Shadow Gate

30

Just because Edard had to show off to impress Eridit, the scouts got in trouble as they rode east toward Horn.

'I'll scout point today,' the ordinand said at dawn, then looked at Eridit to see if she made a comment or gave an encouraging look. She yawned, stretching in a way that made a man think of-

'Shai,' said Tohon. 'You'll ride rear guard, with me.'

Eridit flashed a smile their way, measured Shai's expression, and arched her back which of course just made her breasts more prominent beneath her thin shift. Shai flushed and looked away, stumbled up to his feet as the militiamen, Ladon and Veras, laughed.

'You'd think you'd never seen a woman before,' said Veras.

'Outlander men and women live separate, didn't you know that?' said Ladon. 'Never touching. Eiya! Maybe they only do it with sheep.'

'Shut up,' said Edard. 'Finish saddling the horses. Tohon, you take rear guard today.'

'As you say,' said Tohon with a genial smile. 'You ready yet, Shai?'

They slung packs from their saddles, Eridit last of all.

Zubaidit appeared on the path, already kitted out. 'What's taking so long? Aui!' She prowled over to Eridit, just now bending over to tie up her pack while every man stared at her making a display of the curve of her rump beneath low-slung trousers. Shai turned away,

afraid he was going to embarrass himself. Tohon started sweeping the ashes out of the fire pit.

'Doesn't it bother you?' whispered Shai, but the scout just chuckled.

Bai said, 'Eridit, I am so overcome with lust for you. Do you want to lie down right here now and get it over with? Or will you get the hells moving? Why did the temple council send you? Were you screwing them all? And if so, why did you bother to come?'

Shai looked up.

Even Eridit's scowls were sexy. 'I'm good at what I do.'

'In truth, I've seen you perform the tales at the arena. You are good.'

'My thanks,' she muttered grudgingly as she hoisted her pack over the saddle.

'Good at your art. Don't be an ass, Eridit.' Bai slapped her on the rump.

Shai jumped, and so did the other men, all except Tohon, who shook his head as if wondering how he had ever had the misfortune to end up on this deer track carved through woodland country, riding east into the heart of the enemy. If they ever got there. Eridit laughed.

Shai and Tohon hung back as the others set out in single file, soon hidden in the woods although he could track their noise. Tohon ruthlessly tightened the girths on both saddles, shaking his head. 'Those lads are strong enough, yet not only the lass but even the horses play them. Hu!'

He paused, tilted his head back.

Shai looked everywhere, but saw nothing.

A shout rang out.

'Draw your sword. This is a good trail for an ambush.' He handed Shai the reins of all four horses. 'Come up behind them. I'm going around.'

He slipped into the woods, and Shai stood there like an idiot while more shouts and cries broke. Then he got the horses strung on leads, mounted up, and pushed along the trail. A crashing in the brush alerted him. He swung in the saddle, glimpsed movement to his right, felt a kiss on the breeze, and slashed down, just missing a man who lunged at him brandishing a crude spear. With a hoarse

gasp, the man fell across the path with an arrow buried in his back. Shai kept riding, the horses jumping over the body as they caught his tension. Ahead, Ladon had plunged into the trees and was hacking at a person on the ground, while Veras crashed through the forest in pursuit of unseen others.

Edard was swearing, clutching his right arm. 'I didn't see them! They jumped right out at us!'

'There's four or five more,' said Zubaidit, holding a bloody sword. A man had crawled off the trail and collapsed. 'Best we catch them. We can't chance being recognized later.'

'Let's go!' Eridit had a short sword, one of those common to Olossi's militia, and although she'd drawn it, she held it as if in gesture, a way to look dashing and brave, not as if she had the least idea how to kill. But wasn't that what she did as a professional entertainer? She chanted and acted tales in front of an adoring audience, they'd told him. She grinned at Shai, and he thought it would be better to die than to feel this way when he needed to be concentrating on the trouble at hand.

'Where's Tohon?' asked Bai.

The scout appeared as she spoke, grabbing the reins from Shai. 'If they escape, they might recognize us later. Veras is on their trail, good lad.'

Edard spurred after the young militia man, Eridit right after him and Ladon pushing past as Bai hung back.

'I'll do a circuit,' said Tohon. 'Make sure we've missed none. You go ahead with Shai.'

Bai nodded, and Shai followed her. But the soldiers they were chasing were on foot, made swift by desperation, while they were impeded in the woodland by having horses. They pushed south, yet their quarry remained just out of range all day, and they had to switch out walking and riding lest they blow the horses. Only Tohon and Shai's Qin horses were tough enough to keep the pace.

As afternoon settled into twilight, the woodland cover became more scattered and the land sloped steadily upward until with night falling they reached high plateau country. The fleeing soldiers pushed on into a sea of grass. Where they crossed a shallow stream, Tohon and Bai handed out their horses to the others and jogged into the darkness.

'The hells!' muttered Edard. 'Do they think we can't manage? A cursed outlander, and her, not much older than my own eldest daughter? Do they think they're going to kill them all?'

Shai watered the horses, careful they did not take too much. Then he led them by turns in cooling circles, Ladon and Veras walking the others, while Eridit washed and bound Edard's wound by lamplight.

'Do we wait here for them to come back?' Eridit asked. 'Or go after them?'

'At night?' Edard clucked irritably. 'Ouch!'

'Sorry. It's not too deep. I don't think you'll die.'

'Didn't say I thought I would.'

'He's a prick,' muttered Ladon to Veras, and Veras grunted agreement. Shai could tell these two knew each other well, and he had to admit they'd handled the skirmish decently and, like Eridit, kept up today's hard pace without complaint.

Eridit was murmuring close beside Edard, asking him to tell her about himself and his famous clan, the river transporters who wore the badge of the silk slippers, like in the tale. He looked like he wasn't feeling any pain from his injury as long as she was petting him. Ladon and Veras walked with heads bent together, checking the horses now and again but mostly talking in low voices and occasionally peering into the darkness.

Shai offered them the leads. 'I'll take watch.'

That sent them over to Edard. 'Here, Edard, are we staying or not, because either we should get moving or we should set out sentries. We might be attacked at night, taken unawares, like you on the cursed track today sizing up Eridit and not paying attention to-'

'I said, shut up,' said Edard. 'Anyway, she was behind me.'

'I was,' said Eridit. 'You two were the ones sizing me up.'

A long slow slithering drag like a heavy weight through grass hissed in the darkness. They all shut up. Faintly, in the distance, rose screams and shouts and afterward silence.

Eridit shuttered the lamp. Since they had no cover and nowhere to hide being exposed there by the stream, they circled the horses and set up positions to sight in all directions, not that their night vision was any good. The land was flat. Grass sighed as the wind

blew. Shai's ears itched, and he slapped at clouds of tiny bugs rising like mist around their bodies. Everyone began waving hands in a vain attempt to drive them away.

'The hells!' swore La don, and Veras echoed him.

A light bobbed out in the grass. The horses neighed, pulling at their harness, and were answered. Out of the darkness rode a swarm of riders, veiled men covered head to toe, only their eyes and hands showing. Bai and Tohon staggered in at the point of spears as the riders spread out to encircle their group. The cloud of bugs sank into the earth as though banished.

'Did you lose the cursed men we were chasing?' demanded Edard. 'Now look what trouble we're in!'

Bai looked at him sidelong, unwilling to take her gaze off the riders. 'We didn't lose them. These folk killed them, all five. Why they didn't kill us, I don't know, for I fear we have trespassed where we are not wanted.'

'Where is that?' asked Tohon as he scanned the picket of riders, seeking any weak link and shaking his head when he found none.

'We've strayed into the Lend. A wide and mostly empty land, to be sure, but it looks to me as though we've violated a tribal boundary.'

'Eiya!' muttered Edard. 'They'll execute us for sure.'

But the lendings did not kill them, although they ignored all overtures of friendship or bargaining. If they spoke to each other, they did so out of earshot. They watered their horses at the stream, and the next morning a leather blanket laden with tart cheese, creamy yoghurt, boiled mutton, and a flavorless flat bread appeared beside their camp.

'Good food,' said Tohon, eating the last two boiled sheep's eyes.

'Folk don't like to murder folk they've shared food with,' said Bai.

Tohon scratched an ear. 'Good horses, too. Big, elegant, and strong. Captain would like a herd of those. I wonder what we can trade for them.'

'If they mean to kill us,' said Edard, 'I wish they would just cursed do it and not make us wait.'

After the first day, Shai and the militiamen exercised the horses as

well as they could, and afterward paced out training drills. Even Eridit joined in, although she hadn't enough strength to damage anyone. Bai fought dirty and would not share her meanest tricks no matter how hard Ladon and Veras tried to wheedle them out of her. The lendings appeared to ignore the drill, but it was hard to say with them having veiled faces. One morning Eridit began to pace out the measures of a chant, and the lendings abruptly and deliberately turned their backs. She stopped immediately, looking truly frightened for the first time.

Two days turned to four. Three times Tohon tried sneaking out and three times got himself prodded back, politely but firmly. Four days turned to eight. Bai led the others in the prayers that welcomed dawn and night, but they kept their voices low and their gestures modest. At these times, Tohon and Shai sat apart. Tohon was not a praying man, although Shai whispered supplications to the Merciful One.

On the morning of the eleventh day three new riders appeared, faces unveiled. Shai thought they looked like women, although their long robes were cut so cunningly to hide their bodies while making it easy for them to ride that it was hard to tell. Their dark skin looked human enough, but it was mottled with a strange green color, like something was growing on them. They reined in their horses out of arrowshot, dismounted, walked four paces forward, and waited with arms crossed.

Edard walked forward. 'Greetings of the dawn, honored ones. I am commander of this small party, which-' They turned their backs.

He retreated, looking flustered.

'What in the hells does that mean?' he muttered to Bai as the others gathered around. 'Do they mean to just let us sit here and grow old by this cursed stream with this cursed grass and sky driving us to cursed madness, eh?'

'Let me try,' said Eridit.

'They turned their backs on you before,' he warned her.

'If I have to die, I'd rather do it quickly than wither away any more days in this cursed prison! I don't even dare have sex for fear it will violate their invisible boundaries. I don't know about you, but this is the longest I've gone without since I celebrated my Youth's Crown and started in on my Lover's Wreath!'

Shai covered his eyes. Bai laughed. Tohon sighed.

'Back me up, Bai?' Eridit asked.

'I'm game.'

Eridit sucked in a deep breath. Shai watched her cross the open ground to stand before the three women who, hearing their steps, turned to face them.

'Greetings of the day, honored ones,' said Eridit, her gestures emphasizing the words. She had a clear voice that carried easily. 'We are come peacefully, with honor held in our hearts, having strayed out of our own land in pursuit of certain criminals who had broken our laws. We beg humbly your pardon for our transgression, and we request humbly that you allow us to continue our journey, out of your territory.'

'You must pay,' said the woman standing in the middle. 'For food, you must pay. For transgression, you must pay.'

Eridit looked to Bai, and Bai leaned over and whispered. Nodding, Eridit addressed the lendings. 'Perhaps we may offer trade goods in exchange as an expression of our goodwill.'

'What in the hells do we have to trade to the likes of them?' muttered Edard.

'Hush,' murmured Tohon as, at the sound of Edard's voice, the lending women again made a show of turning their backs.

After a moment's silence, the three turned back and displayed empty palms to Eridit and Bai. 'You possess nothing worth the weight of transgression. But one of your tales, we'll hear. If it is worthy, then you show yourselves to ride with honor, and you may walk free.'

A tale.

'Sit down,' whispered Ladon. 'This could take a while. I've seen her perform.'

The four men sat. The veiled lendings turned their backs, a ring of dark cloth stretched across broad shoulders. Every man carried a bow and quiver slung across his back, and leaned on a spear. A haze spanned the heavens. Clouds piled up in the east, as though a hand were holding them back. Shai shivered, not cold but disturbed by strange vibrations within the earth, and he thought one of the unveiled faces bent its gaze on him, but she was too far away for him to be sure.

Eridit crouched, head bent. As she rose, her posture changed so her body seemed larger not in size but in spirit, as though she was inhabited by others as well as herself.

'My nose is itching. Many whispers have tickled my ears these many nights, but this is the tale that speaks. Listen! To the famous tale, the most famous tale, of the Silk Slippers.'

Shai had heard snatches of song and chant in the streets of Olossi, seen folk punctuate a line of melody with graceful gestures made by their hands or by the bending of elbows or knees. He had not seen a tale fully chanted, complete from beginning to end.

The brigands raged in,

they confronted the peaceful company seated at their

dinner, they demanded that the girl be handed over to them. And all feared them. All looked away. Except foolish Jothinin, light-minded Jothinin, he was the only one who stood up to face them, he was the only one who said, 'No.'

It took her half the day, pausing four times to drink water Bai brought in a bowl. By the end, she was sweating and triumphant, shaking with fatigue and yet standing proud.

'Hu!' said Tohon. 'Impressive.'

'I'm in love,' murmured Veras.

'No, I am,' whispered Ladon.

Edard glared. 'I don't know why either of you think the likes of her would take a second look at your callow hides, despite your rich clans and good connections.'

Shai had no words. She would never look at a mere tailman, a Kartu lad, nothing-good Shai.

The three unveiled lendings raised bows and each loosed an arrow. The arrows raced high and then, tumbling, were incinerated in gouts of flame.

'Demons!' Tohon leaped to his feet.

Eridit sank exhausted to her knees, Bai squatting beside her. The lendings whistled, and just like that they mounted and cantered away, still whistling. Cursed if their own horses didn't tug at their

lines, break loose, and gallop after. Everyone ran in pursuit, even Eridit.

'Gods-rotted savages!' swore Edard when they had straggled back empty-handed, panting and heaving and having lost every horse. 'They stole them!'

Eridit hid her tears. The lads kicked up clumps of grass.

'They must be demons, to have such magic,' said Tohon.

'They're not demons,' said Bai. 'They're lendings.'

'The tale was payment for the transgression,' said Eridit through her tears. 'But they also said they wanted payment for the food we ate.'

'Aui!' Bai shook her head in disgust. 'That's why they took the horses!'

'We've got half the day left to get off this cursed grass,' said Edard as he surveyed the heavens. 'We'll have to go back to Olossi and get refitted.'

'And lose more days?' said Bai. 'Neh. We'll redistribute our goods, and we'll walk. We've come too far to go back now.'

'The hells you say!' He puffed up in that way men have when they are trying to intimidate others. He was a fit man, one of Kotaru's ordinands, physically imposing.

'The hells I do,' she said so calmly that he stepped back. 'Over long distances, we don't make that much better time with the horses, and they'll attract attention. I say, we cut along through the grass at the edge of the Lend, making straight for Horn. We'll make decent time, and we've been left with our own provisions, at least. What do you say?'

But she wasn't asking Edard, although he had been named commander of the expedition. Tohon nodded, and therefore, it was decided.