Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (17 page)

"They're coming."

A grumble among the nesters. The dean straightened up. He lifted his chin and tilted his head to one side. He pointed at the transmitter sitting in the corner. "I called, they answered. And they will come. Soon." And even if the longships did not, the transmitter had served its purpose. It had convinced the nesters that there was a humanity even above that of the Countians, demigods, to whom all Earth would be held accountable. By the time the dean's word had been proved wrong, he would still hold the power of the united nester nation in his hands. All he had to do to keep them in his power would be to give them water.

Such an easy thing.

He waited until they filed out of the tent, still grumbling among themselves, before reading his note again. A surge of triumph went through him. Blade was in the forefront of the salvage party. He had him, he had him! The dean crumpled the note in his hands fiercely. Blade would go to the Vaults. It would be the death of him and his party.
He
would be there first. He would make sure that the twisted catacombs of the ruins would be a death trap.

The flap of the tent rustled. Ketchum stepped back in, the only nester chieftain silent among those who'd listened to him. As the dean's fortunes had risen, so had the tracker's.

"Is the man Blade among the salvagers?"

The dean weighed his options of lying and then, realizing his very hesitation in answering marked him, said, "Yes."

"He is a Protector. He has powers even you cannot explain."

"He's a freak!" The dean swung away angrily. "There's nothing he can do that will keep them alive with the traps we'll set. I want to leave in the morning. Get the animals and packs ready." He looked back, in spite of himself.

Ketchum's eyes were earth colored, with flecks of light green highlighting them. The green sparked now, weirdly, as the glow from the lanterns of the tent caught it. "What do you fear, big man?" the nester asked.

"Fear? What do you mean?" The dean responded quietly but inside, an inner voice raged,
death, you fool, dying!

"I fear bad water. A stronger chieftain. A plague baby. More than two hands of wolfrats attacking. What do you fear?"

The dean felt like laughing bitterly but held it in. No matter how much he'd worked with Ketchum, the nester could not comprehend mathematics beyond the numbers of his fingers. He did not dare let the nester know he laughed at him. The dean swallowed tightly. "I fear a lot, Ketchum—but not him.
Not him.""

The tracker moved to the tent flap. He stood there, blocking a cold fall wind. "Perhaps," he said, "you should."

"Blade has never been liked by you nesters."

"No. But he respects us, respects our treaty, respects our basic right to water. I don't like him, Dean, but I do fear him. The Shastra does not approve of you. I fear him also." With a whisper of wind through summer-dried evergreens, the tracker was gone.

The dean went to his writing desk and sat down. He watched the recall beacon's dual lights blinking on alternating current until they nearly hypnotized him. Then he broke away with a curse. He unrolled a hide, stretched and thinned until it approximated parchment. The message would be brief, but necessary. It was time he began to cultivate allies within the Seven Counties. There would be those eager to form new alliances once the strength of the nester nations was apparent.

He dipped his ink pen and began to write, muttering to himself. "Just think, my friend, you may be the only one left who knows how to spell." He gave a low and bitter laugh.

Chapter 12

There was someone riding drag to Thomas' point, and he didn't know who that someone was. He'd left Palos Verdes with eighteen boys and, unless he could no longer count, would pitch camp with nineteen on the second day. He didn't think the extra kid a real danger, but it made him uneasy, and so he reined about toward sundown and had the boys make camp early.

The lone rider trotted in and found everybody waiting for him. He reined back on his weary horse so hard it damn near sat down on its haunches. Without being told to, Drakkar had gotten to his feet and edged behind the boy, though the broken landscape Thomas had chosen pretty well walled off any attempt to escape unless the damn horse could sprout wings.

The rider was young and soft, a scholar probably, dark bushy hair and complexion showing his Hispanic ancestry. His mouth opened and then pinched shut. Thomas eyed the sheepskin thrown over the saddle to help prevent saddle sores. This was no nester, unless their ability to disguise themselves was far more devious than he'd ever run into before.

With Stefan and the other boys watching his back, he approached the rider and stood with one hand lightly on the horse's headstall. The horse was heavily lathered and blowing.

"Either," Thomas said lazily, "I set someone a lot farther back on drag than I remembered, or you've been trying to catch up with us."

"Yes, sir. Ah, no, sir. That is," and the boy plowed to a halt. His voice was low and hoarse, at the edge of breaking. The broad-brimmed hat he wore shadowed his young face. Hadn't even started to shave yet, by the looks of it. Not that that bothered Thomas. Half the mappers in the party weren't shaving regularly. He stroked his mustache.

"Where are you from?"

"Laguna Hills, sir. My family came up with the trading caravan. I heard about the mappers. I—I wanted to go, so I took a remount and rode hard to catch up. Don't send me back, sir."

"Most of my boys have spent a lot of years in classrooms getting ready for this trip. What have you got to contribute?''

The boy's mouth worked soundlessly before he got out, "I'm good with mounts, sir. And I can cook."

Bottom, the heavy cheeked, peach-jowled young man who was their trail cook let out a snort. Thomas gave him a look over his shoulder. The chunky red-blond boy hunkered back on his heels as he banked the fire, but his smoky green eyes blinked resentfully at Blade.

"Geography? Geology? Cartography? Anything else?" the Protector said sharply when he turned back to the rider.

"I—I haven't been tested yet, but I kinda got a talent for Healing. Nothing much, but things knit better with me around."

The lad's voice was small. Humble, Thomas thought. He couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary, no danger, no threat, and he was too far out from Palos Verdes to send this rider back alone.

As if sensing his dilemma, Drakkar spoke up. "I'll keep an eye out for him, Sir Thomas." Denethan's heir looked at him over the horse's rump. His feathered hair caught the lowering sun keenly. The plumage looked almost metallic in the last shafts of light, and his eyes burned their deepest blue.

Drakkar would keep an eye
on
the boy as well. That passed unspoken between them. Blade thought it over another long moment. "All right," he agreed. "What's your name?''

"Diego, sir."

"Put your horse on the line for grazing and make sure it's tended before you settle down yourself."

"Yessir."

Thomas walked away to see if Bottom had managed to coax up a brew of tea from his hesitant fire.

Drakkar watched the man stalk off and let out his breath through his teeth. Shankar had gone too far by sending a spy after him. Was he never to be out of sight of his father? He'd come to the Seven Counties to be polished and faceted like a fine gem. So let him be tumbled with the rocks and pebbles on his own until that polishing was accomplished. And, if this was one of Shankar's spies, he was not so certain Shankar was entirely on his father's side. So he would let the boy know that he knew what the game was. He spoke, and dropped his cupped hand across the gelding's rear.

Alma dared not let out her breath until the Protector had walked far away from her. When she did, and Drakkar spoke, she damn near jumped in the saddle.

The man slapped a familiar hand across the horse's rump. As he walked past, he leaned close and said, quietly, "I know who you are. The next time you take a remount, don't steal one of
my
horses. And, just like I told Sir Thomas—I'll be watching you."

He brushed past, his scent one of horse and wood-smoke and sage. Alma gulped down her fear and gathered up her horse's reins. If he knew who she was, why didn't he tell Sir Thomas? And what price would she have to pay to keep that silence? Unless, and her mouth tightened, the arrogant being thought she had trailed after because of
him?
He couldn't, could he? Did he honestly think he was such a gift to women that she'd come crosscountry to follow him, in spite of the fact that she was a married woman? Well, if he did, she'd . . . she'd . . . just have to take advantage of that. Thoughtfully, Alma wheeled her horse around and headed the weary gelding to the drop line.

She wondered if Sir Thomas suspected. She knew of his reputation for Truth-reading, but he had not put her through that. On the surface, then, she must have convinced him she was what she said she was.

She put the reins in her teeth and swung down with a groan, muffled by the salty leathers in her bite. Using the sheepskin was the only smart thing she'd done so far. Without it, her legs would have been chafed raw. As it was, she didn't think she'd ever walk again. Clinging to the saddle with both hands was all that kept her on her feet.

She looked up to see Stefan overshadowing her. He was frowning, facing into the western sky.

He took the gelding's reins, tugging them gently from her mouth. "First days are the hardest," he said. "You must have eaten a lot of dust back there. I'll bet you came up from Laguna Hills by wagon."

Afraid to speak, even with her newly coarsened voice, Alma merely nodded.

Stefan gave a tight grin. "Thought so. You've got a soft butt, kid. Well, Sir Thomas means what he says. Rub your horse down and water him before you come over for chow." He flipped the rein ends over the rope-line and sauntered away.

Alma ducked her chin over her shoulder, trying to look at her rear. Would they all know she had a soft butt? Feeling somewhat mystified, as if she'd entered a fraternity she did not know had existed, she began to unbuckle her horse's girth. She felt vaguely disappointed that Stefan had not recognized her in spite of her chopped off hair, and hat, and oil-tanned skin. She would have known him anywhere. What was lacking in her that he couldn't look into her eyes and see her looking back?

She pulled the saddle off, grabbed a grooming cloth out of the pack and began rubbing the gelding down vigorously. He rolled an eye at her, flipped an ear which was oddly folded over, and leaned into her as she rubbed. She hardly noticed as she went over in her mind the months of marriage within which they'd shared everything a man and woman could share—how could he not know her? It was true they'd separated months ago and he'd scarcely seen her since, but she'd not forgotten him, how could he have forgotten her?

Unless he did not love her or unless she was that easily forgotten. Weariness and dust slapped up from the gelding's hide filled her eyes until she could scarcely see. One of the other boys trudged past with a water bucket for her. There was pity on his brightly sunburned face— Rubio it was, she knew him, and now the apple shine on his face matched his name. He didn't recognize her either nor would she have expected him to. The hide bucket sloshed within its collapsible frame as the gelding nosed at it eagerly.

"He'll founder if you let him drink too much," Drakkar said easily, quietly, before she'd even felt his shadow fall across her. He held a plate of something smelling remarkably good in his gloved hands. He wore the gloves most of the time. She thought of those raking, poisoned spurs and shuddered without looking up.

"I know that," she said irritably. "But there's not enough water here to founder a mouse."

"Ummm," he said. "There is that." He shoveled a forkful into his well-shaped mouth. "Looks like you've done well by him. We'll move the line later, to open up new grazing. They've got enough within reach to keep 'em quiet until we've eaten."

She finished, pulled the tack off, the bridle off his head, but leaving it buckled around his neck as the others kept theirs, and pulling the heavy saddle off to the side where the others were stacked. She was aware of Drakkar's burning gaze at her back every step of the way. She walked to her dinner, her legs bowed and gait stiffening with every step.

Thomas sat back as the last of the light faded from the canyon tongue they'd taken root in. The boys were trading ribald jokes, the younger ones laughing too loudly and too shrilly at punch lines they did not always understand, the weaker ones quiet, the road already taking its toll on them. Mentally, he was separating them out. If he were lucky, there would be twelve sturdy youths to send onward from the College Vaults. If not ... he did not see how any survey party could survive with lesser resources. Jenkies left with his younger brother Bill to reset the horse-line.

He worried about sending boys to do a man's job, but he thought that the younger ones were tougher, unwilling to believe that anything was impossible, more resilient, quicker to mend, all factors that would make up for the lack of experience. Stefan was as close to man-grown as they had and he would have to have the experience for them all.

He picked something out of a tooth with his fingernail. "Stefan, set sentries." The young man would need to take command before he officially turned it over to him.