Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(81)
It was not much to see, particularly after the grandeur of Tova, but its roads were well packed and clean of refuse, and the handful of shops and houses were tidy and well tended. She spied a traveler’s house, a squat rectangle with an inner courtyard, and wondered what drink she might find there. But the land sickness still lingered, headache never far off, and she decided against imbibing. Instead, she wandered down to the lake’s edge, where a kind of harbor had been built out over the water.
She spotted the problem immediately.
It was the lake itself. More to the point, it was the lake in winter. It looked to be still navigable, but there was a thin sheet of ice along the bank that suggested it would not be for long, although surely if they left now and went east, descending, they could outrun the winter freeze. It had not been nearly as cold here as it had been in Tova, although she was unfamiliar with this part of the Meridian and did not know what the coming days would bring. Xiala imagined Ziha was at this moment rehearsing an impassioned speech about the necessity of taking fifty people downriver and how many craft that would take and at what cost. No doubt the local riverman was about to become very rich.
She didn’t relish the idea of having to turn around and walk back to Tova, but she doubted it would come to that. Golden Eagle had the funds, and in the end, she was sure a bargain would be struck. It just might take a few extra days and substantially more cacao to do it.
After a while, she grew bored, and her stomach reminded her she had not eaten yet. A headache also threatened, and she worried she had stayed too long. She glanced up at the sky. The sun had begun its descent behind the mountains, but a good half hour of light remained. If she returned to camp now, she might be able to eat and retire to her tent before either Ziha or Iktan came looking for her.
She had made it halfway up the slope and past the town, the camp just over the next rise but still hidden by the tall grass, when she heard someone shout, “Teek!”
She turned to see three people approaching. A woman in the lead and behind her two men. The woman looked a bit like Ziha, brown-skinned and brown-haired but light-eyed. She wore the gold and white of Golden Eagle, and Xiala thought she looked a bit familiar, like she had seen her around camp. The men she did not know. They were paler in complexion and wore patchwork clothes, heavy furs on their shoulders, and rough hide and string for leggings. She tensed, unsure what to think. The woman gave her a friendly wave. Xiala looked back over her shoulder. She could almost see the tops of the camp tents and, below in the twilight, the town. Should she wait? The men looked none too savory, and her keen sense of danger urged her on. She turned her back to the strangers and quickened her pace, but her legs wobbled, and her breath came labored.
They sped up to catch her, and before she could reach the crest of the hill, a hand spun her around.
“Ho, Teek,” the woman repeated, and Xiala caught the scent of alcohol on her breath. She must have come from the travelers’ inn in the village.
“What do you want?”
“I come in peace!” The woman lifted her hands in innocence. “I was hoping you could help me settle a bet with my new friends.”
Xiala’s stomach clenched. “What kind of bet?”
“I told them about you, said we’ve got a Teek traveling with us. They said there’s no such thing, so I was bringing them back to see. And to collect on my bet,” she added, patting a small purse at her waist. “And there you were, the eagle’s luck!”
“The eagle’s luck, indeed,” said the first man, smiling, but she saw only avarice in his eyes, the way he licked at his lips.
Xiala took a step back. She knew this game, had been here a dozen times in port cities across the Crescent Sea. She rubbed her thumb across her pinkie, the one with the missing joint, and remembered the last time someone had caught her unaware. She could run, but her legs were weak. She could scream and hope to be heard, but that might prompt her harassers to action when all they’d done so far was leer. Be smart, she told herself. Bide your time. You’ve been in worse situations.
“Is it true, then, that you’re a Teek?” the second man asked. He snaked out a hand and took a curl of Xiala’s hair between his fingers. Xiala pulled back. He let the lock slip, laughing. “I hear Teek parts fetch a nice price in southern ports.”
“Especially the eyes,” the other man said, holding thumb and finger in a circle around his own. “So big and round, like fish eyes.”
She reached for her Song, and her headache flared. She sucked in a breath and grabbed her head between her hands. Images assailed her. The woman in blue, the green-eyed man. People screaming, bodies trampled underfoot. She tried to focus, to push past the bad memories, but her mind felt empty as untrod sand, as if the Songs of the ocean did not travel to places so far from her Mother’s purview, and Xiala had lost the right to Sing them.
The woman laughed, but it was clear to the men this was no jest, and they were noticeably more sober than the one who had led them here. Someone grabbed her arm, thick fingers digging into her flesh.
She didn’t have her Song, but she still had her fists. She threw a punch that connected hard against the man’s cheek and sent pain shooting up her arm. She received an ugly curse and a backhanded blow in return that sent her to her knees. She swayed, dazed, as hands reached for her again. She heard the sound of a blade slide free of a sheath and knew she might die, right there in the grass so far from the sea.