The Way Into Chaos (21 page)

“By what right do they lay claim to our land?” Cazia snapped, surprising herself with the strength of her response.

“They invite okshim herders living in the Sweeps to join their alliance, then claim their lands. Not that the herders have lands in the way we understand it. They’re a nomadic people, but from the Indregai perspective, that just means they can draw their marks on large parts of the map.”
 

“But the okshim herding clans in the Sweeps are imperial citizens. They use sleepstones, pay taxes—”

“They do, Miss Freewell, when they’re west of the Piskatook Pass, at least. But my point is that the Alliance--and their
serpents
--tried to storm the fort. Many brave men and women on both sides died in those three days, and not all on the road. What’s more, we sometimes get spies in these rocks who have come to time the watches and study the gates.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Look.” She pointed off in the direction she’d thrown the meat. There were three crows fluttering, squawking, and fighting over it. As they watched, two more arrived.

“Oh, no.” Cazia felt her stomach give a sudden twist and she thought she might give back the picnic food she’d already eaten. What was the woman trying to say?
 

“I’m sorry, miss. I know he was your brother. I know you loved him. But we have had many dead before these walls--sometimes after battle, sometimes after misadventure--and we have never had to search for them very hard. In truth, if he’d died here, the watch would have known about it at the first sign of daylight. The birds always tell.”
 

Goose bumps ran all over Cazia’s body. She couldn’t believe it. This woman was talking about Col as though he was a piece of rotten meat! The boy who’d called,
Save the princess,
like a fairy tale hero, who had teased them about their clothes just before the Festival, who had followed Lar onto Vilavivianna’s roof!

Bad enough I have to stick my hand in a monster’s mouth for him...

Lar, save the princess.

No. It was unacceptable. Her brother was out here somewhere. He had to be. If the birds weren’t tearing at his flesh it was because they
wouldn’t dare.

Cazia turned her back on the guard and bounded to the nearest Friend. She didn’t care what they said. She was going to find her brother. It was the only decent thing to do.
 

She heard Peraday sigh.
 

It took no time at all to pick up her search again. There were no crows nearby except the ones Peraday had summoned. It occurred to her that Col, having been killed by the grunt, might have the grunt’s smell on him. That would drive the carrion birds away, she was sure.

No need to think about that now. She kept searching, hearing the harsh cries of the crows until they were done with their snack. The late afternoon came, and she was as far east as she could go, almost to the loose stones at the foot of the cliff face.
 

The grunt could have thrown him here. It could have thrown him farther, maybe up into the stones on the mountainside, but she would need a flying cart to search there.
 

Still, there was plenty of territory to cover that didn’t need a cart. She glanced out at the pass, at the dark, still rocks. The road was fringed with stiff, bristly clumps of grass, but among the tumbledown black rocks, there was nothing. No rats, no squirrels, no birds.
 

Cazia threw herself against the bitterest Enemy near her, scraping her fingers raw as she clung to the rough top. There was no sign of her brother beneath it; of course there wasn’t. She strained her arms and shoulders, pulling herself around the edge to check the far side, sweat running down her face and back.
 

And burst out crying. She laid her cheek against the cool black rock, letting the tears crawl on her skin like bugs. Bad enough her brother had been killed; could that grunt have eaten him entirely? She imagined Commander Gerrit smugly declaring that Col had run off, and she made ready to hate him wildly for it.

Cazia wanted to believe her brother had run away without her—she ached to believe it—but no. He was dead. She knew it had to be true.
 

There was nothing to do now but go back into the fort and admit defeat. Admit that she’d wasted everyone’s time and that she was just a girl who didn’t know how the world worked, and why
hadn’t they just told her
?

The sun had almost reached the top of the western peaks when Cazia began climbing across the rocks toward the road. It was easier to avoid the bitter Enemies now that she wasn’t searching methodically, and she quickly found herself staring at the two guards from the top of long black slab.
 

“I’m sorry,” she said, steeling herself in case they made a nasty remark. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

The guards exchanged a look, then Zollik bowed and excused himself, moving closer to the wall. Peraday stepped closer to Cazia and spoke in a low voice. “We are the ones who should apologize to you. Zollik and I are fourth-generation soldiers; we are accustomed to speaking only when given permission. We could not decide on a proper way to broach the subject. And we did not want to intrude on your grief.”

Cazia was equally grateful for the soldier’s kindness and annoyed that she’d refused to be a target for Cazia’s rage and embarrassment. “I still don’t know what happened to Colchua. He would not have run away without me.”

Peraday gestured toward the quiver on Cazia’s hip. “Can he do magic, like you?”

Cazia shook her head. “He is a warrior all the way through. Was a warrior.” The words left behind a lump in her throat that made her feel sick. She turned away toward the north, looking far uphill toward the place where the twisting pass vanished between two sloping paths as though Col might have been standing out there on a barren rock. She had no target for her anger and it was turning sour inside her.
 

As long as she didn’t start crying again. Stoneface was right; it was dangerous for scholars to grieve in public.

“May I speak freely?” Peraday said. Startled by the tone of her voice, Cazia glanced at her. When they’d first met, Cazia had assumed she was just another bully. She had a heavy jaw and brow, a bulbous nose, and a long scar across her forehead. Her blunt accent only added to the impression. Her behavior, though, had been a complete surprise. Was this kindness?
 

It didn’t matter, because Cazia couldn’t refuse her, not now. “Please do.”

“My brother, he vanished. No one knows what happened to him, and what I have learned is that vanishing is more painful for those left behind. My father had a funeral. We visit his grave every year. But for my brother, there is only loss that can never come to an end, painful gossip, and futile hope. I know it’s not my place, but—”

“Perra!”
 

Peraday and Cazia turned toward Zollik. He was standing ten paces away but was staring back up at the wall. “What is it?” Peraday called.

“The guards are not at their—”

His next words were drowned out by the staccato clang of a bronze drum. It rang in four quick tones, then four again, then again.
 

Peraday and Zollik ran to the northern gate. Cazia jumped from the rock and sprinted after them. “What does it mean?”

They had no time for her questions. Zollik dug his fingers into the gap and tried to pull the gate open. It was as immovable as Monument. Peraday pounded on the wood with the heel of her hand. No one unbarred the gate or answered their shouts.
 

“What does four tones mean?” Cazia asked again.
 

“Enemy inside the fort,” Peraday answered. “Fire and Fury, they’ve already barred the gates. No one will be permitted to come or go until the foes within have been defeated.”

Cazia stepped back, looking along the walls. Was there another way in? She didn’t have a rope, and she stopped herself asking the guards if there was a ladder somewhere, because of course soldiers wouldn’t keep a ladder outside the fort. “How do we sneak in?”

“We don’t,” Peraday said sharply. “The walls are too high and we’d be shot if we tried to climb.”

“We should withdraw to Stinkhole Station,” Zollik said. “Dark will be upon us soon and we have no torches.”
 

“No,” Cazia said. Jagia was in there, and Timush, and Bittler. Her friends. She couldn’t leave them alone to face... “What enemy? Not another grunt. Could it be Alliance soldiers come to steal away their princess?”

Cazia knew the answer to her own question even before she finished it. She needed to stop doing that. How could they know what had happened in Peradain and where Vilavivianna had been moved in just five days? She was beginning to realize how much she disliked questions. Answers were much better. Answers told you what to do.
 

“I’m sorry, Miss Freewell, but we must set out for Stinkhole right away. They won’t have heard the gong and word must be spread.”

“Well, we don’t all have to go. I do. My friends are inside, and if they’re under attack, I can’t just sit on a rock and eat a picnic lunch. I just can’t.”
You are Peradaini. You’ll never risk your lives for the Witt, Bendertuk, or Simblin heirs.
“So, how do we sneak into to the fort? Don’t tell me you can’t; as soon as you build a wall, someone will want to climb over it. No one knows that better than I do. So, don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“But I haven’t,” Peraday said.
 

“I have.” Zollik’s expression was grave. “You can’t defend if you can’t prepare for an attack, and I worked out a method I would use to mount the walls. I’d hoped it would earn me the captain’s helm, but Reglis got it instead, and then that floor-mopper Shunkip. But I know how I’d do it.”

“Peraday,” Cazia said. “Why don’t you spread word to...Stinkhole station? Is that really a name? While we slip into the fort and see what help we can offer.”

“I want that,” Zollik said. “I want to do it.”

“Sneaking into the fort is not likely to earn you a plume, Zol.” Peraday’s tone was flat. “More like a hempen collar.”

“I want to do it. The consequences will be on me.”

“And if you get this young girl killed?”

“Hey!” Cazia objected. “This ‘young girl’ slays monsters.”

“Go,” Zollik said. “Alert the watch stations.”

Peraday jogged away from the gate, heading deeper into the pass. Cazia had expected her to sprint, but maybe the stations were farther than she’d thought. She turned to Zollik. “Okay. What’s your plan for breaking in?”

“The walls are highest at the gates, but lowest at the cliff face. We climb up to the cliffs above--the eastern end seems best--and start an avalanche. The stones will pile up at the base of the wall and we can descend over the rockfall directly onto the wall walk.”

Cazia waited for him to say he was just joking and to start explaining his true plan. The silence played out.

“What are you gaping at?” Zollik snapped. “We do have avalanches, you know, and they have to be cleared from the walls.”

“We don’t have time for that! Problem two: I can’t climb mountains. Do you even know how to start an avalanche, make it the right size, and not kill everyone in the fort? No. We’re going to do this a better way.”

She waved at him to follow her as she went east back over the broken stones. The shadow of the western peaks followed her as she hopped from one friend to another. Zollik was not quite right about the height of the walls: they were all the same straight across the pass. The difference lay in the ground. The road at the center of the pass was the lowest point, and the rocks made a shallow slope on either side until they reached the cliff faces.

“Where are you leading me?”
 

“To here,” Cazia said, jumping to a good friend close to the wall. It seemed sturdy enough--at least, it didn’t wobble when Zollik landed beside her. “Just a moment.”

“You can’t tunnel through,” Zollik said.
 

“I know that.”

“Behind this wall is soil and loose stone. It won’t crumble and we could never dig it out, not with all the soil from above falling in.”

“I know.”

“We’d never get to the inner wall in time.”

“Monument give me strength, would you shut up? I need a few breaths of silence.”

To her surprise, he did it.
 

Cazia could get them over. She knew it. She was a scholar and she’d been taught a spell that would let her climb to the top.
 

But she couldn’t just cast it once. She was going to have to cast it over and over, and Doctor Twofin had warned her what would happen if she overused spells: she’d go hollow like Doctor Whitestalk. If she was lucky, she’d only have her fingers chopped off, then be locked up in a room somewhere to answer questions about magic. If she wasn’t, it would be the point of a spear or edge of a sword, just like Old Stoneface had done to Doctor Rexler.
 

But could she do it? Could she cast the spell enough times to get them over without going mad? What good would it do to rush to her friends’ rescue if she arrived there without any human feeling left in her?

Song knew, it was a huge risk. Doctor Twofin had always kept their practice sessions short, so she had never even come close to going hollow. What’s more, whenever she’d asked him how many times she could safely use a Gift, he’d lost his temper. He didn’t want to tell her because he knew she would test her boundaries.
 

He was dead now, she thought not for the first time. She hadn’t liked him very much, but she’d loved the magic he’d taught her. Did it make her a bad person to miss the lesson more than the man? Maybe, she assured herself, it was just that she had too much grief for too many people to feel more than a pang for her old teacher.
 

She had a choice before her: risk madness and go over this wall or huddle out here in the darkness while her last remaining friends in the world--Timush, Bit, and little Jagia--faced danger in the fort. And that wasn’t any kind of choice at all.