Stormrider (31 page)

“From Nashira?” The look Silvercat gave Stormrider could have melted lead. “I do not understand. Where is Nashira?”

“I am from a land very far away,” Stormrider explained. “That is where The Amulet was before it was brought to Nashira by the same evil men who are now attacking The People. They desire to take The Amulet back from Blue Thunder. If The Amulet had never left there, this would not be happening.”

“The Amulet was born upon Nashira. It has life that was nurtured here. This is its home. It wished to return.” This from Song Dog.

“Perhaps The Amulet was not sacred to your people and did not wish to remain among them,” Silvercat offered.

“No,” Stormrider said firmly. “It has always been revered as the mark of our leader. Among our people it has been placed about the throat of the next leader and it has never rejected one of the line it follows though our legends say it has the power to do so.”

Silvercat looked at Song Dog lowering her lashes respectfully. “Perhaps then it should return with Stormrider. Perhaps she should take it away. It has caused much pain since it returned here.”

“It brought joy as well,” Song Dog returned stubbornly. “The Amulet does not cause the death and pain. The evil men do.”

What, Raptor wondered what would The Amulet cause when they finally located it? What if the Disir were correct and The Amulet was making its own choices? Yet what the Disir had described, far from being an object of holy veneration, was a mistake of creation. If it was gaining power, was it to remain benevolent? The questions were multiplying. The answers seemed harder to find.

The gathering place is not far.
Strongheart tapping against Stormrider’s thoughts and emotions for attention.
We are near your goal. Stormrider. You will be able to retrieve The Amulet if that is still your desire.

Stormrider ignored the wolf’s last comment. “We’re very near Strongheart informs me. We better find a place to wait until dark.”

It seems as if now is the time for a plan
. Starwalker offering counsel to Raptor who nodded absently as they made their way to a deep cut in the earth which threaded a parallel course to the one they had been following.

The wolves led on, darting back and forth between vantage point and those following in their wake. Silvercat, delicate hands stiff in Starwalker’s mane, grew paler as they drew nearer.

Chapter 25

Raptor had not been too pleased with the idea of bringing Silvercat along on their scouting mission, since among The People it was not a woman’s place to take part in the fighting. Stormrider, however, had made the point quite bluntly that she was needed. And, if as the Disir had claimed, Nashira was in the throws of upheaval of their social order—change necessitated by the very outside influences they were fighting here—then by Dinh Dinh’s perdition one in a position of power (no matter how comparatively slight), such as Silvercat, needed to lead the way to change. The wolves were near. Their delicate senses would pick up any approaching Dinh Dinh, and Raptor possessed one of their weapons. As for Song Dog, it was impossible to put him off no matter what the argument.

So they all lay flat, bellies pressed to the ground, staring out across what was to have been the festive gathering place of The People. Instead it lay in a pall of heavy silence, only occasionally broken by a barked command or cut off shriek.

“Have you spotted any of the
Jaiqi
?” Raptor asked the question of Stormrider, lying close beside her, lips moving almost against her ear.
 

The Dinh Dinh and Jarrel were enough. They did not need the
Jaiqi
combining forces with them. The slavers were problem enough for another day.

Stormrider shook her head, a barely perceptible movement.

 
“Good.”

“Have you seen Jarrel or any of the Dinh Dinh?” Stormrider asked in her turn.

The same short shake of the head from Raptor.

They had been there, on the knoll overlooking the campsite, since it had gotten dark enough to go undetected and neither had seen anything of use beyond eyeing the erratic lay-out of the camp. Hours had passed.

No doubt there was a pattern to it if one knew where to begin unraveling the thread, but Raptor had no such experience. It looked like a cluster of brush huts, dome-shaped, and each remarkably the same as any other. Where there should have been children running and playing in the beaten dirt paths between there was only silence. Smoke curled from the smoke holes of many of the huts, but many others were ominously dark and empty.

“Where would your father be, do you know?” Stormrider asked Silvercat gently. The young woman beside her quivered involuntarily.

“There.” Silvercat pointed to a hut on the fringes of the camp, distinguishable from the others by a colorful headdress propped on a pole before the hut, full and blowzy in the evening breezes. “If he lives and they have not moved him.”

“He lives,” Song Dog said firmly. “Blue Thunder would not die so easily.”

Stormrider glanced at him and remembered with a pang just how easily One Eye had died.

“And the warriors,” Stormrider persisted a bit more stiffly, the next question not an easy one, “were there any left alive?”

“There,” Silvercat pointed now to a larger hut, one apparently erected with ceremonial intent; a place where many could gather. “They took them all there. They said the ones left alive would be given to the
Jaiqi
as gifts. Some of the women and children too, but they were left in their huts.”

“There are fliers on the north edge of camp,” Raptor murmured. “I’d bet my right arm on it.”

Stormrider followed the direction of his gaze, eyes coming to light on suspicious mounds of brush, not quite as fresh as that which grew in clumps around them.

“Only three,” she returned, “You did hurt them badly.”
 

“Bounty hunter’s knack.” He grinned.
 

“I’m going down,” Stormrider declared.

Raptor’s hand was instantly on her shoulder. “Wait. It’s dangerous. We need to talk.”

Raptor gestured them back, off the crest of the knoll and they all moved silently, withdrawing; putting a little distance between them and the Dinh Dinh controlled encampment.

“Most of what I do is dangerous,” Stormrider responded. “Sharing company with
you
is dangerous now that Jarrel undoubtedly has a price on your head.”

“We’ll have to move fast if the
Jaiqi
are coming to claim their free prize from Jarrel.” Raptor shared her viewpoint of entering the darkened camp. Necessary . . . but undeniably dangerous. Were he alone he would see no other alternative.

“That is why I’m going down,” Stormrider returned.

“You’re not planning on anything suicidal, are you?” He was thinking, deciding his own course, concerned about hers.
 

Stormrider gave Raptor an exasperated grimace and turned to Silvercat. “If you truly know where The Amulet is, you must tell me now.”

Silvercat looked horrified. “I cannot!”

“If your father is alive,” Stormrider began patiently, mouthing the words in near silence despite her urge to yell, “if we are to have any chance at saving him, we must make the man who chased you believe The Amulet is lost to them, that they have nothing more to gain from your father. Then we have to distract them.”
 

“The Amulet is everything to my father! He would never forgive me if I bought his life at a price such as betrayal!”

Strongheart touched Stormrider, tone dark and deadly.
Jarrel is here. I have picked up his scent.

As have I.
Littlefoot slinking between the hills, much nearer the camp than those on the knoll overlooking it.

Silvercat looked to Song Dog for advice. The young warrior did not speak, he merely gave her a stern look, his expression alone enough to repeat his earlier pronouncement upon Stormrider’s motivations.

“There are things I came to Nashira to do,” Stormrider admitted. “The Amulet is very important to us. A great war could be fought if it is not returned. But more important to me than The Amulet is your father, Blue Thunder and The People. I don’t understand everything that is happening. I have seen The Ancient Ones and they have told me I will know what I must do when the time comes. For now, I will have to accept that. It would appear that, also for now, so must you. Tell me where The Amulet is hidden.”

Silvercat’s mouth dropped open. “You have seen and spoken to The Ancient Ones?” She looked to Song Dog for confirmation.

He was grudging but truthful. “It is true,” he answered her, “We have all seen them. I have heard their words and she does not lie.” He would have been happier if he could have denounced her as a liar, but honor forbade anything less than truthfulness from him.

Silvercat licked her lips gazing off into the darkness, pondering all she had heard. The decision was a difficult one for the girl, but it was not slow in coming. “The Amulet is inside my father’s hut. So to reach one you must reach the other. It is inside a small leather pouch and buried deep beneath the ground. It likes being within the womb of Nashira. It glows even brighter each time we again bring it into the light.”

“Where inside the hut is it buried?”

“Inside the door so that it may know by our tread that we are near and have not left it, and so that it may face the rising sun.”

I see no ponies in the camp.
Starwalker passing an observation along to Raptor.
Some of the people keep ponies so they will be able to ride. It makes no sense there are none.

“The ponies,” Raptor put the question to Silvercat, the young girl now a font of information, “where are they?”

“Lost when the fighting started. Our people cut the tethers rather than let the animals die when the evil men used the terrible weapon.”

Raptor passed the answer along to Starwalker out of reflex using the bond without thinking much anymore about it.

Strongheart appeared at Stormrider’s side.
I saw a few guards. They are awake and alert. Perhaps the Dinh Dinh and your Jarrel are not on as good a terms with the Jaiqi as they would like to be?

“Possible,” Stormrider returned. “Possible also that they are watching for us, or for the arrival of more of The People. The gathering for the circle of the year is not yet complete. Many more will come to join in the festivities over the next few days.”

There is little to celebrate.

“Perhaps we can change that.”

Trotting out of the darkness, Littlefoot limped slightly, the long days of continual strain on her bad foot telling.
Bear Dreamer has joined us.

Stormrider threw a glance at Raptor, then settled her gaze on Song Dog. “Littlefoot says Bear Dreamer is near. How could he have followed us here?”

“He is a mystic and thus he possesses abilities few do. He can track over nothing. Grey Wanderer has said that it has not yet been decided by Bear Dreamer or the fates if he will walk on the dark side or the light. So he walks a strange path. Not fighting the evil, not embracing the good, but neither does he embrace the evil nor reject the good. He is as a still pond. Impossible to predict the changes a storm may bring.”

“Great,” Raptor muttered. “You’d think the Disir might have had the decency to detain old Bear Dreamer a while back in Kadlu when we left.”

That is not their way.
This from Starwalker who came to stand close to Raptor, head lowered slightly to look him directly in the eye.

“Well it’s not my way to wait for him to make up his mind about what to do.” Raptor turned to Stormrider. “If we’re going down there, let’s go.”

“We?”

He flicked a glance in Silvercat’s direction, wondering how this little revelation would affect the girl’s thinking, decided to Hela with it and said, “I’m still a bounty hunter. The Amulet is down there and there is a debt to settle with Jarrel. I don’t like having a price on my head.”

Stormrider managed a faint smile. “A novel turn-about for a bounty hunter no doubt.”

He seeks to protect you.
Littlefoot’s observation accented with a wide yawn revealing sharp, glistening teeth.

“I know,” Stormrider replied wearily.

“Know what?” Raptor glanced from wolf to woman. He was getting pretty good at picking up the thread of conversation between woman and wolves with his personal experience with Starwalker as a guide.

“Much more than I care to,” Stormrider returned cryptically, then turned to Song Dog. “I’m going to have to ask you to remain here with Silvercat. Stay on the crest of the knoll and watch the campsite. We’ll need to know everything you’ve seen when we return.”

For a change Song Dog did not protest, but merely nodded.

Silvercat touched the long sleeve of Stormrider’s leather tunic. “You’ll bring my father back with you?”

“I don’t know,” Stormrider replied honestly. “We’ll have to see what’s down there first. I promise I’ll do whatever we can to aid your father, but it may be that we have to retreat to formulate a plan before proceeding.”

“I will beseech the Goddess to protect you both,” was the young woman’s reply.