Waterdance by Anne Logston

deliberately set the cut to bleeding again, letting the blood drip on the saddle. He wrapped the cut again, then glanced at Peri and held out his hand, still chanting softly.
    Peri swallowed hard at the idea of participating in Sarkondish magic, of extending the slightest trust to a Sarkond holding a knife, but she pushed up her left sleeve and held her arm over the saddle. What kind of fool cuts his hand? Hardest place in the world to keep clean and covered, hurts you worst in a fight—clenching her fist, Peri pointed sternly to the fatty part where she wanted him to cut. To Atheris’s credit he did it more carefully than when he’d cut himself before.
    This time there was no glow from the droplets of blood, but Peri felt an odd dizziness, like a brief instant of double perception in which she seemed at the same time to be sitting in Tajin’s saddle and standing beside the horse.
    “All right,” Peri said when Atheris had finished his chant, knotting her sleeve tight around the cut for lack of a better bandage. “We’d better get closer to the caravan before I send Tajin off.”
    “Yes,” Atheris panted, not elaborating. He was noticeably unsteady on his feet now, so tired that he was shaking.
    He’d better have enough juice left to get us into that caravan, Peri thought grimly, and to hide us once we’re there, or we’ll be a lot worse off than when we started—no horse, no hiding place, and no mage, just a couple of exhausted and nearly defenseless fugitives.
    Atheris refused Peri’s offer to lead him on Tajin again—he said it might ruin the blood spell—but he kept one hand on the mounting loop and leaned heavily on Tajin as he walked. At last they were close enough that Peri began to worry about the danger of caravan guards spotting them even in the meager starlight, and she left Atheris with Tajin to scout ahead more carefully.
    Peri was concerned to find the guards rather sparse, and she hastily halted her approach. For a caravan this size and in this dangerous territory to have so few guards could mean only one thing—that they used mages and wards instead, and Peri was certainly not mage enough either to detect or to bypass such wards. She prayed Atheris was.
    “You are half-right,” Atheris said soberly when Peri returned and told him what she’d seen. “Mages, possibly; wards, no. No reliable wards of any strength could be sustained this close to the power of the Veil. Instead they will rely on smaller and more localized magics—trap spells on their most valuable cargo, alarm spells on the horses and such—to protect the goods, and a few guards to patrol the camp. At this point on the road that is more than sufficient. This area is too poor and open to sustain Sarkondish bandits and raiders, so patrols rarely come this far south, and no one from Bregond could know they are here except those with whom they have made arrangements to meet. They are relatively safe here, and when they return north into the more populated lands, their more powerful magics will become reliable again.”
    That made some sense. Peri gathered her belongings intothe best bundle she could manage under the circumstances; when she could not put it off any longer, she turned to Tajin, patting his neck and scratching behind his ears. Her heart broke when he snorted in that familiar way, butting his nose against her shoulder. Clenching her teeth hard, Peri forced herself to release Tajin’s head.
    “Neycha, Tajin,” she murmured in his ear. “Home.” She slapped his rump sharply, turning away so she would not have to watch him turn obediently south, heading straight for the Barrier. He was trained to carry a message in an emergency; he’d head south as fast as he could.
    “He will soon pass through,” Atheris said a moment later. “We must hide ourselves now.”
    “And let’s see how you plan to do that,” Peri muttered to herself. There were guards and protection spells—however minor—to sneak past, and