The Warrior Enchained

16

A female slave brought my breakfast tray the next morning, and also found it necessary to wake me. I had been just as well wrapped in the sleep of the innocent when a guardsman had burst into my sleeping room in the small hours of the morning, thinking to find me dead or gone. The guardsmen outside my door had been found to be fast asleep when their reliefs had arrived, and all that had saved their hides had been my presence and safety, and the fact that the relieving guardsmen were friends of theirs. Nothing of a reason for disturbing me was mentioned, and I went back to sleep secure in the knowledge that Aesnil would not be told about my guards’ dereliction.

The girl slave served me my meal and helped me get dressed, but none of it was my idea. I would have been happier being left alone, but without Daldrin there someone had to do it, and the girl considered herself elected. I ate food I didn’t want, and had my hair brushed and combed, and then was dressed in a pale tan gown and a new pair of sandals. The sun was bright and strong outside my windows, the warmth of the air showing it was going to be another hot day. Once I was dressed I sent the slave to find out if Aesnil needed me, then walked back and forth until the girl returned. The Chama had sent word that she was almost ready to leave for the vendra ralle, and that I was to await her outside the royal suite. My guards had to jump to it to catch up with me when I left my rooms, but I didn’t care how odd it looked. I had the best excuse in the world—that I was going to see the man who had kidnapped me put his life on the line—and I intended milking it for everything it was worth.

Aesnil didn’t keep me waiting long, but we made a procession of it to the arena. Surrounded by a couple of dozen court women and men, we strolled out the main palace entrance, walked a wide flowered path to the vendra ralle, then entered through a wide stone archway. We weren’t anywhere near the high wooden gate we had used on our last visit; this entrance led to the stands of the arena, where we could sit on cushioned stone benches eight feet above the glaring white sand of the vast arena circle, with nothing to obscure our view of what went on down there. Aesnil gestured me down beside her with a smile as our guards moved to positions behind us, and we were finally ready to start.

A trumpet blared a warning, and the surprisingly large arena crowd cheered as a vendra appeared from a barred archway and slogged his way through the sand to stand in the middle of the circle. I saw immediately that the vendra was Daldrin’s brother, but he had changed from when I had seen him last. No longer chained or naked, he stood in a haddin as red as Aesnil’s gown and gripped a sword in his fist, his mind alert as his head swiveled around to keep the entire circle of wall in view. I gathered from that that his opponent could come from any of the numerous barred gates around the wall perimeter, and that he stood in the center of the wide circle to protect himself, not to show himself off for the crowd’s edification.

Suddenly a fazee came racing out across the sand from one of the archways, its mind wild with hunger and madder than a fazee’s mind normally is. The beast is horrendously large, taller than I am and equipped with claws and fangs, but the vendra did no more than turn calmly to meet it, his sword up and his body poised. The beast came charging in, but all it got for its trouble was a slash across the chest as the man jumped quickly to one side, avoiding the charge. The beast wheeled and came in again, sending the sand flying in all directions in its haste to reach a meal, its mind barely aware of the wound it had gotten. I glanced at Aesnil as Daldrin’s brother avoided the charge a second time, but the Chama was too wrapped up in enjoying the spectacle to notice my glance. Her mind was excited and happy at seeing a man forced into fighting for his life, and I could feel the emotion but not understand it. It was pleasant looking at a well-made man, yes; it was not pleasant seeing that same well-made man ripped to bloody shreds by an insane beast. Possibly one needs to be closer to the fangs and claws before one can learn how unpleasant the situation really is.

It took a while, but Daldrin’s brother finally killed the fazee. He stood over the bloody corpse while the spectators screamed out their delight, his chest heaving from the exertion, his body covered with sweat, his flesh cut and bleeding along his left side where the fazee had raked him with its claws. His gory sword was still firmly gripped in his fist, but then two barred archways opened to admit a dozen guards with swords held high and ready, their eyes on the vendra as one of them gestured to him. He stared at them a long moment, weighing the sword he held, and then he threw the weapon down to the sand in a disgusted way, glared up at Aesnil where she sat beside me, then slogged his way back across the sand to the waiting guards. They kept him under their weapons as they herded .him out, and the crowd roared again in derision and delight. The guards hadn’t been willing to face the vendra on a one-to-one basis, but they really couldn’t be blamed for that. Considering the man’s ability as a fighter, there wouldn’t have been many of them left afterward to take him back to his chains.

Once the vendra was safely out of the way, male slaves with a seetar came in to remove the fazee carcass, and the next spectacle was begun. The time moved by rather slowly for me, and I was glad when an awning was put up over Aesnil and me to cut down the glare of the sun. Even with male servant-slaves to fan us and female slaves to bring us cool drinks and tidbits to nibble on, the day was becoming too hot to be enjoyable. Vendraa came and went on the glaring white sand, their bodies covered with sweat even before they began fighting, and the crowds continued to yell and scream and demand more and more.

Most of the vendraa won against the beasts they were put up against, but one of them was so badly clawed and bitten that he collapsed as soon as the large silver animal did. The guards burried out to carry him off the sand to the screaming and stomping of the crowd, and no one bothered to ask if he was still alive or likely to stay that way. The next match was between two men, and everyone seemed to know it and look forward to it.

I suppose no four-legged animal can match the ferocity of the two-legged kind, that’s why .the crowd was so eager. The two vendraa were very well matched, each seeming to know that only one of them would be walking away from the fight. They cut each other to bloody bits before one was able to gut the other, and the only way I was able to watch without changing expression was with my shield firmly in place. The sight was still enough to turn someone’s stomach, but at least I didn’t have to feel another mind die. As far as everyone else was concerned, the day was going beautifully.

As soon as the dead vendra was gone from the sand, a guard appeared from one of the archways, walked to the center of the arena, and plunged two swords into the sand, hilts up. I’d been wondering and wondering where Tammad’s l’lendaa could be, at the same time imagining every horrible thing that could have happened to Len, Garth and Daldrin to keep them from reaching the l’lendaa, but that unusual gesture by the guard captured my attention. Swords had not been left like that at any other time during the morning, and the rumble from the crowd showed they were as perplexed as I. Opening my shield showed Aesnil ready to bounce in her seat in excitement despite the tranquil expression on her face, but that was no clue at all as to what was going on. Something was about to happen—but what?

The guard in the center of the arena made sure the two swords would stand upright in the sand as he’d placed them, then he turned away and walked back to the archway he’d come out of, grinning at the shouted demands from some members of the audience but not answering any of them. As soon as he was gone a near hush fell over the arena, the result of almost every mind in the place straining to catch the first glimpse of what was about to happen. And then, from opposite sides of the arena two large forms appeared, clad in the red haddinn of vendraa but totally unarmed. One was Cinnan, the l’lenda Aesnil had declared vendra, and the other, somehow unsurprisingly, was Tammad. The two men looked around cautiously, looked at each other in passing as they looked around again, and then both started slowly toward the swords they could see in the middle of the sand.

“They do not truly understand,” Aesnil giggled, wriggling around on her cushion. “When two vendraa are set weaponless upon one another, there is never more than a single weapon put in the sand for them to battle over. They believe they are to face one another, yet the time is not right for such a glorious battle. They must first survive my little game.”

She laughed softly at the two men on the sand, being entirely correct in everything she’d said. Their alert minds were confused, and they were looking at each other as potential adversaries. The two swords in the sand worried them, but they weren’t going to let that worry make them do something stupid.

They were both about halfway to the swords when two archways opened to admit gray and black forms, animals that stood almost waist high on the men. The beasts blinked an instant at the glare of sun on white sand, pulled their muzzles back to snarl savagely, then leaped after the two men on the sand. The men, having seen the appearance of the beasts, immediately began running toward the swords left for them, now thinking they understood what was happening. Reaching a weapon was the only way to survive, but they’d been made to hesitate through suspicion of one another. Their minds crackled with self-disgusted cursing as their feet were slowed by the hot, shifting sands, and Aesnil bounced up and down as she clapped her hands, her laughter ringing out.

“Run, Cinnan, run as you never have!” she shouted, her words drowned out by the crowd roar. “Run from them as I wished to run from you, and find as much good in the running as I did!”

I must have been the only one to hear her, and my blood ran cold as I looked quickly back to the arena. The two men were almost to the swords, the beasts no more than three jumps behind them, when arrows whizzed to the sand just in front of the men, making them dodge away from those sweetly beckoning weapons. More arrows sang and thudded into the sand, making the men dive and roll to keep from being hit, and the crowd went crazy as it screamed out its shock.

“And now what will you do, Cinnan?” Aesnil sang out, like one of the arrows seeking a target. “Will you brave the shafts to reach the sword, or will you fight the remdaa with your bare hands? Come, you two mighty I’lendaa! Why do you not command the beasts as you attempted to command me?”

The lean, gray-and-black remdaa had been thrown off their attack by the arrows flying past the contortions of the two men, but not for long. They each had their victim marked and they returned to stalking them with slavering fangs, moving more slowly now but nevertheless moving. Tammad and Cinnan rose from the sand they had rolled through, their minds ignoring the way the sand had burned them in order to concentrate more fully on the animals. The two men spoke briefly, coming to some sort of immediate agreement, and then Tammad jumped forward to attract the two remdaa while Cinnan darted toward the swords. The whine and ping! of an arrow bouncing off a hilt came to force Cinnan to throw himself to one side with a curse, just as the remdaa jumped for Tammad. Everything was happening so fast that I didn’t know where to look first let alone what to do about it, but seeing those beasts go for Tammad forced me to act without thinking. Savagely, I hurled a bolt of terror at the beasts just as Tammad hurled two fistfuls of sand at their eyes before diving out of their way, and the beasts reacted to both attacks with howls and shaking heads and a skidding through the sand. Cinnan had come immediately back to Tammad once he saw the swords were still beyond his reach, and the two l’lendaa stood talking in low, rapid tones while the animals cleared their eyes and regathered their courage.

The large crowd in the arena had grown unbelievably quiet during the brief lull, but not because they didn’t want to break the spell of the moment. Aesnil was sure they were enjoying the sight as much as she was, but she couldn’t feel the overpowering swell of anger and disappointment the way I could. The people watching enjoyed a good fight between equals—whether man against beast or man against man—but they didn’t enjoy the sight of slaughter and that’s what the bout was turning out to be. The two men would be helplessly slaughtered without those swords, but they weren’t being allowed to touch them.

In the arena the action was starting again, but this time only one of the remdaa was coming forward. The other was cowering back despite its hunger, unwilling to move in for the attack after what had happened. I felt the shuddering fear in its mind and knew my projection had hit it hard; it was too bad the other beast hadn’t been affected the same. The second remda was racing toward Tammad and Cinnan again, not caring which man it took down as long as it could eat. The two l’lendaa had been standing together, but suddenly they separated, forcing the beast to choose between them. The beast hesitated no more than a fraction of an instant before going in Tammad’s direction, and before I could even think about sending a projection, Tammad had dodged its leap and thrown his mighty arms around the remda’s throat from behind, squeezing tight as he forced the remda’s head back and it’s body up on two legs. The remda screamed in fury and clawed the air, trying to dislodge the man and free itself to turn and rend, but Cinnan hadn’t just been standing around watching. As soon as the remda turned for Tammad, Cinnan turned and snatched up two of the arrows almost buried in the sand, and ran back to where Tammad struggled with the remda. Tammad was straining terribly to keep the beast from breaking loose, and Cinnan didn’t waste a second. Just barely avoiding the thrashing claws of the beast, he took the two arrows and stabbed into its body with all his strength, driving the arrows deep and causing the remda to scream as though its soul were being violated. The remda spasmed so forcefully it tore loose from the hold Tammad had it in, but it was done too late to do the beast any good. It rolled in the sand, screaming and clawing at its own body, and then the final spasm took it, ending its screams and pain forever.

The two l’lendaa raised themselves from the sand to the shrieks and yells from a thousand throats, the claps and bangs from a thousand hands, the stomps and jumps from a thousand feet. They had won after all, despite their lack of weapons, and the people were going crazy.

“He is magnificent,” Aesnil breathed, staring wide-eyed at the two vendraa clothed in her color. “I had never thought to see a man so magnificent. He braved those claws with no more than arrows in his hand, plunging them into the beast without regard for his safety. Such strength and such courage! Should he survive this day, I may well hold him in my dungeons for the time I will wish a child.”

“He has survived,” I said, seeing the second remda slink back on its belly, its mind filled with fear of the two men, of the smell of blood, and of the deafening crowd noise.

“Not quite yet,” Aesnil said very softly, and again I felt that thrill of fear run through me. I twisted back toward the sands just in time to see two more archways opening, this time admitting a total of four remdaa. The cheering crowd noise immediately changed to a concerted scream of rage, unbelievably heightening in volume when three more arrows snicked into the sands, stopped the two vendraa short in their reflexive start toward the weapons. Insane fury blazed from the minds all around us, coming at me in wall-high waves that tried to crush me down. I gasped under the onslaught, unwilling to raise my shield while there was still a chance I might be able to stop the four new beasts, but after no more than seconds was forced to admit the truth: even if I could keep from collapsing under the wave, I could never work through it. I quickly let the shield form around my mind, a sensation very much like donning sound deadeners in a high-tech processing area, and the pressure eased up immediately—just in time for the next thing to happen.

In the midst of the bedlam of yelling, screaming and gesturing people, knots of men with drawn swords appeared, moving purposefully toward what seemed to be prearranged positions. Some of the positions were guard stations spotted here and there around the arena, where fighting broke out immediately between the newcomers and Aesnil’s guard. The sounds of battle were lost in the still-present crowd roar, and the roar rose to cloud-breaking strength when arrows flew once more-to strike the four remdaa as they came within ten feet of the unarmed, double-braced vendraa. Tammad and Cinnan stared at the kicking, howling—dying—beasts for a brief instant, then jumped as one for the swords they had been unable to touch until then. The hilts were already in their hands when it became clear that fighting was also going on behind most of the barred archways, between Aesnil’s vendra ralle guardsmen and others in the haddinn of free men.

“Who are those men?” Aesnil demanded, standing up to glare around her. “How dare they raise weapons against my guardsmen?”

“Chama, the two vendraa . . !” a woman behind us squeaked in alarm, pointing down toward the sand. We turned back to see Tammad and Cinnan, figurative blood in their light eyes, trotting across the sand in our direction, swords held ready in their fists. It seemed clear they intended scaling the eight-foot wall to reach us, though how they intended doing that with Aesnil’s guards and mine to bar their way I didn’t know.

“Stop them!” Aesnil screamed, pulling at her guardsmen’s sleeves and then pushing them toward the wall. “Protect your Chama as you are sworn to do!”

“We shall, Chama,” the head guardsman said, stepping out in front of his men to order them into position. “It would be best, however, if you were to retire now, with those guardsmen assigned to escort you. It is dangerous for you to remain longer.”

Aesnil looked around wildly, saw the six men with drawn swords waiting for her, and immediately began climbing the tiers up to them. I hesitated a bare moment longer to look around, then began climbing after her. The fighting had spread closer and closer to us in the stands, and if I’d tried getting through on my own I never would have made it. I’d have to stay with the Chama until we were in the clear, and then I’d be able to pick my own direction.

The guardsmen formed a protective semicircle, then began pushing their way through the crowds, fighting only when necessary. They were heading us toward the archway we had come in by, but once we reached it we weren’t able to go through. The fighting was so thick and .heavy there that we were forced to the right, past a heavy wooden door, into a torch-lit corridor that seemed to circle the arena from beneath, losing two of our guardsmen in the process. They weren’t dead, just so hard-pressed by some of the attackers that they couldn’t break free. The remaining four men hurried us along the corridor, one holding Aesnil’s arm, one holding mine, all of them deaf to the fact that I didn’t want to go in that direction. I’d intended waiting behind the door in the side corridor until the fighting had stopped or flowed away in a different direction, but the hand on my arm hadn’t allowed me a choice. By the time I tried opening my shield and found that I could, it would have been worse than a waste of effort to feed the man holding me a dose of indifference. I could hear the sounds of fighting following behind us in the corridor, and could do no more than run with everyone else.

We were all breathing heavily and sweating from the heat in little more than a few minutes, but all we could do was keep going. We rounded a curve in the corridor and nearly went sprawling over the blood-spattered bodies of five or six guardsmen lying in front of one of the barred archways, a set of empty chains on a post hanging like a marker over their lifeless forms. Aesnil gasped in shock and the men gripped their swords more tightly, and I flinched at the fear flowing out of all of them toward me. That’s not to say I wasn’t feeling fear of my own, but my own was enough; I didn’t need theirs to add to it.

Once past the bodies we ran more cautiously, expecting to catch up to the fighting at any time. We passed more bodies, two of them men in plain haddinn, and then, from around the next curve, came the din of metal striking metal or stone, and the thud of metal striking flesh. Men shouted and cursed and screamed, and my shield snapped back into place just as the melee came rolling toward us. The guardsmen with us hesitated, too long as it turned out; the mass spread out and enveloped us all, drawing the guardsmen into it and pressing Aesnil and myself back up against the stone of the wall. A minute later the attackers appeared from the end of the corridor from which we’d come, hemming us in completely and adding their own screams and shouts to the din.

Aesnil and I edged along the wall to the left, behind the backs of the giant men fighting for their lives, Aesnil whimpering and hanging onto my right arm with a death grip. I could feel her terror even with my shield in place, as though the emotion went through her skin and into mine, increasing with every added minute of contact. I could taste the terror in the sourness in my mouth and feel it in the heavy thudding in my chest, but there was no escape for us in that rough-walled, doorless corridor. We hadn’t passed a single place where we could stop and hide, and now it was too late. One of those men would swing his sword at the wrong time—or the right time—and we would go down without a hope of defending ourselves.

And then the massed bodies parted for a brief instant, leaving us clearly in view to the men farther down the corridor to the left and out toward a barred archway. They weren’t guardsmen and they weren’t of the attackers in plain-colored haddinn; they were red-clad vendraa, men with hate etched in their faces, and when they saw Aesnil they started toward us.

If the fighters hadn’t moved back to close the opening again, I think Aesnil would have fainted. The vendraa were fighting like madmen on the edge of the mob, trying to hack their way through to us, and it was only a matter of time before they did. I felt as paralyzed by shock as she did, and could do no more than stand and stare.

“Quickly, Chama, in here!” a hoarse voice called, and I jerked my head around to see one of our guardsmen only five feet away, pointing into a gap in the stone. The man had no choice but to turn back to the fight in order to stay alive, but his few words were enough. With Aesnil still clutching my arm, I edged toward the gap he had pointed out.

It took an age to get there, but we finally reached the gap to discover a doorway in the stone wall, one which led to a large room with other doorways. It was a way out, it had to be a way out, and Aesnil and I fell through the doorway in frantic haste, then turned to close the door. The heavy wooden door closed more easily than we’d expected, as if the door hinges were kept well oiled, but when we searched for the metal bar that would slide across the door and lock us in, it was nowhere in sight.

Aesnil walked woodenly to the middle of the room and crouched down to sob into her hands, but there were still the other doors to check before I could—or would—join her in despair. The torchlit room was large but nearly bare, with nothing to decorate the walls but chains hanging high above the floor on the left, separated by about three feet of empty stone between each set. On the right, beyond the farther door and halfway to the door straight ahead, was a bench carved out of the rock, with no cushions set on it to make it more comfortable. The floor was swept rock as well, but smoothed over as though by the passage of many feet.

I started with the closer door on the right, but pushing it open showed nothing but a smaller room carved into the rock beside the first room. It had carpet fur on the floor and cushions scattered about, but no entrance or exit other than the one I stood at. Strangely enough it also had two or three thin chains and collars attached low down on the silk-covered walls, but I was in too much of a hurry to wonder what they meant.

The farther door in the right-hand wall was large and heavy, with a metal bar set into the stone beside it that closed it tight. I paused at it briefly before going toward the last door, quickly deciding to leave it for a last-ditch effort. The heavy wood and metal would take more than my strength to move, and there was no sense in trying to get Aesnil’s help if it wasn’t necessary.

The third door was unbarred even though it could be barred, but I was glad I opened it only a crack to look out. I recognized the area where Aesnil and I had seen the chained vendraa by the chain-hung posts in sight, but the posts weren’t the only things in sight. Dozens of men fought with swords in the area, some of them clearly guardsmen and some of them recognizably Tammad’s l’lendaa. There was no way out that way, especially not for me, and I closed the door again with a sinking feeling inside me.

“Aesnil, come and help me here,” I said as I turned back to the only barred door. “Do you by any chance know where this might lead?”

“No,” the girl answered, standing erect with defeat stamped on her features. “This room is for use of the guardsmen, and I have little knowledge of the inner workings of the ralle. Do you feel we might escape if we should succeed in opening it?”

“It is highly unlikely,” I told her, putting my shield down to study her more closely. She was still as upset as I was, but she was no longer giving up. “To leave this room we must go either back as we carne, or forward to the courtyard area. As men fight in both places we may do neither, yet perhaps another corridor may lie behind this door, to lead us eventually to a way out.”

“We must try,” she said, putting her hands on the metal bar near mine. “The Chama must not be found cowering in a corner. If she is to die, she must die with some semblance of dignity.”

Good girl, I thought as the two of us began pushing at the bar. Aesnil had quite a few bad points, but at least she wasn’t a quitter. We strained at the bar, forcing it to slide free of the brackets it was seated in, then started on the door itself. It opened more easily than we thought it would, but there was nothing behind it we could use.

“A stairway,” Aesnil observed, pushing sweat-soaked hair back away from her face.

“Leading downward into darkness,” I added to the obvious, wiping at my forehead with the back of my hand. “Perhaps it comes out again elsewhere.”

“I fear not,” she sighed, moving to the stone wall to lean against it. “It is undoubtedly the dungeon of the ralle, where the cells of the vendraa are located. There is but one entrance for security sake, and this . . . .”

Her words were cut off as the door to the corridor was opened with a crash, admitting three figures in vendra red. The men’s swords dripped red with blood, and their minds growled with anger and a need for vengeance. Aesnil and I backed up against the wall as the three advanced slowly, their swords held in front of them, anticipation and grim pleasure on their faces. The corridor behind them seemed empty of life, no more than savagely slashed bodies to be seen on its floor, unliving bodies we would soon resemble. My heartbeat thundered in my ears as loudly as the swirling in Aesnil’s mind beat in my head, and I was shocked when Aesnil stepped away from the wall to stand in front of me.

“I am the Chama,” she announced to the three men, trying to stand proud and straight despite the trembling of her body. “Slay me if you will, yet you must not harm my companion. She had no hand in causing your trials.”

“She accompanies you of her own free will,” one of the men said in a flat, uninterested voice. “She may also accompany you in death.”

“That is not so!” Aesnil protested, but the men weren’t listening any longer. They were coming toward us again with sword points raised; I grabbed her shoulder and quickly pulled her back against the wall—as though it would do some good. They came another step closer, two steps closer

“Hold!” a deep voice rang out, causing the three big vendraa to wheel around in instant readiness. Incredibly, unbelievably, Tammad and Cinnan stood just inside the doorway, their giant bodies braced as they stood with swords up, their entire manner shouting battle-readiness. It was Cinnan who had spoken, but the eyes of the three nearer men moved to Tammad.

“You cannot take this pleasure as your own!” the one on the extreme left protested to the barbarian. “You have been vendra no more than a short while, he beside you an even shorter time. It is we who have suffered the longest, we who strove so long for survival that this day might somehow come to be! We must have her life in payment for what was done to us!”

“Enough lives have been lost in this insanity of guiltless vendraa!” Cinnan interrupted harshly, bringing their attention to him. “No others save criminals were to have been declared vendra, yet it is now clear that too many others have fallen so. Should you wish one to blame you may take me, for I have been unforgivably remiss in my duty. It was my place to band the Chama at the proper time, not give heed to her pleas for delays. There will now be no further delays, for this you have my word.”

“You are the one meant to band her?” the same vendra asked, outraged disbelief in his voice. “And you, too, were made vendra?”

“As easily as the merest child,” Cinnan growled in self-disgust. “I could not believe she would dare do such a thing. There will be payment enough for that doing to satisfy each and every one of you. Death would be too easy.”

“Indeed.” The vendra nodded, turning to look at Aesnil with a snort. “Death would indeed be much the easier. Should my brothers agree, her life is yours.”

“What of the other?” a second vendra asked, the same one who had spoken to Aesnil. He turned to look at me, and his eyes were deadly cold.

“The other is mine,” Tammad said very quietly, with his usual calm. “That one must answer to me.”

The second man turned back to look at Tammad, his mind measuring the barbarian and his own chances for winning against him, but he had seen the larger man fight and knew himself no equal to him. His teetering emotions indicated indecision and discretion.

“Very well,” he said, finally lowering his weapon. “The second one is yours. We will, however, seek others of the guard of this place, to see if their swords are as quick as their whips. Have either of you any further objections?”

“None.” Tammad laughed as Cinnan grinned agreement. “Should you find any still among the living, speak to them of our own displeasure with them.”

“The pleasure will be ours, brothers,” the man answered, but his mind was still too grim to find amusement in anything. Tammad and Cinnan each stepped to one side of the door and the three men passed between them, turning left when they were in the corridor. Cinnan waited a moment before leaning out into the corridor to make sure they were gone, then came back in to nod at Tammad and close the door behind him. With all the preliminaries taken care of they turned to look at us, and their expressions were friendly when compared to their minds.

“So you mean to torture me!” Aesnil suddenly blurted into Cinnan’s lowering stare, her back hard against the wall beside me. “Do as you will, beast of a maul I am the Chama, and will not beg for my freedom!”

“Do you hear the foolish wenda, Tammad?” Cinnan asked without taking his eyes from Aesnil. “She would have us believe she is Chama, when it is clear to any with eyes that she can be no more than a common wenda, one who has undoubtedly come to the vendra ralle without her father’s permission. Would the Chama be clad in a torn and dirt-stained gown, with hair so fly—about in disarray? Would the Chama be found without her guard, foolishly alone in a place where her life might be lost in a trice?”

“Certainly not,” Tammad said, regarding Aesnil as Cinnan spoke. Until then he had been staring at me, and it was all I could do to keep from trembling.

“Therefore she must indeed be no more than a common wenda, her presence here an obvious disobedience,” Cinnan said, tossing his sword to the floor beside the wall with the hanging chains. “I feel it my duty to correct the disobedience, to insure that it will not be repeated. She must have a good strapping.”

“Cinnan, no!” Aesnil whispered, paling as she shook her head at the slowly advancing man. “It is not permitted to treat the Chama so! You know this as well as I!”

“That dictum will soon be changed,” Cinnan said grimly, stopping in front of us to look down at an Aesnil who was trying to crawl into the rock wall behind me. “Had you been properly seen to before this, much grief would have been avoided. Perhaps I will strap you each morning before you hold audience, to allow the ache in your body to remind you that punishment must often be tempered with moderation. Come here.”

He put his hand out to take Aesnil’s arm, but her trembling fear affected me so strongly that I began beating at Cinnan with my fists, to drive him away from her. A faint annoyance flashed briefly in Cinnan’s mind and then I was being taken by the arms and pulled out of the way, to be pushed slightly before being released. The push sent me stumbling backward, but instead of falling I found myself crashing into another hard male body.

“There has been enough interference from you,” Tammad said, taking a fistful of my hair with such force that I cried out in pain. “So you would run others’ lives to suit your own comfort, eh, wenda? It pleased you to betray me, to take amusement from me as you have done other times in the past. You will regret having done so, wenda, for this time punishment will not be withheld from you.”

The bitterness in him cut at me deeply, but unlike Aesnil I had nothing to say. He no longer held his sword, but he had no more use for it than Cinnan did. Aesnil yelled and cursed as Cinnan dragged her around by one arm, looking for a strap, but I made no sound at all when Tammad took me by the hair and headed for the stairs into darkness, pausing only to take a torch from the wall.

The stairway leading downward was rough-cut stone, but smoothed by the passage of many feet. I stumbled down the stairs in Tammad’s grip, the torch in his other hand throwing shadows all around, desperate to know what he was going to do with me but unwilling to ask. The air temperature lowered the farther down we went; by the time we reached the bottom it must have been twenty degrees cooler. The flickering torch bounced glares of light off the damp stone walls and floor, illuminating the beginning of a long row of cells stretching left and right away into the darkness. The area before the immediate set of cells was wide enough for a number of people to stand abreast, and didn’t narrow until one walked right or left away from that area. Tammad turned right into the narrowing, continued on at least twenty feet, then stopped in front of one cell to put the torch in a sconce on the wall.

“You may have the cell that was mine,” he said, swinging the slatted metal door wide and propelling me through. “Though you cannot hope to open a door I was unable to open from within, I have another gift for you. Here.”

He forced me down to the stone floor at the rear of the tiny cell, then crouched to reach beside me and lift something metallic that flashed dully in the dim glow from the torch across the corridor. The metallic something turned out to be a collar with a short chain let into the wall down near the floor, and he closed it about my neck with a good deal of satisfaction.

“This trinket is used upon whatever female slave a vendra earns,” he told me, standing straight again to stare down at me. “Should the vendra earn more than one slave, he must use them only one at a time and before the guardsmen for their amusement. This indignity, however, was not mine to suffer; I am l’lenda, and do not use slaves. You will remain here till I see fit to release you, to think upon what you have done and what further punishments I shall find for you. May you find the joy here that I did.”

He turned away then and left the cell, closed the door and slid the locking bar across, then took the torch and went back the way we had come. As feeble as the torchlight had been, it had been better than nothing, a fact proven to me as soon as the darkness closed in. My hands went to the narrow metal collar around my throat, but there was no removing the thin, stubborn band. I was locked in place and locked in the cell, in the empty, damp darkness where I had been left. I leaned back against the stone of the wall with a shiver, trying to tell myself I was lucky just to be left like that. When dealing with Rimilian barbarians, there are worse things than just being left alone in the dark.

And then I sat straight again, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t alone. With the darkness had come the approach of half a dozen tiny minds, simple minds filled with simple desires, like roaming and procreating—and eating. That last seemed to be the major mover, the one that made the other desires possible. Each of those small minds shouted with hunger, needing food, wanting it, desiring it with all their might. They were very cautious in their approach, sensing danger surrounding the food they wanted, but their approach was nevertheless sure and steady, not to be denied by anything less than an actual attack against their lives.

I shivered again from the damp, wrapping my arms about myself, wishing I could believe those creatures were no more than company in the darkness. I knew, though, that they would attack me if they got the chance, using my flesh and blood to sustain them and their desires. I sighed shakily with the necessary decision to protect myself, then reached toward their minds—only to recoil again in shock. The fear I’d projected had done nothing more than ripple through their minds, passing like water through a net but with considerably less effect. A net is wet by the water that touches it, but those small, hungry minds had been totally untouched by the emotion of fear, not recognizing it as an emotion! Fear, love, hate, lust, greed, kindness, generosity—all were unknown to those tiny beings, and all were therefore useless against them. Numbly I tried again by projecting satiety as though they’d just finished the best meal of their lives, but that, too, was unknown to them. They had no concept of being full and satisfied, indeed would probably eat themselves to death if ever given the opportunity to do so. They advanced again even as my mind tried to fend them off, totally untouchable, totally unstoppable.

My heart thumped loud in the all-enveloping darkness, a counterpoint to the roughness of my breathing. I backed along the floor until I was right up against the wall, knowing I was trapped with a sureness that turned my muscles to water. Those creatures would come closer and closer, testing my defenses, growing bolder with every successful encroachment, until they leapt upon me, biting and tearing in a frenzy of eating. The trembling I hadn’t been aware of grew more violent as I stared about in the pitch blackness, seeing more clearly in my enforced blindness than an untalented person would in full daylight. They were coming for me, those six small minds motivated by hunger, closing slowly but surely, their lines of advance lit by their life-traces blazing in the dark. I twisted to the wall with a sob and a clink of chain, shaking with fear, closing my eyes and shield tight as I put my hands over my ears to stop the sounds of tiny scrapings. They would have me no matter what I did, and I couldn’t bear to see or hear it coming.

I tried desperately, though terrified, to understand what happened next. One minute I was cringing against the wall, fighting to keep from screaming, and the next I was being pulled against a broad, warm chest, held in arms that circled me with protection and lent me strength. I shook terribly in those large, strong arms and they tightened immediately to hold me closer yet, soothing sounds coming from the throat above them. I didn’t understand what was happening and tried to say so, but the words refused to come past the tightness in my throat.

“Hush,” Tammad said, moving one big hand to stroke my hair. “I thought I would find myself able to do this to you, but I find instead that I would rather return to this place myself than abandon you here. You have earned punishment many times over, yet this will not be it. Come, let us leave this place.”

He paused to open the collar he had put around my throat, then urged me to my feet and out the cell door. It wasn’t until he took the torch from the sconce on the wall that I realized there was light again, but there are things to have more precious than light. I clung to his body and presence as we walked, and slowly let my shield fade away, admitting the true sounds of the world again. The small creatures were well behind me, and Tammad’s mind hummed with a contentment I hadn’t felt in quite some time. Calm dominated his mind as usual, but the contentment was too obvious to miss. It was difficult knowing what he could be content about, but there was no mistaking the emotion.

We had climbed almost to the top of the stairs before I heard the crying, but by the time we were back in the room I already knew exactly what was happening. Tammad left me in the middle of the floor while he returned the torch to its original place by the door, and from that position I could see directly into the small room that had probably been used by the guardsmen when they took their pleasure. Cinnan had evidently found the strap he had been searching for; he sat cross-legged on the carpet fur of the room with Aesnil draped over his lap, the skirt of her once-pretty red gown thrown back to her shoulders. The strap in his hand struck Aesnil’s bottom with a terrible, even rhythm, punishing her as though she were a child, bringing tears pouring from her eyes and wailing screams from her throat as she kicked and struggled uselessly. I could feel her deep humiliation as well as the awful blaze of pain given by the strap, and turned quickly away as I closed my shield again. I didn’t need to share her punishment to know what pain and humiliation were like.

“Perhaps that should be your punishment as well,” Tammad mused, seeing bow I felt as he stared down at me. “Cinnan has deduced that his capture was somehow due to your efforts, and would be pleased to see you done the same. It will soon be his word which rules this country; his good will would not be without benefit.”

“Then by all means give him his pleasure,” I said, turning away from the blue eyes staring down at me. “What else is a wenda for, than to give pleasure to a man?”

“Terril, you will speak to me,” he growled, grabbing my arms to turn me back to him. “I will know all that goes through that head of yours, and we will settle each point now, before further time passes. This has too long been . . . .”

He was interrupted by the heavy door to the courtyard bursting open, but before he did more than jerk toward the sword he had tossed to the floor, he discovered defense was unnecessary.

“Tammad, you are here and safe.” Loddar smiled, striding in with others of the barbarian’s l’lendaa behind him. They all carried bloody swords in their fists, including Garth who walked to the back of the group. Len came right behind Garth, trying not to look haggard, but I could imagine what he’d gone through being in the middle of a battle where men died one after the other. He didn’t have a sword of his own, but I wasn’t sure he’d be able to use it. He and Garth both wore haddinn instead of red leather pants, and both looked happier for the change.

“I see you have Terry,” Garth said, coming forward with Len to stand beside Tammad. “That makes me feel considerably better. I was afraid something would happen to her in that war we just went through.”

“Where do you come from?” Tammad demanded, frowning at Loddar and the rest. “Where do all of you come from? The last I knew, my l’lendaa were left encamped with orders to await my return, and my new brothers were being taken to a captivity different from mine. How is it you are all now here, armed and aware of what difficulty I faced?”

“Our new allies were much involved in that.” Len grinned, speaking so that Loddar and the others were able to understand him. That left Garth out of the conversation, but Tammad’s question, in Rimilian, had already done that.

“We were approached when we came to storm the vendra ralle,” Len continued. “A force much larger than ours already waited here, and their leaders convinced us that we would do well to wait with them. They came to free one of their own number, a denday named Cinnan, who bad been declared vendra just the previous day. They awaited the time when all vendraa were removed from their cells and chained to posts in anticipation of their turn upon the sands. We immediately saw the wisdom in this course of action and joined them, only later to discover with them what was planned for you and Cinnan. We thought it best to await the time weapons would be available to the two of you, yet nearly misjudged the time. The guardsmen fought well and bravely, delaying us all in our advance until it was nearly too late. That we came when we did was fortuitous indeed.”

“Cinnan and I remarked upon the very same thing.” Tammad grinned, clapping Loddar on the shoulder as he looked at his men in approval. “That his people also saw to the guardsmen set to keep us from scaling the wall to the stands was of equal good fortune. The sands are not a pleasant place to be in the heat of the day.”

All the men laughed heartily at that and Tammad laughed with them, relief making the comment more amusing for them than it would normally have been. The barbarian had had his back to me as he had spoken to the others, so I had taken the opportunity of moving slowly but steadily away toward the door to the corridor. When the laughter began I turned and walked the rest of the way, intending to go through and lose myself in the confusion of battle’s end, but just as I opened the door the first crack, a hand came over my right shoulder to push it shut again.

“You don’t really want to do that, Terry,” Garth said, leaning his weight on the hand that kept the door closed despite my furious tugging. “Daldrin warned us you would probably try something like this, but you’d be a fool to go ahead with it. A woman alone on this world doesn’t stand much of a chance of surviving.”

“And I don’t see much of a chance if I stay here,” I retorted without turning to look at him. “If I want to be a fool that’s my business. Let go of the door.”

“There is no need for him to release the door,” another voice came, making me close my eyes and lower my head to mourn the passing of what would probably be my last chance to get out of there. “Do you again seek to escape earned punishment, wenda? I have told you that this time the punishment will be yours, and I have not lied.”

His hand came to my hair to pull my head back with a jerk, and Garth frowned at the gasp forced out of me.

“Tammad, what are you doing?” he demanded, his gray eyes showing confusion. “Hasn’t anyone told you how much we owe her?”

“Garth, you promised!” I whispered intensely, tears in my eyes from the hold on my hair. “Please, you promised!”

“What is this of a promise?” Tammad asked, the same confusion touching Garth reaching for him. “What was to be told to me that this wenda does not wish me to know?”

“It was a promise made to be broken,” Garth answered, looking at me with gentle regret. “Len and I would still, be chained slaves in the palace kitchen if Terry hadn’t gotten us out. She even supplied a guide and protector, another palace slave named Daldrin, to go with us and make sure we reached camp in one piece. She told us where you were being held so your men might free you, not realizing there was another attack being planned. If Cinnan’s men hadn’t been there, you’d be owing your life and freedom to her right now.”

“I see,” Tammad said heavily, his hand opening slowly to release my hair. “And yet she aided the one called Chama, walking beside her as a valued friend.”

“Daldrin told us all about that.” Garth snorted out his disdain for the idea. “That Aesnil female threatened to throw her to the male work slaves if she refused to cooperate. She pretended to be a willing worker just to get enough elbow room to do what had to be done. Like freeing us to arrange for your rescue and staying behind to make sure we weren’t chased down.”

“And doing what she could against the beasts of the arena,” Len put in from somewhere behind Tammad. “I saw those two animals coming for you when Cinnan tried to reach the swords. You threw sand in their eyes, but it was the deep fear Terry projected at the same time that kept one of the things from attacking again. I was only on the fringes of the projection, but it almost knocked me over. If not for that, our rescue might have come a little too late to do you and Cinnan any good.”

There was suddenly a lot of silence all around, most of it coming from Tammad, but I still didn’t look up or open my shield. I was too wrapped up in my own emotions to worry about what anyone else was feeling.

“Terril, you said nothing of any of this when I accused you,” Tammad said at last, his voice sounding tired. “Why did you not tell me of what you had done on my behalf? Did you think I would disbelieve you?”

“What does it matter?” I whispered, closing my eyes. “It doesn’t even matter whether or not I helped you. All that matters is that I’m still here instead of gone.”

“Hama, why do you speak so?” he sighed, coming closer to fold me in his arms. “It matters a great deal that your thoughts were for me. It is an action that speaks more clearly than words of your love for me. A love I had almost begun to doubt.”

He held me strongly but gently against his chest, bringing me closer to the familiar smell of him, holding me the way I’d needed to be held for so long. It didn’t make saying the words any easier, but they still had to be said.

“I can’t stay on this world,” I whispered, rubbing my cheek on his chest despite the sweat covering him. “I don’t understand it and I don’t fit in, and I’m sick to death of being used. I’m going back to Central, where I belong.”

“I see it is indeed necessary that we talk,” he murmured, stroking my hair, then raised his voice as he switched languages. “Loddar, gather our l’lendaa together and prepare them. We return to camp immediately.”

“Tammad, I will not hear of your leaving so soon,” Cinnan’s voice broke in, causing the barbarian to turn to him. He stood in front of the now-closed door to the small pleasure room, much of the anger gone from his light eyes. “You must remain a time as my guest, to allow me to thank you properly for your assistance. And to allow us both to see to that female you hold.”

“We were mistaken, Cinnan,” Tammad said quietly, tightening his arms about me. “My men have told me of her assistance to both them and us, without which we would have found attaining freedom much more difficult. You are done with punishing that—common girl—you found?”

“For now,” Cinnan murmured with a faint grin. “I took the time to add something of additional pain to the strapping given her, teaching her the power of a man. When next I touch her there will be no pain, only the helplessness of a woman in the arms of a man. She will quickly learn to crave it as all women do.”

I pushed out of Tammad’s arms in disgust, wishing I could open my shield and blast every man in that room for the smug agreement I could see on their faces. Instead I turned away from them, hating them and their world even more than l had.

“I must speak to my woman privately,” Tammad told Cinnan as he put a big hand on my shoulder to keep me from moving any farther. “I will be pleased to accept your hospitality, provided there will not be a great deal of delay. These words have spent too long a time unspoken.”

“It will take but a moment to gather my men,” he said, walking toward the sword he had put down earlier. “Once we have shown our strength and determination to the palace guard, they will not long oppose us. All matters will be righted this day, for they have already been paid for in blood. Remain here till my return, and we will enter the palace together.”

Tammad nodded and Cinnan left, and we began our wait in silence.