Tejohn was startled. Hadn’t he gone to the sleepstones? “I assume you’re conducting a search.”
Ranlin nodded. “Yes, my tyr. It was the first order I gave.”
Tejohn turned back to Witt and Freewell. During the flight from the city, they’d seemed committed to the king; could he have misjudged them? Tejohn had been born to a farming family. He wasn’t accustomed to intrigue. “Is the king safe?”
Cazia Freewell gave him a sour, disappointed look. “Col would never hurt Lar. Never.”
Tejohn looked down at the girl. Stoneface, she had called him; it had surprised him at first, but although he knew she meant it as an insult, he liked the name. Better to be like Monument and show no emotions than reveal the true feelings of one who is little more than a former farmboy with a knack for killing.
“He has to ask,” Ranlin said. “It’s his duty to think of the king first in all things. But look for yourself, Tejohn. The king is in the yard, sparring.”
Tejohn grunted in surprise. Lar Italga, sparring? He stepped to the inner edge of the wall and turned toward the circle of sparring men just below.
Great Way, there was the prince; Tejohn recognized him immediately by the way he hunched down behind his shield, a habit Tejohn could never get him to break. He faced off against a burly fellow close to his own height, and their shields clashed against each other. Lar was getting the worst of it, but he wasn’t slacking and he wasn’t trying to make a joke of it.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Ranlin said from close behind him. “If I’d known the king had planned to train at sword and shield, I’d have found him a private space and a private tutor until you returned.”
The burly guard caught the king’s shield and pulled it away, a maneuver Tejohn had tried to teach many times. The guard’s sword thrust toward the king’s belly, and Tejohn’s heart seemed to stop. But it was just a practice sword--a stick, really--and the man didn’t come near enough to connect. Lar had tried to counter the attack, but while his move had been exactly correct, he didn’t have the strength or speed to make it work.
The same fat-faced guard who had given Tejohn directions stepped into the sparring circle to address the king. Apparently, he was Tejohn’s substitute, and though Tejohn longed to hear what they were saying, they were much too far away. Judging by his demonstration, he wanted Lar to start his counter much sooner. Lar said something in return, and all the men in the circle laughed long and hard.
“It’s fine,” Tejohn said, thinking that he was looking down at his replacement. Should he have laughed along with the prince? Would that have made him a better teacher? It was painful to think so. “I’m pleased to see the king so dedicated. And the men seem to like him.”
“He has won them over,” Ranlin said. “Me, too. His mind is quick and strong. If only his body was, too.”
Tejohn watched the prince prepare for another round with the burly guard. That would come in time, if Fire spared him.
“What is that?” Cazia Freewell said. She pointed toward the eastern peaks.
Tejohn peered upward, squinting to see what she was indicating. Ranlin blurted, “Fire and Fury,” and some of the others made small exclamations as well. Tejohn felt a surge of irritation; his eyesight had never been exceptional, but the eastern peaks were close, almost directly above the fort, and there was no reason he couldn’t--
There. He saw something dark brown move against the darker background of the mountain. Could it have been a bird? Tejohn was unsure how far away it was and couldn’t fairly judge its size.
“How big do you think that raptor is?” Cazia Freewell asked.
“Too, too big,” Ranlin answered.
Then, as if it realized it was being watched, the bird spread its wings and took to the air.
Tejohn couldn’t help himself. He gasped in surprise and his sword was in his hand before he realized he wanted it, even though a small, rational voice in his head insisted bows and spears would be more useful.
But the raptor wasn’t hunting. It angled northward, tail feathers spread in a fan as it floated slowly against the headwind toward the Sweeps. Fire and Fury, it looked like a hawk, but its wingspan must have equaled six men lying crown to heel. At least.
Tejohn kept his voice low and his attention on the huge bird. “Ranlin, my friend, have you ever seen a raptor that size before?”
“Never,” the commander answered. “I’ve never even heard anyone boast of having seen such a thing.”
Tejohn didn’t know what to say to that. Two strange beasts appearing in the world at once?
“Commander!”
They all turned to see one of the servants running up the stairs. He was out of breath and clearly alarmed.
“What is it, Gald? Have you found Freewell?”
The servant stumbled forward as he hurried toward them. He was dirty and half starved, like most of the servants in the empire, and sweat poured down his face. He didn’t look like a man with urgent news; he looked like he was running for his life. “No, commander, but we did find his coat atop the northern wall.” The man spared a furtive glance at Cazia Freewell. “It was quite bloody.”
“Where?” Cazia Freewell rushed toward him, but Tejohn held up his hand to stop her.
“That’s not what brings you up here in such a state,” he said.
“No, my tyr,” Galt answered. “I’ve just been down in the pens. The chicken, okshim, and sheep have all been killed, commander. They’ve been torn apart as if by a wild animal. The keepers as well.”
Ranlin turned to the nearest guard. “Toll the bell three times. I want stations before the tone dies.”
Tejohn stepped to the edge of the wall. “My king!” he roared.
The men stopped sparring. Lar turned to look up at him, and perhaps sensing something in Tejohn’s tone, handed his practice sword to the fat-faced fellow. He said something that made the guards laugh and bow to him as he walked toward the stairs.
A woman started screaming. Tejohn started toward the stairs. Where was the sound coming from? It was impossible to tell in this wind, but he knew he’d made a terrible error. He should have hurried to Lar immediately.
Suddenly, a servant sprinted out of the temple, screaming and waving her arms. Her rough gray tunic flapped behind her. She ran directly toward the king.
Moments later, a blue-red streak raced after her. It slammed into the woman’s back, knocking her sprawling onto the yard.
Fire and Fury, it was one of the beasts, already inside the walls. Tejohn had only a glimpse of it, but it seemed smaller than the creatures he’d faced in Peradain, and darker, too. Those other beasts had fur the color of pale lilacs, but this one was dark blue with red streaks down its back. A third creature?
The beast bit down on the woman’s shoulder and she screeched in terror and pain.
Tejohn leaped from the wall onto the staircase below. Too late he remembered his bad knee. If it gave out on him, he would tumble helplessly down the stairs while his king faced the creature alone.
It didn’t give out. It didn’t even twinge. His sword already in hand, he ran down the stairs as fast as he could go.
It wasn’t fast enough. Below, the creature had already cast aside the woman and rushed directly at the king.
Chapter 10
The soldier who’d taken Cazia’s quiver was so intent on Lar that he didn’t notice her steal back one of her own darts. Still, even as she started the hand motions to cast the spell, she could see that the grunt would reach the king long before she finished.
A disconnected part of her mind watched Lar as the grunt charged him. She saw the surprise on his face. She saw his hesitation. Then she saw him reach for his sword and, in his panic, miss the hilt. He slapped his hand flat on his hip as he brought his shield up.
Then it was too late. The creature slammed into his shield, bowling him over. Cazia felt a surge of terror, but in the depths of her spell, it seemed almost remote. She heard the cries of the guards around her,
saw Tyr Treygar sprinting forward with his sword drawn, and she knew he could never reach them in time.
The beast clawed at Lar’s shield. They’re too close together for me to take this shot. But the spell came to its finish and she flung her hands and her will forward anyway, launching the spike at the monster.
The creature bent low, biting down hard on Lar’s shoulder and upper arm. The king shouted, and now that Cazia no longer had her spell to blunt her reaction, his pain tore at her. She was reaching another dart when the first one struck.
It sank deep into the grunt’s side just below its arm, almost vanishing beneath the fur. The creature fell away from her and thrashed in the mud. Stoneface had almost reached it when it went still, but the old man plunged his sword in anyway, just in case. Then he turned to the king.
Unable to lay her hand on a dart, Cazia turned and realized the guard who’d taken her quiver was gone. Bittler was still there, gaping at her, but Gerrit and his guards had run for the stairs, following Tejohn toward the king.
Cazia didn’t follow. The guards had their swords drawn, and were forming ranks around Lar’s body. Tejohn was shouting orders, and moments later, a guard ran toward the tower, presumably for a medical scholar. Gerrit started giving orders, shoving soldiers into an orderly square, then summoned a line of spears from the hall and ordered them to advance on the temple where the grunt had come from.
In short, the yard was full of soldiers who were angry and heavily armed, and Cazia was still a hostage. She knew Gerrit and Treygar would never order her death, but it only took one pissed-off soldier with a knife to ruin her day. They were Enemies still.
Treygar squinted up at her suddenly. There was something in his expression that startled her, and she couldn’t guess what he was thinking. He didn’t look grateful that she’d killed the grunt, that was for sure.
“We should go,” Bittler said.
They walked along the wall, circling westward away from the main part of the commotion. Cazia didn’t even realize where she was going until she was halfway there. That servant, whatever his name was, had said Colchua’s bloody coat had been found atop the northern wall.
Fort Samsit was one of the first forts built after the Sixth Gift had been modified to create large stone blocks. Later forts had towers that blocked the walkways, but in Samsit, the towers were set back a few feet, allowing someone to walk a complete circuit of the wall if they wanted. In their eagerness to block the mountain pass closest to Peradain, the early kings had erected the fort without perfecting the design.
The northern part of the wall was narrower than the southern, because the peaks hemmed them in, but the wall walk was very broad to allow soldiers room to maneuver. They also did not reach the same dizzying heights, because the ground was so much higher in this part of the pass.
From the gate below, a narrow road—little more than a path, really—led into the mountains, barely large enough for two carts to pass. It went nearly straight through a sloping field of tumbled black stones. Beyond that, in the far north, Cazia knew she would find the wilderness of the Sweeps.
“Do you hear that?” Bittler asked. She couldn’t at first, because of the unceasing wind, but then she did: rushing water. She looked along the western edge of the pass. There. A waterfall high on the cliff face ran into a pool, and from there, it flowed down a canal dug out of the mountain rock. It might have been the source of the water for the fort, which surprised her. Didn’t they have an enchanted fountain?
Water flowed off the Southern Barrier all the time--tremendous, gushing waterfalls, some hundreds of feet wide. Doctor Twofin had once bored her for an entire afternoon comparing rainfall levels with the output of the falls at Splashtown in particular and the Waterlands in general. Now that she was here, looking up at the storm clouds blowing around the peaks, she wished she’d paid more attention.
“Are you all right?” Bittler asked.
“I’m stalling because I’m afraid,” Cazia said. She hadn’t planned to be honest, but her words had come out that way. “I’m afraid to find Col’s body. I don’t want him to be dead.”
“He’s not. I’m sure of it.”
Cazia started walking along the wall, moving quickly so Bitt wouldn’t see her irritated expression. Bittler was nice enough when he wasn’t trying too hard.
To her surprise, he kept up with her pretty well. “You’re looking a little better today.”
“Thanks,” he said. “The stewards here let me eat what I want. I haven’t had any stomach pains since yesterday.”
He suddenly stopped walking. Cazia stopped, too, and followed his gaze.
A pair of servant girls were on their hands and knees, scrubbing the stones near the northeastern corner of the wall.
Goose bumps ran down Cazia’s back and she started running toward them. Bitt did his best to keep up, but she soon outpaced him. “Stop!” she called to them. “Stop stop stop!”
The nearer of the servants paused long enough to look up at her, then went back to her work. “Sorry, miss,” the woman said. She had a long face and a lilting western accent. “Chief’s orders. If I don’t finish the job, I’ll be getting a lash.”
Cazia started a spell, which the servants noticed only when it was nearly finished. They fell away from her, falling onto the wet stone in their dirty skirts, just as the fire blossomed from her hands.
The servants screamed in terror and scrambled away from her even though the flames hardly came near them at all. “There!” she said. “Now you can tell your chief, whoever that is, that I forced you to stop. Now go!”
The women turned and ran. Cazia felt a flush of embarrassment at bullying them. Yes, they were probably Enemies just like the servants at the palace, but they hadn’t done anything to her. Not yet.
She closed her eyes and cleared her thoughts, then looked down. The wash water was a darker pink than the stones of the wall. She honestly had no idea what she could have learned by looking at the spilled blood--were there just a few drops or a huge pool?--but it was too late. The servants had already scrubbed the whole area.
A wave of vertigo ran through her but it was too swift to make her fall. Where was Colchua? Could he really be…gone? Just like that, with no warning at all? If he was, then the whole of the world was Cazia’s Enemy.
Bitt finally caught up with her, jogging slowly and trying to catch his breath. “There,” he said, peering into the bucket. “See? That hardly looks like any blood at all. If he’d been killed, he’d have lost more than that.”
“Unless the grunt ate him,” Cazia said, just because she didn’t trust his hopeful tone. The words made the skin on her arms prickle.
“It’s not like a grunt could have swallowed Col whole. Right?”
She had to concede that one. When the grunts had killed on the dais back in Peradain, they’d torn people limb from limb. Cazia shuddered at the memory of it. The thought of her older brother—so tall and so quick to smile—having his arm ripped off—
She seemed to be shuddering quite a lot lately. Those awful thoughts kept coming back to her unbidden and at the oddest times.
Never mind. She breathed deeply, trying to slow her fluttering heart. If the others could stand it, so could she.
She went back to the wall, examining the top of the battlement. There was another spot of blood the servants had missed. She braced herself against the stone and leaned out, ignoring Bittler’s nervous warnings to be careful.
There was more blood on the far side of the wall. The top of the crenellation was lightly spotted, but the outside had been smeared as though with a very bloody hand.
Could Colchua have escaped from the grunt by slipping out of the fort? It would have proved Gerrit right, if not in the way he expected.
She looked down. The ground was at least sixty feet away and there was nothing but jagged rocks below.
Cazia wouldn’t have safely jumped into a calm, deep lake from this height. Could Col have made it alive to the bottom if he’
d been fleeing from a grunt? The answer was obvious and chilling: not without a rope.
The bloody smears looked like the fingers were pointing downward, as though he was climbing out of the fort rather than into it. Was he trying to escape? Was he going to confront a grunt climbing up the northern wall?
There was no way to know. What she did know was that her brother had been attacked, and she couldn’t imagine how he could have survived.
Something ugly and awful swelled in her chest, and she felt tears brimming. Not fair. None of this was fair. Her brother didn’t deserve to be thrown from a wall in the middle of the night. He didn’t deserve to be murdered, not when he’d risked so much to help Lar and Vilavivianna. He’d nearly thrown his life away for a nation that treated him like a traitor, and all that was left were a bucket of pink water and a pair of dirty rags.
As if on cue, the servants came back to the top of the wall, but this time, they trailed behind a wiry little old man with wisps of white hair blowing in the wind. His clothes were threadbare, but they were clean.
“Now see here!” he said, his thin voice almost imperious. This must be the chief. Chief servant? The palace had so many servants that they were divided up by where they worked and were overseen by men and women called “whips.” She supposed a fort was too small for that sort of arrangement, but she didn’t much care. “You mustn’t set these girls on fire! They’re only trying to do their jobs!”
Cazia glanced at the servants behind him. Each of the girls was old enough to be her mother. “Has Commander Gerrit seen these bloodstains?”
“No, and I hope he never does! I don’t appreciate pranks, you know, especially when they might earn a lash for me or my girls! This is an imperial outpost and it must be kept tidy!”
He waved at the two servants, who crept forward to take up their washrags. Cazia had no intention of setting fire to them, but Bittler grabbed her arm as though she did and dragged her away.
She wanted to start kicking them all, or create stone blocks to wall them off from the mess. If that really was her brother’s blood, it might be the closest thing she would ever get to a corpse she could bury.
The Way Into Chaos: Book One of the Great Way Page 10
