The Forlorn(75)

"What?" Keilin started.

"Puffer-fish liver. That's how I killed him. Please give me some clothes. I'm cold." She shivered.

The air in the room was hot and still. Yet her arm was chilly, and her body beaded with a fine cold sweat. Her eyes were very wide. Hastily Keilin took the first garment from the top of her pack, and helped her into it. Then, still with his arm around her, they hurried up the stairs and out into the light.

Cap had been busy. Six more bodies lay there. "Come on," he said roughly. "That captain couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery, never mind a bloody coup."

Whatever the captain's organizational abilities were, the coup attempt had bred phenomenal chaos. The sounds of fighting, shouting and running echoed down the passages, and the gate was deserted. "Now, local boy. Get us the hell out of here." Cap pushed him forward.

Keilin wove them down the maze of alleyways, keeping away from the main roads, except for one hurried crossing. He stopped them just short of the North Gate, in the shadow of one of the overhanging buildings. He wondered if any of the others had even seen the gang boys watching their passage. He wondered if any of the watchers had recognized him. He doubted it. He didn't even feel like the Keilin who had lived like a rat in these alleys. It was almost as if that life belonged to someone else now.

The gate was open, but the guards were doing a spot of contraband and dutiable goods examination, as well as a bit of freestyle direct taxation. "Keep my assegai and pack. I'll tell the guards there are Morkth loose in the palace."

Keilin ran up, panting, to the gate guard, who was in the act of appropriating a juicy tomato from an angry vendor, on the grounds that it could possibly be infectious.

Keilin grabbed the guard, getting a spear butt poked in his midriff for his presumption. He ignored it and gasped his message. "Go to the palace . . . Captain Belvin's orders . . . Morkth killed the Patrician . . . Run! . . . Need you all!"

The guard looked at him owlishly, then grabbed Keilin, and started to run to the palace, accompanied by five of his fellows. Keilin tripped himself and sprawled on the cobbles when he was opposite Beywulf. Bey seized him. "I'll hold him for you, sir. You go after the other soldiers." In a minute they'd slipped through the gates with the crush of locals who were taking advantage of the lack of supervision. Within five minutes they were at the camel market, to find Keilin's rumor had beaten them there, and was already driving up the price of the beasts.

Keilin could see fires raging inside the walls as they rode away from the market, their newly acquired beasts laden with saddlebags and water skins. He wondered vaguely who would win . . . and whether Kemp had escaped? They circled the outer wall of the city and then rode along the beach. When they arrived at the sea, Shael spoke up. "Can we stop? I need to wash my hands . . . and I'd also like to change out of my nightdress."

This drew a chuckle even from Cap. "You might as well have a swim. This is the last time you'll see water for a good few weeks. We'll keep watch from the rocks over there."

It was enough of an invitation for Leyla. She was already stripping off her clothes. There was an angry red welt across one nipple. "Come on, little sister. Let's wash the filth of that place off us. You lot, b' off for a few minutes. There are times for looking at the merchandise, and this isn't one of 'em." She ruefully felt her breast. "In fact, I think the shops are closed for a while. Go away."

Soon the girls were back, wet haired, and dressed for riding. As they headed through a familiar melon field, this time with an angry farmer shouting at them, Keilin felt the hot wind coming out of the interior, full of dry dust and emptiness. It was like a welcoming kiss. Without a backward glance at the city or the sea, he urged the camel into an ungainly trot forward, into the barren lands. He'd always thought about going back to the port. To pay off old scores. To show the people what he had become. He realized suddenly that it didn't actually matter a damn. He wanted the future now, not the past. And he wanted to get the Princess far away from the pain.





CHAPTER 14


Keilin didn't even admit to himself that he was taking the desert slowly. It was secure. Its bleakness was clean. And here . . . Skyann's spirit roamed, and Keilin's spirits rose with it. To be honest, he didn't even notice the others' discomfort. Nor did it occur to him that anyone might be following them.

Thus, the first warning they had was the clinking of a horse's harness. It was midmorning, three days' ride out of Port Tinarana and they had come into the edges of Marou's old range. Around them the ochre hills already throbbed with heat. Sound carries a long way in the desert stillness . . . but they were close, too close. Keilin had made no attempt to hide their tracks up to this point, but now he led the camels across bare rock and over to a narrow gorge, hardly more than a crack in the red cliffs. Then, ghosting among the broken boulders on the high slopes he slipped back.