Dangerous Talents (3 page)

He crouched by a tumble of rocks, scanning the hills with sharp gray eyes. His beard, which had been neatly trimmed not too long ago, was a reddish brown, bleached gold on the surface by the sun. Most important, he had two bota bags hanging from his shoulders.

Her tongue rasped like sandpaper. Water was so close, and she couldn’t get to it. She tried to turn her head, to free her mouth so she could ask again, but her captor held her too tightly. His grip on her mouth pressed grit into her flesh. Time and more time passed, while nothing moved.

Suddenly, the gray-eyed man directed a gesture to someone she couldn’t see. Over the next few minutes, his squad quietly returned from the hills. The leader’s gaze remained fixed on her while his men made their reports. There was no sign of outcasts, they told him. They’d found where she’d rested, nothing else.

Cele paid scant attention to their conversation, riveted instead on the leather waterbags slung from their shoulders. The leader made a sign and her captor took his hand from her mouth, but kept a tight arm around her waist.

Her knees wobbled. She’d have fallen if he’d let her go. “Can I–” Her voice cracked from disuse and thirst, and she coughed. It felt like her throat was shredding. Her captor’s grip shifted from restraint to support as she doubled over and clung to his arm, racked by the effort to clear the dust. With a snatch of breath, she croaked a single word. “Water?”

*

Dahleven bit out an order. “Give her water, Falsom.”
What in the Nine Worlds is a woman doing here in the drylands alone
? This was a complication he did
not
need. Their mission was difficult and dangerous enough without this, too.

With one hand, Falsom unslung and unstopped his waterskin, then steadied it as the pale-haired woman upended it with shaking hands. Dahleven considered her through narrowed eyes. She was indecently dressed. Even the Daughters of Freya had more modesty. Her arms and long legs were bare and scratched, yet her hands were as smooth as any lady’s and diamonds glittered in her ears. His eyes lingered on her high cheekbones and green eyes, then wandered down to the light golden skin revealed by the open top buttons of her shirt. Her bedraggled state suggested she’d been in the unforgiving drylands for some time. Why she was merely pink and not blistered he could not understand, unless that was her Talent. But it was a minor puzzle, compared to her mere presence.

The woman tried to drink again, but Dahleven stepped closer and pushed the waterskin away from her lips. Too much water too soon, and she’d be sick. “Who are you? How did you come to be here?”

Her voice was barely a rasp. “My name is Celia Montrose. I’m lost. Can you get me back to town?”

A town
!
In the drylands
?
In the mountains
?
Does she mean Kotaki in the Tewakwe Confederation
? But Kotaki was five days north, over the pass. And this lady was no dusky-skinned Tewa. “What town do you speak of?”

“Tucson, of course.”

“And where is this
Toosahn
?”

She stared at him as if he was demented, then tried to drink again.

It went against his grain to deny her, but he had to have answers and thirst was a powerful motivator. His men’s lives could depend on what she had to say. He held the waterskin away from her parched lips with a firm grasp on her wrist. “No. First you answer my questions.”

Her eyes sparked. “Look–” The woman broke off, coughing.

He relented, allowing her another sip of water.

When she caught her breath, her voice was clear and impatient. “If I knew where Tucson was, I wouldn’t be lost, would I? I wouldn’t be dying of thirst and exposure, and I certainly wouldn’t be playing Twenty Questions with
you
in the middle of the desert.”

Her arrogance surprised him, but he wouldn’t be put off. “How did you come to be here, lost,” he raked his eyes over her bare legs, “and exposed?”

He noted the fear that began to replace her anger. Guilt mingled with satisfaction. He wasn’t in the habit of terrorizing women, but fear sometimes revealed truth.

“I was hiking and I fell. I must have hit my head. When I woke up, I couldn’t find the trail.”

“What trail were you following? Where were you going?”

“It wasn’t a marked trail, exactly. I was taking pictures. If I still had my camera, I’d show you.”

Though she spoke in a strange rhythm, he could understand her well enough. But some of her words made no sense.
Camera. Toosahn
. Dahleven suppressed a shiver of dread.
She may be Fey-marked. That would explain much
. Those the Elves touched were never the same afterward. In any case, it would take time to get the truth from her if she were not too mad to know it, and he didn’t have time to interrogate her here. It would soon be dark and they still had a distance to go. This puzzle would have to wait.

Dahleven turned to his squad, issuing orders. “We move. We camp at the spring tonight. Sorn, watch the woman.”

*

Cele clenched her teeth.
Who the hell does this guy think he is
? He ordered her around as though he had the right to. And the way he looked at her, as if she were in her underwear, scared her.

The man who gripped her took the waterskin from her hands before she could take another drink and handed her off to another man, the one called Sorn. Her new keeper’s grip was just as firm as he wrapped his long fingers around her right biceps, but somehow his touch seemed less threatening. He scooped her hat off the ground and handed it to her. Cele looked up at him. She got a quick impression of height and dark hair before he urged her forward and she was forced to pay attention to her feet or fall on her face.

“Wait!” The leader’s voice stopped Sorn, who pulled Cele up so short she almost fell.

“Give me that.” The leader pointed to her belt pack.

“What? Why?” Cele asked. It was sheer stubbornness. She was in enough trouble. What difference did it make if he wanted her pack?

In answer, he reached for the strap hooked around her waist.

“Hey!” Cele batted at his hands but had enough sense not to try any of the more effective self-defense moves she knew. Sorn still had a firm grip on her arm.

The leader ignored her, pulling at the waist strap of the pack. He examined the plastic clasp in an oddly diffident way, touching her no more than necessary, then said again, “Give this to me.”

“No.” She must have lost her mind. She would never have held out on a mugger like this. But the word was said, and she wouldn’t back down for no good reason.

The leader drew his knife. The double-edged blade must have been a foot long.
That’s a good reason
. Cele sucked in a noisy breath and drew back from the threat as she groped for the catch. “Okay, okay! It’s yours.” Her hands fumbled, then the plastic clasp released. She thrust it out to him at arm’s length. “Here, take it if you want it that bad!”

He looked at her oddly, then sheathed his knife with one hand while taking the pack with the other. Then he walked off into the dusk.

The others had already left in twos and threes and Cele quickly lost track of them in the fading light. They continued in the direction Cele had been headed: east, along the base of the hills. Sorn set a brisk pace and it was all she could do to stay on her feet. When she stumbled, he stopped and gave her more to drink, then a moment later urged her forward again. But his grip on her arm shifted, and she felt he wasn’t so much restraining her as holding her up.

She began to steal glances at her escort when she could take her eyes off her feet. Cele couldn’t make out details, but she sensed his vigilance in the way he held his head. His alertness wasn’t centered on her, but on the country around them. She thought of trying to escape, then dismissed the idea. She was too weak. He’d catch her in a second.

If he wasn’t wary of her, maybe she could get some information from him, find out how much trouble she was in. Was she being “rescued” by drug runners? There was a lot of drug traffic this close to Mexican border. Or maybe they were
coyotes
, people who smuggled illegals across the border. They’d have no qualms about leaving her here to die–if they left her alive at all.

A slow death in the desert might be better than some of the other things they could do
.

Cele stole another look at her captor. The leader might be ready to knife her for her belt pack, but this guy seemed a little safer. “You’re called Sorn?” she asked in a raw whisper.

His attention snapped to her, then returned to their surroundings. His look didn’t have any of the speculation men’s eyes so often held. “Yes.” Sorn’s voice was so low Cele doubted it could be heard two paces away.

“I’m Celia Montrose.”

“Yes, my lady, I heard.”

My lady
?
Maybe these guys are historical re-creationists. But they act more like hysterical survivalists. Don’t upset him. Start with a nice basic question
. “Where are you taking me?”

“To a spring a little way from here. We’ll camp there tonight.”

“And then?”

“And then Dahleven will decide.”

“Dahleven?”

“Lord Dahleven. The one who spoke to you before.”

Lord
Dahleven. The one who trades water for information
. What would he do with her? Memories of the day’s heat shriveling her flesh and the shivering cold of the previous night flashed through Cele’s mind, accompanied by thoughts of
coyotes
abandoning people to die a slow and horrible death. “Will–will he leave me in the desert?”

Sorn frowned as though he didn’t like what he was thinking. “No. That he will not do.”

“What are you guys doing out here?”

Sorn refused to answer any more questions, and in only a few minutes more they were at the camp. Cele
knew
water was here, and very close, even before she heard the faint splashing and smelled the distinct odor of wet dust.
Well, of course, Montrose. They told you there’s a spring
. But it was more than that. She
felt
it.

Six men sat scattered around, eating and talking. Conversation halted as she and Sorn came into camp. Every eye turned to her. Cele caught herself edging closer to Sorn, but then she made herself straighten and stare right back at the men. She wasn’t going to let them intimidate her. Most of the men turned back to their dinners, but one rose and came toward her. His face was pleasant and his sandy hair fell forward into his face. His beard, like most of the others, had been closely trimmed some days ago. Before he could speak to her, Dahleven barked his name.

“Fender!”

The young man’s head whipped around. “My lord?” He glanced back at her long enough to give her a lopsided grin and a wink before he changed course for Dahleven.

She couldn’t hear what was said, but Dahleven’s expression was stern. His words had only part of the effect he probably wanted, though. The younger man didn’t approach her again, but after he gathered his sword and bow, he caught her eye with a tilt of his head, then gave her half a smile and a little shrug as he headed out of camp. Fender’s good humor would have been reassuring if
Lord
Dahleven hadn’t ordered him away from her.

Cele looked around as she passed among the men. Each man’s gear was neatly organized in the same way. Blanket, waterskins, pack, weapons. Very precise. Very military. She remembered the way they’d silently obeyed the hand signals Dahleven had given them.
Who the hell are these guys
? Maybe they were survivalists after all. But she hadn’t heard anything lately about a group like this operating near Tucson.

Tucson. That brought her up short. She wasn’t near Tucson anymore. She wasn’t near
anywhere
anymore. No anywhere she knew of. Something strange had happened to her when she’d fallen past the petroglyphs. So strange, she probably shouldn’t be thinking of her danger in terms of survivalist fruitcakes or
coyotes
. So strange that she had no way to guess what these guys might do next. All she could do now was keep her eyes open and hope for the best.

The moon crested the eastern mountains, bathing the landscape in its reflected light, throwing sharp-edged shadows from every rock and bush. Dahleven sat on a low rock shelf, talking in quiet tones with another man. Once again, Cele was impressed by the power leashed in his tall frame. The ripple of muscle beneath his leather leggings and the unconscious grace of his gesture as he pointed over the hill made it clear he was at ease in his body. There were probably very few who could best him.

Dahleven had taken off his hat, and when he glanced up Cele could see his brows were drawn together in a frown. The bright silvery light from the nearly full moon washed the color from his shoulder-length hair, and his dark, shadowed eyes sent a jolt of apprehension through her as they paused on her own. Then, as quickly as he’d looked up, he returned to his conversation.

Unreasonably, she felt irritated by his casual dismissal of her. She should be glad he wasn’t turning those dark gray eyes on her, though he’d probably be questioning her again soon enough. What answers could she offer? None that would satisfy him, she was sure.

Sorn laid out his gear in the same orderly way as the rest of his companions as Cele sank onto the sand in an exhausted heap. He spared her a half-smile and handed her his waterskin. “You can rest and eat now.”

Cele eagerly took the skin. The water caressed her throat, soothing the parched tissues. She took off her hat and poured some water over her face, delighting in the wetness dancing over her hot skin. Then she drank again. It tasted flat, like leather, but nothing had ever tasted so good.

She hadn’t slaked her thirst when Sorn pulled the skin from her lips. “Not too much. You’ll sicken yourself.”

She knew he was right, but it was hard not to lunge after the bota as he tugged it away.

Cele’s hunger flared as she watched Sorn cut a strip from a thin slab of dried meat. Her mouth tingled and watered and her stomach rumbled loudly. But before she could reach for the jerky he held out to her, Dahleven came over, her pack dangling from his fingers by the woven nylon strap. Behind him, two men gathered their weapons and disappeared into the night.