Traitors' Gate (62 page)

She broke away, blindly groping for a path out of her gods-rotted loneliness. “Don't touch me!” Grief felled her; she sank to her knees.

He knelt beside her but did not touch. “Ah the hells, Marit. I wasn't sure—Aui!—but now—No one else can kiss like that.”

Laughter choked her sobs, or maybe laughter and tears were the same thing. “You sure as hells tried enough women to find out.”

“Marit—”

“Neh, you have nothing to apologize for. Sheh! You thought I was dead. And even if I weren't, I hope I would never be the
kind of person who was jealous of the Merciless One. Let it go, Joss.”

After all these years, he could not. “Do you still love me, Marit?”

She wiped her face. “I love the memory of the love we shared then. How can I know if I love you now? I'm not so naive, nor should you be. I'm a Guardian. I have my duty, and you have yours. Please tell me you understand.” She did not look at him. She did not want to know if he was lying or telling the truth.

He rose and paced away, his back to the fire. “What must I do?”

She rested on her hands until she was no longer shaking. Then she rose and wiped her face a final time, organized her thoughts as she would when, as a reeve, she was reporting to her marshal. “This is what I have seen. First, Herelia is poisoned. That is where they've built their stronghold. Wedrewe is a stranglehold gripping the throats of every person who lives within the cloak of their power. Wherever they extend their control, they choke until those they rule are grateful merely to be living. Second, I have come to see that in the days long ago the reeves were organized differently than they are now. They ranged more widely, and spread their perches into more outposts. They weren't all gathered into a few halls.”

“Then why do the tales speak of six reeve halls?”

“The tales speak of ‘the fifteen towns' of the Hundred, but that does not mean there are only fifteen towns today. A reeve hall might have meant something different in the tales. We say it is an actual place, but maybe it used to mean—oh—an allegiance, or a breeding line of eagles.”

“Family groupings,” he said, musing. “It's true, I'm trying to implement new patrol protocols, even methods of fighting in concert with our allies. But not all the reeve halls will join me. I've got to be cautious in how I approach them.”

“Don't wait too long to act. A newly trained cohort has already marched from Herelia to join the main army. Another will march within the month, and a third in three months. Fifteen cohorts they have in number.”

“Fifteen?”

“They will train more, whether with willing recruits or unwilling ones. These are the people who hang prisoners from poles. Surely you've seen—”

“I know what we face! We have Olo'osson's support. There's an outlander captain named Anji who is training an army, and he's very good. But how can we defeat an army that boasts fifteen cohorts of fighting men and is commanded by Guardians, none of whom we can stand against?”

“What if I told you there was a way to separate a Guardian from the cloak, to release that cloak to find a new vessel? Maybe a cleaner spirit, one who has not crossed the Shadow Gate.”

He became still, as if holding his breath; it seemed the wind itself ceased. “Are you saying I could kill you?”

“Yes. If you could take me by surprise, render me senseless so you could separate the cloak from my body. Or if I let you because I was desperate enough to welcome oblivion.”

“Are you that desperate, Marit?”

She could hear how badly he wanted her to answer no. He wanted her to be alive for his own sake as much as for hers. Yet she must consider dispassionately. She must delve into her own heart, her own spirit. Aui! How strongly that heart beat; how powerfully that spirit flamed!

“No. I'm not that desperate. I don't want oblivion.” Her voice trembled with the the ferocity of her desire, unexamined until now. “I want to be alive. Even in such times, in these days, in this situation, I want to walk and breathe—” She shut her eyes, wondering if he would take the moment to draw his sword and run her through. “Great Lady. Therefore I am already corrupt.”

Words spoken months ago by the woman who wore the cloak of Night, on the first occasion Marit had encountered her, sounded ominous and revealing now.

“In the end even death can be defeated.”

Could it be that simple?

All thinking, speaking creatures—the eight children of the Four Mothers—expected to die. But what if certain individuals were thrust out of death back into life? If the cloaks held a dead
spirit in this world in order to serve them by measuring truth to exact justice, might that spirit, grasping its second chance at life, fear more than anything having to let go and cross the threshold of the Spirit Gate into darkness and oblivion?

Did the cloak of Night fear the second death so greatly that she had corrupted the council of the Guardians and now allowed this vile army to trample and destroy land and village and lives just to protect herself? Could anyone be that selfish?

“What you offer is more of a burden than a gift,” said Joss softly.

She understood where her duty lay. She was a Guardian. She had to serve the land.

She spoke toward the distant tower of Ammadit's Tit, where the end of their days together had begun. “Maybe so, Joss. But war has come. The tale has changed. Let me tell you how to kill a Guardian.”

“
WE
'
RE BACK IN
the Hundred at last,” said Keshad to Eliar.

At the side of the road stood a white post. The name of the road,
West Spur
, was carved below the top in the old writing, and a single groove marked the first mey of the road. A wayfarer's lamp could be fixed to the post at night or in a storm. Today, although cold, was quiet, not even very windy. The caravan had climbed through snowfall on the southern side of the pass as the seasonal rains began their cycle; here on the northern side, they walked into the dry season.

But they hadn't left the worst tempest behind.

She approached on horseback. Her headdress glimmered with enough gold and gems to tempt the most cautious bandit. Why the old woman must flaunt her wealth Kesh could not imagine, but he supposed the five hundred Qin soldiers who accompanied them would slaughter importunate thieves.

With ten stolid Qin soldiers in escort, she reined in beside Keshad. Over the weeks, she had adapted her dialect of the trade speech to mimic Kesh and Eliar's by insisting they instruct her—and her chief eunuchs—every night. “This is the border gate, is it not? I will speak to the captain in charge.”

“Your Excellency,” said Kesh quickly, “of course you shall speak to the captain in charge. Please offer to me a moment's generosity and allow me to present our party and its purpose to the officer before you convey your requests.”

Captain Anji had her eyes: handsome, dark, and cutting.
“You fear I will offend some minor functionary, who will then refuse us entry simply to spite any woman who speaks bluntly to him.”

“Maybe that is how it works in the empire, Your Excellency, but I assure you that in the Hundred, women speak as bluntly as men. Let me first explain why he should admit five hundred outlander soldiers. Unless you would prefer to send the military escort back to the empire and proceed with only the wagons.”

“Not at all! My old friend and ally Commander Beje sent these troops to me as a gift.”

“Naturally, Your Excellency, you can then imagine—”

“You need not repeat yourself!”

“I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.”

“You do not.” She was not angry, merely speaking exactly as she thought. “However, you are right. I have endured the distrust meted out to a foreigner for all of my adult years. As you are a son of this land, you are correct to remind me it will be no different here.”

He glanced at Eliar, but the Silver was stalwartly staring up at a rugged mountain peak just off to the east, its bare summit surrounded on all sides by cliffs. Was that a wink of light on the high peak's icy summit? Surely not; the sun was concealed behind clouds.

“Eliar, call the party to a halt in sight of the gate but at a prudent distance. I'll go ahead.”

Without waiting for Eliar's reply, he urged his mount forward. Behind, brakes screamed as wagons hit the incline. Kesh approached the wall. Armed men watched from the parapet as the caravan lumbered to a halt. Kesh rode across the big ditch on the same plank bridge he'd used every time he'd come back from the south. He hoisted his travel sack with his permission chits, ledger, and tax tokens.

“I'm Keshad, riding under the direction of Captain Anji of the Olossi militia. I request to speak with the captain in charge.”

The guardsmen were staring at the party behind him, and Kesh turned in his saddle, abruptly seeing from their perspective: this was no caravan but a significant military force with remounts,
supply wagons, grooms, servants, and slaves. Why should they even be allowed into the Hundred?

“Master Keshad?” Kesh looked up at a Qin soldier. “I'm Chief Deze. I know of your mission. These Qin soldiers fly Commander Beje's banner together with that of Anji's clan.” He eyed the caravan without even the flicker of a smile. “Someone wanted to make sure you arrived safely.”

The white mountain peaks of the Spires loomed behind them, a seemingly impenetrable barrier between the Hundred and the empire. It was a fence Kesh would never again cross, not if he wanted to stay alive. “I don't think my safety was of concern. This troop escorts Captain Anji's mother.”

Some might call the Qin callous and hardened for their lack of emotion, but Kesh was pretty sure they had simply learned in a hard school to mask their feelings behind impassivity. Chief Deze's astonishment flashed brightly as he leaned on the parapet. Then he barked an order and vanished. Shortly, a big basket was swung over the lip of the parapet, and Deze climbed in and was lowered down. He sprang out of the basket and, after hurrying over to Keshad, grabbed his arm in a powerful grip to tug him out onto the plank bridge. Adders writhed and hissed in the ditch below, provoked by the movement. As the planks shifted under Kesh's feet, he was dizzied by an overwhelming sense that he was about to plunge into the pit and be bitten to death.

“This means that Commander Beje—or his wife Cherfa—has been in contact with the captain's mother all along,” said Deze in a low voice. He rubbed his wisp of a beard, a man whose thoughts were spinning new threads into the weave. “Take your party to Old Fort and there take the road to Astafero.”

“Astafero? Where's that?”

“The naya sinks. That's what folk now call the settlement out in the Barrens. Do not go to Olossi.”

“Why not?”

Chief Deze began to speak, stopped himself, and began again very like a man who has changed his bargaining position in the middle of negotiation. “You can see that a big force of outlanders will scare the Hundred folk.”

Kesh had gotten used to the soldiers. He liked them. But they were cursed intimidating, if you took a step back from familiar faces and considered them as a group. There was a reason the Hundred folk called them the black wolves for their black tabards and Captain Anji's black wolf banner. And honestly, it was difficult to imagine how Anji's mother would react to a delegation of Olossi merchants and clan-heads traipsing out to greet her with all the flourish and babble so beloved of Hundred merchants.

“I'll do it. Do you want to greet her?”

“Hu! If the var's sister wants to speak to me, she'll call me to her.” Having reached a decision, the chief moved with dispatch. The gates were opened; the caravan trundled through, and the beasts set to water. Anji's mother took her attendants to the camping field where her servants set up screens of cloth so her veiled women—she was the only female who rode—could emerge from their wagon hideaways where no one could see, or count them. Anyway, their heavy robes and veils made them appear all alike. Most of the wagons conveyed their luxuries.

One of the eunuchs emerged from behind the screens and set up a padded stool fringed with gold tassels. The old woman sat down with her back to the cloth as a slave fetched Chief Deze.

“The Qin are cursed odd,” muttered Eliar as he and Kesh watched the man approach. “Look how he comes like a dog to her call.”

“He's not being servile, just respectful. No dog would be given such a consideration.” Kesh smirked at Eliar as a folding stool was brought so the chief could sit. The old woman proceeded to ask him questions, or so it appeared, because he did most of the talking and she did most of the listening.

The caravan waited until she dismissed the chief. Then the veiled women climbed back into the wagons; servants took down the screens; the wagons were rolled into line.

“Did you see the reeve go?” said Eliar as they took their usual places at the front.

“What reeve?”

“You didn't notice, did you?” Eliar's self-satisfied smile at having noticed what Kesh had overlooked was, like a point scored in hooks-and-ropes, an unspoken boast. “A reeve flew, with a passenger in harness. The chief has wasted no time in sending word forward. A lot of trouble for one old woman, don't you think? The sooner the old bitch gets back inside the women's quarters, the better.”

“Aui! You Silvers! Captain Anji's got no ‘women's quarters.' ” The train started moving, local guardsmen falling in as guides. “It's not ‘a lot of trouble.' It's just the respect you would show any eminent elder.”

Yet Kesh wondered.

•  •  •

“C
LAN HALL DOESN
'
T
have the means to house and train you,” Joss said to Badinen as they stood on an eyrie at the southeastern tail of the Liya Hills. “I'm taking you to Copper Hall. That's where I trained as a young reeve.”