Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“I told you this. I told you I would find you.”

Valyn glanced at the spear, then the horse, gauging the distance between himself and the rider. Though his feet were still tied, he could probably grab the weapon, rip it out of her hands or pull her off the horse, maybe even plant it in her chest. He opened and closed his hands. They were still numb, but they seemed to work.

And then what?

He glanced over his shoulder, able, for the first time, to make sense of the milling bodies around him. Huutsuu had brought him to a sprawling Urghul camp many times larger than the one in which he’d found her. Valyn stared. Truth be told, the place was more like a town than a camp, with hundreds of api thrown up haphazardly among the cook fires and hobbled horses, men and women riding to and fro, even children darting about between the tents, pale legs and faces spattered with mud. The place reeked of burning horse dung and cooking horseflesh, wet hide and wet mud. Pennants of fur and feather whipped from long lances planted in the earth. Men and women gathered between tents and around fires, tended to their horses or their children, calling to one another in their odd, singsong language. There must have been a thousand Urghul, maybe more.

Valyn turned his attention back to Huutsuu, leaning back slowly on his heels, forcing himself to stay still, to check his own rage. Even if he managed to kill the woman, he’d still be tied up, trussed like a pig for whatever happened next.

This is not the time, he told himself silently, repeating the words in his head as though rehearsing them again and again could keep him from folly. This is not the time .

“Where are we?” he asked instead, jerking his head at the surrounding camp.

Huutsuu smiled. “These are my people.”

“I thought your people hated large camps. I thought you lived in taamu, not nations.”

The Urghul woman shrugged. “We did. Not anymore.”

Before Valyn could make sense of that, other riders pulled up beside them, each Urghul trailing a horse with a sodden human shape lashed across the back. Relief mingled with fury, Valyn watched as, one by one, the other members of his Wing were cut from their horses, then dumped unceremoniously on the ground. The rest of the Urghul, like Huutsuu, refused to dismount, watching impassively as the horses shifted beneath them, their hooves making sucking sounds in the mud.

Annick was the first up, struggling to her knees, then her feet. She moved awkwardly, as though she had strained or torn something during the long ride, but Valyn could see her testing the rawhide at her wrists as she stood, searching for some weakness. Gwenna cursed the Urghul until one of the riders knocked her across the back of the head with the butt of his spear, sending her reeling into the mud once more. Talal got to his feet slowly, silent and intent. Valyn studied the leach, then flicked a sign: Your well?

Talal made an almost imperceptible nod.

So, Valyn thought, allowing himself a small smile, that’s something .

Before he could respond, however, two new Urghul rode up. The taller of them handed a waterskin to Huutsuu without a word, and she, in turn, tossed it to Valyn.

“Drink,” she said as he caught it awkwardly.

He eyed the bladder. He knew from experience what a single day without water could do. If he was going to stay sharp, alert, he needed to drink. He locked eyes with Huutsuu, raised the skin to his mouth, then tilted it back.

At first, there was nothing but the delicious wash of cold water as he sucked it down, his body greedy for the drink. Only after a few swallows did he finally taste the adamanth, the root’s bitter residue roughening his tongue.

Huutsuu smiled as she watched him pause.

“For the leach,” she said, gesturing to the waterskin. “My people, too, have such creatures.”

For a moment, Valyn contemplated draining the full skin, draining it or ripping it open on one of the Urghul spears. The adamanth wouldn’t do him any harm, of course-it might even ease the ache in his shoulder, in his bruised ribs-but the strong infusion would cut Talal off entirely from his well. The Kettral used an even more concentrated form of the tea, but simply boiling the root would prove more than effective. Clearly, the Urghul didn’t know which member of his Wing to be wary of, but it hardly mattered. They would make them all drink.

Valyn hefted the skin in his hands, testing its weight, then discarded the idea of destroying it. Adamanth was common enough-no more than a weed, really-and one could find it in ditches and swamps from the Waist to the steppe. If he threw away one skin, the Urghul would simply produce another. He glanced at Talal. The leach’s eyes were wary, grave, but he just shrugged. Valyn turned back to Huutsuu, matching her stare as he drank long and full from the skin. At least he could deny her the sight of his own disappointment.

As the Urghul passed the skin among the prisoners, Valyn considered the camp once more, then his captors.

“What happens next?” he asked.

Huutsuu gestured at the forest of tents. “We pack, then we ride.”

“Ride where?”

“West.”

“What’s west?”

“Long Fist,” the woman replied.

“What in Hull’s name is Long Fist?”

“You will learn that when you meet him.”

So the Urghul weren’t planning to sacrifice them right away. Of course, there was no telling how far west they planned to ride. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Is that where the rest of the taamu are going?” Valyn asked. “West? To meet Long Fist?”

“Too many questions,” Huutsuu said, waving a hand at three of the younger Urghul. “Take them. Put them with the other one. Watch them close. They are a soft people, but fast.”

“The other one?” Valyn demanded, shaking his head, trying to make sense of it. “Who’s the other one?”

Huutsuu smiled. “Go. See.”

The Annurian prisoner was tied up a dozen paces beyond the last row of api. The Urghul had bound his hands to his feet, forcing him into a hunched crouch. It wouldn’t have been horrible at first, but a day, even half a day bent double like that would be enough to crack most men and women. Worse, despite the chill drizzle, they’d stripped him of his shirt. The man clearly hadn’t eaten anything in days. Valyn could count the knobs of his spine, the ribs, could count the seeping gashes in his skin where he’d been whipped. The prisoner didn’t look up as the horses approached. He could have been knocked out. Maybe he thought there was nothing to see.

“Who is it?” Valyn demanded, turning to the young rider, the taabe, who guarded him.

“Warrior,” the taabe sneered. “Great warrior. Like you.”

The other Urghul laughed.

“When we get out of here,” Laith said, shaking his head, “when we get a bird, I am coming back, and I am going to kill every one of these miserable bastards.”

“Might take a long time,” Valyn said, glancing over his shoulder. “There are millions.”

“I’ll help him,” Gwenna growled.

“Me, too,” the prisoner said, without bothering to raise his head. “I bet we’d make a good team.”

Valyn froze, chill rain trickling down the back of his neck, making him shiver. The man’s voice was hollow, weak, but there was something there.… He took a step back, looking for space, ignoring the sharp spearpoint pressing against his back.

“So you lived after all,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

Balendin Ainhoa raised his head. A massive bruise purpled the side of his face, half closing one eye. His upper lip was split, and, high on his shoulder, a mirror of Valyn’s own wound, the half-healed scar left by Kaden’s crossbow bolt leaked pus and blood. If the leach was bothered by his injuries, however, he didn’t show it. “Of course I lived. What did Hendran say? If you haven’t seen the body, don’t count the kill .”