Infall Ch. 09 - END

Kythe had been there, stepping to her. "Indya," he said, his knuckles on the back of her cheek.

With his help, she'd made it back to her rooms, and then she'd been cried on Kythe's lap.

"She's not gone forever, Indya," Kythe had said.

"I know this," she'd said, still crying.

"Alea," he said like he did, drawing it out.

They'd gotten another woman to be with her, because evidently the Lí usually had several. Indya couldn't imagine being trapped with women who were strangers in her own home, and she'd said so. So Elsie lived down the hall in her own chambers, a woman Mavia's age, of an appropriately respectable rank, Indya had been told, and they got along well enough. Indya suspected that Elsie found Indya's company as dull as Indya found hers; she'd never met a more incurious person.

"We could find someone else for you, alea," Kythe had said, noticing.

"No, thank you," Indya said. "Elsie is a good person to be with me."

"You could use a friend," Kythe had said.

There was still an occasional coolness toward her, and a more general hesitancy in the court. She was foreign, and a scandal. Kythe and Zen had never told anyone but their father just how foreign Indya was. Indya had her detractors, mostly among the engineers. They didn't call her a noita to her face, but several of them made it quietly clear they believed it, and some people believed them, or wanted to because it was titillating.

"I have Mavia," she'd said. "I will find friends, Kythe. Give me time."

And she had, eventually. First Olivine, an outrageous and pretty woman who was the wife of one of the engineers and more of a scandal than Indya was. Olivine hadn't been the first to pursue her company because she was the lí. Indya wasn't interested in flouting more Matisi conventions than she already did, and she'd met Olivine's ambition to recruit the scandalous young Lí to shock the city of Averdine with passive and friendly resistance.

After some mutual nastiness they both enjoyed a little, they decided they were alike, and after Olivine defended Indya publicly, they decided they were friends. Olivine was an energetic person with a sharp wit who shared Indya's love for horses, and they went riding together with Indya's personal guard.

Whether they thought it was a true test or not in their eyes, the people of Averdine liked that Indya had taken the noita's test, liked that she'd paid attention to their concerns even if she was foreign, and they liked that the rí had allowed it. Strangely enough, she was more popular in the city than in the court, but the kah-rí's favor kept people polite.

Her next friend had been surprising, a younger person, seventeen, who was the daughter of one of the kah-rí's lower advisors. She was a plain, unmarried woman who was so quiet you barely noticed her. If you did, you saw a long and pale face, dark eyes with dark circles around them, dark hair, which was just her coloring, and a kind of dolorous grace. Her name was Danela and she was a talented artist, working in colored brushes.

Most of all, Danela was an intelligent person with the driest sense of humor, who never laughed at her own jokes and made them to Indya in her quiet voice whenever they were together. Indya had instantly adored her and was pleased that Danela felt the same. Indya had Danela for lunch a great deal, Kythe complaining he had to close the doors and that he didn't understand why it sounded as if Indya was always laughing to herself.

But if anyone else was there, Danela became painfully quiet and would barely speak, much less joke, and her close friendship with Indya remained baffling to Olivine and Kythe and Zen and most in the court.

Indya had married Kythe and Zen in a terrace high above the city with all the people watching, but this time she'd had clothes on. And such clothes. She could hardly move, everything stiff and she couldn't bend to sit and they had painted her face and stuck her hair in an elaborate and high style until she had barely recognized herself in the mirror. But it had been worth it to see the faces of the rí men she was marrying. It was such an event, considering it really wasn't anyone else's business, but Indya had endured it.

She rose and put the book away, walking to the door to her rooms and exiting. "Are we riding?" Indya said. She was in her outfit for doing so, a wool dress and pants, boots, Zozo at her side.

Kythe and Zen were both standing in front of the doors to their rooms, waiting for her.

"I think we should ride nina," Zen said, moving toward her with that look on his face, always a slightly heady prospect because she really didn't ever know what Zen would do next.

Zen was many things, but predictable was not one of them. Her nipples tightened, a creeping feeling, and she shivered, and she knew he saw it.

He reached and took a strand of her hair, playing with it. "You look pretty in that, nina. I like your boots. I'd like you in just your boots."

"Are you finally ready? Let's go," Kythe said, pushing off the door. "We've waited for you enough, Indya."

"I was ready right away," she said, gesturing behind her. "You called with a great loud voice and I got dressed and came out the door, Kythe. Oh! Wait, I have to get my coat."

She walked back in, Zozo coming with her. Pinching her cheeks in the mirror, she wished Matisi clothing for women didn't cover so much. You could hardly see her breasts at all. She turned sideways in the mirror, tilting her head. Zen and Kythe had been adamant that the flowing clothing they had given her would not be appropriate for the lí to wear outside of their home.

Indya had taken to wearing a little of their paint on her lips because Zen liked it. He'd never said so, but she knew he did because he got a little expressionless when she did and he watched her mouth a great deal. She picked up the pot with the color.

The people of Matise worshiped their ancestors. It was no wonder they did, given the serene, baffling and empty cities, now rotting and silent. The ruins were viewed as evidence that someone had done something wrong and they'd been punished, and various myths had become belief. Mostly the stories came down to being too arrogant to pay proper respect to their ancestors.

Indya didn't mind. There were worse religious beliefs, she imagined, and worse practices than venerating your dead. It wasn't just murals in the front hall of Kythe and Zen's ancestors. Their burned bodies were there as well, ashes in sealed containers she had initially assumed were merely decorative, Indya trying not to think of dead ashes in her home.

Kythe said he didn't believe any of it and that the dead were just dead, at which Zen had been quiet. After that, Indya ensured that she made the appropriate offerings at the serial small shrines in the hall, generations of urns with their ashes, shallow bowls in front of them that needed filling with small candles and flowers, the spent ones discarded. She thought the idea appealed to Zen, who was a more orderly, disciplined person than his brother, to know that people of the past were watching over their actions and judging and sometimes influencing a particular outcome.

"Indya!" Kythe's voice cut through her musings, startling her, making her jump. Indya twiddled with the slippery pot, almost upsetting it, and then it jumped into the air of its own will, the evil thing, and dropped onto the floor.

"Fata," she said, and Zen was there, coming into her room. "Kythe is making me drop it," Indya said, bending down.

"Somebody can't make somebody else drop something unless they knock it out of their hands."

"Why you are so mean now?"

"Nina," he said, coming to her and pulling her by her arm to her feet. "It's time to go."

"I know that," she said. "First I had to get my coat--I still don't have it. I left it in the work room. Just a moment." She drew away, walking quickly.

"You'll ride Saba with a sore butt, nina," Zen called.

"I can't hear you!" she said.

"I will put you over my shoulder and carry you through the alzar that way."

"Don't you threaten me, you brute," she said, and one of the stoppers wasn't on its bottle, and she'd forgotten to put water in Zozo's bowl, but she had some water in the pitcher and then she realized he was coming with her anyway. She grabbed her coat, but Zen was there, right there, his face close to hers. Then his eyes shifted to her mouth.

Zen got a little expressionless. Yes, he liked the paint. She caught her lip in her teeth and his eyes flashed to hers, his narrowing.

He pointed. "Go."

She went, throwing little glances over her shoulder. It was never good to turn your back completely on Zen. She went a little fast out the last door in front of him and practically ran into Kythe, Zozo only narrowly avoiding him, Kythe almost stumbling over him.

"Fatada dog," Kythe said. "In front of me now, alea."

"I'm here," she protested. "I just needed to get my coat. You're both so impatient."

Kythe made a growling noise like he did and he brought her to the wall and faced her toward it, hiking her skirt. He grabbed the fastening of her pants and pulled them down, kicking her legs apart. His fingers came behind her, on each side of her clitoris and he went fast, Indya coming in moments, jutting on his fingers and crying out. He spanked her once. "That should slow you down. Let's go."

She whirled around, feeling how hot her cheeks were, pulling her pants up and fastening them. "That was rude," she told him, frowning, and then started toward her door, back to her rooms. "I should braid my hair if we're going to ride."

And that's how she ended up with people staring, over Zen's shoulder, her hair trailing behind him, moving through the alzar.

"Hello, Ekhart," Indya said as the staff brought the horses, people running to saddle them.

"Lí," Ekhart said, the tone of his voice saying he was trying not to laugh.

It would be easier to have the conversation if Zen would turn her to face the man. "How are you?"

"I am well, Lí, thank you." Still the humor.

"And your wife? How is she?"

"She's fine, Lí. Asina will have her baby in a few weeks."

"Are you excited? It is your first child."

"Excited and worried, Lí, yes." he said.

"You've done all the things I said?"

"Yes, thank you."

"You treat her special and tell her she's beautiful at least once a day."

"I always do so, Lí," Ekhart said as Zen set her down in front of Saba, her hair everywhere.

"You don't give me time to braid my hair and now it's messy," she complained.

Zen grabbed her without comment and set her on the horse. He pointed his finger at her. "If you try to dismount, nina-bird, I will tie your hands to the pommel."

She perched, her back straight, her hair everywhere, frowning at him. "You don't tell me what to do, Zen, with your big finger pointing and your big voice like thunder."

Ekhart laughed and then stifled it, ducking into a stall.

Zen made a face at her and walked to his horse, swinging on. Kythe was on the other side of her. At least Saba was as tall.

"Come, Indya. Don't be stubborn," Kythe said, moving his horse, Bishar, ahead.

"Like I am the stubborn one," she muttered.

"I can hear you, alea."

"What for are you waiting, Zen?" Indya said, cross, looking behind her. "You don't know the way?"

"I'm riding behind you in case you decide to take Saba back to our rooms to polish his hooves."

"Now you're just being silly," she said, looking at Zozo, who was play-fighting with Ashka, the dogs keeping their mouths open and trying to pretend to bite one another, Indya shaking her head. "Males are so violent."

Not even on their own land did Kythe and Zen go unarmed, and their long poles with sharpened metal blades, spears, rode with them in holsters on their saddles, although they didn't have the curved swords today.

When they were in the meadow, they got down from their horses, Indya dropping the reins and Kythe securing them. They set off, walking in the field, Indya picking flowers. It was a pretty place. And she wanted to have sex with Kythe and Zen, which is why they'd brought her out here.

She turned, startling, when Ashka went crazy, beginning to bark and rushing off, Zozo as mad, barking like they did, streaking into the woods to her right. Zen ran into the woods where Zozo and Ashka had gone.

"It's probably a boar. Stay here, alea," Kythe said, following him into the woods.

So Indya stood in the tall grass, and then she heard the dogs snarling. Indya shivered, because it didn't sound like the dogs were playing anymore. The sounds were vicious. It didn't even sound like Zozo to her, but he was being protective, she knew. She had visions of Zozo bleeding, remembering how Zen had lost his dog Coor, her stomach knotting, and then visions of Zen bleeding, hurt by the large animal. She made a small sound.

Then all that was wiped away as she heard the swishing through the grass behind her and turned and she spotted a wide broad back covered with stiff black hair, hearing its low and rough grunting and breathing. It was far from her now, but coming her way.

"Don't you see me, big fat boar," she whispered, facing the animal. The way it was coming, it was going to find her. She began backing away and the animal stopped, going still.

It had heard her, changing direction a little, moving toward her faster, his passage through the grass becoming a fast swishing. Indya froze. She didn't know what to do, her eyes darting to the trees. Her heart was going to come from her chest.

"Don't move, nina," a voice said softly. "Stay where you are."

Zen. She looked to her left, Zen's big self there with his weapon in his hand. She was breathing fast and she nodded, the animal still coming directly toward her, faster now.

"Hask! Hask, hask!" Zen yelled, moving into the clear space to the left and back, the grass shorter there.

Indya covered her mouth with her hand as the boar came charging out, squealing, fast, Zen waiting, his left shoulder forward, his left arm extended in front of himself, his right arm cocked and pulled back, the long weapon with the sharp tip held lightly. The boar broke cover straight toward him and Zen twisted and threw the weapon, the blade flying in a deadly arc and lodging between its shoulder blades.

Indya cried out, covering her eyes, seeing it all in her mind's vision, the animal's expression of fear and pain, hearing its screams. When she opened her eyes, it was running away into the woods to her right, the spear wobbling as it went.

Kythe exploded out of the forest to her left, his weapon covered with blood, Ashka and Zozo with him, the dogs not even stopping, going in front of her and into the woods after the injured animal.

"Indya," Kythe said, and had her in his arms, nodding to Zen. "Go."

She was shaking. "He's big, Kythe. He's with his teeth, and then Zen is hurting the animal and the animal is cut and there's blood and it's sharp." Indya shuddered.

"I know, alea. He can't get you now."

She relaxed into him, looking and waiting. "Where is he? You go and help Zen."

"Zen is fine. The boar will be dead soon. It just takes the animal some time to realize it."

"I'm sorry he's dead. Zozo's not hurt?" she said.

"No, alea," he said, stroking her hair.

In not too much longer, the dogs came bounding out of the woods and Zen came out with his weapon, blood on it, with his face like thunder. He cast it into the ground where it stuck and walked to her, taking her from Kythe and pulling her into his arms, holding her tightly. His heart was pounding.

Her arms came up around his neck. "Thank you, Zen," she said, burying in his chest now, "for saving me. I afraid he's eating me. I'm sorry you for hurting him. He's not understanding." She didn't speak Edion as well when she was frightened.

"Indya, fata. I thought he would reach you."

"No," she said. "There were two?"

"Yes, and the dogs didn't scent the other because it was downwind."

"She's safe, brother," Kythe said. "Let's go back."

It was the end of their walk, both Kythe and Zen had decided, and they went back to their horses after Zen and Kythe cleaned their weapons in the grass and talked to one another. Indya waited, not looking, sitting down on the grass, slowly calming down.

Zozo came, panting and still excited. He tried to sit on her lap like he always wanted to and he was so heavy, his head turning to look at her, his tongue dripping his saliva all over her. "That's disgusting, Zozo," she said, wiping at it, kissing his muzzle and petting him and then heaving the great beast off her lap, standing up.

"I want the boars in those woods hunted and killed, all of them," Zen said to Kythe.

"No, please, Zen," Indya said, approaching him, putting her hands on his chest. "They're only doing what they know. The animals are not evil. They want to live."

Zen looked down at her and didn't say anything, taking her hand and bringing her to Saba.

They were halfway back, riding slowly, when the second surprise of this strange day arrived, men on horses ahead, riding hard. They approached, Zen and Kythe in front of her.

"Rí!" one of the men said. "The kah-rí asks for your presence. A scout has come from Gastor."

Zen nodded. "There are two dead boar south-southeast, just past the ridge," Zen said. "Have someone go get the meat."

He didn't look at her, but Indya was relieved that Zen didn't say anything about killing all of them.

* * *

Kythe and Zen didn't stop to wash up, going straight to the throne room, Indya between them, an attendant taking the dogs to their rooms. When they arrived, the kah-rí was sitting in his place, another man there, Indya recognizing him. Indya walked and sat at the kah-rí's feet as their father liked.

"Captain Lopin reports that there are rumors that Gastor has fallen," the kah-rí said to Kythe and Zen. "Rumors of an unstoppable army."

"Fallen," Zen echoed. "That's not possible. Gastor's walls are too thick. Líke Averdine, that city can't be taken by anything but siege, and we've heard nothing like that."

"Yet those are the rumors chasing each other up the coast."

"Last week, our scouts reported that the Tapins have withdrawn from their border," Kythe said. "Perhaps they know something we don't."

"Except for the Tapins, there's been peace," Zen said. "Why would our neighbors break it now?"

"We found another man we spoke to in Chasir, two weeks later," Captain Lopin said. "Nothing he'd witnessed, but he reported rumors of a great weapon that is knocking down walls like paper. Kah-Rí, I don't say that it's true, but people fear they are Chusan from the East, across the sea."

The kah-rí took a deep breath, releasing it. "People always fear the Chusan. It is the first tavern the rumors go to slake their thirst."

"That's because they're fierce and their ships are fast and their horses faster," Kythe said.

The kah-rí nodded. "Echtha is six weeks down the coast. They are our allies. Take fifty men. You both go in the morning. Learn more, whatever it takes. I'll send couriers with you. Send one back each week."

Indya's gut sank, her insides going cold.

"Yes, Father," Zen said.

"Father," Kythe said.

"Go," the kah-rí said.

Indya rose, feeling numb, following Zen and Kythe out. They waited for her, one on each side, Indya walking in a daze.

She waited until they were all in the common rooms. "Can I come?" she said. "I could come with you, Kythe, like before. Zen?"

They both turned to her, Kythe releasing his breath.

"Alea," he said, drawing it out like he did. He was walking to her, and she knew his answer, her heart pounding. "It's not the same as a border post with one hundred of our men and patrolling for the Tapins. Something's happening. Zen and I will ride hard with the men. There will be no staying in one place. We'll sleep rough."