stud had come back.
I sighed. 'Let's go, Snowball.'
The footing was worse than bad. If it wasn't me tripping over stationary rocks or having loosely seated ones roll out from under my feet, it was the gelding. Hooves were not made for balancing atop rounded rocks, be they firmly seated against one another or treacherously loose; and my sandaled feet were no more appropriate. This was a place for boots, but I'd left mine somewhere along the way. Possibly in Haziz, if I remembered right. Foolish decision, even if I had been trying to save room in saddlepouches. I could not even imagine Nayyib leading a mounted horse carrying an injured woman through here, but I didn't have to; from time to time I found additional signs of their passage. I wondered if the kid's horse would be lame by the time he got through; I wondered if the gelding would be lame by the time we got through.
Slowly, carefully, I picked my way, trying to find some kind of route between stones and boulders easier on the gelding. He was a game horse, coming along willingly without hesitation. At some point I noticed the rocks were decreasing in size. Footing remained a challenge, but the way was less demanding. Better yet, more sand and soil was in evidence, which not only made it easier to walk, but held prints better. I was still on Nayyib's trail.
'Almost,' I murmured to the gelding. 'Not much farther.'
And indeed, neither of us was required to go much farther at all, because even as I turned back to encourage the gelding, I heard other horses approaching. I counted them by sound: four. They clopped down through rocks, rolling and knocking them one against the other.
Finally. I turned to face the Vashni, purposely not drawing my sword. I simply waited, easing my body into a poised awareness that wasn't obvious.
The gelding, spying other horses, pealed out an ear-splitting whinny of greeting. I winced; even the Vashni seemed somewhat startled by their mounts' answering noise. So much for the momentousness of the meeting.
In one sweeping glance I noted each man. Oziri was not among them. I didn't have the slightest grasp of Vashni politics, nor did I know if these four warriors were even of the same band, so I didn't attempt to invoke his name as safe passage. Besides, Oziri was not my goal.
What I wanted to do was immediately demand if they had seen Del and if she were alive. But haste is not the best strategy among strangers, especially dangerous ones. Instead, using the gift I'd gained in Meteiera, I told them in their own language, succinctly and without flourish, that I was the jhihadi, and the jhihadi was looking for the Oracle's sister.
No more, no less.
Vashni are not a demonstrative race on the whole, but I saw a faint ripple of response in their dark faces. They said nothing aloud, yet eloquent fingers, as they examined me from a distance, spoke a language I did not; apparently what I'd gained was limited to oral tongues. But possibly it didn't matter, because my gut was certain they knew very well who, and where, Del was.
I just needed them to tell me.
I waited for confirmation. The clenching of my belly tightened. It was all I could do to breathe. I applied every shred of discipline learned atop the spires to hold my silence with no indication of concern.
There was no confirmation. They simply rode down through the rocks, took up positions in front, on either side, and behind me, and gestured at the the gelding. They closed in once I had mounted, making it clear with no speech that I was to go with them.
Time turned backward. Years before, Del and I had ridden into a Vashni village. Now, as then, word had been given before we arrived, so that by the time I entered the cluster of hyorts built in the foothills, men, women, and children had turned out to witness my arrival. They formed up in parallel lines facing one another, acting as a human gate into their home. I wondered how many people had ridden the double lines to their deaths.
The lines ended in the center of the village, a common area surrounded by oilcloth hyorts. I was escorted there, still hemmed in by the four warriors, and made to wait. More conversation with hand gestures ensued, even as the double lines of villagers threaded themselves into a single circle of Vashni, a human wall between my little party and the hyorts.
Quietly, carefully, I drew in a breath, held it a moment, released it. My right hand felt naked, empty of sword. But this was not, I knew, the time to unsheathe. I sat in silence atop the gelding, ostensibly relaxed.
Then, from somewhere beyond the village, I heard the ringing call of a stallion.
My head snapped around. I knew that voice. That arrogance.
Inwardly a small knot untied. A flutter of relief blossomed briefly in my belly. I grinned like a fool.
The grin dropped away as a voice called out. At once the circle of Vashni parted, allowing a warrior to step through. He approached, flanked by two other men, both younger, both bigger, both bearing traditional Vashni swords across their backs, though he was unarmed save for a knife. Black hair was threaded with gray, and a childhood disease had left his face pocked. The seam of an old scar nicked the corner of his right eye, extending to his ear. He wore an intricate bone pectoral across his bare chest.
I know a chieftain when I see one. But I was the jhihadi. Preordained by the Oracle himself, whom Vashni had hosted for years. I did not so much as incline my head.
The chieftain halted. He eyed me briefly, then made a rapid gesture. The four warriors surrounding me absented themselves. It left me atop the gelding in the center of the human circle, facing the chieftain on foot with his two bodyguards.
Inspiration was abrupt. I eased myself out of the saddle, aware of the sudden tension in the Vashni. Without hesitation or affectation—and without offering any manner of physical threat—I moved out in front of the gelding, ran a hand down his muzzle, and knelt on one knee. I pressed two fingers into the packed soil and sand and drew a line. Shallow at one end, deeper at the other, with a slight depression made by the heel of my hand. Then I unhooked the bota from my shoulder, unstoppered it, poured water in the shallow end of the line, and watched it trickle its way to the other. I placed the blade of grass I'd pulled from the gelding's bit into the filling depression. Smiling, I looked up and met the chieftain's eyes.
After a lengthy consideration, he inclined his head very slightly. Then he turned and walked back through the ring of villagers.
For an odd suspended moment I thought I was going to be left to fend for myself in the middle of the village. But then a warrior appeared at my elbow as another took the gelding's reins and led him away. I was escorted through the silent villagers to a hyort. There the warrior pulled the doorflap aside and gestured me to enter.
I ducked in, aware the flap was dropped behind me. The light was permitted entry only through the smoke hole in the narrow, peaked top of the hyort, concentrated in the middle of the carpeted dirt floor, but it was enough. I saw the blanket-covered pallet and the woman upon it. That she slept was obvious even though her back was to me; I knew the skyward jut of shoulder, the curve of elevated hip, the doubling up of one knee intimately. Del had always stolen more than her share of the bed.
Relief was so tangible it sent a spasm through my body. I took one step, stopped, and just looked at her, letting the tension of tear, the tautness of anxiety, bleed slowly out of my body. The knot that was my spine untied itself.
I sat down then, next to the bed, close enough to touch her. I did not. I simply sat there, watching her breathe. Smiling. Happy—and whole—merely to be in her presence.
I'mhere, bascha.
* * *
Del slept a long time, but I didn't care. I stretched out on my back, contemplated the peaked roof where the smoke hole opened to sky, and waited in patient contentment until she turned over onto her back, releasing a breathy sigh. I rolled onto hip and elbow and leaned upon my hand. Her eyes were still closed, but her breathing had changed. I marked the pale lashes against fair skin, the threading of bluish veins in her eyelids. She wore a burnous that hid most of her body, so I didn't know if she was still bandaged or not. She was too thin; that I could tell from the bones in her face.
Del's eyes opened. She blinked up at the smoke hole. Then, frowning, she turned her head and looked right at me.
My smile broadened. 'Hey.'
She gazed at me a moment. 'Where in the hoolies have you been?'
