Battleslave Page 9

  A broad swath of sprawling vines spread out before the city walls—squash, eggplant, pumpkin, and, unless she was mistaken, vineyards. It seemed strange—a city renowned for its gladiators had such an idyllic, pristine corner.

  Not that an Ilian was one to judge. The city of Anakti was as known for its art as its war.

  Talitha lowered the bucket into the well. It had to go down a good thirty feet before she heard the splash and could reel it back up. It swayed precariously, sloshing water over the side. Talitha cringed, even though the water was spilled back into the well. Something inside her still called it a waste.

  Carefully, she drank her fill. She doubted she would have time to come back again before it came time for her and Ashek to flee tonight. She wanted to give Ashek every drop possible, but she needed her own strength if she was going to get them across the sands tonight back to—where was it? She would find the Dunedrifters again. It hardly mattered.

  Talitha drank nearly the entire bucket then stopped, sated for now. Ashek was even more dehydrated than her. She needed to take back more than her gourd flask could carry.

  Slinking around the side of the nearest hut, she listened to make sure that the clanging of pots and the hum of the house’s woman were coming from the inside. Two empty waterskins lay in the sun, emptied out from earlier in the day, or perhaps yesterday. Talitha snatched up them both.

  On her way back, a clamor caught Talitha’s attention. It was the muted cheers of a half excited, half dutiful crowd.

  Looking up, she found the great swaths of the city’s fields in the north. Meandering around the edge of the village, Eulad waddled beside his father’s litter. She didn’t give the disappointing ensaak’s son a second thought. Prothero rode on his litter with Naram at his side. Talitha’s heart pounded. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw red.

  Prothero only looked dignified in his black robes. Naram looked small and undersized for his role, the armbands and circlets large and oddly shaped on his head.

  How had Esreth ever thought him comely?

  Their vanguard of soldiers and servants formed a buffer between them and the crowd beyond the litter. The Ilian bronze armor shone bright and mocking in the afternoon light.

  Talitha took an involuntary step forward. She had her bow. She could end this now. An arrow through that throat of Naram’s would end this whole thing and avenge her family once and for all.

  She would be killed by the guards, no doubt. She didn’t for a second think she’d survive. Those Ilians were traitors and what interest did the others have in protecting her? They would assume she had been trying to attack their ensaak.

  For a moment, it didn’t matter. What did she have to live for but revenge? Talitha took another step, then the waterskins jostled at her thigh.

  Ashek—he was waiting for her back in that gorge.

  Talitha couldn’t have said what exact thoughts passed through her head, but the next instant, she was turning around and marching back to the well. Her nostrils flared and rage tingled just below her skin.

  She wanted to slam an arrow through each of Naram’s eyes. Those pretty eyes that had so ensnared Esreth and now the whole of Ilios, it seemed. She might never have another chance like this, but she walked away.

  Naram would take her seat, her throne, and her people. Naram would live out his days in splendor because there was no way for her to take back Ilios once he returned to it. And he would return to it, soon.

  All the same, Talitha found herself making her way to the well, then to the gorge with several pilfered waterskins. On the way back, she passed clusters of villagers running to gawk at the ensaak and the foreigner as quickly as they could.

  “I hear he has the beauty of the gods!” cried a young girl, skittering by with a gaggle of friends. “And he’s unbound!” she squealed.

  Those words alone almost made Talitha turn around, but she kept moving. “He’s unbound because he murdered his last wife,” she muttered.

  Reaching the gorge, she found Ashek facedown on the ground with his hand outstretched, as if he had been trying to crawl away.

  Every thought of Naram and revenge left her mind as she dropped to her knees beside him. “Ashek?” She lifted his face from the ground. “Ashek? Can you hear me?”

  “Talitha.” The word was mumbled, barely intelligible. His lips were cracked and swollen, but he knew her.

  “Here.” Talitha held the flask to his mouth. “Drink, Ashek.” She wetted his lips and he didn’t have to be told twice. She had to take the water away to keep him draining the whole thing at once. “Slowly.”

  They stayed like that for an hour or so, Ashek lying on the ground with his head pillowed in her lap while she carefully eased water between his parched lips. He groaned, coming slowly to life with each drop that made it into his body.

  “Talitha.”

  She stooped over to kiss his forehead. “I’ve got you.”

  “Is this a dream?” Clumsily, his hands nonetheless found her hair and he knotted his fingers into the tangles. “I just wanted you safe,” he rasped. “I just wanted you…”

  “Hush.”

  “Talitha…”

  This time, she covered her mouth with his. “Hush,” she whispered into her kiss. “Save your strength.”

  Ashek groaned. “You’re so beautiful.”

  Talitha laughed. Sitting in the dirt with tangled hair and blood and sand and sweat smudged over every inch of her body, didn’t seem the right time for that statement.

  “I hope your eyes haven’t been damaged by all those hours in the sun.”

  “You’re beautiful,” Ashek repeated, as if he hadn’t heard her. Perhaps he hadn’t. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Talitha exhaled. She would be angry with him later. For now, he had been ready to give his life for her. She couldn’t be angry with him now. Not when he was on Death’s door and talking about wanting her happy and safe.

  “I’ve loved you since the Lakesh moisture fields,” Ashek rasped. “When you saved me.”

  Talitha swallowed. For a long moment, she couldn’t seem to look away from his bloodshot blue eyes, watering and brimming with sincerity. All this was just a sign of his delirium. He was just sick with the heat and thirst, right?

  But even delirium wouldn’t have made him say anything he wouldn’t normally. There had to be some truth in it. He had just tried to die for her.

  “Sleep and save your strength for tomorrow.” She couldn’t discuss these things at a time like this.

  Ashek groaned, but didn’t argue. In a few minutes, he was dozing quietly in her arms, laid out on the sand.

  Talitha’s legs fell asleep and her back soon ached, but she clung to him like she couldn’t let go. The hours slipped past. She offered him water when he needed it and drank sparingly herself.

  The sun slipped closer and closer to the western horizon and Talitha waited for their chance to escape.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Talitha saddled the first sirrush she found that wasn’t lame, a colt, or looking to bite the first arm that came within reach. She buckled on the saddle as securely as she could, watching for any signs of the nearby villagers rousing.

  It seemed that the strict, violent policing within the city didn’t apply here. She was able to slip out with a moderately cooperative animal.

  All this stealing from the local peasantry was a sorry thing to do, but what choice did she have? She was on the run for her life and Ashek’s life.

  Loaded down with as much water as the lithe animal could carry, she tied it near the top of the gulch before descending for Ashek.

  He was more conscious now than he had been hours ago, but still groggy with dehydration and pain. She supported him best she could, but his formerly dislocated shoulders were still swollen and tender. He flinched when she slung his arm across her shoulders.

  “Talitha…”

  “Let’s go.” Talitha grunted under his weight and he grunted with
the pain. Nonetheless, the two of them staggered out into the open air a few minutes later with their sirrush waiting.

  It took the two of them working in tandem several minutes, but Ashek was finally on board. Talitha swung up behind him with little difficulty, balancing him lightly between her arms.

  “Alright,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just try to keep your balance. I won’t let us move too quickly.

  “I’m a damnable invalid,” he muttered.

  Complaining about injuries—always a good sign of health in men.

  “Hold on.” Talitha steered the sirrush carefully toward to east where she and the Dunedrifters had headed yesterday—or two nights ago. Time had slid together in her mind.

  It didn’t take long to set the sirrush toward the east with Ashek balanced carefully against her, poised in the circle of her arms.

  Ashek slumped in front of her, precariously balanced. He began nodding off after a few minutes and Talitha nudged his back.

  He jerked abruptly to the left, taking her with him. Cursing, Talitha fell to the sand and the sirrush shied, braying with indignation. She just barely caught its reins before it charged back to the city.

  “Easy, whoa boy,” Talitha spoke to the animal, dragging it back to Ashek. “Ashek?” she knelt beside him. “Are you alright?”

  Groaning, the Dunedrifter rolled onto his back. “My arms are useless.” His jaw clenched, the sunburned skin cracking. He closed his eyes. “You shouldn’t have come back for me.”

  “I couldn’t let you die,” Talitha said. “Now get up.” She made to grab his arm, but he groaned. The shoulder was swollen and hot to the touch.

  “Come on. I’ll walk.” She brought the sirrush around again and they managed to get Ashek back on. He slouched awkwardly. If only she’d been able to find a saddle with stirrups like they had in Ilios. “Just stay upright,” Talitha urged. “I’ve got you.”

  Ashek groaned from atop the animal. “How far do you expect to make it with me?”

  “All the way. And we will make it.” Make it to where? She wondered. She wasn’t sure she could remember the way. It was one thing to find a city rimmed with villages and outlying farms. It was quite another to find a canyon among a thousand canyons in any direction of the Sandsea.

  Talitha gripped the sirrush’s reins and marched into the Sandsea. The animal grumbled in annoyance, tail flicking. It wasn’t well trained, but they couldn’t all be as well-taught as the Ilian mounts. The animal kept trying to nip Talitha’s hand and she had to hold it so close to the halter, she was almost leading it by the bit.

  She kept partially facing Ashek, one hand on his side to steady him. It was slow going, but they were going. Ashek’s bloodshot eyes avoided her, studying the sirrush’s pommel.

  They’d been plodding along for a few hours when yell at her back caught her attention.

  Turning, Talitha cursed.

  “What is it?” Ashek asked.

  “If I had to guess? The owners of this sirrush. Hold on, I’m coming up behind you.” Talitha swung up behind Ashek again. He swayed precariously and it had ended badly the last time they tried riding double, but there weren’t many other options.

  Across the sands, a band of riders in undyed wool, hefting pitchforks and farm tools, barreled after them. They rode sirrushes with the harnesses of work animals—farmers. Talitha was a thief to them, little did they know she was also a fugitive, nor did it matter. If she and Ashek were caught, she couldn’t fight all dozen or so of them at once.

  Though, if it came down to it and she was able to take down one or two with the bow beforehand…she mind stand a chance.

  Spurring the sirrush, the animal honked in indignation. Kicking harder, Talitha whipped the reins from left to right.

  “Hyah!” Talitha yelled.

  The sirrush broke into a sulky lope, head dropping and tail whipping.

  “Come on!” Talitha drove it on faster.

  “You’ll go faster without me,” Ashek mumbled, his back jostling against her.

  “No shit!” Talitha yelled back.

  “Talitha—”

  “I can handle a few sand shovelers! Shut up!” Talitha had planned to shoot them from behind, but she had no way to turn around. Both hands and arms were full of Ashek or the reins and she dared not let go of either. If it had been just her, she could have managed, but—no. She would not admit defeat, even in her mind. “Hang on.”

  She didn’t know why she bothered. Ashek couldn’t rightly hang onto anything in his current state.

  The dunes whipped past them, trees, shrubs, and a small furry animal that narrowly missed the sirrush’s clawed foot. The dunes stretched in every direction around them, endless and boundless and ceaseless.

  It seemed that they could run forever and never reach the end.

  “Come on,” Talitha growled. “Come on!”

  Up ahead, the dunes grew steeper. Though they hadn’t gone far enough for them to be coming up on the canyon, she guessed this meant they were getting close.

  Either way, steeper canyons meant steeper ravines and better cover. If they could just make it that far…

  The sirrush tripped and Talitha and Ashek plummeted to the ground in a tangle of elbows, legs, and reins. Squalling, the animal reeled away and this time, Talitha couldn’t catch it.

  Adrenaline spiked through her blood and Talitha jumped to her feet. Her bow had snapped in the fall, even if she still had a quiver of arrows strapped to her back.

  Drawing her bow, Talitha leapt to stand over Ashek, growling.

  “You are insane,” Ashek mumbled. “It’s ten to one.”

  It was more than that, but several of the farmers had veered off to catch the stolen sirrush.

  Talitha growled. “An unfair fight—for them.” Nocking an arrow, Talitha crouched lower.

  Despite her words and bravado, they were in trouble. Even on her best day, she couldn’t take ten enemies from different directions, fighting alone, without cover, and all at once.

  But she would try and she would take as many of them with her as she possibly could. Perhaps after the first few were dead, the others would lose heart.

  Talitha raised her bow, adjusting her grip. Their hunters came closer. She shuffled her feet in the sand, getting the strongest stance she could. The sirrushes were so close, she could see the insides of their nostrils.

  A roar at her back caught her attention. She spun around.

  For one horrible moment, she feared that she was being flanked. A troop of sirrushes crested the ridge at their backs, swords and armor flashing in the moonlight. Talitha’s chest seized and then she spotted the horns waving from among the mounted warriors.

  “Gilsazi!”

  The tavrosi snapped his head in her direction, but in the dark it was impossible to see his face. His kind were rare. Surely it had to be—

  The Dunedrifters had encircled her and Ashek in an instant.

  The farmers yanked hard on their reins, swerving in the opposite direction at top speed. They had gotten back the sirrush and had no interest whatsoever in facing down the thirty or so warriors that circled Talitha and Ashek.

  “Talitha!” Before she knew what was happening, Gilsazi had jumped down and wrapped her in a great bear hug. He trembled, clutching her like a lost sister. “I thought you were dead.”

  Talitha clung to him in disbelief. “Gilsazi.” He was her best friend, her protector, her brother in all but blood. Ever since they were children, he had been the one constant in her life that had never changed.

  “Ashek?” Emalek was on the ground beside his commander the next instant. “By the Lonely God’s garden, what have they done to you?”

  Ashek coughed, lying in a heap in the sand. He didn’t respond save for a broken smile, his split lips and cracking face stealing any mirth or reassurance from the gesture.

  “You brought him back alive,” Emalek said, nodding to Talitha. “And are still alive yourself.”

  Gilsazi grabbed Talitha�
�s shoulders, putting her at arms length. “You’re lucky Kasrei has such good tracking spells and we were able to find one of your scarves you lent to her. Otherwise, we’d be cleaning up two corpses.”

  Talitha exhaled, lowering her head. All the bravado and courage from a few moments ago was gone. All she wanted was to curl into a ball and sleep.

  “Are you alright?” Gilsazi asked. “Are you hurt?”

  Talitha shook her head. “Get Ashek,” she said to no one in particular. “We…we need Kasrei for him.”

  “I can see. He looks like death overcooked.”

  It was true. Ashek was blistered, bloody, and bruised. How he was even able to speak, she couldn’t imagine. Talitha stepped back and let Ashek be mobbed by Dunedrifters, though she never took her gaze off him. They hefted him gingerly into a sling lashed together from two cloaks and a length of rope.

  Ashek grumbled the whole time, insisting they were overreacting. His pride was recovering well.

  “I feared we had lost you,” Gilsazi said lowly. “Where is Shaza?”

  “Dead. The northerners took him.” Talitha closed her eyes. With the danger past, all the exhaustion and nights of bad sleep were fast catching up with her. “Let’s get somewhere safe. I don’t know if we were chased by Ilians or Prothero’s soldiers from the city.

  “Yes.”

  “When we get to where we’re going, I don’t want to talk about Ashek,” she said quietly. The image of him bound and hanging from the pole with the ropes cutting into his wrists and his shoulders dislocated at obscene angles flashed across her mind. That was a picture she would never forget, but wanted nothing more than to wash it from her mind. “At all.”

  “Understood, my ensaak.”

  The title settled over her strange and foreign. Ashek had been the first one to call her that, what felt like a lifetime ago.

  “Let’s go,” she muttered.

  Gilsazi nodded. He remounted his sirrush and lowered a hand for her. He pulled Talitha up behind his saddle and she clung to his thick waist.

  Rightful ensaak or no, they had to wait for the Dunedrifters to finish loading up Ashek. Talitha found it difficult to look in his direction. Her chest twisted with concern for him, but at the same time…if she let people think she was alright with his presumptuous claim, that would make it that much more difficult later.