It was after sleeping away all of the morning and some of the afternoon that Madrenga awoke to the unsettling realization that neither his dog nor his horse were anywhere to be seen. Bending over Maya he shook her gently until she awoke. Rubbing sleepily at her eyes, she squinted at the half open tent flap.
“It’s still daylight? I thought we were supposed to sleep until nightfall.”
“I’ve been outside.” He looked and sounded worried. “I can’t find Bit, or Orania. I’ve called softly. It’s not like either of them to roam so far.”
She continued waking up. “Maybe food or interesting things are harder to find around here.”
“Maybe.” He straightened. “I’m going to risk shouting. We’re far enough from the besiegers that I don’t think I’ll be heard.” Turning, he exited the tent.
She heard him calling for his companions, his voice rising or falling depending on his distance from the tent. When he had been quiet for some time she started to grow nervous. Rising from the carpet she walked slowly to the entrance and pulled the flap fully aside.
“Madrenga, what is …?” The remaining words caught in her throat as she put the back of her left hand to her open mouth.
The man standing guard outside the tent was not Madrenga.
After tying her hands they slung her over a horse: one more prize to convey back to camp along with the bogoln and its cargo. Only upon arrival did she see a disarmed Madrenga, securely bound in heavy chains. Despite their desperate circumstances she was unutterably relieved to see that he was alive and unharmed. Her relief was reciprocated.
“Maya! Are you all right? Did they hurt you?” He glared at the leather-armored warrior who was leading the horse on which she was bound. “Did they do—anything?”
Dismounting, the warrior grinned at him. “Not yet, outlier.” He looked over at Maya. “Not much there, but a slim young duck is tastier than an old fat one. Myself, I’d rather take my share of the spoils from your beast’s burden. But that will be up to the Colonel-Captain.”
Roughly wrestled off her horse, Maya immediately collapsed to the ground. Madrenga strained futilely at his bonds. Astoundingly, one or two of the links that held him chained seemed to stretch slightly. But his unnatural strength gave out before the steel did.
“Don’t touch her! She’s under a curse. She’s—dying.”
“Oh, so?” With one hand the leader of the troop yanked the girl to a standing position. “I thank you for that information, outlier. Now I will be sure not to request her as part of my share.”
Other warriors wrestled the bound Madrenga forward until he was standing beside Maya. Then the two of them were hustled ungently toward a beautifully decorated tent high and wide enough to hold dozens of devotees without crowding.
Despite hurting all over she managed to find her voice. “What happened, Madrenga? I watched you kill a dragon. How did you get yourself caught like this?”
The fury he expressed was directed entirely at himself. “I found Bit and Orania down by a waterhole. Beside them was a nearly consumed wild hog and much chewed vegetation. I thought they had simply eaten too much and had fallen into an overstuffed sleep. Thirsty from searching and calling for them I took a moment to drink before waking them. Before I knew what was happening I fell down among them.” He indicated their captors. “The waterhole had been poisoned with a somnambulant. When I awoke it was to find myself bound too securely to break free.” With a gesture of his head he indicated the area to their left. “Bit and Orania are over that way, still sleeping and tightly tied. It may be that when they awake they can break free. I don’t know. Orania’s legs are burdened with steel hobbles. Bit likewise, and muzzled as well.” He licked his lips.
“We are in a bad way, Maya. I have been fortunate thus far. Several times my companions and I have fought our way out of difficult situations, but each time we were free to use arms and legs and teeth to do so. This time …” His voice trailed away.
They were almost to the oversize tent. Resting their hands on the hilts of their swords, a pair of leather-clad Golgox flanked the entrance. Their blades were as long as Maya was tall and nearly as broad. Other than a deep-browed glower they offered no comment as the two bound prisoners were marched past them and inside.
The interior of the tent was, in essence, a portable palace. All the trappings of barbaric royalty were present, from the gilded and bejeweled throne that could be quickly disassembled for transport on horseback to the heraldic banners that hung from the ceiling supports. Consorts and commanders chattered away like crickets on a sultry summer evening, their attire a mix of the warlike and decorative. None wore metal save in the form of blades long and small. To a man their armor consisted of the most exquisitely embossed and incised leather. Some of this had been dyed in bright colors the better to highlight each individual display of artwork.
Seated on the throne, the middle-aged man with the narrow black beard had eyes only for the prisoners. Neither the casual conversation nor the presence of a number of beautiful women distracted him from the new arrivals. His eyes were like little obsidian beads, shiny and still. Being of medium height and build, he was notably less imposing than some of the physical specimens in the tent. A snake among dogs, Madrenga decided. The dogs looked far more impressive, but it was the snake that was deadly.
The warrior who had escorted them in gave them a rough shove forward but did not command them to kneel. Madrenga would have resisted such an order while Maya quite simply could not have complied. Her health had improved miraculously, but not to the point where she was capable of dropping to her knees with her hands tied behind her back.
“The spies, Colonel-Captain.”
The setter of the siege eyed the two youths for a long moment. Then he rose, stepped down off the low dais on which the portable throne had been placed, and walked toward them. Conversation in the tent ceased as everyone turned to watch.
Slowly he walked back and forth in front of Maya, studying her intently. When his rough hands moved across her she trembled but held her ground. Looking on, Madrenga ground his teeth but said nothing. This was not the time and place to put one’s life into the pot. Better to wait and hope for a higher card.
Satisfied, the Colonel-Captain grunted and shifted his attention to Madrenga, looking him up and down.
“Quite a specimen. This one might make a fine slave, once he’s been castrated.” He peered deep into the younger man’s eyes. “You are a spy, then—boy?”
“We’re not spies. We’re only travelers who hoped to visit Daria.”
The Colonel-Captain nodded. “And visit Daria you shall, in our company, once we have surmounted the city’s walls, smashed its gates, or accepted their formal offer of surrender. Being a merciful man, I am content to let you live and accept you as slaves, but in order for me to do this you must prove you are not spies.”
“You can’t prove a negative.”
“What?” Moving as quick as the serpent Madrenga had imagined him to be, the Colonel-Captain shifted to his left to once more confront Maya. “Are you correcting me? Don’t correct me, girl. I don’t like being corrected. Spy or not, I’ve mind to give you to the lower ranks. When they’re done with you, they’ll cook you. Or maybe they’ll cook you first.” His smirk was most unpleasant. “It depends what they are most hungry for. With warriors in the field one never knows.”
She did not reply. It was far and away the most sensible thing she could have done.
He waited for a minute, just in case she was stupid enough to challenge him again, and then returned his attention to her companion.
“You say you’re only travelers hoping to visit the accursed city. For what purpose? To visit relatives? To see the sights? You do not look like merchants to me. In any event the stock of goods that was found with you, while of notable quality and variety, is too slight to mark you as traders. Nor do you have the smell of commerce about you.” He took a step closer and his voice tightened. “If none of those identifies your purpose in coming here, then why should I not mark you as spies?”
As Madrenga thought furiously for a reason, any reason, that would satisfy the remorseless Colonel-Captain, he wished Harup-taw-shet’s Chief Counselor was present. Natoum would know what to say, would know how to disarm with words this leader of brutes. But Natoum wasn’t here. Maya had spoken up once and nearly gotten herself disposed of on the spot. It was left up to him, then.
Try as he might he could not think of anything to say that might successfully challenge this barbarian’s thesis. Like his warrior, the Colonel-Captain had made up his mind that the two younger interlopers were spies, and were to be treated as such.
About to release them to be disposed of as he saw fit by the burly warrior who had brought them in, the Colonel-Captain hesitated. Something had caught his attention, and it was not Maya. His eyes dropping to Madrenga’s waist, he nodded, then raised his gaze anew.
“There is a transfer cylinder at your belt, soon-to-be-slave. What is it?”
Madrenga stared past him lest the man read his eyes. “Nothing, merciful sir. Just another piece of my personal kit.”
“Really?” The Colonel-Captain stepped forward. “May I see it?” Without waiting for an answer he reached out and unfastened it from the young man’s belt. Madrenga squirmed mentally but there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do except continue to pretend that the cylinder was worthless.
The Colonel-Captain turned the silvery container over in his fingers. “This is corium, isn’t it? Yes, I’m sure it is.” He smiled. “I pride myself on a small knowledge of precious metals.” He held the container up to the light of a nearby oil lamp. “Expertly worked, too. You say it is nothing more than a part of your personal effects?” Madrenga nodded assent, hoping he was not doing so too vigorously. “You have expensive taste, young man. Either that,” he concluded shrewdly, “or you are delivering it to someone else on behalf of someone else. Someone in the city you say you desire to visit, perhaps?”
“It is only part of my …”
“Of your personal kit; yes, yes, so you insist. An excess of insistence, if you ask me.” Taking his time, he broke the outer wax seal and began to unscrew the top of the cylinder. “Now what might one suppose a container of this quality could contain? Personal revelations? Potentially valuable. Commercial knowledge? More valuable still. Diplomatic secrets?” He was watching Madrenga very closely now. “Who can say? But we will see.”
Damn the artisans of Harup-taw-shet, a despondent Madrenga thought to himself! If only they had made the scroll container out of plain, unadorned wood. But then neither the container nor its precious contents would have survived this long. As the Colonel-Captain drew out the tightly rolled length of ribbon-bound gold foil, Maya unexpectedly lurched forward.
“Kill me, if you must, but let my friend and his possessions go untouched and unharmed.”
Surprised, the Colonel-Captain paused with the scroll half out of its container. If the barbarian was surprised, Madrenga was genuinely shocked.
“Maya! Don’t go crazy on me, not now! Don’t say such a thing!”
When she looked over at him she was smiling thinly. “Why, what’s wrong? I’m going to die anyway. What’s the difference if it happens sooner or later?” She turned resolutely back to the leader of the besieging forces. “Give my friend back his property and let him go, and you can do what you want with me.”
The uncomprehending Colonel-Captain responded with a mixture of sorrow and admiration. “Girl, you started dying the moment you came into the possession of my officer and his men. You are quite correct when you say that you’re going to die anyway. But it will be in a manner and time of my choosing or theirs.” He looked her up and down in the most insulting manner possible. “Something already owned cannot be offered as a gift.”
Swallowing, she lowered her eyes. “I’ll do whatever you want—voluntarily.”
“Your boldness surely does you credit. But it doesn’t buy you any.” Again he flashed that dreadful, dehumanizing smile. “What you do not understand is that willingness among captives is not something my men particularly value. They will do what they wish to do. Whether you cooperate in the fulfillment of their desires or not is immaterial to them, and to me.”
Maya subsided and lowered her eyes. It was bad enough this horrible man was going to allow her to be abused and killed before her time. In addition, he had taken a moment to deliberately diminish and devalue her first. She felt cheaper than dirt; all the more so because her most valiant effort had done nothing to help Madrenga.
Removing the contents of the battered but still intact corium cylinder, the Colonel-Captain undid the formal ribbon that held them closed, unrolled the scroll, and began to read. Madrenga closed his eyes. On several occasions previously he believed he had failed in his mission. Now he could be certain of it. He could only hope with all his heart that the information that was contained on the scroll and was now about to be revealed contained within it nothing that could bring harm to Harup-taw-shet itself.
A few of the onlookers murmured expectantly. One pair of senior officers nudged each other. The only other sound in the tent was Maya’s quiet weeping, which was universally ignored. The Colonel-Captain read, his eyes moving down the scroll. He reached the bottom.
Then he began to laugh.
Starting small, it soon became a great roaring bellowing succession of guffaws. His whole body shook with delight. Ever alert to an opportunity to flatter, everyone else inside the tent except the two prisoners soon joined in. Though they guffawed and squalled and howled at they knew not what, none could match the sheer, overpowering degree of the Colonel-Captain’s amusement. Meanwhile Maya continued to sob helplessly while the chain-bound Madrenga could only gaze at the carpet underfoot and silently bemoan his failure.
The riot of unconstrained hilarity continued until the Colonel-Captain abruptly stopped in mid-chortle. What he was staring at no one could say because he did not hold his gaze long enough for anyone to track his line of sight. For an instant he stood swaying ever so slightly before finally falling over backwards to slam into the carpet. When he hit the ground his right hand snapped open and the scroll spilled from his fingers.
Within the tent, no one moved. For a moment it seemed that no one breathed. Even Maya was shocked into silence. Finally a senior clansman hesitantly approached and knelt beside his fallen leader. With one hand he lifted the Colonel-Captain’s right hand. The arm, Madrenga noted, was completely limp. Bending forward, the clansman turned his head sideways and placed his right ear against his leader’s chest. He remained like that for several moments before straightening. When he finally spoke, his words were suffused with disbelief.
“The Colonel-Captain Vashak-Len of the Southern Horde is dead.”
Under her breath, so low that not even Madrenga could hear, Maya whispered, “Heart attack. He laughed so hard for so long he …” Even her whisper trailed away to nothingness.
One of the armed ladies present had moved to pick up the dropped scroll. Now she retreated quickly. Cries of “cursed! … foul content! … the words are cursed!…” and worse began to be muttered.
Expressions of general bewilderment accompanied by murmurs of confusion began to make the rounds of the gathering. Then one leather-and-fur clad warrior moved toward the prisoners, drawing a long curved blade as he did so. As Madrenga’s heart missed a beat the fighter placed the scythe-like edge of his long knife against Maya’s neck. With his free hand he grabbed her long braid and pulled her head back to more fully expose her throat. He glared unforgivingly at the other prisoner.
“The scourging written words have slain our beloved Colonel-Captain Vashak!” As the knife edge pressed a little more firmly against Maya’s skin she whimpered in fear. “You read the words now—or I will let out her blood where she stands!”
What a cruel bitch was Fate, Madrenga thought to himself as he inhaled his own agony. His response flowed out of him in a great, gasping moan of helplessness.
“Don’t! I’ll do whatever you want, you can do whatever you want to me, but leave her alone. She’s no part of this, she doesn’t even belong here, and I …” he hung his head anew, “I cannot read.”
The clansman holding the knife to Maya’s throat stared at him a moment. He did not laugh. Not because he feared sharing the Colonel-Captain’s fate, but because he could not read either. The same was true of many of those present. Bearing in mind the Colonel-Captain’s shocking fate, those few who could read chose not to volunteer the information.
The clansman hesitated. Was this tall, powerful youth nothing more than he claimed to be? A bold but ignorant fighter like the clansman himself? Or was he lying? Grimacing at the prisoner he held he edged the blade inward ever so slightly, just enough to draw blood. Maya let out a cry, Madrenga a moan of helplessness. A small drop of blood from the girl’s neck dribbled out onto the clansman’s thumb—and sank in, absorbed as if by a sponge.
The warrior gaped at his hand. There was no sign of the blood that had leaked from the tiny wound on the girl’s neck. A moment passed. Then, without any warning, blood began to pour from his gums and nose. The lymph nodes around his neck, stomach, groin, and beneath his arms swelled suddenly and alarmingly. His skin turned from a healthy sunburned beige to white and his breath came in increasingly short gasps. As he stumbled in circles his colleagues and comrades hastened to move away from him. Before he reached the wall of the tent he was down and dying.
Madrenga was no less taken aback by what he had seen than everyone else in the tent. Preoccupied with one of their own who was presently dying a death as inexplicable as it was horrible, no one moved to stop him when he shuffled over to stand closer to Maya.
“What just happened? What did you do to that fighter’s poor murderous soul?”
“I-I don’t know.” Maya looked as bewildered as everyone else. A trickle of blood from her throat continued to run down her neck and pool against the top of her shirt. “His symptoms, what he’s exhibiting, they’re those of a kind of leukemia. Like the disease I have, but not exactly.”
Madrenga’s eyes grew very wide. “Some of your blood got on him. He contracted your sickness. Only instead of months it went through him in minutes.”
She looked up at him. What he said made no sense. And why should that, she reflected, be any different from everything else that had happened to her recently? That was happening even as she spoke? Could it be that for reasons unknown, that even while tightly bound she was not entirely helpless? Could she, after all, do something in her own defense?
Bending her head forward she slurped up some of her own blood, turned, and with all the force she could muster spat the salty fluid at the nearest cluster of besiegers. Her aim was nonspecific and the bloody spray she expectorated trifling in volume, but her effort was forceful enough to ever so slightly dampen the neck of one woman and the left forearm of the man standing next to her.
Before they could turn completely to identify the source of the vermillion spittle, both had begun to bleed at the mouth and nose and turn pale. The woman collapsed in the warrior’s arms a moment before he too fell to the floor. Maya was already reloading before they hit the ground. Having backed away from his bound companion a stunned Madrenga was careful to give her room lest some of her blood accidentally land on him.
As the bound prisoner’s puffed-out cheeks turned toward them, utter panic descended on the interior of the tent. Huge muscular men screamed like children as they fled through the single opening. Trampled or flung aside, concubines and warrior women alike were among the last to flee. Brave in the face of an enemy, fearless when under attack, they understood instinctively that swords and spears were of no use against the inexplicable malady that had in short order struck down three of their number. In less time than it would have taken a warlock to lay a curse, the last of them had fled from the presence of the two prisoners. Their panic spread to the pair of Golgox guards, who joined their lesser brethren in flight.
They would not forsake the command tent forever, Madrenga knew. Eventually one or two would gather up enough courage to explain to their countrymen what had taken place. With bowmen in tow they would return to finish off the prisoners from a distance beyond which Maya could not spit. The slight wound the now dead warrior had inflicted on her neck was already beginning to seal itself. Soon the trickle of blood would halt completely. He did not want to be the one to have to start it flowing again.
Hurriedly searching through the vacated surroundings, he spotted one abandoned battle axe and shuffled over to it as fast as his chained ankles would allow. Some hasty but adept maneuvering with his feet enabled him to jam the handle beneath a heavy wooden settee. Sitting down facing away from the weapon he presented his bound wrists to the steel blade. As he sawed away he praised the unknown blacksmith who had ground so fine an edge. Whether it would stay sharp enough only time and effort would tell.
His arms and shoulders were beginning to cramp when the chain that linked together the bands on his wrists finally separated. With his hands now free he made short work of the chains around his legs and ankles. Then he turned his attention and efforts to releasing Maya from her bonds. Made of leather instead of metal these quickly succumbed to the blandishments of the axe. Her neck, he noted with profound relief, had stopped bleeding completely. While it turned out to be a fortuitous twist of fate that her tormentor had cut her, they were even more fortunate he had cut no deeper.
As the two of them moved cautiously toward the tent entrance Madrenga reflected on the wisdom of old Natoum. The Chief Counselor had picked out a courier who was inherently immune to whatever embedded curse or magicked words had brought low the Colonel-Captain because he had chosen one who could not read the scroll’s contents even if someone tried to force him to do it.
A glance outside revealed that none of their captors were lingering in the immediate vicinity. Ducking back within, Madrenga quickly recovered the scroll where Vashak-Len had dropped it, carefully rerolled and retied it, and slipped it back into its corium container. After screwing on the cap and clipping the metal cylinder back onto his belt he rejoined Maya near the front of the tent.
No one appeared to confront them. As they looked in astonishment, tents and other equipment were being broken down, gear and supplies loaded onto wagons, torches extinguished, siege engines taken in tow or abandoned. Word of what had happened to the Colonel-Captain and then three of his most respected fighters had spread through the encampments like wildfire. By nature a suspicious people, the besieging clans wanted nothing to do with those whose weapons included written curses and lethal blood.
“Why don’t they shoot at us from a distance instead of just running away?” a stunned Maya wondered aloud.
Madrenga considered. “Those who witnessed what happened saw their commander die of words and laughter. Then a warrior and two more killed by a completely different means. Perhaps a few did think of loosing some arrows and crossbow bolts in our direction. To one unnatural means of execution such brutal folk as these could respond. Encountering two different ones has left them confused and uncertain. I believe that no archer or anyone else could be found who would be willing to chance sacrificing themselves to yet a third method.” He put a hand on her right shoulder (though not before ensuring that it was free of her blood).
“Come. Let’s find and free Orania and Bit. If these people assume you and I are cursed, or masters of the dark arts, they will not risk that my companions are free of such association, and will therefore not chance taking them with them.”
Sure enough, horse and dog had been abandoned as completely as the late Colonel-Captains’ tent. A joyful Madrenga saw that his sword was there too, tossed casually atop the pack on Orania’s back. Recovering the weapon to which he had grown more than a little attached he proceeded to free his friends. After an ecstatic Bit had done his best to lick Madrenga’s skin from his face, the three mounted the armored horse and headed downslope toward the walls of Daria as fast as Orania could carry them.
So preoccupied were they with their own unexpected and unlikely escape that they did not pause to consider the rather remarkable fact that by themselves the two of them had inadvertently raised the siege of the city.