Chapter 8 #3
limbs. Aleksandr and Munir also took long pulls on their wineskins
before capping them and setting them aside. Her cup empty, she
stood and stretched and began to make her way to a hedge of bushes.
The sound of boot fall followed behind her, and she turned and
glared at Munir.
“I am perfectly capable of passing water on
my own,” she told him, to which he shrugged and remained rooted to
where he stood. “Fine,” she muttered loudly as she rounded the
hedge and pulled down her breeches and squatted. “Sure you don’t
want to hold my hand, so that I, frail woman that I am, do not fall
into my own piss?”
Munir did not look in the least chagrined as
she strode back past him a few moments later, nor did she wait for
him as he disappeared behind the bushes. She glared at Aleksandr
for good measure, and was rewarded with a cocked eyebrow as she
returned to her bedroll.
“Rider in,” someone called out, and all eyes
turned to the latecomer, who would be disqualified for riding past
night fall.
It was Feroz, the merchant’s son, and his
horse was limping. Aleksandr and Munir went straight to him and
helped lead the poor animal over to where their horses were staked
out alongside Lasair. Munir removed the horse’s saddle as the
gelding drank from the stream while Feroz finished off his water
skin and refilled it. When both horse and rider had their fill,
Feroz rubbed the beast down while Aleksandr checked the injured
leg, running his big hands down the length of it from shoulder to
hoof. Lifting the horse’s hoof, he squinted in the darkening light,
and Sahar held out the small branch she had pulled from the fire,
its tip burning hot enough to provide some illumination.
Aleksandr whistled low and touched a dark
spot on the sole of the gelding’s hoof, cursing softly as the horse
tried to jerk it away.
“Is it a stone bruise?” Feroz asked, though
they all four of them knew the answer.
Aleksandr nodded. “Afraid so.”
“Damnation.”
“We can make a soft boot out of your saddle
blanket,” Aleksandr said. “It will get you to the next aide
station.”
“Might as well,” Feroz grabbed the blanket
from the ground and pulled out his blade, “since I will be walking
him there.”
“I have some twine in my pack,” she offered,
silently thanking Ratter, who had made sure she was prepared for
anything that could befall herself or Lasair.
“Thank you,” Feroz said.
She turned to get the twine and stopped. Yago
and Taweel were standing between her and the bedrolls, and behind
Yago, the Jackal stood over her bedroll with his back to them. She
heard something drop with a soft thud and then the Jackal turned
around and walked up to the other two princes.
“What were you doing there?” she asked,
craning her neck to where she could see the bedrolls. Nothing
looked amiss, and her wineskin and saddle bags were right where she
had left them.
“What are you doing here?” Yago demanded. He
tapped his riding whip against his thigh as Aleksandr stepped up to
her on one side and Munir the other.
“We are helping Feroz tend to his horse,”
Aleksandr answered. “What’s it to you?”
“If he asks for aide, he must drop out of the
race,” Yago insisted.
Beside her, Aleksandr stiffened and his hand
fisted, and though his short blade lay tucked under his bedroll, he
still wore his waist blades, as did Munir and the three princes
standing before them.
“We know the rules, Prince Yago,” she said
before any of the men could escalate the situation.
“We are more likely to follow them than any
of you,” Aleksandr added, doing exactly what she’d hoped to
avoid.
“Are you insinuating that I, a royal prince,
would cheat?” Yago asked, clearly affronted.
Aleksandr’s laugh was short and harsh. “I am
not insinuating anything, you royal worm, I’m saying it
outright.”
“Both of you cease your arguing and posturing
at once,” she snapped. “If you begin a brawl, we’ll all be out of
the race.”
“It would almost be worth it,” Aleksandr
grumbled, but he stood back half a step and relaxed his fisted
hand.
“Good bastard,” Yago jeered. “Listen to your
mistress.”
Sahar placed her hand on Aleksandr’s forearm,
and felt the corded muscles flex and twitch. “If you know what is
good for you, Prince Yago,” she said, holding back a scoff. “You
will walk away now.”
Yago sneered and slapped the whip into the
palm of his hand, and beneath her fingers, Aleksandr’s arm tensed
and hardened.
“There is no need for a fight,” Feroz
entreated, palms up. “I am dropping out of the race for my horse’s
sake. I wouldn’t do him a further injury.” He stared pointedly at
the whip in Yago’s hand. “Something you would not understand.”
Yago’s sneer twisted into a snarl as he
raised his whip at Feroz, and then his hand stopped mid-strike,
grasped in Aleksandr’s iron grip.
“Don’t you dare,” Aleksandr growled into
Yago’s reddening face. Yanking Yago’s arm down, Aleksandr wrenched
the whip from his hand and broke it in two over his thigh. He threw
the pieces into Yago’s belly. “Don’t ever dare raise a whip to any
person or beast in my presence again.”
Sahar shook her head in disgust. “My father
was right about you,” she told Yago. “You can’t be trusted.”
“You think he can?” Yago jerked his
chin at Aleksandr. “Ask him why King Asad went to his room the
night before the race. Ask him what your esteemed father promised
him to watch over you during this race. To let you win.”
She laughed in Yago’s face, and then she
looked at Aleksandr’s.
“Is this true?”
Aleksi glanced around at the quickly growing
crowd of riders. “This is neither the time nor the place,” he
said.
Blazing green eyes with sparks of molten gold
burned into his. “Is it true?”
He’d promised her father that Aleksi would
keep their bargain a secret, but he wasn’t going to lie to Sahar,
not again. Besides, she was smart enough to put two and two
together, and it would be better to get the truth out into the open
rather than let Yago’s lies infect and fester.
“Yes,” he said as murmurs swept through the
camp. “The king asked me to guard your safety during the race. And
no,” he hastened to add, “he didn’t ask me, or any other man, to
let you win.”
“Ask the bastard what your father promised
him as payment,” Yago said.
“I would rather ask how many spies you have
set about the palace and the city,” Aleksi said, for that was the
only way he would have known about the king’s visit.
“A question I needn’t deign answer. Not to
you.”
“Perhaps not.” Aleksi glanced about at the