Chapter 20

Silmaria's heart beat violently, thudding unpleasantly in her breast. As the men stepped into their small camp she swallowed and fought to ignore the rising tide of panic threatening to drown her entirely. There were half a dozen of them, all armed and stepping with the confident, easy swagger of men who were comfortably acquainted with a great many kinds of violence.

Dark eyes roved over her. She saw a flare of desire here, a glint of lewd interest there. Mostly, they looked curious, and perhaps a touch surprised as well. One of the men nudged the other and pointed a short, notched iron blade toward her as he spoke in a thick, rolling tongue she didn't recognize.

Silmaria's gaze flicked to the movement in the shadows behind them and glimpsed Rael crouching behind the jagged rise of a rock formation a few yards away. He caught her eye, and gave a single, curt nod as he held up a hand: Wait.

The Haruke men spoke back and forth in their strange language, gesturing toward her. Deciding what they would do with her, she was sure. Silmaria bit her lip, trying desperately to be calm as she looked up at the men. Resisting the urge to bolt up and run, or to stare at Master Rael expectantly, was tormentingly difficult.

At last, the first man who spoke said in thickly accented, broken Common, "You. Woman. Woman is ... is alone? Here?"

Silmaria swallowed and nodded. "I am alone," she said slowly, and her voice cracked with fear.

One of the other Haruke men, the one with half his head scalped while the other hung with braids that dangled to his waist, scoffed. "Untruth. Women never alone, here. Reach. Is not to be doing."

She could see the doubt in the other men's eyes. Her eyes wanted badly to rebel and flicker to where she'd seen Master Rael. She forced her gaze to remain focused on the men. She did not know how to speak to the men without sparking some outburst; all the tales held that they should be busily raping her already. But oddly, the men did not seem in a rush to debase her. Indeed, the men seemed more thoughtful than the barbarians the stories made them out to be.

"This woman is doing," she told them, and now her fear made her bold and gave a touch of defiance to her voice. "I am not the women you know. I am not afraid."

"Woman is stupid, then," the first man spat into the sputtering fire. "Bad things in Reach. Dangers. Dangerous men, too."

"Woman stupid. And untrue. Not alone," another of the men insisted vehemently. "Woman alone in Reach, alive? It is not to be doing."

Another of the men spoke up. His common was much clearer, though his accent was still thick and rolling. He regarded Silmaria thoughtfully. "They are right. You are stupid if you are out here, alone. And if you were stupid, you would not be alive. There is a man here with you, somewhere, I am thinking."

The men nodded agreement. Their eyes drifted at last from her and began to cast about in the darkness.

Knowing that this could be their undoing, Silmaria made a desperate gamble.

"There are no men here but you," she said, struggling to keep her voice calm, and even suggestive. The Gnari woman stood, letting her blanket fall away, to stand naked before the men. She rested a hand on her curving, rounded hip, letting it jut seductively to the side. Once again, all eyes were on her, and the men drank in her body, all exotic coloring and toned, shapely curves, her smooth, flat belly and lushly formed hips and buttocks, her firm, strong thighs and generously soft breasts.

Silmaria's heart was pounding so hard her chest hurt, but she showed nothing of that. "And that's a shame, because I've been in terrible need of a man's company lately."

She half expected one or all of them to close the distance to her and take her then and there. She played a dangerous, deadly game, but it was the only hand she had left just then, and she would do anything to keep them from finding out her Lord.

With a sway in her step, Silmaria came a few paces closer. She regarded the men through hooded eyes, displaying her flesh fully and openly, even reaching up with one hand to meaningfully brush her fingers along her ripe, buxom breasts. "It's just me out here ... and it's been very lonely."

Most of the men's expressions changed, losing the wariness and distrust in favor of unfeigned desire. She shivered as they stepped in closer, and bit her lip.

Hurry, Master, she thought frantically, willing Rael to act, and bracing for the worst.

"Something is not right here," one of the men, the one who spoke coherent Common, said. His distrust lingered as he eyed her. He said something in the Haruke tongue. The man closest to Silmaria barked a guttural reply, and reached for her breasts with grasping hands. She went tense, shuddering.

Rael's dagger whipped through the air to violently burry into the back of the reaching man's neck at the base of his skull. The man gurgled around a throat full of blood. The crowd of Haruke warriors stared, momentarily stunned, as their comrade fell to the ground.

Before the men could fully react Rael was already on the man closest to him. He slammed into the Haruke's back and grappled with him, gripping and holding the man from behind. The warrior let out a curse and struggled wildly, thrashing and twisting to try to face his unseen attacker. Rael's face was a wrathful mask, his lips drawn up in a snarl. Silmaria saw the glint of violence in his silver eyes. The wild, savage spirit he kept tucked away was out and raging. He bore the man down beneath his powerful weight, driving him to the ground. When the man spun to face the Knight, Rael slammed his forehead into the Haruke's nose, shattering it with a wet snap. As the man let out a wail of painful outrage, Rael tore the dagger from the man's hands and plunged it into his skull.

The world blurred into motion. One of the other warriors came at Rael, loosing an undulating battle cry. Silmaria didn't have time to see what came next; naked still, she exploded into a sprint as the two men closest to her, one to her left and the other to her right, rounded on her. By then she was already moving, making for the mound of rocks to her left that formed a stretch of formation rising about forty feet overhead.

The Haruke on her left leapt into her path with an ugly curse. Reacting instinctively, Silmaria leaped forward with all her might, using her momentum to slam into the man. The man wasn't ready for the reckless tactic, and the feline projectile knocked the breath from him and drove him to the ground.

As it often did, desperation and fear made her fierce. The man brought the iron crudgel in his hand up, but he was dazed and Silmaria swifter, and the Gnari viciously slashed her frightfully sharp claws across the man's throat, tearing open his airway. Blood burst forth as the Haruke clutched at his shredded windpipe.

Silmaria leapt to her feet, moving before she had time to watch the light die in the dead man's eyes.

The rocks were treacherous, jagged and hostile. But Silmaria was well suited to climbing. She bounded up the rockface, her strong claws gripping at the tiny crevices too small for fingers to fit. She scrambled agile and sure footed up into the rocks. The Haruke chased her, but his pace was crawling compared to hers. Silmaria stared down at him and sneered unkindly, baring gritted teeth as her eyes flashed defiance.

"Cat Bitch!" The Haruke cursed her in his broken Common as he struggled up the cliff.

Silmaria found a loose stone the size of her fist and whipped it into the top of the man's dark, braided head. He let out a cry and dropped with a weighty smack of meat onto the ground below, then rolled to the side, groaning miserably. Silmaria spat at him and then tossed another sizable stone at him for good measure.

Safe for the moment, her attention went to her Master. Rael had dispatched the Haruke who'd leapt at him, and now faced off with the last standing member of their group. It was the man who'd spoken clearly before, who had been the least inclined to fall for her ruse.

He was shorter than Rael by almost a foot, and much smaller of build, but he appeared capable nonetheless, with a sort of lean, solid strength. His hair was long, tied at the back of his neck into three thick black braids that fell half way to his waist. His eyes were lighter than his fellows, nearly hazel. Cunning, clear eyes that spoke of an experienced and calculating warrior.

The man had the foresight to stand between Rael and where the Nobleman's weapons remained bundled with his pack. The Haruke shifted his grip on his dagger, holding it at the ready as the two warriors regarded one another. "You are far from your lands, Cold One. What does a Daleman do here?"

Rael didn't flinch, didn't let the keen edge of his focus slip for a moment as he slowly circled the man. "I could ask the same of you. Grasslander's don't take well to The Reach and its rocks. You're a stranger here as much as I."

"Our business is ours. It is not for Cold One's to know," the Haruke replied.

"It doesn't matter," Rael said. "I've no interest in Haruke's affairs. I came to The Reach to avoid your folk, and I'd as soon let this be the end of my brush with you."

"It cannot be. You are Daleman. I am Grassman. You kill my brothers. You see us. You will tell DarkFyre that Grassmen visit the Flyers. This cannot be."

Something flittered, ever so briefly, across Rael's face; a flash of confusion, or perhaps curiosity. Then his jaw set in that expression of unbending will.

"Then it seems we are at an impasse," he said in a voice as calm and soft as a looming and patient death.

"Yes," the Haruke agreed. Then, his eyes flickered to where Silmaria perched up in the rocks. "Your woman?"

Rael bristled, and he bared his teeth in a snarl. "Don't look at her."

The Haruke gave the ghost of a smile. "She kills like a man. A good woman. She does not try to kill again, we will let her live."

Rael's eyes narrowed. He stepped to the side, circling to the left. The Haruke followed his example, and the two men began the slow, purposeful steps of a dance that would end in death. "But we have seen you. We cannot live. You said it yourself."

"You cannot live," the dark haired man corrected. "You are a Daleman. A warrior, I see this. You can tell the Cold One's, and maybe they will act. Not she. She is a woman. Who will listen? No-one. If she does not try to kill, we will let her live."

Rael studied the man intently for a moment, then nodded curtly, seeming to accept his words as truth.

"Novasio Farlock," the man said in the Grassland Tongue.

"A good death," Rael agreed.

As one, the men exploded into motion, lunging forward to meet in a tangle of limbs and power and fire-lit death. Silmaria watched, breathless and anxious. The Haruke slashed with his dagger, the blame gleaming and flashing in the night. Rael weaved away, slipping out of the blade's reach and then skipping forward to try to bear the smaller man down with his body. But the dusky skinned warrior was no fool and circled, balanced on the balls of his feet. His blade whipped about, cutting and then stabbing. Rael retreated, and the man pressed the advantage, aggressively stabbing with his blade, moving swift and deadly.

A flurry of movements later, Rael caught the man overextending. He looped his arm around the Haruke's lead arm, gave a twisting jerk, and the dagger fell to the dirt. The Grassman fought back, and the two warriors grappled, struggling one against the other. Rael was larger and more powerful, but the smaller man was experienced enough not to try to match the big Knight with power. Instead, he used his small, nimble size, and his cunning. He twisted around Rael and kept moving, not allowing the bigger man to get a sure grip and apply his full strength. He drove his forehead into Rael's face, making the Nobleman curse and spit blood.

So it went, for several moments, the Haruke using his speed and his wits to stay a step ahead of Rael. But Rael was patient and tenacious, unrelenting. At last, he managed to get a good hold of the smaller man and drove forward as his leg swept the Haruke's feet out from under him. Rael drove his weight down into the man, slamming both of them into the ground with the Haruke caught beneath him. The air went out of the Grassman's lungs in a wheezing rush.

Before the man could suck in a lungful of air and twist free, Rael was on him. He straddled the man and gripped him about the throat with one hand, pinning his head to the dusty ground. Rael's huge fist came down, driving a thunderous blow into the man's vulnerable face. And another, and again, dropping his weight and size behind each blow. The Haruke jerked and writhed, trying desperately to escape, but each blow made his struggles weaker, until he went limp, unresisting.

Silmaria swallowed softly, watching as Rael beat the man into the ground. Blood from the Haruke's shattered nose soaked into the clay, red on red.

At the foot of the rock formation, the Haruke she'd stoned was struggling slowly to his feet, spitting dirt from his mouth and reaching with confused fingers to the wet surging of blood from the rip in his scalp. The Gnari moved quickly and slipped down a short way along a slope in the rockface, grimacing at the graze of the rock along her bare backside, then launched herself from the rocks, arching through the air to land atop the man. She smashed into his back and bore him down to the ground again.

The Haruke cried out in painful surprise, sprawled face down with the Gnari on his back. Before he could even begin any feeble struggles, Silmaria gripped a handful of his hair and smashed his face into the ground. He went quickly limp, senseless.

Rael was standing over the motionless warrior, shaking the ache from his bloodied hand. Silmaria came to him and wound her arms tightly around his.

"The other one? The one who chased you to the rocks?" Rael asked.

"He's out. Might be dead. I don't know, I didn't check. I think he's just unconscious, though."

"Good enough," Rael nodded.

She looked down at the prone man. His swarthy face was battered, his nose broken, and a large cut bled across his brow.

"Is he... ?"

"Alive," Rael grunted. "Though he won't thank me for it. He'll be shamed, when he returns to his clan. Might even be exiled."

Silmaria reached up and wiped the blood from where it dripped from Rael's split lip. "Why didn't you just kill him, then?"

"He fought well," Rael said with a shrug. "His code of honor says to fight well means he should die well. My code of honor says if a man fights well, you don't kill him if you don't have to. If I'd had to kill him, I would have. But he's no threat now. His brothers are dead. By the time he or that other one get their senses back enough to be any kind of threat, we'll be long gone from here."

Silmaria nodded, then pressed against him tightly, wrapping her slim arms around Rael's waist in a desperate hug. Rael put his arms around her, squeezing her tight, letting her feel his tired strength. She soaked in his solidness for a moment, saying a silent praying to whoever was listening, thankful that he was alright.

"We'd better get out of here if we plan on being gone when they wake," she said at last. Rael nodded, brushing her hair back.

"You did well," he said.

"I managed," Silmaria said with a frown. "I ran. You could have been killed, and I wouldn't have been a damn bit of help."

Rael gripped her shoulders in his powerful hands, meeting her eyes firmly. "You were unarmed. They had you surrounded, surprised, and naked. And you still took care of two armed warriors. You did the best thing you could have. Getting away from them meant they couldn't use you as a hostage against me. It was the wise thing to do. We're both alive, and got out of that unharmed. I count that a win any day. Give yourself credit where it's deserved, because I do. Understand?"

"Yes, Master," Silmaria nodded slowly, staring up into his eyes.

"Good girl," he nodded, and bent to kiss the top of her head. "I'll get our things packed up and we can get the hell out of here. Throw some clothes on and keep lookout. I've had enough surprised for one night."

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Master?"

Rael tossed another log onto the building fire and wiped the dust from his hands. "We still have to be careful, of course. But we're two days march from where we left the Haruke, and we covered a lot of ground. They have no idea which direction we were going, and besides, they weren't in much condition to pick another fight any time soon. We need to cook the kills we made today, and we need to keep warm. It's been getting pretty cold at night lately. It'll be fine."

"If you say so, Master," Silmaria nodded. She continued to skin one of the plump hares she'd taken down earlier that afternoon. "Do you think there are any more of them out here?"

"Not likely," Rael replied as he retrieved their cooking supplies from one of the packs. "Their little group was sent into The Reach for a specific purpose. The quick and quiet sort."

"Any guesses on what that would be?"

Rael shrugged his broad shoulders. He took the hare Silmaria hadn't skinned yet and got started on it while Silmaria began cooking. "It's pretty hard to say. But the Grassman I left alive ... the smart one. He said something ... I don't recall exactly what it was. But it was something about the Grassmen visiting the Flyers."

"The SkyRacers?" Silmaria asked.

"Right," Rael confirmed. "It would make sense. There's not a whole lot in The Reach of interest aside from the SkyRacers. The Human and DemiHuman settlements out here are small and inconsequential. Outside of Ser, there's no real kingdoms or organized nations."

"What do you think they would be meeting with the SkyRacers for?" Silmaria asked as she cut up one of the hares to throw into a stew.

Rael looked up into the fire. It was blazing merrily, now, the flames cracking and popping aggressively. A strong, willful fire that cast shades of orange and gold to overlay the reds of clay and rock. The fire reached skyward, stretching toward the legions of resplendent stars with hot fingers.

"I can only speculate. The only thing that makes any sense to me is, they're looking to the SkyRacers to form an alliance against the Dale."

Silmaria looked up with a touch of alarm. "They're trying to get the SkyRacers involved in the war? Would they even do that?"

"No idea," Rael replied. "The SkyRacers don't typically get involved with foreign conflicts. But then, I've never heard of the Haruke seeking aid from non-Grasslander's. They're getting desperate. Or the war is reaching a turning point."

"And if the SkyRacers allied with the Haruke..."

"It could be bad," Rael finished for her. "Very bad. The SkyRacer's don't have the military numbers that DarkFyre or the Haruke have, but attacking from the sky gives them an advantage the DarkFyre's military isn't prepared for. With Haruke on the ground, DarkFyre's forces would be hit high and low. It could change the tide of the war."

"And there's nothing we can do, is there?"

Rael's silver eyes turned thoughtful. "Whenever we get to a settlement, I'll try to see if I can get a messenger raven sent to the Dale with a message for Galin. It may not help; I don't know how much pull the old dog has anymore, and he said the Knights are watching him closely. And hell, all this speculation may be completely wrong. We just don't know. But that's the best we can do. They're certainly not going to listen to me if I come running with a report."

Silmaria nodded and bit her lip, worried. It was all guesswork and hearsay of course, but she had learned some time ago that Rael had a good sense about these kinds of things, and his logic was sound. She hoped that he was wrong. Maybe the Haruke's visit to the SkyRacers was about something entirely unrelated to the North.

She didn't want to think about the very real possibility that, when all this was done, they may not have a home to go back to.

The midday sun beat down on the red land of The Reach with ambitiously sedated heat, a false-start of summer days yet to come. Rael and Silmaria emerged from a shallow and jagged edged valley that took the better part of the morning to navigate. Rael had been on guard during the whole march through the valley, his greatsword propped on his shoulder at the ready while he and Silmaria scanned the rocks rising around them. Too many vantage points and hidden crevices rose around and above them on all sides. Too many places bandits or worse could lurk, waiting to ambush the unwary. Rael would have preferred to avoid the valley altogether, but the land spat out dense cliffs and rock formations and miniature mountains in an overbearing rush to stretch before them on their southbound trek like piles of coagulated blood. It was the risky exposure of the valley, or days of extra travel through the treacherously inhospitable rocky terrain.

When they emerged from the valley back onto flat land a clearly defined road took shape, the first real road they'd seen in The Reach thus far. It had the distinct rut of well-worn cart tracks grooving the dusty road. It extended off into the distant southward, gently winding and shimmying across the landscape as it scratched a slender slinky line toward the horizon.

Rael and Silmaria paused in the shade of a tall old tree beside the road, sheltering beneath the gnarled boughs and stubborn foliage defying the dry heat of the land while they drank from their waterskin's and watched the road spin its way out before them.

Silmaria stowed her waterskin back in her pack and peered out over The Reach. The road extending out before them and there was a range of red mountains in the distance. Around them was the undulating, ever-changing terrain of hills and valleys and twisting clusters of rock. Her sensitive ears twitched, bothered by the dust that frequently swirled through the air on the hot breeze.

"Why do I get the feeling you're not as pleased to see this road as I am?" She asked, arching a brow at him.