Traitors' Gate (19 page)

The door into the marshal's cote stood open. Joss climbed the steps into the shade of the porch. In the marshal's audience
room, an elderly man sat behind a low writing desk, forehead propped on a hand, back bent. An old map, frayed and ripped at the edges, lay unrolled, its corners held down by cups. Smears of ink blotted the sheet; one spot, near the center, had been rubbed so many times it was worn through.

“It doesn't matter what emergency you bring word of,” said the marshal to the desk. “I've got no more reeves to send out.”

“I'm not here—”

The man looked up. “
Joss?
The hells!”

“Masar? I thought you retired—there was a new marshal—”

The old reeve's cheeks were hollow with age and exhaustion. “There was. Why are you here? Aren't you marshal of Argent Hall?”

No niceties. No wine. Masar gestured with the
quick-hurry-up
known to all.

“Clan Hall's council has asked me to step in as commander. As a temporary—”

“No need to ask my permission, if that's why you came. I don't see how Clan Hall's administrative juggling affects us here.”

Joss coughed into a hand. “Well, as commander of the reeve halls—”

Masar's curt laugh silenced him. “All right, then, Commander. We're overwhelmed. Have you brought supplies? Come with brilliant ideas on how to beat back this cursed army?”

“I have to order things at Argent Hall, get a sense of what is going on at the different halls, find out what happened to Horn Hall—”

“Yes, and after you've managed all that,
then
you can come back and offer me and mine aid. Is that what you're saying? Fine. I heard you. Good-bye.” He looked past Joss. A rare smile graced his stern face. “Jenna! There you are.”

A pretty young woman wrapped in a bright orange taloos climbed the steps carrying a covered dish. Behind her trotted a lad not much younger but clearly her sibling. As she paused to kick off her sandals, she looked at Joss with a pretty smile.

“None of that!” scolded Masar. “He's too old for you.”

“I never said a word!” protested Joss, burned by Masar's scorn. She was a pretty enough lass, but so cursed young.

Masar's frown lowered like a threat. “These are my grandchildren, Jenna and Kedri.”

“Reeve Joss!” The lad's cheeks flushed as he stared. “I've heard so many stories—”

“Enough!” snapped Masar. The lad ducked his head as his sister flicked fingers on his arm to silence him. “Clan Hall can call you their commander if they will—and I suppose you'll do no worse than anyone else given the chaos—but it's cursed meaningless to us. My own daughter is missing and her husband dead, these two of their five children fled to me. And they aren't the only refugees sheltering here.”

“I'm cursed sorry, Masar,” Joss said, raising his hands to show he'd no weapon and no excuse. “That's a terrible thing for a parent to suffer. I really did come seeking what information you have to tell me. To let you know the situation at Clan Hall. And to pass on vital information about the army and certain clans in Nessumara who may be plotting to betray the city.”

Masar nodded at his grandchildren, and Jenna hurried off, dragging her hero-struck brother behind with a parting smile for Joss. “My apologies. I'm no worse off than many, and more fortunate than some. Sit down. Let's talk as reeves do. What are we up against?”

 

A
ND HEAR JOSS
did, so much so that at dawn he felt he might never sleep if he tried to right all the wrongs afflicting the Hundred. The list was endless, and it only began with the recent death of the marshal who had replaced Masar when he had retired from active duty. Joss flew north toward the southernmost spur of the Liya Hills, where twenty years ago he'd often rendezvoused with Marit. How distant those halcyon times seemed now! The Haya Gap could be seen to the north; south lay the vast tangled forest known as the Wild, a refuge of the mysterious wildings. The eagle followed the north-leading ridge of the hills. At last, Joss caught sight of the ragged notch in the hills that marked the Liya Pass.

He tugged on the jesses without conscious thought, and soon
enough Scar pulled in to land on the stony height of Candle Rock. The towering rock was deserted; without wings, no man or woman could reach this spot. He scouted the environs, the fire pit, the hollow where eagles roosted, an overhang where the remnants of a wood stack moldered beside an even older axe held together by hope and twine. The decaying wood had been tossed into a jumble while the wood still solid enough for a good burn had been stacked in one place. Some reeve had been up here in the last few months. And why not? It was an unassailable position, overlooking the road below.

He found a log, not yet split and half shot through with rot, and dragged it over to Scar. The eagle was delighted, pouncing on the log and squeezing it with his talons. Joss set to work on the fire pit, restacking the rocks where they had shifted and come loose. He layered a few to create a tiny crevice, where stones painted to mark the phrases of the moon could be left for the next reeve: Meet here when the moon is full. By the time he was done Scar had reduced the log to splinters and settled in, extending his wings to sunbathe.

Joss settled as well. The wind streamed over the crags and the afternoon sun beat down on his back. Twenty years ago, reeves had patrolled these lands regularly. Over the years, mey by mey, village by village, they had retreated. Given up ground as a new commander had claimed their territory.

The abandoned patrol stations needed to be put back into use as observation posts and havens. It was the kind of thing the commander of the reeve halls could order done.

He lifted his gaze east to the ridge held by the hierarchs to be sacred to the Lady of Beasts. The distinctive spire called Ammadit's Tit loomed, but he had no desire today to scout the Guardian's altar where he and Marit had made their fateful discovery over twenty years ago. That's where it had all started to go so terribly wrong.

It was time to head south toward Argent Hall. He whistled Scar down and hooked in. Wind buffeted them as Scar plunged into a powerful updraft. They climbed until the air he sucked into his lungs seemed as thin as his memories of the past, falling away below. His eyes watered, but surely that was the wind.

R
OLLED UP IN
a carpet Shai endured, sucking at such air as he could pull in. The carpet was carried for some ways and then deposited, he guessed, in a wagon. In Kartu Town he'd heard a story about the Qin: rather than shed the blood of Qin nobles deemed rebellious by the Qin var, the offending personages were rolled up so tightly in carpets that they suffocated. He calmed himself by focusing on the scrape of wheels.

How long they traveled he did not know. He dozed, and startled awake when they halted. The carpet, and other goods, changed hands as coin clinked. The carpet was lodged in another vehicle with Shai wedged uncomfortably as a scream crawled up his throat. His mouth and tongue were so dry he could not even moisten his chapped lips. But he could not die now. He must survive and escape to warn Captain Anji before Hari found him. The rumbling journey went on and on as Shai's thoughts churned. His favorite brother Hari would never kill Anji. But the creature Hari had become, would.

They stopped. A hard drop to the ground winded him. A shove unrolled the carpet. He lay gasping on his back as a shod foot prodded him.

“The hells! This one's an outlander.”

He rolled over, fixed trembling arms under his body, and shoved up to hands and knees, heaving as the dust coating his mouth gagged him. A sharp point pressed into his back.

“Here, now, my friend. Give us no trouble, and we'll give you none.”

“Heya, Laukas! What've you got there?”

“A cursed outlander!”

Shai raised his head. Two other carpets, unrolled, had sheltered two women, just now twisting to rise as about ten armed men and women gathered around, all as ragged as bandits and twice as surly. The older of the newcomers made a gesture with her right hand, middle fingers bent in, thumb and little finger raised. Seeing it, folk relaxed.

Cautiously, Shai sat on his heels, aware of a bristling circle of spears, staves, and sharpened sticks surrounding him. His neck hurt, his head ached, but he was breathing fresh air in a clearing surrounded by trees.

“I need to get to the nearest reeve hall,” he croaked. “Can you help me?”

They laughed.

“That's right,” said the stocky young man called Laukas. “You say you want to reach Copper Hall, but you'll drop out of sight the moment our backs are turned and go running back to give your master a full accounting of our numbers and disposition.”

“I need to get to a reeve hall. I am not—” In truth he
was
a spy, and if he got back to Olossi he would certainly give Captain Anji an accounting of the numbers and disposition of even such a ragtag group. “I am not from the army. I am fleeing the army. They want to kill me because I am an outlander.”

A shout of joy cut through his stumbling words and Laukas's skeptical expression. A man pushed through the circle of spears to embrace the older of the women. When they parted, she introduced the other refugee, a young woman wearing the blue cloak of an envoy of Ilu.

“The Ilu priests asked us to get Navita out of the city. She's gods-touched, and all the gods-touched and outlanders are being hauled in for interrogation.” She indicated Shai. “Although I've never seen that one before. Maybe a kind master wanted to spare his life, eh? He's not bad-looking.”

“Eiya! You've not changed,” retorted her exasperated brother. “Now he's seen us, we can't leave him. Place a guard on him at all times, Laukas. Let's move.”

They rolled up the carpets and slung them into the back of carts, which were hitched to mules. Laukas and another man helped him up, not kindly but not roughly.

“Who are you?” Shai asked.

“Who do you think we are?” asked Laukas with a barked laugh. “We're the cursed resistance, aren't we? We're all that stands between Haldia and that cursed army.”

“It's enough to make a strong man weep,” remarked his companion.

“That explains why you're not crying.”

“Sheh! Who was it won our last arm-wrestling contest?”

“Only because you had Geda shoving down on your hand, eh? Two against one, and her with her tits in my face, distracting me.”

“Piss-head, you'll face me again, or I'll have the whole camp calling you an ass-licking coward.”

“Depends on whose ass. Geda's been giving me the look—” With a laugh, Laukas dodged a swipe of the other man's spear.

“And when I tell Geda what you've been saying, she'll chop off your eggs with that axe of hers and cook them for her supper.”

“Now,
that
I would believe.”

They followed the carts along a rutted track into tangled forest where shadows lay heavy even with the sun shining overhead. Four men trailed their party, sweeping away such tracks as they could, scattering leaves across the path to make it look as if no one had passed this way recently. After some time, the track by now barely wide enough to accommodate the wagons and increasingly uneven, they halted and with practiced ease unhitched the mules, loaded them with the goods, and concealed the carts beneath undergrowth. On they walked. Laukas and his friend Ketti kept so casual a guard on Shai that he began to wonder if they were hoping he would bolt just so they could have a bit of excitement chasing him down. The leader dropped back to walk beside them.

“Greetings of the day. I'm Tomen.”

“I'm called Shai.”

“Shayi?”

“Shai.”

Laukas shrugged. “These outlanders have cursed strange names.”

Ketti murmured the name a couple of times, trying to get the vowels right.

“Who was willing to take the risk of smuggling you out?” Tomen asked. “You'll understand we have to be suspicious of anyone we don't know.”

Shai considered his options.

With a tight smile, Tomen went on. “While you're thinking up a likely story, try making it an entertaining one.”

They trudged in silence but for the weight of feet and hooves on the trail. It was cool under the leaves; with only a vest and trousers, Shai found himself suppressing a shiver. Mud coated his bare feet. His toes were cold.

“I am a scout,” he said finally. “But not for the army. I am spying
on
them. I was pretending to be a slave. Then the call came that all outlanders must be interrogated by the cloaks. So I had to get away.”

“Not a very colorful account,” observed Tomen.

“No fights, no devouring, no wine,” agreed Laukas.

“I've heard my little sister make up better tales,” added Ketti.

“Who are you spying for?” Tomen continued. “How did you contact the smugglers? Why did they agree to help you? You can see these are questions we'll need answers for.”

“If you're captured, anything I tell you can be taken from you.” He coughed the last bit of dust out of his throat. “By the Guardians who command the army.”

“I've heard it said the commanders of the army wear cloaks and call themselves Guardians. But Laukas here could wear a cloak and call himself a Guardian.”

“Still wouldn't help him get women to sleep with him,” added Ketti. “Him with that—problem—he has.”

“You wish you had my problem,” said Laukas with a laugh, slapping Ketti on the ass. “They're all afraid of me because I have such a masterful tool.”

“Call them demons, then,” said Shai, over the banter. “They look into your heart and eat your memories.”

That made them frown. Tomen strode ahead to talk to his sister and the young envoy. They walked along casually enough, but Ketti looked over his shoulder whenever the men walking as
rearguard fell out of sight behind a bend. Some of the group carried regular weapons, spears with iron points, short swords, but the rest made do with hunting bows, scythes, axes, or stout walking staffs with one end sharpened to a point. He might outrun them, Shai thought, but then he'd be lost, weaponless, and without food or shelter. They hadn't killed him yet. He still had a chance to enlist their help.