Kate Elliott - His conquering sword

"Yevgeni," said Charles. The young rider turned back. "You're content to stay with him? You can return with us, to the army. Or we can leave you here."

"I can't return to the army," said Yevgeni. "I've nowhere else to go. I'm content." But the look he cast toward Hyacinth betrayed the depth of his feeling, however offhandedly he might have replied.

"Do you have any suggestions about what we might do with the horses?"

Yevgeni looked puzzled. "But surely we'll need the horses to ride?"

"No. You'll be leaving here by other means than horses."

"Not with you?"

"Not with me. I can't take the horses with me. But if I leave them here, free them-"

"I don't understand." Yevgeni shook his head. "Horses are valuable. Why would you want to loose them? And anyway, they need us to care for them. Even if we-why can't you-?" He stumbled to a halt, looking confused.

"So it begins," said Charles in Anglais. "Do you have any suggestions, David?"

David raised his hands, palms out. "Don't ask me. I'm only an engineer. I know how to saddle one, and I can ride, in a manner of speaking. Can they survive on their own in the wild? I don't know."

"You're no damned help," muttered Charles, sounding both amused and irritated. "Well, I see no choice but to let them go and hope whatever refugees live in these hills find them."

"We can't tell Nadine that we found them running loose in the hills?"

Charles gave a curt nod, and Yevgeni, dismissed, hurried away to help Hyacinth and Marco. Charles regarded David, his lips quirking up. "Do you really think she'd accept that story? She's no fool."

"She's too damned smart," murmured David, "to get stuck here on this planet. She's the one who should be leaving, not him."

"What makes you think she'd be happier out in space?"

"There's so much to know, to learn, to discover…"

"There's so much to know, learn, and discover on Rhui, too. This is a rich planet, David." He shrugged. "Well, in any case, whether in her lifetime or later, they'll begin to leave, more and more of them."

David heard an odd note in Charles's voice. "What do you mean? I thought you were going to keep the interdiction in place, so that we can maintain a protected safe house for growing and shielding the next rebellion."

"It's only a matter of time. We're already breaking the interdiction. We're already affecting their development. "Their understanding begins to swell, and the approaching tide/Will shortly fill the reasonable shores/That now lie foul and muddy." "

"It sounds so awful, put like that. Is that another line from The Tempest?"

Charles nodded. The wind came up, and a low moaning rode in on it, the dawn wind.

Only it wasn't the wind. David caught the silver glint of the shuttle, circling in. Yevgeni leapt back, his hand on his saber. Marco ran to calm the horses. Charles lifted a hand, in sign, and instead, Marco cut them all free. They scattered in fright. David ran back and pulled down the heads of the animals they'd brought, holding them in place, trying to calm them with soft words. From this distance, he watched the shuttle brake in the air and begin its descent.

Marco and Hyacinth backed up, lugging Hyacinth's gear. Yevgeni froze, unable to move as he stared at the hulk above him. What did he think? That it was a dragon? A metal bird? A sorcerer's tame devil? A demon of the air? Hyacinth flung his rolled up tent on the ground and sprinted forward. By main force he dragged Yevgeni backward, out of the flash range. The poor man looked in shock, as well he might be.

The shuttle landed, spraying gravel and dirt. Its engines whined high, canted sharply, and then cut off. The silence was deafening. With a pop, a hatch opened and a ramp extruded. A Chapalii male appeared. By his mauve robes, David guessed it was the merchant Hon Echido Keinaba. He descended and came forward to bow before Charles.

Hyacinth had a hold on Yevgeni's elbow. Only by that grip did the jaran rider stay upright. His face had gone dead pale. A deep, abiding pity filled David for the young man about to be thrown into a world he had not the slightest comprehension of.

Behind Hon Echido, two stewards emerged carrying perfect replicas of the packs already on the pack animals in Soerensen's train. David was too far away to follow the conversation that ensued, but the transaction was swift. The stewards deposited the packs at Charles's feet and, at his direction, hurried back on board with Hyacinth's gear. Hon Echido bowed to Charles and retreated back up the ramp.

Hyacinth spoke rapidly and earnestly to Yevgeni. Haltingly, one stow footstep followed by another, Yevgeni allowed himself to be led. He faltered at the foot of the ramp and stared, back stiff and ramrod straight, up into the maw of the ship. He put a hand on his saber hilt. Hyacinth gestured, spoke. What a vast reservoir of trust it must take for Yevgeni to go up there-that or simple fatalism. David shook his head. Perhaps he was overestimating Nadine; not her intelligence, not her courage, not her curiosity, but her ability to absorb something so utterly outside of her experience.

Yevgeni tested the ramp with one booted foot. He threw his head back and stared up at the blue dome of the sky, seeded with clouds, tinted by the rising sun, that arched above them. Then he turned right round and looked at Charles. He said something to Hyacinth. Hyacinth started, taken aback, and then abruptly grinned and replied. To David's astonishment, the young jaran rider dropped to his knees and bowed his head toward Charles in obeisance. After a moment, he rose and without further hesitation walked with Hyacinth up the ramp and into the ship.

The hatch closed. The engines sang to life. Flame singed the earth and the shuttle rose like light into the air. It yawed, steadied, turned, and circled up. David watched as it sped on its way, winking out at last just as the sun topped the far ridge and streamed bright light into the shadowed depths of the defile.

Charles and Marco arrived, each man lugging one of the saddle packs. They threw the old ones off the pack animals and cinched on the new.

"Shall we go?" asked Charles.

"But what did he ask Hyacinth?" David demanded. "That's what decided him in the end to get on the ship."

Charles grinned, looking like the old Charles, the Charles David had gone to university with. "He asked if I was one of the ten lords attendant on Father Wind, who rules Heaven." He gathered reins into his hand and mounted.

"Well, what did Hyacinth say?"

Charles shrugged.

Marco coughed into a hand, looking sly, enjoying himself. David felt a sudden camaraderie with these two men, the simple pleasure of their company, out on this secret adventure. Charles had a spark in his eyes, of mischief, of suppressed laughter. A horse neighed in the distance.

"He said, "I and my fellows are ministers of fate." "

Which was true enough. Marco and Charles were still chuckling, but David found the quote disturbing. They rode away. Behind them, gravel and dirt lay scorched and scattered, but the first rains would obliterate all traces of the ship. Had Yevgeni truly understood that he was leaving forever? It was no less a sundering than death would have been; but Hyacinth was right, exile was death for a tribeless man like Yevgeni. He had chosen a new tribe. He had chosen to go with the ministers of fate, with the lords of heaven; he had thrown in his lot with Hyacinth's people. He was no longer jaran.

The next day, Nadine's scouts picked up seven horses and brought them into camp that night when they swung in from their rounds. Three of the animals bore the clip in their right ear that marked them as jaran horses. If Nadine thought their sudden appearance strange, if she had any theories about them at all, she did not honor David with her confidence.