by Myers, Karen
That goaded him into a reply. *It is not honorable. We were not treated honorably.* He glanced over at Chang, assembling a plate of camp bread and broken meats and speaking with Tun. Tun had his eye on them.
*No, it isn’t. Not the way you mean. But professionals have honor, too, a pride in what they do. Soldiers fight so as not to let their temporary brothers down, not because they are actual blood-brothers.*
She could feel his mood begin to shift to a black humor.
*Our tribes will never make this change. Maybe some of the Zannib-tahgr, the slow ones, the ones who have settled down… Of course, that is why we are such little allies for the great Kigaliwen, isn’t it?*
He swallowed, and then looked at her with a real smile, and said, “So, how does a professional wizard behave? Can you guide me, o Collegium expert?”
“I’m angry, too—there were better ways to handle it. But there, you see, that’s a professional complaint.”
Chang brought his plate back and took his seat behind his work table. He paused to give them both a half-nod before he called everyone back for the next session.
CHAPTER 35
Penrys listened to Tun Jeju summarize the crux of the problem in front of the senior officers. The darkness outside the tent’s entrance reinforced the sense that they were focused together on a crucial decision.
“It comes down to whether you’re willing to cede Neshilik to Rasesdad in exchange for their help against this ‘Voice’ and his horde.”
Chang waved a hand dismissively. “If this Tlobsung had wanted that, he would not have tried to weaken us or to set us up for ambush from their enemy. He would have approached us for help.”
“Not the Kigaliwen,” Zandaril said, with a sardonic tone. “The Kigaliwen who do not trust wizards won’t trust Tlobsung’s wizards. The Kigaliwen who’ve never seen a qahulaj, a wizard-tyrant, won’t believe us when we tell them what’s coming. The Kigaliwen who conquered Neshilik permanently will not give it up again for a buffer state. The Kigaliwen will never ally with us, their traditional enemy.”
Chang glared at him, but he went on. “The Kigaliwen who are bringing an army of unknown size for arrival at an unknown time are better diverted north of our seized territory, and maybe our two enemies can weaken each other, or at least give us time to settle in and improve our defenses, for when the survivor comes after us. Maybe they’ll give us time to flee into sarq-Zannib if we can’t stand against them.”
“And if they ally with the horde, instead?” Chang said.
Penrys shook her head. “Never voluntarily. No one would. The only willing members are there for plunder.”
She leaned forward for emphasis. “I don’t know what this ‘Voice’ wants, but he’s bringing tools with him, human weapons, not builders and settlers. And he’s collecting and using wizards, which ought to scare you. It scares me.”
“Says the foreigner of unknown allegiance.” She stiffened at Sau Tsuo’s disbelieving voice.
Zandaril remarked. “How will Kigali, the nation without wizards, defend itself?”
Chang declared, “Kigali is too large, too many people. How could a conquerer, however powerful, rule it?”
“And if he absorbs more wizards?” Penrys said. “Takes all the ones left to the unconquered Rasesni, maybe detours through sarq-Zannib? How much of Kigali are you willing to give up? It looked like he was struggling to get through the barren mountains, but what about when he hits the farms of western Kigali?
“It’s true that he may find it hard to hold what he’s taking, but I think he’ll have no trouble defeating mundane armies, so who will protect the granaries? And when he gets far enough, what will they eat in the east, in the great cities?”
Tun Jeju said, “And just how will they defeat armies?”
“I remember our discussion before we left,” Penrys said. “But this threat’s very different. He has range, he has power. I’ve seen him immobilize people from miles away. There must be limits, but I don’t know what they are.
“The Rasesni are device builders and he’s using physical magic. Could he flood the terrain an army stood on, by pulling the water from the air? He used a lesser version of that to water the horde. Could he immobilize or kill the leaders from a distance? Pull their thoughts from their heads? He did that to us with some success, and we’re wizards ourselves. With that sort of power he should be able to send objects great distances—how about a rain of devices like the ones that Rasesni spy prepared, falling onto an army from the sky and exploding?”
It was so still inside the tent that the voices of men passing by outside were audible.
Chang took a deep breath and looked at Tun. “The plan being proposed is unworkable. I have no authority to enter into diplomacy with Rasesdad to discuss territory—my mandate is to take it back, if I can, or prepare for the main army to do so. They’re still a month behind, or more, and it takes days to send messages.”
He turned to Zandaril. “This story… they’ll never believe what you are describing as the danger. I know what their answers will be.”
Zandaril nodded. “Yes, we understand. This we cannot help you with. But if your superiors truly believed there was a serious enemy, stronger and more dangerous than the Rasesni, what would they have you do?”
Tun said, “Make the right tactical decision for the situation you find, Commander, and worry about forgiveness if we live through the result.”
“Or stand our ground and obey orders, Notju-chi,” Chang rebutted. “You of all people know what happens to those who exceed their mandate.”
Chang considered a moment and shifted focus. “If we did this thing, when would you do it?”
Zandaril said, “At once. No time to waste.”
“A provisional truce,” Penrys said, “in exchange for an army and especially a wizardly alliance for a joint defense. If they have ideas for attack, we want to share them. We need their wizards, we need their scouts, we need whatever they know about the horde, where it came from, what this Voice is.”
“We have two wizards,” Chang said, “and they have many. Why do they need us?”
Zandaril said, “We have scouts and a small force, maybe theirs is about the same size. It apparently fits in the Harlin meadow—how big is that? We have population in Neshilik who could maybe fight, if they understood the stakes. And one of our wizards bears a chain. This will mean something to them.”
“But that’s a bluff,” Penrys protested. “I can’t do what he does.”
“It’s a symbol, a good symbol,” Zandaril replied. “Symbols are very useful.”
“It still sounds like a bad idea,” Chang said. “Why wouldn’t they just attack us and move on out through the Gates to take their chances in the plains, if they’re that afraid? I don’t see how we can make this happen—they won’t trust us, and we have no reason to trust them.”
Tun said, “And what if it’s a deception? What if they ally with the Voice and the horde, and overrun us all. Who planted that lance—a scout from the Voice, or from Tlobsung? Our army might be able to hunt them out of the plains or dig them out of Neshilik again once it gets here, but that won’t do us here much good, after we’re dead.”
He glanced at Zandaril. “Or our wizards either, hostages with theirs.”
Sau Tsuo scoffed, “You’re just sending the spies on back to their master, and good riddance. They’ll come to no harm, you’ll see.”
Penrys and Zandaril left before midnight. A draft copy of the proposed document had been given to a scribe tasked with producing multiple fair copies by morning.
When they reached Hing Ganau’s wagon and the nearby tent, Penrys turned to seek her bedroll, but Zandaril stopped her, with a hand on her arm.
“I told Hing we were both moving into the wagon at night.”
She examined his face, where presumption warred with hope, and smiled. So, the Zannib robes have not changed him.
In an oddly courtly gesture, he offered her his hand and drew her the sh
ort distance to the back of his wagon, dangling his lantern from the other hand.
A small step stool, placed on the ground, made the scramble easier, and she waited for him there, standing on the bare deck. Their blankets were spread in the hollow space between the diminished stacks of supplies, private on three sides.
When Zandaril joined her, he pulled up the tail gate and untied the canvas, letting it dangle and block the view, like a bed curtain.
“Cozy,” she said. “Much better than the bare ground.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, his voice thick. “Not much room for wings, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, we’ll manage somehow.”
She cupped his cheek in one hand, and he leaned his head into it, like a cat. “I’d like to share with you, if you’ll let me,” she said. “For example…” *This is what it’s like for me when I lay my head to your chest and hear your voice rumble.*
She unfastened his formal robe and rough-folded it, then raised it to her nose to inhale the exotic spicy Zannib scent it carried before laying it onto a burlap sack. With his help she lifted off the shirt beneath and embraced him, her ear against his chest. *Say something.*
“I don’t know if I can do that with you,” he said.
She shared with him how that sound coursed through her physically, the tingle as it passed, and the heightened senses it left behind.
She felt his knees buckle, and he caught himself. “Ah.” There was a pause.
“What happens if I do this?” he murmured, as his hand reached out to play with her ear. *Or this?*
CHAPTER 36
The three emissaries met in front of Chang’s command tent well after the sun had risen, mounted and ready.
Penrys smoothed the fabric of her new breeches along her thighs and concentrated on holding her horse still. She wondered if she might meet the horse’s former owner in the enemy camp, if they got that far. She hoped not—too many people had died, too much damage.
While she’d been gone in Neshilik, Hing Ganau had had her original clothes duplicated from the rags that remained after the device with the mirror exploded, but in finer materials. With her cleaned and polished boots, she supposed she represented the Ellech portion of this embassy, however unofficially.
Her saddle had been fitted with a saber mount, and the hilt of the sword was tied to the scabbard with very visible red ribbons that rustled whenever the breeze picked up, an ear-twitching distraction for her horse. Hing had explained to her that the weapons demonstrated they came as free emissaries, not captives, and the ribbons showed their intentions were peaceful.
Fine as a symbol. But I’ve never even held a saber—would have been nice to give it a swing before tying it down.
Zandaril appeared in his formal Zannib robes, of course. But Tun Jeju, the third ambassador, was a surprise. He wore a dark blue overrobe, in brocaded silk, with flared trousers that hearkened back to Kigali’s more remote past. The ceremonial black and red hat with the stiffened wings that was tied under his chin transformed his face from urbane to exotic. Penrys had seen illustrations that looked just like this, back in the Collegium, complete with the weapon hilts and their streaming ribbons.
Their herald trotted up, neatly uniformed, his long staff sporting the leipum, the traditional leafy branch indicating a parley. When Penrys looked closely, she saw the branch was artificial.
Sensible. Can’t find a leafy branch in winter when you want one.
Chang passed two scrolls to one of his men who put them in the dispatch pouch attached to Tun’s saddle, and then the Commander walked up to Tun and handed him a third scroll directly.
Tun tucked it into his robe, then tipped his head to Chang and abruptly turned his horse, joining the herald to walk side-by-side down the avenue of the camp. Penrys and Zandaril made a second pair behind them.
The mood of the camp was different from their entry, just a day ago—more settled, less apprehensive. The focus was more on Kigali pride, in the person of Tun Jeju, than on the two foreign wizards.
At the edge of the camp, they were joined by their escort, half a dozen horsemen in clean uniforms on well-brushed mounts that smelled faintly of saddle soap. The guard took position several paces to their rear, and Tun led them all off in a slow trot, west, toward the Gates of Seguchi.
Penrys scanned their surroundings every few minutes. Their horses stood in a group on the open ground plainly visible from the fortifications at the top of Koryan, on the right—the herald first, the three emissaries with Tun Jeju in the lead, and then the escort. The rest of the grassland around them was deserted, but she sensed dozens of people out of sight within the Gates and up on Koryan, as she’d reported to Tun when they arrived an hour ago. Behind the nearest people, she could feel the bulk of the Rasesni encampment on the floodplain of Harlin, well back from the Gates, but only a couple of miles distant.
The sound of rushing water from the gorge on their left carried clearly through the still air, and Penrys admired the apparently sheer walls that rose above it in the distance. The moisture in the air raised by the turbulence made itself felt whenever the unsettled breeze swung in their direction.
“Tak Tuzap crossed that rock face,” she said to Zandaril. “At night. I wouldn’t like to try it.”
“Nor I,” he replied.
Tun Jeju turned his head to the left to see what they were talking about, then resumed his relaxed posture. “It shouldn’t take them this long to make up their minds. We’ll give them another half hour or so, then we’ll dismount to relieve the horses.”
Almost as he spoke, Penrys felt a change in their observers. A group was beginning to move forward from within the sheltered Gates. “They’re coming,” she said. “Ten of them.”
“Good,” Tun said. “Matching our numbers.”
He turned to look at the wizards. “Follow my lead, and don’t lose your dignity, whatever the provocation.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea to let them see my chain,” Penrys said. “That’s a mark of their feared enemy.”
“And won’t that puzzle them,” Zandaril said, with a grin. “Make them wonder if we’ve got some secret weapon they could use.”
“But we don’t,” she said.
“Quiet.” Tun was monitoring the approach of the others, who came most of the way at a slow canter, then fell to a walk to cover the final fifty yards or so.
Penrys glanced at their herald, who carried a matching staff with a leafy branch. This one was real, she saw, the autumn-colored leaves barely clinging. She disregarded their escort, six riders similar to their own who hung back in a group.
The three emissaries were interesting. All three were native Rasesni speakers—they looked to her like Kigaliwen with broader faces and shaggier, unbraided hair. One was dressed in uniform, nothing as showy as Tun’s diplomatic display, and the second was clothed as a warrior, leather-clad and well-armed, but not in uniform. The third was in civilian tunic and breeches and carried no visible weapons. The weapons of those who carried them were tied down with a motley collection of cords of various kinds.
They don’t have truce-ribbons ready to hand. Saw ours. Had to improvise.
When she let her mind-scan sink a little deeper for the civilian, she caught his attention. A wizard. She felt the change in his emotions the moment he noticed the chain around her neck—surprise and fear and loathing, followed by speculation.
She withdrew, and nodded her head to him, then made sure her mind-shield was tucked firmly around Zandaril and herself.
After the initial introductions had been made, in Kigali-yat, Tun Jeju and Tlobsung pulled their horses aside from the others for a few minutes of private conversation. Penrys waited awkwardly with Zandaril, while their counterparts stared at them.
Tun turned his horse back to them. “They’re prepared to talk. There will be a delay while they prepare the formal meeting.”
Tlobsung had one of his escort wave a signal flag to the gates, and in a few min
utes they were joined by four servants and two carts that carried small tables and camp chairs, along with refreshment for the party.
Everyone dismounted while the meeting place was assembled on the grass. The escorts took charge of the horses on both sides, and Penrys stood out of the way with Zandaril while they waited.
“I was surprised by Tun Jeju’s attire,” Penrys said. “Shouldn’t he be in military dress clothing?”
“He’s the Emperor’s representative, and that takes precedence over any military rank, even Intelligence Master. It doesn’t look quite proper without the braid, though.”
“The braid?”
Zandaril glanced at her. “I suppose you haven’t seen that many civilians yet. Didn’t you notice the herdsmen and the teamsters, with their long braids? And the people you met in Lupmikya? Tak Tuzap, too?”
Penrys lifted a shoulder. “I just thought the troopers had short hair to accommodate their helmets.”
“Well, yes, but it’s more than that. Everyone wears the braid, everyone except the military. It marks them, in gatherings. They stand out, and it bonds them together, against the ‘long braids,’ as they call them. Makes it harder for them to masquerade as something else, too.”
Penrys fingered her shoulder length hair and then glanced at Zandaril’s turban. “We don’t fit in either way, do we?”
“In Kigali, in the cities, we would never meet someone like Chang, much less Tun Jeju. Wizards not important enough. We’re like camp doctors—little rank, no standing. Worse, Kigali has little use for foreigners. We don’t even merit Kigali names, and that’s pretty low.”
Penrys blinked at that.
“I’ve met people like Sau Tsuo before. Zannib confuse Kigaliwen. His gods don’t know what to do with me. We have no temples, but we have people in the Ghuzl mar-Tawirqaj at Ussha the way they have priests. So what are they?”
He chuckled. “Chang has a problem. The tribal assembly knows I am here, that they sent for someone, and Kigali may need its allies. And now he thinks he may need foreign wizards, too, if he believes what we reported.”
