my own self; too dangerous.”
King frowned; he’d heard of her obsession. “I’m not taking a…what’s your term? War party? I’m going to hunt, not fight.”
For the first time Sonjuh smiled, although it wasn’t a particularly pleasant expression: “Mebbe not, but that won’t be much of a never mind to the swamp-devils. If your trail-boss there-” She used her chin to indicate Robre. “-has told you it’s unlikely, he’s a mite too cheerful about the prospect, to my way of thinking.”
“Well then, miss: can you cook?”
She flushed again, and opened her mouth, then closed it. When she spoke, it was with tight calm. “I’m not looking to hire on as kitchen help, Empire-Jefe.”
“When I’m in the field, usually my man Ranjit does for both of us,” King said. “But I need him for other work now. You can carry our provisions on your mule and do our cooking and Robre’s; same daily rate for your work and your animals as the rest. Take it or leave it.”
Their eyes locked, and after a long moment she nodded. And you can control your temper somewhat, my red-haired forest nymph, he thought, inclining his head slightly. He wasn’t going to take a complete berserker along, no matter how attractive and exotic. Stalking the wild Sonjuh will add a little spice to our expedition, eh, what?
One of the pieces of advice his father had given him when he got his commission was that excitable women were wearing, but often worth the trouble.
A shout brought their heads around. Haahld had recovered enough to pull Sonjuh’s tomahawk out of the dead pine. He’d also recovered enough to start shrieking again, a torrent of curses and threats. His first throw was erratic but vigorous; not only Sonjuh but also half a dozen others went flat as it pinwheeled by. The handle struck a mule on the rump, and the beast flung both heels back and plunged across the meadow braying indignantly, knocking Robre down and nearly stepping on him. Haahld wrenched at another throwing-ax stuck in the tree, froth in his beard; several men shouted, and Sonjuh did a rapid leopard-crawl toward her crossbow.
King wasted no time. His Khyber knife was slung at the back of his belt with its hilt to the right. He drew it, and threw with a hard whipping overarm motion; like many who’d served on the North West Frontier, he’d spent some time learning how to handle the versatile Pathan weapon.
His had a hilt fringed with tiny silver bells, but the business part was eighteen inches of pure murder, a thick-backed single-edged blade tapering to a vicious point, like an elongated meat-chopper from the kitchens of Hell. It turned four times, flashing in the bright morning sun, then pinned Haahld’s arm to the stump like a nail, standing quivering with his blood running down the wood. The silver bells chimed…
Another silence, and Haahld’s eyes turned up in his head; his fall tore the chora- knife out of the wood, and the thump of his body on the ground was clearly audible.
“Somebody see to him,” King said. “And to that mule.”
Sonjuh was staring at him, in a way that made him stroke his mustache with the knuckle of his right hand in a quick sleek gesture; Robre was giving him a considering look, evidently reconsidering first impressions. Knife- throwing was more of a circus trick than a real fighting technique, but there were occasions when it was impressive, without a doubt.
“No trouble with your local laws?” King asked, sotto voce.
Robre shook his head. “ Naw. Haahld fell on his own doings.” A grin. “Couldn’t hardly do anything right, after that she-fiend hoofed him in the jewels. He’d been beat by a woman-’n’ beatin’ her back would just make him look mean as well as weak.”
“Well, their customs have the charm of the direct and simple,” King muttered to himself, in Hindi.
Sonjuh had gone to investigate his supplies after she retrieved her tomahawk and beasts, unpacking her mule beside the boxes and sacks. She returned leading her riding horse.
“Four o’ them ru pees,” she said, holding out a hand. “The stuff you need, I can get it in Dannulsford ’n’ be back in about an hour.”
King blinked in mild surprise; he’d left purchasing trail supplies to Robre, who seemed unlikely to miss anything important. When he said so, Sonjuh snorted.
“You’ve got enough cornmeal ’n’ taters ’n’ bacon and such,” she said contemptuously. “Plain to see a man laid it in. Men don’t live like people on their ownesome; they live like bears with a cookfire. If I’m going to cook, I’m going to do it right-I have to eat it, too, don’t I?”
King handed her the money and stood shaking his head bemusedly as she galloped off. Her dog sat near the pile of supplies she’d set him to guard, giving a warning growl if anyone approached them too closely.
“Hoo,” Robre said, looking south down the pathway that led to the Alligator Jefe’s steading. “Taking Sonjuh Head-on-Fire with us…ought to make the trip right interesting, Jefe King.”
“My thought exactly,” King said, and laughed.
“What’s that?” King asked, waving a hand to indicate the loud tock-tock-tock sound that echoed through the open forest of oak and hickory.
Robre’s brows rose; the Imperial was astonishingly ignorant of common things, for a man who was a better-than-good woodsman and tracker.
“That’s a peckerwood, Jefe,” he said. “A bird, sort of ’bout the size of a crow, with a red head ’n’ white under the wings. Makes that sound by knocking holes in trees, looking for bugs to eat. The call’s something like-”
The hard tocsin of the woodpecker’s beak stopped and gave way to a sharp, raucous keek-keek-keek.
“-like that.”
The fact that he’d fallen into the habit of calling the Imperial Jefe — technically the word for a clan chief, but often used informally for any important man-rather surprised him. Everyone else in the hunting party did, too, even Sonjuh, whose new gift-name of Head-on-Fire had stuck for good reason.
The men-at-arms from the coast obeyed like well-trained hunting dogs, of course, but they didn’t count; although they’d fought hard in recent wars against his people and the Mehk, legend said they were descendants of those who’d been slaves to the Seven Tribes in the olden times.
No, it was something in the man himself that did it. Thinking back, Robre appreciated how shrewd it had been to let Ranjit Singh be the one who tested the hand-to-hand skills of the men. Singh had beaten them all easily-Robre suspected he would have lost himself, and had been picking up tips on his wrasslin’ style since. That had let King’s follower start out with the prestige of one who was a hard man for certain-sure. Then he’d shown himself to be fair, as well, good-humored, a dab hand at anything to do with horses, as ready to pitch in to help with a difficult job as he was to thump a man who back-talked him.
Which in turn made his unservile deference to King’s leadership easy to copy.
Fact of the matter is, King’s unnatural good at getting people to do what he wants, Robre mused.
Most of all, the Imperial officer simply assumed that he was a lord wherever he went, one of the lords of humankind. Not with blows and curses and arrogance, which would only have aroused furious-murderous- resentment among proud clansmen, but with a quietly unshakable certainty that went right down to the bone. It set Robre’s teeth a little on edge, though he couldn’t put his finger on anything specific.
King stopped and looked around, his double-barreled hunting rifle in the crook of his left arm; Robre had his bow in hand, and a short broad-bladed spear with a bar across the shaft below the head slung over his back.
“Pretty country,” the Imperial said. “Not many farms these past two days, though. Not since that…what’s your word for it?”
“Station,” Robre said; that was the term for several families living close for defense, surrounded by a palisade. “No, not this far east. Too close to the Black River, ’n’ the swamp-devils.”
“Are there many of them?”
“Thicker ’n lice, down in the Big Thicket swamps. They hunt each other mostly, every little band against its neighbors, but every now ’n’ then some try crossing the river for man’s-flesh and plunder. More lately, what with more of our folk settling in the woods ’n’ making ax-claims.”
They’d been on the trail for a week and a half, counting from the morning they took the ferry across the Three Forks at Dannulsford, traveling without any particular hurry. Once past the bottomland swamps, too prone to flooding to have much permanent population, they’d traveled for two days through country where as much as a quarter of the land was cleared. Those new-won farms had petered out to an occasional outpost, then to land
