In Thy Name

Chapter 6 - Memory

"Only a little more," the mage said, watching her like she was a dangerous beast. "Then the tea, then more water later."

Tea?

It came in a tiny clay cup, and tasted like hot metallic water, although something in it stung the back of her throat. She was given three cups, and was relieved by the time they were all gone.

Then she lay back and let the conversation of Kuya and the mage drift around her. They spoke in low, careful voices, Kuya quietly curious, his mind settled though not entirely at ease. The mage was wary, but peeking out from under his shell.

Selengged's mind flashed back to the moment when she woke with him crouched over her, his blocky words in Sev-Halla: "I try to help." He had tried to help her... after...

Pain consuming her, flames inside her, burning their way out. Destroying her. Because they had left her there.

"Don't they say that fire on the open sand will summon a... an evil spirit?" she was saying, jesting.

"The wandering fires?" A bark of a laugh. "Those things are just stories the sand scum tell to frighten people off the dunes," the decadarchos said. A young woman. Scorpion. Decadarchos. "But this won't be burning very long. Just long enough to heat some water to clean the wound."

A sliver of pain in her arm, hardly worth her notice. "I could have waited."

Scorpion either didn't hear or pretended not to. The young officer moved briskly about the fire, setting up the tripod pot, her rust-colored braids beating a tattoo against her mail. Once the pot was standing over the fire, she said, "With your permission, centarchos, I'll go stand watch."

Selengged nodded, and Scorpion climbed the dune to the southeast. She stood posed for a moment against the blazing blue sky, hands on hips, then sank into the waiting crouch of a soldier, one knee lowered, her arms resting loosely on her knees. Her head moved from time to time, turning by degrees from one side to the other.

Selengged looked down at her arm. No blood showed through the mail, and the shirt beneath was whole and clean. Probably just a bruise. She raised her head to call Scorpion down to help her remove her hauberk-but the dune stood empty against the sky.

"Decadarchos," she said.

The stillness of the desert swallowed her voice. She called again, "Scorpion Decadarchos! Present yourself immediately."

A spray of sand blew off the dunetop.

Selengged stood, wondering what in Tengur's name Scorpion could be doing. No one in her father's army would have dared disobey like that. She climbed up the dune, struggling against the slipping sand.

The trough between the dunes was empty, half glittering and half in shadow, still as death.

Beyond, the rest of the dune sea undulated away to the horizon, punctuated in places by rock canyons, like the heads of gargantuan swimmers. The day's heat was growing, and the desert was starting to take on that shimmer that made the outcroppings seem to bob among the waves.

A soft jingle behind her. Scorpion was swinging her leg over one of the horses. "Decadarchos," Selengged shouted. Scorpion snatched the reins of the other horse and spurred hers forward.

"What in-you piss-mouthed dungfly!" Selengged ran toward them, slipping down the side of the dune. Scorpion hissed a clumsy mouthful of Æs-halla, her thin face tensed in concentration. The sand caught at Selengged's foot and she fell, pain shooting through her ankle.