The woman stared at him, then laughed aloud. “Boasting in a situation like this. You’re his brother all right.”
She didn’t think he was boasting. In fact, Teray thought, in a way she was boasting?assuring him that he was doomed, yet not attacking. Trying to separate Amber from him.
“Are you ready to die now, Lady?” he asked.
She said nothing but her people looked more alert.
He nodded. “I thought not. I have no more time for you.” He whipped his horse forward suddenly, sending it straight into Darah and her companions. He was aware of Amber moving beside him but he kept his attention on Darah and her people. Their horses reacted, leaping aside, startled, half rearing before their riders tightened controls on them, calmed them.
At a canter, Teray and Amber continued on, Teray now focusing his awareness ahead while Amber focused hers behind on Darah and her people. But Darah was not following.
Teray wanted to urge his horse into a headlong gallop, get away before the woman changed her mind. But he knew better. There was no “away” within his immediate reach. Darah could catch him if she wanted to as long as he was anywhere near her home sector. She had allies, no doubt?other Housemasters who would be willing to help her. And she had other members of her own House whom she could command to help her. It was all a matter of how much she was willing to lose to repay her debt to Coransee. He had no doubt that she was willing to sacrifice a few of her people. But apparently her own life was another matter. Now if only she did not find someone else more courageous?or foolhardy?to lead another attack in her place.
They rode on, no longer following their roundabout route, but traveling due south across the peninsula. It seemed better to take the chance of riding through more of the sector now than to take the time to ride around it. If Coransee wanted Teray held, then he was coming after him. He was probably already on his way, and possibly not far behind.
Teray and Amber had not spoken since their escape, but through the link, Teray could feel Amber’s anxiety. She was as eager to put the sector behind them as he was. She was grimly alert, her awareness now mingling shieldless with his. Together they covered an area nearly twice the size that either of them could have managed alone.
With only brief rest stops, they rode on through
the evening and into the night, not stopping until they had to, until both they and the horses were too weary to go on.
Then they camped in the hills, in a depression too small to be called a valley. It was surrounded by low grassy hills, so that while a Patternist passing nearby might sense them, no one who failed to sense them would see them and have reason to be curious. They lit no fire, ate a cold meal from the rations they had been conserving. Biscuits made that morning, water, jerked beef, and raisins. And for the first time they felt like the fugitives they were.
The night passed uneventfully. They slept as usual since the canopy of their awareness guarded them, once set, whether they were awake or asleep. The next morning they ate a quick skimpy breakfast and rode on early. They were no longer within Darah’s sector but they were still close enough to it to be nervous.
A little of their urgency was gone, though. They reassured each other, calmed each other, without intending to. They had hardly spoken since escaping from Darah?had hardly communicated in any way beyond sensing each other’s feelings. That had been enough until now. Now Teray was in a more talkative mood. And now he had something to say?perhaps.
“Amber?”
She glanced at him.
“Where did you know Darah from?”
“Here,” she said. “The last time I came through, Darah didn’t have a decent healer and she looked twenty years older than she does now. Of course forty years older would be more accurate. Anyway, I helped her. I had thought of her as an old friend. Until now.”
“An old lover, you mean?”
She raised an eyebrow. “No. All her lovers are men.”
He looked at her for several seconds, studying her. Golden-skinned, small-breasted, slender, strong. Sometimes she looked more like a boy than a woman. But when they lay together at night, their minds and their bodies attuned, enmeshed, there was no mistaking her for anything but a woman. Yet…
“Which do you prefer, Amber, really?”
She did not pretend to misunderstand him. “I’ll tell you,” she said softly. “But you won’t like it.”
He looked away from her. “I asked for the truth. Whether I like it or not, I have to know.”
“Already?” she whispered.
He pretended not to hear.
“When I meet a woman who attracts me, I prefer women,” she said. “And when I meet a man who attracts me, I prefer men.”
“You mean you haven’t made up your mind yet.”
“I mean exactly what I said. I told you you wouldn’t like it. Most people who ask want me definitely on one side or the other.”
He thought about that. “No, if that’s the way you are, I don’t mind.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You know I didn’t mean any offense.”
She sighed. “I know.”
“And I wasn’t asking just out of curiosity.”
“No.”
“You risked your life for me with Darah.”
