Blood 


"Behind us, on the hill to the left," Adaz warned.  "To the right, 
too."  
	"I know.  They're in front of us as well," Sutekh replied 
quietly.  "I think we've let our horses walk long enough."  
	Adaz and Sutekh kicked their mounts into a run, but their 
charge was a short one.  
	"Surrounded."  Sutekh reined in as more of the brawny hillmen 
appeared before them.  "Dismount and pull down your saddlebags," he 
instructed Adaz as he dismounted and dug out the Sword of Lyons.  
Tying it on his back he continued, "Use your ring and then slap your 
horse's rump."  
	Adaz followed his instructions without question.  Sutekh 
finished tying on his sword and disappeared, then his horse bolted 
after Adaz's.  "Let's get out of here," he grumbled.  
	The hillmen were furious at loosing half their prey, but they 
gathered around the pair's horses after minimal searching for the
escapees.  Sutekh counted over two score of the big, leather-clad
men.  A dozen more soon rode up on huge destriers that looked as
mangy and violent as their masters.  After an inventory of their new
goods, the company set out at quick-march; unordered but fast.  
	"Will you be able to keep up?" Sutekh asked.  
	"Only one way to find out," was Adaz's answer.  
	The hillmen kept up the fast pace the rest of the day, 
stopping only once.  Adaz and Sutekh had to alternate between a brisk 
walk and running to keep up.  When at last the company turned aside 
into a copse of woods, Adaz collapsed to the ground, her muscles 
quivering with exhaustion.  
	"Cancel your ring," Sutekh told her as he unsheathed his blade 
and stuck it into the earth.  "We are hidden by the grass."  He took a 
small pull from a waterskin and helped Adaz do the same.  Then he 
dampened a strip of cloth and used it to clean her face, hoping to
cool her down.  "You're going to hurt for days," he said
sympathetically.  
	"Since I've already made the sacrifice," Adaz said weakly, but 
with a smile, "Mind telling me what it was for?" 
	"Tomorrow we'll ride horses."  
	Adaz had both considerable strength and endurance, but she was 
not used to such runs.  Sutekh became increasingly concerned for her 
as she would not eat and he had to repeatedly massage cramps from her 
legs.  
	"You're not even tired," she accused.  
	"I have made the journey from Autumnwell to the Pomarj a dozen 
times on foot, not to mention my other travels.  Remember," he added 
with a smile, "I tend to lose horses."  
	"Well, now I believe you."  
	"Sleep.  You may not get the chance tonight."  
	Adaz groaned and wrapped herself up in her cloak.  

It was one of the few times in his life that Sutekh experienced what 
he considered to be a stroke of luck.  The company had met two dozen 
more men in the woods.  Apparently this smaller group had also been 
practicing banditry, for they had a blood-stained cart of beer.  A few 
hours after dark, several bonfires were burning and their supply of 
beer was rapidly dwindling.  Sutekh waited and watched.  
	When the bonfires had dwindled to watchfires and most of the 
camp was deep in alcohol assisted slumber, Sutekh returned to his own 
camp and awakened Adaz.  They moved close to the hillmen's camp and, 
after a wait of another hour, approached the horses.  Both their 
mounts and those of the hillmen were in a rope pen, Adaz and Sutekh's 
mounts crowded by the hillmen's beasts.  As the thieves drew near, 
their horses caught their scent and called to them.  Sutekh quickly 
slipped into the pen and tried to quiet the horses while Adaz cut the 
ropes.  As they led the horses out, one of the destriers, feeling 
Sutekh walk past, tried to bite him.  Sutekh slammed the heel of his 
hand into the beast's muzzle.  The horse screamed and reared, lashing 
out with its hooves.  Other horses in the pen reacted to the violent 
movement with bites and screams of their own.  
	The two drowsy guards approached to investigate.  Adaz held 
the severed ends of the rope together with invisible hands while 
Sutekh led their horses into the night, the sound covered by the noise 
of the penned animals.  The guards, being used to trouble among their 
mounts, made only a cursory inspection before returning to their fire.  
	Sutekh returned to help Adaz with the trappings for their 
horses, then they led their animals out of the woods and to their 
supplies.  
	"Wait at the top of the hill for a moment," Sutekh said.  
	"Where are you going?" Adaz asked as she heard Sutekh finish a 
spell.  
	"I'll be back shortly," was all he said as his voice lifted 
into the air.  Then he was gone.  
	Adaz led the horses to the top of the hill and looked back 
towards the woods.  Almost immediately she heard shouts from the 
hillmen's encampment.  Through the darkness and trees Adaz caught 
glimpses of a slow, rolling fire as shouts turned to screams.  From 
high above the trees streaks of blue light fell into the encampment.  
Men, some bearing torches, others crossbows, emerged from the woods.  
Adaz watched as one was felled by the deadly blue streaks.  The 
crossbowmen near him shot blindly into the air.  Several torch-bearers 
where engulfed in a blackness darker than the night, then a 
crossbowman was levitated, struggling, high into the air and dropped.  
At last the bandits retreated into the woods.  Sutekh soon appeared 
next to Adaz.  
	"You've walked enough," he said without emotion.  "The horses 
should be all right if we ride slowly.  We'll camp in an hour or two."  
	No words were spoken during their ride, but later, while 
Sutekh was building a small fire, Adaz broke the silence.  
	"Why did you do that?" 
	He knew what she was asking.  "I don't know.  Normally when 
bandits acquire my goods I simply steal them back with a little 
extra."  
	But when he thought about it, he knew the answer.  He had been 
angered by the pain they had caused Adaz, and he had retaliated.  The 
kiss Adaz had given him, now a week gone, still burned hot on his lips 
and he longed for more.  He had once had more; when first they had met 
they had journeyed together for several weeks.  During that trek 
Sutekh had given in to some of the lesser temptations of a young, 
hot-blooded thief.  But that was not the same as the simple kiss he 
had received a week back.  Before was meaningless fun; fun he had cut 
short before it became serious, before he did something foolish like 
fall in love.  Now he realized that, despite his mind's refusal, he 
had done just that.  That simple kiss had not come from someone who's 
convenient company he had been enjoying, but from someone he loved.  
	Although he knew it was usually wrong, Sutekh enjoyed combat 
with steel.  But what he had done this night was murder, not combat.  
He knew better ways of dealing with bandits, but he had simply killed 
them.  Although there had been a time when that would not have 
bothered him, serving Bernaldo had brought the guilt of all such 
murders home.  Yet the guilt did not work directly on Sutekh's mind, 
for he had long assumed himself damned.  It was instead the sadness in 
Bernaldo's life that affected Sutekh, sadness he thought brought on by 
his guiltiness.  Before, Adaz's company had let Sutekh forget such 
troubles.  Now Adaz's presence, like Bernaldo's, caused the 
consequences of his actions to weigh heavily on his mind.  He knew how 
they viewed butchery, and he had read the pain in Adaz's eyes.  Once 
again he had brought sadness to one he loved.  
	A warm feeling, all too familiar, came to Sutekh's hands.  
Looking down, he saw that they were covered with that impossible to 
remove blood that was so often there.  
	Adaz watched the puzzled expression on Sutekh's face with 
growing concern.  
	"I can never get it off," Sutekh said absentmindedly, rubbing 
his hands on his breeches.  
	Tears came to Adaz's eyes.  
	Sutekh did not notice them, nor, any longer, the blood on his 
hands.  His mind was suddenly filled with the voices of hundreds of 
murdered souls crying for his death; souls he had sent to the outer 
planes.  Clapping his hands over his ears and clenching his teeth, 
Sutekh fell back on his bedroll.  
	Adaz rolled over on her own bedroll and wept.  
	Sutekh's familiar slowly emerged from its pouch and crept into 
the long grass, the link with its master very confused.