Fiddler Fair (anthology)

He did not see the other, darker shape coming in behind him. The hooves of a second mare lashing into the back of his head ended his sentence and his life.

At nearly the same moment, Brighttooth was going over the back wall of the stockade. She made a run at the stallion standing rock-steady beneath the wall, boosting herself off the scavenged saddle Bakro wore. There was a brief sound of a scuffle; then the cat’s thoughts touched Chali’s.

The guard is dead. He tasted awful.

Chali used Bakro’s back as the cat had, and clawed her own way over the palisade. She let herself drop into the dust of the other side, landing as quietly as she could, and searched the immediate area with mind touch.

Nothing and no-one.

She slid the bar of the gate back, and let Bakro in, and the two of them headed for the stockade and the grain-pits. The cat was already there.

If it had not been for the cat’s superior night-sight, Chali would not have been able to find the latch holding it. The wooden cover of the pit was heavy; Chali barely managed to get it raised. Below her she could see the boy’s white face peering up at her, just touched by the moonlight.

Can you climb? she asked.

Hell, no, he answered ruefully.

Then I must come down to you.

She had come prepared for this; there was a coil of scavenged rope on Bakro’s saddle. She tied one end of it to the pommel and dropped the other down into the pit, sliding down to land beside the boy.

Once beside him, she made an abrupt reassessment. Not a boy. A young man; one who might be rather handsome under the dirt and dried blood and bruises. She tied the rope around his waist as he tried, awkwardly, to help.

From above came an urgent mind-call. Hurry, Brighttooth fidgeted. The guards are due to report and have not. They sense something amiss.

We’re ready, she answered shortly. Bakro began backing, slowly. She had her left arm around the young man’s waist, holding him steady and guiding him, and held to the rope with the other, while they “walked” up the side of the pit. It was hardly graceful—and Chali was grateful that the pit was not too deep— but at length they reached the top. Her ­shoulders were screaming in agony, but she let go of him and caught the edge with that hand, then let go of the rope and hung for a perilous moment on the verge before hauling herself up. She wanted to lie there and recover, but there was no time—

They have found the dead one! Texal o rako lengo gortiano! she spat. The young man was trying to get himself onto the rim; she grabbed his shoulders while he hissed softly in pain and pulled him up beside her. What? he asked, having sensed something.

No time! she replied, grabbing his shoulder and shoving him at Bakro. She threw herself into the saddle, and wasted another precious moment while Bakro knelt and she pulled at the young man again, catching him off-balance and forcing him to fall face-down across her saddle-bow like a sack of grain. NOW, my wise ones! NOW!

The last was broad-beamed to all the herd—and even as the perimeter guards began shouting their discovery, and torches began flaring all over the town, the Rom horses began their stampede to freedom.

The cat was already ahead of them, clearing the way with teeth and flashing claws; her task was to hold the gate against someone trying to close it. Chali clung to Bakro’s back with aching legs—she was having her hands full trying to keep the young man from falling off. He was in mortal agony, every step the stallion took jarring his hurts without mercy, but he was fastened to her leg and stirrup-iron like a leech.

The herd was in full gallop now—sweeping everything and everyone aside. There was only one thing to stop them.

The narrowness of the postern gate—only three horses could squeeze through at any one time. If there was anyone with a bow and good sense, he would have stationed himself there.

Chali heard the first arrow. She felt the second hit her arm. She shuddered with pain, ducked, and spread herself over the body in front of her, trying to protect her passenger from further shots.

Bakro hesitated for a moment, then shouldered aside two mules and a donkey to bully his own way through the gate.

But not before Chali had taken a second wound, and a third, and a fourth.

“I’ll say this much for you, Dirtman, you’re stubborn.” The Horseclan warrior’s voice held grudging admiration as it filtered out of the darkness beside Kevin. He had been detailed to ride at the smith’s left hand and keep him from falling out of his saddle. He had obviously considered this duty something of an embarrassing ordeal. Evidently he didn’t think it was anymore.

Kevin’s face was white with pain, and he was nearly blind to everything around him, but he kept his seat. “Don’t call me that. I told you—after what they did to my blood-brothers, I’m not one of them. I’m with you—all the way. If that means fighting, I’ll fight. Those oathbreaking, child-murdering bastards don’t deserve anything but a grave. They ain’t even human anymore, not by my way of thinking.”

That was a long speech for him, made longer still by the fact that he had to gasp bits of it out between flashes of pain. But he meant it, every word—and the Horseclansman took it at face value, simply nodding, slowly.

“I just—” A shout from the forward scout stopped them all dead in their tracks. The full moon was nearly as bright as day—and what it revealed had Kevin’s jaw dropping.

It was a mixed herd of horses, mules and donkeys—all bone-weary and covered with froth and sweat, heads hanging as they walked. And something slumped over the back of one in the center that gradually revealed itself to be two near-comatose people, seated one before the other and clinging to each other to keep from falling of the horse’s saddle. The clan chief recognized the one in front, and slid from his horses’s back with a shout. The herd ­ approaching them stopped coming, the beasts moving only enough to part and let him through.

Then Kevin recognized the other, and tumbled off his horse’s back, all injuries