'I'm hungry!' she wailed.
'Sh..' He jerked her back out of auditory range. A warrior sentry could come on them at any time.
'Tell me the layout,' she whispered desperately. 'I'll go in and steal some food for us.'
'Stealing isn't honest!'
'It's all right in war. From an enemy camp.'
'But that's my camp!'
'Oh.' She thought a moment. 'I could still go. And ask for some. They don't know me.'
'Without any clothes?'
'But I'm hungry!'
Var was getting disgusted, and didn't answer. His own hunger became intense.
She began to cry.
'Here,' Var said, feeling painfully guilty. 'The hostel has clothes.'
They ran to the hostel, one mile. Before Var could protest, Soli handed him her harness and stick and walked inside. She emerged a few minutes later wearing a junior smock and a hair ribbon and new sandals, looking clean and fresh.
'You're lucky no one was there!' Var said, exasperated. 'Someone was there. Somebody's wife, waiting to meet her warrior. I guess they're keeping the women out of your main camp. She jumped a mile when I walked in. I told her I was lost, and she helped me.'
So neatly accomplished! He would never have thought of that, or had the nerve to do it. Was she bold, or naive?
'Here,' she said. She handed him a bundle of clothing. Dressed, they reappraised the main camp. It occurred to Var that there should have been food at the hostel, but then he remembered that the nomads cleaned it out regularly. It took a lot of food to feed an armed camp, and the hostel food was superior to the empire mess. Otherwise they might have solved their problem readily. Their food problem.
'I'll have to go to the main tent,' she said. Var agreed, hunger making him urgent, now that their nakedness had been abated. 'I'll pretend I'm somebody's daughter, and that I'm bringing food out to my family.'
Var was fearful of this audacity, but could offer nothing better. 'Be careful,' he said.
He lurked in the forest near the tent, not daring to move for fear she would not be able to find him again. She disappeared into the mist.
Then lie remembered what her motel- omment should have jogged into his head before: the entird camp was not only masculine, it was on a recognition only basis. No stranger could pass the guards particularly not a female child.
And it was too late to stop her.
Soli moved toward the huge tent, fascinated by its tenuous configuration though her heart beat nervously. She would have felt more confident with a pair of sticks, but had left them with Var because children especially girl children did not carry weapons here.
A guard stood at the tent entrance. She tried to brush past him as if she belonged, but his staff came down to bar her immediately. 'Who are you?' he demanded.
She knew better than to give her real name. Hastily she invented one: 'I'm Semi. My father is tired. I have to fetch some food for'
'No Sam in this camp, girl. Id know a strange name like that, sure. What game are you playing?'
'Sam the Sword. He just arrived. Here'
'You're lying, child. No warrior brings his family into this camp. I'm taking you to the Master.' He nudged her with the staff.
No one else was in sight at the moment. Soil vaulted the pole, shot spoked fingers at his eyeballs, and when his head jerked back in the warrior's reflex she sliced him across the throat with the rigid side of her hand. She clipped him again as he gasped for breath, and he collapsed silently.
