“A crier,” Grith noted. He entered further into the Deepening, feeling hunger begin to creep into his stomach. He ignored the sensation, focusing instead on the voice. Tain took them left, past a group of buildings that blocked the brunt of the sound, and suddenly the words became clear.
There were actually two voices, one a man, shouting in what Grith understood to be Fanalkiri. The lilting language, full of so many vowel sounds, nearly drowned out the feminine voice speaking in Sasken.
“A Cutaran force has been spotted in the eastern plains, some hundred and fifty miles west of the Sikara Divide!” the woman, dressed in a masculine uniform, was saying. “The latest reports claim the force is some seven thousand strong! It is now believed they plan to cross the Sikara Divide and lay siege to the city of Ytem! This is grave news indeed! Never have the dastardly Cutarans threatened to so brazenly attack a Corrossan stronghold!”
She continued on, using the same rhetoric he had heard a hundred times from the criers who had come to Kuul. They were normally tight lipped unless you gave them coin. Someone must have dropped a bundle at this woman’s feet, for her to repeat her spiel for so long.
Grith glanced over at his teacher. The expression on the man’s face worried him. There was anger, yes, and fear as well. If the crier was right, Irrin and Uche would be walking into a trap. Five thousand humans against seven thousand Cutarans… It would be a slaughter.
Grith turned his pony to face Jionis. Her eyes were downcast, her face pensive. She mumbled something again, this time loud enough that Grith could make out individual words, if only he spoke Fanalkiri.
“How fast can they move?” Tain demanded of the Curator.
“What?” she glanced up. Her eyes were full of fear. She shook her head.
“You’re a Curator,” Tain pressed. “And Fanalkiri. Your people have had dealings with the Cutarans for hundreds of years. There has to be something in your memories about them.”
“There was a book I read a long time ago. A set of mercantile tables that mentioned the travel times for different forms of transportation. It claimed that a tribe, fully laden with supplies, could march…” Her eyes darted back and forth, as if she was reading off a page only she could see. “Fifteen miles a day.”
“Fucking Tirrak!” Tain cursed. “That’s practically as fast as a trained army.” He bit his lip and reached into his purse, pulling out a handful of silver coins. “Jionis, I need you to do something for me.”
She nodded, looking slightly angry and more than a little reluctant. “What?”
“I need you to ride to Ytem. Take this.” He handed her the money. “That’s twenty livres.” Grith blanched at the sum. The average farmer or laborer would be lucky to see that much money in a decade.
“That is a lot for board, don’t you think?” She looked up at them. Grith might have thought she was joking, but there was no humor in her eyes or quirk to her lip that suggested it was some kind of crack.
“It’s not for board,” said Tain. “It’s for horses. How well can you ride?”
“High Lord Uche taught me,” she said, almost sounding proud. “He wanted me to be proficient enough to keep up with him on his hunts beyond Ytem’s walls.”
Tain nodded. “Then I want you riding at a full gallop. Run this horse into the ground if you have to and buy another at the next market town. You might need two or three, but if you’re lucky, you can reach Ytem in a day or two.”
Grith thought she might protest. A horse at full gallop was a dangerous thing, especially on roads as packed with travelers as those leading out of Kwell. She could easily run into a ditch trying to avoid a group of farmers, or throw a shoe, or any number of things that were likely to get her killed.
He was surprised when she nodded. “I will need an hour to buy supplies.”
“So will we.”
“And just where are we headed?” Grith demanded. He would have thought the best course of action would be to go back to Ytem with Jionis, but it seemed that Tain, as always, had other plans.
“Out across the plains.” Grith already didn’t like where this was going, but he didn’t open his mouth to interrupt his teacher. “We need to warn the watch at the Sikara Bridge. Uche said there’s a small garrison there.”
“You mad bastard! You expect us to hold off the Cutarans, don’t you?” Grith could hardly believe what he was hearing. He had always thought of Tain as a brave man. He had watched him throw himself into harm’s way a half dozen times, but this was something different entirely. They weren’t talking about fighting a few dozen Highlanders. They were talking about holding off an army of bloodthirsty savages!
Tain nodded. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we need to buy time for Irrin and Uche to get their armies to the bridge. If we can bottle up the Cutarans at Sikara, they might have a fighting chance.”
Grith gritted his teeth and looked away. He would be putting his life on the line for Irrin yet again. I don’t know what you expected, the rational part of him said. You are his bodyguard.
“Fine,” he finally said when he couldn’t think of a decent retort. “But its hundreds of miles to the Divide. How do we get there and still have time to mount a defense?”
“We ride these horses out onto the savanna, and past the Front. Then, when they give out, we run.”
“Run? And how do you plan on us running the rest of the fucking distance?”
Tain grinned boyishly. “We’re Delvers, in case you forgot. Give us enough food and we can run forever.” He shrugged. “Or until we drop dead of exhaustion. I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
Grith groaned. No matter how the next few days went, he knew this would all end in agony, whether they survived or not.
Twenty-Five:
Grith
Their packs laden with provisions, Grith and Tain rode through Kwell’s eastern gate, bound for the Sikara Divide. Jionis split from them a few miles down the road, holding her eastern heading. They said their goodbyes and wished her luck, watching as she galloped into the distance.
“It’s time,” Tain said when they could no longer see her silhouette on the horizon. “Weapons?”
Grith patted the spear and bow belted to his saddle and checked his blade, an arming sword he had bought from an Akivian merchant who catered to mercenaries from the Empire. Tain had opted for a heavy montante, a type of two-handed sword favored by Toashani heavy infantry. It was the perfect weapon for a Delver, or so Tain claimed
“Good. Then we can get this Tirrak damned trip over with.” Tain spurred his horse forward to a full gallop, heading off the road east and across fields of rice and sorghum. Grith followed him, relying on the natural skill and speed of his mount to carry him through unscathed. Stalks of sorghum whipped against the side of his legs. His shoes protected him against the worst of the beating, but by the time they broke through the fields and out onto open ground, his legs were raw through the cloth of his breeches.
Tain set a hard pace, and Grith was suddenly glad he had traded in his pony for a fine riding horse. All pretense of him being Fanlakiri had been thoroughly torn to shreds. He wore a blue doublet over a silk shirt and breeches, along with the fencing shoes he had received in Saleno. The coat’s fabric was heavy enough to turn light sword strikes, but not so heavy as to limit his movement.
Tain was even more lightly equipped, wearing a patterned coat of green and gold, with trousers to match. It would offer precious little protection in a fight against the Cutarans. Instead Tain would have to rely on speed and skill to get him through the battle unscathed.
Grith imagined how strange he must look, wearing Corrossan clothing while bearing the dark red hair of a Fanalkiri, free of its braid and left to whip free in the wind. But Spirits, it was good to be moving again, even if they were rushing headlong into the path of a Cutaran horde. That pleasure didn’t last long.
* * *
Their horses gave out during the sixth hour out of Kwell. It was a sad thing, to put the beasts down, but better a quick death by Grith and Tain’s blades, than a slow demise out in the hills.
When they had finished their bloody work, Tain stood, surveying the plains ahead. The hills that curtained the coastal regions were to their backs, standing like sentinels in the evening sun. They had passed a few farms in the last hours, little more than yurts seen to by hard men and women who scoffed at the threat of Cutaran raids. Out here, where the lands were hard and dry, and where the leavings of storms off the Godsea were the only source of rain, it paid to be a tough bastard. Grith just hoped he was made of the same stuff.
Tain grabbed his pack and unloaded a small feast onto the ground before him. There were dried meats, cheeses, and of course, the ever present Broth, mixed together from all the nastiest ingredients they could find. Grith dumped his own pack and gulped down a full skin of the liquid. It was harsh, but he had gotten used to the strange taste a long time ago. His body filled with fresh strength, he tore into the food. It was typical road fare, dry and spiced only enough for preservation, but still good, especially with his appetite
When he had eaten his fill, Grith rose to his feet and flexed muscles full of fire. He felt like he could run for hours on end without rest. Lucky thing then, that he was about to do just that.
“Ready?” Tain asked, throwing his pack back over his shoulders and checking his shoes. They were formal, the kind a wealthy merchant might wear on his daily strolls. Grith’s shoes were more practical, but their soft soles would hold up no better on the rough terrain out here, all hard packed dirt, stone, and gnarled roots cleverly concealed behind tall grass. If Grith didn’t know better he would have thought his long dead ancestors wanted to see him trip and break his neck.
Grith nodded his reply and began to jog, working his muscles, ensuring they were loose. They gained speed slowly, working their way up to a run and quickly hitting the edge of what a normal man could muster before pushing beyond. Copses of trees and small fields of upturned stones passed in a blur as they drove harder and harder, until they were traveling fast enough to keep up with a galloping horse. Then they did the impossible. They went faster still.
Hour upon hour passed in a haze. They halted only when Grith felt like he was going to give out, the energy within him depleted to the point that his hands shook and his head felt like it would split open. Grith threw his pack on the ground and grabbed a large piece of dried meat from inside. “We’re making good time,” Tain said between bites of flatbread pulled from his own satchel. The sun was beginning to set in the west. Soon, they would be running in the dark, their Deepening enhanced senses the only thing stopping them from stumbling around completely blind.
“We’ll take a rest in…” he checked the position of the sun in relation to the Sky Father. “Five hours. That’ll be our last sleep until we reach the Divide.”
“How long?” Grith asked around heavy breaths.
Tain shook his head. “If we can keep up this pace, maybe the day after tomorrow.”
Grith gaped. It didn’t seem possible, even at the speed they were running. They would reach Sikara, three hundred miles away, in a little over two days. “This is the way to travel,” he said, stretching his back and trying to relieve some of the tension he’d built up in the last hours.
“You won’t be saying that by the time we’re finished.”
Grith nodded. “And we have to fight a battle at the end.”
“We just have to hope Irrin and Uche arrive first. I’m not looking forward to fighting seven thousand men all by myself.”
Grith gave a grim chuckle. “You act like I’m not going to be there. There’s the garrison too. They have to count for something.”
Tain didn’t reply. He kept his emerald eyes on the darkening plains, pensive. He was wrestling with something, Grith knew. Probably his own death. He’d had a lot of time to think about that topic himself in the last hours. They were running headlong into a fight they couldn’t win.
Grith had no doubt the Cutarans would be defeated, of course. The Emperor or one of his lords would eventually turn their army east, and crush these barbarians before they could lay waste to another city along the Fanalkiri coast. But Tain and Uche and Irrin and his friends in their pike squad would be long dead by then.
And Grith..? Grith would have to find a way to survive… as he always had.
Twenty-Six:
Kareen
“She didn’t lie, your Highness,” Oranhur growled. Kareen looked up from her seat, glad and slightly surprised to have the man come to her defense. “She was deceived. We all were.”
“But this girl… she was the vehicle of that deceit,” Hadan said from behind his planning table. He made even the small folding chair on which he sat look like a throne, and his forest green command tent a palace. His eyes seemed to bore through Kareen, stripping her down to her bones and revealing any lies she might have tried to hide beneath. She tried not to wilt under that gaze, but Tirrak, it was like trying to out-stare the sun.
“And does that mean she needs to be punished, your Highness? Should we execute the misled as we would spies?”
Hadan held up a hand. “Enough, Oranhur.” He sounded as if he was chiding an unruly child, and not his finest general. “I would like to hear the story from the girl’s own lips.” He leaned forward and steepled his fingers on the table before him.
She looked away. Kareen had to keep reminding herself that eye contact with a man as powerful as the Emperor would be as good as a slap across the face. “I…” She took a deep breath. “I’ve already told you my story, Your Highness. I didn’t leave out a single detail. I made sure of it.”
It was true. She had told him everything from the time she had been captured to the moment she had been found by the strange Delver out on the savanna. “But I can see now where I went wrong. My escape was too easy, for one. But, Your Highness, you have to understand that at the time, it seemed convincing. And I…” Her voice nearly cracked, as her thoughts were invariably drawn to Livran. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”
Hadan nodded. He slowly rose to his feet and circled to the other side of the table. “My advisors have told me to kill you, banish you, at least. They say you are some sort of spy for the enemy. I asked them why a human girl would work for the Cutarans and none of them could give me a satisfactory answer. So for now, you are free.” He stopped his pacing and fixed her with a withering stare. “But understand that if you make another mistake, I will not be able to save you. The dogs scratch even at my door. And they want flesh.”
Kareen nodded. She just hoped Xisa didn’t have any more tricks up her sleeve, or she would likely find her head on a pike before the week was out.
“I think the girl is frightened enough for now,” Hadan told Oranhur. He waved her to her feet. “Now, to business. How goes the scouting?”
“Our light cavalry just reported back, your Highness,” the general replied. “They caught up with the Cutarans two days ago and engaged their rear line.”
“Engaged?” Hadan asked. There was the slightest tinge of frustration in his tone. Kareen hadn’t even heard anger when he had been in the throes of her interrogation, hadn’t heard it since Hadan had learned of Livran’s death. This must be serious indeed. Regardless, Kareen felt a weight lift off her shoulders. The Emperor’s wrath was being directed elsewhere. For now at least, she was free of his ire.
“Their orders were simple: scout out the Cutaran numbers and report back. They were ordered to attack only if they saw a weakness, and then only to harass the enemy.”
“Lord Remon…” the general took a deep breath. “Charged in. He made good progress at first, nearly breaking the Cutaran rearguard if the reports are correct. But he became overconfident, if his second is to be believed, rushed in his cavalry, thinking he could
break through into the undefended center of the army.” Kareen could see Oranhur balling his hands into fists. “He lost two hundred men, including half the Rose Guard.”
Kareen had heard her older brother, Tolen, speak of the Rose Guard. They were Toashan’s best, mounted archers not dissimilar to the scouts who had accompanied Oranhur to the first abandoned Cutaran camp.
“Bring Lord Remon to me,” Hadan hissed. There was barely controlled rage in his voice, a dangerous anger. “I want him to answer me… in person.”
“I’m sorry, your Highness,” Oranhur said reluctantly. “Lord Remon took an arrow in the neck during the last charge. The men are returning his body to camp as we speak, but-”
“Have them burn it,” Hadan said, almost casually. “And make his men gather the kindling.”
Kareen’s jaw almost hit the floor. “You can’t!” she cried, covering her mouth when she realized how far out of line she had just stepped. “Your Highness…” she began, more slowly this time. “His soul… if his body does not survive, it will never join Tirrak in the Seas Above.”
Hadan shook his head. “A fitting punishment then, for a fool. He can die like one of those barbarians. They burn their dead, do they not?”
This was beyond criminal, beyond even murder. Lord Remon would be denied an afterlife, destroyed for all eternity. She could feel tears well up in her eyes. Not for Remon, a man she had never even seen, much less known, but for Livran. The Cutarans had probably put his body to the torch as well. Xisa might have even known of the sin she was committing. The woman would undoubtedly take satisfaction, in knowing she had destroyed Livran’s soul.
“You must understand the uncomfortable truths of running an Empire,” Hadan told her. “It means you must often do unsavory things. If there was no punishment for Remon’s stupidity, then more men might try to try to win glory in the same way. The nobility are fools, all of them.”
Oranhur cleared his throat. “Your Highness… we did receive numbers.”
The Argument of Empires Page 33
