Return To Kaldak

It might be just a training exercise. But it looked to Baliza a lot too much like a search party. For the moment they were a long way behind her, but that might change. She had to get out of the area as fast as she could-not easy, with a river half a mile wide in front of her.

However, there were boats on rivers. Baliza started prowling along the bank, looking for an untended boat. Half an hour later she found a fisherman sitting on the bank, beside a beached canoe. He was sitting facing the river, all his attention on the dip net in his lap. He was mending its broken handle as Baliza crept up through the bushes behind him.

When she knew she hadn't been detected, she pulled out a slingshot and a handful of clay balls. Being the Sky Master's daughter gave her the chance to learn all sorts of unusual fighting skills from equally unusual teachers. She still didn't think she knew as much as her father-the tales of his bare-handed duel against the arrogant Hota still thrilled her. But she felt she'd learned enough to be a worthy daughter to the Sky Master-and would she ever have a chance to ask him if he thought so, too?

Baliza aimed the slingshot, pulled the cord back, and let fly. The clay ball took the fisherman in the temple and he toppled over sideways without even a groan. Baliza hurried out of cover and examined him. The clay ball had disintegrated on impact, as it was supposed to. The fisherman himself was senseless but breathing steadily. In a few hours he would awake with a crashing headache, a blue bruise on his temple, and no memory of what happened to him. The captured Tribesmen who'd taught her to use the slingshot in return for his freedom would have been proud of her.

She dropped her pack and hat into the canoe and pushed it into the water, then climbed in. A few paddle strokes took her out into the current. Within moments she was on her way downstream toward Doimar, faster than she could have walked and with much less effort.

The morning sun blazed on the water and made the ripples sparkle like jewels. She put her hat back on but took off her shirt. She knew that a soldier who sees a good-looking woman going about bare to the waist will seldom bother to ask questions-or at least not questions about whether she's a spy.

Chapter 23

It was late afternoon, with the shadows growing long and the heat of the day begi

Not this time, with Voros the Wise leading them against the wizards of Doimar. The sixty warriors would go aboard the sky-machines at night, fly to the wizards' home in the darkness, and attack it at dawn.

«They won't find it easy to see us on the way in,» Voros had said. «By the time we've finished wrecking the place, they'll be too busy to bother us on the way out.» Although Voros had also said that victory would be worth the life of every one of the raiders, he seemed determined to bring home as many men as he could.

So the raiders were facing a sleepless night and a long day. Most were sleeping or resting now. Some were with their women, including Voros himself.

Shangbari had no fit woman for this time. His first wife had died trying to give him a son. He'd been courting a second woman when the Doimari struck and she died under the fire-beams. He would shout her name as his war cry while he fought the wizards.

Still restless, he walked through the village and around on old sow asleep in her accustomed place in the middle of the path. A hundred paces farther on, he came to the three sky-machines. They lay in the shadow of the trees, covered with branches to make them hard to see from the sky. The Doimari war colors showed faintly through the green leaves.

Shangbari was not entirely happy about going into such a great and important battle in disguise. Yet perhaps this was necessary, if you were fighting wizards. If they did not know who you were until your weapons struck them down, they could not work their magic against you.

Certainly Voros had said so, to those who not only had doubts but spoke them out loud. He'd also said that anyone who argued further would have to fight either him or his battle-brother, the Sergeant Ezarn.

No one wanted to raise a hand against Voros the Wise. The battle spirits might punish them for fighting in disguise, but they would be punished far worse for defying the spirit-blessed Voros. As for fighting Brother Ezarn-he could fight any two warriors of the Red Cats without even working up a heavy sweat. He had done so with fifty men looking on, and without breaking any law or custom of the Red Cats while doing it. No, fighting Ezarn might not be cursed, but it would certainly be very foolish.

As he got closer to the sky-machines, Shangbari saw Ezarn himself in front of one of them. He had one of their little doors open and was doing something to what lay inside with City man's tools.

«Hullo, Shangbari.»

«Greetings, Ezarn. May I watch?»

«Can't sleep, hunh?»

«No.»

«Neither can I. Sit yourself down, by all means.»

«I thank you.»

Shangbari sat down cross-legged as Ezarn used both hands to pull a length of metal tube out of the door. The hunter thought that if he watched Ezarn long enough, he might learn something about the sky-machines of the Cities. The more he learned, the better. Voros, Sparra, and Ezarn did not seem to care about Tribesmen gaining such knowledge. If there was war again between the Red Cats and the Cities, everything the Red Cats learned would give them new strength.

The towers of Doimar were silhouetted against a sunset sky as Baliza turned into the Street of the Winesellers. Torches and lamps glowed all up and down the street, as the wineshops began their evening's business. Baliza's eyes turned upward, to lights on the roof of a five-story building halfway down the street. That was Feragga's city home. As long as the lights went on every night, she was living there.

A hand touched her shoulder softly and a voice murmured in her ear, «Tombs and cigars.»

«Hello, Kandro,» Baliza replied. She turned to see the little Intelligence agent standing behind her, munching a sausage. «Any changes?»

He shook his head. «Only two guards, and both of them half asleep already.»

With only two guards, Feragga either didn't fear danger or didn't care about her life. It would be easy to get past two guards, then hold the stairs to Feragga's quarters for more than long enough. Provided, of course, that the other two Intelligence men did their job of stealing a lifter ….

«What if she won't come with you?» said Kandro softly.

«She probably will,» said Baliza. «But if she won't, she won't.»

«We could kill her,» said Kandro hopefully.

«No,» said Baliza sharply. They'd been over the question before. If this was the way Intelligence people thought, no wonder they hadn't discovered Detcharn's plans!

«If we kill her, we'll turn all her friends into friends of Detcharn. They'll want vengeance on Kaldak. If we leave her alive, on the other hand, it will prove again that Kaldak doesn't want war to the death.»

«Perhaps.» Kandro's face brightened. «Also, we will prove that we can slip into the heart of Doimar at will. They'll be sleeping lightly and looking over their shoulders for years after that.»

«Right,» said Baliza. She punched him in the shoulder. Kandro would see reason if you hit him over the head often enough.

The sight of the sausage in the other's hand reminded Baliza that she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Her stomach rumbled.