Voices.

Her eyes flew open as Lady tensed beneath her; together they located the backs of a small group of men ahead of them, just coming into view in the slightly wandering path. One of them must have heard her, for they all turned to look, and then stare, at her.

Maybe she should just trot right by them, give them a nod and nothing else. A standoffish kind of bluff. It was no business of theirs what she was up to.

They must have read her mind for they moved apart, and three abreast was all it took to block her way. Lady geared down to a walk of her own accord, and they were close enough so Jaime clearly heard it when one of the men said, "Well, burn my balls! What kind of a woman we got here?"

Suddenly Jaime remembered the strange expression on Carey's face the first several times he'd seen women in form-fitting breeches, and she felt as good as naked. A tiny stiffening of her back brought Lady to a halt, a safe distance away. People. There really were people in this other world, and their clothing, although normal enough to her eyes—pants, soft-soled ankle boots and shirts in an assortment of sleeve lengths and collar styles—was somehow subtly
off
. The colors weren't quite what she was used to—too deep a green, an odd iridescent teal . . . she took a deep breath.
We're not in Kansas anymore. . . .

What's more, the men were well-armed with knives and short curved swords, and wearing identical leather armbands with some sort of device painted on them—probably enough to tell her whether they were friend or foe, if she'd known what to look for. They stared at one another for a moment, until she hazarded a tired sounding, "You're not just going to let me pass, are you?"

"Depends on who you are and where you're going," one of the men replied promptly.

"My name is Jaime Cabot and I'm going in this direction," she said, just as promptly.

A snort greeted her pronouncement. "Bullshit if I ever heard it."

"That's because," Jaime said, carefully neutral, "I don't suppose it's any of your business. I don't mean any harm and that's what matters, isn't it?" She wondered if it might be worth chancing the whole truth. If they were from Sherra's, they might actually help her.

If they weren't, they might kill her.

The third man, the one who'd been silent all this time, finally spoke, and Jaime realized with a start that the tall, sturdy figure was in fact a woman, her lanky figure hidden in her loose sleeveless shirt, her waist obscured by the weapons and equipment on her belt, just like women cops at home. "That's not good enough, not in these times," the woman said. "Especially not with an odd-looking package like yourself." She put a hand on her knife hilt and eyed Jaime pensively. "I don't think we can afford to let you just wander on your way—no matter who you're for. Too many questions about you, woman."

"Look, I'm not trying to make trouble. I just want to get by," Jaime said warily. And somehow, before she even thought about it, she found her mind was made up, and she was startling Lady with abrupt heels. The dun hit a gallop in three strides and the men-at-arms jumped out of her way—but not before one of them got a good hold of Jaime's ankle and pulled her right off Lady's slick back.

Jaime landed gasping on the relatively soft form of her assailant and was struggling to get away from him even as she finished falling, clawing her way across his body. Her fingers found and grasped the hilt of his long knife, but before she could brandish the threat someone else jerked her head back by the short, thick braid of her hair. She cried out in surprise and pain, a yelp that was echoed by someone behind her as Lady's hoofbeats grew loud and close again, and were punctuated by the solid sound of hoof against flesh.