Delivering Yaehala

Delivering Yaehala

   

  A Fantasy Novelette by Annie Bellet

   

  Copyright 2011, Annie Bellet

   

  All rights reserved. Published by Doomed Muse Press.

   

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously, or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected].

  Cover designed by Greg Jensen with image from © Ekaterina Sheredeko | Dreamstime.com

  Electronic edition, 2011

  Delivering Yaehala

   

   Alila hung from the side of the cliff by one leg and one hand, her other leg stretched out and her bare foot braced against the rough trunk of the frankincense tree. The tree’s thick branches grew in gnarled tentacles out into the dry air, seeming to hover over the canyon floor a hundred feet below. Carefully, she chipped away at the frankincense resin that gathered in gashes she’d cut a fortnight before. The silvery, opaque, and fragrant nodules dropped into the sack she’d hung from pegs driven into the bark.

  High above, a sand eagle wheeled, casting a narrow shadow and the wind sang a susurrus song through Alila’s hidden canyon. Her twin unicorns, Hezi and Gabi, rested in the shade of a rock outcropping, safe from the high afternoon sun. Alila tried not to look down too often to pick out their dust colored shapes. She was used to heights but that didn’t stop her from growing dizzy if she contemplated how broken her little body would be on the unyielding rocks below.

  Alila wiped her forehead with her free hand, letting the chisel dangle on its leather cord. Only a few more trees to go and then she could head down and rest in the shade until the cool of night when the nine moons rose. Though high above them, Alila sensed the unicorns eagerness to being their twice yearly trek to the Mirror Sea.

  Gabi and Hezi broke into a chiming chorus of warning calls and their voices rang like prayer bells in the canyon. From her vantage point, Alila scanned, looking for trouble as her hand went to the knife in her loin cloth. She’d faced down the lean rock lions before, but had never seen one desperate enough to come down the steep path into the narrow canyon.

  Not a rock lion. Trouble came in the form of a figure on horseback, sliding more than riding down the boulder-filled cleft that led into Alila’s tree-lined gorge. Hezi and Gabi emerged from the rocks, their wide heads down with curved horns and ears pointing toward the intruder. The rider’s horse skidded to the canyon floor and fell to its knees with a groan that carried up to Alila’s perch.

  Alila tied off her incense bag and hooked it to the rope slung between her scarred breasts. She climbed down, making sure the seed pods on her wrists and ankles shook with every motion. The pods buzzed with a sound like the finger-length hunter wasps, warning off cliff vipers and scorpions that might be sunning themselves on the ledges.

  The horse wasn’t moving by the time Alila set a bare foot on the rocky floor. She drew her knife anyway, murmuring to the unicorns as she ducked beneath the outcropping and gathered her dajib robe and headscarf. She donned the clothing quickly, masking her gender and wrapping the headscarf so that it covered the two tattooed tears beneath her left cheekbone.

  Clothed, she made her way carefully toward the fallen horse. Its sides had ceased moving by the time she drew close and the smell of fresh blood overpowered the constant scent of frankincense. Alila had thought that the horse was one of the striped desert horses the nomads favored, but its stripes were drying blood oozing from fly-crusted wounds.

  The rider was swathed in brown silks also stained heavily with blood and the orange grit from the hills. Lapis beads hung from dusty brown braids that obscured the woman’s face and for a moment Alila thought she, too, might be dead, but then the woman moved and made a wet sound in her throat.

  Alila motioned to Gabi and pointed up the canyon path. “Scout, Gabi, scout.”

  The unicorn snuffled, lifting her head, and trilled acknowledgement of the command. She set off up the path, her padded cloven feet making no noise on the rock. Convinced that the unicorn would warn her if those who had killed this horse and hurt this woman approached, Alila sheathed her knife and crept up to free the woman from the dead beast.

  The woman moaned as Alila dragged her out of the saddle. The woman was heavier than she expected and Alila sucked in an anxious breath. What she’d mistaken for volumes of fabric was actually the woman’s heavily pregnant belly.

  She left the woman propped against a boulder and ran back to fetch her water skin. When she returned, the woman’s eyes were open. They weren’t the honey brown or black that Alila expected, but jade green.

  Alila froze. This woman wasn’t just in trouble. She was trouble. She shouldn’t have been there. No one in the Pashenae of Namoh would dare hurt this woman. A shiver stole over Alila despite the afternoon heat, raising lizard bumps along her skin. For a moment she considered walking away, pretending she had never seen this woman. But there was a terrible, yawning hopelessness in those jade eyes that called to her, reminding Alila of a time when she had been the one bleeding alone and desperate in the desert.

  “Shh, Serana,” she murmured, using the proper title, as the woman tried to scrabble back from her. “I have water for you.”

  The princess bit her chapped lip with pearly teeth and nodded, sagging back against the rock. Alila knelt and helped her drink. Her jade eyes turned toward the path and fear clouded them again.

  “My unicorn watches for those that pursue you,” Alila said.

  The princess nodded and her throat worked as she sought to speak. “You smell like Hojari incense,” she said in a rasping voice, wrapping her arms protectively over her bulging belly. Then she sagged again, her eyes closing.

  Resigned that she would not be setting out at moonrise unless she wanted to leave a royal princess alone in the canyon, Alila went about setting up camp around the sleeping woman after checking her carefully for injury. She was whole, only minor scratches and bruises blemishing her smooth, pampered skin. Alila used an empty sack to cover over the blood trail on the canyon path and, with Hezi’s help, dragged the dead horse a distance off.

  She didn’t dare a fire, not wanting the light or smoke to draw whoever had been desperate enough to harm a princess. The cuts in the horse came from arrows and, in two places, a sword. Men had done this and Alila had no desire to face them, even with her unicorns to help defend.

  She sat in the dark before moonrise and tried to remember the stories about the Pashet’s Purdah, his collection of perfect women. One had eyes like amber and skin like ebon wood. One had hair like honey and skin like milk. One, the favored from the tales, was said to have hair like fire and eyes the color of the sea. Alila thought this one here must be the princess who had come as a gift from the Kingdom of Majlis, far to the south. She was said to have hair like almond skin and eyes the color of unblemished jade.

  Yaehala. That was the name that whispered in Alila’s memory. She had been away from the villages too long, for last the news she heard, none of the Pashet’s women were with child.

  Gabi came down from the path and Hezi lipped Alila’s tightly cropped curls before she went up the path to keep watch. Her twin settled down, folding her long legs gracefully and then resting her tea-cup nose against Alila’s ankle. Alila smiled as the unicorn’s breath and beard tendrils tickled her skin. Gabi’s fathomless eyes closed. The unicorn was right, Alila decided. There was no point in laying awake brooding. The princess would have answers in the morning or she wouldn’t.
br />   Alila fell asleep as the first moons rose, part of her praying that the woman would vanish in the night and take her trouble with her.