Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless (36 page)

Kahless sat back heavily in his sturdy wooden chair, his head spinning like a child’s top. The food and the bloodwine had been more than plentiful. And in all fairness, Vathraq wasn’t the
worst
storyteller he’d ever heard, although he came close.

But the warchief was restless under his host’s vaulted roof. So, as the revelers’ eyes grew bloodshot on both sides of the overladen table, and their speech thickened, and the hall filled with smoky phantoms born of the cooking fires, the guest of honor left the feast.

No one seemed to notice as he made his way out of the great hall, or as he crossed the anteroom and exited the keep. And if anyone did notice, they didn’t care enough to say anything.

The evening air was cold and bracing after the warmth of Vathraq’s feast—like a splash of melt from a mountain spring, clearing his head and tightening the skin across his face. Breathing it in deeply, he felt as if he’d regained some semblance of his wine-dimmed senses.

A dirt track began at his feet and twisted tortuously between a couple of dark, blockish storage buildings, then reached through the stronghold’s open gates to the river road beyond. Kahless caught a glimpse of the cultivated
tran’nuc
trees that grew between the road and the riverbank, and the sweet, purplish fruit that drooped heavily from their thorny black branches.

Vathraq hadn’t served the
tran’nuc
fruit because it wasn’t ripe yet, nor would it be for a couple of weeks. Kahless knew that because his family had had a tree of their own when he was growing up.

Still, he hadn’t bitten into a
tran’nuc
fruit since he left the capital months earlier. And he might not have a chance to taste one again, the way Molor was hunting him.

He could feel the warm rush of his own saliva making his decision for him. Wiping his mouth with the back of his fat-smeared hand, he set out for the gate and the trees beyond. The sentries on the wall turned at his approach. He called up to them, so there would be no surprises.

They swiveled their crossbows in his direction, just in case he was one of the tyrant’s tax collectors trying to deceive them. Then one of them recognized him, and they let their weapons fall to their sides. It was unlikely that they’d have shot at him anyway, considering he was
leaving
the compound, and doing it alone at that.

Once past the gates, he felt the wind pick up. It lifted his hair, which he’d left unbraided. The broad, dark sky was full of stars, points of light so bright they seemed to stab at him.

Kahless grunted. What
wasn’t
stabbing at him these days?

Leaving Vathraq’s walls well behind him, Kahless crossed the road and approached the nearest
tran’nuc
tree. As he moved, the river unfolded like a serpent beyond its overhanging banks, all silver and glistening in the starlight. It seemed to hiss at him, though without malice, as if it too had had its fill this night.

Arriving at the foot of the tree, he reached up and tore a fruit from the lowest branch. In the process, he scratched himself on one of the long, jagged thorns. A rivulet of blood formed on the back of his hand, then another.

Ignoring them, he bit into the fruit. It was riper than he’d imagined, sweet and sour at the same time. But as he’d already gorged himself on Vathraq’s food, he had no room for the whole thing.

Tossing the sweet, dark remainder on the ground, he waited for the
yolok
worms to realize it was there. In a matter of seconds, they rose up beneath it, their slender, sinuous bodies white as moonlight. The fruit began to writhe under their ministrations, and then to disappear in chunks as they consumed it with their pincerlike jaws.

Before long, there was only a dark spot on the ground to show that the
tran’nuc
fruit had ever existed. Kahless snorted; it was good to know there were still
some
certainties in life.

He turned to the river again, observing the ripple of the winds on its back. He had forgotten how good it could feel to have a full belly and the prospect of a warm place to sleep. He had forced himself to forget.

Of course, he could have had this every night, if only he’d gone along with Molor’s orders back at M’riiah. If he had returned from his mission, the blood on his sword testament to his hard work, and remained the tyrant’s most loyal and steadfast servant.

Molor treated his servants well. He would have given Kahless all the females he wanted, and all the bloodwine he could drink. And in time, no doubt, a hall of his own, with a wall for his trophies and a view of his vassals working in the fields.

But if he had torched the village as he was supposed to, all the bloodwine in the world wouldn’t have soothed him at night. And the stoutest walls couldn’t have kept out the ghosts of M’riiah’s innocents.

The outlaw snorted. Why had the tyrant set such a task before him anyway? Why couldn’t he have sent one of his other warchiefs—one with a quicker torch and a less tender conscience?

Kahless shook his head angrily.
I’ve got to stop playing “what if” games,
he told himself,
or they’ll drive me mad. What’s done is done, for better or worse. And is that any different from what I—

Before he could complete the thought, Kahless realized he was not alone. His eyes slid to one side, searching for shadows; there weren’t anyway. Nor could he find a scent, given the direction of the wind. But he sensed someone behind him nonetheless, someone who had apparently made an effort to conceal his approach.

Kahless’s thumbs were already tucked into his belt, and his back was to his enemy. As subtly as possible, he moved his right hand toward the knife that hung by his thigh and grasped it firmly. Then he lifted it partway from its leather sheath.

Listening intently, he could hear the shallow breathing of his assailant, even over the sigh of the wind. In a minute, maybe less, the
yolok
worms would have another meal—and a meatier one.

He waited for a few impossibly long seconds, the hunter’s spirit rising in him, the blood pounding in his neck like a beast tearing loose of its chain. His lips curled back from his teeth, every fiber of his being caught in the fiery fever of anticipation.

Finally, the moment came. Clenching his jaw, Kahless whirled, blade singing as it cut the air, heading for the spot between his enemy’s head and his shoulders. His eyes opened wide, drinking in the sight of surprise on the intruder’s face, exulting in the prospect of the blood that would flow from his—

No!

Muscles cording painfully in his forearm, he stopped his blade less than an inch from its target. The oiled surface of the knife glinted, reflecting starlight on the smooth, gently curving jaw of Vathraq’s daughter. Her neck artery pulsed visibly beneath the metal’s finely honed edge.

And yet, she didn’t flinch. Only her eyes moved, meeting Kahless’s and locking onto them. They were pools of darkness, full of resentment and anger.

But nothing to match his own. Lightning-swift, Kahless flicked the blade back into its sheath and snarled like a wounded animal.

“Are you mad?” he rasped. “To sneak up on me like a—”

He never finished. Kellein’s open hand smashed him in the face, stinging him as he wouldn’t have imagined she could. He took a half-step back, stunned for the moment.

But she wasn’t done with him. Slashing him with her nails, oblivious to the knife he still held in his hand, she sent him staggering back another step. With his left hand, he caught one of her wrists and squeezed it hard enough to crush the bones within.

His intention was to make her stop until he could put his knife away, then use both hands to subdue her. But before he could carry it out, his back foot slipped on the uncertain ground of the riverbank. He felt himself falling backward and braced himself for the chill of the current.

But instead, he felt something hard rush up to meet him, half-pounding the breath out of him. Then there was another impact—that of a weight on top of him.
Her
weight.

It was only then he realized that they had fallen onto a gentle slope just beneath the bank. In the season of Growing, this ground would be submerged by the flood; now, it was dry.

Kahless found that he was still grasping Kellein’s wrist with his free hand. Tightening his grip on it, he glared at her, his face mere inches below hers. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his face, smell the wildflowers with which she’d adorned herself for the feast.

Pleasant sensations, under other circumstances. But here and now, they only made him angrier. Remembering his knife, he plunged it into the soft earth beside him.

Kellein planted the heel of her hand on his chest and tried to get up—but he wouldn’t let her. Though Kahless’s strength was greater than hers, she tried a second time. And a third.

His lip curled. “You followed me out here,” he growled accusingly.

“And what if I did?” she returned, her teeth bared in an anger that seemed every bit as inflamed as his.

“What were you thinking?” he thundered. “Why did you come up behind me without warning?”

Kellein’s eyes narrowed, making her seem even more incensed than before. “Why,” she asked—her voice suddenly husky with something quite different from anger—“do you
think?
”

Suddenly, Kahless understood. All too aware of the hard-muscled angles of Kellein’s body, he caught her hair in his fist and drew her face down until her mouth met his.

He tasted blood—though it took him a moment to realize it was his own, wrung from a lip Kellein had just punctured with her teeth. He didn’t care, not in the least.

In fact, it made him want her that much more.

In the aftermath of passion, Kahless lay with his back against the ground and Kellein’s head on his shoulder. Lightly, she ran her fingernails across his cheek, tracing what seemed to him to be arcane emblems.

Praxis had risen in the east. In its light, Kellein’s skin took on a blue-white, almost ethereal cast. She was too beautiful to be of this world, yet too full of life to be of the next.

“What?” she asked suddenly.

He looked at her. “How did you know I was thinking of something?”

Kellein grunted. “You are always thinking of something. If you weren’t, Molor would have caught you a long time ago.”

Kahless smiled at that. “But how did you know
this
thought had to do with
you,
daughter of Vathraq?”

She shrugged and looked up at the stars. “I just knew,” she told him.

“Did you also know
what
I was thinking?”

Kellein cast him a sideways glance. “Don’t play games with me, Kahless. I don’t like games.”

“I don’t either,” he admitted. “It is only that…”

“Yes?” she prodded.

“Where I come from, this means we are betrothed.”

Kellein laughed. It was the first time he’d heard her do that. Normally, he would have liked the sound of it—except in this case, he felt he was being mocked. He said so.

“I am not mocking you,” she assured him.

“It does not
have
to mean we’re betrothed,” the warchief told her, snarling as he gave vent to his anger. “It does not have to mean
anything.
We are not in my village, after all.”

“I am not mocking you,” Kellein repeated, this time more softly. “I was laughing with delight.” She propped herself up on one elbow and looked deeply into his eyes. “What we did just now…it means the same thing to
my
people that it does to
yours.
”

His anger faded in the wake of another emotion—a much milder one. “You would betroth yourself to me? An outlaw with no future?”

“Not just any outlaw,” Kellein said. “Only Kahless, son of Kanjis, scourge of hill and plain.”

Kahless was filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with the bloodwine. Taking her head in his hands, he drew her to him again.

“You should do that more often,” he told her.

She raised her head. “Do what?” she asked.

“Laugh,” he answered.

“Oh,” she said.
“That.”
There was a note of disdain in her voice. “I have never been the laughing kind.” And then, as if she had been carrying on a separate conversation in her own head, “I will make you a
jinaq
amulet just like mine. That way, everyone will know we belong to each other.”

“Yes. Everyone will know. And all through the Cold, whenever I touch it, I will think of you.”

For a moment, Kellein seemed surprised. “Through the Cold…?”

Kahless nodded. “I mean for my men and I to lose ourselves in the mountains. To give Molor time to forget we exist. Then, when the hunt for me has abated somewhat, I will send them away to seek their separate fortunes, unburdened by their association with me. And you and I will go somewhere the tyrant can’t follow.”