Chapter 13: Escape!

The racing blood surged and pounded in his veins. For a moment, he was dizzy with the sheer joy of living. His chest arched with the deep draught of air he sucked in, savoring anew its freshness. His body seemed charged with pent up energies. His muscles were honed fine by months of hunger and unremitting toil, and the eyes that looked up at him held a blend of pity and admiration.

"Why... why, it's Mei Mei!" His voice was a hoarse half whisper, rusty from months of disuse. "Nurm's little servant girl. How did you come here?"

"I heard that you had been captured by Sholim's soldiers. When a spy reported that you had been seen among the Temple's slaves, that you hadn't been sacrificed, I asked Nurm to help me rescue you." The pretty servant girl who had spoken with him for a few brief moments, so long ago, colored slightly under his probing gaze. "He told me that I was free to try, but I would have to do it alone. He refused to help."

"But, the slave drug! I didn't know that there was a cure for its evil."

"Nurm has long sought a potion that would free the slaves. He thought that this time he had found it, but he had no way of knowing whether it would work. But, come," she tugged at his calloused hand. "I have clothes and weapons for you, hidden nearby."

Now it was his turn to flush as he realized for the first time in months that he was naked. The clothes felt strange for a moment, rubbing his skin in unaccustomed places, but the sword belt about his waist was like the hand clasp of an old and trusted friend.

"This is my own sword!" He tested its feel with an experimental swing or two.

"Your friends recovered it from where it had fallen. Gortai gave it to me when I asked him for it. Anyway, it was too heavy for anyone else to use. I have ponies waiting for us, over in the next canyon. Let us be gone before your absence is noted."

The casual observer they were only two ordinary pony soldiers, one tall and one short, riding off as though on a scouting mission. Only at the outermost ring of sentries did they run into any trouble.

"Hey, you two!" The sentry straightened as they rode up to him. "Get back to your outfit on the double. There'll be no more of this riding out and raiding some poor farmer's livestock. You'll eat what and when the rest of us do, and... Hey!"

The had walked their ponies up to the sentry as he talked. Before he knew what had happened, Shantar swung a terrible blow with his heavy sword. Metal clanged and sparks flew as it sheared through the sentry's iron cap, splitting him to the navel!

"Look out!" Shantar whirled his pony at Mei Mei's call. A squad of soldiers raced toward him, drawing their weapons.

"YEAAAH!" Something seemed to burst within him, a cleansing rush of fire through his veins. His sword swung in great looping circles. Those who could scrambled out of the way, scattering into the brush like rock lizards under the swoop of a hunting bat. Pulling his pony around in a tight circle, he raged through them again and again, until none stood before him. Dimly, he realized that someone was calling his name.

"Shantar! Stop! They're all dead. We've got to get away before any more come."

Slowly the red haze receded, the thunder of blood in his head fading away. He shook himself, physically and mentally, looking in shocked amazement at the blood drenched scene. Without a word, he turned his pony to follow her. They rode hard, putting as much distance between them and Sholim's army as they could. Shantar felt exhilarated, yet strangely at peace with himself. It was as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, a weight that he hadn't even been conscious of carrying until it was taken from him.

"Where are we headed?" They were well away from the camp, and had let their ponies slow to a more normal pace. "What month is it, anyway? I've lost all track of time. By the Gods, it could have been years, for all I know!"

"It's the same year as when you were captured, in the month of the Snow Flower," she answered, telling him that it was just past the coldest part of the winter. "We're traveling up the spine of Dagon Ridge, two days north of Talai. Some friends of ours are camped back in the hills near here. Once we find them, we won't have to worry about any of Sholim's soldiers catching up with us."

"Those soldiers will have to be pretty sharp to follow us far through this kind of country. Not that there'd be too much doubt about which way we're likely to be headed. I guess that it all depends on how badly they want us."

"They want us, all right." She laughed gaily at his disgusted expression. "After the mess you made of that patrol, they'll think that a small army of Hill men is out in these rocks, ready to jump out at them. They'll have swarms of scouts running around these hills, trying to catch up with us."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right." He grimaced ruefully, shaking his head as he thought back on his actions. "I don't know what got into me all of a sudden. It was like everything I hadn't been able to feel before just boiled up out of me."

"Don't worry about it," Mei Mei soothed. "If you hadn't killed all of them, they'd know who they were after. This way, they'll probably never think to connect the disappearance of a single slave with what happened."

"There's another thing that you can tell me." No matter how casually he sounded, Shantar kept a careful watch on the land around them as they talked. "How come Sholim's army is clear down here, almost to Talai? I thought that Khamul's soldiers could beat them, every time."

"They could, while they lasted," she answered, frowning. "The trouble was, every time they won a battle, they lost more men than they could replace. Sholim has pushed them back this far by sheer weight of numbers. Now Khamul holds just the country right around Talai. Sholim intends to crush him with one last blow. He has to, in fact, because his men are almost out of supplies."

Shantar continued to keep a careful eye out as they pressed on farther into the hills. Mei Mei kept up a steady stream of chatter, bringing him up to date on all that had been happening while he'd been drifting in the grip of the slave drug.

"About that drink that you gave me, back there," he prompted as the rested their ponies for a moment on the crest of a ridge. "You say that you got it from Nurm?"

"I stole it from him," she answered, matter of factly. "He'd been trying for a long time to conjure up a potion that would work against the slave drug, but nothing seemed to affect it. At last he was able to find out where the slave drug came from, and that set him on the right track. What most people don't know, is that the drug is made by Kathool's priests, from tiger lizard poison. They mix it with a lot of other stuff, and let it ferment, like wine. When it's ready, they thin it away down and sell it through their agents. Nurm got hold of some of the poison when Orzad raided a slave dealer's stronghold, and used it to make his potion. He used it on his own slaves, and it seemed to work real well, but he didn't want word to get out of what he was doing. When spies reported that they thought they'd seen you moving south with Sholim's army, I took some and left."

"How did you manage to get inside the picket lines at the camp?"

"I didn't have any trouble at all, getting in past the sentries. I just tagged along after a bunch of soldiers who'd been out looting, and run into trouble. They were too busy running for cover to realize that they had a stranger with them."

The wind grew colder as they rode the winding trails higher into the hills. By evening, the sky had cleared of what few clouds had been left from the winter storm that had blown past the marching army. They made a hasty camp under a sky filled with blazing stars. The wind moaned through the rocks, whipping at the smoke from their tiny fire. In spite of the day's exertions, Shantar lay awake far into the night. The fire's dying coals waxed and waned in time with errant gusts of wind, the restless stirring of their ponies the only other sound.

At last, he fell into a half doze, disturbed by visions of all of the things that he had seen, but not reacted to, during his enslavement. Shenfu was there, prodding and taunting him with cruel laughter. Chenji, thinner and tired looking, watched him working in the fields, one hand touching her bruised cheek. The fields, weed choked in spite of the listless naked figures that scratched at rows of scraggly plants. Men marched, fought, died, while other men filled in the gaps in their ranks. Then, a strong face that he knew was his own looked out at him through gold flecked green. He saw skin and flesh melt away, bone and muscle fading to nothing until only a pair of naked eyes stared, horror filled, out at him.

"Hush, Shantar!" Mei Mei cradled his head to her breast, and he realized that he had cried out in his sleep. "It's all right. You're alive! You're free of them."

Her soothing fingers smoothed away the pain and rage, rubbing the lines and wrinkles of his forehead, the tension from around his eyes. Her whispered reassurances slipped imperceptibly into endearments as she banished his aching memories with soft words, with hands that excited even as they caressed. As he responded, he matched her ardor, led the way to greater heights, his thoughts far, far away from his months of slavery. When at last they both slept, his slumbers were deep and dreamless for the rest of the star lit night.

By noon of the next day, they were far back in the foothills where Dagon Ridge melted into the true mountain heights.

"What are you looking for?" Mei Mei turned to look behind them, scanning the rugged landscape that held Shantar's attention. "I don't see anything back there."