Karavans (49 page)

The howl climbed in pitch until it was very nearly a screech, similar to the almost humanlike shriek of a hare caught by a predator, but markedly louder, stronger, and of greater duration. Yet as she and Davyn both crawled out from under the wagon, the noise stopped as if cut off. Now Audrun could hear Megritte inside the wagon crying in fear, Ellica’s unsuccessful attempts to quiet her, and Torvic’s immature voice asking over and over again what the noise was.

“What is it?” Audrun whispered tensely to Davyn.

“Some kind of animal. Not human.”

Audrun’s outstretched hand on the sideboards guided her to the rear of the wagon, where she peeled aside folds of oilcloth and climbed up into the high, huge conveyance, yanking skirts out of her way. “Meggie, it’s all right. I’m here. Gillan, go ahead and light the lantern. Meggie—I’m right here.” The floorboards were a nest of thin pallets and blankets. She found her youngest daughter curled into a ball in her bedding. Audrun knelt and folded back the shielding blankets, then pulled Megritte up so she could wrap arms around her. “It’s all right, Meggie. We’re here.
Shhhhhh
.”

Gillan struck sparks with flint and steel and lighted the lantern hanging from the Mother Rib. All the faces were visible now, showing fear and apprehension.

Davyn stood outside at the back of the wagon, holding oilcloth aside. “It’s just an animal,” he said reassuringly. “And it’s not even that close—”

He was interrupted as the howling began again, once more ranging up into an ear-piercing shriek. Ellica clapped her hands over her ears as Gillan winced. Torvic, silenced, was wide-eyed and staring. Megritte, predictably, held onto her mother more tightly than ever, adding a thin wail to the
cacophony. Fortunately most of her contribution was muffled against Audrun’s shoulder.

Ellica lifted her voice over the unearthly shriek. “It’s going to deafen me!”

The noise broke off as abruptly as before. Audrun somehow found a smile and offered it to Torvic. “It sounds rather like you used to, when you didn’t get your way. Last week, I think it was, wasn’t it?”

He blinked at her, most of his mind on the noise, but then natural defensiveness reasserted itself. “It does not!”

She glanced at Davyn, still standing at the back of the wagon. She opened her mouth to say something more when the night was broken a third time by the wailing howl. Davyn grimaced, then climbed up, wagon planks creaking. Pitching his voice to carry over the noise, he said, “Well, if this continues we’re none of us going to get any more sleep. So, shall we tell stories?” He settled down next to Audrun, setting his spine against one of the traveling trunks. “Meggie?”

She lifted a tear-stained face, voice still choked. “I don’t want to!”

As the shriek died out again, Audrun sighed and stroked Megritte’s sleep-tangled pale hair, exchanging a rueful glance with her husband. But she couldn’t blame Megritte; if she didn’t have to be brave for her children, she might prefer curling into a ball with the blankets pulled over her head as well.

“Meggie?” Davyn reached out to touch his daughter’s head. “All will be well,” he told her in his deep, soothing voice. “It’s just noise. It doesn’t concern us.”

Gillan, who looked no more pleased than his youngest sister, said forcefully, “I’ve never heard anything like
that
!”

Audrun could feel Davyn’s shrug against her. “Well, we haven’t seen every animal in the world,” he said reasonably. “Different kinds live in different areas.”

The intentional lightness in his tone did not fool Audrun. He was attempting to put them all at ease, but she knew he was concerned about the very thing that had leaped to the forefront of
her
mind.

Each revolution of the wagon wheels, each step forward, brought them closer to Alisanos.

Or brought Alisanos closer to them.

AS HE NEARED the fringe of the tents, Brodhi had to stop. His anger at Rhuan had not cooled, and he dared not permit any humans to see him. His vision had hazed so that he saw the world in reddish hues, and his flesh, including his scalp, stung and tingled unpleasantly. He needed his self-control back in place before he returned to the couriers’ tent.

It crossed his mind that ale might help, but that would require him to walk into Mikal’s tent where others drank. Unwise, in his present state. Best he just go to the couriers’ tent and try to get some sleep.

He closed his eyes and attempted to will away the anger, but it remained very near the surface of his emotions. He almost never lost his temper or self-control, but Rhuan had managed to kindle both. And every time Brodhi listened to the exchange in his mind, the anger heated again. At this rate he’d never be able to return to the tent.

Brodhi swore inventively in the human tongue, switched to his own, then at last ran out of invective. To replace it, he began to tell over the Names of the Thousand Gods. If nothing else restored his sense of self and cooled his anger, that should.

By the time he reached the twenty-first Name, he felt better. At thirty-two the worst of the anger was banished. By thirty-six he felt much more himself, so he set off for the tent. He continued the Naming as he followed the familiar pathway through the remaining tents, and as he reached the courier tent he ended the ritual on the forty-second Name. The anger was buried, though not the contempt.

As Brodhi pulled back the loosened door flap, he found Bethid standing in the center with her back to the entrance. Startled, she spun around. Eyes widened as she identified him. “I thought you were dead!”

She had lighted the lantern. He could see her expression clearly, the residue of horror. “No.”

Bethid gestured. “All this blood …”

He looked where she indicated. Yes, there was blood splattered across the oilcloth sidewalls. “Not mine. Rhuan’s.”

“Is
he
dead?”

Brodhi found himself regretting his answer. “No.”

“What in the name of the Mother happened here?”

He was disinclined to enter into a lengthy conversation, but Bethid was due some explanation. It was her pallet that had taken the brunt of Rhuan’s blood, even if he had replaced it with his own. “Two men thought they would kill Rhuan for his bones.”

Bethid blinked at him, brass ear-hoops glinting in the lamplight. “Did you kill
them
?”

“Of course.”

“Both?”

“Of course.” He set his beaded bag at the foot of the space where his pallet had been, recalling with annoyance that his blankets remained at the tree. Well, he had his mantle, even if it was summerweight.

“’Of course,’” Bethid echoed blankly. Then she shook herself out of startlement. “Is he all right now? Did he revive?”

“He revived.” Brodhi took his mantle down from its hook. The Hearing had tired him and he wished to sleep, pallet or no. He draped the cloak over a shoulder and sat down on packed dirt, preparing to pull off his boots. He could use his beaded bag and a doubled arm as a pillow.

After a moment Bethid sat down on what was now her pallet, beginning the effort to take her boots off as well and arrange them at the foot of her pallet. “We told Rhuan about our plans,” she said in a subdued tone. “He was less than enthusiastic.”

Boots shed, Brodhi settled his bag at the place where his head would rest. “What do you expect of a man who refuses to accept responsibility?”

“He laughed at us.”

The corner of his mouth hooked down in irony. “That comes as no surprise.”

“But I’d have thought Rhuan would approve.” From the sound of it, Bethid was having trouble with her boots. “
He’s
always taking risks.”

Brodhi lay down, arranging the mantle over his body. “He is a feckless fool with no understanding of consequences, and no acknowledgment of undertakings requiring commitment. And it will get him killed one day.”

Bethid laughed lightly, yanking a boot from her stockinged foot. “Only to revive later. A handy gift.”

Brodhi thrust a doubled arm beneath the bag his head rested on. “Rhuan will die, Bethid. And he will remain dead. I don’t doubt it will be sooner rather than later.” He turned over, facing the sidewall next to his nonexistent pallet.

There was an odd note in her tone. “Did you two have some kind of argument?”

Brodhi frowned into the dimness. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because you sound for all the world like you’re wishing he was dead. That he stayed dead.”

Brodhi’s frown faded. “He is a…
difficult
…individual.”

Bethid’s tone was tentative. “He won’t betray us, will he? Our plans?”

He resettled the hip against the packed floor of the tent. “Put no trust in him.”

Brodhi could tell by the sound that Bethid was stripping out of her tunic. “But he’s your kinsman.”

He grimaced. “You may be certain I wish it were otherwise.”

“But—”

He cut her off. “Go to sleep, Bethid. Or at the very least stop talking.”

After a moment of heavy silence, she said, “You can be very rude, Brodhi.”

He did not deign to answer.

A
S HER LAST client departed, Ilona set elbows on the low lacquered table and rested her face in her hands. It was well past time for the evening meal, and she was very hungry. But she was so weary she wasn’t certain she had enough strength left for eating. She had lost count of how many karavaners visited to find out if waiting in the settlement until the next karavan season was the best plan for them. No one faulted Jorda’s decision to her face—they were aware she was in his employ—but she knew how to read what wasn’t said. It showed in their eyes, in their faces, in their hands.

She had a dull headache, likely from hunger, and her eyes were gritty with exhaustion. She was relieved that all of her readings had promised folk that the decision to stay was a good one, but it was tiring nonetheless to look into so many palms, to experience, no matter how distant, the worries and concerns of others. But circumstances were not normal. The karavaners were full of memories of what the Hecari raiding party had done at the karavan, and fresher memories of their shock and fear as they saw what the decimation had wrought at the settlement.

Ilona smiled faintly. She was in an identical situation to the karavaners; she too would wait here at the settlement
for the new karavan season, petitioning all the gods for assurances that no Hecari would return.

“Ilona?”

The gravelly voice was Jorda’s. She looked up, lifting her face from her hands.

Meager lamplight glowed in the karavan-master’s luxurious red beard. “You could use a drink,” he said. “Come with me to Mikal’s.”

Jorda meant well, she knew. But Ilona wasn’t certain spirits was what she needed. Perhaps a cup of hot tea, followed by bed … “Yes,” she heard herself say. “I would like that.”

Jorda didn’t smile much, and what she had of him this time was fleeting at best. Ilona backed out of her position behind the table, then stood. Every joint from her waist down cracked. She smiled as Jorda’s ruddy brows jerked skywards. Within a matter of moments she had blown out all of the glowing lanterns hung on their iron crooks, settled her skirts, and wrapped around her shoulders the soft green shawl.

“Custom has been good?” Jorda asked as she fell into step beside him.

“Better than good. Fortunately, all that I read suggested staying here was the best course.”

“And if it were not?” He glanced at her sidelong. “If the readings suggested it was better to go on?”

Ilona slid her right arm through his left. “But none did. Don’t borrow trouble, Jorda. You’re doing the best you can. There was no other choice. Could you have borne it, wondering every day upon the road who was killed here, and who survived, as we traveled farther and farther away?”

“No,” he replied in a subdued tone.

“Of course not. Naturally some folk are unhappy with your decision, but I saw no ill tidings in their hands.”

He was silent for a long moment as they walked the pathways of the settlement. Finally he said, “You do know he’s leaving.”

Ilona suppressed an aggravated sigh; how many more would ask her that? “Yes, of course.”

“Will you be all right?”

She tightened her grasp on his arm. “We are no more than friends, Jorda. I will miss him as friends do, but that

is all.”

“Oh. I thought—”

She overrode him. “I know what you thought. Apparently everyone thinks it. But there has been no man for me since Tansit.” It brought but a twinge now; Rhuan had found work with Jorda only because Tansit, Jorda’s guide and Ilona’s lover, had been killed by Hecari. “I will do well enough. And he swears he’ll be back in time for the new season, so you won’t have lost a guide.”

They threaded their way through the denuded settlement, Jorda taking pains to find the smoothest footing for her. “Have you read his hand, to know if he will be?”

“Rhuan’s hand?” She could not keep the note of surprise from her tone. “Oh, no. Rhuan won’t allow me to read his hand.”

Jorda’s startlement was palpable. “Won’t allow?” he echoed.

“No. He never has.”

“Then he’s seen Branca or Melior.”