Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

Loincloth, then divided shirt weighted with water, but still smelling of horse and her own sweat, the shirt which her fingers fumbled so that she could hardly fit lashing cords to hole.

She squeezed the water out of her hair and knotted back the lank strands with a greasy thong, trying the while to stifle her hard breathing as she forced herself to accept the worst which must havft happened—inwardly marveling that she had this small fragment of time still unhunted. She must prepare—

For Dik Romlee. Her lips stretched in a mirthless line.

Nancee studied the ground around her. Weapons? She remembered the Horseclans woman with whom she had shared a fresh roasted rabbit only two days ago. Then she and her uncle had still been part of the caravan, before Dik showed his hand. That prairie rover had had weapons in plenty, a knife hilt showing an inch or two above boottop, another at her belt, a sword of deadly promise, a bow—

The girl wiped her sweating hands on the skirt. She had nothing but those hands and her teeth. And she might well consider herself already captive. Except she was a Lowree of the House of Bradd.

Her head jerked as she raised her pointed chin. A Lowree was not truly mastered except by death. If she could not defend herself she could use those same teeth to open her own veins. Did not the Song of the House of Bradd tell of just such a deed when Mairee of the Sun Hair was taken by the Lord of Kain? Little good he got from that!

Firmly she closed her mind to that other’s cold triumph, which beat at her as if a fist thudded into her face. She tried to pick up any call, the slightest hint of message from Uncle Roth, from Hari or Mik. There was only blankness to answer. So she was truly alone—

But she was startled out of that grim thought for a moment by a high squealing sound, a battle cry of another kind. Boldhoof—they had the greatest treasure left to Bradd’s line, the giant Northhorse. She could use—

Only she could not. The Horseclan guards could bespeak their mounts at will. With the Northhorse Nancee had no such a bond. Her mindspeak was limited more to a sensing of emotion—the identification of those who had been long known to her. She could not now stir Boldhoof into any rebellion which would count. Rather did she already feel the reassurance which was flooding the camp. That mind which had betrayed itself with greed and cruelty was now striving to bring the huge horse into obedience. And Dik would certainly win. She had seen him with animals before. It was the one part of his character she could not understand, for it was not part of the evil which walked two-legged under his name.

He would not be satisfied with the loot he had taken, the deaths which already answered the steel of his followers. Her body would not lie there and he would come seeking— Nancee dropped to her belly, her head raised only inches from the gravelly soil, as she began to wriggle from the temporary shelter she had found farther along under the screen of the willows. This was another hunt in which she was the quarry, only this time there were none of those who had been with her before.

Back in the east where Bradd’s Hold had once stood tall and defiant against the sky there had been swords in a plenty. Until that black-mouthed traitor Dik Romlee had caught them from their blind side—where they had had no watchful eyes, since no man expected treason from an oathed kinsman.

Uncle Roth, his right arm useless from the witch curse Dik must have laid upon him, had gotten the two of them out and away. She might not be as dear to him as a daughter in truth, but it was from her body—Nancee levered herself up a fraction on one elbow and listened with ear and mind. Yes, only she could birth an heir the kin would accept. And Dik was sure to lay within her his treacherous seed should he take her. Her outstretched fingers dug painfully into the gravel and she pulled determinedly ahead.

Still there gnawed upon her that belief that they would come a-hunting. What chance had she against the foul pack of them? Already they had accomplished half their plan. Dik had maneuvered the Traders’ trail chief into leaving them behind, spreading his tale of their being outlawed in the west on Uncle Roth’s first trip hither—that the Horseclans would not treat with any from a train giving them shelter. It was Dik’s word against her uncle’s. And Dik’s hand deep in a money purse as he said it all. Gold pieces were few on the frontier-—those looted from Roth’s own strongbox had sentenced him to death in the end.

She turned her head to the river, of which she sighted only a little between the well-leaved branches. There was an inner core there with a current, but she could not swim. With a piece of the dried storm wrack which was between the rocks farther on could she hold herself afloat? Yet she would be in the open, easy for them to take.

Tentatively she tried a mindsend toward the hidden camp. And snapped it free and away as she breathed fast and shallowly. No one there except those who followed Dik. But not even Dik now—which meant—

She could look ahead to that pile of drift which had drawn her this far. No spear, no bow, no keen-bladed knife. What she might have—

Her hand loosed its tight grip upon the gravel and she made a quick grab with hooked fingers which closed iron-tight on a length of sun-and-wind-dried sapling.

What Nancee jerked into her willow screen was bone-yellowed wood ending in a mass of snapped and broken roots. She broke off several of those and hefted her find. A club of sorts—at least the best weapon she was to find except for some water-smooth stone. But a sorry and useless thing with which to meet a well-armed raider.

Yet they were not going to take her until—

She started, one hand dropping back to the ground to steady herself, her eyes wide in her sun-browned face. What— “Where are the wagons, two-legs? This one is sore-pawed— also hungry—”

No foggy beam of hate or fear or calculating menace—this was as clear in her head as if she heard it by ear instead of by mind!

“Two-legs-—”

Again that imperative and irritated call. She hunched over the crude club, her hands rubbing along its length. Then there came a quiver of leaves ahead, a swinging of branches, and a fur-covered head arose into her line of astounded sight.

She had seen tree cats in plenty, and Uncle Roth had had in the presence chamber of the hold two rugs made from great cat beasts with spotted hides for which he had traded some years back. But this was—

Nancee drew a deep breath, and a little of her hold on the club loosened. Here was one of those great cat people with whom the Horseclans had a treaty-of-assistance. Of that she had heard even before she had come to envy the caravan guards and talked as much as she could with Oonaa, the archer.

“Cat lord—” She spoke in a hoarse whisper. She was no woman of the Clans; this furred death before her had no kincall for her. But what had Dik done which had given him the power to call such into his service? The Horseclans alone shared shelter with the cats.

“Where is the wagon?” Once again the clear words in her head.

“No wagon.” She spoke aloud, but perhaps the cat could understand speech too, for it stared with great green eyes at her, the grayish brindle of its fur seeming to fade into the maze of branches wherein it crouched.