The Warrior Enchained

13

I hung slackly from the Y frame, so deeply into shock that I no longer felt the pain. My arms and wrists and shoulders were as numb as my back, but somehow I was aware of the blood trickling down toward the backs of my legs, blood drawn by the whip the bedin had wielded. How many strokes I’d had I didn’t think I’d ever know, but there had been enough to make me be sick all over myself, enough to make me draw my shield in tight to keep from projecting the agony. My body had sweated into the cool desert night even more than the bedin’s had.

Suddenly I shivered, and the soul-searing pain that flashed with the shiver seemed to somehow clear my mind. It wasn’t all over, it had barely begun, and I couldn’t make myself understand that it would be my life that was over. Slowly, straining in an effort that was almost too great to make, I forced the shield back to nothingness. The night flared into new being with the minds that inhabited it, animal minds, human minds—and any combination of the two. I was even more aware of my own labored breathing and the way it forced an echo from my body’s reawakened pain.

But the pain had to be ignored if it wasn’t going to be added to. I cast my sensing ability around to all sides, making sure no one was watching me even from a distance, and then turned my attention to the seetarr tied nearby. Most of them were half asleep, pleased to be allowed to do nothing more than drowse, but one or two were wide awake and aware of what had happened near them. They knew someone had been given pain, but none of them seemed to care—until I reached the mind of Tammad’s big male. Weakened though I was, the seetar recognized my mind touch immediately, a rumbling anger coming from his throat when he realized it was I who had been hurt. The big male bad cared for me almost from the first,. and he didn’t hesitate when he understood I needed him. His large, sharp teeth clamped onto the lead tying him to the line with the rest of the seetarr, the lead parted with a snap as he backed away from the line, and then he was moving toward me, determined to do what he could to help me.

Seetarr are very intelligent animals, but that intelligence doesn’t make them more than animals. Tammad’s seetar was completely willing to help me, but I couldn’t seem to get through to him with the idea of what sort of help I needed. After a few minutes of trying I was sweating again, and what the sweat felt like on my back is better left unsaid. The problem came down to the fact that the seetar didn’t understand that I couldn’t free myself and needed him to do it for me. What emotions could be used to convey such an idea was beyond me to conceive of, it being all I could do to keep the seetar from bellowing aloud at his own frustration and the mounting pain I was feeling. The dizzier I got the more his rage increased, his huge black body stamping in the sand in front of me, his eyes blazing, his nostrils flaring; then, completely out of patience, his massive head shot down, his teeth closed on one of the arms of the Y, and I was suddenly ripped up out of the sand and hurled with the frame into the air. The gesture was so violent and caused me so much pain, I was unconscious before I hit the sand again.

I awoke to a large sandpapery tongue licking at my left arm. I tried to move away from that raspy show of concern, but my body screamed at the first attempt, nearly sending me back into darkness. I forced vision back into my eyes to confirm the fact that I was lying face up in the sand, a heavy wooden something lying on top of me. As soon as I understood the something was the Y frame, everything else came back-including the seetar’s violent gesture. I decided I had to move again just to see if something was broken, but I didn’t really want to move, and that made it more than difficult. Then my eyes focused on the left arm of the Y frame, really seeing it instead of just looking in its direction. It was raggedly cracked in half, most likely from the seetar’s bite, and just a little strength ought to break it the rest of the way and free me.

I was so wild at the thought of being free that it was a good thing nothing on me had been broken. I pulled with all my strength against the wood holding me prisoner, setting the various cuts and bruises on me to smarting again, but after a minute the wood cracked through, loosening the leather that had held me tight to the notched arm. I snaked my wrist out of the loops, undoubtedly leaving blood smears behind, then began working on the leather holding my right wrist. It took so long getting it loose that I had to rest when I was done, but I couldn’t afford to rest too long. I had no idea when they would be coming back to finish me, and I had to be gone by then.

Slipping out from under the Y frame was harder than I thought it would be. I was totally incapable of lifting it off me, leaving sliding through the sand my only other option. With the help of pain control I was able to do the sliding, but if I hadn’t had adrenalin pouring through me I’m sure I would have collapsed. Once I was out from under I lay on my side in the sand, fighting to control the gasping my breathing had become, fighting to keep the darkness from closing in on me. Being untied was only the first step to freedom, and the next had to be taken to make the first meaningful.

I fought my way to my knees as soon as I could, then pulled myself erect by holding onto the seetar’s bridle. He had been hovering over me in concern, and when I put my arms around his head and hugged him in gratitude, his rumble very nearly became a purr. He was feeling pleased that he’d managed to do the right thing after all the difficulty we’d had understanding each other, but he didn’t seem ready to go on from there. I needed to get to the other side of the oasis, where the beginning of the pebbled flats could be found, but running away on foot wouldn’t have been possible even if I hadn’t been aching head to toe with pain. I needed a seetar to ride and the barbarian’s mount would have been perfect; the only trouble was, he was the barbarian’s mount. I tugged at his bridle, trying to get him moving, but he wasn’t interested in going anywhere. He’d helped me willingly, and would let me ride him when I sat behind the barbarian, but my riding him alone wasn’t something he could accept. His mind automatically rejected the idea of going anywhere without his saddle being properly filled.

I withdrew from his mind with a weary sigh, knowing when I was beaten. I’d be wasting time I didn’t have trying to work on the intractable beast. The only thing to do was check out the rest of the mounts, but I needed to lean on the big male beside me until I reached the line the others were tied to. I worked as fast as I could, but I had to go through seven uninterested minds before I found one with enough curiosity to try something new. The seetar was a young male, either not yet wedded to the idea of a single rider or not so fond of his owner that he couldn’t bear to be parted from him. I stumbled over to the beast, managed to get it to kneel by projecting some of my own weariness, then pulled myself into the saddle. Somehow I was able to stay mounted while the beast stood again, and was also able to take a large, nearly empty waterskin from the next seetar over once my mount was standing straight. A gentle flick of the reins got us moving, and I turned to send a final good-bye to the barbarian’s large male, who seemed vaguely unsatisfied about something. But unsatisfied or not he stayed where he was, and we moved away, off into the night.

I circled the tents of the camp carefully and quietly, alert for any human presence, giving thanks that an oasis was a place where sentries didn’t seem to be required. I meant to stop at the drinking pond only long enough to fill the waterskin, but an experimental easing up of pain control showed me how badly sand does in open wounds. I was forced to take a quick bath in the bathing pool as well, an action which set me shivering and throbbing in the cool night air. Once I was in the saddle again, the seetar standing erect, I discovered a rolled up set of sleeping furs tied behind the saddle. I worked one of the furs out with trembling hands, retied the rest, then wrapped the fur around me. As soft as the fur was it still added to the touch of pain, but that didn’t keep me from urging my mount out across the flats I’d been so anxious to reach. Even though I hurried, I knew there was no real reason to hurry; one escaped slave would hardly be chased after, even if she had stolen a seetar. Aside from that there was no one who would be interested in me or what happened to me; that had been made abundantly clear. I was on my own on a strange, savage world, a world I had never really wanted to have anything to do with. I’d work at trying to survive because something inside me insisted that I do so, but if I failed it would be no great loss. Even I didn’t care about me any more.

The sun was merciless as it beat down on me, but I kept going until I felt the seetar too tired to go on. We were on sand again, long beyond the stretch of pebbled flats we’d started out on, but at least we had the distant mountains to guide us. I sweated terribly under the fur I had covering me, endlessly glad that I’d left the veil and headband behind in the bathing pool, continuously telling myself that sweating was better than broiling alive. I had nothing but the furs to cover myself with, and had even draped the second fur over the saddle so that I might sit on it. It kept my flesh from being rubbed raw by hard leather and burned by sun-baked metal parts, but it also increased the sensation of being buried alive in a soft, awakening volcano.

Once the seetar had let me down, I gave him some water and took a drink for myself, then arranged the furs on the sand so that I might lie on them. The seetar had fed well enough at the oasis to keep him from being hungry yet, and I was too ill to feel any hunger. My body ached and flared even through the pain control, and I wasn’t at all sure I wouldn’t be sick all over myself again. I lay down on the fur, burying myself under the top one, the carrying strap of the waterskin under the furs with me. I had given the seetar the impression that we would stay where we were until we were rested, but I wasn’t strong enough to make the suggestion a command. If my mount happened to wander off before I woke again, I didn’t want the water going with him.

Sleep found me almost at once, a sleep heavy enough to be drugged. It lasted until I awoke with a moan, throwing the covering fur off me, still dream-convinced that I’d wander through sand forever, beyond the time when my water gave out, beyond the time when life fled from my body. The sun was just disappearing behind the distant mountains, leaving a twilight zone of cool between it and the cold of night. My seetar lowered his massive head to nuzzle me, concern clear in his thoughts. I quickly assured him everything was all right, gave each of us some water, then reembarked upon the torture of moving on.

We came within sight of the end of true desert before nightfall was complete. A stretch of flats appeared again, but this time low, sickly bushes could be seen beyond the flats. We moved into the area of bushes and continued on for hours, but it was growing more and more difficult for me to tell what was around me. My body shivered in the cold darkness even with the furs, my mind wandered from real to unreal so often I was beginning to be unable to distinguish between them, and the pain brought by the sway and bounce of the seetar was threatening to grow beyond all control. After a long time I realized we were moving over grass, and even longer after that there were suddenly trees all around. How long we’d been among the trees I didn’t know, but the sun was just beginning to pink the sky and my right hand was stiff from having held so tightly to the seetar’s short, bristly mane. My mount was hungry and wanted to stop for something to eat, but I laughed weakly and projected a feeling of patience at him. The embassy I’d been searching for was just beyond the trees, and it would have been silly to stop before we reached it.

The sun was well up before we found the embassy in a clearing, but for some reason the building’s style had been changed. Instead of still being a wide, two-story affair, it had become a dozen or more small tents with one large tent in the center. The large tent was of red, had a high, pointed roof with pennants at the top, and seemed to be at least hexagonal in shape if not octagonal. The smaller tents were of every other color but red, had lower roofs and smaller pennants, and were only square. I didn’t really understand about the arrangement; but moved forward again without waiting for understanding to come. I badly needed one of those tents for myself, and the soft bed it would contain. I didn’t feel well, and I wanted to lie down on a bed instead of on hot, blistering sand.

As we reached the tents and began moving among them, I tried to figure out which one would be mine. The last time I’d been at the embassy I’d had a yellow room—tent—whatever it was; if I took another yellow I couldn’t be too far off. I directed the seetar toward the nearest yellow room, standing about twenty feet away, hoping I’d be able to find the strength to walk into it on my own. Embassy people didn’t like having animals in their rooms, and Denny would be angry if I rode in. I realized I should have left the seetar parked on the lowest level—

The two men in belted, baggy pants and wide-sleeved shirts came at me silently but swiftly, one grabbing the reins of my mount, the second reaching up to pull me from the saddle. I tried to scream from a dry, aching throat as his hands took my arms and pulled, but the effort was too great. Instead I found myself projecting hatred and fear, lashing out with my mind as I couldn’t do with my body. The man holding me screamed and dropped me to the ground, his hands going to his ears in an effort to block off the projection, the man at the seetar’s bridle groaning and doing the same. I hit the ground hard as yells and screams came from all over the place, then darkness came in answer to the screams, and I saw no more.