by Kate Elliott
Reeves learned the knack of waking to alertness. Joss rolled up to his feet as Peddonon stepped back, and they hurried outside, slipped on sandals, and followed the steward and his lamp through the darkness. Clan Hall had been built along pretty much the entire northern rim of the rock, with various launching points over the drop from bare scaffoldings that also served as secondary watchtowers. Where clouds parted, a half-moon appeared low in the west. They hurried along the wall walk. Fires glimmered where the enemy had set up guard stations along the Istri Walk. They descended a ladder into a pit hewn out of the rock, musty with damp and mold. A gate was set ajar.
The steward halted. “I can’t go out on the ledge with the lamp. Be careful.”
Joss and Peddonon paced along a stone-walled corridor, the echo of the river’s voice murmuring around them. They emerged cautiously onto a ledge with the wind tearing along the cliff face to their left, upriver. Downstream and curving away to the right, the prow rose to its peak. A pair of burning lamps marked the humble shelter protecting the stele for which the promontory was named. Four reeves lowered a big basket over the edge and eased out the ropes.
The ledge was a sheer drop to the water many hundred baton-lengths below, where a sliver of rocky shoreline was hidden behind broken boulders. The shoreline was pretty much impossible to reach, since you either had to battle the nasty shoreline current in a boat and cut a treacherous angle in among the rocks, or climb out along the lower face of the cliff.
Of course there were folk so reckless and stupid as to enjoy the challenge; he’d been one back when he was young. One time he’d dared a particularly fabulously defiant lass, a banner clan girl, to meet him there at sunset. That had truly been a memorable night.
“Thinking of that banner clan girl?” Peddonon whispered.
“Aui! How’d you know about that?”
“Everyone knows all about your adventures. They’re famous in Clan Hall. They’ll make a cycle of stories from them someday, the tale of the Handsome Reeve.”
“A comic tale, no doubt.”
Peddonon snickered.
The reeves handling the rope tensed. “Got it. Hauling up.”
Peddonon grabbed the safety rope and braced himself against a pair of stakes hammered diagonally into the rock face. Joss stayed out of the way, rubbing his chin, enjoying the feel of the bristles. He needed a shave. How in the hells could he sort out the complications that dogged him?
Last year, a huge army had swept down out of the northern wilderness under the command of Lord Radas. The army had overwhelmed cities and villages across Haldia and now Istria, throwing the land into chaos; they’d even sent a second army south to attack the city of Olossi. In the south, Captain Anji’s outlander Qin soldiers had, with the aid of the reeves of Argent Hall, defeated that second army. At the behest of Olossi’s new council, the captain was training an expanded militia to protect the entire region of Olo’osson. Meanwhile his soldiers were beginning to marry local women under the supervision of his beautiful and extremely clever wife, Mai. Who had ten days ago given birth to a boy child over whom Joss now stood as uncle.
Aui!
The reeves and eagles of Horn Hall had vanished. Folk claimed to see Guardians walking abroad, while others called them demons or cloaks and identified them with the leaders of the marauding army. His own work as marshal at Argent Hall had become complicated by the arrival of numerous unjessed eagles seeking new reeves, so many that they’d had to establish a secondary training hall. Naya Hall had been raised on the western shore of the Olo’o Sea near the settlement founded by Captain Anji on land deeded to him and his wife as part of their payment for aiding Olossi. Elsewhere in the Hundred, folk burned out of their villages wandered the roads. Children went hungry. Half the people Joss met while on patrol no longer trusted reeves. And now the desperate reeves of Clan Hall, blindsided by the murder of their most experienced reeves, wanted him to sit as commander over all the reeve halls. Yet the other reeve halls were beleaguered and uncooperative. Why should they agree to a new commander, much less Joss? He rubbed his head, wondering if he was going to get a headache.
It was difficult to imagine how his life could become more tangled.
“Here we are,” muttered a male voice.
They heaved the basket up over the edge and dragged it back from the brink. A single person sat inside.
“Eh, that was a ride, I’ll tell you,” she said as she clambered out. “I thought I was going to pitch right over and fall to my death. And I’ll tell you—that path out along the rock isn’t a path at all! It’s not even a goat track. I slipped into the river twice. I’m soaking wet.”
Joss sagged against the rock as his pulse hammered in his ears.
“Best we know who you are first.” Peddonon stepped out from the wall.
She chuckled, as Joss knew she would. “I’m called Zubaidit. I convinced some brave clan folk within Toskala to get me up here. I’ve a message from them. But truly, I come from the south, from Olo’osson, at the behest of the Olossi council and their allies. I have news to pass back to Olossi, if you reeves will carry it.”
“Do you know about this, Joss?” Peddonon asked.
“Surely not Marshal Joss of Argent Hall?”
“The same,” Joss said, surprised at how smoothly his voice came out, not much of a croak at all. “Well met, Zubaidit. What of the other scouts?”
“I’d be happy to give my report. But must I stand here in these wet clothes, with the wind chilling me?” she asked, the curl of her voice such a blatant tease that his ears burned. “Or is there somewhere I can take them off?”
Cursed if every gods-rotted reeve standing there didn’t start snickering, trying to hide the sound beneath hands clapped over mouths.
Smothering his own laughter, Peddonon said, “It seems you two know each other. But if you don’t mind, can we get off this cursed ledge before one of us falls to his death? I mean, the one who hasn’t already taken the plunge.”
Snorting and chortling, the other reeves hurried away through the arch and down the corridor, leaving Joss to follow Peddonon and Zubaidit. The glow of the steward’s lamp illuminated the assassin as she looked over her shoulder at him.
It wasn’t that he’d seen her so cursed many times in his life, since that first day less than a year ago when she had flirted with him and afterward tried to kill him. It was just that he remembered so well every curve, the way her hips tilted as she walked, the lift of her chin. The way you knew she knew how to use her body, trained in Ushara’s temple as the most deadly of assassins. Her vest and kilt were soaked, the cloth clinging to her like a second skin. Whew!
She grinned.
He was like a man staggering after a blow to the head.
“You’re the messenger?” asked the steward, drawing her attention.
“I am.”
“You fell in the river?” Neffi asked with an appreciative grin. “I did that once, climbing the same route.”
“Does every local in this city know it?”
“We here in the reeve halls do, obviously. We try to keep quiet about it.” He winked past her, at Joss. “Some managed better than others.”
The reeves clambering up the ladder were laughing, bolder now inside, where there was no chance they’d be spotted by the enemy. “Trust Joss to know every adventuresome female . . .” one was saying as his voice broke into guffaws.
“Let’s get on with this,” said Joss curtly. “Neffi, can you get her dry clothes?”
“I was joking about the clothes.” The jesting tease molted right out of her tone. Her brows drew down as Neffi, frowning in confusion, lowered the lamp. “Best I deliver my report right here and then you lot lower me back down to my contact so I can return to the city before daybreak.”
Peddonon called to the reeves. “Heya, boys. Go get Odash and the other seniors. Then get back here yourselves, or get fresh muscle. Move!”
“We can fly you back to Olossi,” said Joss.
; She shook her head. “I haven’t completed my mission.”
He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look nonchalant. “Go on. What of the other scouts?”
“What other scouts?” Peddonon asked.
“Seven scouts walked out of Olo’osson. We were delayed by lendings for a few days and lost our horses to them, but carried on, on foot. One of your reeves spotted us outside Horn and flew down to deliver a message to Shai. Now I don’t know if it was him coming down with that cursed eagle, or if we had already been seen anyway, but a cadre of outlaws attacked our encampment on his heels. They killed Edard and captured Shai.”
“Edard was the censor.”
“That’s right. One of Kotaru’s Thunderers. Pretty cursed useless, if you ask me, but Tohon and I managed despite his clumsy attempts at leadership. Anyway, our lad Shai was captured and we had to follow that cadre lest they hand him over to one of those cloaks. As it turned out, we weren’t the ones who rescued him. The outlander demon the reeve came to warn us about, an ugly pale girl with demon-blue eyes, she killed the whole cursed cadre with her magic and left us with Shai and the children the cadre had taken as slaves.”
Peddonon whistled, and the steward shook his head.
“Those children were badly misused.” Her expression darkened until she looked as if she’d have been happy to cut the throats of every one of those outlaws. Which, no doubt, she’d have done, given the opportunity. “I’ll cut the rest of that tale short. Eridit, the two militiamen, and Tohon went south with the children to Nessumara, which we thought would be safe.”
“They were spotted, safe on the river.”
She smiled, then lifted her gaze as her smile faded. “As you know, I was given another mission.”
“A mission that will almost certainly lead to your death. Why go on?”
“Because I’ll die anyway, whether today, or tomorrow, or when I’ve reached the venerable age of eighty-four, having seen seven rounds of the year cycle. It’s necessary to take the risk to achieve the ends. Things are worse than you know. The news I bring from Toskala tonight is that the army is marching south on Nessumara.”
“The hells!” exclaimed Peddonon and Neffi in unison.
“They’re driving out all the refugees from Toskala. They’ve ruthlessly cut loose all the camp followers who marched with them from Walshow and sent them away. They intend to take hostages from every clan and family and guild compound in Toskala. Those hostages will serve the army on the march through Istria. The hostages also will stand as surety for the good behavior of the Toskalans. The army will leave a garrison behind, but the threat to the hostages will be what keeps the population in order. I hope to go with the army as a hostage. Once with the army, I’ll keep my eyes open, and strike when opportunity arises.”
“A dangerous venture,” said Peddonon with an admiring whistle.
“What do you think, Marshal?” Her gaze challenged him.
He wasn’t about to show how much it bothered him to think of her risking herself like that. “What about the seventh scout? What did you say his name is?”
“Shai?”
“Isn’t he the uncle of the captain’s wife? He’s an outlander, but not Qin.”
Her lips quirked. “Those outlanders all look alike to me, Marshal.” But she didn’t mean it; she was just goading him, because sometimes a person took you that way, that you had to constantly be poking at them to get a reaction. It was not quite, and not only, lust, and it wasn’t truly love; sometimes two bodies just fell out that way, impossible to explain why.
They’d had no chance to act.
Maybe they never would.
“It’s gotten cursed hot in here,” muttered Peddonon.
Neffi said, without anger, “Oh, shut up, Peddo. This is cursed serious, you idiot.”
Joss pushed away from the wall as he heard voices. Odash, Kesta, a fawkner, and another senior reeve climbed down the ladder. A flurry of questions filled the dark chamber. Zubaidit restated her news about Toskala. He could not look away from her as she talked in that forceful, silky voice.
“What help do you want from us?” he asked when she was done.
“I was told the commander of Clan Hall is a woman. Where is she?”
Haltingly, Odash relayed the tale of Traitors’ Night, and as he related the story of betrayal and the murder of Toskala’s council and all the senior reeves, her gaze flicked from Joss’s face to each shadowed face of the others listening.
When Odash had finished, Zubaidit looked at Joss. “So. All the witnesses counted six cloaks departing from the rock after the murders. It seems the ghost girl has joined their ranks. Some call them Guardians, and they ride winged horses, as it says in the tale. But I also hear people call them demons. What are they?”
Witnesses had reported that one of the demons seen in Justice Square wore a cloak that gleamed in the night like polished bone; it could not have been Marit. She walked in his dreams, not on earth. Yet the strange words she spoke in his dreams haunted him: I see with my third eye and I understand with my second heart that they are corrupted, so I dare not approach them. They will destroy me if they find me.
A person can be destroyed in many ways, not just through death.
His clenched jaw was going to bring on another gods-rotted headache. “How can any of us know what a Guardian is? Or what they want. A cloaked man called Lord Radas commands this army, that I am sure of.”
“Lord Radas is the one I mean to kill, but if Clan Hall’s commander is dead, then who stands as commander over all the reeve halls now?”
All looked at Joss.
“You?” she demanded.
He sighed.
She made a noise rather like a chuckle and something like a cough of disdain. “Have you any plan other than holding out up here as kind of a stick poking them in the eye?”
“Heya!” objected Kesta furiously. “If we hold this rock, then we give hope to others.”
Zubaidit’s grin caused Kesta to settle. “It’s a brave choice, and the right one. But you’ll need a plan.”
“What do you suggest?” drawled Joss, annoyed at her way of blowing in like a strong wind and expecting everything to bend before her. “Since you seem so cursed sure of yourself.”
Her grin sharpened as with anger before it curved into a frown. “I don’t know what’s to be done in Toskala, with hostages being taken and none to stop it. If the city folk rebel, their relatives will be killed in retaliation. I don’t know what you here on the rock plan to do, and I’ll thank you not to tell me in case I’m caught out and forced to stand before one of the cloaks. For you know they can see into our hearts with their third eye.”
“That’s what it says in the tales,” said Joss. “But what does it really mean?”
“It means what it says. They can see into our hearts. You can feel them walk into your mind.” She shuddered, the movement so subtle he stepped forward, thinking to reassure her with a touch, but he stopped himself and wiped his brow instead.
“Don’t try to face them,” she added. “You’ve no shield. Not even the strongest of you.”
Yet Anji had faced one of the cloaked demons and not flinched. Anji’s soldiers had suffered the same reaction described by Zubaidit, and Joss had taken the testimony of numerous other witnesses from the day the ghost girl had invaded the Qin compound in Olossi and killed two men there; her demon’s gaze had brought even Chief Tuvi to his knees. Why was Anji not affected, if everyone else, even other outlanders, had no protection against the third eye and the second heart?
“Locate Tohon, and fly him back to Olossi,” she went on. “He has valuable information for Captain Anji. He’s surveyed the land and the army. His report is crucial. Get Eridit, Ladon, Veras, and the young ones out if you can, too, lest they betray my purpose if they are captured when the army takes Nessumara.”
“You think the army will defeat Nessumara?” Joss asked.
“How can they not? We in th
e Hundred have no militia that can stand against such an organized force.”
“They’re a formidable enemy, but surely they can be defeated, as their secondary army was at Olossi.”
“The soldiers sent to Olossi were the dregs. These are real soldiers. Not so easy to defeat. You’ve seen how many there are.”
“Is there anything else we need to know? Or that you need from us?” Joss asked her.
She shut her eyes, thinking it through. “The demons are looking for outlanders and the gods-touched in particular, taking them into custody. The army shows little respect for the gods, and there’s a cursed lot of talk among the soldiers about how the cloaks have defeated death. The soldiers fear the cloaks, but they also want what they believe the cloaks can give them: wealth, life, land, power. Sex.” When she opened her eyes, her hot gaze seemed to burn him to ash.
Peddonon said, “Heya, Kesta, get this lot out to ready the basket, will you? Odash, we’ll need to assign someone to go after these scouts that went to Nessumara. Warn the other halls about this business with the gods-touched and outlanders. And the Green Sun clan, the traitors.” He grabbed the lamp out of the steward’s hand. “You go, too, Neffi. You’re getting cursed old. You need your sleep, neh? I’ll keep the light until she’s down safely.”
“Eh, yes, Peddo. Right away.”
They went, Kesta down the corridor with the other four reeves while Odash and Neffi climbed the ladder.
“I’ve got to take a piss,” added Peddonon, setting the lamp on the floor. “Be right back.” He scrambled up the ladder.
Joss hadn’t known that stone breathed, but he swore he could hear its exhalations in the silence that followed, or maybe it was his own breathing gotten cursed irregular as he became exceedingly aware of how very alone they were, caught within the glow of light and with folk busying themselves nearby but out of sight.
“Are these soldiers really our enemy, or only the worst reflection of our own selves?” she asked in a low voice. “We made them. We have to unmake them, not just defeat or kill them.”
