Riders Of The Winds Page 4

  2

  The Outcasts of the Kudaan

  Sam awoke very slowly and groaned. She hurt all over and figured that there hadn't been a muscle not used or a square inch of surface left unbruised. The very act of attempting to sit up caused pain, but she managed it. Her eyes wouldn't focus right; it seemed pretty dark for where they'd settled in, the sky fairly light and clear but sunless, although it seemed to get a little brighter even as she watched. What the hell . . . ?

  My god, it's morning! she suddenly realized. It is getting brighter! The sun's coming up, not going down!

  Quickly she turned to check on the kids. They were there, huddled close together, still out but looking no worse than they had before. Still, they were bruised and burned by the sun and they looked, well, probably almost as bad as she did. This can't go on, she decided. As much as I like them, if they stay with me they're gonna die. Somehow, if we get out of this spot, I'm gonna have to find a place for them. Maybe I'm a shit for giving my word and gain' back on it, but up to now it hasn't been my doing. If I can find 'em a spot and don't take it, though, their blood'll be on my hands.

  She sat back a moment, trying to get her mental bearings. Morning. It had been late afternoon when they'd slid into the river and crawled away from those guys up to here. That meant they'd slept the whole damned night through! Charley and Boday . . . Oh, god! If those guys didn't catch them, and it was a good bet they hadn't since she'd seen the riders go past, then the others had probably spent a lot of time looking for them and still missed them.

  She tried to think. She'd swallowed a lot of water in and around that river yet she felt dry, her lips almost cracking. What if we slept two days? Good god, is that possible? It might be—there was no way to tell. She hadn't had access to a calendar or a watch in a pretty long time anyway, and they had been through so much and been so exhausted. A day and a half, anyway.

  She got unsteadily to her feet and managed to go down to the water at the bend. It was shallow enough right in here that she could go in for a little, wash off whatever was on her, and get some of the water on her face and inside her. It helped, although not as much as she would have liked. She felt weak and nauseous and it was just what she didn't need to feel right now. About the only consolation was that if her stomach had anything in it she'd probably throw it up anyway, so there wasn't much loss. Well, unlike the kids, she had plenty of reserves. Considering she had water, she could probably feed off, her own fat for a month. Days without eating, lots of exercise and 1 bet I lost maybe two or three pounds, she thought grumpily. Would nothing ever go right for her here? Would she never get a lucky break?

  Suddenly her depressing reverie was broken by the screams of Sheka, and she jumped up and out of the water and rushed back to the hiding place, not quite sure what the hell she could do but knowing she had to try something nevertheless.

  She first saw the two girls, huddled together against the rock and staring in stark terror at something beyond. She stopped, turned, and followed their gaze.

  He was about thirty feet away, standing still as stone on a rock ledge that had no obvious way up or down but was still about twenty feet up the canyon wall. He was of medium height, well built and muscular, and he was as naked as they were. He wasn't all that handsome but he had a strong face with a prominent Roman nose and maybe a mouth a little too small for its setting, and if he had any ears at all they were hidden in the weirdest-looking haircut Sam had ever seen. He also—well, it was probably the distance and an illusion, but he didn't seem to have any arms.

  Sam looked around, found a couple of rocks, and picked them up. Something was better than nothing. "Who are you?" she called out to him, thankful that she'd been able to drink her fill first. "What do you want with us?"

  For a moment the stranger said nothing, then he responded, in a soft, rather gentle voice that was both educated and classical in its way, "I was about to ask you that very question. This is my land, and it is not often that I discover three naked Akhbreed women in the midst of it."

  Sam decided to gamble on honesty, considering that she had only two rocks and little else to play any other way.

  "Look, sir, in the past few days we have been attacked, almost drowned twice, held captive by some very evil sorts who raped and abused us, lost our family and friends and all our meager possessions, hunted through here by more hard-looking men and forced into this condition."

  The strange man thought it over. As the first real sunlight came into the canyon and struck him, his eyes seemed to shine, almost like a cat's, when he turned his head slightly.

  "You are from the wagon train that was crushed in the flash flood over on the main highway, then," he said, nodding to himself. "You have come a long way."

  She clutched the rocks tighter. "You—know about that?"

  "Oh, yes. I have been surveying the region for two days now, ever since word of it came, looking for any survivors who might be in such condition as yourselves. This is not a land easy to live in in the best of conditions, and it is a killer if you do not know and love it."

  You're telling me! "And have you found any survivors?"

  "A few."

  "And what do you do with them? Everyone we've encountered in this hell since we got here has been trying to rape, murder, or enslave us."

  He sighed. "I am Medac Pasedo. My father is Duke Alon Pasedo of the Kingdom of Mashtopol, who holds the governor's position in this district. We are neither bandits nor murderers, and I am incapable of forcing anything upon you myself, but I am almost uniquely qualified to find and bring to safety any who require it."

  "Yeah, I bet," Sheka sneered. "And the son of a duke forgets his pants, right? And what duke would ever be governor out here?"

  Medac Pasedo sighed. "I am sorry if I offend your morals, but you are not exactly cloaked in modesty yourselves," he noted. "As for me, I find that any clothing that would not inhibit me would be impossible to remove when needed, such as to relieve oneself. That is for the same reason that I am no threat to you and why one such as my father would accept this sort of post." With that Medac raised what should have been his arms, but were not.

  They were wings.

  Not mere wings, either, but great, majestic wings, fully feathered. He looked one way, then the other, as if either testing the air or waiting for something, then suddenly jumped off the cliff and began to soar, first down a bit, then up and around, soaring and looping, and then coming down and to a running rest on the river trail.

  Sam was so startled she dropped both rocks and just stared.

  "By the gods, he's a freak!" Rani muttered. "We're in the hands of the freaks! They'll kill us sure, or make us into monsters!"

  Sam turned and glared at the two girls who saw only horror in this man, even though she knew it was how they had been raised. She didn't necessarily trust the guy, but whether or not she did wouldn't depend on if he had arms or wings, hair or feathers.

  And, in fact, he did have feathers, thick ones, from the top of his head back down his back and ending in a birdlike tail that almost but not quite reached the ground. It had been masked by the shadows on the cliff before but was quite obvious now.

  "I cannot do you harm," he said as reassuringly as possible. "Hollow bones. Without them I could never fly. Only in the air am I among the biggest and strongest; on the ground I am fragile and easily broken."

  Sam was more curious than fearful right now. The fellow just seemed too genuine to disbelieve, and he certainly was vulnerable. "A changewind did this to you?"

  He nodded. "There are far worse fates the winds can mete out than this, although it has its disadvantages, not the least of which that I would be under a death sentence anywhere in Mashtopol proper except the Kudaan Wastes. Rank and blood does have some privileges. Most of the kingdoms have places like this, refuges for the unlucky and the exiled and the sentenced. We are fortunate enough to also have a king who could not conceive of even his transfigured nephew grubbing for food like an animal. My father
, who is still very much a full Akhbreed, has established a comfortable refuge in his governor's quarters for those who merely had misfortune and are not running or hiding for other reasons. I can take you to it, if you wish."

  "Don't trust no freaks!" Sheka hissed, and Rani nodded nervously.

  Sam whirled on them. "This will stop! Now! Did your father die so that you can rot in the sun of this land and your bones be eaten by animals? This is no different than catching a disease, or being crippled in an accident. The sooner you get that through your head the better. Now, I don't know if he's telling the truth or not, but I'm going with him. I'm going with him first because there's no place else to go and I'm in no condition to scrabble naked and unarmed over this land. And I'm going with him because he saw us long before we saw him, and if he meant us real harm he could have brought in anybody or anything he wanted without us even knowing until it was too late."

  "You're not our real mother," Rani retorted. "You can't talk to us like that."

  "Oh, so it's that way, huh? Okay, then, you're on your own, both of you. You can come, and follow orders, and behave yourselves, or you can stay here and strike off on your own. You're right—I have no call on you, but if you stick with me you behave. If you stay here, well and good, but I got a real good idea that within another day or so you'll wind up back under some bastard's thumb, tied up and used as playthings."

  "She is quite correct," the bird man put in. "The canyon area is thick with every sort of dangerous type because it is the only aboveground river within hundreds of leegs. The rest are mere springs and oases that will support few and are not numerous. I know the prejudices of the Akhbreed, for I was born and raised one myself. But if I am a mere freak, this land is teeming with monsters, some physically, many more inside where you cannot see but which is far more deadly and dangerous, as well as every sort of criminal, fugitive, madman, black witch, and blacker sorcerer. They will not touch you if you are with me, as I have the protection of Malokis, High Sorcerer of Mashtopol, as a member of the governor's company, and my father's resources and troops and their knowledge of this land are enough to protect us. Here, you might escape them for a day, perhaps two, but sooner or later they will find you or you will run into them."

  He said it with such casual confidence that Sam really believed him, and that made her even angrier at the kids, who were acting very irrationally considering the circumstances. The first real break in a long time and they were screwing it up. And Boolean was counting on her to help save this damned Akhbreed culture!

  "Let's go," she told him. "They can come, or not. Is it far?"

  "Not very. About an hour and a half at a regular pace. You just take the trail until it splits off, the main trail following the river and the other going into a steep-walled side canyon. The imperial seal is on a post at the trail branch to note what it is. Follow that branch and you will quickly come to the ducal residence. It is green there and quite grand, really. You can't miss it."

  "You're not walking with us?" Sam asked, suddenly apprehensive about that "protection."

  "I cannot possibly walk that distance. I will cover you all the way from the air, and if anyone should challenge you I will be instantly there. I am well known here, and I know most of the vermin who lurk about. There is a certain—agreement— between us. They will not break it for their own sakes."

  That told volumes about how things worked around here. She would never have suspected that such a terrible place as this would have a governor, but if there really was one then he was damned sure corrupt as hell. This was not merely a refuge or hideout for unfortunate changelings and those cursed by magic, she remembered Navigator Jahoort saying. It was also a hideout and hangout for criminals and political exiles.

  "Uh—you say your father has some troops?" she prompted, hoping against hope.

  He nodded. "Yes. Enough."

  "Do they wear dull green and black uniforms?"

  He frowned. "No. Blue with gold trim, as with all Mashtopol forces. Why?"

  "The men we lost everything trying to avoid were in those black uniforms. They stole everything we had."

  "That is not good. There should be no foreign or irregular forces in here. My father will want to know this. And they went downstream?"

  "Yes."

  "I shall have a look for them from on high, if they are still anywhere in the area." He made ready to take off.

  "Wait! You said you found some other refugees! Did you find any down here? A tall woman with tattoos all over and a young, pretty girl with designs like a butterfly?"

  He started at that. "Urn, I am quite certain that had I encountered either of the ones you mention I would have remembered. All the rest were discovered above. You are the first and only in the river canyon area."

  Shit! Well, half a loaf is better than none, but where in hell could they be? "They were with us when this all started. Yesterday, maybe, or maybe the afternoon of the day before. I don't know how long we were out."

  He nodded. "Well, once we have you safely at my father's, I will make certain that the word gets out. If they are anywhere in the district I am certain we will be able to locate them." And, with that, he began to run, picking up a fair amount of speed, wings outstretched; and then, suddenly, he rose into the air, perhaps only a few feet at first, but curving, swirling, and with each maneuver gaining altitude.

  Sam sighed and turned to the girls. "Well? Are you coming or not?"

  Rani looked at Sheka and Sheka looked at Rani and both sighed. "Yeah, I guess so," said the older girl. And, together, they started off down the trail.

  They didn't see the winged man anymore, although they occasionally looked around for him, but the trail division was pretty easy to spot. True to the instructions, right at the division was an imposing stone pillar on which were written in professional carved type some very fancy pictographs—Sam knew how to speak Akhbreed but had never learned to read and write it—and a very fancy seal of metal mounted with strong masonry bolts that had obviously been made elsewhere and brought in.

  Rani looked at the words. "Well, at least he's telling this much of the truth," she said, studying the monolith. "It says 'Seat of the Royal Governor, Yatoo Canyon District, Commonwealth of Kudaan, Kingdom of Mashtopol.' That's fancier than the one we had."

  "Well," Sam sighed, feeling a bit irritated that she had to depend on a thirteen-year-old to read her a sign, "at least we now know where we are." She looked down at herself. "Great outfit to meet a royal governor," she added sourly. A year with Boday had destroyed any sense of modesty she ever had, but she sure as hell was gonna make one great first impression.

  The difference in the canyon area was apparent almost immediately. Here was the first tributary they had seen running into the main river. It wasn't much more than a creek, maybe ankle deep and six feet wide, but it was real running water and it was coming from someplace, and it appeared to be supporting a fairly large amount of vegetation. It wasn't exactly a jungle, but there were groves of tall, thin trees and other areas obviously cultivated. The trail passed over a number of irrigation canals that had the remnants of water in them, and there were actually some birds and insects about.

  And there were people about in those cultivated areas, doing something that farm types might do, whatever that was. Sowing or irrigating or picking or whatever, maybe fertilizing. They were a strange crop; many of them were less human than creatures, at least in appearance, with all manner and variety of strangeness. Ones with saucerlike eyes and others with trunklike noses and ones with fur and tails and some too downright weird to categorize easily. They worked well together, though, and with humans. Both males and females seemed to wear only skirtlike garments, the men solid colors, the women colorful patterns, kind of Hawaiian, like before the missionaries had ruined it. There were enough bare breasts that Sam felt a little more at ease, anyway. They were loose here. Well, how strictly religious could a governor be whose son wore feathers and nothing else.

  There was som
ething odd about most of the humans, too, though, that she only realized after they had gone a ways in towards the residence. Many bore ugly scars; others had peg legs or one leg and a crutch, or had one arm or even no arms.

  "Worse than I thought," Sheka whispered loudly to Rani. "Gives me the creeps. They're all freaks or cripples or worse."

  "You watch that kind of talk!" Sam warned. It was a little discomfiting, although she wouldn't admit it to the girls, but it was kind of like touring a hospital's worst wards. You felt sorry for the people and at the same time you were damned glad it wasn't you. That's what this place was, really—a hospital, or, more properly, a sanitarium for those with disfigurements that could never be reversed.

  Most of the people seemed to live in adobe apartment blocks that reminded Sam of New Mexican pueblos. Most were three levels with those who could climb on top and those who couldn't on the bottom. Most of the changelings, except those whose very form made it impossible to climb, were at the very top. Sam was startled to see some apparently normal human kids around there playing, and there were in fact quite a few who looked like very sun-darkened but otherwise whole Akhbreed. So not everybody here was in an asylum. Perhaps they were staff.

  On the side opposite the blocks of pueblo dwellings was an adobe barracks building, stables, and other signs of a small military outpost, complete with two uniformed soldiers standing guard outside the barracks building. They wore the same blue-and-gold uniforms that the wagon train had expected and was almost fooled by, only this time clean and without bloodstains and bullet holes in them. They looked a little hot to wear, but kind of comic-opera snazzy, too.

  The main residence, however, was a knockout. It was huge—it was nearly impossible to say how huge, but Sam's old two-bedroom bungalow back home would have fit inside the main entry hall alone. Even though it, too, was the pink adobe, it looked more like a grand hotel than anybody's house.