Snare

  At a jog he led the horse across the grassy field towards the trees that marked the river course. The dry grass stood high and thatchy; pushing their way took effort, and all the while he could hear the yaps coming closer. The trees at last! Zayn kicked dead wood out of the way and led the horse down to the riverbank. By then the yapping was so loud that the sorrel stepped into the river without any need for coaxing.

  The Herd had risen into the sky, and by glittering starlight they could pick their way through the shallows to the centre of the river. The water, cold but not unbearable, came up to Zayn’s knees. Where they stood, gravel and firm sand carpeted the river bottom, decent footing assuming it didn’t turn muddy farther west. Zayn muttered a few soothing words to the sorrel and walked on, one foot at a time, testing the bottom at every step. The yapping of the hunting pack suddenly stopped. In its place he could hear the brushy scraping sound of animals, a lot of animals, pushing their way through dry grass. He glanced back, but trees obstructed his view.

  Zayn walked faster, sloshed through the water with the horse coming along right behind. The thrashing, scratchy sound behind them seemed to be keeping pace. Zayn glanced back and saw in between the trees things moving, things with eyes that caught the dim light and gleamed, things that pushed their way through the trees and stood on the riverbank.

  ‘Shit!’

  He counted ten of them. The sorrel threw up its head, then pulled at the reins. Zayn shortened his grip on the reins with his left hand and with his right caught the bridle itself.

  ‘Steady on, old boy, steady on.’

  When they started walking again, the predators walked with them, but they kept to the riverbank. Now and then one would strain forward and whine, take a step into water, and draw back fast.

  ‘As long as we keep to the water, we might be safe. Steady on, old boy. Let’s just keep moving and maybe they’ll decide to look for something easier to kill.’

  The horse tried to toss its head, then suddenly whickered, thrashed its tail, and neighed, a good long call. Other horses answered from some distance. That campfire, Zayn thought. Well, if it’s Soutan, I’ll end up in a hell of a mess. Or if Arkazo’s got a bow, I might just end up in Hell. On the riverbank the animals began to whine and cluster, as if they were preparing to charge. The distant horses whickered again. Three of them, Zayn suddenly realized, only three horses. He had never trusted to luck before in his life, but luck was all he had left.

  ‘Ammadin!’ Zayn yelled as loud as he could. ‘Ammi! Help!’

  When their horses neighed in answer to the distant horse’s call, Ammadin and Loy both jumped to their feet. Ammadin walked away from the fire to peer into the eastern darkness.

  ‘Maybe it’s Soutan?’

  ‘Oh please, God!’ Loy patted her rifle.

  Their horses neighed again, and distantly the strange horse answered. Ammadin took a deep breath of the night wind.

  ‘Yap-packers!’ Ammadin said. ‘I wonder if they’ve got the poor beast trapped? I’ll get the lightwand.’

  ‘Do you think it’s safe to go out there?’

  Before Ammadin could answer, they both heard the voice – a H’mai, male, calling for help.

  ‘That’s Zayn!’ Ammadin snapped. ‘Come on!’

  Ammadin scooped up her saddlebags and slung them over one shoulder, then ran for the road. As she ran she fumbled in one bag, found the lightwand, and pulled it out.

  ‘Light!’ she said. ‘High!’

  A fountain of light rose up and illuminated the road, the fields, the Midas trees. When she glanced back, she realized that Loy was struggling to keep up. She slowed down to a jog and brought the stick down level with her waist. With the motion the light turned to a wide beam, leaping down the road ahead. Ammadin swung the stick back and forth, raking the fields on either side with light.

  ‘Zayn!’ she yelled. ‘Hang on!’

  It struck her as a stupid thing to say, but she could think of no better. The dazzling light was already beginning the rescue. The yap-packers began whining and yowling in sudden fear just as a panting Loy caught up with her.

  ‘There they are!’ Loy gasped, pointing.

  A cluster of blue beasts came slinking out of the Midas trees, yapped, howled, and began milling around. Ammadin swung the lightwand around and pinned them in its glare. She heard Loy’s calm voice behind her.

  ‘Lock. Fire.’

  The ripple of light flashed to the nearest yap-packer. Light exploded along with the creature’s head, a ghastly display of white fire and maroon blood bursting into a split-second blossom. The glare died, leaving Ammadin half-blind. The yap-packers raced back and forth, ramming into trees, alternately yapping and screaming in hideous counterpoint. Finally they collected themselves and as a pack raced off north, howling surrender. In the dimmer glow from the lightwand Ammadin could finally see. Something else moved among the Midas trees.

  ‘Ammi!’ Zayn was shouting. ‘Ammi, do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’ She shouted in answer. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m bringing my horse through the trees. I don’t know what that was, but don’t use it on us.’

  ‘It’s safe. And I thank the gods you are.’

  Although she wanted to run and throw herself into his arms, Ammadin stood waiting on the road, watching as he led the sorrel out of the trees and across the field. When he reached the roadside he dropped the horse’s reins, strode over, and threw his arms around her. She kissed him once, then pulled away.

  ‘How did you get away from the ChaMeech?’ she said.

  ‘It’s a long story.’ Zayn sounded exhausted. ‘How did you know I – wait, Water Woman must have told you.’

  ‘Yes, she did. Let’s get back to camp. We’ve got a lot to talk about. I want to know what happened in Burgunee.’

  ‘A lot.’ Zayn managed a smile. ‘And I see you’ve brought the loremaster with you. Good. I need to ask her a lot of questions.’

  The three of them stayed up talking till long after the Herd set. Even so, Ammadin roused herself at Sentry’s dawn chime. She sat up, yawning, then grabbed her saddlebags without disturbing Zayn, lying sprawled and snoring next to her. When she stood up, he muttered a few incomprehensible words and flopped over onto his stomach. On the other side of the campfire Loy’s blankets sat already rolled and tied for the day. Out in the field, three of the horses were grazing at tether, and as she watched, the sorrel, which had been tired enough to sleep lying down, heaved itself to its feet and joined them.

  Ammadin walked out into the grass, then knelt and brought out Spirit Eyes – or was she really holding a spirit in her hand? She laid them in a row to feed, Sentry, Long Voice, Spirit Eyes, Earth Prince, Rain Child, even Death Chanter. She had thought them living things, wild spirits that she had tamed and trained. And what if it weren’t true, she asked herself? What if her crystals were dead things, no different in kind from the machines that carried water from the rivers to the ditches in the Cantons, or those printing presses Zayn had spoken of? She would feel no lonelier; she had never thought of them as persons, merely as spirits, each with a very narrow range of skill and no character to speak of. They were servants, not friends.

  What did matter was the chain of lies. Someone, those Settlers Loy spoke of, had lied to the first spirit riders. They in turn had taught their apprentices those lies in good faith. Down through the long years, eight hundred years, as she now knew, the lies had travelled, and each year they had expanded, eating up the truth. With time the teachers had known less to teach. That mattered to the point of fury.

  As Ammadin expected, Water Woman never contacted her, nor could she find the Chiri Michi in her scan. In some minutes Loy joined her, carrying her own saddlebags.

  ‘Nothing,’ Loy said without being asked. ‘Did you have any luck?’

  ‘None, no. Not a trace of Soutan. You do know that he has his own ChaMeech allies, don’t you?’

  ‘He bragged about that once, yes. He claimed he’d
dominated an alpha male and won his submission. My theory is that the male decided Yarl was useful.’

  ‘That’s what Water Woman told me.’

  They shared a laugh.

  ‘But anyway,’ Ammadin went on. ‘At least now we know why we can’t find them.’

  ‘Yes, we certainly do.’ Loy shook her head in amazement. ‘Tunnels. An entire network of tunnels under the Cantons! Now, we did know that a few short tunnels run under Dordan and Bredanee. Old Onree found those. But no one had the slightest idea that there was another network out here. How in hell does that kind of information just disappear?’

  ‘Eight hundred years is a long time.’

  ‘Not that long! Damn the Ancestors! Everything I know about the first hundred years on Snare I’ve had to piece together and fill in with guesswork.’ Loy stood up, stretching. ‘Merde, I’m tired! I’m glad we’re not travelling today, let me tell you.’

  ‘Yes, nothing to do now but wait for Water Woman.’

  ‘And I’ve got to cook that yap-packer. It’s aged enough, and it’ll start to turn pretty fast in this weather.’

  They returned to camp to find Zayn awake, stripped to the waist, and wet – he’d been bathing in the stream, he told them. Loy glanced at the scars on his back, winced, but said nothing.

  ‘Look, Ammi,’ Zayn said. ‘You really think I should wait for your ChaMeech friends to get here?’

  ‘Do you really think you’ll get back to Dordan alive with the yap-packs roaming around?’

  ‘You win. I’ll wait.’

  ‘From what Water Woman told me,’ Ammadin went on, ‘it’s likely that the kidnappers want hostages to bargain with her. If so, they’ll have to keep your friends safe, won’t they?’

  ‘That’s true, yes. I just – well, hell, I’m worried, I guess. I don’t want anything happening to the khan.’

  ‘He really is the khan to you, isn’t he? I can hear it in your voice.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. After what he did for me –’ Zayn paused for a long moment.

  ‘I’ll admit to being impressed, yes. That reminds me. Bring me your bridle. It’s time to take the quest marker off.’

  Zayn turned solemn, hesitated, his eyes so troubled that she thought he was about to divulge some painful story, but he turned and jogged off to bring her the marker.

  After the camp fed, Loy rummaged through one of the pack saddles and brought out a flat circle of strangely pale and lightweight metal. The disc seemed to be constructed of a number of overlapping flat rings, but when Loy laid a hand in the centre and pushed hard, it unfolded into an enormous stew pot.

  ‘Clever, huh?’ Loy said. ‘I thought the bursar was crazy when he insisted we take this, but we can use it after all.’

  ‘Do you have a spit to hang it on?’

  ‘Sure do. I’ll have to cut some branches to hold the spit up, though.’

  Zayn hauled the dead yap-packer, still wrapped in its layer of leaves and rope, out of the river and carried it back to camp. Loy cut it into big chunks with the hatchet, boned them with a knife, then put the meat, a handful of salt, and stream water into the kettle to stew over a slow fire. She scrounged around in the shrubby brush along the stream bank and came back with handfuls of pale yellow plants, which she threw into the kettle as well.

  ‘There,’ Loy said. ‘I’ll add some dried grapes towards the end, too.’

  ‘While you’re doing that,’ Zayn said, ‘could I have a look at that – well, whatever it was you used last night. The thing that killed the yap-packer.’

  ‘A look at it?’ Loy raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘Well, I want to know how it works. Could you show me?’

  Loy glanced Ammadin’s way. ‘It’s your rifle, not mine,’ Ammadin said.

  Loy considered for a few minutes while Zayn watched her like a hungry child hoping for a treat. ‘Men and weapons,’ Loy said. ‘What is it with men and weapons?’

  ‘I don’t know about other men,’ Zayn said, ‘but weapons are my job, after all.’

  ‘As a comnee man or a cavalry officer?’

  ‘Both, really.’

  Loy frowned down at the stew pot; the water was beginning to simmer. She took a long stick of whittled firewood and poked at the chunks of meat, shoving them under the surface.

  ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘You can’t. Neither of your jobs were meant to have that kind of rifle. The thought of a lot of Kazraks with rifles makes my blood run cold.’

  ‘Well, hell,’ Zayn snapped. ‘What do you think we could do? Just sit right down and manufacture them by the hundreds?’

  ‘You’ve got a point. The answer’s still no.’

  When Zayn started to argue, Ammadin laid a firm hand on his arm. ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ she said.

  Zayn looked at her, and she could smell anger, simmering like the water in the pot. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Now.’

  He hesitated, still angry, then suddenly shrugged. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Loy, I’m sorry. It’s your rifle, so you do what you want with it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Loy said cheerfully. ‘I do.’

  Ammadin hurried Zayn along to the white wall. She was expecting him to find the bas-reliefs fascinating, and he commented that they were, but he glanced briefly at each panel and moved fast to the next.

  ‘Don’t you want to study them?’ she said.

  ‘Of course. I’m memorizing them for later.’

  ‘You know, it’s such a waste, your talents. They’re splendid, really amazing, but your people had to go and torment you for them.’

  ‘It’s not like they had much of a choice. It always seemed inevitable to me, I mean, if you consider who Agvar was, and the people who followed him.’

  ‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t make me hate them less.’

  They sat down together in the shade of the wall. He caught her hand, kissed the palm, smiled and tried to draw her close, but she jerked her hand free.

  ‘Don’t start,’ she said. ‘Loy’s right over there, and Water Woman and her entourage could show up at any time.’

  ‘You’re right. I wish we had a tent.’

  ‘So do I. But we don’t.’

  He started to say more, then let his smile fade as he thought something through. ‘While we’ve got this chance alone,’ he said finally, ‘there’s something I need to talk with you about. The Chosen.’

  ‘Let me guess. You’re sure they’re going to come after you and kill you.’

  ‘All right, I deserved that, but no, that’s not it. Let me see if I can tell you things about them.’

  ‘Uh, I don’t understand –’

  ‘The Chosen did something to my mind, I guess. When I tried to tell Jezro Khan about them, I went into convulsions.’

  ‘You what?’ She leaned forward.

  ‘Convulsions. First I heard a hissing sound, and then it got loud, like water boiling, and then I blacked out. I don’t remember what happened next.’ He held up his right hand, flecked with new scars. ‘I was holding a glass, and I crushed it.’

  ‘Your muscles must have gone completely rigid. It’s no wonder you don’t remember anything, after a fit like that.’

  ‘But what I don’t understand is, I could tell you about the Chosen.’

  ‘That’s true. So what do you want to do now? Try to tell me more and see how you react?’

  ‘Just that.’ Zayn took a deep breath. ‘All right?’

  ‘All right. Go ahead.’

  ‘It was an officer named Lev Rashad who figured out I had some of the demon talents. We ended up in the same regiment after we’d both been transferred off the border. He dropped a few hints, I made the right responses, and so he took me to meet a certain Colonel Shah, infantry, retired. That’s not his real name, you can bet on that. But in Bariza he was the chief recruiter for the Chosen.’ He paused, looking her way.

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Same as always. Let’s try some more details. I made up an excu
se and applied for two weeks’ leave from my regiment. Then they took me up to Haz Kazrak where I was initiated. Well, actually, the headquarters of the Chosen are a couple of miles north of town, cut out of the side of a hill. The entrance is hidden in a stand of fern trees, about two miles from the main road. I realize now that it has to be an old supply depot or bunker or some such thing, dating from the colonist days, I mean, because it was made of flexstone. At the time, it looked pretty damn impressive. It had a light strip running around the base of the wall, so everything turned gold and glittered.’ Zayn smiled, his eyes wide, as relieved as a man who finds out that his battle wounds aren’t fatal after all. ‘I don’t hear the hiss. I don’t feel disorientated.’

  ‘Good. Do you have any idea of what they might have done to you?’

  ‘It must have happened in the initiation ceremony. They tie you to a pillar of blue quartz.’ Zayn reached into his shirt and pulled out the imp. ‘Just like this stuff. And then the officer in charge has a knife made out of some kind of clear crystal. Or I thought it was a knife at the time. It didn’t have a sharp edge.’ His eyes seemed to be tracking some moving object.

  ‘That’s really odd. Are you seeing this in your mind now?’

  Zayn nodded. ‘They laid it on my throat, then across my eyes, as a death threat if I ever betrayed the guild.’ He cocked his head as if he were listening to distant voices. ‘It’s hard to make sense of the memory. They drug you before the ceremony starts.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something that made me puke a couple of times, and then everything got, well, strange. It was different from that pink drug you gave me in the Mistlands. That just made me feel more alive.’

  ‘It’s supposed to, yes. How did they give you the drug?’

  ‘In some sort of liquid, in a glass.’ He swallowed heavily. ‘It’s bitter, and they’re telling me that I should always remember the bitterness, because our lot in life’s so bitter, too.’ He paused, his eyes wide, his mouth slack, and at that point she realized that he’d slipped into a trance much like that of a spirit rider seeking a vision. ‘Walking into the room is like walking into a fire. The gold walls are moving. It’s like there isn’t any floor, just fire.’