Snare (43 page)

‘I won’t. I promise, and I’ll keep my word to you. Not to anyone else in the world, maybe, but to you I will.’

‘Good. Remember that.’ She picked up the tent flap and ducked outside.

Near her tent the embers of a few cooking fires still glowed. In that uncertain light she could see that Dallador and Grenidor still stood on guard, but she couldn’t tell which was which. Fortunately Dallador stepped forward to talk with her. His voice was several tones darker than his cousin’s.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing,’ Dallador said. ‘Or – all right, I’ll be honest. I got as close as I could and listened.’

‘I can’t blame you. So you know the truth. What do you think of Zayn now?’

Dallador shrugged and looked away. ‘Does it matter? You’re both leaving tomorrow.’

She laid a hand on his arm. ‘He’ll come back, Dallo. He belongs with us, and he knows it.’

‘I hope so.’ Dallador suddenly yawned. ‘It was about this time last night that we rode out, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, and so’s Zayn. Go get
some sleep. He won’t be sneaking out again.’

‘I heard him promise. I’ll do that. Grenno, come on. You’ve damn near fallen asleep standing up.’

Ammadin went back inside. Zayn had extinguished one of the oil lamps. He was lying on his back on his blankets, one arm flung over his face, asleep fully dressed. She took off her boots, put out the other light, and lay down on her side of the tent. She fell asleep before she could put one coherent thought together.

Zayn woke to find the tent filled with the silver light of dawn. Ammadin had just opened the tent flap; when she saw that he was awake, she paused with a hand still upon it.

‘I have to go talk with the chiefs,’ she said. ‘They need to know what we’re going to do, and I have to scan to see if Alayn’s men are on their way here. I’ve got to tie the charms, too, so it’s going to be a while before we can ride out. Don’t you have something to say to Dallador?’

Zayn winced. Had she seen –

‘Well, you’re having an affair with him, aren’t you?’ Ammadin said.

‘Yes.’ The word came out strangled.

‘You don’t have to be embarrassed. So did I, once.’

She smiled and went out, letting the flap fall shut behind her. Zayn sat up, resting his head in his hands. He found himself thinking of earthquakes, when ground that seemed solid moved and pitched, tumbling everything built upon it. The metaphor made him feel like vomiting. He got up, stretching, and went outside.

The camp was just waking. Kassidor was trotting back and forth, yelling at everyone to hurry. The women were getting up, pulling on their boots and talking about feeding the horses. Grumbling and yawning, the men moved more slowly.

‘We’ve got to get on the road,’ Kassidor was saying. ‘We’re not very far from Sinyur Alayn’s land.’ He came hurrying over to Zayn. ‘Ammadin says to saddle her grey and your sorrel. Pick two pack horses, and load them with grain and food and whatever else you’re taking. She’s got her saddlebags all ready, and I’ve got the comnee’s god figures, so we can strike the tent as soon as you get your things out of it.’

‘All right. Tell her I’ll do it right away.’

Zayn retrieved his gear from the tent, then hurried over to his comnee’s wagon, where the big canvas packs sat waiting. The excellent trading had bought the comnee a good many sacks of wheatian as well as charcoal and other necessities. Zayn was just calculating how much the comnee could spare them when Dallador walked up, his hands shoved in his pockets, his face carefully expressionless.

‘There you are,’ Zayn said. ‘I need to talk with you.’

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Dallador said. ‘Zayn, all those lies!’

‘I know.’ Zayn turned away. ‘I thought I didn’t have any choice.’

‘You probably didn’t.’

Zayn nodded and stared at the ground. When Dallador put his hands on Zayn’s shoulders, Zayn leaned back, relaxing.

‘You’re coming back, aren’t you?’ Dallador said.

‘Yes. If I live through this, and I might not.’

Dallo’s hands tightened. Zayn twisted free and turned around to face him. ‘Well, you don’t want any more lies, do you?’

‘No.’ Dallador paused for a wry smile. ‘Except maybe for one right then.’

‘I’ll never lie to you again. I’ll promise you that.’

‘All right. I’ll hold you to it.’

‘Good. I might need some help.’

They shook hands, clasped hands, stood staring into each other’s eyes, while all around them the comnee hurried and bustled, packing up, saddling horses, calling back and forth.

‘I’ll help you load up,’ Dallador said finally. ‘We’ve all got to get on the road.’

They had just finished saddling and loading the pack horses when Ammadin came striding out to join them. She was carrying only one pair of saddlebags, slung over one shoulder. In her other hand she held a charm, a hawk feather bound to a shell, a Kazraki coin wrapped with red thread to keep it in place next to a dried and polished land-crab claw and two blue beads. She tied it to the left cheek piece of the sorrel gelding’s bridle.

‘There, that’s one thing done,’ Ammadin said. ‘Now I’ve got to scan.’

As Zayn watched her walk away, he suddenly remembered her telling him that she’d slept with Dallador, too.

‘She’s not as cold as she looks.’ Dallador confirmed the story with a grin. ‘So good hunting.’

‘You bastard!’

Dallador laughed with a toss of his head. For a moment they merely smiled at each other. ‘Well,’ Dallo said at length. ‘What else do we have to pack?’

‘Nothing. I’ve just got to saddle Ammi’s grey and tie on her bedroll, stuff like that.’

‘I’ll let you do that, then.’ Dallador turned solemn. ‘I can’t watch you ride out. All right?’

‘All right.’

Dallador turned on his heel and strode off, heading back to camp. Zayn watched him till he disappeared among the other comnee men.

While the comnee finished packing up the camp, Ammadin went down to the riverbank to scan, kneeling in the purple grass. Sammador and Apanador followed her to hover nearby with their backs turned. Although the Riders hung low at the horizon, Spirit Eyes managed to get a good view of the immediate countryside. At Alayn’s manor house everything seemed peaceful. In a paved courtyard, young women were laughing as they boiled laundry over open fires; in the stable yard men were grooming and watering horses, smiling and talking. Had they known their sinyur was lying dead in the forest, they would have moved and gestured in a very different way. Now that Ammadin knew where the temple compound was, she could direct Spirit Eyes to its location, and through the trees she caught glimpses of open lawn. Nothing moved.

‘How much time do you think we have?’ Apanador said. ‘Before the chief’s men come after us, I mean.’

‘At least a day.’ Ammadin stood up, holding her crystal. ‘Zayn is pretty sure that Alayn spent a lot of time at that temple. His family probably won’t miss him till late today or even tomorrow. By then you should have a good head start. Once you reach the Rift, they won’t follow.’

‘If they do, we have over twenty men between us,’ Sammador said, ‘not counting me and Apanador, and then Kassidor.’

‘I just don’t want any of our men to get killed.’ Ammadin paused, looking at each chief in turn. ‘Zayn’s caused enough trouble already.’

‘That’s certainly true.’ Sammador sounded weary. ‘But men do
cause trouble. It’s the way the gods made us.’

‘Yes, and then the women have to clean up after us,’ Apanador said, ‘or so my wife always tells me.’

‘Gemmadin’s right as usual.’ Ammadin allowed herself a brief smile. ‘May the gods ride with you. I’ll see you at the winter campgrounds if not before.’

Zayn was waiting for her by the east-running road. He had dropped the reins of her grey and his sorrel to make them stand, but he was holding the lead ropes of the two pack horses. He stood cavalry-stiff between them, watching her as she walked across the grass. Something about him struck her as odd; with some surprise she realized that his mask, that smooth bland expression with which he’d hidden his secrets, had fallen completely away. The morning light picked out the dark circles under his eyes and the droop to his full mouth.

‘Ready?’ she said.

‘I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone can ever be really ready for a ride like this.’

‘True enough. Here, let me explain your quest charm. The Kazraki coin represents you. The feather and shell mean that you’re on a quest; every quest marker has them. The beads –’

‘Idres and Jezro?’

‘Right.’

‘There’s nothing there to represent the Chosen.’

‘Oh yes there is – the red thread. A line the colour of blood, binding you.’

Zayn winced.

‘The land-crab claw stands for the hold the grass has over you,’ Ammadin went on, ‘or the life we live out on the grass, to be more precise.’

Zayn nodded, studying the charm. ‘That sums it up, all right,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Ammi?’ He looked up. ‘I’ve got one more thing to confess. Zayn Hassan isn’t my real name.’

‘I could guess that. What –’

‘Zahir Benumar.’ He paused for a brief smile. ‘Do you know what Zahir means?’

‘No. What?’

‘Truth.’

‘Then I’m going to keep calling you Zayn.’

‘I want you to. That’s why I brought it up.’

‘Good. Now let’s get going.’

All that morning they rode without speaking. Ammadin was more than willing to let Zayn be alone with his thoughts, which were deadly grim, judging from the play of feeling upon his face. She took the lead, and the other horses followed her grey briskly along through the sunny fields of wheatian, but she was always aware of the dark swell of the forest, angling to meet the road. When the road turned to run alongside of it, Ammadin glanced back to see Zayn grimmer than ever.

Just before noon they came to the river and the wooden bridge. Apparently the sorrel remembered what had happened there. It balked, bucked sideways twice, then tried to rear. A lesser rider than Zayn would have been thrown, but he flung his weight forward, kept the horse down and kept talking until the sorrel calmed enough to stand trembling in the road.

Ammadin dismounted, dropped her reins to make the grey stand, and ran back to pick up the lead rope of the pack horses, waiting patiently some yards behind. She walked back with the horses to find that Zayn had dismounted and was stroking the sorrel’s neck.

‘Did I tell you about the crane?’ Zayn said. ‘The one that tried to warn me about the ambush?’

‘No, you didn’t, but you should have.’

‘Too much happened too fast. I’m sorry. But it was down in the river, fishing I guess. It called out and then flew up. But I couldn’t get back in the saddle fast enough to escape.’

‘Well, I never had much doubt before, but now I’m sure of it. Cranes are your spirit animal.’ The thought jogged her memory. ‘Wait a moment! You never learned your true name, did you? In the Mistlands, I mean.’

‘No, I didn’t. And I’m sorry, too.’

‘Something might happen on this quest to give it to you.’

‘Does it matter? If I kill Jezro Khan, if I go back to the Chosen –’

‘It’ll probably matter more than ever, if that happens.’

‘Think so?’ Zayn gave the sorrel one last pat. ‘I’m going to lead him across.’

Ammadin considered pressing him to say more, then decided that she was simply too tired. She mounted up, took the lead rope
for the pack horses, and rode across. Her own grey, which she’d trained herself, clopped across the bridge in sublime indifference to the hollow sound, and the pack horses followed. She hoped that the sorrel would mimic the rest of its miniature herd, but once again it balked. Getting the sorrel across took all of Zayn’s patience. By the time they reached the far side, Sentry was chiming in Ammadin’s saddlebags.

‘Let’s rest the horses here,’ she said. ‘I need to scan.’

It took Spirit Eyes only a few minutes to find Soutan and the Kazraks, riding along a dirt road between fields of wheatian. The sighting numbers on her crystal’s equator told her that they were heading due east near the limit of her crystal’s range. Long Voice could pick up nothing of their conversation, assuming they were having one. She left Soutan and sent Spirit Eyes hunting the comnee, which she found well west of the forest on their way back to the Riftgate. As for Sinyur Alayn’s men, she saw no trace of them, but their horses were still at pasture, a good sign. She set the crystals out to feed, then got up, turning to speak to Zayn.

‘Well, they’re still ahead of us. I can’t tell you much more than that.’

‘For now, that’s all I need to know.’

His hands shoved in his pockets, his head tipped a little back, Zayn was staring down the road to the east as if he could see nothing but horror unfolding before him. What was he thinking, she wondered, that he would look so desolate? She decided against asking him, out of the simple fear that he would start lying to her again.

‘You know,’ Ammadin said, ‘this is the farthest east I’ve ever been. From now on, it’s all unknown country.’

Zayn swung half-around, as startled as if she’d thrown a weapon at him.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, smiling. ‘I won’t have all the answers any more. This should be interesting.’

Warkannan and his men had spent the previous night camping near the east-running road. At about the time Ammadin was telling Zayn the meaning of his quest charm, Warkannan was taking inventory of his supplies – enough food for the men and grain for the horses to last two days. While Warkannan and Arkazo loaded the pack horses and saddled their riding mounts, Soutan walked
a few yards away and sat down to mutter over his crystals. In only a few minutes he got up and came back, wide-eyed, a little pale. His hands shook as he stowed the crystals in his saddlebags.

‘What’s wrong?’ Warkannan said.

‘The worst possible thing.’

‘Couldn’t you find Zahir?’

‘I found him, all right.’ Soutan paused for effect. ‘And I found the spirit rider. She’s travelling with him. They’ve just left the comnee and are heading east. They’re only about twenty miles behind us.’

‘What? The spirit rider?’