Free Fallen by Tim Lebbon Page B

out that the marauders were known to be working in that area. Reports had filtered back from an earlier voyage, but Blaken had paid them no heed.”
    “What happened?”
    Rhiana touched her leather tunic, finger circling a patch of bare leather. “Had a place just here for Blaken's stud. But Beko talked me out of it.”
    “You're not the first Serian I've heard of who wanted Blaken's head. But good for Beko.”
    The soldier offered a wry smile. “I suppose so. Killing a Voyager wouldn't have put me in good favor with the Guild.”
    “It would have got you executed, most likely.”
    “Well. So, that was the first. The second was little better. I can't even remember his name, but he was nothing to speak of. Sailed us out to The Spine, dug up some plants, shot a few birds, sailed us back.”
    “And now you're on a voyage with a man and a woman Voyager.”
    “I am.” Rhiana glanced back over her shoulder, then leaned across toward Nomi. Even then she rode with elegance, her long, tied hair swinging down across her shoulder. “He's a bit quiet,” she said.
    “He does a lot of thinking.”
    “And you?”
    “What about me?”
    “What's your drive?”
    “To make women the best Voyagers, naturally.”
    Rhiana stared at her for just too long. Then she grinned. “I'll help,” she said. She rode on ahead and joined Beko and Lulah, and Nomi wondered exactly what she meant.
     
    WHEN THEY PASSED the ruin, Nomi knew that they were almost out of Clyst Forest. The remains had stood here for as long as anyone could remember, and it was said that this had once been a temple to the Violet Dogs, a race of monstrous invaders that had swarmed the Western Shores before history began. There was very little left now: a few scattered piles of carved building blocks, a heavy lintel half buried in the soil and one portion of a wall still standing. It was home to creeping vegetation and a colony of rock ants, weaving their sticky tube tunnels through grooves and cracks in the old stone.
    Nomi had never paused to examine the ruin because it had never been her destination. She spared it a quick glance and noticed that it had been subsumed more by the forest since her last trip. The climbing plants' stems were slightly thicker, the lintel buried marginally deeper in the ground. A few more years and maybe this would become totally hidden, just another secret part of Clyst Forest that would fade from sight and memory until no one knew it was there.
    She often wondered how many other such places had already disappeared.
    She noticed Beko had paused ahead, Lulah and Rhiana just behind him. He turned around and caught her eye, and Nomi rode forward.
    “Traders camped ahead,” he said.
    The path through the forest was much wider here, the trees farther apart. She could see movement between the trunks, and she caught the whiff of cooking meat and spices. “Lunch,” she said.
    “They're charm traders,” Beko said.
    Rhiana spat. “So long as they don't try charming me.”
    Beko laughed, and Nomi felt momentarily excluded.
    They moved on, rounding a slow bend and passing between the first group of the traders.
    A woman stood quickly from the woven mat she had been sitting on, holding out an array of fur tails. “Ward away the dark,” she said, her voice tinged with the accent of the Pavissia Steppes. “Wood cat tails to ward away the dark.”
    “I just light a fire,” Noon said, laughing.
    A young boy skipped along the track, trailing a length of string behind him, dried leaves from poison cacti waving in the breeze. “Cure the ills in your head,” he said, laughing manically. “Ill head! Ill head!” the boy shouted, darting dangerously close to Konrad's horse.
    “Away!” Konrad said. He kicked out, but the boy twisted aside easily.
    More traders tried to parade their wares, dancing and singing, pleading and whispering, some of them saying nothing at all as they offered their products to view. There were petrified pieces of dead