The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [145]
Incredulous, we found ourselves outside the city.
Sheer relief made us both hoot and laugh like madmen the moment we were out of hearing. I laughed till my stomach hurt and tears rolled down my face.
“Who were those men?” Jik asked when the laughter had died away.
“The big one was Brydda Llewellyn,” I said, and tried to untie his wrists, but they were too tight. They would have to be cut off.
I beastspoke the horse again, telling her where we wanted to go and promising freedom once we got there. She was a beautiful creature. I was interested to learn that she thought of her masters as jahrahn, the cold ones. She appeared unconcerned at the strange events of the night and even at leaving the walled city.
It seemed the Herders often rode out at night beyond the city limits to meet with funaga on the seashore. Sometimes they brought men and women and children, bound as Jik was. These were always left behind. Slavers, I thought bleakly.
I thought I saw a faint flicker of fire in the distance. Closer, we could see it was a shore camp, but we were almost on it before a figure jumped up and Kella’s voice rang out gladly.
After the first excited greetings, Kella introduced me to a tall blond youth called Idris, who cut Jik’s bonds and left us to unharness the horse. Jik and I warmed our hands and explained Brydda’s role in our escape.
Pavo looked pale and fraught. His feet were freshly bandaged, but he refused to talk about what had been done to him, save that his tormentors had made no real attempt at questioning him—they’d only meant to assert their dominance.
Our talk reminded Kella of my feet, and she insisted on examining them.
My shoes and stockings had to be soaked and cut away from the wounds. I was dizzy with pain before a grim-faced Kella had finished her ministrations. Then she looked up, not with the reproof I had expected but with tears in her eyes.
“I don’t know how you walked so far on them, yet … if you had not …” She stopped abruptly and hurried down to the sea to wash her instruments.
I looked at the others with faint embarrassment. “Anyone would have done the same.”
Pavo smiled wanly. “ ‘Would do’ and ‘have done’ are two different things.”
I felt my face redden and was glad of the darkness. To turn attention from myself, I asked Idris how he had come to know Brydda.
The boy said his father and two sisters had been taken by the Herders. One night, he and his mother had returned from a visit to find their house a charred ruin. Neighbors said the Herders had come and taken the husband and daughters away, but the priests claimed Idris’s mother was mad with grief and that her husband and children must have burned to death in the fires.
Idris had never seen his father or sisters again. He met Brydda after his mother had gone to the rebel for help. She had died shortly after learning her husband and daughters had been sold to slavers. Brydda had taken the shattered boy in, and though Idris did not say it out loud, it was clear he worshipped the big rebel.
It was near midnight before Brydda and Reuvan found us. They had dealt with the Herders quickly, binding and locking them into their own hold before setting the ship adrift. Brydda said in casting off he had offered up a fervent prayer that the ship would be seized by slavers. They had gone back to Brydda’s hovel for supplies since they would not be returning to Aborium.
Hearing my amazement at the ease of leaving the city, Brydda grinned and said the real gatekeeper and three soldierguards had been tied up securely and uncomfortably in the watch hut to ease Brydda’s departure. All we had to do now was wait for a message from the city to tell us how the Herders had reacted and if it was safe to move.
We were all weary, but Brydda’s suggestion that hot food would do us