Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno (40 page)

Only long enough for me to arrange his suicide
. The suicide that would be all the proof anyone would need that Epion’s accusations were true.

Jo-Leggett nodded and went.

Ice Hawk heard the horse approaching long before it came into view, just as he would have expected to. Town people, he’d heard, thought the grass plains were perfectly flat, like a wooden table he had seen once in a city shop, when his grandfather had taken him, as a small child, to visit the people of fields and cities. But all Espadryni knew the plains rippled like a cloth laid on the ground, with crests and valleys—not all deep enough to hide or camp in, but many were.

Partly through his own evolving magics, and partly through the study of wind and air that told any man, Mage or not, much about the world around him that would be handy to know, Ice Hawk also knew who it was that approached, though it was rare that Bekluth Allain had only the one horse with him.

When Bekluth the trader finally came into sight, he was on foot, leading a sand-colored mare with two white feet. The horse didn’t seem much laden with merchandise, but it was possible that Bekluth, not knowing who would be at the camp just now, had left the major part of his goods—along with his other horses—on the other side of a nearby rise. After all, not all the Espadryni were as trustworthy as the Long Trees People, nor as welcoming as Ice Hawk.

“Ah, Ice Hawk,” Bekluth said when they were close enough to speak. Why city men thought they had to repeat your name when they saw you was more than Ice Hawk yet understood. At least the trader did not wave his arms and shout while still at a distance as the young Mage had seen others do.

Though, now that he thought about it, perhaps those particular travelers had been lost.

“Still here at Mother Sun’s Door, I see,” Bekluth said. At Ice Hawk’s signal the man squatted down next to the fire spot, though the ashes were cold now, courteously retaining the lead of his horse in his hands until he was invited to do more than merely sit. He looked around him at the marks on the ground.

“I see others of your people have been here,” the older man said. “Checking on you, were they? Making sure you hadn’t gone through and not come back?”

Ice Hawk was careful to keep his smile friendly. The trader had to be a good man to travel so much alone, but he was neither Espadryni nor Mage.

“If the information will be of use to you, you might trade me something for it,” he suggested with a smile. Ice Hawk knew that information could be just as valuable a commodity as knives and other artifacts.

Bekluth laughed. “Oh, very good, very sharp! Are you sure you don’t want to come trading with me? Learn the business?”

Ice Hawk knew that the offer was meant as a compliment and refrained from showing his disgust at the idea that an Espadryni could ever become a man of field and city. Refrained with some success apparently, as the trader was still smiling at him.

“Nah, lad, I was curious only. You show me respect, however, by your willingness to trade. And it’s only right I show you the same.” Bekluth looped the leading rein around his arm to leave his hands free and began to pat his belt pouches. “Let’s see. A man can’t have too many knives. What do you think of this one?”

Ice Hawk sat up straighter. This was the first time anyone had called him a man. No one in the Tribes would call him that until he’d faced the Door of the Sun. Whether Mother Sun granted him access to the Door or not, he would leave here a man. Either a superior Mage ready to follow the path of his grandfather, Singer of the Wind, or simply a man among his people.

“It is a skinning knife,” Bekluth said, holding it out. “From Cisneros. You see how the blade is very slightly curved, and the patterning hammered into the upper edge.”

Ice Hawk nodded as if he saw Cisnerean blades every day. “For this knife I will answer your question.”

“For this knife you will answer my question and . . . five more.”

Shaking his head, Ice Hawk tried to look disinterested. “Two.”

“Three.”

“Done.”

Ice Hawk had the hilt of the knife in his hands almost before he finished speaking. Bekluth unwrapped the leading rein from his arm and tossed it to one side. Now that trading had taken place, a tacit invitation to do more than sit had been offered and accepted. Ice Hawk sheathed his new knife and set it to one side. This would be the first time he would play host in a camp, but he knew what was expected.

“Your first question concerned the presence of my people,” he said. “They came to bring me supplies, the kind I cannot hunt for myself if I am to complete my meditation.”

Bekluth nodded and tapped his lips with his index finger, as though he sorted through questions in his mind. “How long did they stay?”

“Longer than they had planned, I am sure, as two Mercenary Brothers came through the Path of the Sun.” Ice Hawk felt his face heat, remembering the touch of Dhulyn Wolfshead’s hand on his arm.

Bekluth grinned and shifted his seat until he was sitting cross-legged. “You’ve been in the sun too long, Ice Hawk. The Mercenaries came through moons ago.”

Stung, Ice Hawk was quick to defend his knowledge. “No, Bekluth Allain. These are different ones, new. One is a woman—like our women, but not like ...” Ice Hawk let his voice die away, his stomach cold, his ears buzzing.

The trader’s brows crawled high and his eyes were almost round. “What do you mean?”

Ice Hawk scrambled to find a way out of his mistake. It was widely thought among the Long Trees People that Bekluth Allain knew the truth about the Espadryni women, but the Mages said that so long as it was never spoken of openly, Bekluth Allain could never reveal their secret. “Apparently, there were once Espadryni on the other side of Mother Sun’s Door, though their women were not sequestered as ours are. Then the Tribes were broken. This Mercenary is the last of her kind, she says.”

Now the trader swung his head from side to side “She is tricking you, Ice Hawk.”

Ice Hawk shrugged. Bekluth Allain was asking without asking, and Ice Hawk had to find a way to answer. “Me they might have tricked,” he admitted. “I was only lately a cub. But my grandfather, Singer of the Wind, was here also, and he cannot be tricked. Not in such things.”

At these words the trader fell silent. A breeze gusted, stirring the ashes in the fire spot and bringing with it a faint smell of Ice Hawk’s latrine pit.

“A great marvel,” Bekluth said, suddenly coming to life as he absorbed Ice Hawk’s words. “The last of her kind. So they went off, then, with Singer of the Wind?”

“Question three.” Ice Hawk felt the tension ease from his back and shoulders. “You need not look so cunning, Bekluth, they are warriors, and not likely to need anything from you.”

“Oh, no? And you had no need for your new knife?”

Ice Hawk grinned and shrugged. “I am young and need many things. These two, they did not look to be short of knives. I think they will want to talk to you, though, so it may be that
you
have information
they
will trade for.”

Without answering Bekluth stood and began to free his horse from its saddle, pulling loose a tie here and opening a buckle there. First he detached a pack from the back of the saddle and set it down at his place on the ground, then he lifted off the saddle itself, taking pad and all into his hands. Ice Hawk did not offer to help, not even to take the leading rein and stake it to the ground. It would have seemed as though he wished to pry into the trader’s goods.

“What could I know that people from the other side of Mother Sun’s Door would trade me for?” The horse led a short distance away to where the horse line would normally be, Bekluth sat down once more across from Ice Hawk, opened his saddle pack, and began looking through it.

“You have no more questions left,” Ice Hawk said, grinning.

“Let’s see, what might I have that would be worth such knowledge?” Bekluth raised his eyebrows and looked at Ice Hawk sideways. “Especially considering that all I have to do is wait to meet them and they will tell me themselves for free.”

Ice Hawk shrugged again, unashamed.
Who doesn’t try gets nothing
. Even the young cubs knew that.

“They’re looking for someone, a killer, who has passed to their side of the Door of the Sun, and killed some of their people. Not just killed, but tortured and mutilated in a way unknown to us.” Ice Hawk blinked, the image of what the woman Dhulyn Wolfshead had told them momentarily before his eyes. “We thought to help them, but they told us when the last killing had been done, and we had seen no such killer.”

“When was that?” Bekluth finally straightened from his pack with two cups and a round flask in his hands.

Ice Hawk thought for a moment, counting back the days since the Mercenaries had left for the camp of the Salt Desert People. And they had said the killing had happening three nights before that. “Five or six nights ago,” he said.

“At the full moon? But you were here, Ice Hawk, did they not suspect you?”

Ice Hawk blinked, but the trader was already laughing. “Ah, forgive me, a bad jest I admit, but Caids, man, you should see your face.” His own face grew suddenly serious. “Were
we
in any danger then, do you think? Was that not the time I met with you on my way to the Cold Lake camp? You told them this, of course.” The trader poured out two glasses of clear liquid that had a most exquisite smell.

Ice Hawk felt the heat rising to his ears. “No,” he admitted. “I forgot.” He wrinkled up his nose. Was this why the Mother Sun had not yet shown him the key to her Door? Because he was still unseasoned and forgetful? “You were here such a short time and naturally I thought them to mean some stranger to us. Still, I must tell them,” he decided. He would have to admit his error to Dhulyn Wolfshead, but then, it would give him an excuse to speak with her.

“I will tell them myself,” Bekluth said. “I travel much, and possibly I have seen something that they alone will find significant. And if, as you say, they come from beyond the Door, I admit I will be curious to meet them.” He held out one of the cups. “In the meantime, taste this orange brandy for me, and tell me whether you think your people will trade for it.”

Ice Hawk considered reminding Bekluth the Trader that strong drink was only for those who had become men and that he had not, in fact, reached that status yet. But even as he was thinking so, he was reaching out for the cup. After all, he would not be the first to enjoy some of the privileges of manhood in advance of the ceremony, nor the last.

Bekluth raised his cup, and Ice Hawk imitated him, wondering whether he was required to make the salute, and wracking his brain for one he had heard the men use.

“Your health,” Bekluth said.

“Confusion to our enemies,” Ice Hawk responded, and he set his lips to the edge of the cup. The liquid was fiery, much more so than he expected, and Ice Hawk fought not to choke or sneeze. It tasted something like the honeyed orange peel they sometimes traded for but—

It felt as though a hand had closed around his throat, large and hard as sword steel. Ice Hawk waved his right hand at Bekluth, signaling for help, but the man merely sat there, looking at Ice Hawk with narrowed eyes, as if watching an ant crawl across a leaf. Sun and Moon curse him. Ice Hawk’s lungs continued to heave, trying for air, but he ignored them, ignored the black edges to his vision, and how they crowded in. Concentrating on, focusing on, the handle of his dagger, and how to reach it, to recognize the familiar feel of the thong-wrapped hilt, forcing his hand to pull it out, even though it made the black edges thicker. He lurched to his knees, putting out his empty hand to steady himself, and reached—

The trader stopped smiling and hastily scrabbled back and away.

At least I made him afraid
. The black closed in, and Ice Hawk followed the thought down into it.
Confusion to
. . .

Bekluth Allain waited for a count of one hundred, to make sure the boy was unconscious. He should not have been able to move so much; either he was very determined, and very strong, or the poison in the orange brandy was losing its potency. Bekluth shrugged. He’d poured out all he had, the chief’s share into the boy’s cup, leaving barely enough in his own to stain the lips. Barely enough to do the job, it seemed.

When he was sure, Bekluth stood up and nudged the dagger away from the boy’s hand with his toe. Can’t be too careful, he told himself with a smile. Look what happened to people who weren’t.

“She might have tricked you, eh, boy? Well, I’ve tricked you and your grandfather both, what do you think of that?” Bekluth rolled the boy over and put the dagger back into its sheath. He wouldn’t need it, and the boy couldn’t use it. At the same time, he took back the skinning knife he’d traded for information. The Horsemen were excellent trackers, but there was no point in leaving them such a clear sign he’d been here after them. These people knew each other’s belongings as well as they knew each other’s horses. Not that there was any chance he’d ever let
this
knife go.