Penrys’s arms wouldn’t obey her, and she felt Zandaril’s panic at her back. She couldn’t speak, and she suspected whoever this was could hear her mind-speech if she tried to reach Zandaril privately.
He knows where we are, and if he has mind-speech he knows what we are, too. Might as well try to protect ourselves. I’ve got to play the part of an apprentice from sarq-Zannib. Trapped by the invasion, just trying to get out in an unwatched direction.
After a few minutes, she heard the rustle of bushes and two pairs of feet crossed her line of sight. The pressure holding her immobile released, and she felt Zandaril being hauled up off of her. She scrambled up on her own without waiting for their hands, and raised her mind shield, for all the good she suspected it would be.
“Sorry, jarghal,” she said to Zandaril, with an apologetic whine, staring at him meaningfully. “Looks like this wasn’t the right way to go after all, to get away from them.” She spoke in Kigali-yat, hoping that would be a common language shared by whoever these people were. She didn’t dare use their native language, since Zandaril wouldn’t be able to.
His eyes narrowed briefly in puzzlement, and then he protested fussily to the man who had hold of his arm. “There’s no need for that. My nal-jarghal and I were just trying to leave Wechinnat and get out of the way. None of our business, this is. Sarq-Zannib has no standing in Kigali affairs.”
The two men grinned at them. They were bearded, with shaggy hair, and dressed in dusty brown leathers. Each had a longbow on his shoulder and small throwing axes fastened to his belt, and one had a short sword. Their jackets were trimmed with dirty fur.
“That’s for our Voice to decide, ain’t it,” the larger and grubbier one said, answering Zandaril in badly accented Kigali-yat. “He told us to fetch you two.” The other one pulled a stout cord from the bag tied to his waist, and proceeded to tie Zandaril’s crossed wrists, in front of him. He left Zandaril’s pack in place.
He cut the cord, and used the remainder on Penrys. She tried to take up as much space with her wrists as she could while he tied the knots, but he yanked the cord tight as if he’d done it a hundred times before. Maybe there’s a reason we didn’t find anyone out here, except the scouts on both sides. What were we thinking?
The two remaining pairs she’d sensed appeared at about the same time. Her captor called out, in his own language, “Hey, got a bit of rope on ya?” and one of them volunteered the coil on his belt.
“Don’t ya be cuttin’ that now,” he said, and their captor adeptly solved the problem by tying one end to Penrys’s bonds, hitching in Zandaril’s with a gap of about six feet between them, and tossing the remainder of the coil back.
“Ya want the rope? Then you can lead ’em.”
The donor curled his lip sourly, but took hold of the rope and yanked Zandaril forward. He stumbled and almost fell, but Penrys grabbed his arm, and was pulled after him. Five of the men spread out on either side of the one with the rope, disappearing into the woods on either side while he stuck to whatever path he could find.
It didn’t take long for Penrys to exhaust herself, trying to maintain her balance without her hands free, and forced at something close to a jog trot up the rough trails. Her throat was dry and she couldn’t keep from coughing, hoping to clear it of the dust. Zandaril was clearly having a similar struggle.
The chill in the air helped. She tried to ignore her discomforts and concentrated on keeping her shield up. She couldn’t feel anyone testing it.
This Voice her captors mentioned must be the one who had mind-spoken to her, and presumably to Zandaril, too. A wizard. These men spoke a different dialect of Rasesni than the people she’d already tapped. They looked rougher than she’d imagined.
Once, when Zandaril turned his head, she’d cocked her head at the man with the rope and raised an eyebrow, and Zandaril had mouthed the words “hill-tribes.” Was the wizard who’d found them the same, or something else?
She dreaded being a captive like this, but at least they were headed to the place with the answers.
They paused after a couple of hours, and she collapsed to the ground, her chest heaving. Three of the five men came back to join them. One of them offered water from a clay bottle on his waist, getting a good feel of her while he did it. She ignored him and drank as much as she could get, silently.
Zandaril smiled at her encouragingly afterward, and she nodded back to him.
They had to survive, that was all she had to think about for now. A tug on the rope alerted her, and she struggled up again for another run.
The closer they got to the ridge of the Horn, the more people they encountered. At the base they found an encampment, strangely reminiscent of the expedition’s camp out in the plains. Some of the men paused in their work to grin at the running captives, and several threw sticks, hoping to trip them up.
Penrys narrowed her attention to just staying upright, not wanting to fall and be dragged. She thought a broken leg would result in casual death.
All the men she saw had a certain tribal resemblance, and most of them carried bows or had them nearby, whatever else they might arm themselves with. She didn’t see any women at all, and she set her mouth grimly as she considered what that might mean for her captivity.
The pace slowed as they pushed through the camp to the base of the ridge. There was a trail up at this point, steep but accessible, following an old fault in the escarpment.
They waited for a man to finish his descent, and Penrys bent forward at the waist, trying to catch her breath. Her legs trembled with exertion.
One step at a time. Don’t look up and, whatever you do, don’t look down either.
They moved Zandaril up the length of rope so that there was about twelve feet between them, and refastened it.
The owner of the rope protested. “I ain’t gonna be tied to ’em going up the Horn. I’ll lead, and you all can follow.” He hung the gathered coils of the rope around Zandaril’s neck, in a gesture of contempt.
Penrys knew Zandaril couldn’t understand what he’d said, but the gestures were obvious. With one captor in front and the other five behind, Zandaril started up the rough path, and Penrys followed.
