Halun bowed slightly, and the Singer backed out of the tent, courteously.
When he was gone, Halun stretched himself out on his pallet with a sigh for his aching joints.
It's working, he thought with satisfaction. They're unhappy, and the longer Felaras holds out on explosives, the unhappier they'll get. I venture to say that once the boy is healed and on his feet, Singer Gortan will make his move. And that move will be a direct assault on the Fortress by the dissidents.
He contemplated the roof of the tent, slowly turning a soft rose color as the sun set.
An assault doomed to failure, of course. The Sword doesn't let anything larger than a mouse past them after dark. But . . . an attack will throw a good fright into all of them. Just maybe a good enough fright to send them running to the caves. Felaras will find herself voted out of office, and her two candidates are too young—that leaves me. That is, assuming Zetren doesn't get her first.
He laughed silently. Oh, Felaras, Felaras, you're like a hare in a field full of traps! Whichever way you step, you're going to run into one! If only you knew who your opponent was—but I have no intention of giving you that weapon. And now that I think of it, I believe it is time to give poor Zetren another little prod.
He closed his eyes, centered his will, and concentrated, and the tent, the camp-sounds, and all else faded into unimportance. There was only his will, and his wish.
* * *
I like this place. I like these people, Jegrai especially, Teo thought contentedly, as he and the Khene lounged together in Jegrai's tent, in unaccustomed idleness. It's almost like . . . like he was one of the Trinity. "You know, Jegrai, if I didn't know better, I'd swear Eriel is right," Teo chuckled, half sprawling over the saddle he was using as a prop.
"Oh? About what?"
Gods. He's got almost no accent anymore. He could walk into Targheiden in the right clothing and no one would look at him twice. "That you're one of us, reborn into a nomad body."
The Khene's brow wrinkled in perplexity. "Your pardon?"
Teo laughed outright. "That's Eriel's latest pet persuasion. That souls continue to be reborn into new bodies when the old ones die. She claims you're one of us, reborn into a nomad body, and she uses the speed at which you've picked up our tongue as proof."
"Tcha." The young man clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "But I have learned every tongue I have encountered with speed, even the Suno; and that, my friend, is a language only a nation of torturers could have devised. Which tells you all you need to know of the Suno. So, how would she explain that?"
"That you've been born into all of them at one time or another, I suppose," Teo replied, taking a hearty swig of khmass. Halun claimed even the smell of the fermented mares' milk made him want to vomit, but Teo rather liked it. He passed the skin back to the Khene, who squirted some down his own throat.
"She claims the reason I like your food and drink is that I'm a barbarian nomad reborn into a civilized hulk," Teo continued, still highly amused. "She was a little upset when I laughed at her."
"You? Who cannot even shoot from horseback?" Jegrai howled with laughter that was so infectious Teo joined him. "When even our maidens can stand upon the back of a galloping mare and hit the mark?"
"I didn't say it was logical," Teo protested, holding his sides. "I just said that was what she has for her latest pet notion."
"And I am not so quick with your written word," Jegrai pointed out with rueful chagrin, once he managed to get control of himself. "And to your folk, the written word holds equal importance with the spoken. How could I have been one of you, and still be wrestling with your children's books and making little sense of them?"
"It'll come, brother, it'll come," Teo said soothingly. "When it comes, it'll likely come all at once."
"Tcha. Yuchai already outstrips me, the Shaman tells me he begins to—"
"Yuchai is also a deal younger than you, brother, and in matters of language, the younger, the better. Trust me. Besides, he has very little to do besides lie in bed and put his mind to work. You have all of a Clan to govern."
Jegrai sighed at that, and stared into the flame of the oil lamp hung on the centerpole above their heads. "I wish that I had not," he replied softly. "I wish—tcha, it is no good wishing. I am Khene; that is what I must be. But Yuchai—" His expression hardened. "—Yuchai shall have what I cannot. For all that he wishes to be my shadow, he hates fighting, he hates death—he is like my father. He is made for other things."
Jegrai's expression turned to one of near-anguish. "Teo—Teo, my brother, will your people give him those things? The learning he starves for?"
Teo was growing used to these confidences, and the way the Khene spoke freely to him. It was logical; he was an outsider, safe to confide in, not someone Jegrai had to command. But there was something more than logic behind it, and the confidences hadn't been one-sided. He'd told Jegrai about Kasha—how on the one hand he longed for something deeper than friendship, and feared the changes that would bring—and on the other shied away from the commitment implied. And Jegrai had listened with a sympathy he'd hoped for, but hadn't actually expected.
They weren't so dissimilar, his people and the Vredai.
Neither were he and Jegrai.
"Jegrai, I speak as the brother you have called me," Teo said carefully. "If this path should take him away from the Vredai, perhaps for all time, would you still wish him to follow it?"
Jegrai bowed his head and was silent for a very long time, staring now at the floor of his tent Finally the words came; slowly, deeply thoughtful. "If he felt the calling—if he felt it was worth the sacrifice—how could I deny him?" The Khene raised his head and looked straight into Teo's eyes, and Teo could not help but see the pain there, and the longing.
If he could trade places with his cousin, he'd do it in an eyeblink. Gods. I can't give him everything he wants—but by all the gods—I'll give him what I can.
"Felaras pledged he'd be taught as one of our own, Jegrai. She meant it. Knowledge, learning—they're close to being sacred things for us. She doesn't make pledges like that lightly."
Jegrai let out the breath he'd been holding in a hiss, and nodded. His hand fell on the skin of khmass, and he looked at it as if he was surprised to find it there.
"You know, we have a saying. 'In drink, there is sometimes truth.' Do you feel up to more truth, Teo? Or shall we speak of the weather, or of horses?" He drank, then held out the skin, and his hand was steady.
Teo took it, took a long pull himself, and ignored the little chill that went down his neck. "Truth. If you really want to hear it." He passed the skin back.
"Northwind thinks that your Master has a plan that involves all of us—as allies. What do you say to that?"
"That your Shaman is a very wise man. And a very perceptive one."
"And my brother says as much by what he does not say as by the words he chooses," Jegrai replied sardonically, drinking and returning the khmass.
Teo shrugged, drank, and handed it back.
"So. And what if we, too, have plans—involving all of us as allies? Hm?" Jegrai demanded. "How would your Master reply to that?"
"It would depend, I think, on what the plans were, and in which direction those plans turned," Teo said as cautiously as he could, while Jegrai drank with one eye on him. "There are things we—the Order—had rather not do. And if that was your direction, well, there would be trouble. I should not tell you this, but . . . my brother, this is not to go beyond your ears. The Master does not rule unopposed. She can be replaced by another if it is the will of the majority of the Order. And Felaras is not altogether the most popular of Masters." He took back the khmass, feeling the need for it.
Jegrai's eyes went wide with surprise, then narrow with speculation. Finally he nodded as he accepted back the skin. "Let me say that Khenes have met with challenge also—and . . . 'accidents.' There are those who do not favor the path I have chosen for Vredai. And this is not to go beyond your ears. We
walk a narrow bridge, I think, both of us. I shall have to think upon this." He shook the bag of khmass; it was as flat as a child's chest. "I think we have had enough of truth and drink for one night, hm?"
Teo stifled a yawn and nodded. "As it is, I'm going to wish to die in the morning. I am not entirely certain that I will remember my body finding my bed!"
But as he walked back to his tent in the cool night air, Teo knew he had spoken something less than the truth about being weary. Certainly his body longed for rest, and he was assuredly feeling the impact of the liquor, but his mind buzzed with unwelcome thoughts that kept him thinking even as he crawled into his bed.
Those uncomfortable speculations kept him staring up into the darkness long after he should have been asleep.
So. Jegrai has plans, too. That shouldn't have surprised me. And if those plans involve getting rid of whoever or whatever it was that chased him and his Clan west—I'm all for helping him. But what if that isn't the direction he's looking? What if he's figuring on cutting himself new territory? Like in Ancas? Or Yazkirn? What the hell should I do if I find that out? Should I tell Felaras? Do I tell her my suspicions now?
The night-sounds of the nomad camp soothed him, and reminded him of how little he had in common with those to the west and south of the Pass. And how little good the folk of those nations had done for the Order. And how much harm.
What's the rest of the world ever done besides give us grief, cast us out of our homes and livelihoods, even murder us in our beds?
The horses stirred restlessly on their picket, and a voice lifted in soft—but alien—song to soothe them.
These people—what did he really see of them past their surface? They had no written tradition at all; a reverence for learning, yes, but they had remained unchanged for hundreds of years, while the Order spawned change. Gods. How can we side with illiterate barbarians with the intent of taking down civilized nations?
Teo turned on his side; he could see the watchfire that flickered in front of the Khene's tent through the gauze of the insect-screen covering the entrance to his own. Jegrai won't be illiterate for long—if he has his way, we'll be teaching every member of Vredai who wants to learn. He favors us the way nobody in those so-called civilized lands ever has. And he's a good man.
But the Order had to look beyond the present.
What if the next Khene is a despot? Gods, where should my loyalties lie?
* * *
Halun lay unsleeping, staring at a single star, one that seemed to have been caught in the smoke-hole of his tent. There had been another meeting tonight, this one with not only Gortan, but the Khene's own brother, Iridai, and a handful of disgruntled nomads whom the Shaman had passed over in favor of the young man now calling himself Demonsbane. On a hunch, Halun had tested them, and found they had considerable raw, if untrained, power in the wizardry of ill-wishing.
That had not been the only surprise of the evening. Gortan had made him a proposition: a strange and very seductive proposition.
Help us, the nomad had urged. Help us to raise discontent with Jegrai. You say you wish to teach us many things, but may be forbidden to teach them by your Khene. So; help us to be rid of Jegrai, then we will go from here, and you may come with us, you will be the right hand of the Khene, who will heed you in all things. You will teach us what you will, and we will honor you above even the Khene.
He cradled the back of his head on his arms and tried to think things through logically. He had, by the gods, not expected that particular offer.
And in many ways it was a sweeter plum than the Master's seat. As Master, he would have to cajole, bully, and placate his fellows even as Felaras did now. He would be honored—when it suited them. He would be obeyed—if it suited them. He would rule only by consent.
But with the nomads he would be . . .
He would be a power in his own right. So, they were warriors by nature, well, that thought didn't cause him any misgivings. In fact there was a great deal he could accomplish, given a free hand with them. Granted, he knew nothing of warfare—but he knew weapons. He could make this loose aggregation of fighters into a terrible power.
With the tools they already have, we could make explosives, mortars, small cannon. Those are all portable enough to carry on horseback. Mortar-fire to demoralize and scatter the enemy—then the nomads charge with those wicked little bows of theirs. Most armies would think demons had hit them.
The star moved out of sight, but another was taking its place.
If Jegrai were to be deposed by his own folk, that would frighten the breeches off of most of my colleagues. Having the nomads turn up armed with explosives would drive them right underground. It wouldn't matter if Felaras was Master or not; she'd be overruled. That would put them right where they belong: in hiding. Safe, as this policy of Felaras's can never make them. And I—I would be—
A shiver ran over his skin. I would be isolated from my own kind. Likely enough I'd never see them again.
The star glittering down at him looked very, very lonely.
* * *
There was one candle burning at his bedside, but dimly. The view out the great window was as beautiful and alien as only the mountains could be to a boy used to the flat of the steppes. Yuchai stared at the cold jewels that were stars, suspended above the black bulk of the mountains, and tried not to cry. He was healing—quickly, according to both Boitan and Shenshu—but there were times when his injuries still gave him a lot of pain, and the pain was worse at night.
Worse than the pain, though, was the loneliness. Somewhere down there—and not even in the direction his window faced—were his people. His cousin, his father; his former playmates, those who weren't dead. They might as well have been up in the sky with those stars for all that he could reach them.
What if something happens? he thought, for the hundredth time. What if they leave me here? What if the Talchai come? They'd have to abandon me here, I can't even walk, much less ride.
Kasha was wonderful, and Zorsha was nearly as high in Yuchai's regard as his cousin—but they weren't Clan. Their tongue was alien, and it either did not have words he longed to say, or he hadn't yet learned them. Their concerns, their way of life, the very food they ate was alien.
And Shenshu, Losha, Demonsbane—they're so excited, so involved in learning new things—they hardly ever have time to just talk. I'm just a child, anyway, to them. I'm not really very important, and I don't have much to talk about. They've got more things to worry about than me. More important things.
He sniffled, and scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes. The whole day had been like this; loneliness had made a lump in his throat that had made it hard to eat and drink, and the peculiar round-eyed faces of his new friends had given no comfort. The feeling would pass, it always did—but for now, he ached, he ached so. . . .
There was a tap at his door; someone had seen that he still had a candle lit, no doubt. He scrubbed at his face again, hastily, and whispered a "Come" that didn't quaver too noticeably.
"Still awake?" someone called softly. Then that someone eased around the edge of the door, and Yuchai saw that his visitor was Zorsha, carrying a pair of baskets.
"Thought you might be."
Before Yuchai could say anything, Zorsha came right over to the bed and sat down on the foot of it.
"I saw you had a candle," he said softly, "and—you know, Yuchai, I wasn't born here, like most of the rest were. I'm from a good bit further west. I never knew my mother; lost my father when I was younger than you. One of the sister-houses took me in, decided I had a few wits, sent me on here. I loved it, I really did—but it wasn't home, you know? There were times when the food would just stick in my throat, it just didn't taste right. Seemed to me like you were having a little touch of that today yourself."
He cocked his head sideways, inquiringly, and his silky, strange gold hair fell over one shoulder and into his eye before he flicked it back with an impatient jerk of his head.
Yuc
hai nodded, unable to speak around the lump of unhappiness in his throat.
"Thought so; said as much to that Demonsbane lad. Did you know he's one damn fine cook?" Zorsha grinned. "Says it's because Shamans aren't supposed to have to depend on anybody. We—ah—went on down to the kitchen and did a little experimenting down there when the cooking crew cleared out. Losha had some of your spices in his kit. Anyway, Demonsbane says to try these."
Zorsha flicked the cloth off the top of the first basket, and Yuchai smelled home—the flat, tough bread that seemed to take days to chew, the savory, highly spiced, chopped mutton to fill it, and a chunk of raw honeycomb.
He started to stutter out his thanks, and found that he couldn't. Because Zorsha had snagged one of the rounds of bread, filled it with meat as neatly as if he were nomad-born, rolled it, and stuffed it into his mouth as soon as he opened it.
"Eat," he said, grinning. "You haven't done more than pick at your food for two days. And if you pine away on me, Boitan will murder me."
He ate, finding himself ravenous, devouring the food as shamelessly as a beggar at a feast. It wasn't until the last of the crumbs were gone, and he was sucking his fingers clean of the faintest hint of honey, that Zorsha replaced the first basket with the second.
"When I got half sick for home, it was old Ardun who brought me Ancas honeycakes and fried pies. And he brought me something else. 'You know,' he said, 'in Ancas they got gold hair like yours, the Yazkirn got noses you could split wood with, and us that were Sabirn are like little brown weeds—but no matter where I been, somehow a puppy is still a puppy, and boys and puppies seem to belong together.'"
With that, Zorsha upended the basket and tilted a warm, sleepy ball of soft golden-brown fur into Yuchai's lap. A round, fuzzy head, all floppy ears and eyes, lifted from enormous paws to yawn at him.
Yuchai froze, hardly able to believe his eyes. The Vredai had had dogs—just like they'd had flocks and herds. All were gone, lost in the flight west.
Yuchai had lost his own hound, Jumper, in the first flight. Jumper had been out minding Yuchai's little flock of sheep when the Talchai had attacked. Yuchai hoped he'd been driven off, and not killed, but he would never really know what happened to him. Jumper's loss would have broken his heart had there not been so much else to mourn.
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