Timmon wriggled.
It was a telling point. Second-years faced no more official culls, which wasn’t to say that a wayward cadet might not be sent home in disgrace. On the other hand, at the end of the year, each house’s cadets voted on whom they would most willingly follow into battle. It would be highly embarrassing for a lordan to lose that ballot.
“For that matter,” said Timmon, rallying, “consider all the time you spent away from Tentir playing with your Merikit friends. That caused talk too, and so are your little visits to Kothifir now.”
Jame reflected ruefully that that was true. She had never explained her peculiar role in Merikit society as the Earth Wife’s Favorite, not that most Kencyr would have understood if she had tried, except perhaps for Sheth Sharp-tongue. More than ever, she appreciated the Commandant’s understanding, although she also worried about what it might have cost him to let her graduate after so many excuses not to.
And now she was slipping away to Kothifir whenever she could, drawn by the lure of the city. Just that morning she had spent an interesting hour in Gaudaric’s tower workshop watching him mold boiled leather to the chest of a stoic client. Rhi-sar hide worked best for such purposes, but it was the hardest to obtain, second only to rathorn ivory. Gaudaric was a trifle vague on where it came from, except that patrols into the Wastes sometimes brought it back. Modern rhi-sar came in small skins and strips. Antique rhi-sar hides were much larger and rarer. Her brother’s full suit of hardened rhi-sar leather was probably the most valuable thing he owned, next to his sword, Kin-Slayer, and the Kenthiar collar.
Meanwhile, several more pairs of archers had made their runs. An Ardeth was loudly booed for grazing a tortoise’s neck. Then it was Erim’s turn. The stocky Kendar rode like a sack of turnips, but he had never been known to miss his mark, nor did he this time. The Knorth cheered, then groaned as his horse tripped on its way to the finish line and he tumbled off.
“Penalty, two shots,” announced the sargent.
“Our turn,” said Timmon, setting an arrow.
The two lordan came last. Being Highborn, they had the lightest bows but also the hardest run. By now, the tortoises had scattered all over the field, lumbering at the pace of a fast-walking man but lurching too so that the targets mounted on their backs swung wildly from side to side. Some of the manikins bristled with arrows. Jame swerved to the left after one so far unscathed, and nearly fell off as Bel stopped short to avoid another of the hulking behemoths. They were surrounded. Leathery heads snaked out and jaws snapped at the Whinno-hir’s slender legs. Bel gathered herself and jumped neatly from a standstill over the nearest broad back, knocking off its burden.
“You’re supposed to shoot it, not run over it!” shouted the sargent.
Jame tapped Bel’s sides with her heels and they dashed after the farthest pair of reptiles. One arrow went through a straw chest. Set, nock, draw, release. A miss. Timmon had already shot his three bolts with two hits and was racing toward the finish line. Jame twisted around on Bel’s back and shot almost at random. Her arrow passed straight through a nearby manikin and lodged in another farther off.
“No fair,” said Timmon as she drew up beside him. “That’s four down by my count, with three arrows.”
Nonetheless, after two more matches with time out to reclaim arrows and corral tortoises, the Ardeth won over the Knorth, one hundred fifty hits to one hundred forty-three.
By now it was late afternoon, verging on supper. The sun had set beyond the mountains and farmers were coming in from the fields. The cadets were riding back to the stable when Rue reached over to touch Jame’s sleeve.
“Look,” she said. “A caravan,”
Jame turned to see a small procession trailing toward her across the valley floor from the shadowy feet of the mountain range. Dust rose into the fading light at their heels, lit above, dark below. They were about half a mile away. Kothifiran guards surrounded three wagons laden with treasures that glinted through their muslin coverings. There should also be at least one Kencyr ten-command, but it presumably had split off at the Mountain Station in the Apollynes and gone back on desert patrol, trusting that there would be no danger this close to the city.
“They look tired,” remarked Mint.
And so the native riders and drivers did after weeks in the Wastes, in contrast to the fresh green of the cultivated fields through which they were now winding.
“But with whom do they trade?” asked Quill. “All the silk in Rathillien comes out of the desert, or so I hear. What’s out there?”
“I told you back at Tentir,” said Dar. “No one knows. Our guards aren’t allowed to go all the way. Seekers lead out caravans of salt and trade goods that come back loaded with riches—that is, if they don’t run into Waster splinter tribes, raiders out of Urakarn, bands of thieves from Kothifir or agents from other Rim cities.”
Jame wondered if any of these had been kin to the merchants who had come through the Riverland peddling their unsanctioned wares the previous spring. Also, she wondered how Graykin’s gorgeous robe was holding up. He would be brokenhearted if it turned to dust as all spoils of the Wastes not touched by King Krothen were said to do. For that matter, she should check on her own silk coat, although she was fairly sure that all the Kendar embroidery lavished on it would keep it intact, royal touch or no.
The grass beside the distant road moved, though no wind blew, and the captain of the approaching guard slowly toppled off his horse. The other riders drew their swords. Another fell, then another. Those who were left charged the ditches on either side. Horses squealed and thrashed in the undergrowth amid darting figures. The drivers lashed at the massive dray horses that pulled their wagons to speed them up.
Jame had risen in the stirrups for a better view. “It’s an ambush,” she said, sliding down again into the saddle, “and no other patrol is in sight.”
The sargent shouted something as Bel sprang away.
Were the assailants trying to steal the wagons, this close to the Host’s camp? Slow moving as the vehicles were, that made no sense.
Neither did riding to the rescue alone.
Jame glanced back and saw that the cadets were following her, but at a slight distance. The sargent had reminded them to restring their bows before setting off. Her own slapped uselessly against her back. She slung it around to brace the lower tip in her stirrup, only to find that the bow socket was on the wrong side. Dammit, why couldn’t she be left-handed like nearly everyone else in the Kencyrath? As she fumbled with the upper tip, Bel swerved to avoid an incoming shaft. The bow slipped out of her grasp, nearly tripping the Whinno-hir as it fell and snapped between her legs. Wonderful. She was galloping into battle with only a knife in her boot and three arrows in her quiver.
At least a dozen of the enemy archers swarmed around the wagons. The driver of the first beat them off with the vigorous help of his passenger, a blond, middle-aged woman. A raider clambered up into the second cart, seized a slight, veiled figure cowering beside the driver and jumped off with her.
The second carter saw Jame as she approached. He rose, waving his arms, and shouted, “They’ve stolen our new seeker!”
Jame angled to follow the fleeing man and his captive. Behind her she heard the cadets clash with the remaining raiders. Ahead, the man ran into a stand of date palms and a moment later plunged out the other side mounted on a fleetfoot. Jame had seen such creatures offered for sale in Kothifir; they were like gazelles, but larger, faster, and often used for racing. Bel began to fall behind.
Jame caught a flash of white. The next moment the fleetfoot squealed and jinked sideways as Death’s-head roared down on it leaving a swath of trampled grain in his wake. For a moment they ran side by side. Then the rathorn snapped at the other’s throat and brought it crashing down with a broken neck. Captor and captive were thrown.
Jame leaped off Bel and hit the ground running too fast for her feet to keep pace, an arrow in her hand. The raider was scrambling up. The arr
ow caught him in the eye as she slammed into him. They went down together in a heap. Jame felt the shaft’s nock punch her in the shoulder as her weight and momentum drove it home.
Rising from his still-twitching body, she turned to his former captive. The girl huddled on the ground, cradling her wrist. She had broken it. That she had also cut her arm seemed less serious, until Jame saw that the wound was driveling red dust. The skin around it fell away as the flesh beneath turned to powder. More and more fell, until the bone itself began to dissolve. She was crumbling in Jame’s arms, her enormous hazel eyes wide and terrified above a rotting veil.
“Tell…” she whispered, and even her voice was a thinning thread, warped by an unfamiliar accent. “Tell my sisters…”
Her eyes glazed over and sank. The flesh on her face collapsed. Lips drew back over perfect white teeth, skin over the delicate bones of her face. Jame had been supporting the girl’s head. Now she laid down her naked skull and stared at the web of white-gold hair caught in her fingers.
“Well,” said Timmon behind her. “That was different, even for you.”
“Who was she, Timmon? Where did she come from, and what happened to her?”
“I don’t know, but she was obviously the reason for the raid. As soon as your man ran away with her, the others scattered and tried to escape. We caught them all, of course. Brier reckons they’re from Gemma, a rival Rim city with no seekers of its own.”
Jame remembered the Gemman ambassador in the Rose Tower, the first time she had sought an audience there. Krothen had threatened to hang any captured raiders.
“What will you do with them?” she asked.
“Take them to the king’s guard. All seekers are his people, not to be touched by anyone else.”
“Then I’d better tell Commandant Harn.”
To one side, Death’s-head pinned the dead fleetfoot with a dewclaw and bent to rip strips of flesh off its carcass. He was already splashed scarlet to the knees and all but purring.
“At least someone is happy,” said Jame.
II
She found Jorin waiting for her at the edge of the camp, sprawled in the meager shade of an arcanda tree whose leaves rolled up tight during the daytime to preserve moisture. The heat didn’t suit the ounce any more than it did her or, for that matter, the rathorn, all three being natives of the northern climes. The blind hunting cat rose when Jame saw him, stretched, yawned, and trotted up to butt his head against her thigh. She scratched him, noting that he had begun to shed heavily, down to a sleek, pale gold coat mottled with creamy rings.
Together, they went through the camp. Jame was about to turn right into the Knorth barracks when she saw a stir ahead outside the Commandant’s quarters on the far side of the inner ward—new arrivals to the Host from the Riverland. Jame glimpsed a familiar sharp, pale face to one side and advanced to greet Shade. The Randir cadet was clad in dress grays with her gilded swamp adder Addy draped around her neck like a golden torque. Both looked surprisingly cool, as if they shaded the same cold blood.
“What’s going on?” Jame asked.
Shade rolled her shoulders in an almost boneless shrug that made the serpent undulate. “There’s been unrest in the Randir barracks over several unexplained deaths, also some disappearances. Ran Awl is here to investigate. I’m her new aide.”
“Congratulations,” said Jame, meaning it. She had wondered what the Randir would do with Lord Kenan’s half-Kendar daughter, especially since she was sworn neither to her father nor to her grandmother, Lady Rawneth. Neither was the Randir war-leader Awl, as far as Jame knew. Politics at Wilden were notoriously complicated.
Awl appeared in the doorway, a tall, raw-boned woman with close-cropped iron-gray hair. Standing behind her, burly Harn Grip-hard overlapped her on all sides.
“Ask if you need any help,” he was saying. “It’s a strange, troubling business.”
Then he saw Jame, and his bristly face reddened.
“So Lord Ardeth has seen fit to send you to me as a special aide. How kind of him.”
No, that was from Torisen’s dream. She wondered if her brother realized that he had shared it and more besides with her.
She saluted Harn. “Ran, an incoming caravan has lost their seeker to an ambush. She literally fell to pieces in my arms.”
“Yes, yes,” he said hastily, already turning away. “These things happen.”
“What,” Jame muttered at his retreating back, “all the time?”
“It seems you have a mystery of your own,” remarked Shade.
“Several of them,” said Jame, and sighed. Even now that she knew why her presence upset Harn, she didn’t know what to do about it. Knorth Lordan or not, surely the man couldn’t think that she wanted his post.
“Here’s someone else who came south with us,” Shade said, indicating a stolid figure as it limped up to them.
“Gorbel! How is your leg?”
The Caineron Lordan scowled at her under his beetling, sunburnt brow. “It hurts, thank you very much. You try getting smashed under a dying horse.”
“Well, yes. You were trying to kill me at the time, you know.”
Gorbel snorted. “Not likely to forget, am I? Father was disgusted with me for failing.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not as long as he’s let me come south once the bone knit. Commandant Sheth Sharp-tongue is the one really in trouble.”
Jame felt her heart sink. Ever since the Commandant of Tentir had beaten Honor’s Paradox by letting her graduate from the college against his lord’s wishes, she had worried about his fate. “What’s happened to him?”
“On the face of it, not much. Now that his stint at the college is over, Father has him mewed up in Restormir twiddling his thumbs. Damned waste of a valuable asset, if you ask me.”
Jame sighed, glad that it was no worse, given what Caineron had threatened. Still, for a man like the Commandant to waste his time playing the courtier… No doubt about it: Caldane, Lord Caineron, was a fool.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “The last I heard, during the final cull you had earned one white stone for diplomacy and one black from the Falconer’s class for absenteeism, canceling each other out. So why are you here?”
“Earned another white, didn’t I, that last day of testing when you were off playing with your precious Merikit. For horsemanship, before you ask, little good it did me against that rathorn monster of yours.”
“I see you brought your pook, Twizzle,” said Shade, indicating the furry lump at Gorbel’s heels. Only the lolling red tongue gave a clue as to which end was which.
“Woof,” it said, and sat down to scratch what was probably an ear. Fur flew.
“I may still be lame, but I can ride. And hunt,” said Gorbel. “Show me a better tracker and I’ll take it with me instead.”
There was a bit more to it than that, thought Jame. Gorbel had shown signs of being bound to the pook as she was to Jorin and Shade to Addy. He should have kept attending the Falconer’s class to develop that link, not that it wasn’t likely to grow on its own with use.
Several third-year cadets walked past, giving the newly arrived second-years sidelong looks. “Fresh meat,” one said, not bothering to lower his voice. The others laughed.
Gorbel snorted. “Think they’re so grand, do they, for having survived the Cataracts and been promoted there? If we had fought, we could have skipped a year’s training too.”
Last year, the college had had virtually no second- or third-year students thanks to that great battle where so many had died.
“Maybe so,” said Jame, “but I would have hated to miss a minute of Tentir. Well, maybe a second or two.”
Shade watched the older cadets go. “There are rumors,” she said, “that the third-years have taken to blooding cadets who didn’t serve at the Cataracts.”
“Hence the deaths in your house and Ran Awl’s presence here?”
Shade shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve heard that hazing was
vicious when Genjar commanded, up to the massacre at Urakarn and his death. Torisen forbade it when he took the Highlord’s seat. It still goes on, though, in some houses.”
Gorbel grunted. “No harm in a little spilt blood. Are we training to be warriors or not?”
An elderly, white-haired officer walked past in the other direction, glowering at Jame.
“Do you still get much of that?” asked Shade.
“Some.” Jame had hoped that she was past objections to her status as the only Highborn female in the Randon. “Fash hints to everyone who will listen that I only passed the last cull at Tentir because I’m the Highlord’s heir.”
Fash was one of Gorbel’s ten-command, but not noticeably under his control in this matter.
“That man is and always has been a fool,” said Gorbel heavily. “Tentir was a pond. The Host is an ocean. Let him flounder in it.”
By now it was time for supper. The three cadets exchanged nods and retired to their respective mess halls.
CHAPTER V
An Unexpected Guest
Summer 110
I
Torisen dreamed that he was a boy again, struggling to make his way in the Southern Host.
“Here,” said Harn Grip-hard gruffly, thrusting a paper at him. “Take this to the Jaran.”
Young Tori accepted back the note which he himself had transcribed, Harn’s handwriting being nearly unreadable. He had noted that early in his stay with the Southern Host, and it had suggested to him a way in which he might make himself useful. Harn had snarled at him at first, but he had persisted and by slow degrees had gained a measure of grudging acceptance.
Otherwise, he had no assigned role in the camp. That was hard, with everyone else so busy, so sure where they fitted in to the Host’s complex, bustling structure. Only he was the outsider. He had begged to be sent to the randon college at Tentir, but Adric had said that that would be too dangerous, so close to his father’s enemies, so here he was instead, where even the Ardeth wanted little to do with him. Maybe they shared Harn’s belief that he was one of their lord’s bastards, perhaps with a trace of Knorth blood to explain his distinctive looks. All in all, the only place he could call his own was the small, mean set of rooms not far from Harn’s office, kept for him by Adric’s spy Burr.
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