CHAPTER 2
Message to the King
In the commotion of the second attack, the compass case had been thrown from the cart. Banjee no longer trusted the cracked instrument, and it was Angel who led them to Lake Desperation. Prodding the deer through more of the heat of the day because Angel lost his vision at dusk, the expedition followed the bird as it flew out and returned over and over again to the caravan leader. And as eager as Banjee was to push the expedition onward, even he could see, once they'd reached the lake that they would go little further if the deer were not allowed to rest.
They had to boil the water again anyway. Lake Desperation was in even more desperate straits than Lake Hope, desiccated as it was to a slender ribbon of stagnant green water. At least it held no cronkin.
A flock of birds rose and a cluster of slender, deer-like creatures bounded away as they pulled the wagons into the skimpy shade of the drooping scrub trees that edged the shoreline. Soon the packdeer were drinking and those not busy with other things began the task of collecting wood. With the expedition members completely disenchanted with his lie about hiding from the sun, Rawl was among them, roping bundles of sticks together with a sullen face. The others studiously avoided him, but he knew they were watching.
As night fell, the injured merchant died, easing into his death gurgle as the armsor medic watched impassively. Patchy, clearer-eyed, showed signs of improvement, and leaving her on her wagon pallet with words of encouragement, Banjee left with Angel on his shoulder to check on the guards. Banjee would take his turn later; anyone with any training in fighting was taking rotations out there with the armsors.
The night held only a thin waning moon, but the dense ribbon of stars help Banjee pick out the figure of a man standing with the hobbled packdeer. Approaching quietly, Banjee realized it was Rory, talking with the huge male deer that had laid its head across the handler's shoulder.
"It wasn't right, for him to lie to us. I don't know why a man wouldn't want to be straight. An' to make me out a fool...I don't like that Hobbin. It's not right."
Rory's hurt voice went on softly as he rubbed salve into a nick on the deer's chest. Rory had claimed the first boiled water earlier to wash off the deer, and Banjee had let it go. The time they lost wouldn't make much difference anyway.
The young handler looked up as Banjee appeared from the dark. "There's stew," the leader said simply.
Rory dropped his sparsely bearded chin and refocused his widened eyes on his work. "Yes, sa. Soon as I'm done here." He hesitated briefly. "Simon and Tulip don't look good, sa," he admitted with pain. "We pushed 'em too hard."
"I know," Banjee said. "I'm sorry," he added quietly.
"An' it’s my fault, too," the young man went on. "I should have seen that bornlord for what he was, sa. I let him ride in my wagon. I wished I'd given him to the Traders." His voice had risen with anger.
"No one from Aldar would hand over a man to his death without a solid reason, just like none of us would ignore a civil request or leave a man to die when he could be helped. You're not to blame for anything. If anyone's responsible, it's me."
"No, sa. It's that Rawl. He should have told us what was going."
"Yes, he should of." Banjee sighed. "Come and eat when you can."
The leader found Rawl at the fire pit. They'd dug a four-foot hole in the sandy soil near the trees to hide the boiling operation, and then rigged awnings around it to try to block any stray reflections from pursuers. They couldn't afford to wait for daylight, and anyone close enough would see the smoke in the daytime anyway. When Banjee arrived, the team was busy running buckets of lake water through the layers of wool sheeting they used as a filter. Behind them, unobserved, Rawl was surreptitiously dipping seconds from the congealing contents of the stew pot that had been pushed aside.
"Put that back!" Banjee roared, startling one of the handlers, Donela, into splashing the water she slowly poured. The faces of the team members turned toward Rawl. "There's others haven't eaten yet!"
"Thief! Poldark!" One man dropped the end of the cloth and snatched the pot away, slamming its iron lid back on it in anger.
"Hey..." Rawl spread his sinewy hands out in surrender. "I didn't know folks hadn't eaten yet. Sorry."
"You're sorry all right," Donela said with a huff.
Rawl had had enough of the Aldarans' attitude. "If there's anyone needs ta be sorry, it's you folks. Afraid ta let your shadows be seen in Tibernia, runnin' from the Nomers when you should be dealin' with 'em." At their confused expressions he added angrily, "Nomers, that's the Traders' real name. If you don't stand up ta 'em, they don't respect you!"
"Stand up to them," Banjee replied in fury. "They're our trading partners. You attached yourself to us knowing that the Traders were after you, and you didn't have the honesty to tell us what was going. You still haven't! Even if you know how to make coralin, that’s not enough reason to put this expedition in danger! We still need to get this coralin back for this Winter! And what about next year? If they won’t trade with us, we’re doomed!" A frantic disgust showed clearly in the wrinkled lines on his face. He didn’t need to explain. Without coralin powder, fungus choked off the lungs and airways, killing the Aldarans, beginning with the weakest, during their two month stays in the Winter rockholds.
"I never thought the Nomers would go after your caravan!" Rawl exclaimed. The faces glowering at him held no mercy.
"All right. You want ta know - I'll tell you. I been livin' with 'em for a year. Tryin' ta help their barabarit hides get some smarts so that the duchies won't keep runnin' over 'em. It wasn't my fault the chief's woman took a likin' ta me. First time she'd ever been near a man 'at didn't stink!" His comments drew only grimaces from his listeners. Half didn't believe a thing he said.
"They're chasing you because you were messing with the chief's wife?" Banjee repeated in horrified disbelief.
"His woman. Only one of 'em. It wasn't my fault. It was hers!" Rawl responded.
Banjee didn't know what to think. It was all so un-Aldaran.
"You haven't a clue what I'm talkin' about!" Rawl yelled in frustration. "You think you're so smart. But I tell you, you're yellow! Holed up in the mountains and afraid ta come out! There's another world out here! If you'd been smarter, you wouldn't have picked me up at all!"
Surrounded by the silent boiling team, Banjee glared at Rawl in futile rage. If this man had ever been an Aldaran, he had never understood its ways. On Banjee's shoulder, Angel's rounded orbs glowed gold in the reflected firelight. Suddenly the rook sprang from his shoulder.
Sailing straight for Rawl, the bird threw its wings together and shot into the air over the outsider. As Angel climbed, a stream of semi-liquid shot from his butt, splashing greasy white across Rawl's chin and shoulder and chest.
Whatever its purpose, Angel's action broke the tension enough to let the Aldarans react. "Hah, ha, ha!" they roared in satisfaction.
"That freepin' bird comes near me again and I'll slice him in half," an enraged Rawl shouted, wiping his fouled face with the back of his hand.
Banjee's reply was low and hard. "I don't need much excuse right now. You touch him or anyone else and I'll do the slicing for you. Only you'll be the one who gets it." Stone-faced, he held Rawl's eyes until the man spun away and left.
They left two days later. His nerves shrieking because the red and blacks hadn't already returned, Rawl came out of his sulk long enough to urge Banjee to get going. Rawl was certain it would be the first thing on the new chief's roster, to revenge the death of their old leader.
With the loss of three deer and the rest in marginal condition, they abandoned two of the wagons, shifting coralin kegs and water to the others and leaving behind part of the dried food stores. They had a week and a half to go. What was important was getting there, not in keeping their stomachs full 'til then. They left most of their pots too, and other heavy equipment in the bottom of the boi
ling pit. There was no point in trying to cover tracks, and as soon as the last barrel was filled, the deer were hitched and they set out.
Rawl had argued successfully for traveling at night, following the dipper and the wolf constellation that would take them north without the sun. The deer, creatures of the dawn and dusk, worked poorly at night, but Banjee for once agreed with the stranger. Their passage should be less obvious in the dark.
With Angel sleeping fitfully on his shoulder, Banjee shared turns with Malila, driving the lead wagon with the utmost plodding top speed possible. At dawn, Angel flew reconnaissance, waking Banjee hours later to tell him through images that they were generally headed in the right direction. Seven grim days and nights passed, in which they lost two more deer and another wagon, but hope began to resurface.
"So where are they?" the caravan leader asked, finding Rawl behind the last wagon as the sun sank toward the horizon through its sea of blasted orange.
Like the others, the sun-beaten outsider had spent the day under a wagon, using its ineffective shade to snatch a few ragged hours of sleep. Rawl shrugged, not looking at Banjee, as the stranger folded his single blanket into a sloppy bundle. "They're coming," he said, finally looking up. "Don't get ta thinking we're clear," he warned Banjee tersely. "Something's holdin' them up, but I guarantee they're