Women of War (38 page)

Lydecker lifted Tyler up, carrying him toward the exit. As Brolin picked her up, she craned her head to watch Lydecker remove Tyler's helmet.

Brolin set her down beside them then hovered.

Remembering her duties, she asked, “What about the rebels?”

“Lost one, rest are sleeping the gas off,” said Brolin as Hutton reached for the small oxygen flask he carried.

“You won't be needing that,” said Lydecker quietly. “He's gone.”

“Use the oxygen,” Brolin said forcefully as Hutton bent over to examine Tyler.

Hutton sat back and shook his head. “Too late.”

Leaning forward, she snatched the oxygen from the medic. “I'll use it if you won't,” she said, fumbling with the flask, looking for the way to turn the gas flow on. Something precious inside her was dying with Tyler. The pain in her chest was returning and her vision was getting blurry again.

“There's no point, Captain,” he said, trying gently to take it back from her. “There's already been too much tissue damage to his lungs.”

“See to the captain, Hutton,” she heard Lydecker say. “Look at the hole in her chest armor. She's hurt bad.”

She let the flask go, giving in to her own pain and grief as she passed out.

 

“Captain,” said Jones, catching up to her in the corridor. “Captain—Emma, wait!”

She stopped, shocked at his use of her name.

Jones gave a small smile. “Yeah, Tyler told me your name. He made it his business to find it out. There was nothing you could have done. He chose to bypass the warning light on his suit.”

“I should have insisted on checking ...”

“He needed to be on the mission for you, Emma,” Jones interrupted. “Tyler died trying to save you. You have to allow his death to count for that. Way you're behaving, you're taking his sacrifice away from him, making it worthless.”

She nodded, finally listening to him. “He saved me twice that day.”

“He did. You just got to hang in there. There's only a month of this duty left. I spoke to the teacher, explained about it being a year since he died. She's not going to make a complaint.”

“But it matters, Jones. War isn't a game. They killed all the rebels to cover up Channing's daughter's involvement.”

He held his artificial hand out to her. “Hell, I know it isn't a game! One day, so will they, and we'll be here, as always. Why don't you join us tonight? We keep asking you. Tyler would have liked it.”

She and Tyler had lost what little they could have had because of the barriers between their ranks. Maybe now was the time for her to admit that even if she was a woman, she was entitled to close ties with her men.

Taking a deep breath, she took hold of his hand. “I'll come.”

 

 

ANDRASTA gripped her knees tightly into Flame's sides, leaving her hands free to wield sword and shield. Her spear was long since broken, the time for archery long past. What had started out as a routine patrol had turned into a pitched battle, and she had no doubt that her side was losing.

Two men erupted seemingly out of nowhere on her left side. She bashed one soundly across the face with her shield and he crumpled. His fellow dodged, grabbing for the shield's rim, seeking to unhorse her with his weight.

Andrasta cut awkwardly across. The man's fingers and a chunk of her shield went flying. He fell back, screaming in rage and shock, but though he would never know it, his purpose had been served. Andrasta was unbalanced. When Flame danced to sidestep some hazard on her near side, Andrasta lost her seat and pitched from the saddle.

Her head hit the ground. All she knew was a flash of white light that felt like pain, then darkness.

The darkness was full of voices calling to each other in almost singsong tones.

“Dead.”

“Dead here, too.”

“Dead.”

“All dead.”

“Wait! This one's breathing. What a lot of blood.”

“Let me look. Yes. She's breathing.”

“Shall we?”

“Help me move her. Better see how bad it is before ...”

The darkness took on a ruddy hue that didn't make anything clear. There was a sensation of something being manipulated. Her. Her limbs. They felt very odd and heavy, distant from her, but a thin scream beneath the heaviness made Andrasta think that the sensation would not last.

The voices went on talking as if she wasn't there.

“Bloodied nose, maybe broken. Bad cut over one eye. She's been shaken up badly. Get that arm out from under her. Is it broken?”

“No. I don't think ... Mother, look!”

“Blessed Springtime preserve us! The griffin marks! I didn't know her for all the blood. It's our little hazelnut.”

“We can't leave her, then. Mother, we can't!”

“No. We can't. We'll be taking a terrible risk, but we'd better take her back with us.”

“Can't we just give her to her people?”

“There are none here. None alive.”

When she came up again from darkness, Andrasta knew herself, but she had no idea where she was. She was lying on her back in a smoky, rather strong-smelling tent. The heaviness was gone, and every part of her hurt.

“She's awake, I think,” said a voice.

“Don't let her sit up, Dmaalyn,” came a second voice. “I'll be there in a moment.”

After a moment of laborious thought, Andrasta placed the voice as one of the two she had heard speaking earlier. Through the fog that still padded portions of her mind, she felt vaguely triumphant. The small effort of memory exhausted her, and the warrior felt no desire to sit up or even turn her head, contenting herself with staring up at the roof of the tent and wondering vaguely where she was.

An increase in the amount of light and a face peering into her own roused Andrasta. The face belonged to a woman with a lined, weathered face. Her black hair was slightly silver-shot. Her dark eyes were thoughtful and assessing as she gazed down at Andrasta.

“Why?” Andrasta managed to whisper.

The older woman smiled, showing worn and missing teeth. “Hear that, Dmaalyn? Not who, not where, but ‘why'?”

The older woman then turned her attention to Andrasta.

“I am Narjin, clan mother here. Time for questions and answers later, Mistress Andrasta. First we must make sure you are strong enough to take what we must tell you.”

Mistress? And how do you know my name?
Andrasta was too fogged to shape the words. Narjin spoke as slave to free. That would fit the squalor of the surroundings, but what was going on? Why was she here? Why was she still alive? It had been slaves who had risen up, slaves who had attacked and killed Andrasta's patrol, who had tried to kill Andrasta herself.

“Why?” she tried to ask again, but the fog had wrapped her tongue and again her mind was flooded by darkness.

When she awoke the second time, Andrasta found her head blessedly clear. Narjin sat beside her, and the older woman smiled when she saw Andrasta assessing her.

“Your mind is your own again, I take it? Good. Your helmet probably saved you a broken skull, though the rim gave you a nasty cut above one eye. We've stitched the cut, but you'll likely have a new scar to go with the others.”

Andrasta raised her hand, forcing it not to shake. She touched the wound, felt the rough tug of the stitches there. Her nose was very tender, and she looked at Narjin inquiringly as she fingered the swelling.

“Not broken, or if so just a hairline crack. The swelling should go down in a few days, and you won't sound so stuffed when you talk. I'm the healer here.”

“What ...” Andrasta began and stopped. It did sound like she had a bad cold.

She smiled weakly, and Narjin smiled back.

“ ‘What?' this time, not ‘why'? I'll answer both your questions, mistress, but first you must do something very unusual. You must give me your promise not to raise a fuss. We're taking a great risk hiding you here. Only the fact that I'm clan-mother has let me get away with it. Do you understand?”

“Slaves,” Andrasta said, her voice still sounding stuffy. “Uprising.”

“Yes. It was a slave uprising that killed your patrol, but even that's not completely true. My daughter and I went out to the battlefield after, not expecting to find any alive—and we found you.”

“And saved me.”

“And you want to know why.”

“Yes.”

Andrasta's head was beginning to ache again. Narjin must indeed be a healer, because she saw the signs.

“I'll brew you a cup of swamp-tree tea, and we'll prop you against pillows so you can drink it—unless you'd rather sleep again.”

“No.”

“I thought not. I knew your mother, you see, and she was a tough one, too.”

With these astonishing words, the slave woman moved purposefully about the tent, setting water to boil, spilling leaves for tea from a folded bit of cloth into a squat pot. Then Andrasta let Narjin assist her into something more like an upright position.

As Andrasta sipped tea from the fat pottery cup Narjin now handed her, making a face against the bitterness, she didn't ask any questions. Had she thought Narjin was taunting her with the delay, she would have had no patience, but she saw nothing cruel in the slave woman's manner, only an understandable tension.

“Your patrol is all dead,” Narjin began, “at least as far as we could tell, and we went out and examined the bodies. That's how we found you. The slaves who did the killing aren't here—now—but they may come back. That's why you have to lie low. We buried the bodies. I'm sorry, but we didn't have the fuel to fire a warrior pyre.”

“My horse, a blood bay mare, ten years old.”

Gharebi prized their horses above all else, and Narjin did not seem surprised at the question.

“A bay mare was near you and followed us back to camp. She has been cared for. I myself treated her cuts. Most of the other horses fled. The ones that were killed—well—fresh meat is not to be wasted.”

“Yes. Good. Thank you. Now, tell on.”

“I told you that what happened was a slave uprising and not, and that's true. None of my clan took part, though I won't hide that some were tempted to do so. What stopped them was no great nobility of spirit or desire to remain slaves, but the same thing I still fear. When retribution comes, we're going to be held to blame.”

“Is that why you saved me?” Andrasta asked. “So I can testify to your goodness?”

“Yes.

“I can, at least in how you have treated me. I don't know if that will matter.”

Andrasta's head was beginning to swim again, but she struggled to listen to Narjin's reply.

“Your words will make great Cescu listen, at least, maybe pause long enough to look at the evidence. It may save us.”

“Cescu? You know ...”

“That you are warlord Cescu's granddaughter? Yes. You are Andrasta, the Dawn Rider. We knew you by the griffin marks on your arm.”