The Leopard (Marakand) (9 page)

During the sixth day of Ahjvar’s madness, cloud rolled up from the distant sea, low over the hilltops, smothering the sky.

“Now,” Ahjvar said. “We have to stop now.” It was the first he had spoken all that day. Even his muttering had ceased.

“It’s not sunset yet.”

“Soon enough. She’s not waiting for full dark.”

He did not like it when Ahjvar began talking of the curse as “she.” It raised the hairs prickling on the back of his neck, as if the very words brought some other presence with them, some stalking ghost. He could see ghosts, usually. This one—Ghu did not doubt it existed—but it never came out where it could be seen.

“All right,” he agreed. “But it’s going to rain tonight.”

“Good.”

“At least let’s find a tree to give you some shelter.”

“No.”

“You’ll end up with catarrh or water on the lungs, lying out in the open.”

“Good.”

“Ahj—”

“Now, Ghu.” And his teeth were clenched. Ahjvar flung himself from the horse, unbelted his sword and hurled it away. He dropped his cloak, too, kicked off his high riding boots, and held out his seeping wrists. “
Now.
”

Last night’s ropes Ghu had burned, every length of them blood-soaked, fly-crawling by dawn, and the knots pulled so tight there was no untying them. He had needed to cut them out of Ahj’s swollen flesh. His hands ought to rot off. They wouldn’t, Ahj said. Rope. Ghu hadn’t thought they would need an anchor-cable’s length of it. They had leather harness-ties and spare straps, but those might stretch or be gnawed through, Ahjvar insisted. Well, the mountains marched closer. Another two or three days would bring them to a main branch of the caravan road, by Ahjvar’s reckoning, and they would turn west towards the dry valley where the coulee came down from the pass, carrying a remnant of mountain snowmelt in the spring. And then, on the rising, straight road, three days at most after that, Marakand. Ahjvar swore that he was safe, once he had prey to hunt. He would not be a random monster in the nighttime streets, at least. It might even be justice, Ghu supposed, for a change. The kings of the Praitannec tribes had champions to fight for them, to settle disputes short of war—though that was only rarely to the death. Why not the gods? But a goddess should not hunger after another’s folk. It was wrong, though. An elderly priestess was not much of a champion to set against a warrior who did not die.

Ahjvar knelt, head bowed, like a man awaiting execution, and Ghu cut new lengths from the coil of thin rope to bind his arms behind his back. Ahjvar hissed and clenched his fingers white and said, “Tighter. Damn you, make the knots tighter.”

“We could try what happens if I hit you,” Ghu said doubtfully. “I didn’t really mean to do it, but if you think I can’t kill you, I will, only I wouldn’t want to be the one to prove you wrong. About not dying, I mean. Your wrist is festering, Ahj. There are maggots in it.”

“Knocking me out wouldn’t last the night. Pour the barley-spirit on the wrist to clean it; that’s what I brought it for. In the morning, not now! Wet rope will stretch.”

“It’s going to rain.”

“Then tie the damn knots tighter!”

Ahjvar was trussed to his satisfaction at last, lying amid long grass on the hillside, eyes clenched shut. Shivering, but he said he wasn’t cold. He felt fevered, in fact. Too hot, skin dry, as if he lay near a fire.

“Go,” he muttered, as Ghu still crouched, doubtful, a hand on his forehead. “See you in the morning. Smoke’s getting thick. Go. She’s waiting. She’s coming. She’s here, Ghu. Go!” He cried out, a sound like a tortured animal, and kicked at Ghu with his bound feet. Ghu grabbed up the swordbelt and sprang away to the white mare’s back, dragging the weary horses into a trot down the hill, along the stream at the bottom. There was a track there. Too well-trodden for his liking. They were getting into a settled land again; some village must lie nearby. He rode on, till he could not hear Ahjvar’s screaming any longer. There were words in it, but he did not want to hear them. It was not truly Ahj anymore. He would have made camp there—the horses desperately needed rest—but it was not nearly far enough, he knew Ahjvar would say, and there was something on the wind. Smoke. Not the ghost-fire of Ahjvar’s madness. Smoke and roasting meat.

He rode on, a little, as the rain began, a swift and rushing patter, drowning even the noise of the stream. Willows lined the valley, and when he heard voices even above the rain on the leaves he went back a ways, into shelter under the oldest of the trees, unbridled and unsaddled the horses and fed them some of the grain they carried. He didn’t bother to tie them. “Stay here,” he murmured, patting each smooth cheek in the darkness. Ahj laughed at him for speaking to the horses so, but they always did as he asked. Ahj pretended not to notice.

Then he went on afoot. An outlying herdsman’s hut or a travellers’ camp, maybe. Whoever it might be, they weren’t likely to go roaming the hills in the dark and the rain, but he should keep an eye on them, in case.

No dog barked to announce him as he worked his way up the ridge again, which argued against herdsmen. The fire was out-of-doors, a high blaze. He went over the hillcrest on his belly and lay to watch it. Five dark shapes in close, or six, and only one small horse, no shelter but a great chestnut tree. Chunks of meat were angled in over the fire on sticks. They didn’t look likely to go roaming, to stumble upon Ahjvar. Five sat close together under a shelter that was only cloaks or blankets sagging on propped branches. The sixth sat apart, hunched. Another stood up, crossed to it, and struck it in the face. Ghu bit his lower lip, frowning. Still on his belly, he worked his way in nearer. The standing figure hit the other several times more.

“Leave her alone, so long as she’s quiet,” a woman said. She spoke Praitannec, and her voice slurred.

“She’s not quiet. She’s snivelling.” But the man who had done the hitting went to sit by the fire again, taking something from another—a jar, drinking. He held one arm, the one he hadn’t been hitting people with, tight to his chest.

“Let her snivel, then,” said the woman.

“You should have left her alone in the first place. She’s a
bard
.” That was another man, reaching for the jar. Ghu was close enough now to guess at four men and a woman. By the voices he’d heard so far, too loud, too careful, they were all drunk.

“She’d have gone to the chieftain’s hall and told them she’d seen us.” That was the whining man, who had hit the bard. Ahjvar’s bard? Ghu thought so, without any more reason for it but that he felt something like the shape of her, the scent of her. His dog-sense, Ahj called it.

“If you hadn’t dragged her off her horse, she’d have said ‘Good day,’ and passed on, never thought twice about us.”

“With all the countryside raised against us now, and all the chieftain’s spears out after us? She was following us. And her damned dog attacked me.”

“What did you expect, when you grabbed her like that? You’re lucky it wasn’t your throat.”

“At least I did for it,” the whiner said, with satisfaction. Ghu growled softly to himself, just a breath.

“She was going the same direction as us, not following. It’s not the same thing, and you’re a fool,” said the woman.

“What are we going to do with her?” one of the men asked, an irritated complaint.

“I can think of lots of things to do with her.”

This time the woman hit the whiner. He shrieked. Maybe she had hit his wounded arm. Good, as Ahjvar would say.

“Kill her and get out of here, head south?” she suggested.

“My brother will ransom me,” the bard said. Her voice shook. Terror, certainly, but fury beneath it, and grief. She was Lady Deyandara; he had been right. “I’m worth a lot more to you, alive and unharmed.”

They ignored her.

“Sell her, if we’re going south.”

“They don’t have slaves in the Five Cities, idiot.”

“Hah, everyone knows there’s ship-captains sailing for the empire who do a bit of that trade on the side. People go missing in the Five Cities. ’Specially pretty boys and girls.”

“We can’t let her go,” said the woman. “Not with the hunt up against us as it is, thanks to you. And we can’t cross however many miles it is between here and the coast with her making trouble all the way. We have to kill her. You should have done it then and left her with the dog.”

“She’s a bard. If she gave her word not to tell . . .” one of the men suggested. An older voice, which hadn’t spoken before.

“You want these kingless tribesmen to take your head? Because that’s what’s waiting if they find us. You killed that young swineherd, you clumsy bastard, not us, but we’ll all pay for him. And one murder, two, it doesn’t make a difference. It’s death. Hers or ours. She’d tell where she’d last seen us, no matter what she swore.”

“You’re Praitans. So am I,” Deyandara said. “Listen, the high king will pay a ransom to have me back unharmed. But if you kill me, not all Praitan and the Five Cities will be big enough to hide in.”

“Shut up, or I’ll cut your throat like your brute’s, here and now.”

“We’re not quite that stupid.” The woman again. “One of the high king’s bards, way out here in the west singing in the Tributary Lands—right.”

“How do you think he gets news of other folk and other lands but through his bards? Who carries word between the kingdoms? Fools yourselves. He’s my
brother
. If you kill me, even running as far as Nabban won’t save you.”

The whiner flung himself staggering around the fire and hit her again.

“We can’t kill her,” said the one who had wanted to let her go. “Catairanach save us, not the princess of the Duina Andara—every god and king of the seven kingdoms would be against us.”

“You don’t
believe
her?”

“But there was a lady of Andara at Dinaz Catairna last winter. Didn’t you hear?”

“Great Gods, why did you give me a fool and a drunkard for a brother? If there was, she’s dead with the rest of the lords who didn’t have the sense to run from the Marakanders. And if she escaped and it’s true, what she’s saying, more reason to be rid of her now and quickly, because she’s right, they won’t give up till they find her, and slipping off over the border won’t be enough to lose the hunters this time. If you won’t do it, Dann will. Or Jecca, since he’s so keen to do something with her.”

“Do it yourself,” the whiner said, though he’d been eager enough before. “I say we take her to the cities. And maybe she can show herself grateful for being spared, on the way.”

“You weren’t that squeamish about the dog. Just use the axe and get it over with.”

“Gods, leave it till morning, at least,” said the old-voiced man, “when we can see what we’re doing. We’re safe enough here for now. No one will be out in this weather, and I don’t want to spend the night sleeping by a corpse.”

Ghu felt around in the grass, until he found a pebble down in the roots. If he had his sling . . . but it was long-lost and he hadn’t made another. He raised himself up on one arm and shied the stone, striking one of the brigands. There was a sharp cry. Ghu squirmed backwards till he was over the hillcrest and then ran, bending low. Some of them followed. Two? Three. Good. So long as the remaining two didn’t decide to kill the lady then and there.

He took care to break some branches, let others spring back with loud swishings and snappings. Grabbed the sheathed sword from where he had leaned it against the saddles and baggage, leapt on the white mare, turned her with his knee and sent her plunging up through the willow tangle, more than enough noise, the horse gleaming as lightning broke over the hills. The other two raced with him, good beasts. And if it pleased Mother Nabban to hold her hand over him, none of the brigands would have thought to snatch a bow.

He was well ahead, and had probably lost them, but—the important thing—they were between Ahjvar and the lady.

Thunder sent the yellow horse shying off, vanishing into night. Rising wind drove the rain in waves, flattening the grass. He’d left Ahjvar—where? Lightning. The white mare reared as a darkness rose up out of the grass at her feet. Ghu slid sideways and grabbed Ahj around the shoulders as he passed, ending up on top of him. Still bound, but the man thrashed over, trying to drive him into the ground. Ghu elbowed him in the chin and rolled away to his feet.

“Ahj!” he shouted. “Ahjvar!” He smelt smoke. Sullen firelight seemed to hover on the edges of his vision, not an afterglow of the lightning. It looked like Ahjvar, it moved like Ahjvar, coming up onto its bound knees and then rocking to its feet, but that dog-sense that said the hunched sixth figure had been Lady Deyandara said this was not Ahjvar. “Catairlau . . . ?”

That didn’t work either. Worse. It did not like that name. It hissed. There was a horrible emptiness about it, a soul in abeyance, a ghost-ridden shell. And killing fed it and kept it from waking. He had never seen this, Ahj had made sure he didn’t, and now that he did, he wished he hadn’t. Worse than seeing someone you loved come to mindless, drooling dotage. This thing was all mad hatred. He couldn’t talk to it, and he could talk to almost anything. The eyes were on the sword, and he thought they saw it through fire. He dropped the belt, caught the white mare again by her mane and turned her.

“There are men,” he said. “Wicked men, brigands. They murdered a boy, they said. Four men and a woman. Do you remember the bard? Can you hear me, Ahjvar? You didn’t like her, but it wasn’t her fault. Remember that. She’s afraid. The wicked men have her prisoner. They’re going to kill her. You can find them first, if I let you go. But you can’t kill me.” Was this monster like a little child? Could it understand better if he made the words easy? He thought so. It had become a thing of simple thoughts, twisted, evil thoughts, but simple ones. “Ahjvar thinks the bard is heir to the Duina Catairna.
You
don’t want to kill her, do you? Ahjvar wants to kill her.” Except he thought Ahj didn’t, not really. “You don’t. Not your own last heir.”

Probably a lie. Probably it knew it for a lie. It gave him no words. Maybe it could not speak, maybe the cursing and obscenities before had been the last of Ahjvar as the darkness took him. But it made no move towards him. Good.