Blossom leaned against her shoulder in brief comfort. “Me, too,” she said, and went off to help the soldiers show the waiting Arbora to their guest quarters.
South, the Drylands
They had been flying all night, taking advantage of a strong south wind, and Moon was relieved when Stone circled down to the valley. It wasn’t an ideal place to stop and rest, but at least it was there.
The terrain was mostly barren sandy ground with sparse grass, punctuated by low rises and some scrub brush and one lone tree. Moon came in low, tasting the air and catching the scents of dryland flowers and sand.
Stone dropped to the ground not far from the tree. Instead of shifting, he threw himself down and proceeded to make a dust wallow. Moon landed nearby and furled his wings, surveying the valley while Stone cleaned his scales. There was no open water source nearby, not much grazing, and the tree had a forbiddingly spiky canopy, which meant there would be few if any grasseaters and predators, except those traveling through to somewhere else.
Moon got the waterskin out of his pack for a drink, thinking that their next stop would have to be at a water source. Putting the stopper back in, he faced the single spiky tree. Then he went still. At some point, the tree had moved.
The branches above the ball of thorns pointed toward Moon and Stone and the sand wallow now. Something gleamed at the end of each spike. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there before either, but perhaps the reflective surface had been concealed inside the bud-like structures that surrounded them, like eyelids. Exactly like eyelids. “Stone.”
Rolling in the dust wallow, Stone stopped, looked, and after a moment flicked his spines in dismissal.
Moon backed away from the tree cautiously. They had seen tree-creatures before and Moon always found them a little disconcerting. Their branches were almost like tentacles and he expected them to burst up out of the ground and attack him, even though so far it hadn’t happened. There was always a first time.
There were no bones or other remnants of hunting around the tree, or even in the rest of the valley, and there was no predator musk. Moon was still glad the dust wallow was some distance away.
Finally Stone finished, shook the dust off, and shifted to his groundling form. Moon took his own dust bath, then shifted and managed not to groan out loud. His back was sore, an ache that spread out down his arms and legs, though they had been riding the wind most of the time. If they were on the wrong track, it was all a waste of time, a waste of effort.
“Do you think we’re going the right way?” he asked Stone, mostly just to make conversation.
“I did three days ago,” Stone admitted, stretched out in the sandy wallow.
“Do you think we should have waited for the others?”
“No.”
It was a moot point, anyway. If they were on the wrong path, and the others were on the right one, they wouldn’t be able to find the wind-ship. But Moon missed them, even though he knew Jade would probably want to kill him by now.
Stone said, “Come over here and lie down. Otherwise we’ll never catch anything.”
Moon realized he had been standing there a while, absently scratching the back of his neck and staring at nothing. He sighed and went over to lie down in the sand wallow with Stone.
The sand was warm on his abused muscles and he dozed off, listening to the wind in the grass. After a time, Stone elbowed him. “We’ve got something.”
Moon slit his eyes just enough to spot the shape arrowing down at them out of the cloudless blue sky. “Is it one of those birds again? The last one tasted like dead leaves.”
“You’ll eat what I catch and like it.” Then Stone growled in irritation. “It’s a damn flower-head.”
Moon snarled tiredly. “I thought we flew out of their range.”
Stone hissed. “It’s probably lost.”
The creature stooping on them was roughly the size of an Arbora, with a head shaped like a rounded, multi-petaled flower, a little like an aster. It had the brains of an aster, too. As it neared them, Stone twitched out of the wallow and shifted. Moon didn’t bother.
Flapping wildly, the flower-head tried to stop mid-air, managed not to slam into Stone but lost control and hit the ground. It skidded about fifty paces through the sand and grass and landed near Moon. Moon sat up and told it, “Piss off.”
It scrambled back and cowered, which was even more annoying. But you couldn’t eat something that talked, no matter how stupid it was, and there was no point in killing it otherwise. Stone shifted to his groundling form and ambled back to the sand wallow.
The flower-head said, in bad Altanic, “What are you?”
Moon growled, “None of your business.”
It backed away a few steps, and hesitated. Moon hissed, preparing to shift and snarl, but it said, “Do you know which way the big river is?”
Stupid as rocks, Moon thought, and said, “It’s north, that way.” He pointed.
The flower-head turned, ran a few steps flapping, and awkwardly launched itself again. Stone sprawled in the wallow and sighed. “I told you it was lost.”
Moon didn’t dignify that with a response and stretched out in the sand again. This method of hunting while resting sometimes didn’t work, but when it did, it saved a lot of time.
The flower-head had caused enough commotion that it took a while to lure anything else down. Both Moon and Stone were able to get a short nap in before a large bird finally took the bait and dove on them.
It wasn’t a big meal, but it was enough to keep them going until they reached better country. Moon sat on his heels in the grass and tossed the last cracked bone away. Stone had finished eating and was rolling in the dust wallow again, getting ready to leave. Moon stood and stretched and looked across the valley.
A figure walked toward them across the grassy plain. It was coming from upwind, but Moon knew what it was. This is the most crowded empty valley in the Three Worlds, he thought sourly. He said, “Stone.”
Stone turned to look, then hissed out an angry breath.
We knew they were probably following us, Moon thought. Or it was following us. He just hadn’t expected a kethel to be so good at it.
Stone tasted the air, then shifted to his groundling form. His bared fangs weren’t any less intimidating. “It’s just the one. If there were more, I’d scent them.”
“So it spotted us and went down in the hills. I didn’t think their eyesight was that good.” The uneasy sensation of being stalked made Moon’s spines want to twitch. “This thing is smart.” It was hard to believe it wasn’t half-Raksura. But maybe this was what happened when a half-Raksura trained a kethel to hunt.
It stopped a good distance away, far enough to have time to shift if they tried to rush it. It looked much the same as it had in the swampling port, though its pale skin was coated with a layer of dust and sweat. Its braids were frazzled and it was still wearing a loose wrap around its waist. So it hadn’t just done that to blend in better with the groundlings around the port, Moon realized. Or that hadn’t been the only reason. As if they were travelers who encountered each other all the time, it pointed back toward the hills. “There’s water back there. A little stream under a rock.”
Stone stood silently, radiating suppressed fury. Knowing he was going to have to do the talking, Moon asked, “What do you want?”
The kethel scratched under one of its braids. “To help you.”
Moon set his jaw. “Stop saying that. We know it’s not true.”
The kethel appeared to give up on that point, at least for now, and eyed the dust wallow. “What were you doing?”
“It’s none of your business.” You would think the middle of nowhere would be safe from intrusive questions.
Stone hissed and turned to grab his pack. “Stop talking to it.”
“I can help you,” the kethel said. “Find the groundling weapon—”
Stone shouldered the pack and used the motion to whip around and shift to his winged form. But th
e kethel anticipated it and shifted almost in the same instant. Moon crouched to leap but the kethel bounced backward in a move Moon had only seen Aeriat use, putting distance between it and Stone. It bounced again, snapped its wings out, and flapped toward the hills. It wasn’t wearing a collar, Moon noticed.
Stone snarled in frustration and stirred like he was thinking of giving chase.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Moon yelled at him, “it’s just trying to lead you into a trap.” The rest of the half-Fell flight might be just past those distant hills.
Stone’s spines rippled, but he turned and leapt into the air. Moon crouched and leapt after him, flapping up through the dust storm Stone’s wings caused. He was relieved to see Stone head south, back on the route they thought the Hians had taken.
Hoped the Hians had taken. Moon had the grim thought, At least the kethel thinks we’re going the right direction.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The new dose of poison seemed even worse, and Bramble was only vaguely conscious for a time. When she began to fully wake, miserably sick again, she decided it was time to implement her plan. They had no guarantee that Vendoin would keep her promise, and Bramble felt it would be better strategy to force the issue.
Merit leaned over her. “Bramble?”
She whispered to him, “Pretend I’m sick, like you have to take care of me.”
He frowned blearily and put a hand on her forehead. “You are sick.”
She groaned for effect and pushed his hand away. “Don’t try to put me in a healing sleep, you idiot.” She didn’t think he could do it under the effect of the Fell poison, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
“You said take care—Right, right, I get it,” Merit grumbled, and crawled away to the water container.
It took most of the day, while Merit begged the Hians above their cage for help and Bramble groaned and made gagging noises. Merit’s voice grew increasingly frustrated and weary, and parts of Bramble’s body went numb from lying down so long. By the time Aldoan finally appeared in the late evening, Bramble was ready to groan for real.
Peering down through the mesh covering, Aldoan told Merit, “You are a healer. Why can’t you help her?”
“The Fell poison. It hasn’t worn off yet and it stops me from healing her. And I don’t have anything to make a simple for her.” Merit leaned against the wall, his slump of exhaustion convincing because most of it was real. The Hians had lowered a basket of food a while ago but neither of them had eaten. It was fruit and some bread-like stuff, not very tempting, even if they weren’t both nauseous.
There was a long silence, then Aldoan walked away. Merit slid down to sit on the floor, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “It didn’t work,” he said in Raksuran.
Bramble groaned. She thought they still had a chance, but she didn’t want to wreck it by talking.
After what seemed a long wait, Aldoan returned, and said, “We will take her to our physician.”
Merit, sitting beside Bramble, squeezed her wrist in triumph.
Bramble staggered and stumbled down the hall, forcing one of the Hians to guide and help her. With her eyes half-closed she noted the sequence of corridors and stairs along the way. They led her into a cabin two levels above their cage and deposited her on a padded bench. Bramble fell over and curled up as the Hians retreated. She heard them take positions just outside the doorway.
A Hian leaned over her and said in slow, careful Altanic, “I am a physician. I will try to make you well.”
Bramble tried to look both frightened and hopeful. She didn’t want to seem so sick that she couldn’t recover quickly if that seemed a more effective strategy.
To the Hian healer’s credit, she felt Bramble’s stomach and looked into her eyes and mouth, and seemed to be actually trying to figure out if she was injured anywhere, or if she showed signs of more serious sickness. Finally she said, “It may be internal distress from the mixtures you have been given. I will make a new mixture which should help.”
Bramble watched her sort through some small wooden and glass containers in an untidy heap on the workbench. Bowls of plain brown pottery, a pestle, and some tiny cups meant for measuring lay there too. A door in the wall was open to another attached room, and it seemed to contain most of the healer’s supplies, still in wrapped bundles or stacked in light wooden boxes. Above the pile, several waterskins hung from pegs in the wall. Bramble tasted the air but there were too many acrid mixed scents to identify individual odors. The skins were labeled in a language she couldn’t read, but whatever they contained was in large portions, unlike the jars the healer sorted through now. Bramble memorized each label.
The healer stepped away from her workbench and slid the door to the other room shut, cutting off Bramble’s view. Then she brought the draft. Bramble decided there might still be more to learn here, and she flatly refused to drink it.
Steps sounded in the corridor, and she heard the Hians on watch shuffle away from the door. Then she heard Vendoin’s voice.
Speaking Kedaic, Vendoin asked the healer, “Is she truly ill?”
“Yes, I think so,” the healer replied in the same language. “Too much of the drug, perhaps, causing stomach pain. She has no difficulty breathing—”
Vendoin cut that off. “Give her a draft for it.”
“What does it matter?” Bemadin asked.
Bramble managed not to react. That would have quashed any doubts that the Hians eventually intended to kill them, if she had had any.
Vendoin ignored Bemadin. “Well?” she asked the healer.
“I’m trying,” the healer said, with what sounded to Bramble like carefully forced patience. “She won’t take it. Perhaps if the other one could be brought—”
“No, it’s too much of a risk,” Vendoin interrupted again. There was no mention of Vendoin’s promise to let them out of the cage if they took the second dose of poison willingly, which wasn’t a surprise.
“I can’t make her take it,” the healer said. She must have seen something in Vendoin’s manner that told her that answer wasn’t acceptable. She said, “Perhaps she would take it from the Janderan.”
Vendoin made a noise that Bramble interpreted as derision. “He has refused to help us so far.”
“I don’t understand these people,” Bemadin said. “This will save uncounted lives. It’s a risk to us more than to the Jandera.”
Obviously they weren’t speaking of giving Bramble a simple anymore. Her heart beat faster with the knowledge that she might be about to find out why the Hians had betrayed the expedition. But then Vendoin said impatiently, “They don’t understand. I need to get back to work on the translation.”
Vendoin and Bemadin were leaving. Bramble sat up on one elbow and, making her voice weak and hoarse and as pitiful as possible, said in Altanic, “You promised if we took the poison willingly, we could help Delin. Please let me see Delin.”
In Kedaic, Vendoin said, “Very well. Take her to the easterner’s prison. Perhaps it will make him more cooperative.” She added in Altanic, “They will take you to Delin, Bramble.”
“And Merit?” Bramble said, feeling as if her gambit had gone terribly awry.
“No, just you,” Vendoin said, and she and Bemadin walked away.
Bramble hesitated. She didn’t want to be separated from Merit. Particularly after forming the theory that Vendoin might want to test the artifact on Raksura before she went off to find Fell. But she had to take the chance.
Bramble drank the draught, to the Physician’s relief, and slowly climbed to her feet. Aldoan and the other armed Hians led her away down the corridor.
Trying to remember to sound weak despite her urgency, Bramble asked Aldoan, “Will you tell Merit I’m with Delin? I don’t want him to think—To be afraid I—”
Aldoan seemed uncomfortable, but said, “I’ll tell him.”
Seizing the moment, Bramble said, “I’m just afraid Merit will be lonely. We’re not meant to be alone.”
&
nbsp; Aldoan tried to be reassuring, though it was clear she didn’t believe her own words. “You will not be far away. Perhaps Vendoin will let us take you to visit him.”
They reached Delin’s cage, which was an interior room with a door that had been reinforced with metal strips. Two Hians stood outside.
Delin was happy to see Bramble, and anxiously helped her sit on the padded bench. Once Aldoan was gone and the door locked again, she told him in Raksuran, “I’m not really sick, it’s just the poison again. I wanted to get to you, but I had to leave Merit alone.” Guilt stung at her like biting insects. She didn’t know what Merit would think when they didn’t bring her back. She hoped Aldoan kept her word and told him what had happened.
Delin patted her hand. “Merit will surely understand. Perhaps we can agitate for him to be brought here as well.”
Maybe he was right. Vendoin had seemed to give into her on a whim; maybe all Bramble had to do was ask at the right moment. At least this cage was better. It had padded benches against two walls, and a cabinet with a basin inside, drying cloths, and a container for a latrine. The Hians had also given Delin some writing materials, which was more than they had given Bramble and Merit. Bramble thought one of the pens might make a stabbing weapon for a groundling, but with the Hians’ armored skin, it probably wouldn’t do much but antagonize them. If they let the poison wear off, then Bramble would have her claws, but that wouldn’t do much against a Kishan fire weapon.
They had also given Delin far more water and he said it was changed twice a day, so the first thing Bramble did was use a wet cloth to give herself a quick bath. As she scrubbed under her shirt, she said, “I heard Vendoin and Bemadin talking. They want Callumkal to help them with something, but he won’t.”
Delin’s brow furrowed. “You heard no more details?”
“Only that it would save uncounted lives, but it’s a risk, mostly to the Hians? And Vendoin was working on a translation of something, she didn’t say what.” She wrung the cloth out. “They didn’t ask you?”