“Cholayna,” she whispered hoarsely, but the Terran woman neither stirred nor answered, and Magda wondered if her voice was audible, if she had really even moved at all, whether this was one of those dreadful nightmares where you are convinced that you have gotten out of bed and gone about some business or another while in actuality, you are still motionless, fast asleep… Magda managed to get her fist up to her forehead and struck herself on the temple. The resulting flood of pain convinced her that it was real.
Think! she admonished herself. At Cholayna’s advice, she had drunk none of the drugged wine, and they would hardly have drugged every dish; probably she had had relatively little of the drug, and Cholayna even less. If I can only reach her!
If only Cholayna were one of the Terrans who were gifted with laran! As far as Magda knew, she was not. Struggling against weakness, sickness and tears, Magda somehow crawled over Vanessa; deep in drugged sleep, Vanessa muttered in protest.
“Damn it, lie down and go’t’ sleep, le’me sleep… ”
She was closest, easiest to reach. Magda tried to shake her, but could manage only a weak clutch at Vanessa’s shoulder, and her voice was no more than a thick whisper.
“Vanessa. Wake up! Please, wake up!”
Vanessa stirred again, turning over heavily, dragging sleepily at her heavy, makeshift pillow as if to pull it over her face, and Magda, her laran wide open, sensed the way in which the other woman retreated further down into dreams.
They had been ready-made victims for the people of this place. That dreadful washed-out pass, the unpeopled wilderness of Barrensclae—and then a hospitable village, a bathhouse, good food and plenty of wine. Most travelers would sleep the sleep almost of the dead at the end of such a trail, even without whatever devilish drug the villagers used to make sure.
Vanessa was sleeping almost as heavily as Jaelle. She had drunk plenty of the drugged wine, after the long ordeal of traveling on her damaged ankle. It would have to be Cholayna, then. Even in her desperate struggle, head throbbing and her body and brain refusing to obey her, Magda felt a surge of hysterical laughter bubbling up at the thought of what Vanessa might think if she woke up suddenly and found her, Magda, sprawled over her like this. But she could not make her limbs obey her enough to get up and walk or go round, and so she had no choice but to crawl over her.
If I can just get her awake at all, I’ll take my chances on whether she screams rape, Magda told herself sternly; but although Vanessa muttered, and swore in her sleep, and even struck out feebly at Magda once or twice, she did not wake. Now, however, Magda was close enough to grab Cholayna’s shoulder.
“Cholayna,” she whispered, “Cholayna, wake up!”
Cholayna Ares had eaten little, and had drunk almost nothing, but it had been a long and exhausting trip and she was sleeping very heavily. Magda shook the older woman, weakly, and struggled to make herself heard for several minutes before Cholayna abruptly opened her eyes and looked at Magda. Now fully awake, Cholayna shook her head in disbelief.
“Magda? What’s the matter? Is your head worse? Do you need—”
“The food—the wine—drugged! Camilla was right. Look at her, she would never sleep on watch that way—” But Magda had to fight to even make her tight, shaky whisper heard; it sagged and wobbled in the worst possible way. “Cholayna, I mean it! I’m not— drunk, not crazy—”
Something in Magda’s urgency, if not in her words, penetrated; Cholayna sat up, looking swiftly about the barn. Once again Magda, shaking and unable to coordinate what was happening, saw the emergence of the woman who had been put in charge of training Intelligence agents.
“Can you sit up? Can you swallow?” Cholayna was on her feet in one swift movement, hunting in her pack for a capsule. “Now, this is just a mild stimulant; I hate to give it to you, really, you may have a concussion, but you’re conscious and they’re not. Try to swallow this.”
Magda got it into her mouth, managed to force the capsule down, dimly wondering what the effect of Terran stimulants would be when mixed with whatever drug the villagers had used. This could kill me, she realized. But then, that’s probably better than what the villagers have in mind…
Steadying Magda with one arm, Cholayna stepped toward Camilla, sitting on the packload fast asleep with her knife across her knees. She bent, shaking her roughly.
Camilla came awake fighting, striking out with the blunt end of the knife; but blinking, recognized Cholayna and pulled back. “What the—?” She shook herself like a wet dog. “In hell’s name, was I sleeping on watch?”
“We were drugged. Certainly in the wine, maybe in some of the food too. We’ll have to be on guard for—whatever they have planned,” Cholayna explained. Magda’s head was clearing; it still throbbed, but the ordinary pain was manageable, as long as she did not have to cope with the dizzy blurring of thought and motion. Cholayna offered Camilla some of the same stimulant she had given to Magda, but Camilla, fisting sleep from her eyes, refused.
“I’m fine, I’m awake. Zandru’s buggering demons! I suspected something like this, but I never thought the food would be drugged! The more fool I! I wonder if that midwife— Calisu’—I wonder if they sent her to soften us up and disarm our suspicions?”
Cholayna was opening her medikit again. “I wonder,” she said, “if Lexie and Rafaella are lying somewhere with their throats cut.”
Magda shuddered. She had not even thought of that. She said, “I don’t think a woman who wore the earring would have done that to her sisters—” But after she said it, she realized she could not be sure the earring had not been stolen.
Cholayna had found an ampoule in the medikit, but cursed softly. “I can’t use this, Vanessa’s allergic to it, oh hell!”
“How else would she know about the Nevarsin Guild-house?”
“She may not have known there wasn’t one, though; or that Jaelle would interpret it that way. It may have been like saying ‘at the fish markets in Temora’; anybody could assume there’d be one on the seacoast. What do they say—‘It needs no laran to prophesy snow at midwinter. ’ The whole thing could have been made up out of whole cloth, except for Shaya’s name.”
“Only one thing’s sure,” Cholayna said, “we weren’t drugged out of rustic kindness, to give us a good night’s sleep. Let’s stop talking and see if we can wake up the others. Magda—do you know Jaelle’s endorphin type?”
“Her what?”
“You don’t, then,” Cholayna said in resignation.
Camilla was shaking Jaelle, furiously but fruitlessly. Jaelle fought and mumbled, opened her eyes but stared without seeing, and finally Camilla hauled her and her sleeping bag into a corner.
“She might as well be in Hermit’s Cave on Nevarsin Peak, for all the good she’d be in a fight right now!”
“It’s just luck we’re not all in the same state.”
“Cholayna,” Camilla said, “if I ever say one more word about your chosen diet, ever again, kick me. Hard. Can we get Vanessa part way awake?”
“I can’t,” Cholayna said.
“Could she fight, anyway, with her ankle the way it is?” Magda asked.
“Well, it’s up to us,” Camilla said. “Let’s try and move her where she won’t be hurt if it comes to fighting. No, Margali, not you, sit down a minute longer while you can. You know you’re as white as a glacier?”
Cholayna shoved Magda down on the packload where Camilla had slept, and together they hauled Vanessa out of the way behind the stacked loads.
“Are there bolts on the doors that we can draw? It might slow them down a little.”
“I checked that even before we had dinner,” Camilla said. “No wonder they have us in a barn instead of an inn. No one expects to be able to make a barn secure.”
“Do you think the whole village is in on this?”
“Who knows? Most of them, probably. I’ve heard about robbers’ villages,” Camilla said, “but I thought it was a folk tale.” They were all speaking in strai
ned whispers. Camilla went to the main door and opened it a crack, cautiously peering out. The wind and snow tore into the room like a live animal prowling; the door almost got away from her and she had to manhandle it shut with all her strength.
“Still snowing and blowing. What hour of night is this?”
“God knows,” Cholayna said, “I don’t have my chronometer. Magda warned me not to bring any item obviously of Terran manufacture that isn’t openly sold in Thendara or Caer Donn.”
“It can’t be very late,” Magda said, “I hadn’t been fast asleep at all. Not more than an hour can have gone by since we turned in. I should think they’ll wait a while longer to be sure.”
“Depends on what drug they gave us, and how long it takes to do whatever it does, and how long it lasts,” said Camilla. “We might want to keep half an eye on Shaya and Vanessa, just in case they start choking to death.” Magda shuddered at the matter of factness of Camilla’s voice as she went on, “If it’s fast acting and short-lived, they’ll be here any minute. If we’re really lucky, they’ll trust it completely and send one man to cut our throats, and we can arrange something else.”
She made a grim, final gesture with her knife. “Then, while they’re waiting for him to come back and give the signal to pile up the loot, we high-tail it out of here. But if we’re not lucky, the whole village could come in with hammers and pitchforks.” She strode to the concealed entrance where Calisu’ had come in to give her message. The wind was not so high here, but still it tore through the room. Camilla looked out into the blowing snow, and drew a harsh gasp of consternation; Magda expected her to slam the door shut, but instead she darted out and, after a moment, beckoned.
“Here’s the answer to one question,” she said grimly, and pointed.
Already covered by a layer of drifted snow, the woman Calisu’ lay on the ground, her dead eyes staring at the storm. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.
Camilla slammed the door and swore. “I hope the headman’s wife goes into labor tomorrow with an obstructed transverse birth! Poor damned woman, they may have thought she warned us!”
“Are we going to leave her body lying there?”
“Got to,” Camilla said. “If they find it gone, they’ll know we are warned. Hellfire, Magda, you think it matters to her anymore where her body lies?”
“Do you think it’s early enough that we could simply escape—sneak out of here before they come?” Cholayna suggested.
“Not a chance, not with Jaelle and Vanessa still dead to the world. One chervine bleat and they’d be on us. They’re probably sitting around in that inn they told us didn’t exist, whetting their knives,” Camilla said gloomily. She stood with her hands on her hips, scowling, thinking it over. “Stack all the loads against the back door—” She pointed. “Slow them down. We’ll be ready for them at the front. Magda, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Whether it was Cholayna’s stimulant or the adrenalin of danger, Magda had no idea, but she felt almost agreeably braced at the thought of a fight. Camilla had her knife out. Magda made sure that her dagger was loose in its sheath. It had been a long time since she had faced any human enemy, but she felt it would be a good and praiseworthy deed to kill whoever had cut the throat of the harmless midwife.
She began to help Cholayna stack the loads, but Cholayna stopped. “I have a better idea. Get the loads on the animals. Have them all backed up against that door. Then, when they come at us, if Jaelle and Vanessa are awake by then, we can ride out right over them! If not—we can get free, as soon as the first attackers are out of the way.”
“Not much hope of that,” Camilla said, “but you’re right; we have to be able to get the hell out of here without stopping, to load and saddle up the animals. We’ll do that, but keep an eye on that front door, because that’s where they’ll come.”
“Stack up a few loads against it,” Magda suggested.
“No, they’ll know we’re warned then, and come at us with knives ready. If they come in here thinking we’re all asleep and ready for the slaughter, we can get the first couple of them before they have much of a chance at us. Anything that shortens the odds against us is fair under these circumstances.”
Camilla started hoisting loads onto chervines, while Magda saddled her pony and Jaelle’s. Cholayna went to help Camilla with the packloads, taking away everything before the door, and Magda knew, with a shiver down her spine, that Camilla was clearing the space for a fight. She had seen Camilla fight; had fought once at her side… Her head still throbbed faintly, but otherwise everything seemed blindingly lucid, everything she saw sharp-edged and fresh. She started to put a saddle on Camilla’s horse, realized it was Vanessa’s saddle which was larger, and made the exchange, saying to herself, I’ll be saddling up chervines next if I’m not careful.
The horses were saddled; the pack animals loaded. If they do kill us, at least they’ll have some trouble getting at our stuff, she thought, and wondered why she thought that it mattered.
Camilla hunkered down where she could face the door, her fingers just resting on her sword. The Renunciate charter provided that no Comhi’ letziis might wear a sword, only the long Amazon knife, by law three inches shorter than an ordinary sword; but Camilla, who had lived for years as a male mercenary, wore the sword she had worn as a man, and no one had ever challenged her.
She grinned at Magda. “Remember the day we fought Shann’s men, and I said you had dishonored your sword?”
“Will I ever forget?”
“Fight as well as that and I’m not afraid of any bandit in the Kilghard Hills.”
Cholayna, half-smiling, leaned against the wall nearby. “Do you hear something?” she asked suddenly.
Silence, except for the high whistle of the blowing snow and wind roaring around the eaves of the building. Some small animal rustled in the straw. After the frantic activity of the last few minutes, Magda felt let down, her heart bumping and pounding, the metallic taste of tear in her mouth.
Time crawled by. Magda had no idea whether it was an hour, ten minutes, half the night. Time had lost its meaning.
“Damn them, why don’t they come?” Cholayna’s voice came tight through her teeth.
Camilla muttered, “They may be waiting till we put out that last light. But Zandru whip me with scorpions if I’m going to fight in the dark, and if we have to wait till morning, so be it. I’d just as soon they never came at all.”
Magda wished that if there was going to be a fight, it would come and be over with; but at the same time, she was remembering in sharp-edged detail her first fight, feeling the appalling pain of the sword slicing along her thigh and laying it open. She was, quite simply, terrified.
Camilla looked so calm, as if she actually relished the notion of a good fight.
Maybe she does. She earned a living as a mercenary for God-knows-how-many-years!
Then, in the silence, she heard Cholayna’s breath hiss inward, and the Terran woman pointed at the door.
Slowly, it was pushing inward, the wind howling around the edges. A face peered around the edge; a round, scarred, sneering face. Immediately the bandit saw the light, the cleared space and the women awaiting him, but even as his mouth opened to give a warning yell, Cholayna leaped in a vaido kick, and his face burst, exploding blood; he fell and lay still.
Camilla bent to drag the man, unconscious or a corpse, out of the way; another bandit rushed in after him, and she ran him through expertly. He fell, with a short hoarse howl. The man who pushed in after him got his neck broken by a swift slam of Magda’s hand.
“You haven’t forgotten everything, anyway,” Cholayna whispered approvingly.
There was a lull, and then the man whose belly Camilla had split groaned and began screaming again. Magda cringed at the terrible cries, but did nothing. He had been ready to cut all their throats as they slept. She owed him no pity; but as Camilla stepped toward him, her knife raised to silence him once for all, he fell back again with a gur
gle, and the barn was almost silent again.
There are certainly more of them out there, thought Magda, sooner or later they’ll rush us all at once. They had been lucky: Magda had killed her man, and the one Cholayna had kicked, though possibly not dead, had at least had all the fight knocked out of him…
The door burst open, and the room filled with men, yelling like so many demons. Camilla ran the nearest one through, and Magda found herself fighting with her knife at close quarters. Cholayna was in the center of a cluster of them, fighting like some legendary devil or hero, kicking with frequently deadly accuracy. Magda’s next opponent ran in over her dagger and drove her backward, off-balance; she felt his knife slice into her arm and kicked out wildly, then slammed her other elbow into the base of his throat and sent him flying aside, unconscious. She could feel hot blood trickling down her arm, but another bandit was on her already, and there was no time for pain or fear.
One of them, running toward the horses, literally stumbled over Jaelle; he bent swiftly with his dagger, and Magda flung herself on him from behind, shrieking a warning. She pulled her knife across his throat with a strength she had never imagined having, and he fell, half-beheaded, across Jaelle—who woke, staring and mumbling uncomprehendingly.
As quickly as that, it was all over. Seven men lay dead or unconscious on the floor. The rest had retreated, possibly to regroup, Magda did not know which or, at the moment, care.
Jaelle muttered, plaintively, “What’s going on?”
“Cholayna,” Camilla ordered, “get into your pack, try to get one of those pills of yours down Jaelle and Vanessa! That was just the first onslaught, they’ll be back.”
Jaelle blinked and Magda saw her eyes come into focus.
“We were poisoned? Drugged?”
Cholayna nodded, imperatively gesturing for Jaelle to swallow the stimulant capsule. Forcing it down, Jaelle exploded, “Damn them! They had the nerve to haggle with us over the price of the food and wine, too!” She got out of her sleeping bag, tried to haul Vanessa to her feet; then gave it up, and grabbing up her knife, Jaelle came to join Camilla. She still looked groggy, but the stimulant was taking effect.