It would be better than death, anyway. And perhaps it would be better than being subject to her husband's every irrational whim and cruel trick.
But Rena shuddered. "That means being confined to her bower, with slaves watching her day and night," she replied. "I would go mad. But I suppose it's better than—"
Better than the alternative. "The Council will believe it," he told her, this time quite firm in his conviction. "Ever since the Elvenbane appeared, they've been seeing halfbloods under their beds, and behind anything that goes wrong. I'm sure they'll find a way to 'prove' that this switched-at-birth nonsense is how Dyran ended up with a halfblood as his own heir without ever being aware of the fact."
"Oh," Rena said, looking a bit less dubious. "I'd forgotten about that. Actually, they'll probably want to believe it, and when they get done with him, so will Father."
"Very likely," he agreed. "And Mother is clever enough to carry it all off." He sniffed. "It's just a good thing they don’t have the wizard-powers to read thoughts."
"I hope they never get themselves some kind of tame halfblood then," Rena replied, soberly. "And oh, I hope Mother will be all right—"
"At least you won't have to marry Gildor-the-idiot!" he said quickly, and got a wan smile in answer.
"Yes—" She got spattered by a shower of drops from a branch above her, wiped them away, and got back a little more color and a real smile. "And before you ask, believe me, life eating leaves in a howling wilderness is much, much preferable to that!"
Chapter 6
KALAMADEA AND KEMAN simply stood where they were, like a pair of perfectly ordinary halfbloods, and not a pair of extraordinary, shape-shifting dragons. What was wrong with them?
:Do something!: Shana thought furiously at Kalamadea. :Shift! Fight them!: He should already have been flinging himself into the sky!
Kalamadea did nothing except to look at her. :Lashana, these people are not afraid of magic, and they are all carrying very sharp spears. Spears which, may I point out to you, will penetrate dragon-hide. I think shifting would be a very bad idea, just at the moment; they could certainly use those spears. Can you think of anything else constructive?:
Try as she might, she couldn't. Even a dragon needed a storm to call lightning down out of the sky, and the weather wasn't obliging with one. Perhaps the dragons could use their powers with rock to rum the ground soft beneath their captors' feet, but an agile warrior could certainly leap free before he was trapped.
And as for flinging himself into the sky—well, even a dragon needed time to shift. These warriors would certainly react before then.
It looked as if giving up was their only option. At least the warriors had not retaliated for the magical attacks the two wizards had made.
She stood up slowly, and held her empty hands over her head in what she hoped was a universally accepted gesture of surrender. Mero and the two dragons followed her example.
It must have been the right thing to do, since the warriors relaxed, just a trifle, although they did not lower their guard or their spearpoints. They all stood staring at one another for several moments.
Their captors were a striking people; this close, it was quite obvious that the dark skin was natural and not a dye or cosmetic. Their armor was of extremely fine make; beautifully finished with first-rate craftsmanship. Beneath the armor corselets, they all wore loose trousers of light, brightly colored fabric, and half-boots of felt.
Shana wondered how she and her group looked to them.
Finally one of the warriors said something to Shana directly, very slowly, in a complex and musical tongue. It sounded from the inflection as if it was a question. She glanced over at Kalamadea, who shrugged. "It isn't a language I understand," he said softly.
She turned to the warrior who had spoken and made a cautious gesture of apology. "Sorry, I'm afraid we don't speak your language."
The warrior muttered something, his tone conveying his frustration, and after a brief conference with his fellows, gestured with his spearpoint, nodding at the wagons below. That was clear enough. He wanted them to go down to the wagons, presumably without making any more trouble.
:I think we'd better do as he wants, Shana,: Mero said uncomfortably. :We might get a chance to explain ourselves later.:
Since there didn't seem to be any choice in the matter, Shana nodded, then turned and headed down the slope of the ridge in the direction he'd indicated, leaving her gear on the ground where she'd left it. After a moment, the others followed. She glanced behind, briefly, and saw that two of the warriors had snatched up the discarded gear and slung it across the backs of their bulls before mounting up again.
All of the warriors took to their bulls before following the prisoners: Shana didn't think it would be a good idea to try and test the agility of the cattle by trying to escape. Cattle weren't horses, but she'd already seen how agile these beasts were, and over a short distance there was no way a human would outrun one.
Curious eyes followed them down the slope of the ridge, although no one stopped to question any of the warriors who'd captured them. The dark people had a very simple solution for the keeping of prisoners, it seemed. The warriors took them directly to a particular wagon; the driver stopped it briefly while someone produced a set of iron collars and chains from within, and they were all chained by the neck to the back of the wagon itself. That was all there was to it, but it proved to be very effective. The collars were too well made to break, the locks too intricate for either Shana or Mero to pick, and both of them discovered to their complete astonishment that elven magics would not work on the collars at all. They could still speak mind to mind, thank goodness, but at least as far as Shana and Mero were concerned, the collars themselves were impervious to tampering.
The oxen kept up a slow pace, but it was a very steady one; they simply never stopped. That, too, was an effective means of keeping them from causing trouble. It wasn't hard to keep up with the wagon, but that was all one could do. Even when Shana and her group had been scouting, they'd taken frequent breaks; she and Mero were not used to this. Kalamadea and Keman didn't have much problem with the steady walking, but Mero and Shana were tired and footsore by the end of the day, when the nomads finally made camp.
If circumstances had been otherwise, Shana would have admired the efficiency of the nomads' arrangements. The wagons were pulled into a formation of several concentric circles, and the wheels staked down. The oxen were unhitched, and taken to the common herd. Fire pits were carved out of the sod and cleared out down to the bare earth, and that was all there was to it. This was all done with the ease of something that was more than habit, it was custom. Once camp was set up, people could get about with doing their chores: fetching water, starting fires, cooking, the lot.
As it was, Shana was too busy sitting in the grass and rubbing her sore feet and calves to offer much in the way of admiration. I hope someone remembers us and brings us food and water, she thought forlornly. Not that she and Mero couldn't both fetch for themselves—or at least, she hoped they could. It would be pretty rotten if all of the magic they knew was no longer working. But she wasn't certain she wanted these people to know everything the four of them could do—not yet, anyway.
Sunset was approximately an hour or so away, and it was pretty clear that no one was going to even approach the prisoners without permission from some authority. People would glance at them covertly, but without wasting time to gawk, and without interrupting whatever chore they were engaged in. Shana began to wonder if she and her group were going to be left all night, chained like dogs to the tail of the wagon. But it seemed that their original captors were not yet done with them; six of the warriors appeared from between two of the wagons, finally, and marched purposefully toward them. All four of them got to their feet warily as the six surrounded their prisoners, just as warily.
So at least they think we might be dangerous. I wish I knew if that was good for us, or bad.
One of the dark people—Shana thought it might have been the one who'd led the group that captured them—unfastened all four of the chains and marched off with the four prisoners, exactly as if they were his pets and he was taking them for a walk. The other five warriors, following with their spears at the ready, made certain of the captives' obedience. The one with the chains did not, however, try to pull them along too quickly, or torment them in any other ways. It was all very brisk and businesslike, quite impersonal, without malice.
The camp was full of all of the normal noise and activity of any large group of humans, although the language was nothing but sheerest babble to Shana. Children dressed in short tunics of the same brightly colored fabric as the warriors' trousers shrieked in shrill voices, and played incomprehensible games that involved a great deal of running and shouting. Women in loose, comfortable robes or wrapped skirts, and men in more of the loose trousers, walked by with burdens, pausing to stare at the captives with curious wide brown eyes. Women nursed babies, stirred pots suspended over fires, or laid out bedding and clothing to air in the last of the sunlight. Young men idled about, shoved each other, and laughed; young women pretended to ignore them and giggled together behind their hands. There were no animals in the camp at all, however, and no sign of any other beasts than the cattle. That seemed odd; Shana would have expected that they would at least have dogs.
The closer they got to the center of the encampment, the larger, more elaborate, and more decorated the tent-wagons became. Finally they reached the center, and a set of four wagons that were the fanciest of the lot. It must have taken teams of ten or twelve oxen to pull these monstrosities. Presumably these belonged to the leaders of this group of people.
Shana noted that the four tents were set at the precise compass points; they were taken to the eastern-point tent. There was a clever set of folding stairs at the side of the wagon, now unfolded, that gave access to the tent door. The man holding their chains climbed up it, leading them the same way; the other five stayed behind on the ground beside the wagon. There was an extension of the flat bed of the wagon that formed a kind of porch all around the tent, wide enough for them all to stand together on, with the warrior holding their chains about an arm's length away. He paused at the entrance and called something; from within, someone raised the flap of the tent, and they all paraded inside.
The tent was very dark after the bright sunlight outside. It took a little time for Shana's eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw that they had been brought before an older man, whose close-cropped hair showed a few threads of gray in it, and whose many scars attested to the fact that he was no stranger to combat. He had a rather square, stern face, and was as muscular as any gladiator, although, like many retired gladiators, he had gone just a trifle to fat around the midsection. He wore an iron torque, iron bracers, and a belt made of flat, round iron plates cleverly hinged together. All of this jewelry was elaborately engraved in abstract designs. His eye-searingly scarlet trousers rather clashed with the orange and green cushions he reclined on. There were two warriors standing on either side of him, faces as impassive as statues, and two more on either side of the tent entrance.
He studied all four of them for a very long time, giving Shana equal time to study their surroundings—which she did, making her study obvious, as if she were here by choice. The interior of the tent had been draped with appliqued hangings; the floor covered with fine hand-woven rugs. Both echoed the same abstract designs Shana had seen in the rest of the camp. There were lamps hanging from the ceiling, too, although they were not yet lit. She had to wonder where these people got the metal, the fabric, and the wool for these things, since there obviously weren't any sheep around and nomads didn't normally operate mines. Surely they traded for it—perhaps with Collen? He hadn't said anything about black herders, but why should he? He had no reason to disclose all his secrets to her, especially not if he intended to trade wizard-goods to these folk and vice versa. If that was so—since Collen would be coming back down the river again after trading with the bondlings, might they be heading for a meeting with him?
She hoped so. He might be able to persuade these people to let the four of them go—or at least to negotiate for a ransom.
Their captor and the leader spoke at some length, with a great many gestures and hand signals. The leader went silent for a moment, then barked an abrupt command, and hangings behind him parted. Another warrior entered, with two more prisoners, similarly collared and leashed.
Shana's eyes nearly popped out of her head with surprise as soon as she saw them, and the other three had similar reactions.
Elves? They have elves as prisoners?
So it seemed, since there was no mistaking elves for anything else. Slender bodies, pale porcelain skin, white-gold hair, long, pointed ears, and those green, cat-pupiled eyes… the new captives couldn't be anything else. Both of them wore the clothing of their captors, and neither of them seemed to be suffering any mistreatment, though Shana could not think if that was a good sign or a bad one.
But what were elves doing here—and more important, how had these people managed to capture them?
Like us, maybe? Could it be possible these two came out here without human fighters to protect and guard them?
One of the prisoners ignored them, but the other's eyes widened as he took in the sight of them. "Ancestors!" he exclaimed. 'Tell me you aren't what I think you are!" Then he shook his head sardonically. "Never mind. You couldn't be anything but halfbreeds. To think I've fallen to this—"
The leader of their captors interrupted him with a barked command. He shut up immediately, bowed soberly and with every outward evidence of humility, and turned back to Shana.
"It seems we're to be your translators, wizard," he told her, with a sour twist to his mouth. "Count yourselves damned lucky; we didn't have anyone to translate for us, and we had to learn everything the hard way." His expression was a strange mixture of sardonic amusement and distaste. "Much as I hate to admit this to a wizard—you are at least half-civilized, and it has been so long since I have seen a civilized creature, I would be prepared to befriend even a bondling slave at this point. Now, bow nicely to Jamal. He's the Chief of these barbarians, and he is very important They call themselves the Iron People, by the way."
Shana and the others bowed, as gracefully as they could, encumbered as they were by their collars and chains. Their translator took a certain amount of amusement out of that; the silent one ignored it all.
"You might as well call me Kelyan. My titles, such as they were, hardly mattered a bean back home and they're nothing here. My sullen companion is Haldor." He poked the other with an elbow; Haldor looked up at them briefly and grunted.