inhumanly tall figure reared over them. Clad in snow leopard's fur and rags of blankets, the brute waved a spear and roared a challenge. The she-ogre, whose brothers the adventurers helped kill, had lain in ambush and sprung a trap.
12
The 383rd Anniversary of the Great Arrival
'Samir Pallaton demands an audience with Samira Amenstar!'
Star pricked up her ears as a guard slipped out the tent flaps. She'd spent yet another boring day of imprisonment, one day after collapsing hills cut Cursrah's lifeline. The princess chafed at being locked up, at being inactive, at not knowing Pallaton's plans. Now came a soldier bawling her name, and Star would go willingly to be target practice-anything to escape these four canvas walls.
Outside, Star's guard demanded, 'Sir, I don't recognize you-'
'I'm Tafir from the House of Ynamalik Sedulus! One of Oxonsis's most ancient and noble houses! I'm attached to the personal lifeguards of Samir Pallaton, who wishes to see Samir Amenstar right away!'
'I beg pardon, Yshah.' The guard caved to a duke's son. The tent folds batted aside, and the guard urged, 'Please come, your majesty, the samir orders you attend.'
Squinting in the bright sunlight, Star smothered a grin. Tafir wore the red head cloth and linen tunic of an Oxonsin soldier. He stood parade-ground straight with an upright spear. Gheqet slouched before him, staring at the ground in feigned dejection.
Amenstar meekly fell in beside her friend, and Tafir rapped, 'March!'
The army camp bustled like a beehive. Hundreds of slaves, released from digging the canal, polished shields and armor, curried horses, braided bowstrings, stitched packs, and otherwise prepared for war. At the edge of camp, even a platoon of slaves drilled with spears. A grizzled sergeant bellowed they better march smarter to win their freedom.
Threading dust and noise, Amenstar joked quietly, 'Imagine finding another Tafir in Oxonsis's army, with a strange name like that.'
'One of our guards ran after a loose horse. Gheqet lured the other inside, and I jumped him. We took his clothes.' Tafir's face stayed wooden and disciplined and he added, 'I got the uniform because I'm the cadet.'
'He can bark like a war dog,' Gheqet jibed.
'Clever,' Star complimented, 'but where do we go?'
'Out of camp, into the tall grass, then creep into the hills. Halt!' Tafir glowered at his prisoners while a water wagon swayed past the dusty street lined with tents. He muttered, 'We can't steal horses from the picket line- it's watched-but if we hide until the night patrol rides in, they'll be tired. Maybe we can jump them. I just hope we don't bump into anyone who knows your face.'
The dripping wagon passed. Star took one look at the milling crowd and groaned, 'Death and damnation… the gods hate me.'
Opposite stood Samir Pallaton with his bodyguards and advisors. He wore his usual plain tunic, leather cross-straps, and matched swords, and he had added a red silk cape. With fists propped on his belt, the cape fluttered around his elbows. The prince grinned and slowly shook his head.
'Well, well,' he said, 'the princess takes her exercise. Behold the seasoned warrior who escorts her majesty… and such a pitiful prisoner.'
Striding to the party, Pallaton tugged off Tafir's head cloth and asked, 'Did you kill your guard?'
'No,' Tafir said, indignant. 'Uh, that is, no, Your Majesty. He's bound in our tent.'
'And bound for an extra week of night watch.' Flipping the head cloth into the dust, Pallaton addressed Amenstar. 'Actually, your brilliant escape precedes my own actions. -I was coming to release you.'
'Release us?' Star blinked. 'We're not-'
'Hostages?' The samir smiled. 'You were. I might have used you to negotiate a surrender from Cursrah. Now that Cursrah's painted out of the picture, you're worthless.'
The samira bristled. 'Cursrah is Calim's Cradle, I'll remind you. Its library and college-'
'Are heaps of dusty scrolls in a dry valley,' interrupted the prince, 'and the cradle lies empty. Calimshan has matured. Oxonsis no longer needs your dead city. Nor do I need you, Samira, dead or alive. Certainly I don't need to marry you.'
The last was delivered with an angry sneer that startled Amenstar. The prince was outwardly cool, she noted, yet his emotions boiled just beneath the surface. Why would he resent her, unless he repudiated an earlier attraction?
Turning to an aide, the prince barked loud enough for everyone to hear, 'Give these foreigners good horses and escort them to the border immediately.'
Without a backward glance, the prince stormed away.
'Are we-free?' whispered Gheqet.
'Free to go where we please,' sighed Amenstar, 'but never free of our mistakes.'
Two long days' ride found a familiar landmark. The flat slabs that covered Cursrah's aqueduct undulated across the plains. Their cavalry escort halted at the dusty path. The lieutenant mocked a salute.
'You can probably find your way from here, Samira. Good day.'
The troop drummed off to the northeast.
'I'm glad we're rid of them,' growled Star. 'Smug bastards.'
'I'm glad we had them,' Tafir said. The cadet still wore the linen tunic of Oxonsis, so quickly had they been hustled from Pallaton's camp. 'How many roving patrols did we spot? We might be prisoners of Zubat or even Coramshan if not for their protection.'
Gheqet clambered off his horse, stiff and sore. Mincing to the aqueduct, he pried up a small stone slab. The underside displayed damp moss. On hands and knees, the architect's apprentice stuck his head down the hole, then rocked back on his rump.
'Gheq,' asked Tafir, 'what's down there?'
'Nothing.' Gheqet rubbed his curly head, clearly worried. 'Almost nothing. Six inches of water at most. I can see moss on the bottom waving in the current. The aqueduct's never been this low. Even in the years of drought following the genies' war there was six feet. Now it's… six inches.'
'It's not the only water that feeds Cursrah,' insisted Star. 'It rains in winter sometimes, and the Mother of Flowers gives us water. Calim founded Cursrah around that spring.'
'It's just a trickle, Star.' Gheqet levered the slab back over the hole, twisted it tight, and said, 'Nomads stopped and filled their waterskins from it, watered their goats, then moved on. You can't feed a city from a puddle.'
Amenstar gazed along the gray aqueduct to far off where it dwindled into the horizon. Gheqet shook his head. 'Without water to fill it, the aqueduct will cave in. The sides will shift, and the slabs will collapse. Once it fills with sand, no one will ever know it existed.'
'We'd better mount up,' Tafir advised. He pointed to a party approaching from Cursrah that carried spears at their shoulders hung with bundles. 'This could be trouble.'
'Trouble?'
Amenstar shook her head as if dazed. She hadn't sleep well lately. The oncomers were dressed in Cursrah's uniform, yet lacked the flat collar of a citizen-soldier, so they were foreign mercenaries obviously deserting her father's army, taking along their short swords and spears. Befuddled, Star was unsure if they suggested danger. Lacking any place to run, she just sat.
'Good day!' Tafir's cheer was strained.
The mercenaries looked up. There were ten men and three women. Besides the weapons, they were burdened with blankets, bulging packs, spare sandals, and two waterskins apiece. A tall man with the light skin of a northerner shrugged so his spear bobbed.
'The day's improvin',' the mercenary said, 'now that we're finally movin' on.'
