Part 28 (2/2)

Ygor muscled in, then. 'Looks like they're around a third of our number.' The skin over his eyes creased, where a man with eyebrows would have raised them. 'Fight? Attack them overnight?'

'Sounds like they're inviting it,' Dal agreed. 'Which is why we won't. There'll be more of them, for sure. They wouldn't have kept us hopping all day just to fail so badly now. We need to get clear of them. If we fight, we fight when and where I choose. Soul, I get the impression you can talk to our . . . hosts in here? You've done it before?'

The Gra.s.shopper looked sour. 'Wouldn't say it worked well, but I've seen it done. I know a little of their speech.'

'Then I have something for you to tell them.'

The brigands made camp, with plenty of eyes keeping watch towards the dimly glimpsed fires of their pursuers. By his own orders, it was only Dal Arche who allowed his gaze to turn the other way, watching Soul as he sat some way deeper into the cane forest. Dal had always had good eyes, even for one of his kind, and at last, an hour later, he saw Soul standing up. For a long while there was nothing more save that he could hear the distant murmur of the Gra.s.shopper's voice. But then there was a movement, and Dal realized that the Stick-kinden were here, or one of them at least. The newcomer was freakishly tall, standing a good two feet higher than Soul, who was as lofty as most of his kind. Beneath the shrouding cloak, Dal could make out broad shoulders, but there seemed to be little more substance to this creature, just a great gaunt scarecrow, two long-fingered hands moved, making patterns in the air, but Dal heard no voice other than Soul's. The conversation, such as it was, went on for a long time, the Gra.s.shopper giving soft replies to the signs that the Stick-kinden used. When Soul talked at length, Dal lost sight of the tall creature entirely: standing utterly still as it did, its Art cloaked it in shadows and led the eye astray. Only when it spoke with its hands did it attract the attention, There could be dozens of the things all around us. Dal forced himself to keep calm. If that was so, there was little he could do about it.

At last, Soul Je came back, looking worn down by his negotiations.

'Get everyone up,' he said, and Dal quickly kicked the nearest half-dozen awake, and sent them grumbling and complaining to wake up others.

'They're going to kill us?'

'They're going to guide us through their lands,' Soul replied. 'Don't ask why, because I don't know. We've nothing they want. Perhaps they just like lost causes.'

'Not lost yet,' Dal decided.

'One condition, though: blindfolds. Everyone must be blindfolded. They'll kill anyone who so much as peeks. We'll be pa.s.sing through their heartland, Dala. n.o.body's ever seen it. They want to keep it that way.'

Dal nodded grimly, and began to pa.s.s the word along. It's not going to work, he already knew. The temptation would be too great. Worse, it could be a trap. They might none of them come out of this alive. 'You trust them, though.'

'They're not like us,' Soul replied. 'They don't care about politics, they don't pay taxes, they don't want more land. They're apart from it all.' His voice sounded almost wistful. 'If they didn't like us, then we'd be getting shot at right now, or we'd just never see them at all. They have no need of betrayal.'

Studying him now, Dal thought he saw why the Stick-kinden had been so compliant. Perhaps they had seen in Soul some little fragment of their own nature.

By that time the bandits were all awake, though not happy about it, and even less happy once they were told to blindfold themselves. Mordrec tied together every rope and cord he could lay his hands on, supplemented with torn cloaks and tunics after they ran out. Soon everyone was holding on to a section of of his makes.h.i.+ft lead, the brigands making a long, untidy string of baffled and angry people. Beyond the forest edge, the Salmae camp was waking up too, hearing the disturbance and no doubt expecting the brigands to make a break into the open under cover of darkness.

Of course, that break never came, so the followers of the Salmae milled about and watched intently for hours, as the bandits melted away into the heart of the cane forest.

Dal Arche had been expecting an eerie, almost mystical experience, but a couple of hundred brigands, all blindfolded and tied together and being led through a forest, made enough noise for the entire business to sound more like a particularly raucous troupe of travelling clowns. Not a moment pa.s.sed without someone falling over, stumbling into the hard, ridged bole of a bamboo cane, or stepping on someone else's foot. It should have been hilarious. Instead, Dal was on edge the whole time, thinking of what else those noises might be covering.

There would be those amongst his followers who could not bear not knowing, so they would find a moment to lift the blindfold, despite his strict instructions. They would regret it, too; Dal was sure of that. He had a sense that all around them loomed the Stick-kinden: towering, angular and silent, staring with mute antipathy at these clumsy intruders, their hands stayed only by their anonymity. There were occasional screams amidst that chaos of stumbling and complaining. They were brief, cut off even as they started, but they were unmistakable.

How long it took them to cross that forest of cane, he could not say. The enforced darkness seemed to blind him to the pa.s.sage of time as much as it did to the stars and moon. Eventually, though, he became aware that he was no longer being tugged along, and all around him people were standing still.

'Eyes open,' he snapped, hoping he was right, and that this was not some cruel trick of their hosts. When he pulled the cloth from his eyes, though, he saw that the canes gave out only yards ahead, and open ground lay beyond.

He located Mordrec and tugged at his arm. 'Make a count,' he suggested, and the Wasp nodded. As he pa.s.sed through the band, counting heads, Dal spotted Soul and Ygor, and felt a sudden rush of relief when he saw them still alive.

The Scorpion was already moving out into the open, crouching low and with his companion beast ranging ahead of him, its claws and tail raised threateningly. Dal moved towards him but, as he approached, Ygor raised a hand abruptly and dropped to one knee.

Dal crept up beside him, but he had spotted the problem before he could ask about it. There were campfires visible out there, quite a large band of people, perhaps the same size as the group they had left behind.

'This is impossible. n.o.body could be that far ahead of us.' A sudden thought struck him. 'They must have a seer, a really good one, to be able to see in such detail.'

Ygor snorted, for he was Apt and didn't believe in any of that. 'They've got us to rights here, anyway,' he replied. 'I don't reckon we'll get back through the woods again, either.'

Mordrec and Soul Je joined them quietly. 'We're down thirty-seven,' was the Wasp's grim report.

Dal nodded. We would have lost more, had we turned and fought, though. He could not guarantee that, but it seemed overwhelmingly likely. Thirty-seven? Thirty-seven men and women who could not bear to stay blind in an unfamiliar place and had that one last glimpse been worth it?

'Soul, Ygor, scout them out,' he ordered. 'See how alert they are, their sentries, their preparations. We outnumber them and, even though they're here, they might not be expecting an attack. We might get out of this yet.'

The Scorpion and the Gra.s.shopper padded off into the darkness, with Ygor's pet slinking along between them. Dal sat back on his haunches, staring out at the campfires.

'We've been in worse,' Mordrec reminded him philosophically. 'Remember the steppes, hmm?'

'Oh, certainly,' Dal agreed, feeling suddenly very tired. I'm just slightly on the wrong side of youth to be indulging in these all-night capers. 'That double-cross at Mie Salve wasn't much fun either.'

'Only because of your b.l.o.o.d.y taste in women,' Mordrec reminded him. 'Matter of fact, the steppe business was women too.'

'Well there's no woman here now, Mord.'

'There was Siriell,' Mordrec suggested, impoliticly. At Dal's responding glare he shrugged, setting the nailbow swaying on his shoulder. 'I'm just saying.'

Dal was formulating a scathing reply, when he saw movement, and identified it a moment later as Soul and Ygor on their rapid return. The fools, they've been spotted, was his instant thought.

Without being told, Mordrec was heading back into the canes to rouse the others.

'Report,' Dal snapped angrily, but Ygor was grinning broadly.

'You'll love it,' the Scorpion promised. 'You'll kiss me for it.'

'What, Ygor?'

'It's the raiding party. Our raiding party.'

Dal stared at him dumbly, then looked to Soul for confirmation.

'It's true,' the Gra.s.shopper confirmed. 'We spoke with that Spider, Avaris. They got lost. Been wandering around for a day or so trying to find us.'

'Just shy of a hundred fighting men and women now, they've got,' Ygor added with great satisfaction.

Dal weighed up the numbers in his head.

'Come morning, we head south,' he decided. 'We move fast, and in one group. When we meet the Salmae, we fight. There's nothing else for it. We'll break through them, or break against them. We've reached the end of it.'

Thirty-Two.

'They're now moving in force towards the border. This leader of theirs is a resourceful fellow, it seems,' Lowre Cean remarked mildly.

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