Chained Adept

by Myers, Karen

  He felt her anguish, as sharp as if he’d slapped her.

  *And are they wondering where I am, three years gone?*

  She shut him out and turned her horse away.

  CHAPTER 18

  “What’s this?” Commander Chang said. “We don’t have time for every stray along the river.”

  He turned aside to finish a discussion with Tun Jeju.

  Penrys waited patiently with Zandaril and the children in the command tent. Zandaril gripped Tak Tuzap’s shoulder in a strong hint to stand still, and the little girl was subdued and quiet.

  The expedition was setting up for camp in mid-afternoon. There would be a review of the incoming information from the settlements and then a planning session that was anticipated to go on for hours.

  Penrys’s thoughts still roiled from Zandaril’s casual remark down by the river, and she avoided meeting his troubled gaze. She hadn’t dropped her shield to mind-speak him since.

  Children. The thought haunted her. Women my apparent age do have children, mostly. Zandaril’s sisters and cousins do. Even the other female wizards at the Collegium had families, if they were old enough, and no one thought it strange.

  There were no stretch marks on her body, but then she had no marks at all. Nothing left a permanent mark. Even liquor rolled off her after a while. My makers built me well, if makers there were.

  She was tired of these bitter thoughts, but had no defense when they returned periodically to batter at her.

  She leaned down to sniff the head of the girl wrapped around her hip. Under the dirt, she inhaled the child-scent, and she felt a pinch at the bridge of her nose. You can’t have her. What if you vanish again in a few years? Better she not get attached to you.

  She told herself she was only carrying her because the boy was too small to do it, that the girl was comforted by the feel of a woman’s body—any woman would do.

  Tak looked up at her face with a questioning expression, and she tried to smile reassuringly.

  Chang returned his attention to them, and Zandaril said, “Tak Tuzap here says he made it through the gorge three days go. He came to find you.”

  Chang’s eyes narrowed, and he turned to the boy. “You knew we were coming?”

  Zandaril dropped his hand and the boy stood on his own, ramrod straight. “I knew someone would come, Commander-chi. Yenit Ping, the Endless City—they were never going to let the Rasesni just take Neshilik away from them. That’s what my uncle said.”

  “And who is this uncle?”

  “Tak Paknau, of clan Cham. He was the leader of the tengom, the trader’s guild, at the head of Gonglik Jong, the Steps, where all the caravans resume. Those who want to continue west by water take their goods past the rapids to where the river runs smooth again.”

  Penrys heard the quaver in his voice.

  “We were going to come together, but… he got caught.”

  He looked down for a moment, but then raised his head again. “I know I’m young, sir, but we rehearsed what we would say together, and now there’s just me.”

  Chang glanced at the girl on Penrys’s hip and lifted an eyebrow.

  Tak said, “I found her along the way.”

  Penrys and Zandaril had already heard much of that tale, on the ride to the camp.

  “You can’t go in through Seguchi Norwan, sir.”

  “Start at the beginning, boy, and tell me what happened.”

  Chang gestured an invitation to sit. Penrys pulled two camp chairs together and settled the girl in one of them, hoping she might sleep. “I already sent for some food for the kids,” she told Chang.

  The boy cleared his throat and began his story.

  “It was the beginning of summer, sir. The fields were all planted and growing, and those with the better ground had taken their first cut of hay. We’d had the spring traders, come and gone, and most of the summer ones had arrived and were busy with the gepten, the trade fairs.”

  He stopped to explain. “The towns run the gepten in a sequence so the merchants can get to each town, one after the other. They’d worked their way down to Song Em in the south for the small villages and were coming back along the western border when we first heard about the fighting.”

  He watched Chang to see if he was following along. “You know, most of the herds are in Song Em—it’s sheltered, see, in the winter, with the mountains on three sides. Most of the towns are in the north, in Wechinnat, near the river.”

  “Did the attack come down out of Nagthari?” Chang asked.

  “No, that’s what was so strange. We expect those raids—there are forts and men on watch, and a series of alarm beacons, y’understand? That’s where they always come from. They plunder what they can, and then they leave.”

  With a quirk of his mouth, he added, “My grandma used to say, they come to see what we’ve done with the place since they left.”

  Chang nodded.

  “This time they came down through the mountains on the border of Song Em and drove people north. They kept the herds.”

  He swallowed. “The traders who got out, they came and talked to my uncle. They said the Rasesni brought women and children along, too.”

  Tak stopped for a moment, remembering. “It was bad. They all thought it meant the Rasesni were going to settle in Song Em, and they started to make plans about taking it back. Things were quiet for a couple of weeks, and the towns in Wechinnat busied themselves making room for the new folk from the south.”

  He rushed on. “But then, all in one night, they came at us down the river from Nagthari, and out of the south, too. We were caught between them, and lots of people tried to get out through the Gates, but then we found out that some of them had crept along the Craggies in the north to Koryan. They came down at the Gates and blocked the road, and so we were bottled in.”

  His voice had risen and Chang gave him a moment. “When was this?”

  “About, um, ten weeks ago. Not yet mid-summer.”

  He clenched his fists. “There weren’t nothing much we could do about it, y’understand. The bigger towns put a delegation together and sent it to find the head guy, but they never came back. That scared everyone, and things started to fall apart.

  “Y’see, the mountains around Neshilik aren’t really that bad. There are passes, and old roads—some are well known and some are kind of kept in the family. But none of them are good for more than a few folk at a time, and the townsfolk couldn’t get out that way. And some of them didn’t want to, leave everything behind, lose it all. And no one trusted anyone else.”

  “But you got out,” Chang said.

  “One group wanted to run the gorge in boats. That never works—the river’s too strong at the Gates—but my uncle couldn’t stop them. He told me, ‘Let them do it if they must, and we’ll leave the same night.’”

  He bit his lip. “Someone must’ve betrayed him. A couple of Rasesni salengno showed up at our camp with swords, and clubs…” His voice caught. “I grabbed my pack and got out while they were busy.”

  He wiped his hands along his breeches and took a deep breath.

  He cocked his head at the girl, sleeping quietly. “She’s the only survivor from the gorge, far as I know.”

  Tun Jeju picked up a brush and readied some ink and a piece of papyrus. “Names, son—I need as much as you can tell me about the raiders and whoever is leading them.”

  Penrys heard a disturbance at the entrance to the tent. She could smell the arrival of roast fowls without turning her head.

  Tak ignored it. He bowed to Tun and leaned forward in his chair. “Everything I can, Notju-chi. But most important, I need to tell you about the passes. My uncle took me with him, all the time. I know where lots of them are.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Penrys admired the bustle and long lines as she gave up her spot in the bathing tents. All the water-based businesses had been quick to take advantage of the unusually early stop and the nearby river to get as many things clean as possible, clothi
ng as well as people.

  She found Tak Tuzap and Gailen where she’d left them, seated on the ground at the feet of the formidable Rai Limfa. The woman was in charge of three cloth and laundry wagons, with her tailor husband, three laundresses, and assorted helpers and drivers. Her almost-grown son traveled with her, as well as her youngest child, a girl about Tak’s age.

  Penrys had noticed they each wore their hair in a single braid, like the boy from Neshilik. Perhaps the troopers kept their hair short for helmets.

  Rai had offered to house and feed the two strays for a while, and Penrys could see that progress had already been made. Gailen was washed and tidy, and sat quietly on a small blanket on the ground, looking around her with interest. The boy wore fresh clothes, wrinkled from his pack but clean, and his wet hair, slicked back and tidily rebraided, framed an expression more carefree than when she’d first seen him.

  Must have been a relief to deliver the news the way his uncle wanted him to. And he no longer has to worry about taking care of a little girl. He’s done well.

  “All cleaned up?” Rai asked her.

  “Hing Ganau’s been keeping up with the clothing, but it’s good to get the smell of horse off the rest of me.”

  She looked down at Tak. “You going to be all right here, for a while?”

  He nodded. “Rai-chi is just fine with Len-len, too.”

  “I miss my littlest one when she was this age,” the woman said, reaching down to stroke the child’s soft hair.

  “She’s looking much better,” Penrys said. “Has she said anything yet? Her name, maybe?”

  “No, but they can get like that after a good fright, and she’s lost everyone, hasn’t she, poor little thing. It’ll wear off, likely, and she’ll be chattering away again.”

  The boy tilted his head up at Penrys. “What’ll happen to us?”

  “I don’t know yet. You’ll come with us for a while, at least.”

  Rai asked him, “D’ya have any family, boy?”

  “Not out here, beyond the Gates,” he said, with a frown. “I want to go home. I want to take it all back and push ’em out again.”

  Rai glanced up at Penrys.

  “Is Commander Chang going to do that?” Tak asked, looking at each of their faces.

  “That why he came, isn’t it, to find out what’s what,” Rai answered him. “Now you let the woman go along and get ready for that big meeting they’re talking about.”

  Penrys headed for Zandaril’s wagon. She had pen and paper there and the makings of ink, courtesy of her travel companion, and she wanted to add to the notes she was writing about Veneshjug’s devices.

  She found Zandaril standing outside, expectantly, as if he’d been waiting for her, and her step slowed.

  He opened his hands wide and walked toward her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you this morning, when I mentioned children.”

  She flushed, guiltily. “I know you didn’t. It’s just a sore spot for me. Not your fault.”

  She realized she was still bottled up tight inside her mind-shield, and relaxed it. *No reason you should have to guard what you say or think around me. It just surprised me.*

  *I’ll try to be less thoughtless.*

  He tilted his head and said aloud, “You worried me. I hadn’t considered what it must be like, not to know. I know I have no wife, no child. If I vanish, then…” He shrugged. “The weave of my family’s life will continue.”

  “And I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe there’s no one, that’s probably it.” And I might as well behave as if I believe that, since I’m never likely to find out.

  She walked with him back to the wagon and swung herself up into it over the open tailgate. Hing Ganau had already erected the tent where they would sleep, so the new custom was to set up the interior of the wagon like a small traveling study once the wagon was done moving for the day.

  Zandaril leaned on his elbows on the lowered tailgate while she poked around. “You must always look forward,” he said, seriously. “Never back. Nothing to gain, looking back—only sorrow, regret. Life is always in front of you, never behind.”

  She stopped fidgeting around and looked at him. “I’m tethered to my empty past, by this…” She slapped the chain with her hand. “… and by the very emptiness. How can you build anything on bottomless sand?”

  “Bah! If you think like that, always you will be afraid to build. No one has any certainty—all building is on sand. But if you don’t build, you can’t live.”

  He straightened up and tapped his forehead. “You’re not stupid. You should know this.” And he stalked away as if ashamed of her.

  She blushed, unwilling to scan and confirm how he thought of her. He’s right—I’m afraid to try. What sort of special cowardice is that?

  “From what the boy says, Neshilik’s been overrun and there’s no effective defense left.” Chang held up a finger. He was trying to cut through the fruitless session once again by summarizing what little they knew.

  The tent was hot and crowded, despite the cool air outside. Penrys watched from the corner with Zandaril and tried to be inconspicuous. Chang had told them to attend, but they were the only ones in the gathering not part of his actual command—Zandaril as an ally volunteer, and herself as… what? A guest? A suspicious visitor? As Zandaril’s colleague, she decided—they apparently valued another wizard, and her action with Veneshjug’s traps seemed to have earned provisional acceptance from most of them, though Sau Tsuo was still something of a stubborn antagonist.

  Chang ticked off another finger. “Our primary mission is reconnaissance and we’re only one laigom, just the one squadron. We don’t know how many Rasesni entered in the first wave, or how many have poured in since.”

  One more finger. “It looks like they intend to stay. They brought families, and they didn’t destroy the herds or take them back into Nagthari.”

  Last finger. “They’ve fortified the Gates.”

  “And they have outriders roaming well outside of that, as a screen,” Tun Jeju added. “What do they intend, besides this initial invasion?”

  “And how many are there, and why haven’t there been any attempts to negotiate?” Chang continued. “The boy says the townsfolk didn’t succeed, and the Rasesni certainly know we’re here.”

  Sau said, “They have hostages, don’t they? Thousands of Kigaliwen. They going to keep them alive?”

  “Depends on what they plan to do with the land,” Chang said.

  “They’ll do what they did before.” Sau snorted. “They never forgave our taking it finally, once and for all.”

  Tun commented, sardonically. “Well, they seem to have taken it back, so maybe that wasn’t so permanent.”

  Zandaril filled Penrys in silently on the history. *Neshilik was Rasesdad land, guarded by the Gates. Wechinnat’s their name for the north cove. They don’t have much good land for food, near their capital, and they clung to it hard. It was a raiding base for hundreds of years. Then, three generations ago, the Kigaliwen fought their way in with a great army and forced the border upstream to Nagthari, where it has remained. Linit Kungzet, the fort there, must have been captured.*

  Penrys asked, *What happened to the former inhabitants when the Kigaliwen won?*

  *The Kigaliwen say they pushed them back into Nagthari, those who would go. I suspect the Rasesni have a different tale—some of them were pushed all the way over Jus Sidr, the High Pass, into sarq-Zannib. The Kigaliwen didn’t waste any time worrying about it. Lots of settlers wanted the land—more fertile than the open plains and better sheltered. They channeled the Seguchi away from one side of the gorge, made the trade road through the Gates, and built prosperous towns.*

  *Built the road? Built towns? Civilized the place?* The mind-speech allowed the sardonic flavor to get through clearly.

  Zandaril confirmed. *Just so.*

  Penrys thought his own commentary had the flavor of a circumspect junior partner, part of a people allied to the Kig
ali people, but not their equal in power.

  The tone at the front of the tent changed.

  Chang said, “We don’t have enough men or resources to repulse an invasion, no matter how favorably we estimate their forces. So what can we do? We can keep them penned in Neshilik, hold them at the Gates. We can establish communications with them and find out their intentions. We can attempt to secure the safety of our people held captive.

  “Behind us, Yenit Ping is assembling an army of thousands, and they’ve been getting our couriers, as we have theirs. But we must know more about what’s going on. I have no stomach for a blind assault on the Gates into the unknown.”

  Tun Jeju said, “So we must send in scouts. Over the Red Wall passes the boy described?”

  “Yes, some. And some around the outside of the Gates to the passes of the Craggies in the north.”

  Chang raised his head and looked over to Zandaril. “I wish we had enough time to approach from the south, through sarq-Zannib, but the distance is just too far. The Rasesni have the inner lines of communication.”

  “All of this we can do. But there is one more issue,” Tun said. “A new one. For the first time, the Rasesni seem to have wizards, and they’ve found a way to make them a military problem. Luckily, we have two who can find out more for us, if they’re willing.”

  Zandaril stood. “I’m proud to help our Kigali allies. It was for this that I came.”

  He glanced down at Penrys and lifted an eyebrow. She blew her breath out and considered. “We haven’t solved the mystery of the Rasesni weapon,” she said. “If we are both away, and their wizards return, what will you do?”

  Tun said, “A wizard in war is like an excellent bowman. He may be invincible against a single target, by one means or another, but he can’t truly influence a fighting force in any significant way.”

  At Penrys’s skeptical expression, he said, “And just how would you attack a large force over unprepared ground?”

  She mentally reviewed devices she had worked on or read about, and nodded, reluctantly. They just weren’t suitable for mass assault. “But what about prepared ground? That’s what that herdsman was doing, wasn’t it—preparing the ground, in our camp.”