Kate Elliott - Traitors Gate

Laukas pulled on his arm. 'Up, Shayi_. It's your turn.'

'My turn?' He rubbed his face. 'But-'

They steered him to the table and sat him cross-legged in the local way. They'd pitted him against a weedy young man who was no struggle, a pop down to the table, which made them roar with laughter and sit down another volunteer. He demolished nine before Ketti sat down with a good-natured smile that tightened at the corners of his eyes to betray a man who did not like to lose. It occurred to Shai that he needed to shake off his wool-headedness. An odd scent tickled his nostrils as if in a stinging wind off the sandy desert; he could not identify what it was. Branches swayed, but he felt no wind.

He fixed hand to hand with Ketti. Geda was bent so far over to watch that her breasts seemed likely to pop out of her tightly laced vest right in his face.

Laukas, standing as referee with a hand resting atop their clasped ones, laughed. 'Careful, Shayi. If you win, then you have to sleep with Geda. Enough to suck away a man's strength, eh?'

'I don't have to sleep with anyone,' said Shai, thinking of Eridit.

That set them whooping and laughing. Laukas released their hands.

Eihi!

One thing Shai was, was stubborn. Ketti was as strong, but he'd never learned to focus in and endure. To wait for the opening.

At a wavering in Ketti's grip, Shai pushed, and Ketti's arm sank backward. Catching the tipping point, Shai slammed Ketti's hand onto the table top to a chorus of hollering and clapping and jeering.

The noise ceased between one breath and the next.

Ketti released Shai's hands and sat back, swiping sweat off his forehead as he looked nervously to his left. Folk melted back as

a creature glided through the gathering and halted by the table. Ketti scrambled up, and the creature settled into the vacant place. The creature set its right elbow on the table, hand up, with the left lying beneath. Laukas backed away.

Naked to the waist except for its leather forearm guards, it was quite obviously female, although its broad shoulders and muscled chest made its small breasts seem insignificant in contrast. He forced his gaze up to the face. Although it had lips, nose, and face molded in a familiar form, it was not human. Its skin had the color of leaves, a downy growth of hair also tinted green, and yet as he cautiously grasped its hands, its palms felt exactly like human palms. Its hair dangled in vine-like ropes, as though its head sprouted a garden rather than hair. Its ears were tufted and set slightly away from the human-shaped head. Its eyes were not ordinary eyes: they were many-faceted. When it blinked, a sheer inner lid flicked down; a second more ordinary eyelid flashed and opened. Its eyes had changed: what stared at him now shone black, like polished jet. As he recoiled, it tightened its grip on his left hand.

None in the assembly spoke. No one moved.

Its smell had a humid savor, like the forest.

Hu! The others did not fear it, although their silence implied respect. He shifted his seat to ground himself. It grinned to display a remarkably human set of teeth.

'He's done for now,' whispered Laukas, dropping a hand over their clasped hands and, after a count, releasing.

Shai braced, but was driven down, the press against him. The creature was simply so much stronger that he might have been a child testing its strength against a patient adult, one who didn't want to smash his hand down lest it wound his pride.

He was a fist's-breadth away from defeat.

Its ears flicked.

It released him and rose so quickly that one blink it was braced before him and the next was leaping into the trees as a faintly heard and very low rumble trembled in the air: a horn.

Tomen pushed through the group with a stream of orders: 'Laukas, ten on the path. Archers, to the trees. Ketti, pull the elder back to the cave. Geda, have your slings and nets ready.'

They moved.

Tomen grabbed Shai's vest, hauling him up. He was strong, maybe not strong enough to defeat Shai arm-wrestling but with

enough strength to make his will known. 'If you're a spy who has betrayed us, you'll die.'

'I have not betrayed you. I'm just trying to get to Nessumara.'

A whistle pierced the air, followed by a scatter of cries like flocking birds. With weapons in hand, folk faced the track. A bare-legged and bare-footed youth raced into the clearing, a skinny child not more than twelve or thirteen years of age clothed in a dirty linen jacket belted at the waist and reaching its knees.

'Soldiers… attacking… Upperpool… village… no quarter… help…' Words gave way to a hacking cough and a spew of bile.

'Arm up, all hands,' said Tomen as everyone listened, poised and tense and eager.

'Action at last,' murmured Laukas.

'Anyone who wants to stay back with the elder can help her move the supplies to the cave,' added Tomen.

No one wanted to stay back. They assembled with such weapons and armor — thick leather coats — as they possessed, while Tomen coaxed information out of the youth.

'Lots of them. More than twenty? I didn't see. Upperpool burning. We can see the flames from Lowerpool. My cousin got away. There were others running.'

'Lowerpool will be hit next.' Tomen raised a hand to gain the attention of his fighters. 'These strikes on villages are the same, a cadre of bullies with good weapons using surprise and intimidation to overtake resistance. We've talked over the drill. We're equal in numbers. They're better armed. We'll use archers and ambush to pick them off, then we close and kill the rest. No prisoners. Laukas, you'll take lookout.'

'The hells! I want to fight-'

'You'll take lookout. It's time for us to make known we don't intend to let this army burn and pillage at will. Tonight our weapons will be our voice, a bold cry against the invaders!'

The company cheered.

'Uh. Might I ask a question? If you don't actually know how many there are-?' Shai's voice fell unheeded as they scrambled for the track, those still gathering their gear swearing as they hurried so as not to be left behind. He was left behind as the clearing emptied.

'What are you?' the youth asked, looking alarmed as he saw Shai. 'An outlander!'

Branches pitched as though in the grip of a mighty wind. A figure dropped from tree to earth, not six paces from the youth, who tripped and sprawled backward. Shaking, he displayed his hands palms up, then sketched a familiar gesture of meeting as he stood.

'Greetings of the day, honored one.'

It blinked, black-eyed, before copying the hand gesture so perfectly that Shai expected it to continue into some extended tale told through song and gesture. It was a male, its slim hips and legs clothed in leggings.

'I have to go, honored one.' The child ran down the track after the fighters, and the creature loped after it.

The noise of their passage faded.

'Here, mule,' said the elder, beckoning to Shai. 'Help me and Navita carry things.'

Was it better to run now while he was unguarded, to head south alone and easily marked as an outlander, knowing everyone he met would be suspicious of him? Or should he stay here, hoping to earn their trust and help? The elder and the young envoy watched him, surely needing no third eye or second heart to interpret his thoughts.

He shrugged. 'Show me what you need carried, verea.'

He hauled from the clearing along a track and over a streamlet and through rockier ground where trees struggled for a foothold. They reached an escarpment thrust so abruptly out of the ground it was like walking into a wall. Vines obscured the face of the cliff. He pushed through a tangle of ropy vegetation to deposit the basket on a dirt floor in the gloom. The cave smelled of dirt and tasted of the forge.

As they came out, the young envoy smiled anxiously at him, as if she had decided to treat him as a comrade. 'My ostiary said I had to get out of town because I was being hunted. I've never been outside the city before today. I don't like the forest. It smells funny. Anything might be creeping up on you!'