He walked slowly, not just because his legs were weak, but because he didn’t want to lose control of the brimful bowl: he was not in the mood to embarrass himself.
It took slow and careful control for him to lower himself to the ground and position the bowl in the space between his knees and crossed ankles. His shoulder still throbbed, but less than the day before, he thought.
A soldier he recognized, one of Bogartis’s company, came over holding two mugs. He squatted and put one down next to Declan’s left side. “Thought you might need this.”
“Thank you,” replied Declan.
“Name’s Bernard,” said the soldier. He was perhaps only a few years older than Declan. He glanced around. “Without the lights . . .”
“I know. It’s like camping along the highway at night.”
“At least the rain’s gone.”
Declan nodded. After a couple of mouthfuls of the stew he asked, “What is your captain planning?”
“We just got word to hunker down for a while. The baron took his entire force, leaving a company of boys and the baggage, and we’re to follow tomorrow as guards.” He sighed. “I think we’ll be taking his gold for a while to come.”
Declan said nothing as he continued to eat.
After a few minutes of quiet, Bernard said, “If he force marches all night, he’ll be at Port Colos at dawn. What do you think he’ll find?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ve been fighting for about four years now, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Some of the older lads say they’ve never even heard of the like.”
Declan continued eating in silence. He put the bowl aside and reached for the mug of ale. He drank, taking a momentary pleasure in the bitter tang of the flavor before falling back into the dark numbness he had been in since regaining consciousness.
Seeing that Declan wasn’t inclined toward conversation, Bernard stood up. “Well, rest if you can.”
As the soldier began to leave, Declan said, “Before you go, can you ask Bogartis to see me if he has a moment?”
Bernard raised a finger to his forelock as if saluting. “I will.”
The void inside Declan was like nothing he had experienced before. He knew there were tears, rage, and pain buried deeply inside, but for some reason it was as if they belonged to another man.
Just as he finished eating, Bogartis appeared. “One of the lads said you wanted a word?”
“You’re following the baron with the baggage tomorrow?”
Bogartis nodded. “He was in a fit to get started at dawn and didn’t wait until things got organized. So he hired me and a couple of other companies to escort the baggage to Colos. I think he expects to be unwelcome and plans on besieging the city until the governor comes out for a chat. Why?”
“There’s nothing for me here,” said Declan, attempting to stand and arriving at his feet just as Bogartis steadied him.
“You’re still pretty wobbly, lad.”
“I’ll be ready to ride in the morning—if you’ll have me.”
“Pleasure,” said the old captain. “But you’ll hardly be in any shape for a fight once we catch up.”
“Even if I can’t fight I want to be there to see justice done to whoever killed my wife.”
“That I understand. Well, as it happens two of my lads are no longer with us, so I have extra horses. You’re welcome to tag along, and after all this is said and done—and you have the use of both arms—perhaps we can get some smithing done.”
“We can,” said Declan.
Bogartis patted his shoulder. “Rest now, or we might be digging your grave along the way. You need another week before we can stop worrying about those stitches.”
“I’ll take it easy,” said Declan.
Bogartis left, and Declan made himself as comfortable as he could on his ground cloth. He closed his eyes, but as tired as he felt, sleep took its time in claiming him.
Hava crouched behind a huge pile of refuse. As the city was looted, raiders had piled up discarded goods, household items of all kinds, clothing, and dozens of bodies. She could feel waves of heat coming down the street and heard shouts and screams. She knew her time here was running out: the raiders were systematically working their way through the city and eventually would return this way. Besides the children, it appeared that no one had gotten past where she hid. A few wounded souls had fallen and died within sight of her, but as of now she thought she was probably the last person in this part of the city. She weighed her options. She could attempt to work her way back to the north and escape via the gap through which she had gained entrance, but the need to locate Hatu gnawed at her heart. She was desperate to find him.
The sight of slain children reinforced her sense that in sending Merrylee and the others off to safety she had done the only thing that might possibly save them. In fact, everyone who lay dead on the ground appeared either very old or very young: there were no older children or young men and women in sight. For the most part the people were grey-haired, and no doubt had been weak and slow, in poor health before death. But the lack of the able-bodied probably meant there were slavers with the army: such captives would bring a decent price on the auction block. Slavery was not commonplace in the twin continents, but it was in the islands and in some baronies. Hava hadn’t encountered it much on her travels, but the masters took great pains explaining the risks involved in working a crew in a city that permitted slavery. The presence of slavers meant a fit young man like Hatu stood a better chance of still being alive—if he hadn’t fought like a maniac.
Thinking of Hatu fighting rather than letting himself be captured brought tears to Hava’s eyes, and she wiped them away and chided herself for losing focus. She was drained from lack of sleep, stress, and exertion, yet her heart was pounding and she felt more alive than she remembered in years. She knew from her training this was a false burst of energy, one that could leave her defenseless if she pushed herself too hard for much longer. It was hard to choose a course of action. She kept searching for her next objective, but the choices she imagined would not resolve themselves into a coherent shape.
She watched as a man running while holding some bundle that meant enough to him to risk his life for was struck down from behind by a horseman. He died as his precious belongings were scattered across the blood-soaked ground.
Hava moved back inside the last stall. Just south of her a street running from the harbor into the city limited her ability to hide, and across the street there were no stalls, just shops and businesses, or that’s what they appeared to be from the numerous signs hanging above their doors. The wind was shifting now, so that the rising hot air was being forced down to the ground by incoming cooler night air, and that seemed to act on the flames like a bellows, as they rose up high for a few moments and then seemed to contract and expand outward, only to leap high again. Not only did this cause a strange pulsing light, but it also seemed to pump smoke along the ground for some distance before it started to rise, like a seabird running over the sand before launching itself into flight. The air was turning more acrid by the minute and her eyes began to smart and sting.
Hava stood motionless in a semi-crouch, peering around the corner, her belt knife clutched in her hand. She could see no further progress to be made: retreat appeared to be her only option. Then she heard voices, men on horseback, approaching. Her only advantage was that they were coming out of a brightly lit area with fires on all sides into the relative darkness behind her.
She slipped back into the next stall and risked a moment of standing to look for the source of the voices. Out of the smoke rolling up from the south, a group of four riders emerged, and Hava barely had time to duck behind an overturned sack of grain. Knowing that movement would betray her presence, she froze and waited.
The sound of hooves on the stones was leisurely. Hava suspected these riders assumed that no one was left in this part of the city and they were simply being thorough.
Their language
was strange but oddly familiar. The sounds of movement slowed, and Hava resisted the temptation to peer over the top of the large sack. Then the riders stopped and she heard some of them dismount. Hava silently cursed fate and held her breath. She readied herself. If she had the element of surprise, she might be able to outrun them and get to the gap in the wall before they remounted and overtook her. If any of them were still on horseback, she was done for. One or even two she might elude, especially if she could inflict some damage with her blade before making her break, but four? That was out of the question.
The men were in a discussion of some urgency, judging by their tone. Two did most of the speaking and had distinctive voices, but the other two voiced agreement or made an occasional comment. Hava listened for what seemed like an hour, though she knew in reality only a few minutes had passed. She controlled her breathing and gently flexed the muscles in her arms, legs, and shoulders as much as she could without noticeably moving.
Trying to stay focused, she almost missed a shift in her own perceptions, as suddenly what the men were saying made sense in a way. They used words that she didn’t recognize, but she heard enough in her own native tongue, though with a strange accent, with changed vowel sounds and different emphases. She’d experienced a little of that when first coming to school, as the accent on the home island of Coaltachin was a bit different from what was spoken on the island where she had been born. She concentrated.
“. . . gone . . .” said one man, and then a curse she didn’t quite understand.
Another man said, “. . . killed too many. Asjafa is not happy.”
“Keep looking. There may be . . .”—more that she didn’t understand—“. . . hiding,” said a third man, and she heard the shuffling of feet and the jangle of harness, and then they rode off. She looked up as the sound of their horses faded and saw they were riding to the north. She looked around, feeling the urgent need to find a better spot to hide. Despite her youth, she’d been a girl thief in the city several times and knew that if you couldn’t go to ground you went to the rooftops.
Hava waited until she saw them reach the end of the street, just before the last stall next to the crack between the wall and the ridge she had wiggled through. She slipped around the corner post supporting the roof over the stall and with a leap, pushed with one foot off the low screening wall, turning as she reached up and gripped the brace. She said a tiny prayer that it would hold her weight. Hava pulled herself up till she was lying on her stomach across a fairly sturdy wooden shed roof and silently thanked the builder of these stalls.
As the men started inspecting the stalls, Hava rolled over on her back and looked up. The parapet of the wall was a good ten feet above her head, and without a rope and grapple, she wouldn’t attempt it at night, even with the light coming from the fire to the south, which seemed to be getting brighter as the sounds of battle were fading. With a sinking feeling she realized that meant the butchering of Port Colos was almost over and Molly had been right. Actually, she grudgingly admitted she had known Molly was right from the start, but she had refused to admit it. Trying to find Hatu in the midst of this carnage had been the height of stupidity. It was the sort of blunder, while on a mission, that would have had her masters debating whether to kill her, as she was no longer fit to serve as a member of the Quelli Nascosti, or just to banish her to a distant village to bear children for a farmer. For a brief instant she felt her mind turning inward as she felt a conflict between her need to obey her training and her need to find Hatu.
In a moment of bitter anger at herself, she pushed it all aside. There would be time for self-recrimination in the future, if she salvaged a future. Now, her only requirement was escape . . .
Hava had remained hidden in the shadow of the wall for nearly an hour, and the men who had ridden in had finished their examination of the stalls, concluding that no one was nearby.
The fire was burning its way north as the entire city was being put to the torch. She knew in short order these stalls would be aflame as the rubbish below her was lit. She had only a little time to escape, and her quickest route would be back the way she came.
She began slowly crawling along the tops of the stalls, keeping close to the wall, in deep shadow, and pausing for a moment at each support joint, then snaking over it on her stomach, checking to make certain the next stall roof was as sturdy as the last.
It took painful minutes, but at last she reached the final stall. She jumped down, staying in a crouch as she looked around for any sign that she had been observed. To the south the level of noise had diminished: there were some shouted orders, men and horses moving, punctuated by the popping and crackling sounds of timbers burning and pockets of flammable goods igniting. It took a moment for her to realize there was no more screaming. That realization chilled her.
The smoke was now rolling continuously inland: she hoped it would mask her departure.
She wiggled through the crack between the wall and the ridge and again experienced the terrifying moment of being unable to peer ahead. Moreover, the now-burning city gave her no cover as she exited. She decided her best course was to start running as soon as she left the gap to reach the closest shelter, a stand of brush on the low hillside a quarter of a mile or so away. At her best speed she knew she’d be visible for more than a minute, so she calmed herself, focused, and, with one last deep breath, left the gap and began sprinting away from the burning city.
Halfway to her destination, Hava heard a shout from behind her. Rather than risk losing any momentum by looking over her shoulder, she tried to dredge up every bit of speed she could to reach the scrub brush, where she knew she could move uphill into cover.
Then she heard horses and knew she would come up short. She refused to turn, knowing if she had any chance of surviving the coming confrontation, she needed to find the most defensible terrain within the next fifty feet. A small outcropping dead ahead, one she would normally have to navigate around to continue toward the rocky ridge where she and Molly had looked out at the city, would afford her the best place to face multiple attackers.
She leapt for the outcrop as two riders were nearly on top of her, and as she had expected, they were forced to rein in. As she turned, she felt a tiny breeze in her left ear an instant before she saw an arrow take one of the two riders out of his seat. As she crouched to face the remaining rider, a second arrow took him square in the chest before he could react to his companion’s fall.
“Horses!” shouted Molly.
Hava turned around so quickly she almost went down on her face, tripping over her own feet. She recovered her balance enough to move aside as two riderless mounts ran past.
Molly half slid on her feet down from her firing position to where Hava stood. “I thought you were going to wait up there,” Hava said, pointing to where they had watched the start of the battle.
“Never said that,” replied Molly. “You said if you weren’t back by dawn, I was to get away. So I fetched the horses from where they grazed—they’re tied a bit that way”—she pointed north—“and I filled the waterskins.”
Hava looked back toward the flaming city, then said, “Did you see three children?”
Molly looked confused at the sudden change of topic. “No, why?”
Hava pushed aside her concern for Merrylee and the others. “Never mind.”
“What now? Wait for the baron? He’s sure to be on his way here.”
“No,” said Hava.
“What then?”
“I don’t know.” She took a deep breath and then exhaled loudly as relief washed through her. “Thought I wasn’t going to get back.” She looked at Molly and added, “Thanks for coming down to cover me. I think I was a little overmatched.”
“Just a little.” Molly’s expression showed her disapproval of the rashness of Hava’s actions. “Let’s go,” she said, turning to trudge uphill. Hava followed, and soon they reached the horses. They’d had a few hours’ rest, but she thought it unlikely they were g
oing to be good for a long ride.
Mounting up, Hava led Molly down the narrow trail to the point at which it would intersect the road. In the distance they heard approaching riders. Hava turned and said, “The baron?”
“If he pushed all night,” replied Molly.
Looking around, Hava said, “We’ve no cover if it’s not the baron.”
Molly pointed toward the north, barely visible in the distant light from the still-flaming Port Colos. “That way.”
Hava let her take the lead and followed her into a stand of trees on an uphill slope. They dismounted and placed their hands on the horses’ muzzles, lessening the possibility the horses might nicker a greeting to the other mounts.
As the riders approached, Hava whispered, “I don’t think it’s the baron.”
“Not enough horses, and in too much of a hurry.”
Within a minute, a dozen riders in black suddenly appeared out of the dark, well camouflaged for night raiding. When they passed directly before her, she felt the hair on her arms and neck stand up: they looked like sicari, though not quite. Their head covers were different; back home the head covering was a small cap, usually made of leather, but inside was a cloth face covering that could be pulled down so only the eyes showed. These men wore something more akin to a flat-topped turban, with a hanging cloth that could be pulled up and tucked in on the other side, leaving only the eyes uncovered. But most of their manner and dress made her certain these were “dagger men,” sicari!
Once they were gone she felt no relief. She put her hand out, touched Molly’s arm, and whispered, “Wait.”
The riders veered toward the city gate.
“They’re doing a sweep of the area, looking for . . . us and anyone else who got out of the city.”
“What do we do?”
“Wait for a while.” Hava tried to recall something Master Bodai had said about eluding an enemy when escaping a battle. It was hard to remember because there had been many conflicting details, and because she occasionally just stopped listening to him during those talks. The instruction was designed for those who infiltrated warring armies, under false colors, carrying forged orders, conflicting commands, and committing other acts of subversion to throw one side into confusion, or for assassins marking specific nobles and commanders, to “behead the snake,” as Bodai had put it.
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