Redoubt (33 page)

Mags sagged against a bag of what felt like oats and wiggled until he was marginally
comfortable—although he was anything but comfortable inside. He shook with fear and
reaction. He was still in terrible danger, and that little speech had left him with
far more questions than answers.

Unlike the first set of—well, what would you call them?
Saboteurs,
he supposed. Well, unlike them, this pair spoke flawless Valdemaran. So they must
have been carefully prepared so that they didn’t stand out
at all
once they got into Haven. Like Ice and Stone, they were consummate professionals.
Mags was beginning to suspect that catching Ice and Stone had been largely a matter
of luck and the right set of circumstances; if
that
pair’s primary goal had been to get Mags rather than to disrupt the leadership of
Valdemar . . .

I’d’a been in a wagon heading south months ago . . .

Instead, Ice and Stone had been faced with divided goals, and as a result, they’d
failed both missions.

Clearly these two had a single mission. Get Mags. Like an arrow loosed by an expert
marksman, they’d been sent to the target, and they would hit it.

We have been mandated to bring you home, boy.

So they did want him alive. But not at the expense of their own lives, so if Franse
was caught, and the Karsites caught up with these two, they would probably pretend
they’d had no idea he was a Trainee and slit his throat themselves to prove it.

Mags had no doubt that they were right; if Franse was caught, he’d have no choice
but to tell the truth, and given everything he’d seen about the Karsite black-robes
so far, Mags was not entirely sure that being dead would guarantee silence.

Poor Franse. He devoutly hoped his friend was well away, and not just for his own
sake.

That chief black-robe was . . . terrifying. That was all on his own. Everyone, including
the other two black-robes, had been afraid of him, and Mags was as certain as he had
ever been of anything that it was for a very good reason.

Now he was angry. He’d lost his primary quarry. He’d been deprived of the only thing
he had managed to capture. And worst of all, he’d been shown up by the two assassins
in front of his underlings.

He was going to make life pure hell for them from now on, so that they remembered
very clearly that while the assassins might be bad,
they
were elsewhere, and
he
was right here with their leashes in his hand.

And if he caught Franse, what he would do to the young priest did not bear thinking
about for very long.

Because he had been shown up in front of his underlings, if they learned from Franse
that Mags was a Trainee . . . well, a man like that black-robe would take
no
chance on the quarry escaping a second time or being protected by the assassin pair.
He would come with not twenty men, but two hundred. He would come with much, much
better magicians.

And he would come by night, when their demons were free to move and at their strongest.

So although the assassins had faced down the Karsite priest and his underlings once,
even Mags’ captors knew, arrogance aside, they would have no chance in a face-off
a second time.

Aye. They’ll toss me out like rotten fish. Then claim I controlled ’em, or suchlike.

Hideous as it was, his captor was right. His best chance of survival—unless he could
escape again—lay with them.

14

T
hey didn’t stop moving all night. Mags figured they were trying to get plenty of distance
between themselves and the Karsite hunting party. They also moved on decent roads,
which puzzled him for a moment, until he realized they could make much better time
that way and that it would be harder to tell which way they had gone. By the direction
of the sun through the canvas, he figured that instead of going south, they were actually
going north and a little east. That made sense too, if they assumed the Karsites would
think they would be going south.

The upside of this was that they didn’t drug him. The downside was that they didn’t
untie him either. They solved the problem of giving him food and drink by coming back
there and feeding him a few bites of some odd food that seemed to be composed of dried
meat and berries pounded together, and giving him drinks out of the waterskin.

Bites? It was more like slivers. The stuff was so hard he had to suck on it. It was
good though, better than he would have expected if he’d been given the description.

He tried to concentrate on trivialities like that and not on his predicament. Before
sunset, he had not wanted to try letting down his shields, in case his captors
were
sensitive to Mindspeech. Considering how cautious they were, Mags would expect—if
he were in their place—that their victim would try something of the sort as soon as
he could. If he
didn’t
use Mindspeech right away
,
he might lull them into thinking he didn’t actually have it, that he had some other
Gift, or that his Gift was too weak to be of any consequence.

He didn’t think they actually knew that much about him. They hadn’t addressed him
by name, for one thing. He didn’t think they had personally gotten anywhere near the
Collegia, because that had been one of the big mistakes that Ice and Stone had made
that eventually led to them being unmasked and found, and these people never repeated
their mistakes.

Without hanging around the Collegia, or having close contact with someone or an actual
informant at the Collegia (and
that
wasn’t going to happen after the last round!), there would be no real way for them
to find out exactly what his Gift was. That sort of thing wasn’t bandied about outside
the Collegia or the Circles, and it actually wasn’t even bandied about
in
those venues. You would generally say if you were asked, or if it was relevant to
something you were doing (like Kirball), but otherwise the subject didn’t tend to
come up outside of training classes.

Thinking about that just gave him another source of puzzlement. If he wasn’t being
hauled away somewhere unknown because of his Gift, what
was
the reason?

Well . . . I do seem to look like someone a lot of these people know . . .

Was that the answer?

But why?

An incredibly wild idea occurred to him.
Is there a chance they want me to take this person’s place?

Oh, that would be insane! How could he
possibly
do that and get away with it? He didn’t even speak their language, there was not
a chance in a million he could fool anyone for any length of time!

And how would they plan to coerce him into doing it, anyway?

Then he went cold all over, because he knew very well how they could coerce him. All
they had to do was threaten Valdemar and the people he loved.
Do this, and we drop the Karsite contract. Do this, or we kill the girl, her father,
the Healer, the singer, the Horse.

And he would. He would do it.

What other possible choice could he make? He was a Herald. In the choice between his
own wishes and the welfare of Valdemar, there was no choice.

With that nightmare scenario galloping through his mind, along with possibility after
possibility of
who
they could want him to impersonate—or rather, what sort of person, since obviously,
even if he knew
who
it was he wouldn’t recognize
what
he was—somehow sheer emotional and physical exhaustion caught up with him, and the
even rocking of the wagon over good, sound roads in the darkness lulled him to sleep.

* * *

He woke immediately when shifting weight in the wagon warned him that one of his captors
was on the way back to him. When his eyes opened, it was obvious that it was day again,
though from the dim light it couldn’t be long past dawn. It was the second man rather
than the first, the one who generally didn’t say much. This close, Mags thought the
second man might be a bit older than the first one; maybe five years or so. The man
held the waterskin to his mouth—it was still plain water, to his relief. Then he shaved
off some more slivers from the food brick and fed them to Mags slowly.

He tried asking a question or two—simple ones like “What’s your name?” and “What is
that food?” but the man just shook his head sternly and said nothing. It was very
clear that what he wanted from Mags was silence.

Well, then, that was what the assassin was going to get. Right now, the best thing
Mags could do was cooperate.

When Mags elected not to ask any more questions, the man seemed to approve. He stowed
the water and food brick, then unlocked and rummaged in a box.

What he came up with was not exactly encouraging, however. It was two sets of heavy
leather manacles with chains holding them together and a pair of locks.

He locked the manacles around Mags’ wrists as Mags’ heart sank, and he did the same
with his ankles. These things were going to be even harder to get off than the rope.
He had thought he
might
be able to untie his wrists if he contorted himself enough to pick away at the knot
with his teeth, and once his wrists were free, he figured he could wiggle out of the
torso ropes.

But then the man unbound his arms and untied his wrists, leaving him in relative freedom.

Of course, his arms immediately began to protest having been bound for so long, but
he didn’t care. At least
now
he could change his position in here.

The man thriftily coiled up the rope and stowed it away. Then he went back up to the
front of the wagon. Taking the key to the lock with him, of course.

The chain between the manacles on his wrists was quite long, and at first Mags thought
that was a mistake—but he soon realized that not only did so much chain give him decent
freedom of movement, it also rattled loudly every time he moved. No good trying to
rummage through the stuff back here in the wagon, then—not when the sound of the chain
rattling too much was sure to bring a head poking through the canvas flaps at the
front.

Well . . . at least he could move.

He used his relative freedom to make an area more comfortable for himself, in no small
part because he wanted something to think about
besides
all the nightmare scenarios his imagination could conjure up. As soon as the chain
started rattling, sure enough, a head poked in through the canvas. But when his captor
realized what he was doing, the head retreated again, although the kidnapper continued
to check on him from time to time to make sure he wasn’t up to any mischief. Mags
had, of course, already found out that any box that
might
have something in it he could use to escape with, had been locked.

By the time he had finished, a couple of candlemarks later, he felt the wagon leaving
the main road, and almost immediately it lurched to one side, throwing him right into
the padded hollow he’d created for himself, using the rolled up net as a kind of coiled,
wreath-shaped base. Grimly he set himself to hanging on. This road had to be at least
as dubious as the one that had led to his escape. He might even have taken the chance
on going out the back again, manacles and all, except that this was broad daylight,
it was not raining, and the chain between his ankles was pretty short.

After about another candlemark of lurching and bumping that made him grateful he wasn’t
still tied up like a bundle of wood to be tossed all over the interior of the wagon,
he felt the wagon stop.

He sat up. Were they
stopped,
stopped? Or had they encountered a blockage? And if they had encountered a blockage,
or even a hazard, could he possibly use the chance to escape again?

He felt the wagon move as first one, then the other man left the driving box.

But his hopes were dashed when he saw their shadows cast on the canvas by the sun
coming around to the rear.

The canvas at the rear was untied, and the first assassin stood at the back, beckoning
to him. In one hand was a small crossbow.

“Come out, and take care of your needs,” the man said brusquely. “Then we will eat
and drink.”

With clanking and clattering, he clambered awkwardly out of the back of the wagon
and followed the man’s directions. It appeared that they were on a steep mountain
path just wide enough for the wagon. There was a much wider spot here, and they’d
pulled the wagon off to the side into it. The horses looked exhausted, as well they
might, since they had been traveling all night. The second man was unharnessing them,
so it appeared they were going to be here for a little while, anyway.

Taking care of his business over the edge of the cliff wasn’t the easiest thing under
the watchful eye and crossbow of his captor . . .

It appeared that the wide spot in the road wasn’t the only reason for making a pause
here. When he came around between the wagon and the cliff face, he discovered the
second man filling up a pan from a threadlike spring, and at the first man’s nod,
he made use of the trickle of water himself, cleaning hands first, and then face and
neck, then getting a drink. The water was icy cold and made his teeth chatter, but
it felt better to be a little cleaner.

The second man had already started a fire and was making . . .

Mags saw with a sinking feeling, that he was making some sort of herbal concoction.

“Sit,” the first man ordered.

Obediently, he sat down next to the fire.

“It is time for you to learn who you truly are,” the first man said solemnly, taking
him entirely by surprise, because this was certainly not what he had expected the
man to say. “You were born in the North, but your blood is of the South. Your home,
your people, are in a land the Northerners do not even have on their maps.” The man
peered at him intently. “You know this to be true. You have
felt
it. You have felt your blood calling to you from your homeland!”

Mags stared at him, unable to think of anything coherent to say.

“Look at me!” the man continued, and gestured at his partner. “Look at Levor! Then
look in the mirror! Our eyes are your eyes! Our hair is your hair! The very shape
of nose, chin, brow—yours!”

Mags had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping.

“This is why we took you from those pallid Northerners,” the man continued, as Levor
nodded solemnly. “The Shadao has been searching for you—or for your parents—since
before you were born. Never would we have thought they would have traveled so far,
but when our people came here, following the old trail through the signs and shadows,
and the sun-dogs offered us a contract, it was thought,
why not?
So we sent the disposable, the expendable, for gold is gold, and it is difficult
and costly to search so far from home. And lo! The expendable died, but in the dying,
they found you!”

The man paused, evidently expecting some sort of response out of Mags.

“Uh . . . the ambassadors?” he hazarded.

The man laughed. “Not those fools! They could not even see what was beneath their
very noses! No, it was the hunter-killer that came with them.
He
saw you, and though he was half mad, he knew you for what you were!”

The memory hit him like a club.

Mags motioned to the others to put their heads together with him. Carefully, Mags
thought his directions into the heads of the Guardsmen as hard as he could, staring
into their eyes. All four of them nodded slowly. The redhead pointed at Mags, and
mouthed the word “bait.” Relieved, Mags nodded.

:Tell them the weapons might be poisoned,:
Dallen said.

Gulping, Mags did so. The big man looked angry, the redhead narrowed his eyes, the
third shrugged, and the fourth smiled grimly.

Mags looked at the fourth curiously. The man stared back at him, hard. Slowly, Mags
sensed a thin mental voice
. It won’t be the first time we’ve handled cowards of that sort, boy. You just see
to it that you don’t get scratched.

Mags nodded.

:All right. We are getting something in place. Stand up carefully and wait for my
signal.:

They got to their feet, one at a time, so slowly and carefully that even their clothing
didn’t whisper. And they waited in the semidarkness, Mags feeling ready to scream
with the tension, as a tuneless humming threaded its way toward them from the back
of the room.

Finally—

:Now. But don’t charge him. Walk out until he can just see five of you, but not who
you are. And let him hear your footsteps.:

Mags relayed that. And at his signal, they moved forward, soft footfalls muffled by
the shelves and boxes all around them. They rounded the last shelf to find the strange
man on his feet, waiting for them, a knife balanced on the tip of one finger.

:Now you step into the light, Mags.:

Mags did so, his hand clutched to his sword hilt.

The man stared at him.

“Not YOU!” he screamed. “YOU are not supposed to be here!”

The memory was burned into his memory. He couldn’t have forgotten it if he’d wanted
to.

So was another.

He read the posting in the Guard reports with a dry mouth. “The two dead were a woman
and a man in foreign garb. The woman told us that no one could understand their speech,
and they communicated mostly by signs. Their clothing was rich; presumably because
of this, the brigands hoped to puzzle out whence they came and demand a ransom. With
them was their child, a small boy of perhaps two or three years of age.