Traitor's Moon

45 URGAZHI TRICKS

Beka crouched in the brambles, ignoring the sharp thorns scraping her hands and face. She'd heard the horse coming in time to duck out of sight and wasn't too choosy about the hiding place.

Daylight was dying fast now. If she could elude her pursuer until nightfall, she might just manage to slip away, find another horse somewhere, and get back to Sarikali on her own terms.

The ambush that morning had taken her captors completely off guard. After Nyal had left them at dawn, they had settled down for a leisurely breakfast, then tied her hand and foot on a horse and set off for the city.

They'd treated her with respect—kindness, even—making certain her bonds were not cutting her wrists and offering her food and water. Playing along, she'd accepted their attentions, keeping her strength up and pretending not to understand their language.

The leader, a young Ra'basi named Korious, did his best to reassure her in broken Skalan.

"Back to Klia," he said, pointing in what must be the direction of Sarikali.

"Teth'sag?" she asked, pointing to herself.

He shrugged, then shook his head.

She went quietly to work on the wrist bindings as they rode, complaining repeatedly about them being too tight. After one or two adjustments Korious had refused to loosen them any more, but by now she had slack enough to surreptitiously twist her wrists, getting her fingers close enough to one of the knots to pick away at it.

It was a lucky thing she had. They hadn't been more than two hours on the road when one of the other riders toppled from his saddle, blood streaming from his head. Horsemen burst from the trees just behind them, followed by men on foot with swords and clubs.

Her escorts froze, too startled to react. Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, Beka gripped the saddlebow and gave her mount a hard kick in the sides. The horse leapt forward, finding its own way as it broke from the press and galloped wildly down the road. Arrows sang around her and she bent low, fighting at the ropes that still bound her hands.

One hand came free, then the other, and she snatched up the flapping reins. Over the thunder of pursuing hooves, she heard Korious shouting wildly, trying to rally his men.

Undisciplined fools! she thought in disgust, wondering how Nyal had managed to lumber himself with such a sorry bunch of green fighters. A handful of Urgazhi could have had that lot trussed up in no time.

The men who'd attacked them were another matter, however. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw two of them in close pursuit.

She hunched low over her horse's neck and plunged onward. There was no way she was going to elude them on the open road, so when a sidetrack appeared to the left, she reined hard in that direction, ducking overhanging branches.

Giving her mount its head, she clung on and tried to yank her right leg out of her boot. Muscles up and down her side protested, but she pulled free, nearly unseating herself in the process. Steadying herself, she reached down and pulled at the knot securing her other leg.

Her pursuers had faltered a moment, perhaps caught off guard by her sudden swerve. She couldn't see them at the moment, but she could hear them calling out to each other not far behind.

Shielded for the moment by a bend in the road, she reined in, jumped free of the horse, and slapped it hard on the rump, sending it on with her right boot still lashed in the stirrup. She just had time to dive for cover in a bramble patch before the men thundered past, unaware as yet that they were now chasing a riderless horse.

If they were as smart as she guessed they were, it wouldn't be long before they figured it out. Crawling from the brambles, she scrambled up the slope.

She ran until her lungs burned, using the sun as her guide. When she was satisfied that she'd left her pursuers behind, she paused to wash her bleeding foot in a stream, then slowly circled back to the place where the ambush had occurred, hoping to find some sign of who their attackers were.

Someone had been there before her, doing the same. A single set of footprints led from the road to the place where the ambushers had lain in wait, crossing their tracks and meandering in a way that spoke of a thorough search. The shape of the bootprint was familiar.

"Nyal," she whispered, resting her fingers a moment in one long footprint. The ground in front of her blurred, and she dashed the tears away angrily. She'd be damned if she'd weep for that traitor like some jilted dairy maid.

Following the tracks back to the road, she saw that he'd come back alone.

"Good for you, my friends!" she whispered, refusing to admit any other possibility than that Seregil and Alec had eluded him.

What she found next closed the dark fist of anger tighter around her heart. From here, Nyal had dashed off to track her.

Look for me in Sarikali, you son of a bitch! she thought, limping back into the trees.