Karavans (45 page)

“They are fools,” Brodhi agreed, resolving to begin anew with his devotions once Rhuan was gone, “but not stupid. They are thinking things through.”

“With your advice?” Dimples flashed again. “You’ll get them killed more quickly than they would themselves.” Rhuan shook his head. “Bethid told me—”

From behind, from the darkness, Rhuan’s head was abruptly jerked back. Brodhi saw the knife blade flash, saw the cut in Rhuan’s throat, saw the drenching gout of blood.

He was on his feet then, his own knife drawn. He grabbed a handful of Rhuan’s tunic as his kinsman sagged and yanked him aside, cursing the impediment; one step outside the door flap and he saw the two men, one with bloodied knife in hand.

Brodhi bloodied his own knife by shoving the blade up under the nearest man’s breastbone. The stranger fell, wrenching the handle from Brodhi’s hand. The second man, mouth agape—they had likely neither of them counted on
two
Shoia present—turned to run.

Brodhi spun back, took three paces, knelt briefly at Rhuan’s body and yanked from baldric loops two of his knives. At the door flap he threw. One knife. Another. The retreating man fell.

That man’s partner, the one in whose body Brodhi’s knife still resided, wasn’t quite dead.

“Why?” Brodhi asked, leaning over him.

The man’s life was ebbing, but fear stood paramount in blue eyes. “B-bones …”

Of course. Shoia bones.

Brodhi reached out and closed a hand around the horn
grip of his knife, jerking the blade free. With a brutal efficiency he slit the dying man’s throat from ear to ear, then went to the body lying facedown upon the ground with Rhuan’s throwing knifes in his spine.

Brodhi flipped him over, driving the short-bladed knives deeper. He bent, once again slashed throat flesh, cleaned his knife on the dead man’s tunic, then turned. Four long strides brought him back to his tent, and to the lake of blood flowing across the packed dirt floor. To the slack, tumbled limbs, the fanning out of multiple braids. Rhuan’s face was obscured by the woven plaits.

Brodhi sighed. “You’re making a proper mess of things. That’s Bethid’s pallet; I suppose I’ll have to give her mine.” With a booted foot he scraped a film of dirt from the packed earth and tried to dam the blood flow before it reached his pallet. “One of your more dramatic deaths, I believe.”

Rhuan’s limbs jerked. He coughed weakly, groaned, then rolled over onto his back. Braids fell aside, baring a pale, blood-spattered face and the slowly healing flesh of a riven throat. He clamped a hand to the wound, then swore in the same tongue Brodhi had used to name off the Thousand Gods. After a moment he levered himself up to a seated position. Bloodied hands pushed braids behind his shoulder; then he saw the cascade of blood staining the front of his tunic.

Rhuan made an inarticulate sound of annoyance, frustration, and disgust, then lifted his eyes to Brodhi’s. “That’s twice!” he said aggrievedly. “Twice in a matter of days!”

“Apparently you make enemies more often than friends.” Brodhi wiped at his own face, realizing that it also was splattered with Rhuan’s blood. He gestured. “Get up. You can be useful by cleaning up after your own mess; bring in some loose soil to cover all this blood.”

Rhuan, face twisted, was feeling at his scalp. “He almost ripped the hair out of my head.”

“It wasn’t your hair he wanted.” Brodhi made a more definitive gesture. “Get up, Rhuan. The others don’t need to come back and find a lake of blood in their tent.”

“Oh. Bones.” Rhuan rose, though he was as yet not quite steady on his feet. He stepped to the door flap and pulled it open. “Ah. Two of them. Well, let Hezriah have their bones, not mine.”

“Hezriah’s dead. Culled.” Brodhi picked up Bethid’s pallet by the soggy end and dragged it toward the opening. “And don’t bother with the Watch, because Kendic’s dead, too.”

Rhuan moved out of the way as Brodhi pulled the blood-soaked pallet out of the tent. A hand on the door flap found dampness; he looked and saw blood. A generous spray had spurted across the tent and stained the oilcloth walls.

Brodhi reappeared. “You’re wobbling,” he noted. “Lie down on my pallet for a moment. I’m going to drag these bodies and Bethid’s bloodied pallet away from the tent, so they don’t draw predators too close.” He paused. “There’s a waterskin there, and a washing cloth there, by my bed. Clean yourself up. If Timmon, Alorn, or Bethid come back any time soon, they’re likely to drop dead of shock, and then I’ll have
more
bodies to deal with.”

He waited as Rhuan once again frowned down at his ruined tunic, brushing ineffectively at the still-wet stains. Muttering imprecations against men who ruined his clothing as well as killing him, he managed to sit down without falling over.

Considering he and Rhuan had as little to do with one another as possible, Brodhi realized he had of late done more than his fair share of looking after his kin-in-kind. Shaking his head in disgust, he departed the tent to tend to men, human men, who lived only once, and remained dead when killed.

ILONA, PERCHED ATOP the high bench seat of her wagon with wide leather reins in her hands, wearily applied the hand brake as the karavan ground to a halt. There had been some slight confusion when the
column was turned away from its usual camping ground, but Ilona knew to trust Jorda. Going elsewhere to camp near the tent settlement was utterly unfamiliar, but she had no doubt there was a good reason. Jorda did manage to lead them to a scattering of trees so there was some daytime shade—and trees, for some reason, always made a campsite feel friendlier to Ilona, more private and personal—so she guided her team to a thick-trunked, wide-crowned tree and halted them under its leafy branches. Janqeril would come and unhitch the horses, leading them away for grooming and feeding—it was a boon allowed the karavan diviners that they need not spend themselves on their animals—but in the meantime she would begin to unpack the things used in her art. She expected to be busy this night, with so many lives and plans thrown into upheaval.

As she climbed down off the high, spring-mounted seat, she saw Darmuth riding the line. She hailed him, calling his name; he slowed, then turned back as he recognized her. He knew very well what her question was, and answered it before she could even ask.

“The usual grove hosts the sick and injured and homeless left over from the Hecari culling,” he explained. “You’ll be camping here instead.”

“How bad is it?”

Darmuth’s face was grim. “As bad as I’ve seen.” He eased his restive mount with a hand upon its neck. “I suspect you would be as needed at changing dressings as reading hands.”

“Then I’ll go,” she said immediately.

But Darmuth put up a hand and shook his head. “Stay here. If you go there, everyone will be thrusting their hands into your face even as you wrap a burn that is sure to rot otherwise. There are other women in the karavan who can help. Stay here and tend your business. Diviners can do as much as caregivers in times like these.”

“Only if I give them good readings,” she reminded him. “That isn’t always the case, Darmuth.”

His mouth twitched in a smile banished before it was
born. “But hope can do much to strengthen a despairing soul.”

He was right, she knew. Countless times those whose hands she read merely wanted company, someone to listen. Someone to reassure them.

A strange expression crossed Darmuth’s face. “He’s not gone yet. He’s at Mikal’s, if you wish to find him.”

It was a knife in her gut, and wholly unexpected. But she ignored the pain. “I’ve already said my farewells. I’ll see him when he returns.”

Darmuth fixed her with a penetrating gaze. Then he smiled faintly, inclined his head, and rode on.

Ilona stood beside the steps of her wagon, hands full of silks she would spread over the low table. She
had
said farewell. She
had
wished him well of his journey. She
did
know he was gone.

For all that he was here, and so was she.

BY THE TIME Brodhi returned, Rhuan had washed himself of all but the faintest traces of blood caught beneath fingernails and drying in his braids. He had stripped out of the soaked tunic and rolled it up, setting it aside with the bloodied washing cloth. In its place he wore one of Brodhi’s tunics, a green one, found by digging through his belongings. Once again he wore his belt, his long knife, and the baldric of throwing knives, minus two. He fingered the empty loops, his memory a blank from the moment after his throat had been opened to resurrection. He had lost part of himself, just as when the poisoned Hecari dart killed him. Fortunately this time no one but Brodhi witnessed his death.

With time to think about it, it came as no surprise that he would be attacked for his bones. The tent settlement was in disarray, its people grieving and terrified the Hecari might return. One cure for fear was to know what was coming, and Shoia bones, burned, could tell them, provided there was a diviner left alive who could read them. Hezriah the
bonedealer was dead, Brodhi had said; Rhuan briefly wondered about Dardannus, who was always prepared to pay well for Shoia bones.

He was tired and slow, weak from blood loss and shock. Revival did not put lost blood back into his body; it did not restore him to perfect health. It brought him out of death and healed such things as had killed him. But there was always a price to be paid as his body recovered, and because of it he would not be riding out to follow the farmsteaders this evening, as planned. The best he could do was start fresh at dawn, and ride at speed.

Brodhi appeared in the door of the tent. He grimaced as he marked the tunic Rhuan wore. “I stopped by the karavan—I see I should have picked up spare clothes when I dug out your bedroll.” He held out a hand. “Here.”

Two throwing knives, cleaned. Rhuan tucked them back into their loops, pleased to have a full complement once more.

Brodhi motioned with his head. “Come. We’re going to spend the night in the trees.”

That was startling news. “Why the trees?”

Brodhi stepped all the way into the tent and knelt down, gathering up his beaded bag and blankets. “You can’t stay here; courier tents are reserved for couriers alone. And all the undamaged tents are full of survivors, many of them still in shock while others are grieving. Loudly.” He grabbed up his leather courier’s pouch and scroll case, slung both over a shoulder. “I suppose Mikal might let you sleep on his bartop, except more and more men who’ve been burying and burning bodies are gathering there to drink themselves insensible, and that will probably go on until dawn.”

Rhuan frowned in perplexity, shrugging. “I’ll just go back to the karavan.”

“To let the hand-reader look after you again?”

Unexpected warmth rose in his face as he heard the trace of contempt in Brodhi’s tone. “No. She doesn’t need to know I died again.” Especially since he wasn’t certain how many deaths she knew about. He had a vague, uneasy
memory that he had told her the last one was sixth, which meant this one should have been a permanent death. “I’ll sleep elsewhere.”

“Just as well.” Brodhi rose, staring down at his kinsman. “I had a brief but enlightening talk with Darmuth. It seems that you have not been fulfilling a portion of your responsibilities. Darmuth is most displeased by it, since it places him in a precarious position.”

Heat rushed to Rhuan’s face. A brief flicker of red crossed his vision. “That is not your concern.”

“How long has it been since you allowed Darmuth to Hear you?”

Ordinarily Brodhi’s probing questions would have amused him, even as he ignored them, or replied with a quip. But he was tired in body and soul, and reaction to the latest death was likely to set in at any moment. “I don’t have the same relationship with Darmuth that you do with Ferize. I’m the prodigal, remember?”

Brodhi arranged his bag and blankets under one arm, then reached down and caught Rhuan’s elbow, exerting upward pressure. “Come with me. We have a long night ahead of us.”

Rhuan stood up because he had no other choice. But once on his feet, he twisted free of Brodhi’s grip. “Let be. This is not your concern.”

Brodhi said something very succinct in their milk-tongue, the language all male babies learned first and spoke until their voices broke, at which time they were allowed to begin speaking the tongue of adults. It was an intentional insult in and of itself, but from Brodhi, for whom arrogance was an art, it fired Rhuan’s blood and turned his vision crimson.