Deborah Hale (24 page)

Then, from out of the darkness ahead, came a sound that banished all such hopeful thoughts from her mind. Loud, vicious barking, the kind made only by…

“Hounds!” Maura grabbed Delyon by the hand and began to run.

T
he barking drew closer at a terrifying speed. And the night had grown too dark for Maura to spot any means of escape but one.

“Up this tree, quick!” She scrambled onto the lowest branch, then turned to give Delyon a hand up.

They climbed higher among the boughs as the hounds—at least two by their noise—reached the base of the trunk and set up a blood-chilling racket. Likely they were enraged at being deprived of their sport…for the time, at least.

“That must be…a Hanish guard post,” gasped Maura. From the direction of the building, she could see the bobbing light of a torch coming toward them. “I’m going to climb out to the end of this branch to see if there is another tree close enough to reach.”

Even as the words left her lips, she knew it was probably futile. The hounds would only follow them from tree to tree until they could go no farther.

“What about a spell?” suggested Delyon. “Dreamweed? Spidersilk?”

“Anything is worth a try.” Maura fumbled at the pockets of her sash, though she was not very hopeful. Her spells hadn’t worked on those lankwolves in the Waste.

The branch beneath her sagged dangerously. One of the boughs around her might have led to another tree, but in the darkness, she could not tell.

The torchlight came closer and a deep male voice called out in Comtung, “Throw down your weapons, then climb down to be questioned! Be warned—I have an arrow aimed at you and I am a good shot.”

“Maura!” Delyon called in Umbrian, just loud enough for her to hear over the baying hounds. “Keep still and stay here. I will give myself up. Now that you know where the staff is, you no longer need me. May the Giver go with you.”

Maura opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. If the Han believed Delyon was alone, she might be left at liberty to rescue him.

“I have no weapon!” Delyon cried out in Comtung. “I am but a weary traveler. I would come down but I fear your dogs will tear me to pieces.”

“Songrid!” snapped the man in Hanish. “Chain the hounds!”

A woman’s voice called out, “Meat!”

It was clearly a word the beasts understood, for the sound of their barking moved away from the tree as quickly as it had come. The torchlight moved away, too, tempting Maura to try running off in the dark. But sense and caution prevailed. The hounds could be set loose again just as quickly. And next time there might not be a tree handy.

A moment or two later the woman returned with the torch and the Han once again ordered Delyon to climb down, which he did.

“Search him for weapons, Songrid,” said the Han.

Through the leaves, Maura saw a tall fair-haired woman approach Delyon. She held the torch in one hand and with the other she patted his chest, waist and legs.

“He is not armed,” she announced at last.

Why had she made no mention of his sash? Maura wondered. Then, by the flickering torchlight, she spied it hanging from one of the tree branches. A pang of shame gripped her for every unkind thought she’d ever had about Delyon.

“Anyone else up there?” the Han asked him.

“I am alone.”

“Indeed?” said the Han. “Then perhaps I should loose a few arrows into the branches to make certain.”

Maura kept still. Surely he was bluffing.

Then she heard the snap of an arrow embedding itself in the tree trunk. Still she would have taken her chances, for it was a big tree and she was perched farther out on a branch than the bowman would expect.

But Delyon cried, “Stop!”

The Han gave a harsh grunt of laughter that his threat had worked.

“Come down, Maura,” Delyon called in Umbrian. “We will have to find another way. I cannot risk you being killed.”

Cursing under her breath, Maura slid down out of the tree. She did not remove her sash, in the hope that she might be allowed to keep it.

But this Han was more cautious than the one who had taken them prisoner on the way to Venard. He immediately ordered the woman named Songrid to take the sash from Maura before marching her and Delyon back to the guardhouse. Once they entered, he kept his bow trained on them while bidding Songrid tie the prisoners into a pair of heavy chairs near the hearth.

“Now…” He aimed his bow straight at Maura’s chest, but his words he aimed at Delyon. “Tell me who you are, where you are bound and why you were trying to sneak past this guard post after dark. And no more lies, or the wench will pay for your deceit.”

Delyon gave their names. “We did not mean to sneak by your fine guardhouse,” he lied, in spite of the Han’s warning. “We would have stopped, but your dogs prevented us.”

The Han appeared to waver between suspicion and belief. “Where are you headed and why?”

Maura fancied she could see the sweat pop out on Delyon’s brow. He hesitated and his gaze shifted restlessly, as if searching for inspiration to weave a plausible falsehood. If the Han had more than half a wit, he would not believe anything that came out of Delyon’s mouth.

So she spoke up. “It is no use lying to the man, Delyon. He looks far too clever to be fooled by any excuse.”

The Han pretended to scorn her flattery, but his aim with the bow lowered a bit.

“The truth is,” she continued, “we heard the mines had been attacked by the army of the Waiting King and that many of the men who toiled there had been set free. I go in search of my husband. He was taken to the mines not long ago, so I have hope he might still be alive.”

She infused the story with all her longing to see Rath again. “We mean no harm to anyone. Let us go, I beg you! I fear he may be wandering in the mountains, hurt and hungry.”

“Enough!” The Han appeared to believe her story, even if he had no sympathy with it. “These wild tales about an Umbrian army are nothing but lies to stir up gullible folk like you and cause unrest. If your husband was taken to the mines, that is where he belongs. You had better go back where you came from and turn a deaf ear to treasonous tales from now on.”

Might he let them go? Maura did not try to hold back her tears of relief, but let them fall in a pretense of despair.

Delyon caught the spirit of the tale.

“I told you it was foolish to pin your hopes on such mad rumors!” he chided her in a convincing tone. “Now will you come home and forget all this nonsense?”

Bowing her head so the Han would glimpse nothing in her
eyes to contradict what she’d told him, Maura gave a nod that she hoped looked reluctant. As the Han mulled over his decision, she silently begged the Giver’s help.

“I will fetch you back to Venard for questioning in the morning,” the Han announced at last in a tone that suggested he was doing them a favor. “If all is as you say, you can return home from there. For tonight, you will sleep in the haymow over the stable.”

One last tiny ember of hope in Maura’s heart flickered out when he added, “Bound, of course.”

A while later as they lay in the straw, Maura squirmed closer to Delyon. “Let me see if I can untie your hands before my fingers grow too numb.”

Back to back, Maura tugged at the tightly knotted rope around his wrists.

“That was quick thinking in there.” Admiration warmed Delyon’s words. “My mind just went empty.”

Maura sighed. “Much good it did us.”

When they were taken back to Venard in the morning, someone would be sure to remember a man and woman of their description who had disappeared in the courtyard of the High Governor’s palace.

The best they could hope was that the death-mage—Maura still could not bring herself to think of him as her
father
—had already gone to join the army marching over the mountains. If he saw her again, he might guess the truth, and she knew better than to hope for mercy from him.

“I’m not sure this is any use,” she said at last, after fumbling with the knotted rope in vain for some time.

Even if, by some miraculous grace of the Giver, their identities were not discovered tomorrow, they would still be back where they’d started, with less chance than ever of reaching Rath in time.

“Shh!” whispered Delyon. “I hear someone coming!”

They wriggled apart, and Maura rolled onto her other side so it would not be obvious what she’d been trying to do.

The flickering light of a small torch shone up through the trapdoor as the Hanish woman climbed into the haymow.

Kneeling beside Maura, she whispered, “What Kez told you is not true. The mines
were
attacked and the prisoners set free.”

Maura feigned surprise. “Why are you telling me this?”

“If I help you get away now—” Songrid glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice further “—will you take me with you?”

“Why would you want to go with us?”

The woman’s strong, handsome features tensed. “Do you think your people are the only ones who suffer oppression?”

Maura shook her head.

She had glimpsed enough in the women’s quarters at the palace to know better. A race of warriors that disdained healing needed a vast supply of replacements for those killed or injured. Which meant the lot of Hanish women was continuous breeding from a young age. As soon as they were weaned, most children were taken away from their mothers to be raised in an armylike atmosphere that would winnow out the weak and crush any troublesome traits like curiosity, defiance or compassion.

Fearing a trap, she answered the woman’s question with one of her own. “If you wish to flee, why not go on your own?”

“If we are caught, I can claim you took me against my will.” The Hanish woman looked almost as wary of them as Maura felt of her. “I want your promise that you will take me across the mountains and help me find a place among your people.”

“Do you not despise us as your enemies?”

“That is what I was taught.” Perhaps as a show of good faith, Songrid began to untie Maura’s hands. “But I have eyes and a mind that work better than my womb. There are many things about your people I do not understand, but I know your women are better off than mine, though you are the conquered and we are the masters.”

Delyon must have sensed how the woman’s words swayed her. “Maura,” he warned, “how do you know we can trust her?”

Songrid glared at him. “How do I know I can trust you,
man
? I would just as soon leave you behind. But if we are caught, no Han would believe another woman had managed to take me prisoner.”

Having intimidated him speechless, she turned her glittering blue gaze back upon Maura. “There are two horses we can take. Food. Warm clothes for the journey into the mountains.”

If this was a trap and Maura went for the bait, she and Delyon would probably be executed right here. But if Songrid was sincere…

Reaching down, Maura began to untie her feet. “The man— Kez—what about him?”

“Maura!” cried Delyon. “Do you mean to place our fate in the hands of this—”

“Watch your words,
man
!”

In spite of the brittle tension and everything at stake, Maura was tempted to chuckle. Songrid and Delyon sounded so much like her and Rath at the beginning of their acquaintance. “Do not forget the First Precept, Delyon. Trust in the Giver’s providence.”

“How can you be certain this is the Giver’s providence and not Hanish treachery?”

Her feet untied, Maura crawled over to where he lay and began to unbind him, since Songrid showed no inclination for the task. “I cannot be certain. If I were, there would not be much reason to trust, would there?”

Delyon replied with a wordless grumble while Songrid answered Maura’s question. “Kez is getting ready for bed. He sent me out to let the hounds loose again. Is there something in that sash of yours I could put in a drink to make him sleep deep and long?”

“Please, Maura. Do not trust her.” Delyon spoke in
twaran.
Did he reckon Songrid could not guess every word by his suspicious tone?

“Why not? Because she is Han? You claimed to think no worse of me if I had Hanish blood.”

“That is different!”

Did she
need
to trust this one Hanish woman? Maura wondered. To begin accepting the part of herself that suddenly felt foreign and untrustworthy?

Perhaps, but was that need worth risking their lives and mission for?

Two nights after his army crushed the Hanish forces in Prum, Rath woke suddenly from a deep sleep. Had he heard that noise or only dreamed it? He lay still and strained to catch it again if it had been real—the deadly whisper of a sharp blade slicing through canvas.

He listened hard for several moments, but all he could hear were the usual noises of the night—the gurgle of a nearby stream, the distant nicker of horses, some snoring that must be deafening to anyone closer. That other sound must have been a dream. Rath rolled over, nestled into his blankets and tried to get back to sleep.

That was another unwelcome effect of the growth potion. Besides the foul taste, the pain and the hunger that made him eat like a starving beast, the effort of shifting that huge body around all day sapped his energy and made him sleep soundly the whole night. That went against the outlaw instincts which had kept him alive for a good many years.

The
kingly
part of him told the outlaw part not to be so cursed foolish. Why should he not enjoy a deep restful sleep? There were soldiers—the cream of Idrygon’s Vestan troops—standing guard outside his tent. He would have plenty of warning if danger was near.

Hold a moment!
thought Rath the Wolf, remembering the noise he’d dreamed. The guards would only protect him from danger that was fool enough or arrogant enough to mount an attack from the front. His tent had three other sides, and canvas presented no great obstacle to an enemy with a sharp blade and a bit of enterprise. Not for the first time Rath asked him
self whether the guards were meant to keep others out, or to keep him in?

Rath’s heartbeat slowed down and his breathing deepened. In the morning he would issue orders for the guards to keep watch around the whole tent, not just the entrance.

There! What was that?

It was a different sound than the high-pitched rip of cloth—a rustling, furtive scuttle. This time Rath
knew
it was not a dream. He willed himself to keep his breath slow and even, giving no sign that he had heard. At the same time he roused to defend himself.