Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (43 page)

Kavi wasn’t the only one who winced, but Garren only scowled.

“Very well, you may recall two centris. That should be more than enough to take care of this amateur army . . . when you find them.”

The question of how Patrius was to do that seemed to hang in the air, almost visible, but Patrius only nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

He likely could do it,
Kavi thought grimly. The croft was well hidden, and the folk who knew of it had kept the secret, but too many knew of it. One of them was bound to get greedy. Young Commander Jiaan would have to be warned.

Kavi felt a flash of guilt at the idea of betraying Patrius to Jiaan, for Patrius had dealt fairly with him. Treated him better, and more kindly, than the deghan’s bastard had. On the other hand, there was a limit to how often a man could change sides, and Kavi had likely surpassed it already. Jiaan must be warned.

Even if it meant Patrius’ death?

But perhaps Kavi could prevent that somehow. After all, Jiaan would owe him for the warning, for his help with the siege towers, and for freeing his half sister—though when Kavi had seen them together, they didn’t seem to be close.

Should he take the girl with him, as a character witness, when he approached the new commander of the Farsalan army? Jiaan couldn’t know what he’d been up to . . . unless he was in closer contact with Mazad than Kavi thought he was.

Garren had gone on to discuss some situation with supplies, leaving him free to think.

Yes, he needed a character witness. The girl had seen him trading with the Hrum. If Jiaan accused him, he could say that it was known that he traded with the army, and that those who resented folk who sold to the enemy had blown everything out of proportion—not knowing that he only did it so he could spy on the Hrum! Yes, that would do. There was still some risk, but not much, and he would need both Jiaan and Soraya’s help to find the hidden camp and take out the siege towers. He would set out for the Suud’s desert tomorrow.

M
AOK POKED HER HEAD
into Soraya’s hutch shortly after sundown. “That peddler who brought you here wants to see you. He’s set himself at the bottom of the twisted trail, and he’s waiting, meek as a hopping mouse. Wake up, girl! Anyone would think you were a day dweller.”

Soraya turned a yawn into a grimace, and rubbed her eyes. She’d only been living with Proud Walking clan for a few weeks, and making the transition to sleeping days and waking nights took a while.

She still wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or amused that in all the time she’d spent with them
last winter, the clan hadn’t told her their name. Maok said it was because they weren’t sure she’d come back. But now that she had, they had told her—making her part of the clan in a way she hadn’t been before, no matter how well treated she’d been as a guest.

But if she was now part of the clan, what about Sudaba and Merdas? No, Soraya wasn’t here to stay this time either, no matter how welcome she felt, or how glad she was to be with them. She could discard the trappings of a deghass, but the core of it, her duty to her family, to Farsala itself, couldn’t be cut off like excess hair. But right now, there was a peddler to attend to.

“Did he say what he wanted?” she asked. “Could the watchers understand him?”

The Suud tried to make sure that at least one of the watchers they posted spoke at least some Faran, but not many tribe members did, so it wasn’t always possible. And they didn’t speak a word of Hrum.

The chill that swept over Soraya at that thought had nothing to do with the cool night. When she first heard that the Farsalan army
intended to hide in the desert, she’d been angry at Jiaan for endangering the Suud. Then she’d heard Maok’s reasons for agreeing, and anger gave way to fear, and a furious resolve.

She would not let the Hrum come here. They had done damage enough in Farsala, where the people had a roughly equivalent level of mechanical sophistication. The Suud, fighting with wooden spears against those accursed, watersteel swords, would be destroyed.

Thinking of watersteel reminded her of something else. “This is the man I told you about,” said Soraya. “The one who spoke to the shilshadu of the watersteel.”

It had been so startling—for a moment, brushing his hand, she had tapped into the open channel between his spirit and the steel. But unlike the peddler, she knew how to follow that channel, to wholly sense the steel’s crystalline song.

Yet when she held the fragment herself, its shilshadu was closed to her. Soraya thought she might have found it, if she went into a full trance and searched for a month, or two, or three. And she might not find it either. Yet she knew that the peddler, who could open that channel without
even realizing he’d done it, hadn’t sensed nearly as much as she had.

“I thought you wanted to talk to him,” she added.

“Of course I want to talk to him.” Maok came into the hutch and sat beside Soraya’s bedroll. “Since we teach our own people to search for the shilshadu of things from the time they’re children, we seldom get the chance to meet someone who does it instinctively. Naturals, they’re called. It was people like them, people who were particularly attuned to some creature or element, who eventually became the first Speakers! There are dozens of questions I’d like to ask. But I can’t ask them without telling him about our magic, and that’s always dangerous. Especially now, when your people are groping so desperately for weapons.”

“You’re probably right.” Soraya sighed. “But I owe him a lot. Giving him magic would be a fitting repayment.” She knew she could never repay Maok for giving it to her. Her teacher had been startled by how much her control had improved in just one summer, and even more surprised at the way her shilshadu had opened to people, which Maok said
usually came upon Speakers only after many years of study. She then discussed with Soraya a long list of rules about its use, and its abuse, and started teaching her how to suppress the sensing unless she consciously chose to use it. Soraya sighed again. She hadn’t thought of her ability to read the feelings of those around her as an invasion of their privacy, but she knew she wouldn’t want someone looking into her shilshadu without permission.

“Maybe after this war ends, things will change,” said Maok consolingly. “Naturals aren’t that rare, though mostly it takes the form of openness to a particular species’ shilshadu. Generally it’s horses with you people, but once I met a hunter who was open to the shilshadu of all kinds of animals. He had no idea why he was so successful, why he always knew what direction a startled gazelle would jump, or where to place his snares.”

“Didn’t you want to tell him?” Soraya asked. “To help him open his shilshadu fully to his creatures? To teach him to Speak to other things as well?”

“A part of me wanted to,” said Maok. “But his life was already set. Magic might have been an
intrusion—or even destroyed it! He made his living as a huntsman. What would become of him if he opened his spirit so fully to the spirits of his creatures that he could no longer kill them?”

Soraya knew that this was why the Suud, also hunters, so seldom spoke to the shilshadu of animals.

“The peddler,” she said slowly. “He told me he was a smith once. Is that why he has an affinity for steel?”

“Very likely,” said Maok. “Or perhaps that affinity is why he became a smith in the first place. That’s one of the things I’d like to ask him. But why is he a peddler now?”

“Something happened to his hand,” said Soraya. “There’s a scar on his palm, and it’s not very strong. He never said so, but I think that’s what stopped him from being a smith.”

If that was true, then teaching this man to sense the spirit of the steel he could never shape might be a cruel punishment instead of a gift. Maok was right—she had to learn to think about the effect of magic on people, and the world, instead of just using it.

“Well, right now your peddler is getting bored
with waiting.” Maok rose to her feet, though she had to bend under the hutch’s low ceiling. “Get out of bed, girl. You’ll waste all the moonlight!”

For Soraya that was a serious consideration, and she scrambled out of her blankets and went to wash. The Suud, with their eerie, wide-dilating pupils, could see well enough by starlight, but after the moon set, Soraya would be all but blind outside the firelit camp.

Fortunately the moon was waxing now, and would set about four marks before sunrise. That would give her plenty of time, for Proud Walking’s current camp wasn’t far from the bottom of the twisted trail.

As they ate breakfast Soraya tried to convince the clan council that they didn’t need to send an escort of warriors with her and Maok. “I don’t know what he wants,” she admitted. “But I’ve never seen him do anything violent. He’s the kind who thinks his way out of things. And the trail watchers say he’s alone, so even if I’m wrong, the four of them will be more than enough to come to our aid.”

Soraya knew the council’s concern was for the safety of their best All Speaker, not for a mediocre
hunter and a Speaker just beginning to learn magic. But the council had also learned the futility of trying to coddle Maok, and in the end, Soraya and her teacher went to meet the peddler alone, though Maok did insist they talk to one of the watchers first.

“He’s just been waiting,” the watcher confirmed. “Patient as can be, though he calls out every now and then. I like the beast that’s with him. It has a mind of its own.”

Soraya, who had helped drag the reluctant mule out of several duck ponds on the road north from Setesafon, grinned. “You don’t know the half of it.”

I
N FACT, IT WAS DUCKIE
who noticed their presence, picking up Soraya’s scent and whickering a greeting.

The peddler followed the mule’s gaze and his bored expression brightened. “You made good time.”

They actually hadn’t hurried, but he didn’t know how close the camp was, and Soraya wasn’t about to tell him.

“This is Maok,” she said instead. “My . . .
my . . .”
Teacher, counselor . . . mother?
“My sponsor among the Suud. Maok, this is the peddler Kavi, whom I told you about.”

The peddler grinned. “Nothing too bad I hope,” he said confidently.

“Maybe yes, maybe no.” Maok’s serene smile made Soraya wince—her teacher loved cutting the overconfident down to size. “Depends on how you think of bad, but mostly you’re not big enough for bad.”

Even her rough Faran got the point across. The peddler stopped grinning. “Ah, um . . .”

Soraya took pity on him—anyone fool enough to cross swords with Maok needed all the help he could get. “Why are you looking for me now?”

“Ah . . . After I left you, I . . . did some things.”

“You poisoned the Hrum garrison and took food into Mazad,” said Soraya impatiently. The Suud had a surprising number of contacts in the villages near the foothills. They traded foodstuffs and knives for Suud baskets, and added gossip into the bargain for free.

“Yes.” He had almost adapted to the level Maok played on. Though Maok had abandoned the conversation to make Duckie’s acquaintance,
stroking the mule’s soft nose and whispering in her ears. Duckie didn’t make a sound, but Soraya had the unnerving impression that the mule was whispering back.

“Anyway,” the peddler continued, “I learned that the Hrum are making siege towers to use against Mazad, in a hidden camp somewhere. I wondered if you’d overheard anything that might give us a clue where the camp was.”

“Siege towers? I never heard anything about—no, wait a moment.” Soraya thought carefully. “I do remember one comment. It was almost two months ago. A couple of men in the meal tent were talking about how the camp for ‘the project’ would have to be located where there was timber readily available. That means somewhere in the mountains, doesn’t it?”

“That it does,” said the peddler. “And in the higher mountains, where the straight pines are, not the scrub around Mazad.”

“I’m sorry,” said Soraya. “I can’t think of anything else. It wasn’t long after that that I got caught, and people started watching what they said in front of me. It doesn’t help much, does it?”

“It helps some,” said the peddler thoughtfully.
“Assuming this project is the siege towers—and even if it’s not, they’ll still need timber—then we should start looking in the mountains near Mazad. They won’t want to ship something that big very far, even if they aren’t completely assembled. But more important, if they hadn’t even set up the camp two months ago, then they likely won’t be finished for a while yet, even if Garren does send more men. We have time to find them.”

“How do you plan to search all the mountains around Mazad?” Soraya asked. “And what will you do if you find them?”

At one time, even a few weeks ago, that question would have been sarcastic, but not anymore. Even allowing for the exaggeration that plagued all rumors, what she’d heard about his raid on the Hrum garrison was impressive.

“Yes, well, that’s the next thing I wanted to ask you about. I have a few ideas what we can do about those towers, assuming we find them in time.”