The Forlorn(36)

The warm soup and the small pieces of bread curdled uneasily in her stomach. For the moment at least, it seemed they weren't going to come back up. With food, her mind began to function along its normal paths. This boy . . . he could be used. She'd been avoiding human settlement so as to leave no trace of her passage. At first it had just been wise, but fear had prevented her from going to buy food. But this boy, well, he could buy her food, and provide some protection too. He was young and not very big . . . not so good for defending her, but also small enough for her to fend off easily. She gave him one of her devastating smiles.

He looked at her across the fire and sighed. "I wish you were my sister." He came from a place and level of society in which incest was unpleasantly normal.

She was stunned. "I'm no relation of yours, you lowborn common boy!"

He shrugged. "Didn't say you were." He lapsed into silence, looking out at the darkness over her shoulder.

At length, having thought the statement over, and reconsidered it in the light of her time with the beekeepers, she decided that it was perhaps not an insult at all; she had the courage to ask why he wished that she were his sister. His reply did him no good at all.

"I dunno, I always thought if I had a sister then I would have been able to join one of the gangs."

"Why did you have to have a sister to join a gang?"

" 'Cause they didn't let you in if they didn't get one."

There was a dangerous silence. "What did your gang want with the girls?"

He failed to read the signals, concentrating on something else in the darkness. "For the gang bosses to screw, of course, and to rent out."

"You are a despicable, revolting disgusting toad, and you stink!"

He looked at her puzzledly. "Why are you so mad?"

"Do you think, you filthy commoner, that I'd be a . . . a prostitute? I'm a princess, you . . . pig!"

He looked the thin, ragged girl up and down. "Yeah. And I'm the Captain of the Cru. Grab your kit. There's somebody out there and we'd better scram. Move!"

Once again the little princess was silenced. She would cheerfully have refused to go, or have gone elsewhere, but she was too scared of what could be out there in the dark. They left the fire, took up their bags and moved off into the night. Keilin led them unerringly to a trail between the straggling brambles, and up to an area of broken rock slabs. "Slip in here," he whispered, pointing to a rock-edged crack. "I'll leave my gear and go back and see what they're up to."

He'd left his pack . . . so he was planning to come back. Time passed. She had felt safe hidden here among the rocks, but the stillness of the night slowly consumed her confidence. Her stomach hurt. She wasn't sure if it was the soup and bread, or fear. He must have been caught . . . of course he'd lead them to her. He was prepared to sell his own sister, after all. Even though her ears were desperately reaching for sounds, she didn't hear him return.

"Phew, girl, you've got some mean folk looking for you. Pity they couldn't find their own bums in the woods in the dark. I've led them on a merry chase. They're feeling right sorry for themselves now. Next time you steal things make sure you take it from folk who aren't going to try so hard to find you."

She was too relieved at his return to react to his presumption that she was a thief, hunted by those she'd stolen from. "What . . . what did you do?"

He chuckled "They thought they'd sneaked up on your fire. They were a little disappointed to find you weren't there any more. They were about to settle down for the night and track you in the morning, when I threw a stone into the fire, and led them off past our hiding place to that swamp down there. They're muddy and miserable and lost by now."

"I must run. W-which way did they go?" There was an edge of panic in her voice, as she started fumbling for her bag.

"Relax. Only one of them was any kind of woodsman. And he'll be too sick to track anyone for a couple of weeks. I put a little arrow in him, with a dab of shargy on it. The others are city men, and they're not going to find their way out of there for hours. And I stole their gear, and dropped it into one of the pools. They'll sleep cold and wet tonight."

"Where on earth did you get shriba beetle larvae?" she asked, delving into her knowledge of toxins.

"On the other side of the pass. My partner showed me. Move up. It's bloody well starting to rain again."

For the first time in two weeks Shael slept well. Keilin struggled, however. The warm body next to him was having a bad effect on his imagination. It was at least an hour later, when the soft rain had turned to a steady blatter that he suddenly thought, How come she knew just what shargy was? He filed the point away in his memory, meaning to ask her about it in the morning.