Shadow Gate

by Kate Elliott

  Pil sprinted across the clearing to Sweet, and cursed if the cunning old bird didn’t catch her hood with a talon and yank it off so that as Pil hooked in she was already thrusting. Volias, in his harness, waited on the ground until Pil and Nallo were aloft.

  A shower of arrows painted the air with ghostly stripes. Volias swore, and then he, too, was up, but Trouble had an arrow in her right leg that shook loose and fell away. Blood dribbled earthward. Volias was still cursing, a stream of words less heard as discrete syllables than experienced like a river’s flow. A cadre of men gathered in the clearing. Sweet caught an updraft, and the others followed. Nallo’s pulse thundered in her ears and, slowly, quieted.

  They flew north over the plain. In village after village, folk labored to complete walls and earthworks instead of tending freshly planted fields and gardens. Now and again a cadre of men rode, or marched, along a path, but Volias took no notice. Trouble flew point, but she began to labor. The sun rose higher. The day grew hot and moist. To the southeast, clouds piled up, but there wasn’t much wind to move them.

  Just when Nallo feared they would have to land to save the eagle, she spotted the glittering line of a river. The roads and tracks swarmed with people walking, riding, carting, draft beasts pulling wagons, all creeping in the same direction. Soon she realized that the strange cast of ground ahead, the red clay and patchwork fields and textured ground, was not a bizarre land-form but actually streets and buildings grown into the land between two rivers. The city had a massive outer wall, reinforced by a berm and ditch, although a straggle of new settlement grew up outside its protection. The main road seemed almost as wide as the river, its tributary roads and paths lined with villages and hamlets like so many beads on a string, each bracketed by green fields and flowering orchards. At the southern tip of the city, where the muddy yellow-brown waters of the larger river were joined by the blue of the smaller, a bold escarpment jutted out, its flat top almost the breadth of Olossi’s inner city.

  Trouble was dropping fast.

  “The hells!” She had never landed in a prescribed space which, if overshot, would dump her into water. She shut her eyes as Tumna swooped. “Thunderer, give me courage, let me die without pissing myself—Oof!”

  Tumna chirped interrogatively, and a cheerful voice close beside her said, “heya! Unclip, make room, there’s another coming in.”

  She slid her feet off the training bar and found hard ground to stand on. Unhooking, she sagged, and was helped away by a young man in reeve leathers. Fawkners ran up to hood Tumna. Off to one side, Volias shouted his wrath into the skies, and Trouble listed wrong while fawkners clustered around her with various implements and bindings.

  “Heya! Here she comes!” With a grin, the reeve caught Nallo’s arm.

  Sweet pulled up neat as you please and easily gripped one of the huge perches built into the wide parade ground. That left Pil dangling about his own height off the ground, but he unhooked and let go, catching himself in a deep crouch when he hit dirt, then straightening.

  “Eihi!” The reeve had cropped hair, and muscular shoulders and arms revealed by his sleeveless leather vest. Watching Pil, he grinned. “Interesting. What is that?”

  “That’s Pil,” she said irritably.

  “That may be,” agreed the reeve, “but what is he? He doesn’t look like any man I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen plenty.”

  “He’s Qin.”

  “One of those outlanders that fought the battle of Olossi? We heard rumors, mostly from Volias—” He flicked a glance toward Volias and his stricken eagle, then away as if to stare would be rude. “—but now I see the truth. What’s he like?”

  “He doesn’t talk much.” Unlike you, she thought, but held her tongue. “He saved us today from an ambush. He’s an amazing archer.”

  “We’ll be needing his skills. I’m Peddonon, by the way. An old-fashioned name, I admit. Everyone calls me Peddo.” He grinned.

  She laughed, because usually only women had names like that, and she liked him the better for being amused about it. “Maybe you’re a bit like me, eh? I’m called Nallo.”

  “You’ll fit right in. Let me find someone to get you to the barracks—Likard! Get over here and take her in hand.” He nodded at Nallo. “I was just about to head out on patrol when we saw you three, and Trouble injured. Wsst!” His brows drew down. “Volias can be a bit of a jerk, but we all love that bird, and so does he. Will you be all right? Don’t let that fat-ass Likard try to give you the bunk by the door. Glad you’re here, Nallo. Sure as hells we need you.”

  He walked off, head cocked to size up Pil as the Qin carried weapons and gear over to Nallo. The soldier set everything down and glanced around. If he was as nervous as she felt, she could not tell by his bland expression.

  A short, thin man with his long hair tied back in a tail hurried up. “You have the look of novices, eh? I’m Likard. If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you bunks where you can dump your gear, and then Ofri’ll want to meet you.” They followed him, feet crunching on the gritty dirt. “You been in training long?”

  “I haven’t,” said Nallo. “I came here to be trained.”

  Likard looked at Pil, who shrugged, his gaze flickering down, and all at once Nallo realized he was not a stolid, laconic, arrogant outlander but a youth not much older than she was who was simply very shy.

  “I figure he’s been training at Naya Hall two or three months, since it was established.”

  “Naya Hall?” Likard squinched up his face.

  “It’s what they call it, because of the oil of naya. It’s where they sent the overflow of novices out of Argent Hall.”

  “That Joss is now marshal over there, eh? Who’d’ve thought that cursed drunken womanizer had it in him? I’m impressed, heh!” He led them up onto a porch and had them unlace their flying boots before they went inside. The barracks hall had an open room for work, unswept at this hour and littered with wood shavings and scraps of leather. Behind half-open screens lay a raised sitting room strewn with pillows and low tables. Pairs of doors opened off either side of the work room. Likard slid one open, gesturing to a shuttered room beyond.

  “Unless you got any preference otherwise, I’ll put you both in here where most of the younger reeves bunk.”

  She stepped into the chamber, which was long and narrow and had a musty odor, nothing unpleasant, just redolent of bodies. There were about twenty beds, most decorated with homely remembrances like a flower-patterned quilt or an embroidered pillow.

  “Here’s one for you, Pil,” said Likard, gesturing toward the sole bed set against the same wall as the door.

  “Neh, not that one,” said Nallo. “It’s likely too noisy.”

  Footsteps sounded on the floor, and a young woman in a hurry barged through the door, jerking to a halt before she slammed into Likard.

  “Heya! Why be stopped like that in the middle of—Here, now. Who are these?”

  “Novices from Argent Hall, sent to train here,” said Likard. “Greetings of the day to you, too, Kesta.”

  “Fuck off, you turd.” Then she turned a bright smile on the others. “I’m Kesta. Sorry, not much of a greeting, is it? Welcome to Clan Hall. Always glad to see a new face.”

  The words seemed sincere enough, and she had the grace not to stare at Pil. And she was cursed attractive, with her sleeveless vest laced tight over a muscular frame.

  Nallo averted her eyes, trying for something safer, like the reeve’s chin. “I’m Nallo. This is Pil. He’s an outlander, as you may have noticed, and he doesn’t say much.”

  “Eh, so you talk for him?” She grinned, and lifted her chin in a gesture almost flirtatious. “Fair enough. Anyway, I’m late for duty—”

  “There’s a surprise,” muttered Likard.

  “—so I can’t chat, but I’ll see you at hall this evening, if I get back. The hells! There it is.” She grabbed a baton off the bunk decorated with the embroidered pillow, and ran out.

  Pil said, with
his careful diction and heavy accent, “where lies the men’s hall?”

  “Men’s hall?” Likard looked him up and down in an intrusive way that truly annoyed Nallo. “Can’t wait to get to the temple and be devoured, eh?”

  Pil blushed.

  “Leave him be! Among the Qin, men and women who aren’t kin or married don’t bunk down together. So he’d be uncomfortable bunking in these quarters.”

  Likard scratched an eyebrow, as if this answer confounded him. “Why in the hells would we be wasting our time here with a men’s hall and a women’s hall? He want a private chamber, like a legate? Or his own cote, like the cursed commander?”

  “He’s got no idea of our ways and customs, so don’t mock him. You know, Likard, it seems to me there are in general more male reeves than female. Maybe one of the bunk rooms has all men in it, or fewer women, anyway.”

  “I never thought to count,” he said with an exaggerated and sarcastic smile. “Aui! Just throw your gear in the workroom. I’ll let Ofri sort it out.”

  But Pil would not leave his weapons or his gear, so in a show of solidarity, Nallo lugged her gear as well. Likard led them through the compounds into a private garden court where a fountain spilled water into a series of stone basins carved to look like giant nai leaves, whose root feeds all people.

  An old man sat on the porch, studying a half-finished game of kot. Seeing them, he rose. “What’s this, Likard?”

  “Novices brought from Argent Hall to train here. Volias brought them.”

  “Where is Volias, then?”

  “Trouble’s injured.”

  “Eiya!” His expression darkened. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s the leg. She had to fly while losing blood.”

  Nallo faltered. “Will Trouble die?”

  “No use courting worries, lass,” said the old man. “The fawkners will have all in hand.” He considered Pil with a frown, then gestured. “I’ll let Commander know you’re here.”

  They heard voices engaged in discussion as they took off their boots. They waited on the porch until the old man came back out to beckon them into a spacious audience chamber where six older men and two women sat on pillows, with a ninth seated behind a low desk.

  “Your names?” The woman behind the desk had years, and pain, etched in her face.

  “I’m Nallo. This is Pil.”

  “Can the outlander not speak for himself?”

  “I am Pil,” he said, curtly enough that it might be taken for arrogance, but Nallo recognized the way he had of looking at people without quite having the nerve to look at them. She could not reconcile his shyness with his killing arrows.

  The woman nodded, not one to take offense at trifles. “I’m the commander. These are my council.” She ran off names, pointing to each reeve, and ended with a middle-aged man called Ofri. “Why did Marshal Joss send you from Argent Hall? Why not keep you there?”

  “I didn’t want to train at Argent Hall, verea. As for Pil, here—you’ll need to ask Volias—but I think it was determined he’d train better away from the other Qin soldiers.”

  “Is that true?” asked the commander, tone like a whip. “Pil, you’ll answer me.”

  “Captain Anji asked it be done, Commander,” he said in his soft voice. His mouth twisted as if he was in pain. “He said it is better I go away to train. I am no longer a proper Qin soldier.”

  “Because you are chosen as a reeve?”

  He parted his lips to reply, then closed them.

  “We’ll sort it out later. At the moment, we can use you to ferry messages so more experienced reeves can patrol. Wait outside. When we’re finished, Ofri will take charge of you.”

  Outside, they sat cross-legged on the porch. Pil had the knack of sitting perfectly still, hands at rest on his thighs, while he stared at the fountain and seemed, if anything, to be praying. Nallo could not find a comfortable seat. The raw burn on her hip smarted. Everything else itched, poked, ached. She listened to the reeve council discussing the approach of a vast and terrible army, the flight of refugees from burned villages, a spy recovered from the river, the death of two reeves and an eagle. What had happened to the Green Sun clan? They’d abandoned their warehouses and all left town, very odd, and the council wanted the reeves to search for traces of them. Should we use oil of naya, as they did at Olossi? How do we transport a lot of oil quickly, if we do, when river transport down the lesser Istri might be blocked?

  The words, by themselves, had no tangible meaning, like a tale sung at festival time, but their voices had an edge so sharp that Nallo found her own shoulders tightening in response. A great ravening beast was lumbering down on them, and they just sat there helplessly in its path.

  46

  The Istri Walk was the great thoroughfare of the Hundred, wide enough to accommodate two wagons rolling abreast on the raised central pavement with well-trodden dirt paths flanking the walk on either side. Marit found it eerie to pace its measures in such solitude. Every village was closed down tight, not one person out on road or path except for gangs of farmers working the fields without the usual songs to pass the time. Everything was too quiet, Marit thought, not with the lull before the storm but with the shock of destruction after.

  The trailing edge of the army appeared roadside, the detritus of their passage: A naked toddler with a distended stomach sucked its dirty thumb; a lad herded a paltry herd of skinny goats along the verge; a man with a crutch limped away when he saw them, keeping his head down. People had been scavenging for wood and kindling, for there was not a scrap of forest litter on the ground besides rotting vegetation.

  Wagons blocked the road, but the riders broke into a canter and flew over them. The guards bobbed their heads in obeisance, afraid to look her in the eye.

  “Who built this road?” Hari asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Not even in the Sirniakan Empire.”

  “No one knows,” said Marit. “Even the tales don’t say.”

  “I see such a path one time,” said the girl, who called herself Kirit.

  “Where?” asked Marit when it became obvious she wasn’t about to say more.

  “In the grasslands. Just one place. A big tower. No one lives there, only demons. A road like this one, I see there.”

  “Who built it?”

  Kirit shrugged. “Demons.”

  They passed a second barrier, set at the outskirts of a village overrun with soldiers sitting at their ease on porches, but chatter died as the three cloaks passed. In the fields beyond the village, the army had set up its main bivouac, rank upon rank of traveling tents amid hundreds of campfires. As the long quiet spilled down to dusk, they rode into the camp, their cloaks billowing as the wind caught the edge of coming night. Twilight, mist, and death, they approached the heart of the enemy, identified by a trio of huge tents. Evidently Lord Radas liked his comforts.

  Aui! Her chest felt tight, and her throat constricted. Hari was breathing raggedly, maybe not aware he was doing so. As for the girl, she likely was a demon, because as small and helpless as she looked, she acted no differently than if she’d been riding into her home village, not that Marit could begin to imagine a village filled with people with such ghastly pale faces and hair.

  And for that matter, she thought, mind skittering at random as she shied away from the confrontation looming before her, did demons live in villages? Did they have kinfolk and lovers, or only prey?

  The walls of the tents rippled as the wind sighed, like a beast breathing as it waited to consume them. Soldiers gathered at a distance. Marit and Hari dismounted, but Kirit remained on her mare, strung bow resting over her legs and three arrows caught in her left hand.

  The entrance to the tent was swept back. Marit inhaled sharply, but the people who scurried out wore the badges common to prosperous merchants and householders, the kind of folk you met in the council hall. They kept eyes averted, and yet a stench of fear and greed rose off them as they hurried away under escort, soon vanishing into the crowded
camp beyond. A second group strode out in their wake, captains outfitted in soldiers’ gear and with the posture and authority of men accustomed to getting their way through physical prowess. She knew their type: Kotaru’s ordinands, local militia commanders, any man who has built a fence around a territory and considers it his own and the gods help you if you think to challenge him. Yet they, too, kept their gazes lowered like children showing submission to a bullying parent.

  Hari went inside, the pale cloth swallowing him. One gulp, and he was gone.

  In the rightmost tent, cloth twitched. If someone had been peeking out, she had missed them. She looked at Kirit as the young woman surveyed the assembly with her cold blue gaze. Gawking soldiers hurried away, leaving the guards and the captains. Their fear pricked her.

  Inside the tent, a man shouted, voice breaking into a ragged sobbing keen stabbed by grunts of pain.

  “The hells!” Her lips were dry, and her hands cold. She gripped her staff and used its tip to flip the heavy entrance flap aside, then followed it into the interior.

  Lamps burned in open space. A man writhed on a fine wool carpet, blood leaking over the green and gold pattern.

  “Hari!”

  Two men stood beside Hari, one holding a sword laced with blood and the other holding an arrow loosely woven between the fingers of his right hand. The swordsman looked up, revealing the face of a young man, grin twisted with cruel pleasure.

  “Clean it, and sheath it,” said the other man, and the soldier obeyed mutely.

  Lord Radas faced her, looking no older than the day he had ordered her killed. He blinked, not startled but considering. His was a pleasant face, but something dwelt deep there that she could not call human. “The cloak of death. I glimpsed it many years ago, and thought it lost, but now you are come. I welcome you.”

  Hari twitched, hands clutching his stomach. From the stench, the soldier had done a serviceable job of gutting him, because his guts were leaking out. His gaze fixed on her, his soft “uh uh uh” enough to make your skin crawl, but he did not beg her for aid. Aui! She cursed herself for not having drawn her sword beforehand. Could she take them?