The Warrior Enchained

8

I was awakened by the touch of hands on my body, but not awakened so far that I could do anything other than react. My mind told me I was a woman —and a man wanted me, and my body quickly readied itself to receive him. The man wasn’t long in coming to me, and he took such deep possession of my body that I moaned and clutched at his back, ecstasy shooting through me and turning me weak. I moaned again and floated to the heights with him, lost in the clouds and soaring high until he brought us both back to solid ground. It took a minute or two before my thoughts sorted themselves out, and then a series of shocks brought me fully awake.

The man who had just taken me was Loddar, not Tammad as I had somehow believed. I pushed my hair back from my face and half sat up, mortified at the way Loddar was chuckling. He had glanced at and nodded to the third figure in the camtah, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Tammad must have come in either before or during my use, and the calm approval in his mind was more than I could stand. He had just seen me being used by another man and the thought didn’t bother him! He was pleased and happy and even his voice showed it.

“I now have no need to ask how the darkness passed for you, Loddar.” He chuckled, solid and calm in his crouch. “Is there need to extend her punishment yet further?”

“Unfortunately no, denday.” Loddar laughed, moving around to replace his haddin and swordbelt. “It would be pleasant to have it otherwise, but she does not merit further punishment.”

“I have brought her imad and caldin,” the barbarian said, tossing a light bundle onto the camtah floor. “They were somehow overlooked when you took her from my camtah.”

“Indeed,” Loddar answered, grinning. “Now that she has proven satisfactory, she may have them. Had she not proven satisfactory, I would have returned her as I took her, though running before me and the switch I carried. Her ownership was pleasant, denday, temporary though it was.”

“I am pleased to have it so, Loddar,” Tammad said, and his mind told me he was pleased. “There is now only one further thing required of her, and I have come to see it done properly. Loddar awaits an apology, wenda, such as those given to Garth and Lenham. See that your attempt pleases him nearly as much as your use.”

I raised my eyes in the dimness to look at him, searching for even the slightest hint that he intended easing up on me, but there was nothing, not even a shadow. I had never before been blamed that totally for something I’d done, most especially not into the day following the incident. I didn’t know how long he would go on with it, and the thought was unsettling. Wasn’t the fact that I felt badly about it enough? I could see he wasn’t going to try to fool me about his feelings any longer, but did he have to make the reversal so complete?

I lowered my eyes again and slowly got to my knees, shuffling forward until I knelt in front of Loddar. The l’lenda bad his haddin and swordbelt on, and he stood with arms folded across his chest as he looked down at me. I stared at his shadowy feet in silence for a moment, struggling with the humiliation of needing to apologize, then plunged ahead to get it over with.

“Loddar, I ask your forgiveness for what was done to you,” I said, fighting to fill my voice with regret. “I have shamed myself with my actions more completely than those actions have shamed others. It is my hope that my—my—use recompensed you in some small way for the discomfort you were made to feel”

I kept my eyes on his feet as I ended it, wondering about the calculation I could feel in his thoughts. He hadn’t missed the way I’d stumbled over the most humiliating part of the speech, and he didn’t let it pass without comment.

“The thought comes to me, wenda, that your concern with shame is touched little by the concept of honor, a concept which once seemed understood by you,” he said, a musing quality in his voice. “Have you merely strayed from the path, or are you no more than another wenda after all?”

I looked up at him quickly, seeing the sober way he stared down at me, feeling my cheeks redden from his criticism. There had once been a time when I’d thought about more than my own comfort and considerations, and Loddar remembered that time, comparing the present with it in an unfavorable light. His comment did make me feel ashamed, but there was nothing I wanted to say in answer to it. I looked down again, lowering my head, feeling my spirits lower to match. He wasn’t the first to say he was disappointed in me, and he would hardly be the last.

“Are there to be no further words from you?” Loddar asked, his voice mild. “Perhaps at this time such is best. The future often finds words for us that we would not have used had we spoken earlier. Should you wish her now, denday, you may take her. I have no further use for her.”

“Very well, Loddar,” Tammad said, rising out of his crouch. “Dress yourself and bring your furs, wenda. There are things to be folded before my pack seetar may be loaded. Do not dawdle, for we must soon be on our way.”

I looked up at him sharply, but he had already turned and started through the camtah opening, Loddar moving along behind him. Once they were both gone I took my clothes from where Tammad had dropped them and got dressed, then separated my furs from Loddar’s. Folding them took only a minute, and I was just about to leave the camtah when I hesitated, thought for a minute, then turned back and folded Loddar’s furs as well. I didn’t really understand why I did it, but somehow it seemed appropriate.

Outside it was just beginning to get light, the warmth of the day to come still cooled by the last of the night breezes. I took my furs and walked over to the pile of things beside Tammad’s pack seetar, knelt in front of the pile and began folding. Len and Garth were standing a short distance away, but I was able to ignore them until they came to stand right beside me.

“It’s going to be another beautiful day,” Len observed, taking an extra deep breath of the fresh morning air. “A beautiful day after a beautiful night.”

“A beautiful day, yes,” Garth agreed with a chuckle. “The night, however, was more incredible than beautiful. Beautiful is too mild a word.”

“I know what you mean.” Len laughed, and I heard a sound as though be had clapped Garth on the shoulder. “It’s amazing what a new outlook will do for a man—not to mention what it does to a woman. I don’t know if you could tell about yours, but mine started out feeling superior and impatient, for all the world like a woman of Central.”

“As if it were an ordeal she had decided to suffer through just to get finished with,” Garth agreed. “I couldn’t read her emotions, but her feelings were plain enough in the way she acted. It didn’t take long to change her tune, though.”

“Only because you probably refused to accept it, just the way I did,” Len said. “You couldn’t even speak her language, but you still managed to make yourself understood. Women need to be put in their place fast and kept there—isn’t that right, Terry?”

They both began chuckling at that, their mood mellow after a night of tension release, but their comments didn’t bother me one way or the other. I just kept folding and stacking the things in front of me, approaching the bottom of the pile with satisfying rapidity.

“Don’t be angry, Terry,” Garth put in, the amusement in his voice softened but still there. “Len wasn’t serious about that comment, he was just trying to get a rise out of you. We’re not used to seeing you this quiet.”

“She isn’t angry,” Len said, his voice considerably more sober than it had been. “She feels—no, she won’t let me resolve the mixture. Terry, are you sure you’re all right? I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” I answered, watching my hands finally reach the bottom with Tammad’s sleeping furs. I hesitated the barest fraction of an instant before touching them, but realized immediately that being idiotic wouldn’t get the job done. I started them fast, still watching my hands, and added to Len, “I’m sorry if you two are disappointed in me again.”

I could sense the disapproval in Garth’s mind, but Len jumped in before the Kabra could say anything.

“Terry, don’t be stupid!” my brother empath said harshly, pulling me up to face him. “Expecting people to be disappointed in you is a way of giving up! I know the punishment you got wasn’t easy for you, but it wasn’t bad enough to make you give up!”

His blue eyes were as hard as his mind was angry, but % didn’t know what he had to be angry about. I met the hardness in his eyes very briefly, then looked down.

“Expecting disappointment isn’t giving up when you cats feel that disappointment.” I shrugged. “You can’t lie to me about how you feel, Len, and neither can anyone else here. Are you trying to deny that that’s what you felt?”

“Yesterday, no,” he said with a headshake, loosening his grip on my arms but not letting go. “Today’s a different story. And while we’re discussing yesterday’s disappointments, I want to mention the one you thought you felt in Tammad, when he said he no longer got pleasure from your presence. I know you couldn’t have read him accurately through that flash of hurt you felt, so let me tell you what I got. He was trying to bring you back down to earth, Terry, to make you sorry for what you did. He wasn’t telling the truth about how he felt.”

Garth was silent but expectant behind me, Len was silent but attentive in front of me, and all around us people bustled about preparing the day’s first meal and getting ready to break camp. A small flight of birds passed across the sky to my left, happy and free in their own special way, visualizing nesting places just left and fat bugs just eaten and endless sky to fly in before darkness fell again. The first rays of the sun were growing longer and more golden, less and less of the red of anger showing in them. I stared at Len’s chest, wondering why it looked so much broader without a shirt covering it, and nodded my head.

“It was good of you to tell me that, Len,” I said. “Please accept my thanks.”

“Damn it, you don’t believe me,” he growled, tightening his grip again to shake me. “Can’t you see I’m not lying to you Terry? Can’t you see I’m telling the truth?”

“Hold it a minute, Len,” Garth interrupted, his voice quiet and concerned. “Maybe she—felt—what went on last night in the pavilion and is making the same mistake we made. Tell her what we found out—about all of last night.”

“I shouldn’t have to,” Len sighed, his fingers relaxing again. “She isn’t as new to this world as we are. Look, Terry, once Loddar took you to his tent last night, the first thing

Tammad did was send for Gay King and tell her she was spending the night with him. Garth and I both immediately assumed that he’d gotten rid of you to leave a clear road for Gay, and I suppose he saw it in our faces. He asked us what was bothering us and finally talked us into voicing our nasty suspicions.”

“Terry, he laughed,” Garth said. “He laughed as if he were really enjoying himself, but when he saw we weren’t sharing the fun he tried to explain. And the first thing he said was that we were still looking at things like off-worlders.”

“The men of Rimilia do as they please without having to make excuses,” Len said, taking his turn. “Gay was given to Tammad as a gift, and according to the way he looks at things, he has the right to use her any time he pleases. The only reason he gave you to Loddar was that you owed Loddar some exercise and he wanted to see you pay up. If you hadn’t owed Loddar anything, he might have given you to one of us or even kept you there while he played Gayms, but the choice would have been his.”

“And his choice doesn’t affect the way he feels about you,” Garth said, reaching out to touch my face. “He asked two of his men to let us use their women for a few reasons, but one of them was to show us that using a woman doesn’t commit you to anything beyond the general sense of responsibility all men feel toward women. On Alderan a man is supposed to at least pretend he feels true love for any woman he beds; here it isn’t necessary.”

They stopped their alternating duet and stared down at me, but I couldn’t understand what they were so obviously waiting for. Len had been right in thinking I knew what the prevailing attitude on Rimilia was, but I didn’t see what difference it made.

“Well?” Len demanded, frowning. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“What would you like me to say?” I asked, standing still between his hands.

“Anything!” he burst out, frustration burning in his mind. “Argument or agreement, I don’t care which, as long as you show me you’re still alive inside! You haven’t reacted to anything we said one way or the other; I don’t like the way your mind doesn’t seem to care.”

“Just what is it I’m supposed to care about?” I asked, beginning to feel annoyed. “What difference will my caring make when it comes to what happens to me? Will caring get me back to Central or even to the embassy? Will caring change the way these barbarians think? Nothing makes them change, they make everyone else change. If you don’t believe it, see if you can find a mirror. I doubt if you’ll recognize what you see.”

They were both staring at me again, this time with whirling emotions fighting within, the usual prelude to the beginnings of an argument. Before any words could come pouring forth, though, the conversation was broken up by higher authority.

“Terril, come here,” Tammad called, and we all turned our heads to see him standing in front of his pavilion with Gay King. Gay was wrapped around his left arm, her body pressed tightly to it, her mind a nauseating mixture of extreme satisfaction and smug accomplishment. She was looking at me with a very superior smile, no more than a faint ghost-shadow left of the fear she had felt. Len and Garth stepped back away from me, freeing me to answer the summons, so I walked over to the cozy pair. Refusing to do so would have been a waste of time.

“Terril, you have an unfinished matter to attend to with the Gaynor King,” I was told when I stopped in front of the barbarian. “Do you now see to this matter—in the same manner you have heretofore used.”

He stared down at me with his usual calm expression, his mind under the same easy, calm control. I could feel Gay’s superior smile spread into a smirk, but I didn’t bother looking at her. Tammad had told me I had to apologize to her, from my knees, the same way I’d done with the men, and she knew it. The only thing she didn’t know was what my answer would be.

“I won’t do it,” I told the barbarian, surprising myself almost as much as I surprised him. “I’m sorry if you don’t like that answer, but I simply won’t do it.”

“You have not been given the choice of refusing,” he answered, keeping the surprise from showing on his face the way Gay’s fury showed on hers. “You will do as you have been bidden to do, and that at once. I have little patience left for you, wenda.”

“There’s always a choice.” I shrugged, looking away from those beautiful blue eyes as I ignored the rest of what he’d said. “If you’re willing to pay the price for it, the choice is always yours.”

“And you have chosen to pay the price,” he said, and then his hand came to my face to turn it back to him. His expression was odd, as odd as the emotions trying to crowd past his control. “You will pay the price you have chosen; wenda, but the coin will not buy what you seek. Come darkness you will be switched again and afterward made to obey me. Should you obey me sooner the switching will be lighter, yet the punishment will not be avoided. I will be obeyed, wenda; in this you have no choice.”

He let go of my face and walked away with Gay, her fury somewhat mollified by the promise he’d made me. I walked away myself, back toward where the seetarr were tied, slipping in among the huge animals and immediately shielding my mind. The next minute Len and Garth appeared, just as I knew they would, their heads turning back and forth as they looked for me, Len undoubtedly also probing with his mind. They walked a short distance beyond where I crouched, stood looking around with frustration plain on their faces, then turned and went back in the direction from which they’d come. I stood straight and waited a brief time, cracked the shield carefully to make sure my pursuers were gone, then left the seetarr to find a tree to sit beneath. Some of the seetarr, Tammad’s saddle male in particular, snorted and sent questioning nudges with their minds, but all I did was reassure them automatically then drop them from consideration.

The grass was comfortable under the tree I chose, soft and thick like a fur carpet. I sat down facing away from the camp and leaned back against the tree trunk, wishing they would forget about me long enough to leave without me, knowing the wish was a waste of thought. Even if the barbarian had been willing to give up—and his mind said he wasn’t—Len and Garth would refuse to leave until I had been found. They’d fallen into an odd sort of protective mold, one that was an offshoot of the usual care and protection shown toward a Prime. They couldn’t—and didn’t want to—take me out of the situation I was in, so they’d decided to try talking me into accepting that situation. They were determined to talk me to death if necessary, and I couldn’t stand any more of it. They were happy in the places they’d found, but my place wasn’t the same.

I put my head back against the tree and closed my eyes, determined not to get all melodramatic and weepy but finding the actuality hard to come by. I refused to think about what would happen that night, but that didn’t mean I had nothing else to think about. I kept picturing a man happy over seeing a woman used by another man, a woman who was supposed to be his beloved. I’d been right in not believing what I’d been told, but I didn’t want to be right—as if that made any difference. Nothing I wanted mattered on that world, and that was the way it would stay.

“Here, wenda, this is for you,” a voice came, startling me. My eyes opened to see Loddar crouched beside me, a bowl in his hands, a deep calm in his eyes and mind. “You must eat this quickly, Terril, for it is nearly time to depart. As you will ride with me this day, I have sought you out.”

I didn’t stare at him for more than a moment, mainly due to the fact that his announcement wasn’t terribly surprising. I found I’d been half expecting it, which was also not very surprising. I leaned off the tree and began getting to my feet to go back to the camp, but Loddar’s free hand came to my shoulder to push me back down.

“I will first see the contents of this within you,” he said, gesturing with the bowl he held. “We will return to the camp when you have finished.”

“I do not wish the food,” I told him, making no effort to take the bowl. “I thank you for the thought, yet there was no need.”

“There is considerable need,” he answered, his eyes moving over me critically. “Tammad, like myself, has little liking for wendaa with no flesh to their bones. Should you feel the need to refuse once more, I will call the wendaa of the camp, who are familiar with the manner in which small, stubborn children are fed. Is this what you wish?”

I hesitated very briefly, knowing he was serious, then shook my head. Having the women feed me would be worse than doing it on my own, even if I did get sick. I took the bowl he held out, used the short-handled wooden scoop inside the bowl, and quickly swallowed down the smooth, sweet, thickened cereal grain he had brought. It didn’t make me sick the way I’d thought it would and it did fill something of the hollow inside me, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it had been the first time I’d tasted it. When the bowl was empty I held it out toward Loddar, but he just shook his head.

“You may carry your own bowl back to camp,” he said, rising out of his crouch. “Once it is cleaned I will pack it away. Hurry now, for it is nearly time to depart.”

He strode off back toward the camp with me following, but there was very little camp to go back to. All of the tents had been folded and put on pack seetarr, and the last odds and ends were being put away. I washed the bowl and scoop I carried in a bucket of water just before the water was dumped out, then gave the still-damp things to Loddar to put away. After that the l’lenda disappeared for a minute, then came back leading his saddle seetar. It was the work of no more than another few minutes to get the beast saddled, and by then everyone seemed ready to be on their way. Looking around it was difficult believing more than fifty people had camped on the spot, but that was because the clearing had been left as clean as it had been when we’d gotten there. Civilized people know less about caring for the countryside around them, but civilized people are easier to get along with—and understand.

The sun seemed to be waiting for us to be on our way, and once we were it grew brighter and stronger, making the air curl around us in waves of heat. The higher the sun climbed, the warmer it got, soon covering Loddar’s body with a sheen of sweat. I rode with my arms wrapped around his waist, my imad soaking up the sweat his body continued to produce. Holding onto him like that hadn’t been my idea, but my wishes to the contrary hadn’t altered anything. I’d begun the ride with my fingers tucked in Loddar’s swordbelt, and then Tammad had come to ride beside us for a while, for no apparent reason other than to chat with Loddar. Gay King sat behind him on his seetar, her breasts pressed hard into his back, her arms as far around his waist as they would go, her cheek also against the skin of his back, her eyes closed in pleasure. I knew the pleasure she felt was real, but I couldn’t decide on the reason for it. It might have stemmed from the way she clung to the barbarian, but it might also have come from her greatly elevated position. Not only was she now riding behind the leader of the party, she also wore two shiny new bronze chains, one on each of her ankles. Tammad had obviously decided to band her before trouble developed, and it was clear she didn’t react to banding the way I did. I looked in her direction for no more than seconds after they joined us, then looked away and didn’t look back.

As soon as Tammad had ridden off again, I became aware of the annoyance Loddar had been feeling but not reacting to while his denday was there. The annoyance grew greater with the next few minutes that passed, and finally Loddar straightened with a soft growl.

“Wenda, put your arms about my waist,” he ordered, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

“For what reason am I to do this?” I asked, doing no more than responding automatically. I was too depressed to care one way or the other, but the command was unusual enough to seep part way through the lethargy.

“You are to do so for you have been told to do so!” he snapped, sending his annoyance toward me, but then he reconsidered and shook his head. “You are not the cause of my anger, therefore shall I not speak to you so. I will, however, say only this in answer to your question: it is expected that young warriors will at times be foolish where wendaa are concerned, yet the amusement felt at such an occurrence fades when the foolishness persists. A man should know which actions bring jealousy and which bring pain. Now, obey me.”

I didn’t understand a word he had said, but the decision in his mind was too strong to be ignored. I put my arms around him as I’d been ordered to do, eventually finding it easier to rest my cheek on him as well. The next time Tammad came by he didn’t stop, and the annoyance in Loddar’s mind faded to grim satisfaction.

By the time midday arrived, we were looking for a place to camp. The temperature had risen so high even the seetarr were having trouble breathing, and the dust of the road plastered itself to us as if we were mud people. No one seemed terribly surprised by the strange turn of events, but no one liked them, either. The only benefit to the heat had been the fact that Len and Garth had found the strength and resolve to come by no more than once each. I had managed to have my eyes closed each of the times, and Loddar had been short enough with Len to make his visit a very brief one. Garth, not yet able to speak Loddar’s language, didn’t even stop, and I felt Loddar’s amusement when Garth rode away. He had been saved from having to be short a second time, but he hadn’t seemed to mind being short the first time.

When he found a clearing large enough to hold us, we stopped immediately and began setting up camp. Loddar put his camtah up in its usual position in relation to Tammad’s pavilion, then led his seetarr away to be tied in the shade. When he came back he carried a large skin of water, which he put down near his camtah’s verandah. I’d just been hanging around, having nothing to do and not really interested in finding anything, but Loddar changed all that.

“I have been without my wenda for too long a time,” he said, frowning at his camtah before turning back to me. “My furs need airing, my camtah needs cleaning and washing, my possessions need straightening and polishing and washing. Such things cannot be put off forever.”

“Why do you tell me this?” I asked, looking up at him. I would have been happier off in the shade with the seetarr, but I couldn’t get up the initiative to walk over there.

“I have informed you of this need so that you might see to it,” he said, a considerable amount of patience in his voice. “I must attend a gathering called by the denday, but I will return at intervals to see what progress you make. Should I be displeased with the progress, you, too, will be displeased. Do you understand?”

“How might I fail to understand?” I shrugged, looking away from him toward the camtah. I didn’t need to ask what his authority was—on that world his being l’lenda was authority for anything.

“Good,” he said, a neutral satisfaction in his voice. “What worn haddinn of mine you find you are to set to one side, to. be washed later at the stream. The stream is a distance from here, therefore will the wendaa of the camp be taken there once only, in small groups, to bathe and see to their washing. You will be told when you are to accompany the l’lendaa who will guard you.”

I nodded to let him know I had his orders recorded in blood, then stood staring at the camtah while he, walked away. I was tempted to do some walking away myself, but the trouble that that would bring was more than I could handle just then. I wasn’t silly enough to think Tammad had forgotten about our date later, and that in itself would be enough to hold my interest for a while. If I had let myself think about it I would have shivered at the prospect, but I wasn’t letting myself think about it. Instead, I went to Loddar’s camtah and got started.

It was almost too hot to move around, but I got a lot done before a l’lenda came by to tell me it was my turn at the stream. The only break I’d had was when Loddar had come by shortly after I’d started, not to inspect but to bring me something to eat. The hot spiced meat chunks would have gone better on a cooler day, but I didn’t have much choice about eating them. Loddar let me know immediately that the alternative to the chunks was the thick cereal grain I’d eaten that morning, fed to me by a number of women who weren’t known for their patience with stubbornness. I ate the chunks under his watchful eye, shared some water with him, then watched him leave, and only at that point discovered that Tammad had been staring at us from the entrance to his pavilion. The barbarian’s mind had been filled with its usual calm, but there’d been something behind the calm that I just couldn’t get; he was too far away for surface probing. I turned my back on him and continued with the job I’d been given, and the next time rd looked that way he’d disappeared.

I followed the l’lenda through the camp toward the forest, carrying Loddar’s dirty laundry in the crook of my left arm. It would have been nice having a change of clothes for myself, but the other imad and caldin were still in Tammad’s pavilion and the pavilion had been put off-limits to all females. Every man in camp but the wenda-guards was there, listening raptly to Tammad and Garth. Whatever Garth was saying it was certainly making an impression on his audience, but only after his words of wisdom were translated. The system was unwieldy and annoying to both speaker and audience, and I could see where it wouldn’t be long before everyone was forbidden to speak to Garth in Centran. The way things had been going with Garth and Len, it couldn’t happen too soon to suit me, but it was a shame Len couldn’t somehow be included.

Another half-dozen women and three l’lendaa were waiting for us on the outskirts of the camp, and as soon as we got close enough to them they turned and started off into the forest. Most of the women had acknowledged no more than the fact of the presence of someone else, their minds saying they wanted nothing to do with the person who had played around with their emotions the day before. They all knew I’d been punished for what I’d done, but they didn’t seem to consider the punishment enough. I didn’t know how long it would take them to get over their anger—or even if they would—but it didn’t seem to matter. Even if they were willing to accept me I’d never really be one of them, and it would be foolish to believe anything else.

The best that can be said about that walk is that it was cooler in the shade of the forest than it had been in the clearing. We walked until we were out of sight and sound of the camp, but the l’lendaa seemed to have no intentions of stopping. One walked up ahead leading us, two walked to either side of our semi-column, and the fourth brought up our rear right behind me. Twice the rearguard had put his hand in my back to hurry me closer to the others, but the gesture hadn’t worked until he finally lowered his hand. He laughed softly when I turned my head to glare at him from a safe distance, and deliberately moved his eyes over me from head to toe, staring musingly at the bands on my ankles for a short while before returning his attention to the forest around us. I looked away from him and bit my lip as I walked, positive I knew what was on his mind. The last time I was on that world I’d been five-banded, but now I was down to two. Obviously the denday was growing tired of me and would soon unband me entirely, putting me up for sale to any l’lenda who wanted me. The rearguard did want me, that was clear enough in his mind, and I suppose I should have been pleased. There were a number of men on that world who wanted me for no other reasons than the ones their eyes gave them—but they were the wrong men.

After another couple of minutes one of the female figures up ahead glanced back, looked at the other women in front of her, then stopped where she was to give me a chance to catch up. She’d also been walking alone, and I didn’t understand why until I realized she was the blond tripper from the transport who had been appropriated by the l’lenda Hannas. She wore a light blue imad and dark blue caldin, one of the reasons I hadn’t recognized her. If I’d looked at her mind I would have known her at once, but I was too involved with my own thoughts to be distracted by the minds of others. She started walking again as soon as I reached her, and looked at me with serious brown eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a low voice, as if afraid someone might overhear the question. “I heard about most of what happened to you, and you don’t look so good.”

I thought about the dirty, sweat-stained clothing I wore, the way my hair hung in knotted, greasy strands, the smears that must have been on my face, and smiled faintly.

“Couldn’t be better,” I answered, making sure the dryness stayed out of my tone. “How have you been doing?”

“I never believed anything could be this good,” she answered, her mind verifying the truth of the statement. I looked at her quickly anyway, as though she might be joking after all, and she blushed and looked down at the haddinn she was carrying. “Okay, okay, I know you don’t look at it that way, but you never lived my kind of life. Hannas is more man than I ever thought I’d find, let alone get for my own, and whatever he wants is fine by me. I’ll do it his way as long as he lets me.”

“In other words you love him,” I said, going back to watching the forest we moved through. “If my good wishes mean anything to you, you have them.”

“Why do you sound so dead inside?” she demanded, and I could feel her looking at my face. “Hannas said Tammad really gave it to you for what you did, but that was because he really cares for you and wouldn’t let anybody else do it. Don’t it matter to you that he did it because he cares?”

My vision of the forest grew momentarily blurry, but I blinked the blur away.

“Don’t you think you’d be doing yourself more good by walking with the other women?” I asked without turning to look at her. “They’re not very fond of me right now, and you could get the same treatment simply because they saw you talking to me.”

“I do my own deciding on who I talk to,” she snorted, totally unworried. “Besides, I don’t think they’re that kind. I can’t say more than four words they understand, but they all took turns coming over with a hello and a helping hand. Sure they’re mad at you now, but they’ll get over it. Probably a lot sooner than you will. Why didn’t you answer what I asked?”

“About his caring?” I sighed, realizing there was no decent way out of the conversation. “Don’t you think I’d know if a man really cared about me? Caring is hard to hide even from a non-empath.”

“What makes you think he don’t?” she asked. “Hannas says everybody knows how much he wants you, that’s why he went after you.”

I opened my mouth to say something else, but my voice was gone, not even a whisper left. My throat burned as if it were on fire, and the tears had started with no warning at all. I tried to push it all away, to keep the grief from shattering me, but the truth was I already had been shattered. I pushed Loddar’s dirty haddinn up to my mouth to keep the tortured sounds from coming out, and the girl beside me quickly put her arm around my shoulders.

“Damn it, you’re not even letting yourself cry!” she raged, furious for no apparent reason. “I used to do that too, to keep it from hurting more than I could stand, but it’s wrong! In a place like this you shouldn’t have to do that!”

The pain was so great I slipped away from her arm and fell to my knees, sobbing into the haddinn. My mind was all feeling and no thought, a small girl lost in the wilderness alone, finally out of the forced courage that had kept her dry-eyed till then. She was so badly lost that no one in the entire universe would ever find her, not even if she continued to live out a very long life. I was unaware of everything around me until many minds came close, their voices soothing, their hands comforting. One set of hands pulled the haddinn away from me and another set pulled me to a sympathetic breast, giving me a sheltered place to cry. The voices were speaking the language of Rimilia, and I finally understood that it was the other women of the group, the ones who had ignored me, the ones who had been so angry. For obvious reasons, that fact made me cry harder.

Surprisingly enough, the crying didn’t last very long. I suppose I was more than tired of feeling sorry for myself, and I was tired in other ways, too. Every one of those women was genuinely willing to help if she could, and I let them feel my gratitude before I assured them I was all right. There was nothing anyone else could do for me, just what I could do for myself. The only problem I had just then was in figuring out what that was going to be.

We continued on through the forest, but our semi-column had become a tight knot, all of it centering around me. The blond-haired tripper—renamed Findra by Hannas from whatever her name had been originally—took turns with the Rimilian women in giving me advice. I was saved from having to discuss the advice by the need to translate, one way or the other, everything that was said. Findra wanted to know if I intended staying on Rimilia—if I did, then I’d have to do what she did. The Rimilian women laughed at that and asked if the denday intended keeping me on Rimilia. If he did, then I’d have to do what the rest of them did. They argued back and forth, not realizing they were all saying the same thing, but the four l’lendaa listening in realized it. The men grinned to themselves after exchanging knowing glances, then let the women continue counseling me. I was being told what the men themselves would have told me, so there was no need to interfere.

I found out almost immediately that the entire camp knew about my disagreement with Tammad that morning. They all agreed I’d been an idiot for defying him, but their suggestions for repairing the damage varied from woman to woman. None of them doubted that Tammad would do as he’d said he would, and all of the suggestions were designed to either minimize the damage or make sure the offense wasn’t repeated. It didn’t surprise me that none of them, Findra included, asked if I’d had a reason for refusing to obey. Reasons didn’t matter on that world, only obedience did, and I’d failed to keep that basic rule clearly in mind. They made sure I knew exactly what would happen to me if I failed again.

We moved on through the forest as we talked, the four l’lendaa surrounding us, the heat of midafternoon reaching us even under the deep green of the forest shade. Our noise had chased most of the usual forest dwellers away from our area, leaving only the minds of the humans to chatter and echo along our trail. We strolled along, more involved with talking than walking, the l’lendaa letting us do pretty much as we pleased. We were the last group going to the stream that afternoon, and it was still early enough to let us take our time.

The skies fell in with no warning whatsoever. One minute everything was usual and unexciting, possibly even dull; the next minute the l’lendaa ahead of us were falling to the ground, arrows in their backs or throats or chests, blood gouting and covering the ground, bodies already lifeless, minds knowing only shocked pain before blackness. We turned in the sudden, dead, unnatural silence, turned as if in a dream, seeing the fourth body on the ground some distance behind us. The dream bubble burst then with the first scream, shattering the silence and calm, touching the outer edge of the shock. More screams followed, sending us running in all directions, running from the blood and death and toward some uncertain safety. I stumbled back and to one side, reaching the bushes and trying to hide in them, choking on the panic from the other female minds around me. I needed to be safe, desperately needed to be safe, but the grin on the face of the giant man who suddenly appeared in front of me said it wasn’t to be. His skin was dyed orange from head to foot, white paint marking the orange here and there, his mind numbed with the drug all savages used. He screamed a highpitched indication of his delight, the sound freezing me with terror, then he moved forward quickly to seize me. The feel of his hands on my arms made me struggle automatically, causing him to hit me hard across the face, sending me to the ground at his feet. I wasn’t supposed to struggle, his mind said, but he was too numbed by the drug to be annoyed. He merely crouched down, stuffed a rag in my mouth, then tied the rag in place with a strip of wet cloth. I raised my hand toward the gag, hoping to pull it away, and then the thick, sweet fumes from the wet strip of cloth reached me. My head whirled, making me feel sick and very light and very weak. I folded back down to the ground, sure I would float away, but I never knew if I did. The savage laughed, a half-insane laugh, and then the world melted away to black.