The Phoenix Endangered (34 page)

“What’s going on?” he asked, getting to his feet, but both Niranda and Latar ignored him as they ran to the back of the house where the practice courtyard was. Now thoroughly concerned, Tiercel set down his mug and followed them. Before he got there, he heard wailing—Latar—and the sound of Niranda speaking low and fast.

He stepped out into the yard. The sun was starting to slant down into the courtyard, but it wasn’t too hot out here yet. Harrier and the Telchi were both in armor, or what passed for armor down here in the Madiran: a heavy quilted surcoat sewn with disks of horn and braced in places with boiled leather. The protection was enough to stop an arrow, but probably not to turn a sword-strike. It was impossible to wear steel in the desert, though. Its heat and weight would kill its wearer faster than an enemy attack.

“Again,” the Telchi said, speaking to Niranda. “More slowly. And Latar, if you do not compose yourself, I will personally hang you from the walls until you learn that silence is the greatest of the virtues.”

“I went this morning to the Spice Market,” Niranda said, obviously slowing her words with an effort. “And there I heard that there had been travelers from Laganda’Iteru camped below the North Gate all night, waiting until dawn when they could be permitted into the city. They begged immediate audience with the Consul—and sanctuary!”

Tiercel was puzzled for a moment, until he remembered that the Spice Market adjoined the Moneychangers’ Court,
since spices were so costly and valuable. Niranda had been inside the outer courts of the Consul’s Palace.

“I was not there for the audience,” Niranda continued, “but Musa was delivering pepper and rose oil to the Court Chamberlain for the afternoon banquet, and he heard everything. He says these men and their families asked sanctuary of the Consul because Laganda’Iteru is gone. They said it had been burned to the ground by an army that came from the desert like a plague of ghosts, saying they would cleanse the desert of all those who did not follow the True Balance.”

Harrier looked up and met Tiercel’s eyes. Tiercel thought he looked more puzzled than anything else. “There’s only one Balance,” he said slowly.

The one the Wildmages keep
, Tiercel finished mentally.

“The rest,” the Telchi said imperturbably.

“One of the refugees was a man Musa knew, so he said. Piaca was a spice merchant in Laganda’Iteru. The two of them had corresponded for years, engaged in trade. Piaca would never have left his home or his business were he not convinced that his life was indeed in danger. If Piaca says that Laganda’Iteru has been destroyed, then it has been.” Niranda folded her arms across her chest defiantly, but her eyes were frightened.

“It seems our lesson is finished for the day,” the Telchi said mildly. “I shall go, and see what other news I may discover.”

“What about us?” Tiercel asked.

“Come if you wish,” the Telchi answered.

T
IERCEL HAD HALF-EXPECTED
the Telchi to go directly to the Consul’s Palace for his answers, but he quickly realized that was a naïve assumption. It would be like expecting one of the Armethalieh City Watch to go stomping into Magistrate Vaunnel’s private chambers to demand that she answer his questions.

Unfortunately, it was much too easy for them to get all
the information that they wanted. Before they had gone more than a few streets from the front door of the Telchi’s house, even Tiercel could tell that the city was uneasy. There were more people on the city streets than he’d ever seen at this time of day before, and all of them seemed to have some bundle in their arms. Some of them were filling the ubiquitous three-wheeled carts with household possessions—apparently planning to leave the city as soon as possible—others were arguing with their neighbors, equally determined to stay. It was quickly apparent that the refugees that Musa had told Niranda about had only been the first wave of those who had fled from Laganda’Iteru—the ones who had possessed swift mounts and had fled early. More survivors had arrived in the city, but not to seek sanctuary. The new arrivals meant only to stop in Tarnatha’Iteru for long enough to purchase supplies for the longer journey north—not simply as far as Akazidas’Iteru, so the gossip had it, but all the way to Armethalieh. For as they told anyone who would listen, if this mysterious army truly meant to “cleanse the desert of all those who did not follow the True Balance” …

Then Tarnatha’Iteru would be their next stop.

It took the three of them longer than any of them liked to find someone who was actually from Laganda’Iteru, someone who’d
seen
the enemy army. Even so, Kinalan had only seen it from a distance. He was an ordinary tradesman who had arrived in the city only an hour ago—his mule, he said, had died beneath him on the road. He’d heard the shouting and boasts of the enemy, yes, but the only people who’d escaped Laganda’Iteru were those who’d heard and remembered the story of Rasan the Stableboy.

For Laganda’Iteru was not the first city to be destroyed by this mysterious army.

A moonturn less five days before Laganda’Iteru fell, a boy had arrived at its gates, filthy, terrified, and on foot. The story he told was madness itself, but as he’d had family living within the city, he had not been turned away. He claimed to have been exercising a string of horses outside
Kabipha’Iteru—a city south of Laganda’Iteru—when a vast army had marched upon it. Young Rasan had fled in terror, riding north as fast as he could, changing out mounts from the string of horses he’d been exercising as he went and abandoning the exhausted ones behind him. It had only been when the Laganda’Iteru City Watch had been roused to the sound of drums, and looked out over the wall to see a vast army approaching, that young Rasan’s wild tale had finally been believed by those who remembered hearing it.

Listening to Kinalan’s tale, Harrier began at last to get an idea of how far apart the
Iteru
-cities were. Kinalan said he had been on the road for a sennight without pausing for anything but water from one of the roadside wells. He looked haggard and wild-eyed and ready to drop from exhaustion—but he also looked unwilling to remain in Tarnatha’Iteru one moment longer than was necessary to buy a
shotor
and supplies for the next stage of his journey. If Macenor Telchi had not offered him several gold
uiqat
, he would not have paused to speak to them at all.

“But you saw this army?” Macenor Telchi asked.

“I saw them,” Kinalan answered grimly. “More men than I could count, mounted upon
shotors
saddled and bridled in the deep-desert style. Now we know where the Isvaieni have gone—for they have been gone where no man may say since the beginning of the winter rains—though never would I have thought that the tribes would band together that way. I thought young Rasan was sun-touched, when I first heard his mad tale. Would that he had been.”

“What happened to him?” Tiercel asked. “Rasan?”

“I know not,” Kinalan answered wearily. “At first he would tell his story to any who asked—he worked at the stable where I kept my mules, for I was a launderer, and must tend my drying fields. One day I went and heard he had run off.”

“Maybe he got away,” Harrier said.

“I know not,” Kinalan repeated. “I hope he did, for I owe my life to his warning. And I wish … but it does not matter. Even if the Consul herself had believed him, what
could she have done? A handful of city guards against hundreds upon hundreds of madmen? Those of us who fled before they reached the walls were fortunate. The city burned for days.” Kinalan turned away, walking off into the marketplace without another word. There was nothing more he could tell them.

Everywhere they went in the city in the next hours, it was the same: mounting fear and confusion as the refugees’ story spread. No one knew anything more than Kinalan had told them—Laganda’Iteru had been roused at dawn to the sound of drums and the arrival of an army of Isvaieni warriors. A few people had moved quickly enough to seize mounts and flee before the army reached the city. If the tale brought by a young boy several sennights before was true, Laganda’Iteru was not the first
Iteru-city
that had been so attacked, nor would it be the last.

Even though it was nearing the hottest part of the day, a steady stream of people moved through the gates. There would have been riots in the city if Consul Aldarnas had barred the gates to keep people from leaving, but he was far too wise for that: instead, for the first time since Harrier and Tiercel had come to Tarnatha’Iteru, the main gates of the city stood open. “They would do better to wait a few hours and make better preparations,” the Telchi said quietly, watching the exodus.

“How did they get out of the city?” Harrier asked, frowning. He’d been quiet after they’d spoken to Kinalan, as the Telchi found and questioned others about the destruction of Laganda’Iteru. So had Tiercel. There hadn’t seemed to be much to say.

“What do you mean?” Tiercel asked, answering Harrier instead of Macenor Telchi.

Harrier shrugged. “If the other city’s like this one, the gates are barred until a couple of hours after dawn. And guarded, too. And if
I
had an army coming toward
me
, you can bet I wouldn’t open them.”

“Desperate men can be very persuasive,” the Telchi said.
“It is why, I am sure, that Consul Aldarnas is allowing all who desire it to leave now.”

Tiercel swallowed hard, imagining just
how
the refugees had gotten out of Laganda’Iteru. Harrier just looked grim.

“S
O WHAT DO
we do now?” Harrier asked.

They’d returned to the Telchi’s house. He’d sent his servants to the marketplace with orders to buy all the food they possibly could. There was no point in trying to buy
shotors
—not if they weren’t going to use them immediately, the Telchi had told them. The prices of the beasts would rise and continue to rise because of the frantic demand, and after a certain point, any animals in the stables would simply be stolen. Both Tiercel and Harrier wondered how he could know so much about what would happen in a city under siege—or under the threat of one. Not even the wondertales trotted out each Kindling, or the histories Tiercel had read in the Veiled Lands, had given much detail about what happened during wars and battles. But the Telchi seemed very sure.

“I cannot say what any of us should do next,” the Telchi said somberly. “Much that we do in the next days depends on what the Consul chooses to do. I believe he will take this threat more seriously than Laganda’Iteru did, but such foresight will be of little use. Like the cities of the north, we have nothing more than a City Watch for our protection, and the handful of guards—such as myself—who protect the caravans on their travels. Many of the caravan guards, I fear, have already left the city, hired to protect travelers on their way to Akazidas’Iteru. Indeed, I have already refused enough
uiqat
for my services to buy this very house.”

“Even if they were all here, they wouldn’t be a lot of use against an army the size everyone’s talking about,” Harrier said thoughtfully.

“But you have
walls,”
Tiercel said. “Can’t you just…?”

“Seal ourselves within them, yes,” the Telchi agreed. “And starve, quickly enough, should our enemy have the patience to simply sit outside and wait. The land surrounding us may look barren to northern eyes, but we are in the midst of the orchards and fields which grow the city’s food, and provide grazing for our flocks. Bar the gates, and there is less than a fortnight’s food within the city. Before that time, I think, the army that attacks us will have cut down the orchards and piled their wood at our gates. Three of them are bare wood. They will burn easily.”

“And then the army will be right in here,” Harrier said in disgust.

“Yes,” the Telchi said. “I believe I underestimated the resourcefulness of the foe you seek to slay, Tiercel. It was foolish of me. The mistake of a novice. I think, perhaps, it is best if the two of you leave the city now. The attack upon Laganda’Iteru came ten days ago, and an army moves more slowly than a few refugees, however ill-provisioned. It is three sennights by caravan between Laganda’Iteru and Tarnatha’Iteru, so perhaps twice that for an army even half the size of the one we are being told of. You will not have all the provisions that I would wish for you, but Latar can guide you to Radnatucca, and if you go now, you will still be able to acquire three
shotor
without too much difficulty.”

Tiercel looked at Harrier, and had no difficulty in interpreting his friend’s expression. Yes, they could leave now. And probably they
ought
to leave. But from everything they’d learned today, there was an entire Dark-tainted army headed this way with one purpose in mind: to wipe out Tarnatha’Iteru and everyone in it.

He knew it was just one city. He knew there were eleven
Iteru
, and he knew for sure that two had been destroyed and he didn’t know how many of them were still left. He knew that there were nine cities in the north as well as a bunch of towns and villages and farms scattered around, and there were nine Elven cities in the Veiled Lands, and villages and farms there too, and probably a lot of other
places he hadn’t even heard of. And he knew that if the Dark wasn’t stopped, and the Endarkened came back, they were all going to be destroyed. And that because of that, the smartest thing for him and Harrier to do would be to leave here right now, while they could still do so safely, and start looking for the Lake of Fire.

And he just couldn’t bring himself to do that.

“I think we’ll stay,” Tiercel said.

“Yes,” Harrier said.

Twelve