Hurting in every joint, and gasping in the extremity of exertion, Hokanu hoped the Good God would forgive him for neglecting the prayer of passage the gate was intended to inspire. He lacked the breath for speech, and he knew if he stopped he would fall prone and pass out. Immersed in a misery of tiredness, Hokanu crossed through the arch into the pearly mists beyond.
The horses sensed the ambush before he did.
The big roan gelding plowed to a stop, snorting, and the mare shied. Jerked forward by the sudden halt, Hokanu gasped in frustration. But the arrow fired from a thicket by the roadway missed him by inches, clattering harmlessly on the verge.
Instantly, he banged the gelding with his elbow, sending it into a maddened pirouette. The snorting mare curvetted into its quarters, and the gelding let out a squeal and a kick. Hokanu snatched his sword from the saddle scabbard. Under cover of the milling animals, he doubled back into the arch of Chochocan’s prayer gate.
Hokanu dared not assume there would be only one ambusher. He offered a brief prayer to the Good God that, whoever they were, they would not be familiar with horses from the barbarian world, for the beasts offered his only chance of staying alive.
Still tied together by their leading rein, his mounts thrashed before the archway, the gelding determined to land a defensive bite or kick, and the panicked mare spinning, jerking, and rearing, in an effort to bolt. Hokanu chanced that no assassin born on Kelewan would dare those stamping, striking hooves to rush the archway and take him. The ambusher’s only option was to flank him through the entrance on the other side, and praise be to Chochocan, whatever dead Minwanabi Lord had raised this offering to the god had spent with a lavish hand. This gate was massive, built of stone and timbers, with flying buttresses to support its great height. It had intricate carving, rare gilt spires, and a multiplicity of interior vaulting, niches, and prayer nooks. Six archers could conceal themselves inside and seriously impede traffic: no doubt the real reason behind the ancient Lord’s gesture of devotion.
Hokanu could only be grateful for such impiety now, as he left the shield of the frightened horses and climbed the fluted scrollwork, then hauled himself hand over hand along a beam below the rafters. He swung himself up and ducked into a nook behind a painted face of felicity. Gasping silently from overexertion, Hokanu pressed himself into the shallow shadow. He lay back against the side of the nook, eyes blindly open, while his body took in air. A moment passed like eternity. As the dizziness left him, the Shinzawai noble noticed that the face above him was hollow. The backside was built like an embrasure, with holes drilled through the eyes from which a man in concealment could observe anyone who entered the prayer gate, coming or going.
Had Hokanu not been breathless, and in deadly danger from an assassin, he might have laughed aloud. Within the Empire, not even religion was free of the Game of the Council; obviously, past Minwanabi Lords had stationed watchers here to give warning of arrivals to the estate, and also to spy upon traffic and commerce that chanced by upon the road. Whatever subterfuge had been launched from this place in the past, Hokanu seized the advantage of the moment. He grasped the support beam that held the mask in its niche, pulled himself up into its hollowed back, then looked out the eye holes.
The mare and the gelding still spun, now hopelessly entangled in the leading rein. One or the other had kicked a support post, for there was a hoof shaped depression in one of the caryatids that supported the entry arch. Suddenly the animals turned as one, the gelding with a snort. Both stared into the night, tense, ears forward listening. Warned by the horses, Hokanu saw movement in the shadows beyond the prayer gate.
Black-clad figures stalked there, spread out in flanking formation. The three in the lead carried bows. Two more followed, as rear guard, and to the profound relief of the man they hunted, all of them scanned the prayer gate’s crannies and corners at ground level.
The mare sighted the men before the gelding. She flung up her head with such force that the rein snapped, and with a whistling snort she bolted back down the roadway. Fear drove her to a flat gallop, a horse’s instinct guiding her back toward home and stable. The marauders in black leaped out of her path and re-formed. The more phlegmatic gelding watched, ears and tail tautly lifted. Then he shook out his mane, rubbed an itch in his neck against the arm of the dented caryatid, and trotted a short distance away, dropping his nose to graze by the roadside.
In the night-damp cavity of the prayer gate, all fell suddenly silent; Hokanu knew a stab of dismay. His starved lungs still labored from his run, and an effort to quiet his breathing left him dangerously dizzy. Left with an ugly decision, he chose to be discovered and to fight, rather than to pass out and allow enemies to take him unconscious.
His five attackers heard him immediately. They stiffened like dogs pointing game and faced their quarry’s hiding place. Then two slung their bows across their shoulders. The three others arrayed themselves in defensive formation, while the lead two began to climb.
Hokanu turned his sword and flung it like a javelin. The weapon caught the bulkier man through the throat, piercing him down behind the breastbone, through the heart. Silenced before he could scream, he fell with a dull thud that made the gelding start and look up. Hokanu was peripherally aware of the horse moving nervously around the pillar beyond the gateway; more immediately, he flung himself down and back into cover as three arrows whizzed toward his hiding place.
One smacked wood with a thunk, while two others chiseled splinters out of the fortune mask’s ear, and deflected on, to imbed themselves in the timbers behind. Hokanu grasped the knife he had kept hidden in his loincloth. He shoved back, as far into the cranny as his size would allow, and reached up left-handed to wrench one of the arrows from the wood.
A black-clad figure emerged, an outline against the dark bulk of the beams that braced the interior of the prayer gate. Hokanu’s thrown knife caught him in the neck, and he toppled back with a gurgling sound. His companion was not fool enough to follow, but ducked, unslinging his bow. Hokanu saw the weapon tip gleam in the gloom. His skin prickled with his awareness that an arrow would soon fly to impale him. He flipped the shaft in his hand around in position to stab, and prepared to rush the archer.
A gruff voice called from below. ‘Don’t hurry. Keep him pinned. Oridzu will climb up the other statue and fire on him from above.’
With a wretched, sinking feeling, Hokanu realised his cover would only protect from a sally from below; on either side, the towering likenesses of the god offered the perfect tactical advantage upon his position. Should he attempt to hide from whoever climbed, he would clearly be vulnerable to bow fire from below. Uglier, and most cruelly final: knowledge of the antidote that might save Mara would die with him. Arakasi would have no cause to doubt that he had made it through. Hokanu cursed the haste that had caused him to leave Kentosani without taking the extra minutes to assemble an escort. Even had he lacked the time to requisition soldiers from his father’s or Mara’s town house, he might at least have hired mercenaries. Any sort of armed backup might have foiled the assassins’ ambush.
But he had forgone the escort of warriors in favor of the speed he could make alone, mounted on the exotic Kingdom horses. The creatures could outrace the swiftest runners, and Hokanu had placed his wife’s peril ahead of his own.
Now Mara would pay for his folly. She would die, the last of the Acoma, never knowing how near the man who loved her had come to getting the antidote to her.
As the furtive sounds of men moving reached Hokanu’s ears, he cursed. Not one but both of the surviving assassins were climbing the statues. He would be fired on from either side, and given the bent of past Minwanabi minds, he did not put it past the dead Lords to have placed concealed embrasures behind the other carvings in the prayer gate. He might be picked off without ever seeing his attackers.
Desperate, cornered, and trembling with exhaustion and rage, Hokanu grasped the arrow that was his sole weapon. He prepared to rush the one man who he
ld him pinned. He would die, but perhaps he could take another of his enemies to the halls of Turakamu with him.
But as he tensed to shove off from the wall, an arrow hissed out. He ducked flat, too late. The shaft smacked into his hip and imbedded with a thump and dull agony into the bone.
Hokanu’s lips peeled back in a silent snarl of agony. Animal hurt and white-hot anger burned him to preternatural clarity of mind. He caught the shaft and snapped it off. The resulting agony caused him to recoil involuntarily. A second shaft cracked wood where his torso had been. Braced on one knee, and weeping tears of pain, he scrabbled with bloodied fingers for some purchase point to hold himself upright. Shock made his leg useless, and the one not wounded seemed cramped.
By some miracle, his hand closed over a smoothed end of wood that had been rounded to the form of a handle. Hokanu grimaced at the jolt. He used his last strength to haul his crippled body upright, and cried out as the handle turned with a creak and gave way downward.
It was not fixed, he realised in panic. He barely heard the thunk as another arrow bit wood beside his ear. Overwhelmed beyond recovery, he felt himself sliding downward, as a section of wall gave way –
Of course! he thought, and in the rush of adrenaline that followed, he laughed aloud. The nameless old Minwanabi Lord had built his spies an escape hatch, and he had accidentally discovered the release. The trapdoor opened outward, dragging him from darkness, and a crossfire of enemy shafts, into a dawn like a new pearl.
His feet were snapped helplessly off the beam as the doorway gaped wide, leaving him hanging by the release lever, in the air. The drop was nothing for a healthy man, a mere dozen feet. But with an arrowhead in his hip, Hokanu feared the shock of the fall might kill, or cause him to faint. He flung away the useless arrow he was holding, kicked, wrenched, and scrabbled, but failed to gain a second handhold. His wound hurt mightily, and his eyes still watered maddeningly.
A black-clothed warrior arrived behind the niche he had just vacated. He moved gloved hands, notched another arrow, and began a steady draw.
Gasping, Hokanu looked down, to see a ring of other enemies converging from the roadside. All that held them back from an open rush was the gelding, innocuously cropping grass with its reins trailing. The horse was harmless, but the assassins remained wary from the display of equine irritation they had just witnessed. The animal saw the approaching assassins and ambled away from them, until he stood directly below Hokanu.
‘Chochocan bless you,’ Hokanu half sobbed. He let go.
His stomach turned with the plunge, and the slam as his body struck the saddle all but undid him. The torment in his hip became eclipsed by the insult to his manhood. The gelding grunted, ripped up its head in astonishment, and stumbled to its knees under the impact.
‘Run, you meat for dogs!’ Hokanu screamed, as much to relieve his own agony as to motivate the horse. He flung forward, gripping the mane in both fists. Though his seat was halfway out of the cantle, and one leg trailed down the gelding’s flank, he pounded with the heel that still functioned and drove the horse to its feet.
That moment the archers began to fire. Struck in neck, shoulder, and croup, the gelding bucked, but fortune still smiled on Hokanu: the movement threw him upward and allowed him to hook the saddle flap with his good leg, keeping his seat. The gelding exploded into a gallop toward home.
The pounding threatened to shake Hokanu loose. He clung, dizzied and deafened by pain. His hands stayed locked white-knuckled in the horse’s mane, and his blood dripped and flung away on the wind, mingled with that of his mount. He tried, but could not balance his seat. His lame hip prevented him from centering himself in the saddle. He had not come this far, he thought with clenched teeth, only to spoil things by falling off.
But inexorably, he slipped to the side, until his ankle dragged in the dust. He clung now by only his knee, and the gelding had begun to crow-hop. One, two, three gyrations, he hung on. And then his hands wrenched free. His body arced out into air –
And was caught, roughly, and unceremoniously ripped from the follow through of inertia by a pair of gauntleted hands.
‘Damn!’ Hokanu yelled, and struck earth. Agony tore from him a shattering cry. The air went black, then blindingly white, and he heard voices shouting.
One of them was Lujan’s.
‘Assassins,’ he gasped out. ‘On my tail.’
‘Already dead, my Lord,’ said Mara’s Force Commander crisply. ‘Hold still, you’re bleeding.’
Hokanu forced his eyes open. The sky seemed to swim above him, incongruously green and clear of mist. Sunrise threw golden light on the faces of his own patrol.
‘We saw the mare come tearing in, riderless,’ someone was saying. ‘We assumed trouble on the road. Was Arakasi with you?’
‘No,’ Hokanu gasped. ‘Kentosani. Just listen.’ And he managed through his pain to recite the recipe for the antidote that was the only hope to save Mara.
With the practiced efficiency of a field commander, Lujan ordered his swiftest warrior to strip off his armor and run to the healer with the instructions Hokanu had just given. As the man hurried away, and through the exploding bustle of activity as escort was arranged, Hokanu clung grimly to consciousness.
More men were sent for a litter to carry the Lady’s wounded consort back to the estate house, while Hokanu’s vision swam from patchy black to painful sharpness. He heard cloth tear, felt air against his inflamed skin as Lujan bared his wound.
‘My Lord,’ said the Acoma Force Commander, ‘you are going to need this arrowhead cut out very quickly if the flesh is not to suppurate.’
Hokanu mustered a dogged breath. ‘You will have nothing done with that arrow,’ he grated. ‘Not until I am back at my Lady’s side, and I have seen her restored by the antidote with my own eyes.’
‘Your will, my Lord.’ The Acoma Force Commander arose, all brusqueness and hurry. ‘Strike Leader,’ he shouted to his sub-officer, ‘pick four men, and make up a stretcher! My Lord Hokanu would be at his Lady’s side as swiftly as possible!’
• Chapter Nine •
Miracle
The sky dimmed.
Servants entered on quiet feet to close the screens and light the lamps in Mara’s chamber. They finished their task and silently bowed to their mistress, who lay unmoving and wax-pale upon her cushions. Then they departed, leaving Hokanu alone with his vigil, in a quiet that ate at his nerves.
Seven hours had passed since the antidote had been administered, and his Lady showed no improvement. Her eyelids did not flicker in dreaming, and her breathing neither quickened nor changed. As twilight deepened beyond the screens and the gloom encroached, isolating husband and wife in a wan circle of lamplight, Hokanu knew doubt. What if Korbargh had lied, had misled them by giving a false antidote? What if the ambush at the prayer gate had delayed his arrival those critical few minutes, and the medicine had reached Mara too late? What if the gods had turned against them, and all that they did in life was made futile by a foregone conclusion of fate?
The ache of his arrow wound and the unrelenting worry over Mara’s condition wore Hokanu to distraction. Agonising over the need to act, to do something where nothing more could be done, he reached out and gathered up Mara’s hand. Was it his imagination, or was her flesh a shade less clammy? Or was his own stressed body growing feverish and dry, as the untended arrowhead in his hip began to fester? Doubts chased the tails of uncertainties, and to break the cycle of useless worry, Hokanu tried speech.
‘Mara,’ he began. The emptiness of the room only underscored his loneliness. ‘Mara.’ In vain he searched for something to say; but the words had all been said, the endless apologies, the affirmations of love. That petty politics should place at risk a woman who, by herself, held so much life within her served only to emphasise the fundamental wrongness of Tsurani society: a wrongness Mara had dedicated herself and her Acoma line to change. Hokanu closed his eyes against tears, unsure whether his weakness stemmed from de
ep and heartfelt regret or from weakness inspired by his wound.
How long he sat unmoving, fighting emotions unworthy of the woman who battled against death on the mat, Hokanu could not have said. Except when he raised his head at the sound of the knock upon the door, the dark beyond the screens had deepened with the fullness of night.
‘Enter,’ he called, dizzied from the sudden move he had made at the interruption. He realised he had not eaten since the day before; surely that was the cause.
Lujan entered and bowed briskly. Although he would normally be off duty at this hour, taking his ease at the evening meal, tonight he still wore his armor and the plain sword he preferred for field service. Dusty, smelling of sweat, he straightened up, regarded the master with a penetrating stare, and compressed his lips into a line while he awaited permission to speak.
Hokanu gave a listless wave.
‘Lord?’ The tone of question was most unlike the Acoma Force Commander.
Sure a tactful inquiry concerning his own health would follow, Hokanu stiffened. His hand tightened over Mara’s, and he said crisply, ‘You have a report to make?’
Lujan’s chin jerked up at the reprimand. ‘I took the liberty of sending out a scouting detail, under Force Leader Irrilandi.’ The former Minwanabi Force Commander had been detailing patrols over the hills beyond these estates for more years than Lujan had been alive.
Hokanu nodded for the Acoma officer to continue.
Lujan said, ‘The patrol turned up a small force armed for a foray. There was a confrontation. Most of the enemy lie dead, but two were taken alive. One had a loose tongue. It would appear that the five archers who ambushed you were only advance scouts. They were sent to reconnoiter the roadway and select the site for a more decisive ambush. But they had not expected you to be mounted and traveling at such speed. They were caught off guard, and had to improvise. The other men, disguised as bandits, were not in place, and plainly only the gods’ favor spared your life.’
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