Worlds That Weren't

She backed away toward the stable, her eyes wary and the ax handle ready, but none of the other grown folk tried to stop her; Aydwah wasn’t quite angry enough to call on them to bind her, although his son Sami did bring his bow. By that time Slasher had followed her, walking stiff-legged and looking back over his shoulder frequently. Stunned silence fell, broken only by the idiot clucking of poultry and noises of stock and a few dogs barking at the fear and throttled anger they smelled. Sonjuh saddled one of her horses, stashed her traveling gear on the mule’s pack saddle, slung the blanket-roll over her shoulder, and swung into the saddle; the morning’s mush was a cold lump under her breastbone, but her face was a mask of pale, controlled fury. The last thing she did was to use the goatsfoot lever to cock her crossbow, setting one of the short, heavy steel-headed and leather-feathered bolts in the groove.

She held the reins in her left hand and the weapon in her right; the spare horse and mule were well-enough trained to follow without a leading rein. Aydwah waited by the laneway that led out across his land to the Dannulsford trace, between the tall posts carved with the figures of the Corn Lady and Lord o’ Sky.

“I cast you out!” he called, as she came near. “You’re no kin of ours! I put the elder’s curse on you, Lord ’n’ Lady hear my oath!”

There were gasps from the other folk of the farm; that was a terrible thing, to be without immediate family. Not as bad as being outlawed from your clan, but close. Sonjuh dropped the reins for an instant to flash the sign of the Horns at him, turning the curse.

There were more shocked exclamations at that, and someone burst out: “She’s ghost-ridden!”

“Yes, I am-by my pa ’n’ ma, ’n’ my sisters, your blood you weren’t man enough to get revenge for,” Sonjuh said coldly. “I call their spirits down on you, Aydwah sunna Chorge, to haunt you sleeping ’n’ waking, by bed ’n’ field ’n’ hearth, you ’n’ all yours.”

Aydwah raised his bow, a six-foot length of yellow-orange boisdawk wood.

Sonjuh ignored the creak of the shaft being drawn and cast a jeering call over her shoulder: “Go ahead, Aydwah Kin-Killer-shoot your brother’s girlchild in the back ’fore witnesses, ’n’ put your head up on a pole!”

With that, she squeezed her mount with her thighs and left at a canter. The flat unmusical smack of the bowstring sounded behind her, but the shaft flashed off to one side to bury itself amid the stooked corn and pumpkins and cowpea vines; her uncle hadn’t quite dared.

I wonder if this is how father felt, when he pushed a quarrel, she thought briefly; it was an intoxication, a release of frustration like a dam breaking. Bet the hangover’s worse than whiskey, though.

IV

A Gathering Of Eagles

“Sah!”

The corporal in charge of the squad he’d borrowed from Galveston’s garrison commander gave a crackling stamp-and-salute; Eric King returned the gesture. The noncom and his squad were natives, too, stalwart muscular men, dark brown of skin, with kinky hair and broad features. They’d been recruited from the farming and fishing tribes who were spread thinly over the central Texas coast, it being policy to raise local levies where possible, since they were always cheaper and often hardier than imported regulars.

But Imperial discipline puts down deep roots, King thought, as the man wheeled off to supervise his squad; they struck the tents and folded them for pack-saddle carriage with practiced efficiency.

An ox wagon had brought the gear this far from the steamboat; two tents, a large and a small-military issue-and a fair pile of boxed weapons, ammunition, equipment, and supplies-the latter including brandy from France-outre-mer, distilled in the hills near Algiers, and whiskey from New Zealand. Robre Hunter had raised his brows and smacked his lips over a small sample of each, and King made a mental note to advise Banerjii to keep some in stock. Being teetotal as well as a vegetarian, it probably hadn’t occurred to the Bengali that booze came in different qualities and prices.

The native guide looked at the pile of equipment. “Lord o’ Sky!” he said. “If you Empire men take this much on a hunting trip, what do you drag along on a war-party?”

“Considerably less,” King said dryly, remembering fireless bivouacs in the Border hills, rolled in his cloak against blowing snow and gnawing a piece of stale chapatti while everyone listened for Pathan raiders creeping up on their bellies under cover of the storm.

“I’m hunting for pleasure and I’m not in a hurry. Why not be comfortable as possible? When we of the Angrezi Raj fight, all we care about is winning.”

Robre nodded slowly. “Makes sense,” he said. “Let’s get on about it, then.”