Katharine Kerr - Snare

Zayn slipped the long knife free of his belt, then crouched again, leaning back so that his face was barely out of the water. He heard splashing as Palindor climbed onto the island and the wet slapping steps of bare feet as he walked across. When Zayn risked another look, Palindor was standing some twenty feet away.

Slowly, carefully, Zayn began to climb up the rocky bank of the island. His back towards him, Palindor unstrung the bow and began using it like a staff to poke amongst the rushes. Zayn gained the ground and straightened up, his knife ready in his hand.

‘Looking for me?’

When Palindor spun around, Zayn charged, racing across the rocks. Palindor dropped the bow and grabbed at the knife at his side, but Zayn reached him before it was out of the sheath. In a futile attempt to protect himself, Palindor flung up his left arm. Zayn grabbed it, swung him around off-balance, and slipped with his enemy. As they went down, Zayn wrestled him round and fell on top of him. He stabbed with the long knife at the base of the neck, one quick blow that severed the spine. Palindor whimpered, twitched convulsively, then lay still.

‘You stupid little bastard! I’m not even the reason you couldn’t have her.’

Zayn wiped his knife on Palindor’s shirt, then sheathed it. He decided that he’d better not tell the comnee about this, but then it occurred to him that Palindor had committed a grave crime, stalking a man during his vision quest. He took the dropped bow and unbuckled the quiver of arrows hung on Palindor’s belt. They were solid evidence that Palindor intended to murder, not challenge him.

Far off in the mists came a rasping cry that was doubtless meant to sound like a swamp lizard’s croak. Zayn froze, his hands tight on the quiver. That Palindor could find allies for an impious murder was the last thing that Zayn ever would have suspected from the Tribes, but the cry came again, seemingly closer. In the mist and wind it could have come from any direction. Zayn strung the bow and stuck the quiver down the front of his shirt. Crouching low, he trotted to the edge of the island and slid off into waist-deep water, but he held the bow up to keep the bowstring dry. Moving as silently as he could, slipping a bit on the muddy bottom, he started back for the hummock that marked the path to the lake shore. All he wanted was to get out of there before he was forced to kill another comnee man. He heard the false lizard cry again, desperate now, insistent for an answer.

When he reached the first hummock, Zayn stayed in the water. It was too dangerous to clamber up and expose his back to an arrow. But how deep did the water lie here? At that he remembered the spirit staff, left behind on the islet. All his instincts told him to leave it there and run for his life, but he felt that to lose the staff meant losing the manhood he’d come here to gain. He crouched low, holding the bow free of the water, and waited. The mewling cry came loud out of the mists on the far side of the islet. When he looked back, he could just see the dark shape of Palindor’s corpse.

Keeping the island in sight, Zayn circled round in the direction of the cry to stalk the man stalking him. The wall of mist receded ahead of him as he waded through the lake, and slowly there appeared dark shapes that had to be another chain of hummocks and rocks. All at once he saw the spirit crane, standing on a small, sharp rock. The crane spread its wings, bobbed its head, and danced a few threatening steps – guarding a nest, maybe, but Zayn took it as a warning. He crouched down, the water lapping around his chest, but kept the bow up and dry. He waited, fighting the warmth of the water, a drowsy mineral warmth that soothed and relaxed every muscle in his body. He was stifling yawns by the time he saw the man-sized shape, slipping through the water ahead of him some thirty feet away and headed for the islet.

Zayn let the man get a good head-start, then drew and nocked an arrow in his bow and followed him, keeping well back on the edge of his enemy’s visibility. Sliding in the muck, cursing under his breath, the man reached the island and clambered up the rocky bank. Zayn saw him kneel down by Palindor’s body and lay his bow aside. Zayn stood up, the bow ready, and waited. He had no hopes of actually hitting a target with the unfamiliar Tribal bow; he merely hoped to distract the enemy with the shot, then dodge to one side and approach from a new direction. At last the enemy rose, his bow dangling in his hand. Zayn loosed. Much to his shock, the arrow hissed home and struck its target in the side of his chest. The man screamed, twisted and clawed at the shaft, and fell to his knees. By the time Zayn made his way over to the islet, he lay dead with bloody foam crusting on his lips and chin.

Zayn slung his bow over his back, then crouched down by the bleeding corpse and turned him over: a Kazrak. His eyes were pale grey and his straight hair dark, but he was a young Kazrak, all right, with a beaky nose and dark skin, wearing a tunic over his leather trousers. Zayn had never seen him before in his life.

He ran across the island, grabbed the spirit staff, and kept running to the farther bank. He slipped into the water and started back across the lake. He was half-way to the first hummock when he heard another false croak, coming from the opposite direction of the first, as if there were a net of men being drawn around him. As fast as he could, Zayn slogged on. Every now and then he would crouch down and look back, only to see nothing but mist.

By the time he gained the lake shore, it was growing dark. Tapping his way with the staff, desperately looking for the traces he’d left in the morning, he picked his way through the swamp. In the twilight, the only sign of treacherous bogs were little glimmers of silver from standing water. When he realized that he had miles between him and safety, his exhaustion caught him. He would find another islet and sleep. If he died of exposure, then he’d never have to wake up, and at the moment, that seemed a blessing. When he looked back, he saw the bluish lights drifting in the mists behind him, soft round balls, drifting like watchers for the gods. The sight drove him onward.

Zayn went about half a mile on before he saw the light ahead of him, a pale blue fire bobbing as if it were a lantern held in someone’s hand. He fell to one knee, laid the staff down, and nocked an arrow in his bow. As the light came closer, he suddenly wondered if it were an evil spirit; if so, the bow would be useless.

‘Zayn?’ Ammadin called out. ‘Is that you?’

Zayn sighed aloud, a sharp hiss of relief.

‘Yes. Stay where you are! You could be in danger.’

Zayn put the arrow back in the quiver, picked up the spirit staff, and went on, stumbling on the mossy ground. When he finally saw Ammadin, he swore aloud. She was holding her hand shoulder high, and from her fingers streamed a pale bluish light like cold fire. When she spoke, he couldn’t answer: all he could do was stare at the light on her hand.

‘I had the feeling you’d be back at sunset,’ she said. ‘Here – what? By the gods, where did you get that bow?’

Zayn could only shrug and watch the streaming light.

‘Tell me.’ Ammadin grabbed his arm with her other hand. ‘What danger? Are you hurt?’

‘No. The bow? I took it from a man who tried to kill me with it. Someone was hunting me out there.’

‘Who?’

Zayn made an effort and looked away from the magical fire. How could he tell her the truth? Palindor had loved her once.

‘Someone I don’t know. Kazraks.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’ Ammadin’s voice turned hard. ‘Who?’

‘Very well, then. Palindor. But he had a couple of Kazraks with him.’

Ammadin went stiff and still, her hand still tight on his arm.