Diadem from the Stars (19 page)

“Now, witch, you keep forgetting. I told you he's all right. No need to go on like that.” He sat up and cradled her in his arms, rocking her like a baby. “Poor little sabbiya, no, he's still a man and still very much alive. Getting along fine in the Kard. A dream-singer don't have to see. He's almost good as new.”

She sighed and collapsed against him, vaguely glad to feel his strong body close to hers. “How …” she murmured, curiosity beginning to overpower the chaotic emotions seething inside her. “How did he get away?”

He patted her shoulder and rubbed her back, his hands warm and alive. “That's a good girl.” Laying back on the bed, her body resting flaccidly on top of him, he spoke softly. “A cousin of yours, little girl with a snub nose, figured she wouldn't stand for that. Good blood in your family, though it seems to have skipped some of the men. She worked on some other character and together they sneaked the singer away. She brought the blind man to the Kard a couple days before I left. Got there just ahead of the herdsmen chasing her and asked for sanctuary. Mightn't have got it—we aren't a people to mix in others' business—but the herdsmen tried to take him without asking. Well, we couldn't have that. Besides, our own singer was getting senile.”

“Then he's alive and doing well.” Aleytys felt wrung out, limp with relief.

“Right. He's got a good life ahead of him. Him and the little girl set up house, seem to be getting on fine. They make a good pair. And the mardha Kard were taking good care of him. Like to see a bunch of little dream-singers soon as can be. Damn if I don't envy him a little.”

A brief flash of jealousy hot as hellfire ripped through Aleytys. For a time-stopped instant she wanted to kill Vajd, tear him to bloody quivering shreds, then the feeling washed away, leaving her weak and sick.
At least he is alive … and Vari
…
that's the end of that dream.… I can't go back now.… I don't want to go back.… Ah, mi-Vadj.…
. “I'm glad,” she said hoarsely. “They're the two best people in all the world.” Taking a deep breath, she spoke softly into the heart beating under her ear. “I'd like to see them both. Will you take me?”

He chuckled. She could hear the rumble in his chest. His hands went on stroking her hair. “Not a chance, little tars. I'd have to be out of my head to bring you into my vadi. The luck you carry around's too bad for me. Got two people killed.…”

“Two? Killed?” She tipped her head back and stared into his smiling face.

“The Sha'ir. And a boy from the caravans. And it ruined the trading for maybe a long time in the Raqsidan. I doubt any bunch of traders is going to camp there a good long while after this. And it lost a good man his eyes and banished a fine girl! Another thing. Your clan head.”

“Azdar?”

“Had a stroke. Can't move, can't talk, more like a vegetable than a man.”

“Good!” she said fiercely.

“Well.” Amusement twinkled in his voice. “Can't see bringing that kind of luck home with me.”

She dropped her head with a weary sigh. “It was just a thought. Never mind.” She yawned. “Ahai, I'm tired … so tired.”

He chuckled again, the sound a little unsteady as his breathing deepened. “Not yet, red witch, you owe me some more rent.”

She ran her thumb across his ribs. “Think you can collect?”

“Know I can.”

7

Aleytys's eyes popped open. She lay Wondering what had wakened her, then surrendered to the pleasant lassitude glowing through her aching, hard-used body.
Well and truly paid,
she thought. She touched her tender breasts and a warmth began building again inside her. She looked around for Talek.

Her eyes widened as she saw the fat pack sacks sitting in the middle of the floor. She turned her head. The wall pegs were empty. A scraping sound came from the door. She lay back and closed her eyes, slowed her breathing.

Talek slipped inside. After a hasty glance at her, he picked up one of the pack sacks and hauled it outside. She lay and watched as he cleared the place. After he pulled the door shut behind him, she dived out of the bed and scrambled through the back window.

Standing behind one of the ironwoods, she watched him roping the packs on Pan's back. She shook her head ruefully. “He's impossible,” she breathed. Such a cheerful, unrepentant, and unblushing rogue.
It's hard,
she thought,
to hate a man who laughs at himself and the rest of the world.

As she watched him, her nipples hardened. She rubbed her hands over her breasts. “Damn him,” she muttered. “I wish he hadn't got me all stirred up … no.” She sighed. ‘No, I'd do it again in a minute.” She peered around the tree again. He was tying the last knots. “What am I thinking.… I better get busy or that charming rogue will steal everything I've got.”

She sent her mind questing. The tars was asleep in the den, but responded to her urgent call, flying through the forest like a black wind. He came to her and rubbed his side against her, rumbling softly in his giant-sized version of a contented purr. She peered around the tree again.

Talek was in the saddle, pulling on the lead rope. Aleytys stepped out of the wood, the tars beside her. “Talek,” she called, her voice fluting through the quiet morning air.

He looked around and saw a slender golden figure with a ruffled silky mane blowing in the morning breeze and shining like fire against the dark background of the trees. When he caught sight of the tars walking loose at her side, he gulped and lifted the reins.

“If you try to run,” she called, “I'll send Daimon after you. He's no retriever and would make a bloody mess of you.”

Talek grinned weakly and shook his head. “Never thought I'd see a tame tars.”

Aleytys rested her hand on the beast's shoulder. Eyes glinting in amusement, she-said softly, “Taine? Don't fool yourself, hunter.” She walked quietly toward him, sending the horses into an uneasy dance as the predator neared them. Talek turned pale. “Now,” she said crisply. “Get down. Unpack my things and take them back into the cabin. Strip the horses and let them loose.” She scratched the tars around his ears and smiled dreamily at his answering purr.

Shrugging, Talek slid out of the saddle. “Easy come, easy go.” With a cheerful smile on his tanned face, he unroped the packs and carried them toward the cabin.

“Where's your own mount?” she asked abruptly, frowning around at the empty meadow.

He lifted a foot and swung it in a graceful arc. “Walking on it, bint Horli.”

She chuckled involuntarily, startled at being called daughter of the sun. “Your pack?”

He hefted the two packs. “Tied up with these.”

“You may take your own things out.”

His eyebrows flicked sardonically, up, then down. “Yes, abruya sabbiya, right abruya sabbiya, anything you say.”

She suppressed a grin as he disappeared into the cabin. In a minute he was out again, slipping his arms into the loops of a backpack. He stopped a short distance from her, hands on hips. “All right, abruya sabbiya, what now?”

The tars gave a deep rumble at the sound of his voice. He slanted a wary glance at the beast “Am I breakfast for that handsome creature?”

“Talek, yod're … you're … I never knew men like you existed.” Aleytys laughed, then sighed. “I almost hated to stop you.”

He sighed. “Ah, sweet witch, it's a terrible old world after all; bad enough to be a rogue, but to be an unsuccessful one!” He flashed an unrepentant grin at her.

She shook her head and returned his smile. “Let me tell you something,” she said lightly. “I wouldn't trust you. But I like you. I really like you. And not just for how you pleasured me last night. All the bad men I knew before were so self-righteous that it lifts my heart to meet one who takes neither himself nor anything else so seriously.” She held out her hand.

“I thank you, my dear, but I'll not come a step closer to your friend there.” He waved an expressive hand at the tars. “I doubt he's had breakfast yet. There's a wishful, hungry look in those big eyes of his.”

She laughed and scratched the tars on the side of his jaw. He opened his mouth wide and grinned at her. At the sight of those awesome teeth, Talek paled again and swallowed hastily.

“Don't worry.”

“Hai. You can say that.”

Aleytys sent her scratching fingers under Daimon's chin. “Just keep an eye on his tail. When a dog waves his, that means he's friendly.” She moved her hand down the tars's back, scratching vigorously at the lumps of his vertebrae. “When Daimon gives a twitch to his, it means he's about to take a bite out of something.” She went on exploring his fur with busy fingers until his eyes narrowed to lazy slits and his purring escalated to a rumbling roar.

“Just like an overgrown gurb,” Talek said, shaking his head, but he was quite careful not to move from where he was standing.

Aleytys looked up. “Speaking about breakfast, I'm afraid you'll have to go without yours,” She chuckled. “But you were about to, anyway, weren't you?”

He whipped up an eyebrow, flashed his teeth at her, and started away across the meadow.

Aleytys watched him a minute, then called, “Talek.”

He turned. “What now, my dear?”

“I don't care what you do, but I won't want you around here the next day or so. I'll send Daimon hunting through the trees every day. He won't be polite if he meets you.”

“I believe you,” Talek said dryly, eyeing the beast.

“I don't care who you tell about me. It'd be nice if you let Vajd and Zvar know I'm alive and well.” She rubbed her nose. “Might let them know about Daimon, too.”

“Sure,” he said. “Let him see how well off he is with a nice ordinary sabbiya for consort.” He grinned impudently at her.

“A'fi!” She frowned horribly at him, then went on with amusement bubbling through the words. “Anyone else you tell, be sure you let them know about my little friend. Or you're likely to have their blood on your hands.” She smiled. “Just think what it'll do for your reputation. You had the bad-luck witch of the Raqsidan and lived to tell about it.”

“And a pleasure it was, too.” He tilted his head to one side and examined her body with an appreciative glint in his amber-brown eyes. “You sure you wouldn't like to continue the experiment? I wouldn't mind hanging around a few days.”

“Don't press your luck, hunter.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Ah, well, I can dream. When may I be allowed back? It is my house, after all.”

“I'll be gone in a week; after that, feel free.”

“The Madar bless you, little tars,” he said, suddenly serious. He wheeled and started for the trees again. At the edge of the meadow he stopped and waved to her.

Smiling, she waved back.

Two arrows snapped out of the trees and thunked into his chest. A third cut past his neck, pulling after it a spray of blood. With a ludicrous expression of astonishment on his face, he toppled to the ground.

Alytys watched frozen with horror. She wheeled to face the trees on the other side. A herdsman rode from the shadow, a crossbow pointed at her breast. The tracker. She gasped and jerked out of her paralysis, slamming her hand on the tar's shoulder. “Go,” she shrieked. “Kill! Kill that.…”

Daimon leaped forward, covering the space between him and the herdsman with two great bounds, pausing almost in midleap to snap a crossbow quarrel in half. Landing beside the panicking horse, he swiped at the tracker, tearing him into bloody shreds with a double blow from his razor-sharp claws. Ignoring the ragged mass that had been a man, he trotted contentedly back to Aleytys.

She bent over Talek. He was just barely alive, but life was rapidly flowing away. Blood welled out of his neck and frothy red bubbles piled and popped around the quivering shafts in his chest as he struggled to breathe. He smiled at her, a flicker of his lips. A trickle of blood slid out the corner of his mouth. His lips moved.

She bent down. “Bad … luck.…” The thready whisper faded. She leaned closer as his lips worked again. “… worth it.” His eyes closed and he went limp.

Aleytys gasped. She pressed her hands down over the spurting wound in his neck, cursing her stupidity as she let the healing force tear out of her. The blood seeped through her fingers, then the flow lessened and finally halted. She breathed more easily for a minute, before she looked at his face. His mouth hung open, his eyes were rolled back, the whites gleaming dully. A sob tore from her throat. “No!” she whispered.

She pressed one hand around the arrow in his chest and pulled it out, then the other. Hastily she pressed both hands over the wounds. “Come on,” she sobbed. “Live, Talek. Live, man. Ahai, abruya Madar.…” She probed into him deeper and deeper, seeking some remnant of life-force to foster and only gave up when she felt his presence flaking away as his brain cells died.

Rocking back on her heels, she stared at the body, dazed and hurting. “Ah, Madar, why?” Tears welled up in her eyes and began dripping down her face. “Why …?” She wrapped her arms around her legs and hid her face against her knees as helpless sobs racked her body. Why …?

8

Aleytys turned and looked back. The ache inside her stabbed bitterly as she watched the smoke from Talek's cabin-funeral pyre rising in a black column that bisected the red half-circle that Horli was thrusting above the line of trees. Aleytys smiled through her tears as Daimon sensed her unhappiness and rubbed comfortingly against her side. “At least I still have you, my friend. For a little.…” She sighed, then mounted the mare and started riding upstream, following the river to the trade road.

The days melted one into another. There was no hurry now. The last pursuer was really off her trail this time so she felt little pressure to get on with the long trek ahead of her. Thinking was so painful that she refused to think, keeping her hands busy and letting her mind sink into a thick lethargy.