Two Queens (Seven Heavens Book 1) (16 page)

He decided, if that's what it could be called, to press on. Back behind them he knew how long it would take. It seemed a huge distance—he, with no water left; she, bearing her foal—but it was known. Fixed. Forward, who could tell? He might be taking them to death. If it came to the end, could he do it? Could he force her beyond her strength to save his life? Could he make them to die in order to survive?

He pushed those thoughts away. Hour by hour, his face grew leaner, taut with the pressing weight of the scorched expanse: foodless, waterless. His hunger gnawed at him but that was the least of his worries. Water—he had gone without for half a day so far, and very little before that. How long could a body last?

That night he lay there parched, thinking. He tried to distract himself. Thinking of his anger for the merchant. His parents behind him on separate hills, dead. A woman holding the answer in a city ahead. But his mind would not work. Half-formed visions fled in and out. He lost control of his imagination. The desert was no longer a place: it was a monster. It laughed at him, hinted at his death in every breath of wind, spit on him with every fleck of sand. Pulling him down, scorching what little exposed skin he had.

No, he could not think of the past or the future. Such was madness. The present. Something. The only reality left was Kerry: all else was shifting landscape: always moving yet always the same. He stared at her eyes, seeing a dullness but no madness there. He stroked her body, seeking to remember a life outside this one.

He had chosen wrong. They would not survive. He lay there, a hand on Kerry. “Why!?” His ears caught no sound, for the noise was only in his mind. Everything was in his mind: what was constant, real out there? His hands spasmed and he shook, wishing he could with an act of violence rend the veil, cut away this accursed place.

Kerry squealed. She got up and trotted away. He hardly noticed. He lay his face in his hands and sunk. Prone on the desert floor. Alone.

He dreamed. Hallucination, vision, dream, waking life—he could not tell. He had no energy to make sense of it. He heard a kardja neigh. No, it was no kardja. More like a horse. But wilder, older than those silly beasts he'd heard before. It neighed again. He tried to look but could not see. He felt rather than saw a head with a long nose nodding at him, blowing out of its nose. His nose, rather. He raised his head, gasping. His face had been laying in a bowl of cold water. He looked about and did not see anyone about. He strained his eyes.

Feeling exhausted, as if his eyes were pulling the fabric of the landscape back, his face sank to his hands once more. He felt the rough sand on the back of his hands. He rolled to the side, looking where Kerry had gone. He tasted something on his lips—they were wet. Was it blood? Had they burst once more?

He looked at his hands. His right was discolored. He touched it with his left. The sand was not cool but it was damp. He raised his fingers to touch his lips, to feel for blood, then he saw it. A white streak on his hand. He smelled it. No scent, that he could tell. He licked it. He could barely taste it: it was not water, but it was not blood either.

He tried whistling and gave up immediately. “Kerry!” he called. Where had she gone? He turned around, swaying like a weaver after drinks. There she was, laying down again. He stumbled over to her.

Something clicked. He looked at her side, then back to his hand. His breathing sped up. Forcing himself to move slowly he approached her, stroking her back, hand tracing from insensitive areas to sensitive without surprising her. He tried what he had done just minutes ago unconsciously. It worked!

It was so simple. He'd done it a thousand times before, filling buckets upon buckets for his mother to turn into cheese. Only now his bucket was his mouth, desperate for the life-giving fluid. He milked Kerry—there was not much, this early on, but perhaps a cupful shared between the teats. She looked back at him curiously once or twice but didn't fight or flee.

He looked proudly at Kerry with new eyes: they would make it through. Worries fled for the moment. The old tales were true.

The days following were as hard as ever. Not so much as a cloud shielded their way or an oasis to greet them. But all had changed. Kerry's life-giving milk sustained him, gave him what he absolutely needed. He felt guilty, stealing her wealth of nutrients, but knew she was stronger than he. They'd gone farther than he thought possible. Never would he willingly come this way again.

The seventh day in the desert he faded again, feeling almost as weak as the day his water ran out. Would this desert never end? Yet he expected it to, at any moment. Why couldn't he see a change on the horizon? Just yellow to gray to black and back again as the sun whirled around them.

He told himself it might be a while yet. Even if it was seven days for Liam and his men, that was a long time ago. Kerry was no war kardja. They had not the supplies of the army. Perhaps their route was different, or the desert had spread since that day. The thought crossed his mind—do deserts grow? He thought it more than likely.

For all his mind games, he was bitterly disappointed when the sun went down and there was no change on the horizon. In anger he drove Kerrry on, into the night. He had not done this for some time, hoping that rest might compensate somehow for her long fast. She kept slowing and he, tired as he was, kept pushing her on. Finally she tripped, a rock or purely exhaustion he could not tell, and he fell.

She shuffled away from him and then collapsed. They both lay where they fell, not even the cool night air driving Orion to her side for warmth. Orion wanted to die.

He awoke. As usual, it was the heat that woke him. His eyes had been shielded by the arms used as pillows. He rolled over and groaned. Splinters of light pierced into his eyes and he ducked his face behind his arm once more.

Something felt different. Kerry? Where was she? He rolled onto all fours and looked at the ground below him until his eyes adjusted and his dizziness left him. He got up, braced against the last of the dizziness, and looked around him. Kerry was lying on her side. He walked over to her.

Her left foreleg was red and swollen. He fell to his knees. What a fool. She opened her eyes at the sound then closed them. He hated himself. Why didn't he let her stop?

He felt thirsty. He told himself not to, but couldn't. He took his morning drink. He felt so ashamed of himself. He wished he could break off an arm and feed it to her, pay her back somehow.

He looked around again. No change on the horizon, just the usual gray. But there was something besides the sand: a lone cactus, half as tall as himself. He staggered over to it, kicking at it, knocking it over. Stupid, slow down. He pulled out his knife, his dried fingers dropping it twice. He gingerly cut at the stalk.

Ouch. He poked himself, twice. But the cactus was his. He stabbed it with his knife and dragged it back to Kerry. He slit it top to bottom and peeled the prickly skin back. By the time he was done his fingers were bleeding everywhere. He kept sucking his hands: blood was too precious to waste.

Kerry didn't move. He cut out some of the cactus flesh and placed it in her mouth. She didn't chew. He took another piece and cut several slits in it then, dropping his knife, squeezed it as hard as he could over her lower lip. Its juice dropped into her mouth. Her tongue moved and then her mouth. She began chewing. He sat back, watching. He felt as if he'd just cooked his greatest meal.

He cut her another piece, then another. Soon she was more alert and began nosing the dismembered cactus. He put his knife away and watched her eat. Finally, she turned away from the cactus.

He grabbed her by the halter before her long neck could lay down again. “Up, girl! Up!” He felt cruel, malevolent. But it must be done.

She rose, on three legs plus a hesitant touch here and there with her swollen left. He pulled her along and she settled into a lurching gait. He walked her a hundred paces then felt the leg. It wasn't broken, he didn't think. He pulled on her again and she kept walking.

An hour later he looked back and thought he could still see the cactus. He sighed. His question earlier? Now he knew the answer. Deserts grow. Overnight, in fact. It was twice as big now as it had been. He sighed, and looked far ahead. Just the same old gray horizon. Then a thrill coursed through his body. The sand was yellow, but the horizon gray! He didn't care if was just rocks at the end: something was changing!

Kerry smelled something or caught his excitement. She needed little urging: now, he just tried to sooth her, make sure the leg wasn't hurt any worse.

That afternoon they walked on loose rock. Little bushes sprouted here and there and a rocky slope lay just ahead. Kerry nibbled on leaves as they passed the odd shrub. Orion's sore feet almost tripped him twice. At least the sand had been level.

The name of Paris had not lost all of its luster. Well, that and a little of the man behind the name. He went to the jewelers and intimated he was interested in some appraising.

“Any time you wish to deposit your treasures, my lord. We shall make an exacting review. Do you expect to do so soon?”

“I fear I have not the means to bring them without risk of loss. Do you have strongboxes?”

They did, and showed him. He picked out half a dozen of the more ornately carved ones, hiding his disgust at the two with unicorns carved on them. The jeweler's eyes widened at the volume of his selections and he became outright amazed when Paris insisted they be weighed. After being assured that they were unbreakable and could not be opened by anything but the key, Paris purchased them.

He hired a cart and took the chests far out of the city to an old silver mine. It had been one of the first lands owned by the Paris estate in Arcadia. Having run dry it was now abandoned and most of the passages had caved in. He paid the driver and porter liberally and bade them wait. He took the chests one at a time. Out of their sight he filled them with treasures long overlooked.

Once he had all six completed and locked, he stowed the keys on his person and, taking a look at the sun, circled back to the cart. The driver lay in the seat, asleep, and the porter was reposed likewise at a nearby tree. Paris crept away and back to his treasure chests where he, too, got some sleep, albeit better hidden.

Mid afternoon he brought the men to his chests. For a moment he feared he had overdone his work, that the chests were too large and impossible to lift. With much effort the men got them loaded, hard work deflating some of their shock at the luggage. The cart creaked the whole way home and Paris insisted they all, including himself, walk alongside it to make sure his goods reached the city safely.

Once it got stuck in mud. The two men pulled with the horse but before they could pull it out Paris leaped on the cart. He shoved the smallest chest, over ten stone weight, off the cart, where it sunk into the mud. He jumped off the cart and began pushing with the others.

They got it moving forward again then stopped, going to collect the one cast away. Paris waved them off. “Ahh, that one's not worth much, leave it be.” The driver and porter exchanged looks. Paris bought them, and the rest of the hotel, drinks that evening, the innkeeper only too happy to oblige for his honored guest. Having left his chests in the innkeeper's care he made as to retire for the night.

He slipped outside, using a little-known gate and old passwords never changed. He rode to the abandoned chest. He drug it from the mud and scattered the rocks it carried. Binding the empty box on his saddle he rode to the mine and left it open at the entrance, dropping a few gold pieces in it for good measure.

The next morning he had the boxes weighed at the jewelers. They balked at this unusual method of valuation. A few hints dropped of Kyrian treasures too infamous for any eyes save his own shushed them. He then deposited his chests at the House of Lachesi, receiving a line of credit for easier trading.

That afternoon Orion and Kerry crested the rocky hill. Before them lay green rolling hills and, to the northwest, a deep blue marking distant mountains. Orion almost cried but for the closer blue: a stream wound its way along bushy banks. He staggered and Kerry limped down. He threw himself in its cold waters and drank. He splashed his face, gasping at its coldness, washed his hands and drank some more.

Kerry screamed. A heavy weight dropped on Orion's back and his face splashed into the stream bed. He rose up gasping, his lower back still pinned. He heard hooves upon rocks fleeing away.

“Caught you, little fish.” Two hands grabbed his neck and heaved him up.

Fourteen

The burly man shoved Orion forward. It only took one of his hands to hold both Orion's wrists behind his back. Orion tried to free them, jerking with his shoulders and craning his neck to face his attacker. The man simply lifted his wrists. His shoulders flamed in pain.

He leaned forward, easing the pressure, and tried to run. The man helped him along with a push. Two flying steps, feet not able to catch up with his torso, and he fell face first. He brought his recalcitrant arms forward to get up when the boot slammed down on his back again. He gasped.

“Not much for brains.” The man pushed him on as before. Orion tried to fight down the sob rising in his throat. The pain was too sudden, to sharp. His bloody cheek stung and his knee also. He was too occupied dealing with the pain, keeping his legs underneath him as he was pushed along.

Where was Kerry? He sneaked a glance up. Instant vertigo swarmed him and he staggered, eyes and legs overreacting to keep him upright. They were walking upriver along the banks of the rocky creek. To the right, the hill that hid the desert. To the left, far away, the mountains he'd seen for an instant would be behind another hill, one slightly less rocky than the one traversed. His gasping breath slowly lessened as did his dizziness.

His eyes darted everywhere. No sign of her. He did see another man, smaller. He stood perched on a rock next to the stream, looking at Orion with a blank face.

“You missed,” the man behind him sneered.

What'd I miss? Orion thought.