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"Get their water," the man calling out of the night had said. And Alexei fought down his fear, glanced at his mother. His trained eye saw her readiness for battle, the waiting whipsnap of her muscles.
"It would be regrettable if we were forced to destroy you out of hand," the voice above them said.
That's the one who spoke to us first, Alexandra thought. There are at least two of them---one to our right and one to our left.
"Cojniri hrilsau seraurus hom manju lau phchaujzaus kio mu raumauzaus nau luslaus lul phaul hrila."
It was the man to their right calling out across the basin.
To Alexei, the words were gibberish, but out of her Bala Garassaid training, Alexandra recognized the speech. It was Chaksoba, one of the ancient hunting languages, and the man above them was saying that perhaps these were the strangers they were looking for.
In the sudden silence that followed the calling voice, the hoopwheel face of the second moon---a faint pale blue in color---rolled over the rocks across the basin, bright and peering.
Scrambling sounds came from the rocks---above and to both sides---dark motions in the moonlight. Many figures flowed through the shadows.
A whole troop! Alexei thought with a sudden pang.
A tall man in a mottled burnoose stepped in front of Alexandra. His mouth baffle was tossed aside for clear speech, revealing a heavy beard in the sidelight of the moon, but the face and eyes were hidden in the overhang of his hood.
"What have we here? Desert ghost or human?" he asked.
As Alexandra heard the true-banter in his voice, she allowed herself a faint hope. This was the voice of command, the voice that had shocked them with its intrusion from the night.
"All right, I'll assume you're human," the man said.
Alexandra sensed rather than saw the knife hidden in a fold of the man's robe. She allowed herself one bitter regret that she and Alexei had no personal barriers.
"Can't you speak?" the man asked.
Alexandra put all the royal arrogance at her command into her manner and voice. Reply was urgently needed, but she had not heard enough of this man to be sure she had a register on his culture and weaknesses.
"Who dares to come on us like thieves in the night?" she demanded.
The burnoose-hooded face showed tension in a sudden twist, then slow relaxation that revealed much. The man had good control.
Alexei shifted away from his mother to separate them as targets and give each of them a clearer arena of action.
The hooded head turned at Alexei's movement, opening a wedge of face to moonlight. Alexandra saw a sharp nose, one glinting eye----dark, so dark the eye, without any white in it---a heavy brown and upturned mustache.
"A likely cub," the man said. "If you're fugitives from the Sepannens, it may be that you're welcome among us. What is it, boy?"
The possibilities flashed through Alexei's mind. A trick? A fact? Immediate decision was needed.
"If we fugitives, then why should you welcome us?" he demanded.
"A child who thinks like a man and talks like a man," the tall man said. "Well, now, to answer your question, my young werai, I am one who does not pay the koe, the water tribute, to the Sepannens. That is why I might welcome a fugitive.
He knows who we are, Alexei thought. There's concealment in his voice.
"I am the Szgany called Trek-Jush," the tall man said. "Does that speed your tongue, lad?
It is the same voice, Alexei thought. And he remembered the Council with this man seeking the body of a friend slain by the Seppanens.
"I know you, Trek-Jush," Alexei said. "I was with my father in Council when you came for the water of your friend. You took away with you my father's man, Grady Ukrainia---an exchange of friends."
"And Ukrainia abandoned us to return to his Duke," Trek-Jush said.
Alexandra heard the nuance of disgust in his voice, held herself ready to attack.
The voice from the rocks above them called: "We waste time here, Jush."
"This is the Duke's son," Trek-Jush barked. "He's surely the one Phes told us to seek."
"He's only a child, Trek."
"The Duke was a man and this lad used a beater," Trek-Jush said. "That was a brave crossing he made in the path of a kroe-ririd.
Alexandra heard him excluding her from his thoughts. Had he already passed sentence?
"We have no time for the test," the voice above them protested.
"Yet he could be the Lekom or-Goeb," Trek-Jush said.
He's seeking an omen! Alexandra thought.
"But the woman....." the voice above them said.
Alexandra readied herself anew. There had been death in that voice!"
"Yes, the woman," Trek-Jush said. "And her water."
"You know the law," said the voice from the rocks. "Ones who cannot live with the desert...."
"Silence!" Trek-Jush admonished. "Times change."
"Did Phes command this?" asked the voice from the rocks.
"You heard the voice of the cearosu, Cheg," Trek-Jush said. "Why do you press me?"
Alexandra thought: Cearosu! The clue of the tongue opened wide avenues of understanding: this was the language of Irk and Fepr, and cearosu meant bat, a small flying mammal. Voice of the cearosu: they had received a distant message to seek Alexei and herself.
"I do naught but remind you of your duties, friend Trek-Jush," said the voice above them.
"The strength of the tribe is my duty," Trek-Jush said. "My only duty, I must stress. I need no one to remind me of it. This child-man interests me. He is full-fleshed. He has lived on much water. He has lived away from the father sun. He has not the eyes of the ebod. Yet he does not speak or act like a weakling of the pans. Nor did his father. How can this be?"
"We cannot stay out here all night, arguing," said the voice from the rocks. "If a patrol...."
"I will not tell you again, Cheg, to be silent," Trek-Jush said.
The man above them stayed silent, but Alexei heard him moving, crossing by a leap over a defile and working his way down to the basin floor on their left.
"The voice of the cearosu suggested there'd be value to us in saving you two," Trek-Jush said. "I can see potential in this strong boy-man: he is young and teachable. But what of you, woman?" He stared at Alexandra.
I have his voice and pattern registered now, Alexandra thought. I could control him with a word, but he's a strong man----worth much more to us unblunted and with full freedom of action. Time will tell.
"I am his mother," Alexandra said. "In part, his strength which you admire is the product of my training."
"The strength of a woman can be boundless," Trek-Jush said. "It surely is in a Mother Baba. Are you a Mother Baba?"
For the moment, Alexandra put aside the implications of the question and answered him truthfully: "No."
"Are you trained in the ways of the desert?"
"No, but many consider my training valuable."
"We make our own judgments on value," said Trek-Jush.
"Every man has the right to his own judgements," she said.
"It is well that you see the reason," Trek-Jush said. "We cannot dally here to test you, woman. Do you understand? We'd not want your shade to plague us. I will take the boy-man, your son, and he shall have my countenance, sanctuary in my tribe. But for you, woman----you understand there is nothing personal in this? It is the rule, iskekror, in the general interest. Is that not enough?
Alexei took one step forward. "Of what do you speak?"
Trek-Jush flicked a glance across Alexei but kept his attention on Alexandra. "Unless you've been deep-trained from childhood to live, you could bring destruction onto an entire tribe. It is the law, and we cannot carry useless...."
Alexandra's motion started as a slumping, deceptive faint to the ground. It was the obvious thing for a weak outworlder to do, and the obvious slows an opponent's reactions. It takes an instant to interpret a known thing when that thing is exposed as something unknown. She shifted as she saw his right shoulder droop to bring a weapon within the folds of his robe to bear on her new position. A turn, a slash of her arm, a whirling of mingled robes, and she was against the rocks with the man helpless in front of her.
At his mother's first movement, Alexei backed two steps. As she attacked, he dove for shadows. A bearded man rose up in his path, half-crouched, lunging forward with a weapon in one hand. Alexei took the man beneath the sternum with a straight-hand jab, then sidestepped and chopped the base of his neck, relieving him of the weapon as he fell.
Then Alexei was into the shadows, scrambling upward among the rocks, the weapon tucked into his waist sash. He had recognized it despite its unfamiliar shape----a projectile weapon, and that said many things about this place, another clue that barriers were not used here.
They will concentrate on my mother and that Trek-Jush fellow. She can handle him. I must get to a safe vantage point where I can threaten them and give her time to get away.
There came a chorus of sharp spring-clicks from the basin. Projectiles whined off the rocks surrounding him. One of them flicked his robe. He squeezed around a corner in the rocks found himself in a narrow, vertical crack, began inching upward---his back against one side, his feet against the other---slowly, as silently as he could.
The roar of Trek-Jush's voice echoed up to him: "Get back, you wurmheaded lout! She'll break my neck if you come near!"
A voice out of the basin said, "The boy got away, Jush. What are we...."
"That's because of you, you sandbrained----Ugh-h-h! Easy there, woman!"
"Tell them to stop hunting my son," Alexandra said.
"They've stopped, woman. He got away as you intended him to. Great gods below! Why didn't you say you were a weirding woman and a fighter?"
"Tell your men to fall back," Alexandra said. "Tell them to go out into the basin where I can see them....and you'd better believe that I know how many of them there are."
She thought: This is the delicate moment, but if this man is as sharp-minded as I think him to be, we have a chance.
Alexei inched his way up, found a narrow ledge upon which he could rest and look down into the basin. Trek-Jush's voice came up to him.
"What if I refuse? How can you....uh-h-h! Leave be, woman! We mean no harm to you, now. Great gods! If you can do this to the strongest of us, you're worth ten times your weight in water."
Now the test of reason, Alexandra thought. She said: "You ask after the Lekom or-Goeb."
"You could be the folk of the legend," he said, "but I'll believe that when it's been tested. All I know now is that you came here with that silly Duke who----Aieeeee! Woman! I care not if you slay me! He was honorable and brave, but he was stupid to put himself in the way of the ruthless Seppanens!"
Silence.
Presently, Alexandra said. "He had no choice, but we'll not argue about it. Now, tell that man of yours behind the bush over there to quit trying to bring his weapon to bear on me, or I'll rid the universe of you and take him next."
"You there!" Trek-Jush roared. "Obey her!"
"But Jush...."
"Obey her, you wurmfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard dung! Obey her or I'll help dismember you! Can't you see the worth of this woman?"
The man at the bush straightened from his partial camouflage, lowered his weapon.
"He has obeyed," Trek-Jush said.
"Now," Alexandra said, "explain clearly to your people what it is you wish of me. I want no young hothead to make a foolish mistake."
"When we slip into the villages and towns, we must mask our origin, blend with the pan and graben folk," Trek-Jush said. "We carry no weapons, for the cryznozh is sacred. But you, woman, you have the weirding ability of battle. We'd only heard of it and many doubted, but one cannot doubt what he sees with his own eyes. You mastered an armed Szgany. This is a weapon no search could expose."
There was a stirring in the basin as Trek-Jush's words hit home.
"Suppose I agree to teach you the weirding way?"
"My countenance for you and your son as well."
"How can we be sure of the truth in your promise?"
Trek-Jush's voice lost some of its subtle undertone of reasoning and took on an edge of bitterness. "Out here, woman, we carry no paper for contracts. We make no evening promises to be broken at dawn. When a man says something, that is the contract. As leader of my people, I've put them in bond to my word. Teach us this weirding way and you have sanctuary with us as long as you wish. Your water and our water will mix."
"Are you speaking for all Szganys?" Alexandra said.
"In time, I may well. But only my brother, Phes, speaks for all Szganys. Here, I promise only secrecy. My people will not speak of you to any other s'yetche. The Seppanens have returned to Dyuna in force and your Duke lies dead. 'Tis said that you two died in a Mother storm. A true hunter seeks no dead game."
There's safety in that, Alexandra thought. But these people have good communications, and a message could be sent.
"I assume there was a price on our heads," she said.
Trek-Jush stayed silent. She could almost see the thoughts turning over in his head, sensing the shifts of his muscles beneath her hands.
Presently, he said, "I will say it once more: I've given the tribe's word-bond. My people know your worth to us now. What could the Seppanens give us? Our freedom? Bah! No, you are the spovo, that which buys us more than all the spice in the Seppanen coffers."
"Then I shall teach you my way of battle," Alexandra said, and she sensed the unconscious ritual intensity of her own words.
"Now, will you release me?"
"So be it," Alexandra said. She released her hold on him, stepped aside in full view of the bank in the basin. This is the test-mashed, she thought. But Alexei must know about them even if I die for his knowledge.
In the waiting silence, Alexei inched forward to get a better view of where his mother stood. As he moved, he heard heavy breathing, suddenly stilled, above him in the vertical crack of the rock, and sensed a faint shadow there outlined against the stars.
Trek-Jush's voice came up from the basin: "You, up there! Stop hunting the boy. He'll come down presently."
The voice of a young boy or girl sounded from the darkness above Alexei. "But, Jush, he can't be far from...."
"I said leave him alone, Farr! You lizardspawn!"
There came a whispered imprecation from above Alexei and a low voice: "You dare call me lizardspawn?" But the shadow pulled back out of view.
Alexei returned his attention to the basin, picking out the gray shadowed movement of Trek-Jush beside his mother.
"Come in, all of you," Trek-Jush called. He turned to Alexandra. "I will now ask you how we may be sure you'll fulfill your end of the bargain, eh? You're the one who's lived with papers and empty contracts and such as...."
"We of the Bala Garrasaid don't break our vows any more than you do," Alexandra said.
There was a protracted silence, then a multiple hissing of voices: "A Bala Garrasaid witch!"
Alexei brought his captured weapon from his sash, trained it on the dark figure of Trek-Jush, but the man and his companions remained immobile, staring at Alexandra.
"It is the legend," someone said.
"It was the Hudtap El-Geff who gave this report to you," Trek-Jush said. "But a thing so vital must be tested. If you are the Bala Garrasaid of the legend whose son will lead us to Heaven...." He struggled.
Alexandra sighed, thinking: So our Missii Zashchitnyye even planted religious safety valaves all through this hellhole. Ah, well---it'll help, and that's what it was intended to do.
She said: "The seeress who brought you to the legend, she gave it under the binding of doroko and eioz, the miracle and the inimitability of the prophecy---this I know. Do you wish a sign?"
His nostrils flared in the moonlight. "We cannot tarry for the rites," he whispered.
Alexandra recalled a chart Holstein had shown her while arranging emergency escape routes. How long ago it seemed. There had been a place called "S'yetche Tobr" on the chart and beside it the notation: "Trek-Jush."
"Maybe when we get to S'yetche Tobr," she said.
The revelation shook him, and Alexandra thought: If only he knew the tricks we use! She must've been good, that Bala Garrasaid of the Missii Zeshchitnyye. These Szganys are beautifully prepared to believe in us.
Trek-Jush shifted uneasily. "We must leave now."
She nodded, letting him know that they left with her permission.
He looked up at the cliff almost directly at the rock ledge where Alexei crouched. "You there, lad, you may come down now." He returned his attention to Alexandra, spoke with an apologetic tone: "Your son made an amazing amount of noise climbing. He has much to learn lest he endanger us all, but he's young."
"No doubt we have much to learn from each other, Alexandra said. "Meanwhile, you'd best see to your companion out there. My noisy son was a bit rough in disarming him.
Trek-Jush whirled, his hood flapping. "Where?"
"Beyond those bushes." She pointed.
Trek-Jush touched two of his men. "See to it." He glanced at his companions, identifying them. "Ros-Starn is missing." He turned to Alexandra. "Even your cub knows the weirding way."
"You'll notice that my son hasn't stirred from up there as you ordered," Alexandra said.
The two men Trek-Jush had sent returned supporting a third who stumbled and gasped between them. Trek-Jush gave them a flicking glance, returned his attention to Alexandra. "The son will take only your orders, yes? Good. He knows the discipline."
"Alexei, you may come down now," Alexandra said.
Alexei stood up, emerging into moonlight above his concealing cleft, slipped the Szgany weapon back into his sash. As he turned, another figure arose from the rocks to face him.
In the moonlight and reflection off gray stone, Alexei spied a small figure in Szgany robes, a shadowed face peering out at him from the hood, and the muzzle of one of the projectile weapons aimed at him from a fold of robe.
"I am Em-Cro, daughter of Phes."
The voice was lifting, half-filled with laughter.
"I wouldn't have allowed you to harm my companions," she said.
Alexei swallowed. The figure before him turned into the moon's path and he saw an elfin face, black pits of eyes. The familiarity of the face, the features out of numberless visions in his earliest prescience, shocked Alexei into stillness. He remembered the angry bravado with which he had once described the face from a dream, telling the Mother Baba Petronia Maria Mustonen: "I will meet her."
Here was the face, but in no meeting he had ever dreamed.
"You were as noisy as kroe-ririd in a rage," she said. "And you took the most difficulty way up here. Follow me; I'll show you an easier way down."
He scrambled out of the cleft, followed the swirling of her robe across a tumbled landscape. She moved like a gazelle, dancing over the rocks. Alexei felt hot blood in his face, was grateful for the darkness.
That girl! She was like a whiff of destiny. He felt caught up on a wave, in tune with a motion that lifted up all his spirits.
They stood presently amidst the Szganys on the basin floor.
Alexandra turned a wry smile on Alexei but spoke to Trek-Jush: "This will be a good exchange of teachings. I hope you and your people feel no anger at our violence. It seemed---necessary. You were about to----make a mistake."
"To save one from a mistake is a gift of Heaven," Trek-Jush said. He touched his lips with his left hand, lifted the weapon from Alexei's waist with the other and tossed it to his companion. "You will have your own koiro pistol, lad, when you've earned it."
Alexei began to speak, but then hesitated, for he remembered his mother's teaching: "Beginnings are such fragile things."
"My son has what weapons he needs," Alexandra said. She stared at Trek-Jush, forcing him to think of how Alexei had acquired the pistol.
Trek-Jush glanced at the man Alexei had subdued---Ros-Starn. The man stood at one side, head down, breathing heavily. "You are a difficult woman," Trek-Jush said. He held out his left hand to a companion, snapped his fingers. "Kikrse boddo sa."
More Chaksoba, Alexandra thought.
The companion pressed two squares of gauze into Trek-Jush's hand. Trek-Jush ran them through his fingers, fixed one around Alexandra's neck beneath her hood, fitted the other around Alexei's neck in the same way.
"Now you wear the kerchief of the boddo," he said. "If we become separated, you'll be recognized as belonging to Trek-Jush's s'yetche. We will speak of weapons another time."
He moved out through his band now, inspecting them, boddo---the weeper. She sensed how the symbolism of the kerchiefs united this band. Why should weeping unite them? she asked herself.
Trek-Jush came to the young girl who had embarrassed Alexei and said: Em-Cro, take the child-man under your wing. Keep him out of trouble."
Em-Cro touched Alexei's arm. "Come along, child-man."
Alexei hid the anger in his voice and said: "My name is Alexei. It was well you...."
"We'll give you a name, manling," Trek-Jush said, "in the time of the kermo, at the test of opr."
The test of reason, Alexandra translated. The sudden need of Alexei's ascendancy overrode all other consideration, and she barked: "My son's been tested with the rush sheffes!"
In the stillness that followed, she knew that she had struck into the heart of them.
"There's much more we don't know of each other," Trek-Jush said. "But we tarry overlong. Day-sun mustn't find us in the open." He crossed to the man Alexei had struck down and said, "Ros-Starn, can you travel?"
A grunt answered him. "Surprised me, he did. It was an accident. Yes, I can travel."
"It was no accident," Trek-Jush said. "I'll hold you personally responsible for the lad's safety, Ros-Starn. These people have my countenance."
Alexandra stared at the man, Ros-Starn. His was the voice with death in it. And Trek-Jush had seen fit to reinforce his order with Ros-Starn.
Trek-Jush flicked a testing glance across the group, motioned two men out. Bim-Glihn and Klam-Gell, you are to hide our tracks. See to it that we leave no trace. Extra care----we have two with us who've not been trained." He turned, his hand held upright aimed across the basin. "In squad line with flankers---move out. We must be at the Cave of the Ridges before dawn."
Alexandra fell into step behind Trek-Jush, counting heads. There were, in all, 40 Szganys---she and Alexei made it 42. And she thought: They travel as a military company---even the girl, Em-Cro.
Alexei took a place in line behind Em-Cro. He had put down the black feeling at being caught by the girl. In his mind now was the memory called up by his mother's barked reminder: "My son's been tested with the run sheffes!" He found that his hand tingled with the remembered pain.
"Watch where you're going," Em-Cro hissed. "Do not brush against a bush lest you leave a thread to show our passage."
Alexei swallowed, nodded.
Alexandra listened to the sounds of the troop, hearing her own footsteps and Alexei's marveling at the way the Szganys moved. They were 40 people crossing the basin with only the sounds natural to the place---ghostly feluccas, their robes flitting through the shadows. Their destination was S'yetche Tobr----Trek-Jush's s'yetche.
She turned the word over in her mind: s'yetche. It was a Chaksoba word, unchanged from the old hunting language out of countless centuries. S'yetche: a meeting place in time of danger. The profound implications of the word and the language were just beginning to register with her after the tension of their encounter.
"We move well," Trek-Jush said. "With Kroe-ririd's favor, we'll reach the Cave of the Ridges before dawn."
Alexandra nodded, conserving her strength, sensing the terrible fatigue she held at bay by force of will....and, she admitted it: by force of will....and, she also admitted it: by the force of elation. Her mind focused on the value of this troop, seeing what was revealed here about the Szgany culture.
All of them, she thought, an entire culture trained to military order. What a priceless thing is here for an outcast Duke!251Please respect copyright.PENANAkeLpdRfHNe
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