Gravity Box and Other Spaces (17 page)

“They've slowed down. They think they've escaped.”

Fama drove them through the rest of the day, not pausing to eat. As tired as he was, Mindan felt pride at keeping up; it had been years since he had moved at such a pace. The sun was low before they finally stopped. Fama's face glistened with sweat and Rajek was breathing hard.

Mindan watched Fama as she walked slowly over hard-packed earth, but she was not looking down. She seemed to be listening. His own breathing was loud in his ears. He tried to wrestle it under control and finally his lungs slowed, and he was able to at least try to listen with her, but by his own reckoning, Mindan guessed their quarry to be at least a good two or three hours ahead, hardly within hearing.

Fama grinned and gestured for them to follow. It was then Mindan perceived a slight whisper, a whinny, a whicker just barely carried by the wind across leaves and branches. He tilted his head to one side.
Einhyrm
.

She went silently to the west, away from the trail, through dense clusters of oak and ash. She moved with grace and seemed to leave no trace of her passing. Rajek was almost as good. Mindan felt clumsy and noisy by comparison.

They ascended a crest, and Fama dropped to all fours crawling the last few yards. Mindan dropped to his belly
and came up alongside Fama, glad for the rest. He peered over the crest and caught his breath.

There were four of them. They seemed to be dancing. They pranced among the trees, weaving in and out crossing each other's paths, their white, buff bodies flashing between shadows and trunks. Occasionally, two of them met and reared up, dropping to do a complicated thrust and parry with their horns then spinning around and careening off to resume the coil and cross of the ritual. They were, as far as Mindan could tell, full grown, all with thick manes and long tails. Their play was confined. As he watched he saw order, skill, and joy in the dance.

“I said,” Fama whispered, “that there is no magic. That was wrong. Here is the magic in the living animals themselves. Tell me I'm wrong.”

“I haven't seen one since I was a child,” Mindan said. “I didn't remember—”

The dance ended abruptly. All four einhyrm stopped in place, cocked their heads, ears twitching, and then, as if by some command only they could hear, they vanished into the woods.

There were five men in the camp; two must have been waiting for the others. They had erected a lean-to beneath the wide boughs of an ancient oak as well as two smaller tents on either side. Fama held back in the cover of the tree line, waiting to be sure of their numbers.

Mindan unsheathed two knives, his heart racing in preparation for the fight. Fama touched his arm and signaled him to be patient. From a sheath across her back she pulled out a long tube. She nodded to Rajek, who moved away to another part of the perimeter.

Mindan watched as she opened a pouch and extracted a thin dart which she inserted in the end of the tube. She then braced herself against a tree, raised the tube to her mouth, and waited.

One of the poachers moved away from the fire. Fama followed him with the end of the tube then forced out an explosive burst of air. The man flinched and grabbed for his neck. He turned, frowning, and stumbled. Fama loaded another dart as one of the staggering poacher's companions came toward him. Again, she struck. Mindan saw two others also grab at their necks. The fifth ran for the lean-to.

Fama bolted. As the stricken men fell to the ground unconscious, she crossed the opening faster than Mindan could get to his feet. The remaining poacher turned on her. She collided with him, and they both went down.

Mindan ran toward them, reaching them at the same instant as Rajek. Fama struggled with the taller man, twisting to keep him off-balance. They grunted with effort, limbs shifting for advantage. For a moment it looked as if Fama was about to be overpowered. Mindan pulled one of his knives. In a move he barely tracked, Fama got one knee beneath her and drove the other up into the poacher's crotch. He bellowed in pain. She knocked an arm aside, pressed a hand down onto his neck, and reared back with her own knife raised. Mindan expected her to strike. Her captive, frozen in pain and fear, stared at the blade above him with a mindless fixation.

“Fama,” Rajek whispered.

Fama stood, resheathed her knife. “Bind them.” She walked away.

Inside the lean-to they found three piles under leather covers. Mindan reached for the middle one, but Fama grabbed his arm. “In the morning,” she said. “I want them all awake. I want them to see.”

Mindan returned to the fire. Rajek had mounted four rabbits from the poachers' own cache on spits and set them to roasting. There was also wine and biscuits.

On the ground by Fama's bedroll lay the tube. Mindan picked it up. The surface, all along its length, was carved in an intricate pattern of symbols and whorls. He aimed it toward the fire, looked down the opening, and saw a delicate spiral etched into the inner surface. Fama sat down beside him.

“Is this what you used on me?” Mindan said.

She took it back. “Silent. Effective at a distance. Only lethal if I want it to be. All you need are strong lungs.”

“What will you do with them?”

“What the law demands.”

Mindan did not ask what that meant.

“You've done well,” she said. “You're very good on the hunt.”

“Thank you.”

“If for some reason you find yourself wanting for another place, come see me.”

Startled, he looked at her. She was unrolling her bedding, paying him no attention. Mindan felt an urge to reject her offer.
If you knew why I'd come—
, he thought. He glanced toward the poachers, four of them lay still unconscious, side by side like bundles, the fifth bound to a stake in the earth, watching them, mouth gagged.

Mindan might so easily have been one of them; chance alone had changed that outcome. The anger he had felt for them since finding their last kill—that was real, but he wondered if it were not as much anger at his own intentions, anger at seeing evidence of the crime he had
come here to commit. That he had planned to kill
just
one for its horn did nothing to stanch his guilt—degrees of wrong come as much from lack of opportunity as from modesty of ambition.

He prepared his sleeping blankets, then helped Rajek with the rabbits. They ate in silence. After, Rajek stood the first watch, and Mindan tried to sleep.

It seemed he had finally drifted off when a hand on his shoulder brought him awake. Fama leaned over him.

“Your turn,” she said, handing him a small cup, then went to her bedding and stretched out.

Mindan poured water into the palm of one hand and splashed it onto his face. He drank the fluid, feeling the same rush, the startling wakefulness, as earlier. He gathered his weapons, stood, and stretched, then walked around the ebbing fire.

A sound caught his attention, a small, staccato hiss of air. He searched the blackness surrounding them. His eyes fell on the poacher tied to the stake. The man stared at him, his eyes pinpoints of reflected light from the dying fire. He seemed to vibrate in place and his mouth kept opening and closing. Mindan stepped closer, then heard the muffled words. “Please—please—please—”

Mindan walked away, his belly knotted around a lump of fear and disgust. He almost stepped on Rajek, asleep near the lean-to. Mindan's heart raced. He did another turn around the campsite, finally calming down. Above, the sky was beginning to lighten.

He waited, listening until he felt certain both Fama and Rajek were asleep. Mouth dry, he slipped inside the lean-to. The instant the flap fell, he knew he had made a mistake. It was black inside. He stood in place, knowing roughly where the piles were.

Just reach down and take one. It's just one, right there.

But he did not move. After a few minutes, he stepped back out and resumed his circuit of the camp as the early morning sunlight pushed the remaining night from the forest. Mindan paused. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled. There it was. Hand on the hilt of his knife, he went to Fama. Her eyes snapped open before he touched her.

“Someone's coming,” he said.

She rolled to her feet with a knife in hand. She made a peculiar, bird-like sound, and Mindan saw Rajek rise, also armed. Fama touched Mindan's arm and pointed for him to go farther to the left. As he reached his position, though, two men came out of the forest—Fama's men, Korsig and Nico. One of them had a bandaged arm, stained with blood, two days old by the color. Both looked bruised and exhausted.

“They were bringing draft animals,” Korsig said as they ate cold rabbit by way of breakfast. “They had a corral and a regular route across the border. There were two others, waiting for them.”

Mindan had no doubt Fama's men had left no one alive.

“It looked well-established,” Nico offered. “They've been at this a while.”

Fama was silent for a time, then nodded to Rajek, who went over to their captives.

“What are you going to do?” Mindan said.

“It's time,” she said, standing.

Rajek cut the bonds on the feet of all the poachers. He helped them up and brought them one by one to kneel in front of the lean-to. Fama waited before the flap.

“Look at me!” she barked. “You know your crime.”

She pulled away the flap, went beneath the slanting roof, and tore off the coverings from the three piles.
Mindan gasped. There must have been a hundred horns stacked, of all lengths and thicknesses. Fama picked one up.

“This is not even einhyrn,” she said. “This is a different animal. You not only slaughtered einhyrm, you intended to pass off the horns of other beasts to your buyers? Clever. How would they know the difference? Depending on whom you sell to, the einhyrn horn has different uses, different properties. And since none of the things they are reputed to do work, it doesn't matter to you. You're not even believers. You're just thieves.”

The one who had been awake all night resumed his plaintive mantra.

Fama tossed the horn back on its pile. All at once, her rage seemed to drain away. She hung her head and sighed.

“Cut them,” she said, “then stake them to the ground. Let the forest take them.”

The poachers tried to stand, but Fama's men deftly roped the feet of two of them and grabbed the other three. Mindan watched, stunned, as the men were dragged away, beaten, and staked spread-eagled to the ground. As their pants were ripped away, Mindan turned and walked into the woods. Too soon their screams filled the air.

Fama found Mindan leaning against a tree.

“You think I'm cruel?” she said.

“No more than necessary,” he said. “I share your disgust. I had no idea.”

“This was unusual. We don't normally find so much.”

“The waste—”

“Yes. Well—”

“You expected to find so many other horns?”

“We've been finding a number of slaughters. These thieves have been here working for a long time. We already caught two other groups. This, I think, I hope, is the last.”