Page 28 of Queen Demon
Kai and the injured vanguarders didn’t have long to wait. Soon Hartel and Telare arrived out of the night with a cadre of wary outguard soldiers, and they gathered up the groggy vanguarders to carry back to camp. They had brought Kai’s own horse since it was the most used to him by now, so there was no need to try to convince an animal unfamiliar with demons to let him mount it.
As they rode up out of the creek bed and across the plain, Kai saw the pillar of fire had extinguished on its own, probably when he had been temporarily caught by the cantrip. Lamps and torches were lit along the old paddock wall now and as they arrived Kai saw the captive Witch had been moved. Hartel toldhim, “Sister Ziede had us take her into camp to a tent, so if her people returned to spy on us they wouldn’t know where she was.”
“Good.” Leaving her in the open would be too tempting to rescuers and even Kai wasn’t angry enough to want another fight tonight. They rode around to the next gate in the tumbled wall, where more soldiers had reinforced the camp perimeter. Of course, they had thought the camp perimeter was reinforced before, Kai reflected grimly, that no enemy army could approach without being detected by the vanguarders or Ziede’s wind-devils.
It hadn’t been an army, though. Kai had counted only twenty-eight or so moving figures. It would be less now if the ones who attacked him died.
They rode through the broken paddock gate, and across the trampled field. More lamps were lit and people hurried among the tents and back and forth to the caravanserai. The camp was like a disturbed termite hill, but at least it was a quiet orderly disturbed termite hill. The outguard broke off to carry the injured vanguarders to the tents near the supply train where the physicians would be waiting, while Kai followed Hartel and Telare to where the captive Witch had been taken.
This was deeper into camp, in a tent on the edge of the outguard’s area surrounded by a ring of wary soldiers. Ziede and Salatel waited outside by the curtained doorway. Kai swung down from his horse and asked, “How is Amabel? Will they recover?”
Like Kai’s, Ziede’s clothes were streaked with dust, but she had wound her braids up under a scarf again. A scarf which looked suspiciously like one that Tahren sometimes wore around her neck. She reassured him, “Hurt but alive. Mother Hiraga came to help the physicians tend to them. Apparently it was a cantrip to stop their heart, but someone released it before it could kill them.”
“Someone?” Kai asked, not understanding. “Isa, or—”
“No, before we found them. If whoever cast the cantrip was killed before it ran its course, that would release it. Or someone meant it as torture.” As Hartel led their horses away, Ziede added,“A cantrip like that is a great deal more deliberate than dust in the lungs, like what they did to the other vanguarders. Whoever cast it knew Amabel was a Witch and wanted them to suffer.”
Kai grimaced, and did not set anything on fire. Salatel said, “Fourth Prince, Prince-heir Bashasa asked for you and Sister Ziede to speak to the captured person at your convenience. He will be here as soon as he can but he asks that you send to him any information you think is important at any time.”
“Good.” Kai didn’t want to wait. Bashasa would be meeting with the shield-bearers and the leaders of vanguarders, and Hiranan and Lahshar and Vrim, and doing a hundred things at once to deal with this attack. Including deciding whether to move camp or not. He was probably receiving many reports right now, but Bashasa liked to know everything as soon as possible and was one of the few people Kai knew who could take it all into account immediately. He asked Ziede, “Do we know who these people are at all? How they made your wind-devils leave?” If Ziede could be made even temporarily vulnerable, it was going to make fighting these Witches so much more difficult.
Ziede’s gaze went to the tent, her brow furrowed. “I can’t be certain until we get this one to talk, but I believe they’re dustwitches, from the north. They were probably forced to flee this way by the Hierarchs. They don’t commune with spirits like we do, but they have some command over the weather. They were able to confuse the wind-devils so they couldn’t hear me.” Her expression was sour. “I didn’t realize what I was dealing with. The power they draw from, it’s part of the earth, but it’s not aware and responsive, like a spirit. It’s the energy they can draw from rockfalls and the power that causes the ground to move, fissures to open up, volcanos.”
Listening intently, Telare asked, “Sister Ziede, why would they do this to their own people?”
Kai saw Salatel give Telare an admonishing glare, but Ziede didn’t appear to mind the question. Her voice dry, she said, “Theymust not consider us their own people. Kai and Amabel’s family came from the west, from the places you call the Witchlands and the Grass Kings’ plains. I’m from the Khalin Islands, which were originally settled by borderlanders—witchlanders. Even though all witch lines can be traced back to the Saredi, dustwitches went to the north generations ago.”
Telare didn’t seem to think that was reason enough and neither did Kai, though the distance of kinship between the north and the west had nothing to do with it. But right now, the source of the dustwitches’ power was more important, and how the dustwitches had used it to fill up mortal lungs with windblown dirt. Kai said, “They tried to kill me like they did the vanguarders, but it didn’t work. Though they got me with a cantrip that could have done a lot of damage.” He wondered if it was the same one used on Amabel.
“Hmm.” Ziede was puzzled. “I have no idea why you would be immune to dust in the lungs. You have to breathe like anyone else.”
Telare said, “Fourth Prince, you should ask Mother Hiraga.”
Mother Hiraga had cured Telare of a dangerous spider bite so now Telare thought the elder Witch knew everything, though asking Hiraga’s opinion on this was certainly not the worst idea Telare ever had. Then Kai abruptly remembered Amabel saying Hiraga felt like they had dust in their throat. “Telare, go to Mother Hiraga and ask if I can speak to them in the morning.”
Telare said, “Yes, Fourth Prince.” As she hurried away, Kai told Ziede, “I think Mother Hiraga may have had a portent, but nobody understood it.”
“Well, that’s typical of portents,” Ziede admitted wearily.
Kai jerked his head toward the tent. He thought he knew enough now to start the questioning. “Has she said anything?”
“She was pretending not to understand Arike or Imperial or Witchspeak, when last I saw her.”
“She spoke to me in Imperial.” Kai wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t really funny. “Does she think we’re stupid?”
Ziede eyed him. She asked in Saredi, “Are you calm enough to do this?”
“I’m so very calm right now,” Kai assured her in the same language.
Ziede’s eyes narrowed and she was clearly unconvinced, but she said, “Then let’s go ask her some questions.”
Kai stepped into the tent with Ziede and Salatel. It was a larger one, meant for meetings, and the dustwitch sat huddled on the ground cloth. She had lost her veil, probably when Kai had dragged her through the grass. She was surrounded by the rest of Kai’s cadre, three outguard soldiers, and Amabel’s relatives Baram and Ibel.
Baram was close to Amabel’s age, with the same warm brown coloring, but their curly hair was cropped close to their head. They had been struck by a wasting disease as a child, and it had badly affected their stamina and their ability to walk any longer than short distances. Ibel was older, her brown skin more weathered and her long dark braids threaded with white. She was probably the strongest in the family next to Amabel, but she had fought off an attack by an expositor’s construct several years ago when the family was in hiding in the Sana-sarcofa, and it had left her with a withered right arm and a lessening of her ability to see and hear spirits. Neither would be much help if the dustwitch tried to attack, but they would know immediately if she attempted anything subtle. Both Witches had hastily dressed and had left behind their veils, so their expressions of grim judgement were plainly visible.
The dustwitch lifted her gaze to glare at Kai. He flashed the Witchspeak word forfailure. She spat at him.
“So you do understand, then,” he said.
