23

With an effort, Gareth managed to get to his feet, although he was none too steady. In the process, he remembered something Robbard had said during the last meal, about keeping packets of sweets for the natives. The last thing Gareth wanted was to put something in his stomach, and he had never been overly fond of candy, but it would be better than nothing.

The stench that greeted him at the barracks door almost brought him to his knees. He clung to the frame, unable to force himself to go in. His only other option, he thought dazedly, was to beg something to eat from headquarters.

He jumped at the sudden weight of a hand on his shoulder, losing his balance and almost falling against the guard’s solid bulk.

“Boyo.”

With heightened sensitivity, Gareth felt the guard’s mixture of curiosity and suspicion and deeply masked kindness.

“Viss . . . he’ll be all right.” Gareth was babbling, making no sense to himself, praying that he didn’t sound as incoherent to the guard as he did to himself. “I need to eat . . . and then see about Taz. He wasn’t as bad . . .”

The grip on his shoulder tightened for a moment. Then the guard released him and turned away. Breathing heavily, Gareth leaned against the doorframe.

Move, he thought, but his legs would not obey. Tears brimmed up in his eyes, further distorting his vision. Savagely he told himself that if he gave up now, he would be throwing away any hope of saving Taz. It did not matter that these were not his kin, his own people. What mattered was that he was the only one who could reverse the poisoning. So he stayed on his feet.

A few minutes later, the guard reappeared. He brought two of the packaged meals, steaming hot, and a glass bottle of distilled water from the captain’s own supply. At the sight, Gareth’s knees folded under him. His hands stopped trembling enough for him to spoon the food into his mouth. After only a few mouthfuls, he felt a tremendous, overpowering hunger. His body recognized what it needed and demanded sustenance. The water tasted flat but sent a shiver of pleasure through his belly. He devoured one of the meals and drank all the water. By the time he handed the empty bottle back, he was feeling stronger and cautiously hopeful that if Taz needed a similar healing, he would be able to do it.

“You sure were hungry.” The guard sucked air through his teeth. “Good to go?” Gareth clambered to his feet in response. “When you’re done, you can get to work cleaning up in there,” meaning the barracks. “I left disinfectant and some other stuff for you. Just stay in camp, you hear? You’re a good kid, and it’d be a shame if you got into trouble. Take my meaning?” The guard disappeared into the headquarters building.

Gareth couldn’t think past tending to Taz, praying he’d have the strength for a second healing. Whether or not he was successful, he wouldn’t have any resources left, certainly not for escape.

Viss was sleeping quietly, his chest rising and falling in deep, easy breaths. Taz had been in better shape to begin with, and he’d been able to down more of the uncontaminated water. Even so, his skin felt cold and slick with sweat. He shuddered when Gareth touched the side of his face.

Gareth settled himself, cross-legged, beside Taz. The starstone brightened as he cupped it in his bare palm. A breath lifted him into a near-trance. This time he knew what he was looking for. The memory of the interlacing webs of energy was still fresh in his mind. He wasted no time casting about. As before, he directed his own mental energy into the dying tissues and sensed returning vitality flare up in response. He was relieved to find the damage was not as extensive as with Viss. Taz would have survived without intervention, although his kidneys and liver might have been impaired.

It was not until Gareth withdrew into his own body that he realized he was alone. The voice that had guided him through healing Viss had not spoken to him again. For a dizzying moment, he wondered if the voice had been real or only a figment of his own desperate need.

No, he thought as he touched Taz’s forehead, still cool but no longer damp, I didn’t imagine it. He’d reached out, begging for help, and something . . . someone . . . had answered.

Gareth, like most of his generation, referred to the four primary gods of the Domains—Aldones, Evanda, Avarra, and Zandru—as figures of speech. He didn’t for a moment believe in any supernatural being that could or would answer personal prayers. Yet someone had guided him through the healing.

The most likely explanation was that Grandmother Linnea had left a residue of her personality and knowledge in his matrix stone, perhaps because she had handled it as his Keeper. Another possibility was that in the extremity of the moment, he’d managed to access buried memories of what she’d taught him about laran healing.

Yes, that must be it. What else could it have been?

Carefully, he rewrapped and replaced the starstone in the locket, then tucked the amulet inside the front of his shirt. Weariness drenched him. Hunger gnawed at his edges but did not threaten to overwhelm him as it had before. Even so, he was steady enough on his feet.

Gareth found the second of the prepackaged meals where he had left it, although it was no longer hot. He sagged against the outside of the barracks to eat. The food steadied him but did not entirely lift his fatigue. Instead, he felt the full impact of having expended so much mental energy in such a short time.

I’ll rest here . . . just for a minute. His head dropped forward. Dimly, he felt the packaging slip from his limp fingers.

He roused some time later, although he could not have said what had woken him. The camp lay utterly still under a sky that lacked even a hint of western brightness. Stars spread across the heavens, piercing the dry desert air. Of the four moons, only Idris had risen.

Taz and Viss still slept. By the regularity of their breathing and the resilience of their skin, both were doing well. Gareth went to the door of the barracks. Some of the smell had dissipated, but the muck would be harder to clean when fully dried. He’d best get to it.

He found a large plastic bottle labeled as disinfectant, as well as a bucket and a bag of cloths and a large, coarse-bristled brush. Sighing, he told himself that if he had been permitted to enlist in the Guards cadets, he would have been assigned similar duties and been expected to perform them regardless of the hour or his own inclinations. Besides, the work needed to be done, and there was no one else around to do it. Taz and Viss were well enough where they were, but only for a time. The night was chilling rapidly and they’d fare better inside.

Gareth set to work, beginning with the area around Robbard’s bunk. Before long, he’d skinned his knuckles and stubbed his fingers more than a few times. The disinfectant stung his abraded skin. His eyes watered at the smells and the slime, or perhaps from the images that flickered across his mind, fractured impressions of a man struggling to breathe, retching and purging as his body fought to rid itself of the poison.

Gareth sat back on his heels, brush hanging from one limp hand. Two men were dead, criminals perhaps but not evil men, and now no one would know, no one who remembered them or cared for them. They would never come home, and it would be as if they had never existed. . . .

His chest heaved, but not with the effort of resisting the waves of nausea. Within him, a great sobbing wail gathered, pushing out through his throat, pouring out into the night. He hunched over, leaning into the brush on both hands, scrubbing and weeping and scrubbing, as if he could scour away the terrible, senseless loss. His nose ran and his eyes burned and his throat ached as if flesh could not contain his grief. He couldn’t understand why he felt so strongly. He’d barely known these men.

He went on from one patch of filthy floor to the next, from vomit-spattered bunk frames to compact footlockers, each marked with the owner’s initials.

AT . . . L . . . JV . . . RE.

The letters, in the Terran alphabet, brought him up short. So Robbard had been a first name, a personal name. E must stand for a family.

Gareth crouched beside the lockers of the two dead men, running his hands over the initials. He picked them up, stacking one on top of the other, and got to his feet. They were surprisingly light. Perhaps the dead men’s other possessions remained on the starship. The best thing to do would be to take the lockers to Captain Poulos.

“Captain? Captain Poulos? Offenbach, are you there?” No one answered when Gareth set down the lockers and rapped on the door of the headquarters building. He knocked a second time with still no response. The door itself had been secured.

Gareth started back toward the barracks, thinking to leave the boxes there until morning, when he realized that the crawler was missing. He rushed over to where it had been parked with a growing sense of dread.

Poulos, Offenbach, the guard—gone!

Gareth halted on the scuffed and empty site. In the depths of a laran healing, he would not have noticed a herd of banshees stampeding through the camp, let alone a crawler leaving it.

In the next heartbeat, he realized where they had gone. And why.

Gareth reached the hills at an adrenaline-fueled run. Between Idris and the stars, there was barely enough light to make out the trail. His feet pounded up the slope.

The trail steepened, following the folded contours of the earth. He stumbled on the rough footing, once or twice almost going to his knees. Fire bathed his lungs. His heart thrummed. Heat radiated from his body, but the wind of his passage dried his sweat almost as quickly as it dampened his skin. He pushed himself even harder.

He tripped on a stone the size of his hand and went sprawling. Somehow he managed to catch himself on his hands. The impact knocked the breath out of him. He sat back on his heels, rubbing his hands. His whole body rocked with the force of his breathing.

Wiping his hands on the thighs of his pants, he clambered to his feet. Tiny bits of gravel had embedded themselves in his skin. The abrasions stung as they bled.

Gulping in one breath after another, he took his bearings. His headlong rush had brought him much farther than he’d expected. Below him, yellow lights marked the off-worlder base. When he peered at the trail above, the top of the ridge seemed almost within reach.

The hills around him lay so still, he felt as if he were the only living thing in the world. Above him, the stars had faded. Idriel hung low on the horizon.

If he had not been listening to the velvety silence of the night, he might have missed the sounds from the other side of the ridge top. Over the hammering of his heart, he caught the whine of a motor, the grinding of metal treads on loose rock.

Without a second thought, he scrambled off the trail. A moment later, a pair of headlights appeared where the trail cut through the top of the hill. They seemed to hover for a moment before descending. The trail curved away, taking the crawler out of direct sight, but the noise of its approach grew louder.

Gareth flattened himself against the boulder. He told himself that the passengers could not hear the beating of his heart over the sound of the engine. They were not searching for him. They had no reason to believe he had left the camp.

But as soon as they arrived, they would know differently.

The crawler was almost upon him now. He smelled its exhaust. Just as it passed, he heard a voice—Poulos, he thought—but could not make out the words. Then the vehicle was descending toward the camp and he could breathe again. He was shaking, his hands clenched so tightly that his fingernails dug into his abraded palms.

Slowly he got to his feet. A hint of pastel light touched the eastern sky. At least he knew where the crawler and its riders were. With that thought, the sense of urgency that had been blanketed by the near encounter returned in full. This time, however, he kept control of himself. He climbed steadily and deliberately, not in headlong haste.

Shortly after Gareth began his descent on the far side of the ridge, the village came into view, bracketed between two arms of dark rock. He stumbled to a halt. His muscles went lax in horror.

Even in the ebb of night, he could see the village, or what remained of it, burning.

Lines of flame marked wooden structures, sheds and huts, and the rails of livestock pens. Here and there, stone walls created blots of darkness. Nothing moved against the brightness.

He plunged down the trail, half-flying, half-tumbling. Pebbles sprayed out from under his feet. He slid and slipped but somehow kept going.

Dark Lady Avarra, may I not be too late!

No, there was someone below . . .

Gareth pushed for more speed. He burst on to the flat and sprinted for the village, speeding through the outskirts. He passed a few of the poorer huts, distant from the rest, that appeared to be intact.

He rounded what was left of a livestock pen. Half the railings had fallen away and the rest were burned nearly through. Goats darted this way and that, bleating piteously. The largest rushed at him, then skittered to a halt and reared on its hind legs. The fire cast weird reflections on its eyes. Its pupils were so dilated, they looked round. Incensed, Gareth aimed a kick at the nearest post. His foot collided with fire-weakened wood. The post shuddered but held. A second kick, and the rails on one side broke into burning fragments. The goats bolted through the opening. Something on the other side screamed.

Another goat . . . a horse or an oudrakhi? Or—please, Dark Lady, no!—a human? The sound was so distorted, he could not be sure.

The well, where was the well?

Anyone able to get out of danger would already have done so. There might be wounded . . . he’d need water.

Another frenzied sprint brought him to the center of the village. The stench of charred flesh hit him like a physical blow. A pall hung in the air, a smothering psychic miasma, the residue of terror and pain. A lungful of smoke provoked a coughing fit.

That pile at the very place where he’d feasted with Cuinn and the others . . . that lumpy sprawling heap . . . was bodies.

Bodies . . . he forced himself closer . . . charred and twisted, but not by natural fire.

Blasters . . . they’d used blasters on the villagers!

Gareth doubled over in a renewed spasm of coughing. The last dregs of the adrenaline that had fueled his race over the hills vanished, leaving a sickly, roiling chill in his guts. Ignoring the pain, he balled his hands into fists and pressed them over his mouth.

This was all his fault, his! He had been unspeakably arrogant and puerile, picturing himself off on a great adventure—Race Cargill of the Terran Secret Service!—heedless of the consequences. Now his friends had paid with their lives.

Stop it! he raged at himself. This was the worst indulgence of all, wallowing in self-pity instead of taking action, as if his ego were more important than those who might still be alive. He sent a promise to whatever god might be listening that whatever happened, whatever good he might be able to accomplish, he would claim no credit for it.

Nausea crested. Somehow he resisted the wave of retching. Then it receded. Letting his hands fall at his sides, he inhaled sharply. The fires had almost burned themselves out, and the eastern sky was visibly brighter. At least, stone and sand and bare earth could not burn. The survivors, if there were any—

As if in answer to his thought, a figure emerged from behind one of the buildings, dragging another. Gareth called out. The figure straightened up and turned toward him.

It was Rahelle.

For a moment, Gareth didn’t recognize her beneath the cloth covering her nose and mouth. He ran up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her, dislodging the cloth. He found himself shouting at her, barely coherent accusations, demands for explanation, words jumbled with relief and fury.

She made no attempt at a reply, but hung there in his grasp, trembling. Her lack of resistance at first fueled his outrage, then extinguished it. He saw the wetness shining on her cheeks, and all anger fled. What had happened here was not her fault.

Rahelle pulled away. He had not the strength to hold her.

She could have been one of those bodies in the center of the village. If anything had happened to her. . . .

“Is there anyone else a-alive?” he stammered.

She shot him a quick, hard look. “They’re just outside the village perimeter. The smoke’s not so bad there.” Her voice had a husky quality, most likely from the smoke.

“Who—” he broke off at a spasm of tickling in his throat and pointed toward the pile of bodies.

“Some of them are human, yes, but not all. One of our horses is there, your mare, I’m afraid. She panicked and ran into the path of an off-worlder weapon. Her body was too heavy to shift, so I left her. The others ran off with the oudrakhi.”

You’ve done all this by yourself? His throat closed up around the words. He glanced down at the body she’d been dragging, a woman.

Rahelle stooped to lay one hand on the woman’s chest. “She’s still breathing. I think she’s the wife of one of the headman’s sons.”

Gareth picked the woman up, slipping her slender form across his shoulders. Rahelle led the way past a few smoldering huts.

Dawn and lingering smoke turned the air into a luminous haze. It would have been beautiful except for the circumstances.

The survivors huddled together, Cuinn at their center. The headman looked dazed. A hugely swollen lump, blackened and oozing blood, marked one side of his forehead. No one made a sound as Gareth and Rahelle approached. Mothers clutched their children to their breasts. Soot streaked their faces and clothing. Their eyes had a glazed expression of incomprehension. An older man took the unconscious woman from Gareth’s arms and sank to the sandy ground, cradling her and stroking her hair. Then several of the babies burst out crying.

Gareth stood for a moment, torn between gratitude that this many villagers had survived and impatience at their near-stupor. Someone had to see that the wounded were properly tended. Something broke open in him, a dam giving way, and he fired off a string of orders. He sent the younger men back into the village to search for anyone else still alive, to begin salvaging what they could—food, implements, clothing—and others to fetch water and anything that could be used as bandages.

Staying alive through the next few days would be the easy part. He didn’t think Poulos would come back, unless it was to search for him. Even so, the villagers couldn’t stay here. They’d lost too much and were too few to rebuild a community, even supposing they could recover their livestock. But without horses or oudrakhi, the trek to the next village would be perilous. He wished he knew more about survival in the desert. If it hadn’t been for Adahab, he’d never have reached Nuriya.

Adahab had promised to return in five days, now four. . . . There was hope, after all.

Meanwhile, Rahelle went to each of the remaining villagers and gently questioned them about where and how badly they were hurt. The grandmother who’d served as village healer had perished, and the woman Gareth had carried died before regaining consciousness. Two of the smaller children looked so stunned, so hollow in their eyes, that Gareth feared they might never recover their wits.

By midmorning, the fires had been extinguished and a few goats rounded up, so there was a little milk for the children. The stone-walled huts had survived, some in better condition than others, but at least there would be shelter enough for everyone. Best of all, the well was intact.

The men set about cutting up the dead horse. They worked without speaking, doggedly finishing what must be done. Since he had no skill in butchering, Gareth helped with the burials, dragging the dead outside the limits of the village. When he returned with each new body, it seemed that the ones he had laid out had sunk into the sands, as if the sand itself were a living thing, cradling the twisted forms. By the next morning, it would cover them. Perhaps there were rituals to be followed and prayers to be spoken, but Gareth did not know them. The Comyn followed the old tradition of burial in unmarked graves, with family and friends sharing remembrances of the departed, each one ending with, “Let this memory lighten grief.”

After a short time, Gareth no longer smelled the charred flesh. He had become inured to the reek. Each one of these bodies had been a living person, a man or woman or child that he might have spoken with, laughed with . . . He was grateful for the silence, for the weight of the physical burdens, for he had no memories to offer up to lighten grief.

All but one of the women had rallied, organizing the children, laying out the wounded on pallets improvised from scraps of salvaged blankets. Where they had found cooking implements and food, Gareth didn’t know. When a younger woman shyly offered him and Rahelle cups of gruel, he noticed that her string bonds dangled, broken, from her wrists.

Gareth and Rahelle sat together in the dwindling shade beside Cuinn’s hut. His cup, thick-walled unglazed pottery, was blackened and chipped. The gruel itself tasted burned, but it was hot. Rahelle sipped, pursed her lips, and set her cup down on her lap. Gareth felt much the same way about the taste.

“You should eat,” he said, as much to himself as to her. His muscles throbbed with weariness. When had he rested last? The few hours’ sleep he’d gotten last night had long since vanished. He forced himself to take another swallow.

She arched one eyebrow as she glanced in his direction, then returned her focus to the cup. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I’ve already discovered the uselessness of that. You never listen to anyone. You were supposed to be on your way back to Shainsa and your father! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is here? You could have been killed—”

“And I suppose you were so much safer at the Terranan camp? What if they’d discovered who you are? You have just as much to hide as I do!”

“Who I am?” he snapped, hearing the irrational temper in his own voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“Only that someone has to keep you out of trouble!”

“Who appointed you my Keeper? I was doing just fine without you!”

At her look of incredulity, a bubble of something like laugher burst open inside him.

Her gaze faltered. “I did leave. I rode to Duruhl-ya. Adahab agreed to guide us back, but he needed another day to finalize his betrothal contract. The return took me longer than I expected. I should have passed the night at Duruhl-ya, I suppose. As it was, it was past sunset by the time I returned. I saw the fires . . .”

For a long moment, they sat in silence. Gareth found his voice. “I couldn’t stop them.”

Another pause, then: “Why did they do it?”

“Cuinn poisoned the well. Two men died.”

Rahelle drew in a sharp breath. Gareth closed his eyes, resting his head against the rough stone of the wall. He felt her fingers, strong and slim, twine through his. The contact brought a rush of inexpressible comfort.

I thought you were gone, safely away from here. His arms ached to hold her, although he was painfully aware of the risk carried by even this touch of hand on hand. Her best hope for safety lay in her disguise. Unlike the Comyn, Dry Towners did not tolerate lovers of men.

Gently, he loosened his fingers from hers. As she stirred, he felt the leap in tension in her body. She scrambled up, listening intently. Her ears were sharper than his, but now he caught it, too—the muffled bawl of an oudrakhi.

By the time Gareth had clambered to his feet, a handful of villagers were already gathering toward the desert side of the village. Following them, Gareth said to Rahelle, “Adahab has returned earlier than promised.”

“I don’t think—”

Dust and sand rose in low, desultory billows that did not conceal the approaching horsemen. The party was clearly in desperate condition. Their horses plodded, heads sagging, feet stirring up yet more dust. Just in front of them paced an oudrakhi, straining at its lead line and now and then letting out a vociferous complaint. Gareth thought it belonged to the village and had run off in the attack. The riders must have found it and realized that it would surely lead them to water.

Dust caked the hides of the horses and the clothing of the men. They had covered their lower faces with scarves, desert-style. Even so, Gareth could not mistake the quality of their gear or the swords that hung scabbarded from their saddles or across their backs.

Within moments, riders and villagers met. Gareth nudged Rahelle into the center of the villagers, so that the two of them would not stand out. There was none of the usual excitement at the arrival of so many strangers, no murmurs of curiosity, no children darting out for a better look, none of the welcome Gareth had received. These people were still in shock and not yet come into the fullness of their grief. They feared more of the same.

The foremost rider pulled his mount to a halt and dropped the oudrakhi’s lead line. One hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he used the other to loosen his scarf.

“I am Hayat, son of Dayan, High Lord of Shainsa! Who speaks for this place?”

Son of Dayan? Gareth didn’t remember having seen this man among the courtiers in the presence chamber. With luck, Hayat wouldn’t know him, either. The man at Hayat’s right side, however, looked familiar. His gaze lit on Gareth, and the muscles around his eyes tightened in recognition.

Gareth knew that unflinching regard, those gray eyes. When he’d last seen this man, fire and shame had flushed the Dry Towner’s sun-dark cheeks.

“Ancient wisdom tells us that only a fool returns to a battle he cannot win,” the other man had said. “The wise man lives to fight another day.”

And so Merach had.

Merach, sword arm of Dayan of Shainsa. Merach, whose life Gareth had spared in the ambush on the road to Carthon.