She didn't even waste a breath pointing out that bruises from blows and bruises from falling look a great deal different. Zetren wouldn't listen—and anyway, what would it matter to her at that point? She'd be dead, and beyond being concerned—
He kicked, and she squirmed aside, but his foot brushed her hip and made her spin into the wall. He followed up on the kick with unnatural speed, and she only avoided his clutching hands because he'd come in to strangle rather than to strike.
He's really going to kill me—oh, gods—For the first time in years she panicked—and though it was going to do no good at all, cried out her fear.
Thunder crashed again, drowning her voice, and Zetren grinned.
"How's it feel to be the helpless one, bitch?" he laughed. "Hows it feel to—"
He was enjoying this too much, and not paying attention to her. She was too good a fighter to let that pass. This time she lunged for his throat, fingers stiffened—
And connected, but at the last minute her traitor knee gave way under her, and turned what would have been at the least a disabling blow into one that simply hurt. And she fell in a half-crouching position, unbalanced and terribly vulnerable.
He half roared, half choked, and reacted to the blow, kicking out at her with the power of a catapult.
This time he connected squarely with her ribs before she could scramble out of the way, and sent her crashing into the wall, her impact only partially under control. A tearing pain in her knee as she hit sent her dropping to the floor in agony, and she looked up a moment later to see him advancing slowly on her through a blur of tears of pain.
Oh, gods—not like—dammit, I'm not done yet!
Thunder, drowning everything; her desperate "No!" and his laugh; she could only see his mouth working, couldn't hear him at all. He reached for her—and before he could touch her, suddenly stiffened.
His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and his mouth worked again, but this time the shape was all wrong for a laugh—and as she shrank back against the stone, he collapsed like a deflated bladder, coming down in a heap with one hand brushing her foot.
She stared, unable to believe in her deliverance, while nearly constant thunder reverberated overhead.
It wasn't sound that alerted her again—it was movement, movement down at the open end of the corridor.
Kasha walked slowly through the light and shadow patterns made by the tiny lamps on the wall toward her, stalking the length of the corridor, something swinging from her hand.
A sling.
About then Felaras's nose told her that Zetren was no longer among the living.
For a moment more she sat in a kind of paralysis, both of mind and body, as the thunderstorm passed on and the nearly continuous shocks of the thunder faded into the distance.
Kasha prodded the body with her toe, then rolled it out of the way and wordlessly reached out her hand toward her superior. Felaras took it, climbing painfully to her feet. Her knee burned like somebody'd set it on fire.
"Found the sling back where he'd dropped it. How badly did he hurt you?" Kasha asked, tightly.
Felaras tried putting weight on the leg—it felt like bloody hell, but she could hobble on it. "Knee," she gasped, around tears of pain. "Sprained or torn muscle, I think. Still works, so it isn't broken. And I'm bruised some. That's all."
"You're just damned lucky I was coming after you," her aid said angrily, then, "Oh, gods, Felaras, what am I saying? Why should you have to guard your back against your own people? We aren't assassins!"
"Kash—" she got out as she gritted her teeth against pain that was threatening to make her pass out. "—orders. Me to room. Boitan to me. Zorsha too. Now."
It happened so quickly she was tempted to believe in a magic other than ill-wishings.
* * *
"All right," she said, as Boitan's pain medication began to make the room blur and slip sideways a little. "Have we all got our stories straight?"
Zorsha nodded. "Zetren fell off the wall during the storm. Nobody knows what he was doing up there; it wasn't his watch, and that part of the wall is bad when it's raining. You slipped on the stairs when the thunder startled you, and wrecked your knee. Right now we only know about you, we don't know about Zetren. Ardun is going to 'find' him a little bit after dawn."
"Good. Simple enough to be believed." She started to nod off, and caught herself with a jerk.
"Felaras, why the subterfuge?" Boitan asked.
"Kash—"
"Zetren said something to her about 'ill-wishing.' Boitan, this is to be dead-secret; Felaras and I are both wizards, and we've been detecting somebody trying to work against her since early spring."
Boitan sucked in his breath in surprise, bit his lip, and nodded.
"Now since that predates the Vredai, it has to be somebody in the Vale or the Order."
"It seems likely," Zorsha interjected, "at least to me, that this 'enemy' found that his wishes weren't working—"
Felaras nodded tiredly. "Defense 'shield.' Have to train you in that, boy. Master has to have it."
Zorsha started, and she grinned weakly. "One of prime requisites for being candidate is wizard-power. Didn't know you had it, hm?"
"No—" he replied, looking stunned.
"Felaras thinks that when this wizard found himself blocked, he must have turned his attentions to someone with a known grudge against her, but with less protection. Zetren, basically."
"Had it too, not's good's I am, good enough to know someone stronger was on him, not good enough to deflect it," she explained, her words beginning to slur despite her efforts at control. "'F he'd made it to Master, he'd've had t' get a Second like Kash t' handle that."
"So, unbalanced as we know he was, the ill-wishing took him right over the edge?" Boitan breathed. "And with Zetren, there's only one direction that would lead. . . ."
"Got it," Felaras replied, catching herself again and forcing herself aware. "Good 'sassination try. Couldn't know Kash's been playin' shadow since we felt ill-wishing start."
"But why the subterfuge?" Boitan asked.
"Rule one of the Watchers," Zorsha said. "Keep the enemy confused. As long as we stick to this story, he'll never know how close he came to his goal. That might drive him out of cover, where we can do something about him. But damn if I like the idea of there being a traitor in our ranks."
"Wait a minute—how do you know—"
"What else could it be?" Zorsha said simply. "Who else would have known to target Zetren? Who else would have known of the long-standing grudge he held? To outsiders we've been very careful to present a united front."
"'Xactly," Felaras said. "Kash I trust. Zorsh too. Nothin' for either of them t'gain. Ardun's fine, an' you, Boitan. Same logic. Could be anyone else. So . . . keep 'em confused an' see what . . . crawls . . . out."
She yawned, and fought her eyes open again, to see Boitan looking stern.
"Everybody out," he said. "Zorsha, you stay with the boy, and that will put you within shouting distance if there is trouble tonight. Kasha, you set up in the anteroom. There won't be anybody climbing in the window, not unless they're half-spider. And you—"
He glared at Felaras. She tried to glare back, without success.
"Stop fighting the drug and get some rest!"
"But . . . I . . ." she protested, and then made the fatal error of relaxing just a little. She slid into sleep, fighting it every inch of the way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Darkness came early to the Pass, and to the little valley the Vredai occupied below it. Although the sky to the west was still bright red, the valley was dark enough that Halun occasionally stumbled over rocks and animal-dug hummocks in the grass. He had been sorry to give up holding his meetings with the others within the camp itself, but after the defection of those young hotheads it had just become too much of a risk. The little cul-de-sac side canyon that Iridai had found was a perfect meeting place; no one could overhear or overlook them, and with one man standing gua
rd at the entrance, no one could get near enough to the meeting to even see who was taking part in it.
Gortan and Iridai had learned from the mistakes of the youngsters; the guard they'd posted didn't look like he was guarding anything at all. He was sitting on a horse-blanket under the stone outcropping that half hid the entrance. He had a torch beside him, and was playing a solitaire game of stones by the light of it. As Halun passed him, he looked up, grunted once, and went back to his game. And if Halun had not been someone known to him, there would have been no strongarm techniques—just a friendly skin of khmass and an invitation to make up a two-game. And since "stones" was a fairly boring game, it was unlikely that the intruder would stop for more than a drink or two.
There were dozens of folks scattered up and down the length of the valley this warm summer night. Some had minor hand-tasks that still needed work, and some weren't yet ready to sleep, and it was too hot to stay in the tents with any kind of flame going. Others were doing things that required a little more privacy than the closely crowded tents allowed, especially with their sides up. This guard wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary, to be out here alone.
The gathering itself had only a single source of light: a pocket-sized fire in the middle of the circle of nomads. As Halun approached, the dark faces looked up sharply, eyes flashing with reflected firelight. Then, silently, they made a place for him in the circle. He tossed the cushion he'd been carrying under one arm into the vacated spot, and eased himself down onto it, ignoring the stares. At least there didn't seem to be any derision there; while no else had brought a cushion to sit on, his age and silver hair were at least giving him a reason to do so himself.
Silence then, until the last of the group—Iridai—arrived. Halun found the silence somewhat unnerving. Crickets singing with all their might out in the grass beyond the firelight only punctuated the silence; they did not break it. Nor did the crackle of the fire. There was a tension tonight that there had not been during previous meetings. Halun fidgeted inside, but gave no outward sign of his restlessness. If they wanted to play this kind of stone-faced game, he would play it too, and outplay all of them.
Finally Iridai arrived, and dropped down into his place in the circle.
Gortan cleared his throat. "We are ready," he said simply.
Halun inhaled sharply, and got a lungful of resinous smoke; he suppressed his need to cough with an effort that left him struggling to breathe for a few moments.
"We, too, are ready," Iridai replied. "The tide of condemnation of the rebels has turned, and now folk wonder openly why Jegrai had them slain out of hand. There is restlessness among the young warriors, those who have not gone courting Vale-folk women, and they wonder how one can achieve wealth, fame, and prowess when one cannot raid nor fight. The games and hunting begin to be not enough. My chosen ones are ready to lead them into opposing Jegrai and setting up a new Khene."
Gortan nodded, and all eyes turned to Halun. He felt them more than saw them, like the pressure of a warm breeze on his skin.
"We need to manufacture an incident," he said, laying out before them the plan he had made. "We need Jegrai to make some kind of very obvious mistake—yes, and Felaras, too."
Gortan nodded. "And then we use those mistakes to rouse anger?"
"Exactly. I had one such incident in the brewing, but I lost the man to a fall the night of the storm."
"That would be the man Zetren? The one who fell from the wall?" Iridai asked shrewdly, evidently hoping to impress Halun with his intelligence network.
Halun was not impressed, mostly because half of the Vredai spying on the Fortress were Halun's already, and the rest soon would be. "Exactly. I don't know what he was doing out there in the middle of a storm, but it appears to have been a genuine accident."
"Are you certain, wise one?" Gortan asked dubiously, leaning forward a little.
"Reasonably certain. Felaras has nothing at all to gain by hiding the fact if he did make a failed attempt on her—Zetren was not well liked, and she would likely get a great deal of sympathy from it." Halun wasn't near as certain as he sounded, but he had to give these barbarians some assurances. "As I am certain you have learned, Felaras actually slipped and fell at the beginning of the storm—she was evidently in her bed and drugged against the pain of her injury when Zetren went out on the walls. I cannot see how she could have had anything to do with his death."
He shrugged then, dismissing the whole thing. "The man was half-crazed, and was quite devoted to the defense of the Order. My guess would be that he decided some of you were likely to try something under cover of the storm, and climbed up to watch for attackers. That section of the wall does face on the area from which an attack could be expected."
Gortan nodded his acceptance of the story. "Well then—how do we 'manufacture' this incident?"
"There are among you a handful who have been passed over when the Shaman, Northwind, made his selection of those he would train." Halun looked at the swarthy faces in the flickering firelight, and noted the expressions of discontent on several of them. "I have tested you, and found those of you with wizard-power. I have been instructing you in its use. Now we will use it; all together, and together we will be a force truly to be reckoned with. Half of us will concentrate on Felaras, and half on Jegrai. I have no doubt that we will meet with success."
Gortan nodded, his expression one of smug self-satisfaction. "And we will be waiting for the mistake that must come?"
"Indeed," Halun replied, "We will be waiting."
* * *
The Pass was cooler than the valley—and Felaras could just barely hobble from her bed to her study, anyway. So Northwind and Jegrai were up here tonight, with detailed maps spread on the desk top, and herself and Ardun standing for the Order on her side of the desk.
She would have preferred Zorsha, but the lad was in the throes of creation—and with this particular creation, she'd as soon have him finished with it in the shortest possible time. It was something of a symbol to him; a symbol of his promise to Yuchai. Nothing was going to keep him from working on those canisters of that vile fire-stuff until the project was complete and ready to turn over to the munitions specialists for manufacture. He said he was on the verge of finding the way to seal the stuff in without setting it afire in the process, or making the canister so fragile it would break open in the act of being fired. If he was close to a breakthrough, best to let him be. Best to have that stuff out of the Fortress workrooms and back into the munitions sheds. As it was, he wasn't using his own workroom, or even one of the bigger, common workrooms. He had taken over an older workroom, the lower floor of part of the oldest part of the Fortress; one of the original stone towers in the north corner of the wall, small and cramped and drafty, and not much used by anyone for anything but storage these days. But Zorsha had not liked the notion of working with the fire where anyone else might be endangered, and Felaras had agreed with him. So the rubbish that had been put away there had been cleaned out, and Zorsha had moved his own instruments and tools in.
"So, you think the Talchai will come in through this way?" Ardun said, interrupting Felaras's thoughts. He traced a line on the map with his index finger, a line that did not follow the course of any of the roads across Azgun, but rather moved along the line of a fairly prominent ridge.
Kasha made a little movement and caught Felaras's eye. She made a subtle hand-sign: Somebody's ill-wishing again.
Felaras lowered her barriers. Strong. Damn. And this is not time for us to be distracted. Not only that, but we daren't take the time to do a proper deflection and send it back into their laps.
She caught the Shaman's eye and repeated the sign Kasha had made. He tightened his mouth, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and gave a little nod in Jegrai's direction.
Wonderful. They're targeting the Khene, too.
She clasped her hands together; the Shaman considered, then nodded. In a heartbeat she could feel his shield meshing with hers—and his
had the "feel" of more than one person.
Of course; he has Demonsbane, and whatever other shamans-in-training there are down at the camp, and probably all the Healer-women too—
Together they tightened a dome of protection over the Khene and Felaras herself that not even a sending that strong could breach. It would only bounce—and gods help whomever it hit.
Jegrai nodded, oblivious to the magic going on over his head. "I tell you my reasoning: first, there are many towns along this way, not too large, not too small, suitable for raiding. Like us, they will take what they need from those along their path. Second, they will be uncomfortable with the hills towering above them; we had some time to grow used to this, but Sen will be pushing them, they will be an army rather than a Clan with children, the old, and the ill to slow them, so they likely will not learn to ignore the hills about them. So they will move to the highest point in the land, not thinking that this will make them very visible. Being visible has never been a factor in our kind of battle; on the steppes one can see for many days' travel in all directions—one can see the approaching army long before it reaches one."
Ardun considered the route. "You know, if we wanted to move into Azgun, we could ambush them at dozens of places along their path, and weaken them considerably at very little cost to ourselves."
Felaras shook her head. "No good; our diplomatic relationship with the lords has never been all that healthy and bringing an army of our own will only make it worse. Especially an army of yet more nomads. No, much as I'd like to, sending in -ambushers is out of the question. Now, working on their minds—that's something else altogether."
Northwind looked up at her, his sharp eyes catching hers across the map. "How so, their minds?"
"Oh, well, an elaboration of the 'great wizards' show we put on for you," she said wishing her knee wasn't aching so persistently. "Consider: you people don't fight at night, correct?"
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