Path of Blood

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Gamulstark cowered back down, clutching his arms over his head and spreading his hands in front of his face. He swore a string of oaths to make even Soka blush. If Soka had been there. Juhrnus wished heartily that he were.

  “What are you standing there for?” demanded Gamulstark as Saljane flapped back to her perch to eye him balefully. She snapped her beak and pecked at the footboard with sharp rapping sounds. “Do something! That, that . . . bird . . . will not let me leave,” Gamulstark sputtered.

  Juhrnus drew a breath, glancing at Reisil and Yohuac. They remained unconscious, appearing much the same as when he’d left. One of Reisil’s arms was flung out to the side, her hand curled in a fist. Her lips were clamped tightly so that there was a ring of white around them.

  He understood Saljane’s concern. He looked at Esper, stretched lengthwise along Reisil’s side, and felt again the endless emptiness when he’d nearly lost the sisalik. In the same position, he’d shackle Gamulstark to the bed.

  Juhrnus let out his breath in a gust and stepped between Saljane and the tark, motioning the man to stay still. Saljane mantled. Juhrnus eyed her razor talons. Licking his lips, he bent so that he was eye-to-eye with the distraught bird.

  “Saljane,” he said softly. “Hear me. Metyein is wounded, as are many others. Gamulstark is needed. Reisil would not want anyone to die because of her.”

  Saljane’s only answer was to snap her beak at him. Behind him Gamulstark made a strangled sound and shifted his weight.

  Kek-kek-kek-kek!

  Saljane’s body flexed, her wings extending. The tark froze.

  “Saljane.” Juhrnus bent closer, mouth drying as the curve of her beak swung within inches of his eye. He blinked, holding his ground. Suddenly he became aware of the stench of sweat and blood mixed with the scents of the cooling kohv, bread, and stew that sat on the table waiting for Reisil and Yohuac to wake. His stomach lurched and he swallowed hard. “Saljane. This is necessary. Reisil will be well. I will stay with Gamulstark. If he is needed, Esper will tell me and I will send him. The battle is over. The nokulas have gone for now. All will be well. I promise.”

  He waited. Saljane opened her beak and hissed. Damn. What was he going to do now? He’d told Soka that Metyein’s wounds weren’t too serious, but in truth they could be mortal, for all he knew. Even now Honor’s Lord Marshal might be bleeding to death. How was he going to make Saljane listen to reason?

  But before he could think of anything else to say or do, Saljane relented. She ducked her head and glanced at Reisil and Yohuac, and then made a show of shaking out her feathers. She turned her back on Juhrnus, studiously ignoring him as she began to preen herself.

  Juhrnus didn’t wait, grabbing Gamulstark under the arm and hauling him into the corridor.

  ~If either of them so much as twitches, I want to know, he sent to Esper.

  ~I will watch.

  Gamulstark sagged against the wall, bracing his hands on his knees and drawing deep, hollow breaths. Juhrnus watched him with a frown. Was the man going to piss his pants? Metyein needed help now. Not to mention all the other wounded men leaking buckets of blood. Every moment counted, and this fool was wasting people’s lives. He caught himself. It was more than a little unnerving to be held prisoner by an angry goshawk. Saljane could have killed him if she wanted. The tark had a right to a few moments to pull himself together.

  “Are you well? Can I help?” Juhrnus asked curtly.

  Gamulstark waved a hand in the air. “A moment is all I need.” He took several more breaths while Juhrnus fidgeted, shifting his weight back and forth and tapping his fingers against his thighs.

  At last the lanky tark straightened, offering a wan smile. “I have always hated ducks and geese. Vicious beasts, they are. Peck you to death for crossing their path.” He shuddered delicately, glancing back at the door hiding Saljane. “But that . . .” His voice faded.

  Juhrnus grinned. Suddenly he liked Gamulstark a whole lot better. “Felt a little dribble down my leg, myself,” he said confessionally.

  Gamulstark stared for a long moment and then chuckled. He stood, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s get to business, shall we? The Lord Marshal is hurt, you say? How did it happen?”

  “He decided to join the battle,” Juhrnus said as they paced briskly up the corridor. “The wards fell and it was looking pretty ugly; then Himself turned out with the rest of Honor to save us. Blighted fool decided he ought to jump in and do some fighting instead of telling everyone else what to do. Didn’t know he was even hurt until he fell off his horse after the battle was over.”

  “Anyone send to Fox?”

  Juhrnus nodded.

  “Good. They’ll bring supplies. In the meantime, I’ll need more than I have here.” He patted the satchel hanging from his shoulders. “Can you get the rest of my things . . . ?” He trailed off as Juhrnus shook his head emphatically.

  “We’ll send someone. I’ll not have Saljane stripping the hide off my back for breaking my word.”

  “Indeed. Well, if you have a weak stomach you’d better get yourself a basin, because if you’re going to be underfoot, I am going to make use of you.”

  “As you like. But be warned, if Esper calls, I don’t care what you’re in the middle of, you’re going back to them”—he jerked his chin in the direction of his quarters—“if I have to drag you by your hair. Or let Saljane fetch you herself.”

  Gamulstark glanced at him as if expecting a joke, but Juhrnus’s expression remained sober. The other man nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

  Chapter 11

  By the time Kebonsat had led the donkey cart to the gates of Fox, the Wolf captain had fallen into a heavy slumber. Kebonsat tied the donkeys to a log pile outside the palisade and went to talk to the guards on the gate. Across the valley he could hear the sounds of battle. Horses screamed and nokulas wailed. The eerie harmony was punctuated by odd silences lasting only a matter of moments. Kebonsat ignored the battle. There wasn’t anything he could do that Metyein wasn’t already doing. He pulled his dagger from his belt and pounded on the gates with the hilt.

  “Open up!”

  “Who’s asking? Name yerself!”

  Kebonsat stepped back and looked up. He could see the rounded shape of a helm between the crenellations.

  “Kebonsat cas Vadonis. Open the gates. I have need of a tark.”

  Silence answered. Kebonsat sheathed his dagger and waited, forcing himself not to pace and fidget. He heard the sound of boots on the allure and another voice called down, in the same rough tones as the first. Kebonsat rolled his eyes at the darkness. It never ended. He was Pease scum as far as the Kodu Riikians were concerned; he was as much the enemy as the nokulas—if not more.

  “What’s yer business?”

  “I need a tark. Open the gates.”

  “Be ye hurt?” This came from the first guard.

  Kebonsat gritted his teeth at the unmasked hope-fulness in the tone. “No. I have brought someone who is ill.”

  “Wounded? From the battle? How fares Raven?” demanded the second guard.

  “Not wounded. He is ill. Get a tark. Now.” His voice was as unrelenting as glacier ice.

  “Hold yer water, then,” he heard, and then shouts. The gate swung open.

  “Whatcha dawdling out here for? Ye coming in or not? Don’t want to leave the gates hanging open for any beast to just trot in.”

  The guard stepped into the gateway, one hand wrapped around his hilt. He was older, probably in his fifth decade, with stringy gray hair topped by a battered leather helm. His clothing was worn and patched, with green laces closing the neck of his tunic. His paunch bulked over his waistband. He glared at Kebonsat, his jaw moving as he chewed something—probably tobacco or willow bark, Kebonsat guessed.

  “Send a tark out here,” he said evenly.

  “Out here? What for?” The grizzled guard glanced from side to side, not seeing the donkey cart parked out of sight. His gaze returned to Kebonsat and he took an uneasy s
tep back as he pulled his sword half out of its sheath. “What’s the game, Pease?”

  Kebonsat blew out an annoyed breath. “Do it.”

  The guard twitched and hesitated, clearly torn by the command in Kebonsat’s voice and the strangeness of his arrival.

  “Now. There’s no time to waste,” Kebonsat said, weariness and tension sharpening his voice.

  The guard retreated, returning several minutes later with a short man, his blond head coming barely up to the top of Kebonsat’s ribs. He had broad shoulders and was nearly as wide as he was tall. He bore a bulging pack over his right shoulder and carried an oil lamp in his other. He marched out to stand in front of Kebonsat, his boots squelching in the mud.

  “Well, then? Where’s the patient—and it had better not be you, because you’re still standing and I don’t have time for hangnails and jokes.” It all came out in one breath, and before Kebonsat could answer, he began again. “They’re going to be sending us injured and we’ve got to be ready for them and to go take care of those that can’t be moved and this had blighted-well better be as urgent as you seem to think.”

  “It is.” Kebonsat motioned the other man to follow and led him around to where he’d tied the donkey cart. The captain had not woken or even moved. The tark reached for the blanket covering the unconscious man, and Kebonsat stopped him.

  “The Lord Marshal sent word today—we’re going to house plague victims in Fox.”

  “Yes, I heard,” the tark said, shaking off Kebonsat’s hand. “We’re going to start moving over to Hawk tomorrow—or we were, until this battle. We’ll have to wait now, but it won’t matter much until we get our first . . .” He trailed off, realization striking him. He rested his hands on the side of the cart. “How bad?”

  Kebonsat shook his head. “I don’t even know for sure that it is the plague. But he’s got signs. Fever. He’s weak. Could hardly walk to the cart.”

  The tark looked at him, his gaze shrewd. “You don’t think it’s just an ordinary illness?” Despite the terseness of his question, miracle of miracles, there was not the slightest hint of ridicule in his tone. Instead he leaned above the captain, holding the oil lamp over him as he tugged the blanket back.

  “Could be the first stage. Not much sets it apart from other sicknesses until the second stage.” He glanced at Kebonsat. “I hope you’re wrong, but better safe. We’ll have to clear out Fox before we can bring him in. We’ll set a guard on him in case he wakes or in case the donkeys take a notion to go wandering. You didn’t touch him?”

  Kebonsat shook his head no.

  “Where’d you find him?”

  “Wolf. I didn’t see the tark.”

  “Biidestark is assigned to Wolf. Probably rode with the troops to Raven. I would have. They’ll be needing him. Well, nothing to do for him right now, and dawdling won’t get the people of Fox moved, and it won’t be long before the Lord Marshal sends someone to fetch us—”

  “If they drive the nokulas off.” Kebonsat’s words didn’t faze the tark in the least.

  “No sense borrowing trouble when it’s always so eager to climb into your lap like a puppy born of demons—” He broke off suddenly, turning to thrust a broad hand out at Kebonsat.

  Kebonsat grasped the proferred arm, bemused by the tark’s unflagging patter.

  “Name is Remuntark. Been put in charge of the passel of tarks, and it’s no great privilege I can assure you, with all that gabbling and bumping heads and snits over this or that, but of course it must be done or we’ll all fall to pieces, and Honor is going to need its tarks.” He barely paused for a breath and then began again, resuming his course to the gate. Kebonsat walked beside, trying to sort meaning from the piled words.

  “It isn’t just luck that there are so many tarks in Honor, because of course the Regent’s only been thinking about containing the plague even if it means killing whole families or towns, which means he hasn’t needed tarks.” Remuntark frowned. “We got in his way. Like maggots spoiling his meat. He didn’t like that.” He paused as if remembering something unsavory. Then he shook himself, reminding Kebonsat of a wet dog.

  They returned to the gate, and again Kebonsat rapped on the wood with the hilt of his dagger. Remuntark continued, “In the end we felt it best to come to Honor and see what we could do to help. That ahalad-kaaslane Juhrnus said we would be needed, and really it isn’t safe to go down into the Karnane with all the bandits and suspicion, and we couldn’t refuse the Lady’s call either, and he said Reisiltark would come.”

  The gate swung open and the two men slid inside. Fox had been stripped of men, all but a few guards, grandfathers, and gangling boys answering the Lord Marshal’s call to arms. Still it was neither empty or quiet. The commons bustled with activity. They were loading medical supplies into wagons and preparing the hospital barracks for wounded.

  “We’ll have to move everyone out into Hawk tonight,” Kebonsat said, surveying the commotion.

  “That will take more than the night,” Remuntark said.

  “No. We’ll stockpile all our supplies and necessary goods outside the gates. You have enough people here to do that much. It can be moved later after the battle is over.” If it ends. If the nokulas are driven off. He didn’t say it. “The real problem is keeping everyone from panicking.”

  “I’ll tell my folks first. They’ll manage things. This won’t be the first time they’ve had to soothe fears—in these times it seems that’s what we do most. Won’t be that much of a surprise. Most folks have been looking over their shoulders, waiting for it to jump out at them. Speaking for myself, I’m glad you’re keeping the hospital in Honor. People will too. They’ll want to know that if they get it, they won’t be swept into a corner to die.”

  “I’m surprised. I would have bet you’d want to keep the quarantine outside the valley.”

  He shrugged. “Not much point to it, really. We don’t know how the plague spreads. And we don’t know how much time passes between exposure and the onset of symptoms. It could have been in the valley from the moment we first arrived. Or more likely, we brought it in with us. Only the Lady knows. But even if we didn’t, we couldn’t very well build all this”—he waved his hand at the surrounding palisade—“without all available bodies.”

  Remuntark held his hands before him palm-up, and then weighed them up and down like a moneylender’s scale. “No way to win.” He lifted his right hand higher. “This way you bring the plague in with you but build shelter and defenses for everyone.” He lowered the right hand and raised the left. “This way you make sure—as best you can—that the plague stays out, but everyone starves or freezes in the winter or is eaten by nokulas or murdered when the Regent’s army comes.” He shrugged again. “Not a ship I’d like to steer, myself, but if you’re asking me, then you made the correct choice.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I am. And now I will get this lot moving. I’ll also set someone to watch the captain in case he wakes. You might see about the Vertina. The news will be better coming from you, I think.”

  Kebonsat nodded, his chest filling with sand, remembering his promise to Metyein. As soon as I see her . . .

  He left Remuntark calling out orders and wandered through the flurry of preparations with leaden steps.

  Emelovi marched jerkily back and forth between her door and her bed. Her arms were crossed hard over her breasts, her fingers gouging into the flesh of her biceps. She hardly felt the bite. The door was firmly closed and latched. Every two or three minutes, with teeth-grinding promptness, the officious little brat of a ladies’ maid knocked and queried whether Emelovi needed anything—a posset, hot kohv, her hair combed, help to change into her nightclothes, a warm brick for her bed. . . .

  If she could have strangled the girl, Emelovi would have. But instead she smiled and politely said no, she merely wanted some time alone. After the ninth or thirteenth query, Emelovi had resorted to locking the door and refusing to answer the benevolent badgeri
ng. Which merely served as a challenge to the girl’s tenacity and eagerness.

  The knock came again.

  “Dazien Emelovi, are you well? May I get you something? Surely you would like me to stir the fire?”

  Emelovi didn’t answer, and after a few moments she heard the rustle of Gelles’s skirts and the set of her foot on the plank floor—not quite stomping, but clearly annoyed nonetheless. Emelovi smiled, her teeth gritting together so that her jaws ached.

  The minutes ticked by with maddening slowness, bringing no word. Emelovi strode back to the bed, to the door, clutching her arms tighter and biting her lower lip. She didn’t want to think about the battle. But the harder she pushed away the errant thoughts, the stronger they rebounded, pecking at her like angry crows.

  What if something happened to Metyein? Or Kebonsat? She gasped, a low moan escaping from her lips. Tears prickled hot in her eyes as she shook her head fiercely. No. They would be fine. They had to be. If they weren’t . . . She choked back a sob and sank down on the edge of the bed, bending forward over her knees, her stomach roiling. By the Lady, what would she do without them?

  The question filled her mind, pushing out everything else. Sweat sprang up over her body, followed by a wave of gooseflesh. She stared at the floor, unseeing. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. Find her father. That was what she’d come for. That was why she’d left Aare. Guilt gnawed at her. She pressed her palms hard against her temples. She’d done nothing, less than nothing, to find him. But what could she do? She couldn’t go looking herself. Nor could she ask to take men from the all-important task of establishing Honor so that the people, her people, would survive the winter and be safe from nokula attacks. That was what her father would want. To save Kodu Riik from Aare’s selfish arrogance. But how in the Blessed Lady’s name was she going to do that if she didn’t start looking for her father?

  She sat up, dragging her fingers through her hair, pulling the pins loose with feral intensity. Her mouth twisted as she fought the blistering emotions that clawed up her throat, demanding a voice.