by DAVID B. COE
Gries had halted his mount beside Enly. He, too, had his sword drawn, but his blade arm had dropped to his side.
"What is he doing here?" he whispered.
"You know him?" Enly asked.
Gries looked at him. "Of course. Don't you?"
Enly shook his head.
"That's Torgan Plye."
Enly stared at the stranger again. "The merchant? You're sure?"
"Absolutely. I've spent enough gold on his wares over the years. I'd know him anywhere."
Jenoe and Tirnya rode out to meet the man, and after a moment's hesitation, Gries joined them. Enly followed.
"I'd heard there was an Eandi army marching on the plain," Torgan called to them, beaming. "I never would have guessed that it would be so grand and impressive a force. I take it you're their commander," he said to Jenoe.
"That's right. Jenoe Onjaef, marshal of-"
"The Qalsyn army," the man broke in. "Of course. I should have recognized the uniforms. Your name is known throughout the land, Marshal."
"And you are, sir?" Tirnya's father asked, still sounding wary.
"Torgan Plye. I once was a merchant of some renown. More recently I've been a prisoner of the Fal'Borna."
"What?" the marshal said, his blue eyes widening.
"I was taken hostage by the Fal'Borna after I sold baskets to a sept near the Companion Lakes. The baskets were cursed with a plague that killed the white-hairs and destroyed their village. They thought I was to blame and they threatened to kill me. They took another merchant hostage as well. A younger man; a friend of mine. I managed to escape with my life. He didn't."
Jenoe was gaping at the man. "You're telling me that this plague was… was caused by magic?"
"Yes. A Mettai spell."
"Impossible!"
Everyone turned toward Fayonne, who stood a short distance off, her face pale, her white hair shifting in the wind. Her fists were clenched, her back rigid.
"There are no Mettai who would conjure such an illness!" she said.
"Forgive me, good woman," Torgan said, his tone less courteous than his words. "But it's the truth. I saw the Mettai woman who sold the baskets, and I saw what these baskets did. I even met two Mettai men who came from her village, and who claimed to have killed her in order to keep her from spreading her plague."
"Where are these men now?" Jenoe asked.
"I don't know, Marshal. Last I knew, they had been taken by the Fal'Borna as well. I assume they're dead."
Jenoe nodded, then asked, "How long has it been since you won your freedom, Torgan?"
"A long time. I… I lost my way. I've been traveling by night and sleeping by day, hoping that the Fal'Borna wouldn't be able to track me. But with the moons rising later and later, and then not at all a few nights ago… As I say, I got lost."
"Well, you should be on your way now," the marshal told him. "This is no place for an Eandi merchant."
"No!" Torgan said. "I can help you! I can be of more use to you than you could possibly know. And all I ask in return is a hit of food and your protection."
"Do you have a cart nearby, sir?" Enly asked. "Or have you stored your wares someplace close?"
Torgan frowned. "No. The Fal'Borna took all of my goods and destroyed my cart."
"So you're an Eandi merchant in Fal'Borna lands, and you have no goods to sell, no cart to carry supplies." Enly glanced briefly at Gries, who was grinning. "Forgive me for saying so, but you don't appear to be a swordsman, and I doubt very much that you'd be an effective lookout. What use do you think you can be to us?"
Jenoe cast a disapproving look Enly's way, but one of the Waterstone captains snickered.
The man's frown deepened. "I'll be glad to tell you, Captain. But not in front of all these men." Facing Jenoe once more he straightened, as if trying to reclaim a scrap of his dignity. "I request a word with you in private, Marshal. If after we're done you still wish to send me away, I'll go, though I would be grateful for one small meal before I do. It's been days since I ate well."
For a moment Enly thought that Jenoe would refuse. The marshal seemed to begrudge even this small delay, and though he might have thought Enly discourteous for speaking to the man as he had, he clearly was as skeptical of Torgan's claims as Enly had been. After some hesitation, however, he relented.
"The men need a rest," he said, as if explaining himself to his captains and Marshal Crish. "I'll give you a few moments, sir, and then we have to be moving again. This enemy doesn't rest."
Torgan nodded.
At a barked command from Stri Balkett, the soldiers broke formation. Some sat on the grass; others remained standing but pulled out food or waterskins. Jenoe, Hendrid, and several of the captains, including Enly, Gries, and Tirnya, clustered around the merchant.
"Now, what is it you believe you can do for us, Torgan?" Jenoe asked. "Quickly."
"As I told you," the man said, his voice low, "this plague was spread by cursed Mettai baskets. At one point the white-hairs who held me prisoner found a sept that had been destroyed by the plague. Apparently when the Qirsi are sickened they lose control over their magic and it destroys everything in sight. It's something to behold, I'll tell you. Fire magic, shaping: those white-hairs-"
"Is there a point to this?" the marshal demanded.
Torgan licked his lips. "Yes, of course. Forgive me, Marshal. The point is this: While we were in that ruined village, I found a piece of one of those baskets. I still have it with me."
At first, no one said a word. They just stared at the merchant, who stared right back at them, waiting for some sort of response, an expectant smile on his scarred face. As the moments passed, and no response came, the smile faded.
"Let me see if I understand this," Jenoe said at last. "There are cursed baskets out there that have spread this white-hair plague across the plain. And you have one of them? With you?"
"Not a basket," Torgan said. "Just a scrap. A piece of one of the baskets that brought the plague to this village we found."
"A scrap," Jenoe repeated, clearly skeptical. "And what do you propose we do with it?"
Torgan opened his mouth, closed it again. He eyed them with unconcealed consternation. "Isn't it clear?" he said. "Do you really need me to explain this to you?"
"You want us to use the plague as a weapon," Tirnya said. "You think that this scrap of basket can spread the illness to more settlements."
"I know it can," Torgan said. "That's how I got away from the Fal'Borna in the first place. I sickened the white-hairs who held me prisoner and then I left them. Whatever curse the Mettai first put on this basket is still there. It still works."
Tirnya looked at her father, clearly troubled. Enly was relieved to see this. Over the past few turns, as she pushed for this invasion and then for the alliance with Fayonne and her people, Tirnya had seemed to transform herself into someone he hardly even recognized. He had feared that even if she and her father managed to regain their family's ancestral home, she would have to sacrifice too much in the effort. He had feared for her humanity.
But seeing the look of fear and disgust on her face, seeing the way she regarded Torgan, Enly was reassured. He fully expected that her father would send this one-eyed merchant away. It was bad enough that they had to rely on Mettai magic in this war. But to use the white-hair plague as a weapon was unthinkable. Enly wasn't even sure he thought it possible. Fayonne seemed certain that the merchant was lying, and while Enly didn't regard her as the most reliable source of information, in this case he was inclined to agree with her. He'd never heard of any magic-Qirsi or Mettai-being able to create an illness of this sort. He couldn't begin to imagine the evil that would conceive of such a thing. But whether or not this curse was real, Enly wanted no part of the merchant or his basket.
He couldn't have been more surprised when the marshal said, after several moments' reflection, "We'll need to discuss this further. For now, Torgan, you'll ride with the army."
"Father?" Tirnya said, as
if scarcely believing what she'd heard.
Jenoe glowered at her. "We'll discuss this later, Captain." He wheeled his horse away from the rest. "I want these men moving again," he called over his shoulder.
Tirnya glanced at Enly, her expression grim. But she didn't say anything more, and after a moment she steered her mount after Jenoe's.
"You heard him," Hendrid said. "Let's get these men moving."
"Make war on a demon," Gries muttered, "and you'll become a demon yourself."
It was an old expression, dating to the earliest years of the Blood Wars. "That may be the only way to win," the captain added.
Enly looked at him. "I'm not sure victory is worth it."
Gries raised an eyebrow. "Careful, Enly. Talk like that can get a man hanged."
"You disagree?"
Fairlea's lord heir gave a faint smile, though the look in his eyes remained deadly serious. "I never said that."
They fed him, which for the moment was all Torgan really cared about. They would use his scrap of Mettai basket, or they wouldn't. They'd offer him protection until this damn war ended, or they'd send him on his way, leaving him to fend for himself and avoid the Fal'Borna as best he could. For now he'd done what he could to convince these soldiers to accept his aid. The rest was up to the marshal and his captains, and Torgan couldn't bring himself to care what they decided to do.
He was exhausted and cold and hungrier than he could ever remember being. It had taken him the better part of a day to find Trey again after his encounter with Jasha's ghost. And then it had taken another half day to convince the horse to let him approach, much less ride. Not that Torgan could blame the beast. Those wraiths had left him shaken, too. He couldn't sleep for several days after.
With the moons waxing again, he tried to travel by night, but he was starting to grow weak with hunger, and suddenly his blanket and overshirt seemed no match for the cold. Progress came slowly; every unexpected sound made him jump, made his heart race. He couldn't say with any certainty which he feared more: the Fal'Borna or Jasha and his fellow shades.
Now, though, the Fal'Borna couldn't reach him, at least not without first overpowering several thousand of Stelpana's finest warriors. And despite the dread that gripped him whenever the sun set, he knew that the wraiths couldn't haunt him again, either. Not until the last night of next year's Memory Moon. If he lived that long.
He hadn't been looking for the Eandi army. He didn't know for certain where they had crossed the Silverwater or which way they would head once they were in Fal'Borna land, though he could have guessed that they would march toward the Horn. He wasn't even entirely certain that the rumors of their approach were true. He had been trying to sleep in a shallow hollow when he heard them. At first he'd trembled with fear, convinced that a Fal'Borna army had come, and that they would find him at any moment. When he realized that he was hearing his own people rather than white-hairs, his relief was so profound that he nearly wept.
He didn't wish to let on just how scared and desperate for their protection he was. Nor did he want to give them cause to doubt his version of what happened to Jasha. So he silently thanked the gods for this singular stroke of good fortune and behaved as though he had been searching for the army.
And he ate. Dried meat, hard cheese, stale bread. It was hardly the meal he had imagined again and again over the past several nights, as he tried to ignore the ache in his hollow belly. But it was better than air and water. After he had eaten his fill-he remembered being able to eat more than this; where had his appetite gone?-he began to feel more like himself. He also sensed the kernel of an idea forming in his mind, one that took him far beyond a bit of protection and a meal or two. One that might well put him on the path to regaining the prosperity he had lost.
Since hearing that an army of Eandi warriors intended to attack the Fal'Borna, Torgan had wondered what their leaders could have been thinking. The Fal'Borna were savage warriors and skilled sorcerers. No one knew better than he how merciless they could be with their enemies. And no one with any knowledge of the Blood Wars could doubt that they were more than a match for whatever army the sovereignties sent across the Silverwater.
Or were they? He'd seen the devastation at S'Vralna. He knew what this plague had done to the mighty Fal'Borna. The leaders of the Eandi must have known this as well. They were counting on the fact that the white-hairs were weak, their numbers depleted, their cities ruined. The Fal'Borna were no longer the formidable enemy they once had been.
There was hope for this invasion. And though Torgan had been intent on reaching the wash and the safety of Eandi lands, he now saw that the opportunity for the armies of Stelpana was also an opportunity for him. If this army could retake the Horn, they would reestablish an Eandi presence on the plain for the first time in more than a hundred years. The new Eandi outposts would need goods; they would need trade. They would need a merchant with knowledge of the Qirsi to help them provision themselves. They would need him.
Yes, there were risks. But he'd overcome worse in the past several turns. He'd escaped the Fal'Borna who held him prisoner, and more to the point, he'd thrown off his own cowardice. He still feared death, but he also feared living out the rest of his days as a pauper. He'd made plenty of enemies during his more prosperous days; many of them would delight in seeing him broken and humiliated. Regaining his wealth in Tordjanne or Stelpana or any of the other Eandi realms wouldn't be easy.
But as the first merchant in a new Deraqor, he'd be in a position to make a fortune. And traveling with this army, he'd be safer than he would be trying to complete the journey to Stelpana on his own.
As the idea took form in his mind, he became conscious of the men around him. He watched the marshal and the captains who rode with him, trying to determine which of them was most likely to help him.
He also watched the Mettai woman who had as much as called him a liar. He entertained no hope of winning her support, but he wanted to know what he was up against. And it became clear to him almost immediately that she was no threat at all. She and her people walked in the van, alongside the captains and Stelpana's bowmen. But in all other ways the Mettai clearly were outcasts in this army,. They didn't trust the Eandi, and they knew that they themselves were mistrusted.
That left him with one obvious enemy.
"Excuse me," he said to one of the soldiers marching beside him. "Can you tell me who that woman is riding with the marshal?"
"Tha's Tirnya Onjaef," the man said, in a voice that told Torgan that she was a woman of some renown. "She's th' marshal's daughter."
That much he had gathered.
"And she's a captain in his army?"
The man nodded. "Didn' think much o' her a' first. Bu' she's bett'r 'n most. An' she's good with a sword, too. Nearly beat old Enly hisself in this year's tournament."
Torgan nodded. "I see. And Enly is?"
The soldier pointed at another of the captains, a trim, dark-haired man. "Enly tolm. He's-"
"Ah!" Torgan said. "The lord governor's son."
"Tha's right."
"What else can you tell me about the Onjaef girl?"
The man narrowed his eyes. "Wha'chya wan' t' know?"
Torgan forced a smile. "Forgive me. I don't mean to seem disrespectful. I'm curious, that's all. It's not often that one encounters a woman like that leading an army to battle."
"She is a beauty, air' she?" the man agreed. "There's some wha' says tha' she an' Enly are a pair, if ya knows wha' I mean."
"Really?" Torgan said. "Is it true?"
The soldier shrugged. "Don' know. Don' really care. Long as they leads us right, th' rest don' matter t' me."
Torgan asked the man a few more questions, but though the soldier talked for the better part of an hour, he learned precious little about Tirnya Onjaef. They called her the Falcon, just as they had once called her father the Eagle. She had lost the Qalsyn battle tournament in the final match three years running. And each time she had been beaten by Enly. T
hat did strike Torgan as useful information, though he wasn't yet certain how to use it.
After a while, he thanked the man and increased Trey's pace enough to pull ahead of him. He rode alone for the rest of the day, and when the army halted for the night and began to make camp, he did his best to stay out of everyone's way. He lingered near the marshal and at one point even caught the man's eye. But though the marshal nodded to him, he didn't approach or give Torgan any indication that he wished to resume their conversation.
"That was all right with Torgan. This was much like making a sale in the marketplace. He had something that the marshal might well want at some point. But if Torgan pushed too hard or seemed too anxious for the marshal to use it, he'd never close the deal. Better to wait for the man to come to him.
If he still had his wares and belongings with him he would have pulled out his flask of Qosantian whiskey and approached the captains. He'd never yet known a soldier to turn down a sip of the Qosantian brew, and over the years he'd found that it could loosen even the tightest of tongues. But he had nothing to offer these men or the marshal's daughter, and he wasn't sure what kind of reception he'd get if he tried to inject himself into their conversation. None of them seemed to give a thought to approaching him.
He sat beside a small fire at the fringe of the camp, savoring the full feeling in his belly while Trey grazed nearby. He listened to the quiet hum of the campground, catching snatches of distant conversation and laughter, or verses of battle songs sung slightly out of tune. And he waited. He felt reasonably sure that he wouldn't have to wait long.
She didn't like the merchant. Not at all. She couldn't say why; she just …I didn't trust him. Even now, sitting with the other captains, she could feel his one eye on them, on her. He kept a respectful distance, but he intruded with his furtive glances. He made her skin crawl.
Most of all, she was repulsed by his suggestion that they use the plague to attack the Fal'Borna. And she was deeply disturbed by her father's willingness to consider the notion.
