The Leopard (Marakand) by K.V. Johansen

she’s quiet,” a woman said. She spoke Praitannec, and her voice slurred.
    “She’s not quiet. She’s snivelling.” But the man who had done the hitting went to sit by the fire again, taking something from another—a jar, drinking. He held one arm, the one he hadn’t been hitting people with, tight to his chest.
    “Let her snivel, then,” said the woman.
    “You should have left her alone in the first place. She’s a bard .” That was another man, reaching for the jar. Ghu was close enough now to guess at four men and a woman. By the voices he’d heard so far, too loud, too careful, they were all drunk.
    “She’d have gone to the chieftain’s hall and told them she’d seen us.” That was the whining man, who had hit the bard. Ahjvar’s bard? Ghu thought so, without any more reason for it but that he felt something like the shape of her, the scent of her. His dog-sense, Ahj called it.
    “If you hadn’t dragged her off her horse, she’d have said ‘Good day,’ and passed on, never thought twice about us.”
    “With all the countryside raised against us now, and all the chieftain’s spears out after us? She was following us. And her damned dog attacked me.”
    “What did you expect, when you grabbed her like that? You’re lucky it wasn’t your throat.”
    “At least I did for it,” the whiner said, with satisfaction. Ghu growled softly to himself, just a breath.
    “She was going the same direction as us, not following. It’s not the same thing, and you’re a fool,” said the woman.
    “What are we going to do with her?” one of the men asked, an irritated complaint.
    “I can think of lots of things to do with her.”
    This time the woman hit the whiner. He shrieked. Maybe she had hit his wounded arm. Good, as Ahjvar would say.
    “Kill her and get out of here, head south?” she suggested.
    “My brother will ransom me,” the bard said. Her voice shook. Terror, certainly, but fury beneath it, and grief. She was Lady Deyandara; he had been right. “I’m worth a lot more to you, alive and unharmed.”
    They ignored her.
    “Sell her, if we’re going south.”
    “They don’t have slaves in the Five Cities, idiot.”
    “Hah, everyone knows there’s ship-captains sailing for the empire who do a bit of that trade on the side. People go missing in the Five Cities. ’Specially pretty boys and girls.”
    “We can’t let her go,” said the woman. “Not with the hunt up against us as it is, thanks to you. And we can’t cross however many miles it is between here and the coast with her making trouble all the way. We have to kill her. You should have done it then and left her with the dog.”
    “She’s a bard. If she gave her word not to tell . . .” one of the men suggested. An older voice, which hadn’t spoken before.
    “You want these kingless tribesmen to take your head? Because that’s what’s waiting if they find us. You killed that young swineherd, you clumsy bastard, not us, but we’ll all pay for him. And one murder, two, it doesn’t make a difference. It’s death. Hers or ours. She’d tell where she’d last seen us, no matter what she swore.”
    “You’re Praitans. So am I,” Deyandara said. “Listen, the high king will pay a ransom to have me back unharmed. But if you kill me, not all Praitan and the Five Cities will be big enough to hide in.”
    “Shut up, or I’ll cut your throat like your brute’s, here and now.”
    “We’re not quite that stupid.” The woman again. “One of the high king’s bards, way out here in the west singing in the Tributary Lands—right.”
    “How do you think he gets news of other folk and other lands but through his bards? Who carries word between the kingdoms? Fools yourselves. He’s my brother . If you kill me, even running as far as Nabban won’t save you.”
    The whiner flung himself staggering around the fire and hit her again.
    “We can’t kill her,” said the one who had wanted to let her go. “Catairanach save