The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [135]
Since the cabin floor lay below ground level, she found it easy to slip out of the forest-side window. The rough wall of the cabin proved easy climbing, too, with its untrimmed logs providing steps and handholds. She squirmed onto the roof, then lay on her stomach to look down.
In the centre clearing of the camp sat a big fire-pit, cold and empty at the moment. The men had gathered in the bare ground around it. They stood silently, spears in hand but held upright, as if they were merely waiting for trouble. Thanks to his horse’s mane of hair, Sidro could pick out Pir easily, standing right next to the stone circle. He had a protective arm around Vek’s shoulders. Faharn paced back and forth at the front of the mob. Even from her distance Sidro could catch the scent of his fear—fear for Laz’s sake, no doubt, because some yards apart Laz and Movrae stood facing each other, both of them yelling challenges.
Next to Movrae Laz looked slender, even weak, but while Movrae had the trained soldier’s muscle, Laz had speed. Movrae struck first; he launched a flat-handed slap at his leader’s face. Laz ducked under, but the blow caught him on the side of the head and made him stagger. Movrae rushed in and swung hard to keep his advantage, but Laz had recovered enough to dodge to one side. For a moment they circled; then Laz darted forward and struck back with two quick blows, one a clip on the face, the other a fist thrown hard into Movrae’s stomach. The bigger man staggered and doubled over. Laz chopped him hard on the side of the neck with the side of one hand. He fell, grunting, to his knees.
Faharn dashed forward. He carried leather thongs, and he bound Movrae hand and foot while Laz watched, breathing hard and rubbing his bleeding knuckles. The other men moved back out of the way as Faharn dragged Movrae to the fire-pit and slung him in like a log.
The wind sighed through the surrounding trees as if in pity, but none of the men said a word. Laz stepped into the pit, stood looking down at the bound man, then knelt. He drew his knife from its sheath at his belt with his right hand and grabbed Movrae by the hair with his left. Movrae screamed, yelled, twisted as he tried to get free. Laz yanked him back by the hair, then struck. Movrae lay still. Blood soaked Laz’s sleeve and flowed from the Horsekin’s throat into the sand and ashes of the pit, a scarlet trickle in the sunlight. Laz wiped his knife clean on Movrae’s shirt, then stood up, looking at the assembled men. They looked steadily back and said nothing.
Sidro let out her breath in a sob. Her pulse fluttered in her throat, and sweat beaded her breasts—whether from revulsion or excitement, she couldn’t say at that moment. She slid backwards to the edge of the roof, then climbed down. For a moment she stood outside the window and stared at the dark forest, looming over her like a wave of shadows. She considered escaping into it and trying to make her way back to Zakh Gral, but she lacked the courage to face the wilderness alone. She climbed back in through the window and sat down on one of the tree stumps by the table.
With shaking hands she pushed her sweaty hair back from her face. She had just watched Laz kill a man for looking at her in the wrong way. He had told her the truth about one thing, that the scholarly First Son had disappeared, hidden somewhere inside a savage tribal chief. The door swung open. She got to her feet and involuntarily laid a hand at her throat when Laz stepped in. His shirt sleeve had turned stiff and rust-brown.
‘I saw you watching.’ He shut the door. ‘If you were a savage tribeswoman, you’d be as pleased as a mare with a new foal.’ He paused, studying her face. ‘I take it you’re not.’
‘Part of me is. Part of me feels sick to her stomach.’
‘That’s the trouble with our mixed blood.’
‘No, it’s got nothing to do with that. We could be full-blooded Horsekin, and I’d still feel torn in half.’
Among the tattoos on the left side of his face a purple bruise was rising into a swelling. She touched