“Put up the fence,” Gatha says to the woman. “At least we had the foresight to construct the walls, but let’s not use them until we must.”
The “wall” is an earthen berm around the camp, and the “fences” are rows of sharpened bamboo stakes to be erected in front of it. Everybody knows, though, that defending those fortifications would be a last stand.
After the builders leave, Gatha waves me over. “We must slow them down,” says Gatha. “Buy time for everyone to escape and disappear. Karu’s tribe will defend these fortifications. The rest of us go out to meet that army. We’ll wreak havoc on their camp and do all we can to cause disarray. We’re an army of hundreds against an army of thousands. But we will make it look to them as if they’re fighting a force of ten thousand.”
Sundown finds me with fifty other fighters, face smeared with mud, creeping along the hills overlooking the edge of the Amparan camp. Occasionally, the wind blows hard enough that we can see campfires through the leaves. I know, from an earlier glimpse, that they’re camped in clusters of ten, and about half have their weapons on them right now. This part of the camp carries the standard of the third battalion from Sehmar. Word around the palace was that their commander gained his position through ingratiating himself with the old emperor instead of rising through the ranks. He’s rigid in his thinking and cuts corners when training his troops, drilling them in old-fashioned formations that don’t make sense in this wooded and uneven terrain. If we drive at their weaker fighters, the others will fall as well.
Our crows fly overhead, warning us of any approaching enemy. Already, one Amparan sentry has been silently disposed of. That means, though, that the clock has started to run, and we’ll need to attack soon. Waiting is the worst part of an ambush. My muscles refuse to uncoil. I’d much rather be fighting.
Gatha crouches a few paces ahead of me, motionless. She’s in one of the few positions with a view of the valley below. I don’t know where she gets her patience, but she’s steady as the rocks on the mountain. Somehow that discipline overflows to the rest of us.
“Archers,” she says. “Three volleys.”
I draw my bow—a new one from one of Karu’s fallen fighters—and fire three arrows one after the other into the sky over the camp. The soldiers around me do the same. Shouts drift toward us as the deadly rain makes contact.
“Go,” says Gatha.
Amazing how a single word can get my blood racing. I charge, caught up in the momentum of my fellow fighters, and I pray that Neju is on my side this evening. Or if not him, then Zenagua.
As I reach the floor of the valley, I get my first clear view of the Amparans. The camp is in confusion after our arrows. Soldiers struggle to strap on their armor and weapons and step into some semblance of a formation. I draw my swords and charge full pitch into two Amparans, bringing my left arm up to block one man’s blow. My right sword blocks the other’s and then arcs back down to cut him across the throat. He falls, and another man takes his place.
It becomes a rhythm of block, strike, turn to meet the next soldier. Some are better fighters than others. One man’s face morphs into Arxa’s. He almost slices off my hand, but a Shidadi next to me stops the blow and runs him through. There’s no time to think before the next man comes. That’s the problem. They keep coming, and the new troops are far less confused than the ones we charged. Our forward progress stalls.
Finally, I hear the blessed call for retreat. We fall back in ragged bursts. I knock the sword out of an Amparan’s hand, then run back a few steps before turning to meet another soldier coming at me. Gatha’s a few steps ahead of me, fighting her own retreat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone stab her in the thigh. She goes down.
“Gatha!”
It feels like an eternity, edging my way closer to her. A sword flashes to my right. I’m too late to block it, and searing pain burns across my rib cage. I scream, doubling over, though I’m vaguely aware that I can still move. Step by step, I move closer to Gatha and thread my arm under her shoulders. Other Shidadi close ranks around us. Little by little, we edge our way toward the forest, until a volley of arrows over our heads thins out the Amparans still coming after us. We turn and break for the hills.
Sisson carries Baruva over his shoulder to a cave we’d scouted on our journey here. Mehtap stands guard while he unceremoniously dumps the healer onto the floor.
“What do you need?” Sisson asks me.
I look down at Baruva crumpled in the dirt. “Water, mortar, and pestle. A small fire, once it’s dark enough to hide the smoke. Bring out the herbs we gathered on the way as well. We don’t have long before they realize he’s missing.”
I instruct Sisson to spread out the plants he gathered for me on our trip. “I need you to be my hands.” I realize as I speak that Baruva used the same term for the slaves that did his work. Today, though, Sisson protects my patient instead of me.
Among the herbs we’ve gathered is a small, thin brown root, and I point to it. “Crush that one with the pestle.”
Sisson is obviously new to healers’ tools. He holds the pestle gingerly, but gamely gets to work. Milky white fluid oozes out of the pulverized root. “What does it do?” he asks.
“We use it to induce fever.” It’s the same herb I gave Dineas to fake his rose plague in Sehmar City. “Squeeze the juices into Baruva’s mouth.”
He takes ahold of Baruva’s cheeks so that the man’s mouth opens like a fish.
“Make sure it doesn’t just dribble back out,” I tell him.
After the root, I nod toward the berries. “You’ll have to work quickly to get the stain set and the juice washed off before he wakes. We don’t need to cover everything. Only the parts of his skin that he can see.”
The berries bleed a sweet-smelling red juice. As Sisson smashes them into Baruva’s skin, I turn to the last ingredient, syeb flowers, and start the painstaking work of detaching the pollen pods from each flower and shaking the yellow powder into a bowl. I’m glad that rose plague affects the edges of my vision more than the center, or there would be no way I could do this. By the time I have enough pollen to cover a fingertip, Sisson is sponging the berry juice off Baruva. The resulting marks have a bluer shade than real rosemarks, but I hope the firelight will camouflage the difference.
Sisson raises his eyebrows at the finished outcome. “Not bad.”
Indeed, the result is better than I’d hoped, and I push aside the misgivings that bubble up at the sight of Baruva drugged and painted before me. I’m bending the rules once more, and only the Goddess can judge me. “Now we wait.”
We sit in the cave in hushed silence, watching our comatose patient.
“How is his temperature?”
Sisson checks. “Seems to be warmer.”
After a while, Baruva starts to stir. He curls his fingers, and then bends and straightens his leg. I look to the cave entrance and catch Mehtap’s eye before getting on my knees and creeping closer to the healer. “Wake up, Baruva.”
He groans.
“Wake up. You’ve been asleep a long time.”
Baruva opens his eyes a tiny bit, then closes them again. A moment later, he forces them back open. His eyes focus on me, and slowly, recognition dawns on his face.
Mehtap’s expression, as she comes to watch, can only be described as that of a snake who’s cornered a mouse.
“Where am I?” says Baruva. I hear the panic in his voice. He puts his hand to his temple and winces. The fever root causes sharp headaches. “What have you done to me?”
“I’m surprised you need to ask,” I tell him.
He looks down at his hand, and then he looks again. He starts to shake. “It’s not possible. I was just—”
“You’ve been asleep a long time.”
He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t do this,” he says. “You wouldn’t use your disease as a weapon.”
And now Mehtap comes to kneel next to me. “Hello, Baruva,” she says.
“Mehtap...”
he says warily.
Mehtap gives a sweet smile. “You’re right. Zivah wouldn’t, but I would. Can you blame me, after all the trouble you’ve caused?”
Baruva wipes the sweat off his forehead. “When the emperor finds you, nothing will save you from his wrath.”
“Perhaps,” says Mehtap. “But you must admit I have very little to lose, and you’ll be dead.”
Slowly, horror spreads across Baruva’s face. It’s the look of a man who’s just realized that all his efforts have come to naught. I know what a helpless feeling that is, and part of me almost feels sorry for him.
“You might not yet die,” I say to Baruva. “Some people expel the disease from their bodies.”
And now I take out the bowl of syeb pollen. I let Baruva see the yellow color in the firelight and hope that it’s close enough to the real thing. If he’s observant, he’ll see that it doesn’t quite have the same iridescent shine of suona. The smell of the syeb, though, is very convincing.
The imperial healer takes a long look at the bowl, and then he looks up at me, furious. “You demon,” he says. “You did take it. How did you hide this from my guards?”
“You have a theory of how rose plague works, don’t you? That it starts in the liver and spreads through the blood to the skin?”
He stares at me, sputtering.
“You’re right,” I say. “And you know what I’ve learned through my own studies? The suona pollen doesn’t just help the rosemarked live longer. If you use it early enough, it will fight off the disease completely.”
“Liar,” he says, but he can’t quite hide the hope in his voice.
I can’t blame him, since I myself yearn for these lies to be true. I hope I’ve mixed in enough truth to reel him in. “It’s up to you to decide whether you believe me.”
His eyes track the bowl as I move it away.
“And I suppose you want something from me in return?” Baruva says.
“We want a confession,” says Mehtap. “Signed in your own hand and sworn before all of us as witnesses. Include enough details to make us believe it’s you. I want everything. Tell us all you’ve done, and all that Kiran’s done. The history of your crimes, the documents that you received.”
Sisson comes closer and hands Baruva a pen and a piece of parchment. Baruva stares at the pen. He curses, but he doesn’t put it down.
“The choice is yours,” says Mehtap. “But don’t wait too long, or it will be too late.”
We limp back to the camp, carrying those who can’t carry themselves. The Dara meet us with water, bandages, and food, and the Shidadi gather in clusters, nursing wounds, eating, and repairing armor and weapons. A Dara healer named Zad bandages the cut on my chest. The bandages feel restrictive, but he tells me to be grateful the sword didn’t cut anything important. Next to me a healer from Vidarna’s tribe bandages two of her fellow tribesmen. Among my own tribe, I see many cuts, one broken bone, and a dislocated shoulder. In addition, three were killed, Zenagua guide their souls.
Against an army that stretched as far as the eye could see, it could have been far worse. We killed far more than we lost, and caused mayhem on top of that. But it hadn’t been enough. As things settle down, I climb the narrow cliff trail behind the camp until I get a good view of the valley. Amparan campfires wink between the leaves. Even after today’s attack, they’re confident enough to rest. And why shouldn’t they be? Their campfires number more than our troops. We’re gnats to them, a swarm to be swatted out. As for us? We’re huddled in the darkness with arrows pointed over the wall. One thing I will say, though. The hours after that first attack evoke in me a deep pride for my fellow fighters. Others might be demoralized after such a battle, but the men and women that gather here tonight are focused on what lies ahead.
Footsteps crunch in the dirt. My hand jumps to my sword, but it’s Gatha. She walks with a heavy limp and a cane, and joins me in looking down the valley.
“It was a valiant effort,” she says. “I can’t find fault with anyone.”
“But it’s not enough,” I finish.
She shakes her head.
“Neju help us, then,” I say.
Below us, the Amparan fires flicker like stars. I wonder what Gatha’s next orders will be.
“Tell me something, Dineas,” says Gatha. “Was I wrong to send you to Ampara with Zivah? I didn’t foresee how high a price it would demand from you. Did I fail you as a warlord?”
I’ve seen Gatha make all kinds of decisions on the battlefield and off. She’s given orders that have ended in devastating defeats, costing us dozens of lives and driving us farther away from our homeland. Not often, of course—she’s good at war—but all the same, she’s failed many times. Not once, though, in all these years, have I ever heard her voice any doubt. Not once have I ever seen her waver in that confidence the rest of us lean on. And I realize how much of a toll this past year has taken on her.
“You weren’t wrong to send me,” I say. Now that I look back on my mission, I realize how much good there was. The chance to see the world without the shadow of my past. Friendship, though it was with unlikely comrades. A fleeting chance for love.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” says Gatha. “It weighs on my conscience.”
“My blade will always be yours.”
“That I am also glad to hear.”
I believe her. But even so, I know she’ll never ask for my loyalty again. Her guilt won’t let her.
She leaves me there, looking out over the Amparans. I don’t know how long I stay there, but the sky starts to turn gray.
“Is someone there? Please help!” The panicked voice comes from higher up on the trail.
I draw my sword. “Who’s there?”
“The scouts sent us down.” It’s an old woman talking. “They said we could find healers here. Please help. My husband’s wounded, and we’ve been walking for hours.”
I can see them coming down the path now, an old Dara couple. The man has a cut on his leg. I hurry to their side and swing the man’s arm over my shoulder. “Why were you on the ridge? Everybody is supposed to stay in the camp tonight. More people can leave in the morning.”
“The soldiers,” she says. “The scouts warned us to turn back, but we were too slow. The others were cut down.”
Soldiers? Cut down? And I finally realize with horror that this couple was part of the group that fled by the cliff paths earlier today, the first wave to leave.
“There were soldiers on the trail?”
“Amparan soldiers,” she says. “With mules carrying giant loads, climbing the ridge trail.”
The umbertouched battalion. So they’d taken the strenuous march up the cliff, hauling their weapons with them. And they stand in the way of our escape.
“Gatha will need to hear about this,” I say. “Did anyone else escape?”
“I don’t know,” says the old man. “We scattered into the trees.”
The man stumbles twice on our way down. At the base of the trail, we find the camp in disarray. Torches have been lit and wedged onto hacked-off stalks of live bamboo. Shouts and commands overlap each other in every direction. Both Shidadi and Dara race around frantically as crows weave about their heads. A Dara boy rushes past me, and I grab him by the arm. “What’s going on?” I say.
He looks at me, his eyes wide. “The Amparan army is advancing.”
We leave Baruva in the cave to sleep off the fever. He’ll wake in a few hours with a lingering headache and sticky skin, but should otherwise emerge unharmed. In the meantime, we need to get out of the area before the Amparans send out search parties.
Mehtap rolls up his confession and carefully tucks it into her belt pouch.
“Will it be enough?” I ask her. “What if Baruva denies writing it?”
“Father will believe me if I tell him I witnessed it.”
“And then what happens after that?” I ask.
She closes her pouch and meets my eyes. “I don’t know.”
Carefully, I brush aside the vegetation. There’s one snake clinging to a vine above the doorway, which I wrap around my arm. Inside, it’s completely silent. The air is musty, with hints of smoke. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Slowly, the features of the cave start to materialize. The fire has been kicked out, and the dirt is scuffed. My supplies piled alongside the far wall have been knocked over.
Arxa and Walgash are missing.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “Start a fire,” I call to those outside. “I need a torch.”
I scan the cave again, but it’s a small space. There’s no place for anyone to hide.
“Is everything all right?” Mehtap’s voice drifts in. “Is he all right?”
I wipe my sweaty palms on my apron. What happened here? Arxa had been feverish, barely able to stand. Had Walgash carried him away? Or someone else?
Torchlight flickers at the mouth of the cave. “Zivah?”
“Wait—” I say, raising my hand.
But Mehtap is already stepping in. “Can I see him? How is—”
She cuts off. Scans the cave just as I’d done a moment before. And then she blanches. “What happened?” she whispers.
By the light of Mehtap’s torch, I can see bloodstains along the floor leading toward the entrance.
“I don’t know,” I say heavily.
“You don’t know?” She looks around again, and her voice grows more shrill. “They can’t have gone far.” She runs out of the cave.
Umbertouched Page 25
