Diplomats and Fugitives (The Emperor's Edge Book 9) (43 page)

More streams joined the larger one, and the ground sloped downward. Up ahead, the night sky came into view, the trees thinning.

“We’re coming to a drop off,” Ashara warned. She imagined leaping off the edge of a cliff, soaring like an eagle, until she splashed down in a pool far below. The thought of plunging into cold water to cool off sounded appealing.

The edge came up more quickly and sharply than she expected. Mahliki grabbed her arm, planting a hand on her chest. It was a good thing, because Ashara might have jumped, thanks to that appealing image in her mind. But there was no inviting pool far below. The water tumbled over the edge of a thirty-foot drop, then flowed away, dancing around boulders, boulders that wouldn’t be at all appealing to land on. With an alarmed start, Ashara realized that thought—that image—had not been her own. Tladik had been trying to get her to leap to her death.

Mahliki said something in a language Ashara did not know—it sounded like a curse—then added, “You’ve got an arrow sticking out of your back.”

“I noticed.” Ashara spun in a circle, trying to figure out which way would be best to run. The river had grown too wide to ford—or vault across. They would have to follow the cliff. And if that cliff turned inward, they might be forced to backtrack toward the Kendorians where they would be trapped. “Pull it out. I need that arm to hold my bow when I shoot.”

She thought Mahliki might protest or prove squeamish. “I’ll cut the shaft off,” she said around heavy breaths as she tried to gather enough air to fill weary lungs. “I would do more damage trying to pull it out.”

Before Ashara could object, Mahliki sliced through the shaft with a knife. Even that simple motion hurt, and Ashara was secretly relieved she hadn’t tried to pull it out.

“They’re coming,” Mahliki whispered, as if Ashara wasn’t all too aware of the boots crashing through the woods or the lanterns closing in. “Any idea about the terrain? Is there a way to circle back to the others?”

“Go that way.” Ashara pointed along the cliff. It would take them in the opposite direction from the canyon and the others, but it was the only possible way. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Mahliki took off, moving quietly through ferns and brambles growing right up to the cliff’s edge.

Instead of following, Ashara peered into the dark depths below. A half moon had risen during their flight, and it provided enough illumination to make out the bottom. She touched her shirt, half tempted to take it off and fling it below, in the hope of tricking the men into believing she had fallen. But Tladik would never be fooled. His presence stacked the odds, made the hunt unfair.

Grimacing at the pain in her shoulder, Ashara slung off her bow and strode several paces into the ferns. She didn’t try to catch up with Mahliki. Mahliki was who these people wanted, either because of her role in fighting the blight or because she was President Starcrest’s daughter and could be used as a hostage. This may not have been Ashara’s fight in the beginning, but she had agreed to protect Mahliki when they had gone to the meeting place, and she couldn’t now imagine going back to explain to Basilard that she had lost his charge. Besides, Ashara doubted Tladik would let her go, even if she gave up the fight.

She would try to slow him down and hope to give Mahliki a chance to escape.

Ashara chose a position with the cliff to one side and a pine tree to the other, then turned to face the waterfall. She pulled her remaining arrows out of her quiver and laid them at her feet. She dropped to one knee, making herself as small of a target as she could while still being able to shoot.

The first Kendorian came close enough for her to see through the fronds and leaves. Close enough for her to target.

She waited for three more to run into view before shooting. They charged up to the drop off and peered over. She took the first soldier in the shoulder, and he crumpled, grasping at the arrow.

“She didn’t go down there,” came an irritated shout from farther upriver. Tladik.

As Ashara calmly launched more arrows, in the back of her mind, she allowed herself a hint of satisfaction at the fact that Tladik sounded tired and miserable. Maybe she would find her opportunity to shoot him. Maybe he would be too weary to raise a shield to protect himself.

Three soldiers fell before they realized where she was shooting from. Ashara expected them to swarm over her then, to rush her with swords and hack her down.

Instead, a great roar came from behind her, the source only a few feet away. She leaped to her feet and spun toward it, nocking another arrow. She was too late. The cougar sprang and slammed into her chest. Claws bit into her abdomen, and she tumbled backward, toward the drop. She released her bow and grabbed at ferns and grass, trying to find a way to catch herself. But the weight of the cougar took her over the edge. She toppled through the air, falling toward the sharp rocks below, her fate sealed.

Chapter 17

Basilard avoided the patrols and made his way down one of the trails and into the canyon without being spotted, but halfway down, a zing of energy raced up his spine. It was like static electricity except much stronger. The charge took his breath away. He dropped into a crouch with his back to the cliff and drew a dagger. He didn’t think it had been a booby trap—that would have done more damage—but the shaman probably now knew an intruder was on the way down. Basilard hoped Sicarius had been correct in saying that the shaman had been in the hunting party up above. Then, he shouldn’t be close enough to come deal with his alarm. But it was possible more practitioners had come on those wagon trains and that one of them waited in the canyon.

Still crouching, Basilard squinted into the gloom below. This path led into the canyon over a mile south of the mining caves, so he couldn’t see any lights from the main encampment yet, but a number of scrubby bushes along the walls offered potential hiding spots. Boulders lined the bank of the river, too, a river with less water flowing through it than the day before. Basilard trusted that Sicarius would give him time to deal with the major before blowing up the dam, but he wished they’d had a few more minutes to finalize their plans before the group had been forced to scatter.

Listening intently, Basilard crept down the path. He heard nothing more than the gurgle of the water, but one of the bushes below moved infinitesimally. The breeze? Basilard was about thirty feet above the canyon floor. He took a few more steps, but worried he was making himself an easy target for an archer crouching in hiding. The bush trembled again. Not the breeze.

Basilard spotted a waist-high boulder protruding into the trail, one he would have to squeeze by carefully. He pretended to trip right in front of it. He lurched forward, arms flailing, and fell flat onto his stomach. Between the boulder blocking the view and his elevated height, those watching from below should struggle to make him out. Quietly, he slid over the side of the trail, careful not to brush any rocks free. He lowered himself, searching for a foothold. The wall was smoother than the place where he and the others had climbed out the night before, and his toes swept over sheer, vertical rock. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. They were sure to see him. He only hoped they would think he hadn’t fallen on purpose and that gravity was about to solve their problem.

Finally, with his arms stretched to their fullest, he found a thin ledge. He rested both sets of toes on it, found a crack for his fingers, then let go of the top. A rustling came from the bottom of the trail. He dropped quickly, turning the foothold into a handhold, then searching for another foothold. Another ten feet lower, and he could risk letting go and dropping.

Two men stood up. Even in the dark, Basilard could make out their silhouettes. They were turning sideways in archer stances. He found another foothold, then another, lowering himself as quickly as he could. Before he reached that ten-foot mark, he let himself drop, afraid that was all the time he had. He was right.

He did not hear the soft release of the bows over the rippling water of the stream, but he definitely heard one of the arrows crack off the rock he had just been holding on to.

In the dark, it was hard to judge the distance to the bottom, but he had practiced jumps and landings often in his training with Sicarius. He anticipated the ground’s approach, coming down between two bushes, and threw himself into a roll as his feet touched. The rocky earth pummeled him, making him glad he hadn’t fallen from a greater height, but he managed to come up in a crouch ten feet away from the wall with nothing broken or twisted.

Basilard darted behind a log, dropped to his belly, and crawled along its length, using it for cover. The archers would be searching for him in a heartbeat, and he could not let himself be found where they expected. At the end of the log, he rose to a crouch, using another bush to advance his position.

The crunch of pebbles shifting under someone’s foot alerted him to the archers’ approach. They were together, running toward the bushes right under the trail. They must not have seen him roll. He came around the bush, and it brought him out behind them. Knowing he would be in trouble if he hesitated, he leaped for one, his dagger in his hand. He grabbed the man’s long braid of hair, yanked his head back, and sliced the blade across his throat.

The second man was already whirling toward him and lifting his bow. Wrong choice. They were too close, and Basilard knocked the weapon to the side, then lunged forward. The man’s hands were tangled up in trying to release the bow and grab a sword at the same time. Basilard didn’t give him the time to do so. He drove his dagger into the man’s chest.

Basilard checked to make sure neither guard had survived and was able to cry out and warn others. A part of him hated how easily he returned to the ways of a pit fighter. He was glad his people weren’t there to see him.

The sense that he was not alone came over him again. He crouched with his back against a shrub, watching and listening, expecting more Kendorians. But the pair of men moving quietly down the same trail he had used were familiar, their short hair cupping their heads instead of flowing down their back in braids or tails.

“Leyelchek?” one whispered as they neared the bottom.

The shame Basilard felt over the easy way he had killed the guards almost kept him still, his legs frozen in the hope that his people wouldn’t see him—that they
hadn’t
seen him fighting. But he forced aside the useless emotion. The Mangdorians had come to drive out the Kendorians, and they believed he would be their guide in that matter. To leave them alone in the canyon of the enemy would be unthinkable.

He rose, stepping out of the shadows to join them. They nodded as if they had known where he was all along. Perhaps they had. His people might not be warriors, but they were excellent hunters.

Come
, Basilard signed, though he knew the men would not see his hands. He touched their shoulders and pointed up the canyon.

They headed for the encampment. Major Diratha would not go down as easily as the two watchmen, and reaching her without being noticed was unlikely.

• • • • •

The clangs that had echoed from the mines earlier had stopped, but the camp remained alert. Numerous people walked along the canyon floor on patrols, with bows or muskets in hand. Torches and lanterns burned on both sides of the river, driving back the night. Even those who were not on guard were awake, with men talking quietly in clumps, eyeing the outpost above and the darkness at both ends of the canyon. More voices came from within some of the still-lit tunnels.

This was not the somnolent camp Basilard had hoped to sneak into during the dark hours before dawn; the shaman had forced this confrontation far too soon, and he worried that the guerrilla tactics Sicarius had spoken of would not work on those who were alert and ready for them.

“Perhaps we could hide here until they settle for the night?” Nakka, one of the young men accompanying Basilard, pointed to the half-collapsed mouth of a tunnel next to their group.

They had sneaked as close to the camp as they could and crouched just outside of the influence of the lanterns, hiding behind a pile of debris next to the wall. A scrubby
dygota
bush rose at their backs, one of the few small shrubs that had not been cleared from the encampment. In this shaded spot, it did not receive much sun, and a few blooms remained on its leaves, the spicy-sweet scent reminding Basilard of childhood, since his mother had cooked the edible pods often. He had lost his parents to the Black Fever before his twentieth birthday, and it had been some time since he had thought of them, missed them, so the feeling of nostalgia surprised him. Perhaps it was that he did not want to wreak carnage and longed for a simpler time again, a time before he had been cast out by his people.

“Leyelchek?” Nakka asked softly.

Basilard shook his memories away, reminding himself that
some
of his people were here and needed his help. He pointed toward the camp.
As soon as Sicarius deals with the shaman, he and Amaranthe will come down to blow up the dam. We can’t delay.

He was talking to himself, since they could not see his signs, but he trusted they would understand when he rose, a dagger in hand. He pointed across the river, touched their bows, and pointed again.

“You want us to provide a distraction?”

Basilard nodded.
Stay in the shadows. Don’t let them find you.
He waved back the way they had come, where the canyon hadn’t been cleared so assiduously and one could find hiding places.

“But don’t get caught?” Nakka added dryly.

Basilard nodded again. He did not want to take them into battle. They would be easily outmatched by soldiers. And as foolish as the thought was at this point, he did not want them to see him slitting the throats of human beings, either. It was one thing to want to fight for one’s country; it was another to have the enemy’s blood spattered across one’s chest.

“We’ll be careful,” Nakka said. “You be careful too. They’re clearly waiting for an attack.”